teaching abroad

teaching abroad at an american school is much, much different than teaching stateside.

classroom size - in the states most classes have 30 plus students in them. i have one "large" class of 12 students. jenny's does have a fairly large five year old class of 14 students (with one teacher's aide).

classroom materials - the materials we have to use in our classrooms (other than textbooks) are fairly sparse. basic items like lined notebook paper and three ring binders are hard to come by.

diversity - in the states, a diverse school is one that has an equal mix of whites, african americans, and hispanics. here... we have students from kyrgyzstan, kazakhstan, the united states, australia, switzerland, finland, germany, india, the united kingdom, canada, china, south korea, japan, ukraine, uzbekistan, armenia, croatia, pakistan, and russia. it is pretty amazing to hear students communicate with each other in a variety of languages although it makes me feel like a stupid american for only being able to communicate with them in english. hello... anyone speak spanish?!

class schedule - in the states when i taught middle school... i taught 7th grade and 8th grade science and one course of advanced placement science. so three different classes in total. here... i teach two or three different course during the same class period

815am... homeroom
830am... 1st period - 12 year old math and 13 year old math
915am... 2nd period - biology and advanced placement biology
1000am... recess
1020am... 3rd period - earth science and life science
1115am... 4th period - biology
1200pm... lunch
1230pm... 5th period - algebra 2 and geometry
115pm... 6th period - yearbook, newspaper, blog and technology
200pm... 7th period - prep period
300pm...clubs - i october i will start teaching a yoga club
400pm... athletics - soccer and basketball