Teaching Adventures: Austria

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Austria

Ryan has been working hard to find new places for our talented athletes to compete, and he found a conference called CEESA. This conference is comprised of international schools in Central and Eastern Europe. Last week, he had an athletic director conference in Vienna, Austria, so off he went on Wednesday. He was able to make a lot of connections and hopefully get some new tournaments and games set up. I also decided I wanted to see Austria, so on Friday I headed off to Vienna. I flew in Friday afternoon, and immediately was in love with the efficiency and cleanliness of the country. There are so many green spaces, and trails to run and bike on. Ryan had meetings all day Friday and Saturday so I was able to explore on my own. I took a bus tour of the city and traveled all around. It was a great experience. While at the conference we met four athletic directors from different countries that all grew up in the Chicago area, including someone from St. Charles, Oak Lawn, Western Springs and the city. We also met some people that knew teachers we work with now. It is really a small world in the international teaching community.

School has still been going really well. The 3rd quarter is finishing Friday. My IB students have begun work on their first major assessment for IB, their historical investigation. They are working hard on researching topics they have chosen from history. My grade 10 students are finishing up the Industrial Revolution, and they are developing some major projects on their own. I have three students who are building a working steam engine. It is fascinating watching them work on this project. I have other students who are interviewing the grade school kids about what they would invent if they could invent something, and then they are going to be interviewing high school students to see how creativity is changed as we get older. There are students researching the global business practices of companies and creating brochures about their practices. It is great working with so many interesting students with different talents and skills. The school does really give me the freedom to give them the freedom to be creative.

]Monday we celebrated St Patrick's Day, with some friends, including Julie, from Ireland. There aren't any Irish spots nearby, so much to Julie's dismay we were at an English establishment. But, they did download Irish music for us, and we taught them how to turn their drinks green. It was a fun evening, almost reminiscent of Chicago river dyeing.

This week is Spirit Week at school. Wednesday was dress like a celebrity or character. There is a teacher in my department that loves a bow tie and a monogrammed shirt for his basketball game days, so I rallied the teachers in my department to dress like him, and then found out his basketball team was doing the same. I don't have any button up shirts, so I wore Ryan's-it was a litttllllleee big on me. Here is a picture of some of the Mr. Peet's. There are a lot of students that are getting involved in the spirit week here, which is great to see. Ryan is also working on having the band and dance team perform at a game soon, which will be a first here. He was showing videos of high school bands at games to give them some inspiration. He is really working hard to build up school spirit and get attendance at the games.

Dressing up like Mr. Peet. Social Studies teachers and some girls varsity basketball players.

Ryan has also been working hard organizing the Week Without Walls trips that are coming up for grades 10 and 11 in May. He has been spearheading all of the work for getting visas, payments, itineraries for the trips both here in Lebanon, in Nepal and South Africa. There are around 20 students going to South Africa, 60 going to Nepal, and the rest of the grade 10 and 11 will go on local trips. I am really excited to chaperone the trip to Nepal with Ryan, and 4 other teachers.

I booked our tickets back to the States for the summer. I have a conference in DC that I am attending at the end of the school year, so I will be back in Chicago on June 20th, which is about 3 months away. I can't believe how fast the school year is going. Within the next three months we will have traveled to Nepal, Jordan, Brussels and Paris. Crazy.