Beans and Ankle Restraints

Today kicked off Chris and I's first day of work week here at Bilkent University Prep. School.

I know how these things work in the States; you sit in a packed high school auditorium for 3 hours and listen to Bob Whosehisbutt talk about whatever subject in education is en vogue.  

As all the staff was to meet in the concert hall with the director, I figured we were in for a long morning of mindless listening.

The director welcomed us, and explained his vision for the year. New teachers were introduced but then it was off to the school gym.

There our principal Dan lined us up in a big circle and explained our first task.

In light of the Olympics, and the fact that we each have a Turkish teaching partner that we will be glued to us for the year, Dan challenged us to get 8 beakers full of beans to be the best school in all the world.

My new teaching partner Verda was quick to get us tied together.  We tripped, laughed, and sweated our way around the gym for nearly 15 minutes.

Turns out, Turkish work days, not the same as American work days.

Not better, not worse, just much better and a lot less worse.

There are trays of cookies, and bottles of juice everywhere you go.

The whole afternoon was dedicated to starting to set up our classrooms.  In fact, every afternoon this week is classroom prep.  For my teaching friends, you know classroom prep time is like gold.

My new second grade team consists of myself and Verda, Lara (the principal's wife) and her teaching partner Nilay, Angie (from Germany) and her Turkish partner Emel.



The whole elementary school was renovated this summer so there's a lot of work to be done in the classrooms.



I noticed Verda was putting chairs away as I was taking them out so there's definitely some opportunites for better communication there, but we'll sort it out.



For right now I'm just happy to have had success on my first day of Turkey workey.