First Day in the Schools

I called my niece today. It is her fifth birthday. She doesn’t know where Ireland is, but she knows it’s far away! I caught her on a good day, as she has pre-school on TWR in the PM (at the Leighthouse Pre-school), storytelling on Mondays and gymnastics at “Boing” on Fridays. It is 3pm here, but only 10 am back home. I’m glad I caught her at home.

Today was my first day in the schools. We left the flat before 8 and walked to Trinity College to catch the bus, 15B. After about a 10 minute wait we boarded the bus and made our way to the top level so I could get a better view of the landmarks I will need to know for future trips. Sitting in the far front of the bus, just a few rows in front of us were three young women probably in their late 20’s. It wasn’t long until a fourth joined them and many stops later a fifth. They must all be teachers, by the nature of their conversation. One was from the states (Chicago) and is married with a toddler. The dark haired one, Judy, has quite the night life. Her friends were talking before she got on the bus how they don’t know how she stays out until 3am so often. I am told by my colleagues that they are regulars on the 15B.

We stayed on the 15B to the end, about an hour’s ride. We are staying in center city and the students are all in the ‘burbs, as are their schools. We started today at Scoil Mhuire (Mary in Irish, I believe). Inside the school the first thing I noticed was pictures of all the children’s first communion. All of the schools are parochial so the students are dressed in uniforms and have classes in religion. We observed two of our student’s team teaching a science lesson to fourth graders. They were wonderful. They were teaching about solids, liquids and gases and had an excellent science project using corn flour and water. The students were engaged and our student teachers really did well. Before we left we were treated to a song that the students had learned on their recorders. Their teacher, an older male gentleman, does a lot of music with the children and they really seem to enjoy it. In fact, he bought recorders for our two student teachers and they are trying to learn a song for our Thanksgiving dinner. The day started well at Scoil Mhuire.

We hopped back on the 15B bus and took it about a half a dozen stops to another bus stop to connect with the 74 bus. We waited about 20 minutes for this bus to take us to a stop near St. Mary’s Boys School. Our two student teachers were on yard duty (recess) when we got there. We enjoyed tea and a muffin while they had their fruit break, and then I observed the student whom I had for the first nine weeks in the states, while my colleague observed the one she had back home. As you can imagine, it is quite challenging teaching in an all boy’s school. The lesson I observed was first grade language arts. They are quite chatty and tough to keep quiet, but it is obvious that they are bright and energetic little boys.

After leaving St. Mary’s we had a very short walk to the bus stop where we picked up the 16 to get back to center city. We had a late lunch, picked up a few groceries and are now back at the flat planning tomorrow’s schedule. It is a very time consuming task to try and get to where these students are located. It’s tough to get more than two schools in a day. I am looking forward over the next few days of seeing all of the schools, and re-connecting with our student teachers who I have not seen since October 21st back in PA.