The Christmas Play is finally taking shape...!

My Christmas Play is finally taking shape and is getting gradually better and better.
We had a meeting last Thursday and I discussed it in full detail.
To my surprise Mco, who is the most reputed, popular and really good male teacher, supported me fully and helped raise all the issues. He even offered to help me out whenever and wherever needed. On hearing the details of the play, nearly all the teachers were quite impressed and offered to help me. Even the date of the play has now been conveniently preponed from 23rd to 22nd December. Now, Ndn, a new teacher punctually comes to relieve me from my class duties so that I can take practice. Next week, I shall carry my synthesizer to school to practice with music.
I have caught hold of a new angel. He is an intelligent boy who learns rather quickly but is as restless as wind. It is impossible for him to stay at one place or in one posture for more than 1 minute.
All the other characters are doing fine.
I do hope everything will be OK...!

What a management...!

The roots of the answer to this question go very deep.
I now realize that parents when they were abusing A, some other teachers and the management of the school that horrible parents teacher meeting evening, were actually very right. I am stumbling upon facts that are not only shocking but ugly as well.
The school is run by people who do want the money to come streaming in but don't want to work themselves and become instant sworn enemies of those who want to work.

This A, a tomboyish, outspoken, ' I don't give you a damn.' type creature is the manager of the school and regards all the parents as her bitter enemies, all children as ' Why the hell God created them?", all crying and active children as ADHD / autism patients, and M and Mm both her good friends and both old in school, as the soul aim of her being a manager. I have seen insane instances of how A went out of her way to protect them even when they were at fault. Worse still, I have seen how she hates parents and does everything in her power to keep them away.
What do you call good management or even plain management? Not allowing parents to talk to teachers, keeping all channels for communication between them shut as if she fears virus attack, shielding teachers like their Godfather for silly, stupid faults, resisting new innovative measures like baterial infection, and turning cold shoulder to improvements?

A storm is brewing...!

The tiny disturbance which I had dismissed from my mind as an insignificant storm in a tea cup is appearing to be  deeper, bigger and nastier...

A is the manager of the school. She had promised me to hold a meeting on Monday to discuss all issues regarding the Christmas play but there appeared no sign of a meeting the entire Monday. Worried to death about  my precious play, I myself went up to her showed her the list of issues. To my surprise, she appeared so brutally unhelping  and unconcerned that I suddenly feel I have made a mistake in wanting to do something.
I told her that my Mary is going on a vacation the very day which has been decided for the play, can we not prepone the play? She said, 'No problem, you must do the play without her." And she knows there is not another girl not even a boy, in the entire school to replace her.
Then, there is the problem of me not getting time for practice. My children go to sleep at 12 noon and  I have to stay with them till quarter to 2 to wake them up after which I am free, but by that time most of the play children already go home. I desperately need to be free in order to take the practice. But to this too, she replied in the same way, " You have to find out yourself which teacher is free and then ask her to take over your charge.''
" But I don't know who is free. You only allot duties and free times to teachers. And besides, who will want to obey me? If you tell a particular teacher that she has to do this or that she would listen but nobody would listen to me.' I argued.
' No, I can't do this. I don't know who is free and who is not. You have to find this out yourself and ask them.'

How ridiculous..! We have our team meetings every fortnight when our duties and free times are discussed and thoroughly noted down. And she, the manager, is saying she doesn't know? And why the hell is she a manager if she can't even tell a teacher to do this simple job. And wait, she does tell teachers to do other jobs, then why not this?

My controversy with M...!

Yesterday a storm blew up from nowhere..and unfortunately I was cause of it..!

Well, I had already talked to my manager  quite some 3-4 times and she had clearly agreed that the Christmas Play I am producing will be shown to all the parents. In keeping with this, when 2-3 parents asked me the previous evening if they will be allowed to watch the play, I, but naturally, had said yes. It so happened, one of them ( Mk and Lk's father) happened to ask the same question to Mz who is the teacher of those children who are acting in my play and she said, no, the play is not for parents; instead a video will be recorded and given to them in a cd or something. The parent shot back that no, she is not right and that the play is very much for parents to see.

