Saturday School?

If you don't have the privilege of teaching in Hungary like me then you may never get to experience Saturday school.

You may be thinking: Saturday school...seriously? You bet! Here in Hungary the concept of a day off is sometimes a foggy concept. You see when we got the long weekend for the March 15th holiday we also took off that Monday, the 14th. Since Monday wasn't a holiday we get to make up that day on a Saturday.

I teach at a nursery on Monday's, which are on the same schedule as primary and secondary public schools. I still had my doubts though. I thought of two possible scenarios while getting ready for school on Saturday.

Scenario one:
Would parents really get up on a Saturday morning just to drop off their kids for a day at nursery school? Wouldn't the parents rather sleep in if they don't have to work that day? And also wouldn't the kids complain enough to the point where the parents say, fine you don't have to go to school today.

Or Scenario two:
The parents would be so excited to have a day off with the kids away at school they wouldn't care about getting up early to drop them off. Besides aren't all parents up early on Saturday's anyway? Taking your kid to school could also be done with some easy deception. All the parents have to say is hey you kids want to get some ice cream? And before you can say chocolate or vanilla their happy little selves are dropped off at school not knowing what happened.

So I walked my 30 minutes to school. Thoughts of sleeping still swirling in my head.

I get to the gate, darn it's open!

I get to the building and it's open too. So far Saturday school is looking like a real possibility. I get to the classroom and start setting up. I notice there are fewer kids than usual. When the kids spot me the usual cries of excitement ring out. "Angol nagynéni!"

I wave hello to the nursery teacher, but she looks surprised to see me. She then tells me that I didn't need to come in today since there are only about 20 kids in the whole building. So I pack up Mickey, put my coat back on and head for home. I put on my ipod and the first song to come up is "Schools out for the summer." Well, it may not be out for the summer, but at least it is out for this round of Saturday school.