Photographic meme, pt. 3

[franceslievens]

frenchani joined the game later than the others, but had her own request nonetheless: "Well, I already know your apartment... Could you take a picture at school?" I often take pictures at school with the digital camera I got from P.'s father because he didn't use it anymore. The kids love it (especialy the fact it's a digital camera, so they can see the results of their silly faces immediately). The pictures under the cut come without the children, but with lots of their work tagged to the walls. It's quite scary to show you my classroom like this. It's very recognisable, even though it doesn't give my secret identity away. Check it out and think about how the classrooms of your own childhood looked better or maybe even worse.

This is what I see when I stand in front of the class, teaching.



And this is what my kids face during their two hours of morality every week.



Now there's only thephilfire's request that needs photographing. Sorry, forgot all about it, lad.

Comments

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

It looks quite small. How many kids do you teach morality in that classroom?

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

It is quite small! I've got enough desks and chairs to seat 12 pupils, but my biggest group are 6 kids (you can't see all of the desks on the various pictures -- there is place for 4 kids in the middle, and six kids around those two desks, and I've got another desk that's placed against the wall, for when someone has been naughty). Really. We atheists should do something about converting all those religious people. (But not too many of them -- my colleague who teaches islam has at the same hours groups of 20-30 kids.)

Oh, and notice the non-matching desks and chairs. Sometimes it feels like musical chairs at the start of my lesson, because the kids start swapping big and small chairs. It's the faith of the teacher of one of the ideological courses: we end up with the left-overs.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

The window is a bit high up - it's good for safety reasons, but not so nice for light. Still, I like this room - it's cheerful. The board is fairly small, but then I guess you don't need to write that much on it.

I'd love to have my own classroom! Here, the classroom belongs to the kids and while they love decorating it when they're younger, that gets lost after a couple of years. Still, we do have a nice room.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

I think the window is only that high up, because it's an old building. At least my kids don't get distracted by anything that's happening outside!

The light isn't that much of a problem, because the window is about as big as the wall underneath it. And I'm facing West, so don't have problems with overheated classrooms when the sun is shining, something my colleagues on the other side of the corridor loath. I'm actually the only classroom on my side of the corridor. Having the smallest classes, the gave me the tiny room next to the toilets! (At least not as tiny as the broom cupboard in on of my other schools!)

I don't write much on the board, no, but sometimes I'd like it to be a bit bigger. I don't have my own classroom in every school I teach at. It depends a bit if they have the space for it. This is the nicest one, though. In secondary school I used to have my own classroom, where it was very dark and not at all fun to teach in. Not much space at all, because it was packed with desks and chairs to seat all the students. At the secondary school I attended, the students have their classroom and the teachers went from room to room. And like you said: Once you get older, you don't decorate it that much anymore!

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I don't have my own classroom either, I keep going from one to another and so do the students.

And our teachers room isn't nice.

[lijability.livejournal.com]

Boy... the old hot water register, the high windows, the clutter.... reminds me of the old (it was built in 1889) school named for le Sieur de La Salle that I went to for kindergarten. It was only two blocks away from home; but mom said she walked behind me and watched me all the way into the front door of the school that first day.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

The clutter is also very much me! But I think most schools still have it. You just can't quite throw things away, because maybe you can use it with other kids. And then you leave the school and someone else comes around who throws out everything, because they don't know what to do with it! ;-)

The high windows are only in my classroom. I guess I really ended up with the scraps.

[lijability.livejournal.com]

We were in a lower level that was half below ground level. So the windows were at ground level and we could look out at the "big kids" and watch they play during their recesses. Our kindergarten was only a half day and we didn't get a recess.... ;~/

Scraps? Yeah, maybe, but you made it all your own scraps!