September 4, 2009
Today is the end of the first week of school. It’s been quite a week. School starts on September 1, with “First Bell.” There is a celebration attached to this, which took our school about an hour. They invite all the parents, one of the administrators from the Ministry of Education, a WWII Russian veteran, an active member of the military, and the former school director, who is about 95. They decorate the school with balloons and streamers, as well as the fence surrounding the playground area. Since I am new, they asked me to say a few words, in Armenian, as a way of introducing myself.
There are 11 forms (grades) in this school, but only about 45 students. So the classes are very small, in fact the 3rd form only has 2 students. A few of the classes have 5 students, but most have 3 or 4. It’s almost harder to teach a very small class because you have to have a lot of activities planned since it doesn’t take too long to go through the lessons.
My counterpart and I teach all the English language classes, usually 3 or 4 a day. Each form has English twice a week. I started right off teaching on Tuesday. They had doubled the first period because of the celebration, so I had one group and my counterpart took the other group. We were in the same room, so it was a bit confusing at times, but we worked it out. Taguhie, my counterpart, is a wonderful teacher and very easy to work with. School starts at 8:30, but most days we don’t have to be in until after 10. But that means that we generally have the last scheduled class as well, which gets out at 3:15. It’s not a bad schedule and will be especially nice in the colder weather, not to have to get out first thing in the morning. Most days we have at least one break between classes, which is when we will do our lesson planning for the next day or week. It’ll take a little time, but we will get into a routine pretty soon.
On the weekends I’ve been doing some hiking with some of the other PC volunteers in the area. Last Saturday morning we set off to see this bear that was made by one of the volunteers’ host grandfather. It’s on the outskirts of Kapan, sort of guarding the city. It has a key in it’s mouth that holds the secrets to the town. Tomorrow we are hiking to an old church up on one of the mountainsides. Besides the exercise, it’s nice getting together with this group and discussing our successes and struggles. I also try to walk most afternoons after school. It’s wonderful exercise, especially since it’s up and down hills. But the scenery is spectacular so it’s worth it.