The End of the Road

There is a karaoke bar in Tokyo called Fiesta's which I visited back in April. I remember the night well - lots of songs, a strange lady declaring I would be back in Japan someday soon.... How right she was! I would return in August in the same year, and when I left the second time I would be engaged! I also remember from this fateful night in April the most popular song was 'The End of the Road', by one of those boy bands whose name escapes me now. Well... it is the end of the road for the 2011 travelling experience from this traveler.

Tbilisi lit up with Christmas approaching

Thankyou kind reader for following me on my 2011 journeys. Perhaps I'll do a review in the next few weeks. Who knows. I say goodbye to my travelling and to Georgia. This country is special in its own way. The students are certainly full of life. The President is a huge celebrity and is rarely off the TV screen, the roads are variable, the transport unpredictable, there is poverty and wealth. I wasn't here for the tourism though, I was here for my amazing teaching experience.

I must make mention of the Georgian teachers at my school, doing a brilliant job for terribly low pay. Less than a hundred dollars a month is no wage to pay dedicated caring teachers, or indeed any teachers. It is an insult to one of the world's most vital professions. Charged with the duty of preparing children to enter adulthood ready and knowledgeable, competent and confident in themselves. I salute teachers all over the world. If only the work done by teachers was properly acknowledged universally.

Any suggestion that teachers are babysitters with a whole bunch of holidays is so ignorant to the truth it makes me rather mad... and this time I am talking about my own country.

Students at the concert at my village last week.

So I will sign off, the next time I post I will be, probably and all things being equal, in my own country of Australia. I would do myself a disservice though if I didn't point you all, once again, to the book I have digitally published. If you are interested in it and DON'T have a Kindle, Kindle for the PC is downloadable for free from Amazon. It represents a lot of work on my part, so please if it interests you do not hesitate - buy it now. It's the size of a novel and only just over five dollars.

The link to the book -
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MJ0RKM

Thankyou and goodnight, for now..............

Teaching and Learning

Today is December the 19th. I sit in my hotel room in Tbilisi typing out another blog entry. Life is strange. Tomorrow I fly out of Georgia, with a couple of hops across China, to find myself once again in my country of Australia. The teaching experience is over for the year, the travelling experience, begun on the 3rd of March, also comes to a close when I touch down in Melbourne, all things going well, Thursday morning.

The school in Jikhanjuri

 So what can be taken from this teaching experience? So much. I've learnt about myself. I've learnt about the amazing people of Georgia. Yes it may have been a teaching role I fulfilled but I did even more learning than teaching.
Last Thursday the school held a concert and a party just for me. It was very humbling. There was singing and a lot of Georgian dancing and then food and wine. Wine is number one here, ahead of Georgian take on Vodka called Tcha tcha which is rather harder to drink. I kept well clear of the later. Seems I have made a lot of good friends here in Georgia. Lots of students were upset I was leaving, lots of hugs and an inordinate amount of photos.

Me with one of my classes on the last day.

 Coming to school the next day with five lessons was rather surreal. Still managed to do some teaching, saying a lot of goodbyes. It's great to have made so many connections, to gain invaluable experience and to see what amazing people live in Georgia. The classes were mixed. Some were attentive, others less so. Students seemed to struggle the longer the day went - classes in the morning were always better behaved. Students are so keen to answer questions putting there hands up, standing up and shouting out the the teacher. Both a good and a bad thing. Seems even the students I had pegged as not the best were even sad to see me go. Some students would never do homework. So frustrating as a teacher. Some were always exceptional.

Georgian dancing at the concert

And so after the concert we ate and people said so many good things about me and wished me only good things for the future. Wow. I was blown away and most of the things said naturally I believed were untrue or gross exaggerations. I went to Batumi and took a night train back here to Tbilisi. Time to prepare for tomorrow's flight and reflect on the past three amazing months.

I will write more tomorrow.