After a very busy weekend (the storm), I had a relatively calm and relaxing week (the calm). On Monday, I had the opportunity to go to Emin Duraku Upper Elementary (middle school) with Teuta to visit four of her 8th grade classes. In all of the classes, there were students with good English skills and they asked many good questions. They always want to know differences between school in the U.S. and Kosovo. I always find that a hard question, because I can only really speak to schools I have taught in and mostly just the school district I taught in last. The U.S. so big and everywhere is different, so it is hard to generalize.
I can say that the facilities and technology are definitely better in Middleton schools than in Kaçanik. Middleton probably has better facilities and technology than some other schools in the U.S. as well, but I am also sure there are schools with far better as well. The curriculum is nationwide in Kosovo and I believe that many schools are using the same curriculum and textbooks for English. In my experience in the U.S., as long as you meet the state and national standards, there is more flexibility and more use of resources beyond a standardized curriculum. In Middleton, our school district, schools and teachers chose the textbooks that we used and developed the curriculum for their classes based on the standards.
In the U.S., teachers spend a lot of time perfecting and personalizing (individualizing) their curriculum, and reflecting on teaching strategies. School days are much longer for both students and staff. My school day in the U.S., started around 8:15 am and went until 3:45 pm. Typically, I would arrive a 8 am to prepare the lab and to get materials ready for the day and I rarely left before 4 pm (and often much later). Students arrived around 8:10 am and often stand after school for sports and clubs. I also did grading and curriculum development at home in the evenings. In the U.S., I typically had 5 classes (43 minutes long) , 1 hour of supervision, 22 minute advisory, and one planning period each day. The day also included a 30 minute lunch break. Most teachers in the U.S., have a classroom to teach in and students travel to them especially in middle and high school.
The teachers that I have worked with here, have a much more variable schedule. Some teachers may only teach in the morning or in the afternoon. Some may teach class during both times. Teachers show up to teach their classes and leave after they are done. I have not had a regular schedule here as I started during the last few weeks of senior classes and many of the senior classes were cancelled. My counterpart had mostly senior classes.
Here, there is a split schedule and students attend high school either from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm or 2 pm to 7 pm. There are 5 minutes between classes (with a 10 minute break between some classes). Students stay in the classroom and teachers do the traveling. In between classes, teachers are in the teacher's lounge.
In Middleton, attendance, grades, participation, and behavior are all tracked in computerized systems, although some teachers will keep records in physical grade books of their own. Here, student information is kept in physical record books that are shared among their teachers. Now in Middleton, our curriculum is also all in class management systems as well. This is as a result of Covid.
The last school that I worked in, was Kromrey Middle School, which was completely rebuilt in and reopened in September or October 2014. It is now almost 10 years old, but it is still a very modern school with interactive white boards and projectors in each classroom. There is probably more technology that has been added since I retired. The main classroom areas are in a pod formation with glass walls that can be opened to a central area for project work or work between combined classes. There is a large library, large cafeteria with a stage, gym, field house, music and band rooms, art rooms, a community room, tech ed rooms, computer labs, sensory rooms, conference rooms, and an exercise room. I know I was fortunate to have worked in this facility.
On Monday, I had the upper primary classes, Tuesday I was at the regular high school for 4 classes, and on Friday at the regular high school for 2 classes. I did not have classes at the vocational high school this week.
On Tuesday, the class at the vocational school got moved to earlier time and I did not have time to walk there. It was fortunate, because the literal storm hit. We had a huge hailstorm and I would have been walking to school and would have been bombarded by hail. Fortunately the rest of the week the weather has been fairly calm. On Thursday, we took the bus into Ferizaj for language lessons and I was able to get a few needed food items there. I have been looking for brown lentils and dried garbanzo and found both at store near the cafe we met in for language lessons. Thom stayed in Ferizaj Thursday night with Noah (volunteer from our group) and then went on to Prizren to help with a clean up project at the national park on Friday.
Hailstorm taken from the safety of our balcony
Wednesday, we took a walk to Guri i Zi (Black Rock) Restaurant. It is about 2 miles to the restaurant from our apartment and it was a very uphill climb. We took the less traveled road there and saw pack mules and cows. There was an animal pen at Guri i Zi with goats, baby goats, peacocks, hens, rooster, and guinea fowl. We spent several hours there in the outdoor sheltered seating. We studied a bit, had dinner and relaxed, before walking back down to our apartment.
It was a nice quiet week in Kaçanik.
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