Achieved

A few posts ago, I wrote about the uniform donation from Brooks.  The handball team was finally able to get their uniforms in preparation for the season which will start in November. Here is part of the team at practice last Tuesday.  They love their new uniforms and look pretty great in them too.

The full team was not at practice this week.  The students at my school have been greatly affected by the change in the train schedule in town; 70-75% of the students in my school commute from villages outside my town.  This means that they rely on trains, maxi-taxis, and buses to commute each day.  Trains are infrequent and a recent change in the train schedule has meant that many students end up leaving school early.  There is a train at 1:55 and if they miss that train they are stuck in town until after 5:00.  Many students need to get home to do chores before it gets dark, not to mention the fact that if they did stay until the end of school there is no place for them to go.  In one of my 10th grade classes 7 of the 14 students leave at 1:40 (20 minutes early from a 50 minute class) to get the train.  Their form teacher confirmed that I need to let them go early, but it's very hard to try to pack in the entire lesson done in the allotted time before they go.  Not to mention that they only have English twice a week.

In my second year, I find it easier to take these situations in stride, but I feel no less sadness for my students and the opportunities that they miss.

Kindness

Last school year my favorite time of the week was handball practice. Admittedly, I was terrible at the sport, but I loved trying to play and being able to connect with a few of my students in a different way.  The coach was kind enough to let me take part in practice and tried to catch me up on the years of the training that the girls had.  Unfortunately, handball is not similar to any American sport I know and even after a whole year practicing, I still couldn't throw the ball with much force.  The game is played on a basketball court, with goals similar to hockey, and a ball similar to a soccer ball.

When I went to the matches that our team played with other schools in town, I was struck by the difference of appearance of our school versus the other schools.  Other schools had full uniforms and some even had names on them.  Our school only had a batch of men's shirts that were giant on them and even then some girls had to wear their own tank-tops or t-shirts.  Our shirts were also worn by the boy's team in matches; they were sometimes worn by both teams each week, and quite frankly smelled of it.

my school, in white

I spent a lot of time with the girls last year and I wanted to think of way to thank them for all their patience with me.  I finally decided I would try to get them shirts that were cut for girls and actually fit. I tried to think of how to accomplish this.  I couldn't think of any place in my town that had nice shirts that were made for sports.  I decided I needed some reinforcement stateside.  A friend of a friend works at Brooks, makers of fabulous running gear. I thought I would give it a shot.  I wrote a letter asking if they be willing to donate shirts to the school.  They wrote back, that they would not only donate shirts, but also shorts.  The girls would have complete uniforms, that actually fit!

Over the summer a big box arrived from Brooks and I have spent the past few weeks in anticipation.  This week will be the sign-up for handball (it's a year-round sport so it starts a little late) and next week will be the first practice.  The coach has the uniforms and is equally excited to show the team their new uniforms.  

Stayed tuned for the big unveil in a few weeks!  Also, again a giant thanks to Brooks, for the amazing donation!

Number One Fan

Last week I went to watch the girl's handball team play a preseason game against another high school in town. I am still practicing with the team weekly trying to learn the finer points of the game, but I attended this game purely as a spectator.

My school is wearing white. You may recognize the jerseys from my previous post about featuring the boy's soccer team. Unfortunately, my school only has a handful of uniforms and students can not afford to buy their own. The coach has about 8 jerseys that he keeps in his office and hands out to students when there are games. They then get washed once a week. Thus the girls are wearing the same jerseys the boys were wearing a couple weeks ago.

Unfortunately, the results of the game were not in our favor (see the half-time score below). However, it was nice to get out and cheer on the girls.

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.

Right before our first goal of the game. My school is in white.

The boys get a half time pep talk from Adi.

Romanian football footwear.

It was a lovely, but chilly fall day.