A man who renamed himself Ataturk (translation- father of the Turks) brought Turkey into the modern western world in the 1920s. This Ataturk fella, he’s praised and honored like a God around here. While Ismir is a very modern city on the surface, all of Turkey is still under tight reigns by the governing body. While Ataturk died some years ago, his legacy and the ideals he instilled on Turkey live on. Every single classroom in the Isikkent school has 3 things- A Turkish flag, a glowingly painted portrait of Ataturk in prominent display, and an essay about his greatness accompanying his portrait. We have a flag raising ceremony every Monday morning, and it’s a little “Triumph of the Wills” to me, but I guess a lot of schools still pledge allegiance to the flag and similar activities in the states. But with Ataturk’s mug everywhere you go, it reminds me of all those Saddam Hussein pictures and paintings spread all over Iraq.
Nobody drinks cold milk around here. I couldn't believe it at first. Apparently they put some mad preservatives in the milk here, and it requires zero refrigeration to stay fresh. I find it a little creepy. And Turks actually believe that if they drink cold milk, it will make them sick. A bunch of parents called the school in anger when they found out Jen gave her preschoolers cold milk with the cookies they made in class. And no, I’m not making this up.
The school and some of the classrooms are peppered with these big English language posters printed with these cheesy sayings and kernels of wisdom. They’re like a cross between Confucius, Aesop, and L. Ron Hubbard, if that’s even possible. Nuggets like, “The lazier we are today the more we have to do tomorrow.” Or, “Success lies not in what we start, but what we finish” and, “Learning how to learn is life’s most important skill.”
Apparently 3-ring binders and 3-hole punches don’t exist in Turkey. You have a small 2-hole punch that you use in the middle of the paper, and that’s it. Isn’t a 3-ring binder pretty much a universal standard? Well, guess not. Instead of binders and folders, most kids use these cumbersome, folding “office box files.” They’re about 2.5 inches thick, you keep them closed with string and you throw all your papers in them, but it’s a bit disorganized. And did I mention bulky?
What else is the school missing? They have no kind of office supply closet- stuff is just strewn and stashed around the office, some of it probably hidden even. I can never find anything when I need it. I'm still trying to get my hands on some lined notebook paper. I needed a paperclip and some rubber bands today and I managed to find the paper clips only after a 10 minute hunt. But the rubberbands? No luck. My schools used to have pencil sharpeners in every classroom attached to the wall. Here? I can’t find one to save my life, or any pencils for that matter. 3x5 index cards? Good luck. They don’t exist here, either (no index cards means no flash cards. Kids have never heard of them). Same goes for legal pads and paper items like that which are bound or glued together. Our principal has to pack them in his suitcase and bring them back from the USA if he wants some. So for those of you in America, don’t take your standard office supplies and stores like Office Max or Staples for granted. What I would give for a stapler and some post-it notes right about now…
I wrote in my last entry how instead of bells the classes change to music and the music plays for the duration of the 10 minute break. Today I was in the middle school wing and they were actually playing the James Bond theme, the original John Barry version with the swanky orchestra and the mod lead guitar. I thought they were gonna be playing Beethoven and perhaps some Turkish folk music, but James Bond?! I was floored. But I would think as a kid, listening to James Bond while strolling through the halls would kind of juice me up a little- perhaps, if nobody was looking, I’d even stop every 10 steps or so and turn to my left and fire an imaginary gun like 007 does in the opening credits. Yes, I admit the thought ephemerally crossed my mind.
This place has been open for 6 years and just this year they started putting books in the library (and only because they got a big donation of old books from another school’s library!). Next year they’re going to have a highschool class in here, and the media center is rather bare, though they're trying to correct that now. The book racks are barely covered, 15% full at best. The shelves are naked is what they are, and it’s a darn shame. You’d never believe the former principal of this place had a master’s in library science! I guess these are some of the growing pains a new school has to go through, but 6 years and still not an adequate library? They just hired a librarian from America last month and she has a $6,000 shipment coming in from the States sometime next month. We sure could use it.
I’m finding that not all of the English teachers here possess stellar English skills. I was sitting in on a class, and one fellow wrote the word “serve” on the board as “surve.” I mentioned it to him as an aside later on and he corrected it, but come on now- surve??? A lot of the early grade school English teachers are Turks who learned English as a second language (which you need because if you put me in with a group of 1st graders knowing no Turkish, we wouldn’t be able to communicate whatsoever) and their English skills are good, but not perfect. Around 3rd or 4th grade, once the kids have a grasp of the language, they should then make the switch over to native speakers like me, Jen, and Maddy. I was sitting in on a 1st grade class and the teacher was like, “Step away from the Vindow!” (there's no real W in Turkish) And another teacher has the opposite problem, replacing Vs with Ws. It’s Waluable, or a Wisitor- stuff like that.
Because the school day is so long (roughly 9am-4:20pm) we end up taking a lot of breaks, and each class after lunch has a 10 minute break in between (and the middle schoolers get a whopping 45 minutes for lunch!). The break is called “Garden Time” because they call the big patch of well-coifed grass outside the “garden.” It gets close to the end of a period, and you have all these little kids shouting out and begging in English with their Turkish accents, “Garden time! Garden time!” It’s…well, I can’t even think of the word for it right now.
You’d think kids in the 8th grade would show some slightly advanced degree of maturity, but I gotta tell you, they whine more than the 2nd graders sometimes. But that's probably universal, no?
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