The Students

Kids are kids, aren't they? You've got your talkers, your can't-sit-still kids, eager-to-please kids, space cadets, I-know-all-the-answers kids, sad kids, shy kids, immediately-you-love-them kids, etc, all sweet. Well, I've got them all and some of them fall into multiple categories - but who's generalizing... Multi-ethnic, the majority of my students seem to be Muslim from India, Pakistan and, as they say, Palestine. English language learners, one boy new last year from Romania (I could use Thomas, my Romanian student from last year right now). Mostly boys - 17 to my 12 girls - but I'm used to that, same as the last few years. Is there a trend? Will women finally have the edge in finding male companionship one day? Anyway, it's all new, so they are on their best behavior. We'll see on Monday, when reality hits and we actually start doing real work. As much as I believe that starting tough and then easing up is always more successful, it is hard to start out being really strict. After all, we teachers really are human! We want to be liked by our students, too.
It turns out my Romanian student is not Romanian, but Romany, a totally different thing. He's lovely, shy, well-behaved, tries to keep up. Not only does he not speak English (or Welsh, of course), but we believe that he's never been to school. He doesn't even know the alphabet. I'm sure that he and his family have faced terrible discrimination. Most second-language students come in with prior knowledge from their own language - with Daniel, we have to begin at page one. A challenge, but I have help from a specialist teacher. Stay tuned...
Below, you'll see the neighborhood where my school is located, an urban area with a smaller community feel. I've asked one of our aides, Anila, to help me find good shops around school for spices, nuts, dried fruits and beans, etc. I'm looking forward to a shopping expedition!