As soon as I entered the hall, she took me to the kitchen and asked me point blank if I had told the parents the play was open for them.
"Yes, of course."
''But so far as I know the play is to be shot on a video and the cd will be given to them. I told this to parent and he was angry. He said, I do not know and that you have said that it is for parents to see. I felt so angry and embarrassed that I am the teacher of that class and I do not know about this although even the parents know. I felt as if I had been punched in my face.'
I apologized to her repeatedly and told her straight from my heart that I was really sorry for causing her embarrassment but I said that only because I had already been confirmed from the manager that the play indeed is for parents.
I went to talk to manager As and she yet again confirmed it but I was still smarting from the blow Mz gave me.


I hate causing controversies or doing anything that causes one. I hate people who do this and now I am terribly upset with myself for having done something similar. But the truth is I am not entirely at fault. The problem is people want to get paid for jobs they don't like to do and crib about duties and responsibilities as if they are tortures and punishments.
This Mz is precisely one such a person. In the school, it is a common fact amongst teachers as well as even the parents that she was responsible for undue firing of two teachers in the past. She doesn't do anything with the children and regards parents as her sworn enemies.
There is no big trouble if she didn't know whether the play is for parents or not. Everyone knows that though indeed she is the group teacher, this play is entirely my venture and not hers. She could easily have said that she will confirm from the manager and let him know; no one would have blamed her for ignorance.
And tell me, what's the wisdom in saying the play will be recorded and cd will be given to parents? I never heard a more terrible blunderous answer. How the hell could she even imagine that the play is not for them. Whatever we do in school, it is for children and parents. And now when all the parents are so excited to see their children on stage, she has the brains to think of this exceptionally stupid answer....!

I need an angel...!

My Christmas play seems to be fraught with obstacles and obstacles. Now its the angel who is giving me sleepless nights.

There were absolutely no fitting child in the preschool to play the angel's role so after a rigorous hunt I managed to make do with a little 4 year old girl from the smaller group and after one and a half weeks' hard work just when I was succeeding in getting the dialogs correctly out of her she scampered off on a long 2 week vacation without even telling me.
I took another little girl but she is completely hopeless. She says her lines in an inaudible whisper and makes the action of flying as if she were actually beating someone mercilessly.
My eyes fell on a cute little British boy whose little sister is in my group but do what I will, he clearly refuses to be in the play. He simply says, ' I don't want to be in the play." His mother tried her best to coax him into this and he finally agreed.
"Oh, I am so glad, you have agreed to act in the play." I said giving him a chocolate.
I have not agreed yet; I have only agreed to give it a try." He said fully seriously.
Then I took him with me to say the dialog ' Don't be afraid Mary, I am an angel.", but he didn't say at all. He kept asking me,' Who is Mary?. But she is not Mary, she Elizabeth. Why should I call her Mary when she is Elizabeth?"
The next day when I again took him for practice he refused to say his line saying, " I do not want to say my lines in such a crammed room. You tell me that the play will be done on a stage. Where is the stage? I want to speak my dialogs on a stage in a big room."
Yesterday, he was again up to his evasive tantrums. I was throughly cracked up but because I really had no other option but to have him, I had to bear him. Even after a lot of persuasion he didn't speak up. I said,
"Come on, speak your dialog; don't you want your mama to be happy with you?" He replied calmly.
" But if I didn't speak my dialog, my mama would still be happy with me."

Much as this intelligent reply has made me laugh, I am throughly desperate and running out of my patience. I have to have a new angel and there is simply no one to do this role.....

The Actors in my Christmas Play.....

