First Day of School
Today was my first day teaching since I left for Enping in July. I teach adult school. Students don’t have to come to my class. There are many adult school classes to choose from. In some ways I have to treat my students like I was in a private school. The first year I taught adult school I had a couple of classes cancelled because I didn’t have enough students so I am alway concerned about the enrollment. My first class had me worried. They’re almost all elderly and they are starting to have health problems. However, when I got to class I had 15 students and then four more arrived later. The school likes to have at least 15 students to have a class so 19 felt very good.
My second class is for another district. The attendance was about 8-10 when I left in July, but that was summer vacation so I thought the attendance would go up. WRONG! Two new Spanish speaking students met me before class and said they wouldn’t be able to come to class today, but they’d be there tomorrow. Ten minutes into the class, I had ZERO students! I went to the office to get the clerk to print up a list of student phone numbers so I could call them and find out why they weren’t there. As the list came out, two Spanish speaking students showed up with a baby. (Babies aren’t allowed, but they were sisters so I let them stay with the baby for the day. I had a chance to call one student who said he and his wife would be there tomorrow. Four of the students were talking about moving before I left. The other 12 I haven’t had a chance to call. As of today, I will have three Spanish speaking students tomorrow (the mother will stay home with the baby) and two Armenians (who also speak Russian). Where did my Russian speaking students go? I wonder…