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Seminary started again this week. Because of reasons, instead of one long seminary day (Wednesday), there were two half-days (Wednesday and Thursday). Pleasant work-time wise, except that I drive three hours to get there and back again, so I'd infinitely have preferred going just once. Next week, because of schools opening again, it'll just be Wednesday.
Did I mention that I passed the education science exam in March (on the first day of lockdown)? So now I'm qualified to sit through the regular classes in my specific subjects (as well as the general practice class or Kernseminar that started back in November). Under normal circumstances, I'd have all three classes every Wednesday, but this year, they had to split various classes (so we can keep a distance of 1.5 meters to our classmates at all time), so they're running out of room (and every room has to be sanitised after use), so instead, we have one class per Wednesday but lasting six hours instead of two. In this manner, we'll be going until the summer holidays (starting June 27). And whither then? I cannot say.
English, of course, is one of the classes that had to be split up in three. Seeing the size of the English class honestly makes me wonder why there ever was a shortage of English teachers, but hey, now I'm inside the system and they can't kick me out anymore unless I misbehave or fail the final. I am certainly glad now that - in spite of the endless drive - I opted to start qualifying last November, as I did, instead of waiting until I could start in a seminary closer to home. Technically, the country still needs teachers, but it would probably still have been more difficult to get in.
Anyway, English class has been split into three classes, and yesterday was our first meeting. My English teaching teacher seems very friendly and supportive so far. Most of my classmates are "proper" teaching students (who got a Master of Education at university and then applied at schools right away), so they're in their mid-twenties (which currently feels very young). But there are three other aftercomers like me, who did something else first and now want to go into teaching, and who are married with kids already. (That is, two of them actually studied teaching, but one got her degree in Italy so she has to finalise it by taking the same exam as other German teachers, and the other went on a gap year in Australia that ended up lasting twenty years.) Anyway. Most of them are young and sweet and have that sheltered, clueless feel of kids fresh out of university about them. I feel old. Also, only two dudes in a class of 15 (and one of them is the teaching teacher).
Geography class, in contrast, consists of three people (teacher included), none of whom got a degree in teaching geography originally - even the teacher originally planned to do something else and then got roped into teaching sideways. I suspect that he may be more understanding of the difficulties of qualifying in this manner because he went through it himself (albeit twenty years ago, under very different conditions). Since we are only two students, he has announced that he'll more or less tailor our curriculum to fit our specific needs, rather than the curriculum of the general class. That is a good thing. But since we're such a tiny class (they put us in the first aid cabinet so we wouldn't take up a whole proper room XD), there's no way of hiding or zoning out, which is going to be a new and probably stressful experience, like a six-hour oral exam. :/ We'll see how that goes.
Now as I said, schools are also opening again next week -- one day for every grade except grade 10, who've been back to school for two weeks to prepare them for their final exam. (They all have to sit a final exam at the end of grade 10 and then either move on to something-like-college or vocational training.) This is - again - because current circumstances don't allow us to stuff thirty kids in one room (except perhaps the gym), so the classes have also been split. They'll use one classroom for the duration of their single school day (no chemistry lab or music room), on which they'll have classes ONLY in the core subjects (Math, German, English) without their elective. The other days will continue to feature distance learning. But at least we can print out worksheets and give them to the kids on their one school day. (There's apparently been a shitstorm in at least one class WhatsApp group because there were so many worksheets to print. But this complaint only reached us after the Easter holidays (five weeks after it originally came up) when one mother finally thought of *gasp* contacting the teachers. We could have printed all the sheets and sent them to the kids via snail mail in those five weeks, if only they had TOLD US that they needed them! But that, unfortunately, is typical of the parents at our school: they love complaining to each other instead of contacting the people who can actually do something about it. Same with the workload.)
I don't know yet when I'll be teaching. I usually teach English only in one grade 6 and one grade 7, but due to the split classes and the disappearance of geography for the rest of term, I expect that I'll be getting some new groups as well. But the schedule hasn't been worked out yet. Things remain... interesting. Julian's kindergarten still can't offer more than emergency supervision (only two and a half rooms in the building). Felix' school, likewise, has classes split in half and only one group per day. He'll be in school on Tuesday for the rest of May, and on a couple of random days in June. In all, he'll have seven days of actual classes. (Kids at my school, aside from the grade 10th, will have five days.)
It's a new phase. In theory, it's expect to last until the summer holidays and then the situation will be re-evaluated. In practice, it's entirely possible that two weeks from now, the second wave is going to force everything back into lockdown because keeping kids 1.5 meters apart at all times, washing their hands when entering class, and wearing face masks for the duration of the school day might not be as realistic as the general public seems to believe. And even if the kids stick to the rules in school, their parents probably won't.
It'll be good for the kids to have some social contacts outside home, to be sure - more for some than for others - and it's going to make the logistics of getting material to the kids a lot easier. But the risks are significant - especially as we don't know how responsible people in general will behave outside of school.
