The First Staff Meeting

There are certainly many peculiarities which catch me off guard as I continue my placement at St. Theresia Secondary. Typically, Mondays mornings are reserved for Subject Testing Days. Test subjects rotate week to week and cover all the material from a particular class regardless of when it was done in class. Students are expected to be preparing independently for each of these examinations, so they are ready for any concept or topic.
I discovered Sunday evening that there would be no testing Monday, so there could be regular classes held. I further discovered Monday morning without warning that I could go to my Form I class and have the first period which occurs from 8:00 a.m. to 9:20 a.m.. I didn't even know I would have a class. You might imagine that I was quite worried; however, we teachers must think on our feet, so disaster was averted. As 9:20 rolled by I noticed that another teacher had not arrived to take over the class. I briefly checked the staffroom where the only other teacher was my associate Denise. Apparently, the other staff members were in a meeting with the headmaster, and they were preparing for this Saturday's Form 4 (Grade 12) graduation. We only saw one staff member briefly for the rest of the morning. We were not even informed of the meeting let alone invited. Odd. The students were on their own to study, finish homework, and behave themselves without any supervision whatsoever. How about that?
In the end it turned into a very pleasant morning as I taught my Form I class, then I got invited by the Form 4 students to their class where we shared cultural learnings for an hour. The highlight occurred when the class sang, en masse, boys and girls, their graduation song saying goodbye to the staff and school which they would be presenting on Saturday. It was composed and arranged by the students. It was a beautiful song which really moved me. Thankfully, one of the students will be able to record it, so that I may have a momento of my time with the graduates. Lessons in education.