First day of school

Today school started with a long day to make up for the holiday yesterday. The school I'm attending is very close to where I'm staying, just a five minute walk. It's in the Musician's quarter of Nice. You see little clefs and notes in the window frames and shutters, the streets are named after musicians. It's a pleasant, busy neighborhood with charming architecture. 

The school itself is in a building that is partly apartments, partly office space. After this first day I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed with the way the school's equipped. The rooms are small and narrow, there are regular whiteboards, some rooms have an overhead projector, the internet connection varies and fluctuates throughout the day. Maybe I had high expectations because I'm used to big, bright rooms that are all very well equipped.  

The kickoff was a little get-together with other participants and teachers - we were offered coffee, tea, croissants and pain au chocolat. Since it took a while until everyone arrived and the space was a bit too small for everyone to comfortably mingle, the group dispersed quickly. The idea was nice though. 

My trainer is a young, well-traveled guy from France who works as a high school teacher and does trainings for adults as well. He's kind, attentive, patient and seems to have a lot of experience with ICT tools. Because of the welcome get-together our lesson started a bit late. We did introductions, a get to know you activity and talked about the institutions where everybody works. There are people from Hungary, Serbia, Canada, Greece and Lithuania.

The level of English and also of ICT skills is very mixed. There are people that didn't want to introduce themselves because they deem their English to be too bad. Also what we talked about in terms of what's out there in the digital tools world seemed very basic and surface level to me. The trainer offered some extra websites and apps to those who are more proficient, which was very thoughtful. But in general I'm disappointed with regard to the content and language in the class.

Today's lessons made me realize once again that I do have high expectations when it comes to fellow trainers and teachers. I expect them to be open to learning, curious, patient and considerate. After all, we all know what it's like to stand in front of a class consisting of 16 to 25 students. How annoying it is when people are talking over you. How scary it can be when you prepared something and put in a lot of work, but are not sure whether it will meet you students' expectations and address their needs. We all know. We've all had bad experiences. We should all know to be a little bit more considerate than the average person. And then: You go on such a training to learn. So how can it be that some refuse to take active part and instead disturb the class?  

Also I was hoping to get some fresh input for my own language skills. I know that that was not part of the requirement of my school back in Germany. But it was sort of my own wish. In this class unfortunately people do not really speak English well enough. Some came with colleagues and proceeded to use their mother tongue in class. Why go on a training to a different country then? 

You see, I'm a little annoyed. But there's hope. It was just the first day and it may get better. Usually, I do always learn something valuable in the end. And I know that this experience will turn out fine as well.