My King Herod appears to be in love with my Mary....!
The Mary in my play is a 5 year old beautiful little girl with long golden curls. She makes a perfect pair with Joseph who is also 5 years old, tall, beautiful German boy, with long golden hair. Well. the problem started when my King Herod, left the play to attend a family marriage and I, in acute dearth of English speaking children for the play, had  to promote my newly appointed innkeeper to the role of the king.
I was astounded to see he could act exceptionally well and even knew all the dialogs by heart even though he had been only 2 days old with the play team. But he came up to me and solemnly told me that he wanted to become Joseph and not the king.
"But why?'
"Because Joseph has more dialogs to speak than I.'
' That's not true; you are king and you too have plenty of lines to speak."
" But I want to be Joseph because he is getting more time to spend with Mary whereas I am getting none at all.''
 The truth was I would have loved making him Joseph as he clearly appears to have a lot of acting potential, but he is much shorter than Mary and so I couldn't and told him so.
'Look. Your papa is tall, your mama is short. Everyone's papas are tall and mamas short. You are shorter than Mary so I cannot make you Joseph.'
He understood  this then and resigned himself to be the king but I have noticed that he eyes Joseph and Mary with plenty of wist. He knows their dialogs by heart and one day when Joseph was absent he himself suggested to play his role just for practice and then had a merry time holding her by the shoulders and saying all the dialogs accurately.

I happened to talk to his mother and was pretty surprised to hear her tell me that his horoscope which was prepared soon after he was born, says he will become a great actor one day.....!

Christmas Play

These days I have started practicing for Christmas Play.
I had done this play in CMS too, but CMS with all its wealth of resources and facilities cannot be compared with this kindergarten. There I had a fabulous stage with electric curtains, not one, two but three, special lights, several varieties of mikes and as many as needed, construction department to create any stage prop needed and music teachers to play just after your heart. Here there is no stage, no mike and very few resources. I hate the idea of children performing standing on tables which is not only uncomfortable but also produces thus thud sound  every time someone walks on it.
Besides, there's such a difference in children's caliber too... I am bound to admit that my little 4-5 years old non native English speaker nursery children of CMS were smarter, quicker, and more capable than 5-6 years native English speaker pre schoolers here. Most of them are unable to grasp the dialog though they are in a simpler words than what they use in their conversations. Others simply don't bother; they just don't want to participate.
Whatever, I plan to make a stage by putting tables together with a carpet thrown on top, maybe I'll buy pocket mikes out of my own money if the school doesn't pay, I shall create huts out of mattresses and for music I plan to use my synthesizer. Difficult part is dressing up of the children. There, I could use the Indian dupattas from my own wardrobe or from parents to create any imaginable character whether thief or king, ghost or bride, grand mother or grandfather. Here we don't have that, only mufflers and scarves which are very thin and short. Nor can I make instant beards and mustaches from my black marker because here they all have blond or brown hair and I do not have blond marker....

Saint Martin's Day in School...!

I had faintly heard about 'St. Martin's Day' but knew nothing about it. Now I do.
About  a fortnight before 11th November all the groups prepared paper lanterns with the children and we daily practiced singing St. Martins' songs.
On 11th November all the children and their parents collected in the play ground and we walked round the school building 2 times walking with the lanterns and singing those lovely St. Martin songs. The day ended with having refreshments inside.
For me it was a new experience. I am learning about German culture in a singular way and I find it thrilling...
And for the life of me, I cannot get those beautiful melodious songs off my tongue....Sankt Martin, Sankt Martin....
Laterne, Laterne..., Ich geh mit meine laterne...
German songs are really really beautiful and have a delicate melody which I find truly irresistable....!

Internet connectivity in the school...!!!

The day we had meeting it was decided that now the school will have an active E mail connectivity with all the parents and teachers so that there is no lack of communication.

Accordingly, Mtn who is a Committee member took the responsibility for creating the user interface for the school. We spent next few days in carefully collecting email accounts from every child's parents and then Mtn created email accounts for all the five groups in the school. For several days in the evenings he would come to school to do this very important work and now finally it is ready to be used. He even went so far as to tutor us how to use it correctly.

Like any other internet tool, it is extremely useful for us. We use it for informing our parents about our weekly lesson plans as well as for giving any other important notice to them.

