Tuesday was Teachers Day in Georgia. It seems like this was a very important and much-celebrated holiday in Soviet times and nowadays it is marked in various parts of Georgia with different levels of acknowledgment. Sam's school barely celebrated whereas my school went whole hog.
I think it's largely due to the fact that I'm working at the Russian school in town that I was lucky enough to have such a big, festive holiday. There's more room for carryover from the Soviet Union at a Russian-language school (we had lots of nice posters and banners in Russian, extolling teachers for their dedication). Moreover, there are just a ton of songs in Russian specifically penned about the Teachers Day holiday (we had a lot of songs in Russian about the first day of school, too).
One of the Teachers Day posters note made by students
My school really made the day special. All day Monday, students were extra rowdy, rushing around the halls and making signs and banners and generally decorating the school to prepare for the big day. (The school had a competition to see which class could decorate their classrooms best; I didn't hear if a prize was awarded to the winning class, but since it seems like at least half of each class was allowed to be absent from classes on Monday in order to hang balloons or arrange flowers or whatnot, I think that everyone got a reward.)
Some of the flowers used in decorating the school
On Tuesday, we had a shortened schedule; students only had three classes (instead of the usual 5-8) and these were cut to 25 minutes (from 40) and started an hour later than normal. All the teachers in the school were given flowers--roses, mostly--by their students and each other. The big excitement came at 2pm, though, when we had the Annual Teachers Day Concert.
The concert's emcees kick things off
The show included some prepared speeches by students and the principal, the singing of many of the aforementioned Soviet-era Teachers Day songs, a few skits portraying what students imagine teachers' lives to be like and the recitation of a few poems about teachers. More roses were given to all the teachers and a few brave 12-graders asked the principal and assistant principal to dance during one of the songs. But the very best part of the performance came from two of my 11-graders, who sang a song in English, dedicated especially to me. They did a great job, and though the lyrics might not match up as well as those of the Russian language songs, I was still very touched by the gesture. (And since the only song in English I can think of that's about teachers is "Hot for Teacher," theirs was probably a safer choice.)
The grand finale
No event in our town would be complete, it seems, without a television camera from the local news channel, and without fail, I was interviewed (in Russian) and asked to give my thoughts on the celebration. I was honestly able to say how impressed I was and what a great job the kids did. They seemed very interested to know that we not only do not celebrate the holiday in the same way in America but in fact don't really even have the holiday at all. At any rate, I was glad to make it through my third tv interview in Georgia (three more than I've ever had in America!).
I'm gonna say that we're more like the Kardashian sisters than the Deschanel sisters (since there's three of us) and you can be Kim since you are apparently the media magnet!
ReplyDelete