The new school year

We’re now into the second week of the school year. In previous years, at the other school system, I was moved around quite often, and had to visit four or five schools for a week or two at a time - and every six months, that set of schools changed. All this meant that I never really got to know the students very well, or see their progress in English, or just in general. In my second year there, I was moved back to one school that I’d taught at at the beginning of my first year. It was fun to see how the students had changed, and it was nice that some of them even remembered who I was.

At my current schools, I rotate between the same two elementary and two junior high schools. After teaching the sixth graders in elementary, who were acting like big shots over there, and seeing them as first-years in junior high, is rather humorous. They’re so meek and quiet now. It seems like the third-years have gotten bigger somehow, over the three-week spring vacation.

Adding to the mix, some teachers have changed schools. We have new teachers coming in to replace retiring ones, as well as some teachers who’ve reached their mandatory limit for teaching at one school (I think it’s nine years), and have been reassigned to the other school. So the vice principal at one junior high school became the principal at the other, both of the elementary principals moved, and nobody told me, so I nearly ran down one of the new principals, this tiny lady, who was making tea when I was trying to find some class materials. Just another day, I suppose.