Now, what I wonder is, why the school was not having this facility before. Why did a parent have to do this what the school should have done long ago?

What Kids...!

There is a set of one and half year old twins in my colleagues' class which is truly amazing to watch. Why? because they love eating the way boys love girls..!

Quite quiet and well behaved enough in every respect, when they see the plate of food brought before them on the table their eyes take on a visibly different look; they sort of get aglaze with contented happiness. Their senses of hearing, touching and even seeing become temporarily unconscious. They only see food and derive ecstasy in eating, eating and eating.

So fond are they of this that they keep digging their plates eagerly with their spoons to extract out the most inaccessible scrap of food stuck in some obscure corner after they have finished all the tit bits. Then they lick the spoons and their fingers to get whatever was left. Then they turn their attention towards their neighbors' plate and without warning start eating from it right away, spoon or no spoon. If there is no plate within their sight they start hunting for any left overs and fallen bits on the table, on the dirty floor below or even on the bib or shirt of any other child....!

Today, they were served breakfast cereal with milk in a bowl. They finished theirs in a jiffy , then had the common sense to  pick up the bowl and drink straight from it the remaining last drops of the milk. Their two other partners who were also sitting at the same table and had not yet finished accidentaly dropped their bowls. The very next second, the twins together attacked the fallen food and started eating the bits on the floor. One of them picked up the bowl and started licking it. We rushed to remove the bowls and the mess but they were really unstoppable; they began trying to pick up the milk on the table with their spoons.

A great mercy that they didn't lick the table or worse still,  the floor....!

How can anyone love eating to this extent, beats me especially when kids are notorious for the contrary. Now look at my kid, for instance. He takes out more than he takes in and vomits more than he eats. Any new food, sweet food, tasty food, healthy food, bad food and his reaction is always the same, he pukes. When he was as young as seven months old, he would puke even he looked at his bib, spoon or bowl because he knew they spelt food.

He is, I believe, born with a special ability to live without food and to never feel hungry.

Cl. My team mate.

Cl is a perfectly hard working teacher and takes sincere pains to do well. She is a very good person too and personally I not only like her a lot but also feel extremely lucky to have her in my group because of her nice, gentle, extremely feminine type nature. But, when it comes to teaching, she has her limits which I attribute to her lack of experience, formal training and a bit of necessary common sense in this field.

She comes up with lessons which are either too long or too difficult for the kids to master and most of the times she cannot make out what would be fit or unfit according to the age of the children in our group like when we were having the topic 'Autumn', I conducted a project in which the children made autumn trees with paper craft, stuck autumn leaves etc etc. and I demonstrated by almost everyday shaking a real autumn tree outside which shed its yellow leaves down so the children learnt immediately or at least it was very effective for quick memory retention whereas when Cl's turn came to teach on 'Autumn' she decided to teach 'Autumn animals'....this made me think twice; do we really have Autumn animals?

And then, for a whole week she came up with one new animal everyday, talking about it for only 2-3 minutes, doing cutting sticking about it and then forgetting the animal entirely for the whole lifetime..! The animals she chose were also not very easy like hedgehog and squirrel and both these two have such a difficult word in German that I cannot read, pronounce or write them. The other things she chose were telling the children about chestnut ( a difficult name again in German), stone, twig, pine cone etc...

This week we had 'Halloween' as the topic and again it was her turn to prepare the lesson.( We prepare the lessons alternately week wise.) And guess what she taught the children? Dracula, vampire, witch, ghost and Halloween spiders...!!! You should see her talking to the little children about what is a Dracula and witch, singing a long Dracula song and expecting the children to sing after her when even I am unable to grasp the words of the song, making sounds of a witch' eeeeeeooooooooooo, eeeeeeeeeeeooooooooooo' which is more likely to make them think we are imitating cries of a wild forest bird and telling them that ghosts are scary spirits that come at night and scare people away.

It is exasperating to see her teach these things to 2-3 years old...who speak and understand only a limited vocabulary and still cannot say they want to go toilet or they are hungry, thirsty, tired or sleepy....