Our School in the Czech Republic

Written by Jadon

Well, we have lived in Prague for a month, and we are doing very well.

It occurred to us in the last few days that many of you who casually follow our blog or our Facebook accounts would probably like to know more details about our school and our classes.  Well you are in luck! This blog post is for you!!

The name of our school is Gymnazium Arabska (both of those words have accents on the last ‘a’, which I don’t know how type on my American keyboard).  The term Gymnazium indicates that the school is somewhat prestigious, and that all of our students had to apply and be accepted before they could attend.

Our flat is about a 12 minute bus ride from our school—only two stops—and there is also a tram line that will get us almost all the way home from school with only a few extra stops. So getting to and from school is quite easy, which is a welcome blessing.

In the Czech school system, teachers do not have their own classrooms. Instead each teacher moves around for each new class, similar to how a university teacher in the United States would. This means that instead of a classroom, both Brittany and I have our own offices, though we each share our office with two other English teachers. Fortunately, we do each have our own desks, so we can spread out all our stuff. Because we are always changing classrooms, we are getting our exercise doing extra sets of stairs—our school has four floors—and we are constantly checking our schedules to make sure we are headed to the right classroom.

Another aspect of being a roving teacher that we are just starting to learn is that each classroom is different. Some classrooms have whiteboards, others blackboards. Some have projectors and screens, others have no media capability at all. I had one classroom today equipped with a Smartboard—which I almost wrote on with my dry erase marker… The point is, if you are planning to show a Powerpoint with pictures of the various landscapes of the United States, you might have to change classrooms, trade with another teacher for the hour, etc… You get the point.  For the most part, however, there is always a work around.

As for our specific classes, both Brittany and I teach 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th years (sophomores, juniors, and seniors). We each have 5 classes for each year, that’s 15 classes in total for each of us! However, we only see our 2^nd and 3^rd years once a week for 45 minutes (which is not very long, though we are getting used to it), but our 4^th years we see twice a week. So we each have 20 classes to teach a week, but only four preps. This means that we don’t have a lot of class planning to do per week, but we do have a lot of remembering to do. After you have taught the same lesson 5 or 10 times, it is really hard to remember what you have said to whom, and what you haven’t. It is also hard to remember names when you have 206 students—Brittany has 214—and you only see some of them once a week.

But all our students have a really good handle on the English language already, and we are enjoying teaching them.

I’m sure I left some details out, but seeing as this post is quite long already, you’ll have to ask about anything else you want to know in the comments section.

Praises:

-We continue to feel more at home here in Prague and at our school.

-We found a delicious Mexican restaurant close to our church (Mexican cuisine isn’t very common here).

-Brittany planned our first excursion into Europe (Paris) over our first school break in October!!!

Prayer Requests:

-In October we start a Bible study, Czech lessons, and begin our responsibilities with the English Drama Club at our school. So, prayer that we don’t re-overwhelm ourselves in a few days.

-I have been asked to tutor three boys after school in English, and that will also probably start in October.

- Brittany will be working with three of her female senior students outside of class. 

Taken during some of our sightseeing last weekend overlooking Prague