Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It's Off to Work We Go ...

Not counting my online teaching, tomorrow is my 40^th first day of school (not counting the ones as a mother).  Is there anything different about this one?  Yes, both child and parent come tomorrow, for 10 minutes, to meet and greet the teacher.  Tuesday will find me with half my students.  Wednesday I will have the other half.  On Thursday, I will have all 11 students.

School is a straight shot down Nguyen Huu Tho, with one stoplight and one veer right.  It takes 20 minutes in the morning, 25 minutes in the afternoon.  

The school owns 64 buses.  Yes, that means they employ 64 bus drivers.  Each bus carrying students has a bus attendant, to help the children on and off the bus.  Some children are on the bus for an hour and a half.  I don’t know if the drivers can take their buses home or not, but the bus driver lounge has bunk beds for them to sleep.

There are two guarded entrances to the school.  Both look like they could pass as the gates to Versailles, although they aren’t gold.  From last year’s elementary yearbook, it appears there are 10 security guards (but I bet that figure is low).

There are two 7-story buildings, with two wings on each building connected to a central base.  I can only speak to the elementary school.  The gyms are located on the 5^th floor, extending to the 6^th floor, one on each wing.  The cafeteria is in the basement.  My classroom is on the ground floor, different than the first floor.  There is an Art room on 4 different floors.  The Music rooms are on the same floor as the gyms.  The library takes up a whole wing on one of the floors.  There are two different banks of elevators (students can’t use them).  There is one central staircase – two half landings, side by side (I looked it up to see what they are called).  This year, two of the four emergency exit staircases will be used for regular movement.  I suppose getting over 600 students up and down one set of stairs is a challenge.  This is the first year the school will have 5 sections of each grade (except Pre-K).

I was told the school employs 660 people, and 160 of those are international hires.  We have people in Accounting, Admissions, Procurement, Construction Management (a building just for administration is under construction), Maintenance and Engineering, Facility and Logistics (a whole fleet of people to make photocopies – large and small, color and black and white – AND they laminate).  There are life guards (the pool is in the secondary school).  There are groundskeepers to manage the pond, the flowers, the trees, and the AstroTurf, but I bet they don’t take care of the mist-ers on the covered walkways.  The cleaners always seem to be everywhere – the restrooms are pretty spotless.  Personally, I like the handy men, also known as white shirts.  It was explained to me that they help with whatever needs to be done, like if someone falls down they help them up.  My teaching assistant used one to put up wall decorations that required a ladder.  I haven’t tested falling down to see if they come help.  There are also the nannies.  I am assigned a teaching assistant and a nanny.  The classroom nanny helps the children transition, no matter where we go, toilet, snack, lunch, quiet time Music, Art, PE.  She’s just there helping.

The cafeteria offers breakfast (5 different small-ish sorts of things).  Lunch offers 2 different Asian dishes, a western dish, a vegetarian dish, salad, noodles, soup, two kinds of vegetables and fruit for dessert (exotic things like guava and dragon fruit).  A complete lunch (soup, main dish, rice, dessert) costs 60,000 dong ($3.00).

We had a fire drill last week, before the students came.  I think it was to help the fire department have a drill.  They came with three trucks.  They used the hoses to spray water all the way up to the 4^th floor.  They had about 20 fire extinguishers that they used to practice putting out a fire in the driveway.  The coolest part was the ladder truck.  It was used to “rescue” someone on the 4^th floor.  No, they didn’t ask for any volunteers.

As part of a team building experience, last Friday afternoon the teaching staff was bussed to the city center for a scavenger hunt.  It was a fun way to have returning teachers help new teachers learn about the center and all it has to offer.  It just got a bit competitive for me.  Plus, the expected monsoon rains cooled us off (and drenched us).

Right now, it appears that the school is incredibly well-resourced and is working to make sure the students develop their English language skills.  We have a colleague who lives upstairs.  He is assigned to help support 6^th grade Science.  That’s all he does – makes sure every 6^th grader has the English skills needed for Science.

I have two non-Vietnamese students.  Both are children of teachers on staff.  My teaching assistant is bi-lingual.  She set up the whole room, unpacking everything, except the boxes of things for my desk.  She is open to my suggestions and ideas, and knows the things I need to know that are unique to the school and classroom.  The nanny only speaks Vietnamese, but already she understands my silly ways, and rolls with it.

It has been the least stressful start up ever.  All those extra hands coloring, laminating and cutting.  It makes a big difference.  Now, let’s see what happens.