Speaking of races, boy have we got 'em. My class is like pretty evenly split between folks from the Middle East, Somalia, Ghana, Eastern Europe (the good side), and India. On the playground before school, many of the kids' parents hang out on the playground, and it is really cool to see
the diversity, hear the different languages, and pretend you understand what people are saying when they talk to you. I only speak English (and, of course, Smiles) so I kind of feel like a chump. You'd think the school would embrace this diversity like slimey politicians (that is, before politicians realized that we still don't like them colored folk), but in reality there is quite a paucity of anything reflecting the school's multiculturalism. No flags from all over the world, no "Happy Ramadan" poster (its always Ramadan somewhere, right?) even though they constantly make reference to Church of England Holidays, not even a friggin' Ghandi painting. It is all very interesting, especially coming from a place like Madison which proudly exclaims "Nuh uh! We've got black folks, too!" at every opportunity.My very first day, there was an assembly (They have assemblies every single day. Today's was a very unremarkable speech about Bullying...) and this assembly was dedicated to singing. They would play the song through these huge speakers, put the words up on the wall, and the kids would wail away. The first song was a cute one called "Something Inside So Strong"which was a pretty cool kind of Black Power song from the anti-apartheid movement (this is when I was tricked into thinking the school was gonna embrace that kind of stuff). Of course, they just sang the song and didn't give any sort of background on the song.
However, the next song needed no introduction: Nickelback's wretched "How You Remind Me."
Evidently the Wednesday singing assembly consists of the gym teacher playing songs from his iPod and having the kids sing along. Seriously. I'm not making this up. The next song was Green Day's "Time of your Life." And the assembly was concluded by "Karma Chamelion." But before you hate, you have to realize what it is like to get all tingly from a big ol' group of immigrants rocking out to Culture Club. Who needs their culture anyway? My highlight was when one of the teachers (who reminds me so much of Deb Klein) kept her class after so that they could all dance. It was then that I knew I loved them both.Other than that, the school is pretty similar in a lot of ways to any inner-city US school: Huge focus on cramming for the Big Test (I'm not even allowed to teach for the Year 6ers until their yearly test is done in a few weeks), lots of shaming the kids, and "low-level thinking" types of assignments. The usual. Nevertheless, I think there is some good stuff happening. The kids are pretty advanced, and almost everyone seems pretty destined to get into college. Well, at least an American college. However, the way the English system works, I guess kids get into a tracking system very early on. By mid-high school, you go to what they call "college" and is pretty specific to your occupation. The RA in my hall is like 21 and she has been taking education courses for like 6 years. I'm assuming that a big chunk of the kids in my school will be whisked away to Hamburger University in a few years.
[NOTE: Non education majors might find this a bit boring, so you should probably skip ahead to the paragraph which starts "And one more weird thing about the school..."] In fact, the school seems to already have the whole system arranged. In the classes I've been in, the students are all arranged in pods according to ability groupings. One teacher, as I was working with some kids, interrupted and said, "You can probably tell that we're in ability groupings. That table is the Highest group, then that table, then that table, then that table, and this table [points to my table and mouths "THE LOWEST!"]" Yet, there is very little cooperative learning going on, mostly lecture stuff, "Drill & Kill." The science textbooks are actually a bunch of little books (kind of CMP-esque), arranged in a sort of picture book narrative. In the chapter we read yesterday, it was like, "Susy and her friends decided to dissolve different sized salt grains in water. The table to the left shows their results." And then it had a table with Rock Salt (the biggest size grain) dissolving last, and Table Salt dissolving first. Good start, I suppose. BUT then instead of actually thinking scientifically and discussing WHY the larger grains might take longer to dissolve, the kids just had to create a bar graph of the results! Ugh! It was so frustrating! Talk about killing science.
My math class is not very representative because it is the "High Level" special math class. But in any case, they are doing like a different math topic each day, from grids to angles to the sum of a triangles inner angles. It seems like a big ol' hodgepodge of different concepts, and the lessons consist of the teacher doing something on the SmartBoard for 15 minutes and passing it off ("So watch this: If you measure the inner angles of a triangle, they all add up to 180 degrees. See? Now you go add up the angles of this worksheet"). I think I made a kid almost soil his pants when I asked him, "Why do you think they always add up to 180 degrees?"
And one more weird thing about the school: Before and after gym class, the kids all get their gym clothes and change in the classroom. Like totally down to their skivvies, if the child is wearing skivvies (and some are not, especially the girls). The first time it happened I was like, "what the hell?!" and then I realized that I was the only one who thought it was weird. Whoops.
Other than all that, it is going well. I love the kids and I am super excited to get actually teaching every day. I'm starting with math soon, and it will be fun to try stuff out that the kids are probably not used to. How is everything going for y'all? Please drop me a line when you have the chance.
- Lunn Dunningland
THING I FORGOT TO BRING TO ENGLAND: My girlfriend.
NUMBER OF TIMES ALMOST DEAD DUE TO "WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD" THING: 0 (4 Total) However, this statistic is 4x less funny since today we saw a pedestrian dying in an ambulance as we walked by...
FUNNY THING BRITS SAY WRONGLY: To make a photocopy, you "whiz one out."
4 comments:
I can't believe you forgot Laura. Just so you know she has spent the first few days revelling in her solitude, ordering the kind of pizza she likes and watching movies really loudly, but now she has to defend the whole house from two, fairly dim, burglars. So far she has been successful in foiling their plans but they are getting more determined. Also, she tried your aftershave and was unprepared for the stinging that would ensue.
*you've seen "Home Alone", right?
HEY! that's my SISTER!
ps. don't even think for one second that i didn't notice the format change.
pps. that's EXACTLY what i've been doing, blythe! you didn't have to tell everyone about the aftershave incident...
(as a side note, mr. witkins, placing your "first-borne daughter" lower than "first-borne son" on the hierarchy of first-borne beings, along with addressing your girlfriend as a "thing", is no way to express your feminist viewpoints.)
although, i'm hoping that means you miss me as much as your fingernail clipper, at least...
Blythe:
You crack me up. You'd be surprised/mortified to know that my classroom video set includes Oscar worthy HOME ALONE 4. No joke!
And LoJo, whoever that is:
The format change is to show that i am proud of the red, white, and blue of my country, the United Kingdom, if that indeed is a country.
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