Open Day

Today was a non-teaching day for me. Because of last week’s holiday, and my illness the week before, it’s now been a month since I’ve seen some of my Wednesday classes, including my Most-Hated Class (I won’t say which class it is, but you’d know if you looked in my gradebook - it’s the class on whose page Tomi drew a picture for me. He asked if he could draw something and my answer was “Sure, but draw it on this page, because whenever I see the list of their names I need something beautiful to keep me sane”).

The reason behind the non-teaching day was that today Varga had their Open Day, where current 8th graders come and check out the school to see if they might apply (unlike America, all high schools in Hungary are by application). God forbid the prospies might see an actual normal school day, so today the school made up a special one-day schedule, which showcased the best teachers teaching special fun and interesting lessons to the best students. In this whole best-foot-forward frenzy, I was not asked to teach a lesson. Cool.

I used my free day for, what else, being lazy at home and getting nothing done as usual. But, being the good pedagogue that I am, I managed to find some time in my busy nothingness to catch up with my favorite three teaching blogs, listed here in order of discovery: A Teacher's Education, California Teacher Guy, and Ms. Issippi. The latter I just found recently, and spent a good several hours going through her archives. Teaching first grade in rural Mississippi sounds remarkably similar to teaching older children in Hungary; besides, her stories inspire me to be a better teacher. I wish she would start posting again....