Pinewood is the international school where I am doing my student teaching here in Greece. I realized that I had mentioned it only in passing, if at all. I suppose that since student teaching is the vehicle that brought me all this way it is important that I explain a bit about it, the school that is.
The school is built on a small hilltop outside Thessaloniki proper in a suburb called Pilea. The school building itself, built in 62’, has a lot of what I’ll refer to as character. While old the building is accommodating and has been added on to a few times to allow for more students, whose population, k-12, hovers around 200. The students come from all over the world, literally. And I am not exaggerating when I say that I have an 11 year old student that knows four languages and another student of the same age that has live in five different countries in as many years. There are a couple of big banks, a large international corporation, the embassies, and the military that drive these families to the Thessaloniki area. While Pinewood is taught all in English there is also an ESL program and Greek studies. The curriculum follows primarily the American public education curriculum and the IB program is treated as AP course work.
I am well acquainted with the 6th graders as I teach the entire class, all 16 of them. Yes there are 16 6th graders . . . total. I have not taken full control of the class; I am splitting duties with Roxanne as she is trying to finish a unit. In about a week and a half I will take over with my own literature study.
The kids are precocious. 6th grade verges on the my limit of too young, but these kids are so cultured that they often catch me off guard and remind me quickly that I am a lowly American. I have a great time teaching them and they are very responsive to my presence, perhaps just the appearance of a new face.
7th grade science on the other hand . . . As of right now I have not even really met the teacher that I will be working under. Her name is Georgia and she has been administering the IB exams for the past two weeks. I am sure she will be wonderful, because I have not met a single person at the school that I do not like. They all have their quirky stories of how they ended up at Pinewood and have all given me their full support. Interestingly enough ther is a large Ohio contingency here, 4 including myself; everyone enjoys giving us a hard time about escaping from the state.
It is an interesting place and I hope that I will enjoy my time and learn some things along the way.
Bend and you will be whole.
Curl and you will be straight.
Keep empty and you will be filled.
Grow old and you will be renewed.
-Tzu
3 comments:
Another good day - a blog and an email!! The school sounds like it is going to be an awesome experience. I look forward to more pictures. Guess we should have followed up on the computer quirks before you left:-(
Great post Ian. This school sounds amazing! Your description is really good; I love the image in my head.
I'm glad your doing well. If you feel homesick:
"If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home." - Ursula LeGuin, "The Dispossessed"
Awesome posts Ian! Glad to finally catch up on your move to Thessaloniki (the pictures are sick). Hope you're doing well over there. Everything in Boulder is good. Climbed in The Spot's third comp and was in Paul Robinson and Andy Raether's division (so sick, got my butt kicked but I'm climbing with Paul daily now).
Keep up the posts, I'll keep you in my prayers (even though 4 times the normal amount of prayer gets... time consuming)
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