Mo-mania: Universal?

Trying to get to become integrated in my school has been challenging. Besides the obvious language barrier, I also have had trouble getting used to the very different organization systems employed by my school. All-staff meetings are only announced on the day of the meeting and we don't seem to have an easily accessible all-school event calendar. This has created some challenges for me.

As a technical college, my school has practicums throughout the year for each class. That means for 2 weeks each semester classes who have practicum don't attend any of their normal classes, but take part in a practicum specific to their profile. Some of my eleventh graders told me that their practicum was coming up so for planning purposes I wanted to figure out what two weeks I would not be teaching them. After consulting a number a different teachers they told me to check with the school secretaries. When I went to ask the secretaries about how to find out when my classes would have practicum they directed me to a rolled up poster-board sitting on the floor in the corner. After unrolling the poster-board, I discovered that sure enough this was the schedule for the schedule of practicums this semester. Thus I discovered that for the next two weeks I don't teach 11A and 11D.

While my knowledge about what is happening at school may be limited, I have been lucky to make friends with one of the sports teachers, Adi. He has kept me up to date on the teams he coaches and let me practice with the girls handball and football teams. My language skills fail me often, but the language of the body is universal. I must admit that at the end of handball practice I am grateful when all we have to do is sit-up, push-up, squats and laps around the gym. I can stop trying to understand the Romanian commands and just let myself get in the rhythm of doing something physical. I am not sure if I am getting any better at handball, but I am having fun laughing at myself and letting the students laugh at me too.

As I both try to become integrated and observe my school with my American lenses, one thing I am constantly struck by is the lack of school pride in my school. I think there are some teachers doing great things in my school, but so much seems to exist in silos. Perhaps some of this is due to a lack of school calendar and infrastructure, but it also seems that students aren't aware of what is happening in the school and teachers don't know what their colleagues are doing. I have been attending the football games of the boys teams (the girls won't play games until spring) and have been surprised by the lack of school attendance at the games. I thought this might be a good way to see some of my students or colleagues outside of class, perhaps even some parents, but attendance is not quite the same as it would be at an American school sporting event. Each game has about 10-15 boys from school in attendance and often I am the only woman watching.

Regardless of the differences of watching a game at home, I still love watching the game. Today was an exciting day for our team because the boys finally won a game! We played the high school across the street from ours on their home field. Here is are some highlights from today's match, a 2-1 victory.