School

Today was my second day of school. Turkish schools are… different, I suppose, is the only way to describe it. I’m trying to go at it with an open mind. While, in my mind, I can see every single American teacher cringe when they see my tiny classroom with 31 students, the truth is that it isn’t that bad. The one complaint I have is the desks, which were clearly not designed for someone as tall as I am. For that mater, they weren’t really designed with any consideration for the human body. In America, we have our nice molded plastic chairs, and each student gets a two or three foot bubble of personal space. Many rooms at Freeport High have the tables arranged in a rectangle, to encourage discussions. Not so in Turkey. My classroom has three columns, two desks wide, five or six deep.

While I can’t understand what’s going on most of the time, I’m impressed by how quickly the lessons go. The teacher’s don’t mess around – they stand and deliver, and the students take notes. Actually, they copy exactly what the teacher puts on the board. Exactly. It’s kind of eerie. I think that Turkish students learn far more than we do in America, but American schools focus more on output (i.e. papers) than on input (i.e. memorization). I’m not taking sides on which is better.

What else? Today I had “National Security” as a class. I wish I could have understood what was going on. Basically, an officer (three stars – a general?) glared at us, while everyone tried not to giggle and he lectured on what I can only presume are serious subjects of the utmost importance.

It’s weird being a celebrity at school. Everywhere I go, I can hear people saying “Amerikalı”. Also, everyone has decided that because I’m tall and American, I am some sort of basketball god. Never mind that I haven’t played since I was about six, and they’ve never actually seen me play for more than 30 seconds. Today, in physical education the gym teacher tried to make us march for about ten minutes, gave up, and then we sat around and shot hoops. One of the other gym teachers called me over and asked me if I would play for the school team. Now, I never actually touch the ball when we were playing – presumably I wouldn’t deign to play with mere amateurs, or else it would be unsportsmanlike to the other team.

All in all, I guess I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s only been two days, and school is still pretty strange. I’m enjoying myself, but I’m waiting for things to settle down and for my life to approach something like normality.