Teacher's Day (Pedagógusnap)

In May, in the United States, we have a Teacher Appreciation Week. 

This is what I tell teachers asking if there is a Teacher Appreciation Day in America, like the one Hungarians have in June. A whole week! they say. Yes, a whole week, during which time in Seattle we get an e-mail message from the superintendent saying we work hard and are important people. At Roosevelt, the parents' group also makes us lunch, and this is always one of our most social 35 minutes during the school year as a staff. At the end of the year, students may also write letters and give chocolate, cookies, books, or, more typically, gift cards for coffee.

Meanwhile, teachers in Barcs have an entire day of singing, playing and eating by themselves, followed by an evening of speeches, awards and performances. In every other year, when city coffers weren't bleeding, Barcs hosts a dinner too. During the week, students also give their teachers flowers and wine or pálinka before exchanging kisses, sometimes singing songs as well. Women generally get flowers. Men get wine.

Our school met for Teacher's Day at Rigoc, the forestry campus. After we raised a glass of pálinka (which rang the bell of my early morning belly) and listened to our principal thank us and tell us about the day, many of us took an hour and a half walk in the marvelous forests -- mushrooms, lightning-bit trees, plants, mud-flowers and herons spotted and described for us with great pleasure by our guide, József, one of our forestry teachers.

I practiced shooting after that -- air rifles and pistols, archery -- hitting nothing with guns but sometimes smoking a hole through the target with an arrow, once through the very center. Later, Feri (pictured below on Dániel's left) took me and another man behind a gym to get distance on the target. They put arrow after arrow through the very, very distant paper. My two pull fingers, at the end of an increasing shudder, purpled under the effort. "You could kill a deer with this," Feri said. I could see that. "I could kill a person with this," I said. "Move over a little."

Rita and I were table tennis partners. We lost a few times. I blame myself.

After a terrific lunch of grilled vegetables, meat and Hungarians noodles prepared by administrators with help from the school's head cook, we turned up the mics for some karoake. My first song moved from Beatles to "Beat It," for which I maintained a disastrous falsetto. My last song I stood with the three men below for some Hungarian rock. By this point, many teachers were on their bikes racing storm clouds back to Barcs. I lost that race, caught in the fat of a downpour. But the rain -- hard, fast, heavy -- was a happy rain, pant legs sloppy in the wet, rain cascading down the sides of my cap: it was a good day.

The Teacher's Day official ceremony occurred in the main hall of the other high school, Széchényi Ferenc Gimnázium. The mayor of Barcs spoke first. He was in the picture of the sign below left, but I cropped him out. Our twelfth grade drama group performed Csak Egy Teszt again, an experience I described in an earlier examination of teen stereotypes. One teacher from every school received recognition. From Dráva Völgye, Sáni, a biology teacher was honored. The event lacked the earlier pizzazz of the day: more honor, less fun.

Back in school, I prepared for final classes with students.