Summertime
The end of the school year took forever to arrive. We had a weekly countdown calendar in our office, and even though the numbers slowly got smaller, the end never seemed in sight. Until suddenly, there it was: the last week of school, the last day of school, the last hour of school... bitti.
Shortly before the end of term we had two sets of English concerts to contend with; “At the zoo”, a play performed by the six year olds, and a food/jobs/weather related medley of songs and phrases performed by the five year olds. I was involved in the rehearsals and performances for all of them, and seeing as these shows were done on a class by class basis, I saw each one far more times than I care to think about. It was a lot of work, the drama studio was often stuffy and the repetitive nature of what I was doing became very tedious. But... the children got a kick out of doing it, the parents enjoyed it, and our principal was happy. A relative success, then.
Just before we finished for the summer (we meaning the teachers; the children finish school at least a week before staff here) it was time for the six year olds' graduation ceremony. Yes, they graduate from Kindergarten at my school. Complete with caps and gowns and parades and diplomas, the full works. Took me a while to stop laughing when I first heard about it, but the event itself was rather impressive.
It was held in the open air stadium on a Friday evening. I sat with the other Kindergarten teachers who were not involved in the actual ceremony. The event began with the flag parade, ie- a large group of Lise (high school) students marching huge flagpoles around the track. Then they called the six year olds, class by class, to be seated on their little wooden chairs, which looked so normal all year in the classrooms but out there on the centre field just seemed strangely small.
We all stood in silence for the bugles and national anthem (as at any important event here). There were some speeches, these mostly passed me by as a) my Turkish hasn't reached that level yet and b) my friends had more interesting things to say. The five year olds performed a series of dances to bid their graduating schoolmates farewell; these were adorable, with the rock'n'roll dance winning all awards for including air guitar moves and bum wiggles.
Towards the end of the ceremony, all the six years were called by name to receive their “diplomas” and then on cue all threw their teeny caps into the air as fireworks exploded in the now-dark night sky behind them. Rather poignant, and very sweet. The real problem I had with the evening was seeing just how excited they all were, just how proud they looked, and hating the fact that I couldn't have faith in the school to justify those emotions, hating the fact that I couldn't help but feel a portion of them were going to end up let down by the system they were already enroled in.
We rounded that evening off by meeting some of the non-Kindergarten teachers at a bar in Kizilay called Always Rock. And it does. A good way to lift the mood and bring me back to earth.
It now finally feels like summer is properly here. The weather seems to be holding out, and temperatures are set to rise. Dave and I are off to eastern Turkey for a week, before flying to the States mid-month. In August we'll then head to England before coming back here to do it all over again next year. It looks to be a mighty fine summer holiday.
Oh, and happy 4th to those american folks!