It's all good so far. I walk to and from school every day except Fridays because I don't go to school on Fridays. Sometimes I have a few hours between classes so I will leave school and go back later on in the day so I'm getting plenty of exercise and slowly regaining my fitness from my time on Zaragoza and then lost while I was back home lying on the couch after my knee operation.
My schedule is kind of easy with 2 or 3 classes a day of either 50 minutes or 1 hour. The smallest class has about 14 students and the biggest is 26 - 30 and that's a lot of faces looking at me. The youngest are, I think, 11 - 12 year olds and the eldest at the school in Azpeitia are 15 - 16 years old. I do 2 classes at the school in the next town, which is called Azkoitia. 1 is students 16 - 17 years old and then 1 class of adults. The school in Azkoitia is part of the school in Azpeitia and I have to confess that I'm really not sure how that works. I just go where I'm told and try to keep a low profile. Fortunately, the teacher I work with in Azkoitia lives in Apeitia and she picks me up and drops me back and the 2 towns are only about 10 minutes drive apart. This is just as well because our 1st class starts at 8am!
Like everywhere, some classes are better then others in terms of behaviour and interest levels - 'group dynamic' is certainly an interesting phenomenon. Sometimes I would like to tell some of the kids to just go away and see what happens. Most of the time it's ok and I guess in time we'll get used to each other. I don't know what the school population is, it's not a big school so probably a few hundred from the equivalent of our year 8 - year 11.
This is the front of the school, from the car park. The entrance is along the path at the far end.
This is the back of the school and the only piece of grass there is.
and here is the front entrance
There are some interesting differences between schools here and in NZ. In the high schools here the teachers move classes and the students stay put. This means that there is no subject material in the classes and the walls are mostly bare, there are no 'school fields' and they have a 11/2 hour or 2 hour lunch break and most kids go home and then come back to school finishing for the day at around 5 o'clock. Apparently, there is talk of changing this set-up but it fits with the 'siesta' arrangement of just about everyones day - most shops, banks, offices etc shut for 2 - 3 hours in the afternoon - although I have been told that 'sleeping' doesn't happen, people do other 'work', so it would involve a huge shift.
The main language here is Basque so that's what everyone at school speaks and all classes, except of course, the language classes, are in Basque. The Spanish government has recently passed a law which makes it compulsory for all schools to use Spanish for teaching. This hasn't been accepted very well by teachers, staff and students alike.
I have learnt a few basic words in Basque and use them when I can, however, most people are bilingual Basque/Spanish or Castilian as they call it and seem happy enough to talk in Spanish with me. Not, I must add, that this involves long and meaningful conversations, discussions and debates, not by a long shot. My Spanish is still rather rudimentary and I use it when I have the chance but the people who speak English want to speak English with me and that's ok and, as was my experience in Zaragoza, a lot of people know some English and seem to relish the opportunity to use it. They always seem to be able to tell that English is my natural language as soon as I begin to talk and I always wonder "how come?", my Spanish doesn't sound that bad, at least not to my ears.
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