Its Friday....and a Long Weekend already.

Normally in UK a Friday is the end of a week and a time to relax and reflect. But in the English School we don't work a 5 day system but a 6 day system that starts day 1 on the first day back to school, ie Last Tuesday so even though today is Friday I only feel as though I am half way through my week. That said I do have 3 days off now as Monday is a Holiday, but most of the time is going to be taken up with some cleaning and tidying (I could almost be a candidate for that TV program that looks at how dirty a house is !!)

Today I only had 2 classes first period and last, so the time inbetween was going to be prep time since the MDF had been delivered overnight, and this is where we found our first problem. The MDF sheets are too big to manhandle onto the Band saw and the Band saw is too small to do any major cutting. Purchasing a table circular saw is well out of the budget but I might be able to talk the budget people into a hand held one that would at least allow us to rip the MDF into more managable chunks prior to putting through the band saw. (Pretty sure I had requested a bigger band saw, but I could be wrong).

MY last class of the day was a new one I hadn't met yet (Only 1 more to go before I have seen all 247 pupils I teach) and we went through the same front cover design for their folio folders (which thankfully have also arrived now) I still find it hard to say no to the kids when they come up at the end of a session, and ask if they can take the work home to finish it, even after I have just given them homework. When I do say no its like I have told them they can't have ice cream - I feel so bad. Even found myself trying to justify not letting them take it home as I didnt want to over work them (and looking at their homework diaries they already had work for other teachers and departments). I still feel bad though.
I did see one of the classes I had taught earlier in the week and they brought in their homework all 23 kids had obtained at least 2 pages of information about their particular designer - bearing in mind I had asked them to get 1 fact each on their designer. There just doesn't seem to be any way of stopping them from sucking up information and in truth its so refreshing to see I don't want to.

Finally .. I had my first SCHOOL DUTY today, walking around the volleyball court at break time. As a teacher your not even safe there, pupils relax and lounge about on the grass but while I walked, every few steps it was a pleasant hello Sir or hello Mr Kay, some smiling and waving as you passed where they were relaxing, and some coming up asking questions about the designer they were researching or to show me what they had already found out.
In comparison to UK I see 24 kids here who in my UK class would have been limited to 4 or 5. I will enjoy it while I can, and can understand why teachers here tend to stay longer than the standard 2 year contract. Colombia may have its problems but it isn't with the children I see on a daily basis.