Jörg, who (he thinks) is a rational science-minded kind of person, has apparently been infected by the rampant "we have to go back to normal" idiocy going around. He can't wait for trainign to start again and has invited his brother over for the weekend. I want to kick him. He says if the kids go back to school and kindergarten, they're going to be exposed anyway. Never mind that Julian's specific kindergarten will continue to do emergency supervision only. Never mind the precautions the schools are taking. Never mind that kids who are at risk or who live with people at risk can easily be released from their duty to attend until the summer holidays. Never mind that both Jörg (high blood pressure and somewhat prone to pneumonia) and his mother (79, high blood pressure, asthma) are at risk. (So is Uncle Marc, for that matter, after the heart attack that cured him from chain smoking.) This is absolutely something we could apply for, if we took this seriously. Heck, I've been released from teaching in person or doing emergency supervision these past weeks because I'm living with at-risk people! I now feel pretty guilty about it (especially as the mother-in-law has been going to various non-emergency doctor and dentist appointments all this time). Evidently, the danger of them contracting the virus through their own actions is easily as high as that of me catching it from my students and passing it on to them. The mother-in-law has announced she wants to return to gym class, and thinks she's being responsible by waiting until June to do so. It's *throws up hands in despair* you know, whatever. Do what you want in your madness. ("But I'm growing fat!" You literally have zero fat under your skin which is why you're cold all the time, but if you feel you're getting rusty, go for a walk or something. "Oh no, that's boring on my own." Then go with us. "No, you walk too fast for me." Not with the kids, honestly.)
(Curiously, Jörg has been dead-set against letting Felix visit my parents, because contamination, and been very grumpy about our compromise of my parents driving over, parking under the walnut tree, and talking to the kids from the driveway or over the garden fence, because contamination. Dad is at home except when he buys groceries, and the safety measures at the nursing home where mum works are, understandably, extremely high. The mother-in-law visits her dentist and the optician and whatnot, but my parents are a risk to her health. Uh-huh. But my mum is also being absurd. She's still been seeing the kids every weekend, albeit at a distance, and they've been playing battleship via skype and whatnot, and yet she's all "This lack of contact makes me fade like a primrose!" Wow, melodramatic much? IDK. Maybe I'm just antisocial and uncharitable. Also, what are you even saying. Primroses are perfectly hardy little plants. Like. They rally after fading. They're coming back stronger. They're perennials, they know what they're doing. The primulae are fine.)
In conclusion, I'm tired. Again. Behold the field where I grow my fucks and see that it is barren.
Did I mention that I passed the education science exam in March (on the first day of lockdown)? So now I'm qualified to sit through the regular classes in my specific subjects (as well as the general practice class or Kernseminar that started back in November). Under normal circumstances, I'd have all three classes every Wednesday, but this year, they had to split various classes (so we can keep a distance of 1.5 meters to our classmates at all time), so they're running out of room (and every room has to be sanitised after use), so instead, we have one class per Wednesday but lasting six hours instead of two. In this manner, we'll be going until the summer holidays (starting June 27). And whither then? I cannot say.
English, of course, is one of the classes that had to be split up in three. Seeing the size of the English class honestly makes me wonder why there ever was a shortage of English teachers, but hey, now I'm inside the system and they can't kick me out anymore unless I misbehave or fail the final. I am certainly glad now that - in spite of the endless drive - I opted to start qualifying last November, as I did, instead of waiting until I could start in a seminary closer to home. Technically, the country still needs teachers, but it would probably still have been more difficult to get in.
Anyway, English class has been split into three classes, and yesterday was our first meeting. My English teaching teacher seems very friendly and supportive so far. Most of my classmates are "proper" teaching students (who got a Master of Education at university and then applied at schools right away), so they're in their mid-twenties (which currently feels very young). But there are three other aftercomers like me, who did something else first and now want to go into teaching, and who are married with kids already. (That is, two of them actually studied teaching, but one got her degree in Italy so she has to finalise it by taking the same exam as other German teachers, and the other went on a gap year in Australia that ended up lasting twenty years.) Anyway. Most of them are young and sweet and have that sheltered, clueless feel of kids fresh out of university about them. I feel old. Also, only two dudes in a class of 15 (and one of them is the teaching teacher).
Geography class, in contrast, consists of three people (teacher included), none of whom got a degree in teaching geography originally - even the teacher originally planned to do something else and then got roped into teaching sideways. I suspect that he may be more understanding of the difficulties of qualifying in this manner because he went through it himself (albeit twenty years ago, under very different conditions). Since we are only two students, he has announced that he'll more or less tailor our curriculum to fit our specific needs, rather than the curriculum of the general class. That is a good thing. But since we're such a tiny class (they put us in the first aid cabinet so we wouldn't take up a whole proper room XD), there's no way of hiding or zoning out, which is going to be a new and probably stressful experience, like a six-hour oral exam. :/ We'll see how that goes.
