First Unit of Inquiry, DONE!

Sunset near the flat.

Just a church, on a walk with Jett

I’ve made it through the first 7 weeks of school teaching PYP 4. Primary Years Programme 4 = 4th Grade, I think. It’s Year 5 in the British system. My students are age ranged 9-11 years old, but it makes it difficult because my Korean students track their birthdays differently.

It’s Autumn break, so I have a week to catch up. I’ve taught my entire first Unit of Inquiry on Child Rights and Responsibilities. It’s been a struggle, first because the content of this unit has been very difficult for me to teach to such young learners, and the vocabulary is difficult for my students to understand given their level of English. But we finished the unit with science-fair like presentations for students and parents to meander and listen to: a puppet show on child trafficking, student written news articles about the civil war in Syria and how it’s affecting children, posters and powerpoints to illustrate gender inequality in toys & sports, and a speech on unpaid local lunch debt. It was rough, but the students reflected that they were genuinely thankful to be more aware of the world. They know what their rights are, that rights should be guaranteed but are not, that they are privileged, and with that privilege comes responsibility. I wish I could share some photos with you, but my school is not allowing any photos on my personal device because of GDPR.

Elf Story 1:
My elves are pretty obsessed with being “done”. Anytime I assign a task, the moment that they put down their pencil students like to announce “I’m done!” So this is the first habit to break. It’s about the learning journey :) not who can complete the work the fastest. Most of these students have also been here for 2 years, so they all have a conversational level of English, and I’m trying to expand their vocabularies. One of our activities was simply exploring the thesaurus on their own or with a partner, to become more familiar with how to use it, and to enjoy the new words that they find. Of course one of my elves just flipped through a few pages and announced, “I’m done!” At that point I put my head in my hands, as I have been working so hard against the idea that it’s important to be “done”. The elf  misunderstood my disappointment and quickly backtracked for a different, uncommon, more exciting word to use and then announced, “I’m finished!”

Elf Story 2:
Having always taught the little ones, I’ve never had a class that had to manage their own folders, books and materials in their desks independently. After a few weeks, I realized that many students were not properly filing away papers or keeping their desks and cubbies organized in order to quickly retrieve materials. And what are these wadded up papers in the bottom of the backpacks? So I did a surprise inspection. As students were pulling out their belongings, and cleaning them up a bit, one student commented that this was like going through the airport, and that I am like TSA!

Elf Story 3:
After the first week of school, my elves started anticipating the daily schedule and writing it on the board for me. At one point, I looked over to see that during 3rd period we would be, “EDITING MARS?!” Let me just say that I hadn’t had my 1st cup of coffee yet. It was supposed to be our 2nd day reviewing the editing marks in preparation for a peer edit of their stories. This clever elf used the editing marks on schedule to show a missing period, a missing capitalization, and a misspelled word.

Anyways, I’ve had some good hearty laughs with these elves, and some very serious discussions.

Over the course of these 7 weeks, I’ve only had one good outing. Isa, Sonia and I went to Krnov, CZ for a coffee and beer festival. Krnov was a beautiful little town about an hour and 20 minutes away by train. I’d like to go back as they have a castle on top of a small hill nearby.

Krnov town square

Coffee and Beer festival

Me, Isa and Sonia

The following weekend was a harrowing trip to IKEA by tram, about 30 minutes away. I got a few essentials for the apartment. On Monday morning as I left at 5:45 am for my morning walk with Jett, I thought I had put on my treat bag fanny pack, which also holds the poop bag and the keys, but it turns out, I had not. After I closed the door, I reached for the fanny pack so I could lock the door, and the fanny pack was not there. I realized I was locked out, and there was nothing I could do about it. I hadn’t had any coffee or breakfast yet, so I wasn’t entirely thinking when I decided to take Jett for a walk anyways, and wait for a reasonable time when I could call someone to help. Of course I didn’t realize that I actually need the keys to get out of the building as well. I was locked in the staircase.

Thankfully I did have my phone in my pocket, and I was able to call Niki, who dispatched a locksmith. I waited for 30 minutes. The entertaining part of course is that once the locksmith got here, I had to wait for one of my neighbors to leave for work, just so I could let the locksmith into the building.

Also, if this guy got into my flat by using the old credit card method, I was NOT going to pay him 1,000 kc. After another 30 minutes of the locksmith unsuccessfully working on the door, he asked me, in broken English, if I had any keys.

In the end, he destroyed the lock and I had to purchase a new lock for my door. I still have a moment of anxiety every time I leave the flat now. I have a new habit of holding my keys in my hand as I close the door, but even then, I feel like I’m going to get locked out, and locked in at the same time.

My other apartment mishap came when I plugged in a bathroom mirror/light that I brought from the States. I heard a little *pop* and the light went out on the mirror. At first I thought I had broken the light but then I realized that my converter was no longer working. I have an extra, but still this would be a real loss. But I quickly traced the problem to being the outlet, not the converter. So in the span of 15 seconds I had gone from thinking I had fried my light, to my converter, to my outlet! But THEN, I realized that none of the outlets in my flat were working. Real panic hit when I realized I had no electricity at all in my flat, and I extrapolated that quickly to thinking it was possibly that I had fried the entire my floor, building, or block! Oh my, now what would my neighbors think of their crazy English speaking neighbor with the barky bark dog!

I did find my circuit breaker box, and flipped the breaker that was not like the others. But that didn’t help. After calling a few friends, I learned that there was another circuit box in the hallway, which has the almighty circuit breaker for the electricity to my entire flat. And my circuit breaker was not like the others! Crisis averted. I have power in my flat, and I have not tried plugging that lamp in again. So far I can charge my phone, iPad, portable chargers, and toothbrush. I don’t think I’ll be trying any other American electronics in the plugs any time soon.

Ending thoughts -
Not a fan:
- of accidentally buying scented toilet paper that was so strong, it perfumed half of the flat.
- of people thinking I will get sick from being “cold” and not properly dressed.
- of Sounders games airing between 1:00 am and 5:00 am.

My first grade colleagues (notice their jackets)

And the outfit they disapprove of ... 

Ready for the Sounders game! 

Fan:
- of bread that doesn’t come with a heel! Now I don’t have to feel guilty for never using the heel in sandwiches. But it also makes me wonder what they did with the heel of the bread ...
- of the park in the Fall

So here I am, on Autumn break. An entire week to relax and enjoy Paul’s visit. My school TOIS (The Ostrava International School) is only 10 years old, and they did a revision of the Scope and Sequence for English and Literacy last year (which grade should teach which standards). Last year’s PYP 4 teacher organized the new literacy objectives into each of the 6 units that I am supposed to teach, but it’s my job to organize the new math objectives. Also, we do report cards for each Unit of Inquiry, so I’ll be working on those too ... Looking forward to some rest, getting some work done, being ready to work on Monday, and showing Paul around our new neighborhood.