The First Week

So many things are different here in Romania. Students stay in their classrooms and teachers move all over the place. It is very confusing. Students have one set of stairs and teachers have another. Students watch to see when you are coming and rush into the classroom to report your imminent arrival. I am not sure what the other students are doing that they need a lookout. I am sure I will find out soon enough.

I have ten different classes in three different buildings and never the same two in succession. It took awhile before I realized where anything was and how the floor plan was set up. When you cannot read the words, it is just a bunch of lines and letters. It wasn’t until Thursday that I realized that hol meant hallway. I thought the four unconnected rows were four different floors and I couldn’t figure out where they all were, but it seems it is all one building. All three buildings are pictured on the same floor plan. I am sure that if I could read Romanian I would have seen that they are labeled but I couldn’t tell that from the drawing. I have finally figured out the floor plan for two of the buildings and I know where my classroom is in the third building that they call a dorm. I have not missed a class yet, so I must be doing ok. The worst part is walking several blocks between buildings in ten minutes. This seems like an odd way to go about things, but it works for them here.

The bells sound like old-fashioned telephones. I have continued to talk in most of my classes long after the bell has rung and the students sit there quietly. I have begun to notice the furtive looks toward the door and I ask, “How long until the bell rings?” They tell me it was a while ago. I excuse them and they scamper out to see their friends.

Classroom doors are closed when the bell rings. They are very solid wooden doors. They have no peepholes in them and so we are locked away until the bell rings. This is certainly not what we are used to at home. I seldom close my door unless there are noises that are disturbing the class in America. Even if I do close the door, there is a glass pane to the side of it so that I can see what is happening in the hallway. The first few days, the door would open, a few heads would peek in, giggle, and then the door would slam shut. I must be very interesting to them.

The blackboards are ancient. Most of the finish has been washed away and so now they are shiny in places, scratched in others, and generally in terrible shape. This is what they look like right after they are washed. This is as good as it gets. The chalk is interesting. It is square with a point. I hope I am not supposed to keep a point on the chalk as I use it. That would be impossible. It is not the smooth, condensed chalk we are used to at home. It is very coarse and does not last very long. It writes with a wide swath and requires big writing to be read. I have decided that printing on the board is my best bet. My cursive is just beyond their comprehension. It reminds me of trying to read my mother’s writing. I could not read it when I was little. Later I realized that all Australians write like that. Amazing that a culture would even include a specific handwriting style. In America there are too many people to have a specific style – although I am sure that everyone recognizes teacher handwriting from the cards that dance above every elementary classroom chalkboard in the US. (Please don’t burst my bubble if that is no longer true.)

There are no books as yet. Apparently, they wait until school starts to find out that there aren’t enough and then they order them. One order came in from earlier and there were only 30 of the 90 books ordered in the box. It is the Romanian way to shrug their shoulders and say that is all there will be. We all know that in America we would be calling the publisher to demand the others be sent and ask for something additional for the inconvenience. And they would comply.

Every hour teachers not only have to scurry from room to room, and from building to building, but they must also take time out to go to the Teacher’s Room to pick up the attendance book for each class. As the classes stay together all day, it is the Form teacher’s responsibility to keep track of their attendance. When they reach a certain number, the students lose credit in a class. There seem to be other ramifications but I am still working on where to be when. So I leave one class, usually late, head for the Teacher’s Room to drop off the attendance book, head to the other building several blocks away, go to the Teacher’s Room (which is on the second floor in one of the buildings), pick up the attendance book, and then find my next class and arrive, book in hand. The students are on their feet and say “Hello Professor.” They have not mastered my name as yet. “Hello, class!” I say cheerily, while I catch my breath. We are off and running for another day.

Thursday three ladies came into the class and began to walk down the first row of students. Of course they spoke only Romanian and so their introductions and explanations meant nothing to me. It was a few minutes before the students could explain to me that one of them was the school nurse and she was checking for head lice. Some things are the same everywhere.

I expected that the students would know some English but it seems that there are quite a few students who know almost none. What have they been doing in class all these years? I understand that they have been taking English for at least four years and some of them for ten years. I guess that it is not much different than it is at home. In America, I have students who swear they have no idea what a noun is and yet I know they have learned the concept quite a few times. Here I have two classes where only two or three students understand what I am saying and they interpret what I have said to everyone. It is an odd feeling. I have a lot of work to do here…