Now as I said, schools are also opening again next week -- one day for every grade except grade 10, who've been back to school for two weeks to prepare them for their final exam. (They all have to sit a final exam at the end of grade 10 and then either move on to something-like-college or vocational training.) This is - again - because current circumstances don't allow us to stuff thirty kids in one room (except perhaps the gym), so the classes have also been split. They'll use one classroom for the duration of their single school day (no chemistry lab or music room), on which they'll have classes ONLY in the core subjects (Math, German, English) without their elective. The other days will continue to feature distance learning. But at least we can print out worksheets and give them to the kids on their one school day. (There's apparently been a shitstorm in at least one class WhatsApp group because there were so many worksheets to print. But this complaint only reached us after the Easter holidays (five weeks after it originally came up) when one mother finally thought of *gasp* contacting the teachers. We could have printed all the sheets and sent them to the kids via snail mail in those five weeks, if only they had TOLD US that they needed them! But that, unfortunately, is typical of the parents at our school: they love complaining to each other instead of contacting the people who can actually do something about it. Same with the workload.)
I don't know yet when I'll be teaching. I usually teach English only in one grade 6 and one grade 7, but due to the split classes and the disappearance of geography for the rest of term, I expect that I'll be getting some new groups as well. But the schedule hasn't been worked out yet. Things remain... interesting. Julian's kindergarten still can't offer more than emergency supervision (only two and a half rooms in the building). Felix' school, likewise, has classes split in half and only one group per day. He'll be in school on Tuesday for the rest of May, and on a couple of random days in June. In all, he'll have seven days of actual classes. (Kids at my school, aside from the grade 10th, will have five days.)
It's a new phase. In theory, it's expect to last until the summer holidays and then the situation will be re-evaluated. In practice, it's entirely possible that two weeks from now, the second wave is going to force everything back into lockdown because keeping kids 1.5 meters apart at all times, washing their hands when entering class, and wearing face masks for the duration of the school day might not be as realistic as the general public seems to believe. And even if the kids stick to the rules in school, their parents probably won't.
It'll be good for the kids to have some social contacts outside home, to be sure - more for some than for others - and it's going to make the logistics of getting material to the kids a lot easier. But the risks are significant - especially as we don't know how responsible people in general will behave outside of school.
Jörg, who (he thinks) is a rational science-minded kind of person, has apparently been infected by the rampant "we have to go back to normal" idiocy going around. He can't wait for trainign to start again and has invited his brother over for the weekend. I want to kick him. He says if the kids go back to school and kindergarten, they're going to be exposed anyway. Never mind that Julian's specific kindergarten will continue to do emergency supervision only. Never mind the precautions the schools are taking. Never mind that kids who are at risk or who live with people at risk can easily be released from their duty to attend until the summer holidays. Never mind that both Jörg (high blood pressure and somewhat prone to pneumonia) and his mother (79, high blood pressure, asthma) are at risk. (So is Uncle Marc, for that matter, after the heart attack that cured him from chain smoking.) This is absolutely something we could apply for, if we took this seriously. Heck, I've been released from teaching in person or doing emergency supervision these past weeks because I'm living with at-risk people! I now feel pretty guilty about it (especially as the mother-in-law has been going to various non-emergency doctor and dentist appointments all this time). Evidently, the danger of them contracting the virus through their own actions is easily as high as that of me catching it from my students and passing it on to them. The mother-in-law has announced she wants to return to gym class, and thinks she's being responsible by waiting until June to do so. It's *throws up hands in despair* you know, whatever. Do what you want in your madness. ("But I'm growing fat!" You literally have zero fat under your skin which is why you're cold all the time, but if you feel you're getting rusty, go for a walk or something. "Oh no, that's boring on my own." Then go with us. "No, you walk too fast for me." Not with the kids, honestly.)
(Curiously, Jörg has been dead-set against letting Felix visit my parents, because contamination, and been very grumpy about our compromise of my parents driving over, parking under the walnut tree, and talking to the kids from the driveway or over the garden fence, because contamination. Dad is at home except when he buys groceries, and the safety measures at the nursing home where mum works are, understandably, extremely high. The mother-in-law visits her dentist and the optician and whatnot, but my parents are a risk to her health. Uh-huh. But my mum is also being absurd. She's still been seeing the kids every weekend, albeit at a distance, and they've been playing battleship via skype and whatnot, and yet she's all "This lack of contact makes me fade like a primrose!" Wow, melodramatic much? IDK. Maybe I'm just antisocial and uncharitable. Also, what are you even saying. Primroses are perfectly hardy little plants. Like. They rally after fading. They're coming back stronger. They're perennials, they know what they're doing. The primulae are fine.)
In conclusion, I'm tired. Again. Behold the field where I grow my fucks and see that it is barren.
