Our First Day of School

Today was our first day at school. We will normally ride the school bus, but today Harriet arranged for us to get a ride with the "Dircector of Discipline." The school truly is a PALACE. When we first arrived, Jessica took us on a tour of although I am still unsure of where everything is. I got lost at Mapleton....this school is about 10 times the size, with 6 floors total. We saw the beautiful dorm facilities that grades 10-12 live in, and met all of the teacher and board members, etc. The school really is up on top of the mountain. We wound around and around for about 20 minutes before arriving at the top. I need to watch out for motion sickness with this winding ride.....We saw the pool, concert hall, conference rooms, etc etc...all state of the art facilities.Everyone was VERY friendly. Jessica told us there were over 30 teachers from different countries here.

Alaina and I each have our own cubicle and computer. I feel like a businesswoman, it's kind of funny because it's probably the only time I'll ever have my own cubicle. Today is a very busy day at the school, so we won't really start much of anything until tomorrow. At the end of the day we will have a meeting with our supervisor to determine our schedule and possible placements, but other than that, I am just sitting here emailing everyone I know because I feel useless otherwise. We ate lunch at the school today, and as staff, we will be served every day. We forgot we needed to bring our own plate and silverware, though, so someone gave us a plastic Barney plate to borrow....haha. The food was....different yet from what we've had so far. The meat is just so different here! I tried it again but I don't know that I'm going to be able to eat it or not because of the different texture. We met an English teacher in the lounge and he said, "good luck to you, this is a good day!" and winked at us. Uh-oh! We'll be fine, though!

It's funny because in some ways, the school is very similar to American schools, but in most other ways, it's VERY different. The logo on the walls say "Westernized Education. Easter Approach. Global Perspective." So, I think that while the content and might be familiar to us, the teaching methods will be entirely different. And the school day is set up very different, although I'm not sure of the details yet. I feel better having arrived here, and eliminating yet another "unknown." However, it's the teaching that still makes me the most apprehensive. It took me a long time to build up confidence as a teacher again and feel competent, and now everything we know about teaching, interacting with students, and lesson planning will be stripped away. I guess that's the whole goal of this experience though, to compare and contrast an entirely different education system and philosophy with our own. So, we shall see tomorrow, then!