Today I spent the day at Rekabet Kurumu Cumhuriyet Fen Lisesi, a science high school in Diyarbakır. I was a guest of Nazile Çelik, one of the school’s English teachers. Nazile is a friend of Mesut and Hülya, my hosts in Diyarbakır.
This particular school is pretty hard to get into. The students have to pass a special exam to enter. They work very hard, going to school during the week and then taking 4 hours of additional classes at dershaneleri (supplementary study schools) on Saturdays AND Sundays. In other words, they study a lot. Chess, table tennis, and volleyball seem to be the most popular extra-curricular activities. Almost half of the students want to be doctors.
Visiting schools is emotionally exhausting for me, but it is, hands down, my favorite activity on the trip. If I had the invitations, and the endurance, I would spend every single spare moment of this trip visiting schools. I don’t care if they are primary schools, middle schools, high schools, or universities. I LOVE visiting schools. Love it, love it, love it.
The students get so excited, and I get so confused and so overwhelmed, and in the hallways a million people talk to me at once and I don’t know who to focus on, but once I get in front of the class and start talking with the students I forget that anything else in the world exists. It’s just me and the students in front of me.
