Der erste Tag

My first day - since the school decided to give me Mondays off - ended up being today.

Not shabby...the kids were nice, and I basically ended up introducing myself (which probably cut down on prep time for my teachers...) Very glad I had an atlas along, because one student all day knew where Wisconsin is on the map. Not that I blame them. Most of them know New York and LA and movie stars, and McDonald's and think Americans are fat. Don't know what they think of me quite yet, but hopefully they are not disappointed. Har har.

They mostly wanted to know about beer, and the drinking age in the US - and if I had seen any movie stars (yes, I do count the time I saw Matt Damon from a bus in West Hollywood, um...8 years ago now) - and they were confused as to why my last name is German-sounding, which I then had to explain was because of a little thing called immigration which the US should also be known for.  I mean, one of the teachers even told me they just learned about immigration in their last unit...OK, suffice it to say that teenagers are alike all over.

This brings me to my schedule: I have a week one/week two schedule that is confusing as all hell. Not even the teachers can keep track of their schedules! The thing is, here in Austria, students have their own classrooms, and the teachers move around. Not condusive to hiding behind your desk with the blinds shut after a particularly bad group.

But, another thing I've found enlightening is that the kids get to pick which "path" (so to speak) they would like to follow right after Grundschule (elementary/grade school) and in Austria, they can choose to go to a Gymnasium (academic school), a Hauptschule (which will teach them how to do a craft or occupation, such as mechanic or plumber or baker) and other schools in between - two examples of this are where I am teaching: the HLW (Hoehere Lehranstalt fuer Wirtschafliche Berufe) or the HAK (Handelsakademie) which are, respectively, a tourism/cooking school and a business school. With either, you can get out and get a job in your field right away, or go to university to study other things. Nice, huh?

SO...while being a teacher in Austria is not the most glorious job in the world, so far it seems that my own preconceived notion about teachers being better respected (maybe not better paid, or better treated) than in the US is holding up.