Swine Flu

No, I don't have it...yet.

It's starting to spread quite rapidly here, however. Today they received test results back from several quarantined students with flu symptoms, and all were positive. This puts our total of swine flu students to a high enough number that the German government is getting involved with the situation. In a centralized campus boarding school, it's very hard to contain illness. BFA has a typical bout or two of flu each year, sometimes hitting up to 1/2 of the student population at one time. But, this time, it's swine flu. The first step the school is taking, in working with the government is to call a four-day weekend. So, no school on Monday or Tuesday!! If they cannot contain the spread by Tuesday, they'll extend it to the German-required 7 day quarantine and not have school until Friday. If this is the case, the teachers will have to prepare worksheets and assignments to send the students at the dorm, since we can't stop having school for an entire week, and then teach on Friday as well as Saturday. I'm glad for these extra days off to rest and grade my Hamlet papers, but an entire week off would really be difficult to make up.

During this 4-day weekend, they are canceling church and requiring the students to not leave the dorms. It is important to not spread it to the townies for their health and to keep up PR. Also, all teachers who are pregnant or in frequent contact with pregnancy/young/old/respiratory illness people have to stay away from school for the entire 7 days or longer. For the English dept, this knocks out both the 10th and 11th grade teachers. So, this week, when we do have school, we'll be doing a lot of scrambling to cover those classes. Today was a bit hectic as I taught two 12th grade periods, subbed 10th, and then raced over to do hair for the play.

The play was still allowed to remain scheduled. We have a lot of parents/relatives flying from all over Europe and North America to see it. At this point, everyone at BFA has been exposed to swine flu; however, many of the people traveling in have not. So, they required everyone going to the play both tonight and tomorrow to wear masks and wash their hands when entering and exiting the building. It was rather funny to see everyone this way. Here is the auditorium filling up. It was a full house!

I was very impressed with the show; the acting was excellent, and it was genuinely funny. The characterization really made the play, I thought.

I am very glad that the week is finally over. It's been the longest yet. I thought the students were beginning to do a little better until I gave them a group quiz today. After discussing it over with Jill, she suggested I was being too easy on them. Now I feel confused about what my expectations for the students should be. I thought my standards were high; but now I have no idea how she expects them to attain what she is asking. I guess I'm glad she's taking them back after next week? I'm really not sure how to reach what she is asking. I've realized recently a little more of what the issue is. Jill keeps saying that she's never had a class this lazy and unmotivated before. She said that this class, the class of '10, had new teachers for both 10th and 11th grade. Those teachers now have a few years under their belt and are teaching up to par, but their first year, they let the students by easy. So now, in 12th grade, this particular class has had little to no intensive English education. After learning this, it made a little more sense to me (and I'm sure my inexperience as a teacher is not helping them); I'm curious to see what Jill does with them after she takes back over. She was just beginning to see how far behind the class really was when I took over; now we're far enough into the semester that it's really coming out. Soon, I look forward to sitting back and watching the master teacher work. :) I still need prayer for guidance with the few lessons I have left with them. I may be inexperienced, but I still know what I'm teaching and I'm not giving up on trying to pull them back up to higher standards.

Ah...sleeping in for four days straight...it's too good to be true!!

Miss you all.