Snow and School Celebrations

Snow finally started falling in Romania during our last week of school before winter break.   It was nice to get a little bit of white before the holidays set in.  Although, most afternoons it warmed up so that most of the snow melted away.  I did have a good view on my walk back from visiting the Catholic kindergarten last week. I cut through the park which was quite deserted.

snow in the park

During the final week of school, my school held their traditional carol (collinde) singing.  A few teachers get groups of students to perform.  This year's event was smaller than last year, we had just two groups sing and one group perform traditional dances.  As it was explained to me, carol sings are a traditional way for students to celebrate the start of the holiday season and to thank the teachers.

Group #1 - from 13th grade

Group #2

Four of the five boys in the dancing group are in one of my tenth grade classes and one of the girls in one of my eleventh grade classes. 

It was great to see some of my students performing traditional dances. I took a couple videos, but unfortunately I can only get one to upload to this post.  Here is a short clip of the goat dance.

My school has challenges when it comes to having events; we do not have anything close to an auditorium. We have a space that can maybe fit 1/5 of the school which has over 1,200 students and 100 staff members. Thus when events are held late in the afternoon; most students choose to leave rather than stay for events; some teachers also choose to leave.

 

the audience

To me, it's always depressing because very few people get to see our students perform; especially their peers.  I see so few opportunities to showcase their talents or passions.  I think of all the high school assemblies, concerts and events I attended growing up.  I loved seeing my peers perform and was always instilled with such pride with what my classmates could do.  I wish my students here could experience some of that.  This being said, I believe some Romanian schools do have lots of events, but industrial schools like mine do not.