School days...

Today is a school day and we are going to join Tanya at her school. I have gone to her before and her students are delightful.

We will be there at 11 and it will be great...

We had 3 classes, and the day ended at 2:10. It was very good. The children are sweet and I learned all of their names. Some classes were 13 or 14 or 15 kids. They were attentive and I had several teachers join us for class. It is interesting the differences in our teaching philosophies. What a difference a country makes! The teachers are glad to have the opportunities to see different things, and I am glad to learn from them as well.

They are all required to work on their classrooms, and I do mean WORK. They have to do all of the painting, repairing, etc. or it doesn't get done! I bet all of you US teachers are giving a great big "whewh" (or however you spell that) about YOUR fixing up your classrooms!

I was able to give Tanya a little "teacher pack" thanks to so many of you supporting me. She does not have the financial means to take care of all the things that she needs to have a smooth running class room, so you all took a little of the burden off of her, thank you.

I got to walk home by myself today and let my self in my flat. It was very nice to have some quiet time to myself as well. Jane is such a sweet sister, and I love her. You heard a "but" didn't you?

She is like living with your mother/grandmother/big sister all rolled into one. She worries about my getting "hungry" (have any of you EVER heard about ME letting myself get "hungry"?) She doesn't want me to drink cold things, she doesn't want me to get in a draft, she wants me to eat things that are best not mentioned! She has a crazy cat that she feeds by hand...and who LOVES me...stop laughing Rick...so any way...it is nice to be home by myself...just me and the cat!


We are going to Natasha's house later to work with her on pre-school stuff. She and Rita will be teaching the childrens classes later on this year and they are getting their stuff together to do that.

They live on the Left Bank, and it is more difficult to get to them. Natasha and Sasha have twin girls who are 2. She is contemplating home schooling them as well. We were able to share a couple of hours about teaching methods, Love And Logic, and general classroom and home discipline approaches. She is so quiet and reserved I hope I didn't permanently scar her! I can be a little intense about subjects I feel such passion for! They fed us dinner and later we shared tea together. It was a very pleasant evening. We left about 9:30 p.m. and were home around 10:00.

As we got off the van we saw several motorcycles at a nearby place. We went over to see them and ask questions. There were a mix of bikes, but several Harley's. My son, Wil, loves to ride Harley's so I got my picture with one of the bikers. I am glad to be home and I am glad that it is Friday! I can sleep in at least until 8:30 in the morning!

love you much,
Jackie