and the beat goes on...

Let me just say that I have not written in a few weeks and quite a bit has happened...so if you don't have the time, don't start reading.

I think the last time I posted I was just about to start teaching. Now, I have completed teaching. Oops. That just goes to show how crazy it was. At first, I thought the idea of teaching in an English school would be the best experience of my life. Well, I thought wrong. The teaching part was not the best experience; however, it was an experience that I am glad to have had. I will start by saying that their system of Education here is quite different than ours back home.

1. The teachers teach everything. I mean EVERYTHING. PE, Art, Music, Religious Education, Personal and Social Education, Swimming, well, you get the idea. The classroom teacher teaches everything. One day I even attempted teaching French. It would have probably helped if I knew any French.

2. The students change for PE in the classroom--in front of everyone. The classroom teacher told the students to get their PE kits and get ready for PE. The next thing I knew, all the kids were in their undies and I had no clue what to do. Should I leave the room? Is this allowed? Back home, we would be arrested for this!

3. Tea time. Everyday at about 10:30 the teachers take a tea break. They send the kids out and the teachers have their tea. This was a nice addition to the day.

4. Shorter days. The students don't start until 9 am and are dismissed at 3. It was nice having a shorter day, especially with some of the students in my class.

There are many more things that are different, but I can't say they are true for all English schools. I think the school I was at was on a whole other planet. As I would talk to some of the other students in the program about their schools, I would come to realize just how different my school was. The school I was at was apparently in a neighborhood where there are a lot of "travelers" to use a more not-politically-correct-term "gypsies". At least this is what the teachers would say. My teacher told me that when she took the job at this school they told here "If you can teach here, you can teach anywhere." After my experience there, I believe it.

Since the school was rather small, the upper-elementary classes were combined. I had year 3 and year 4 students. That's the same as 3rd and 4th grade. Also, there is no special education--All of the students are combined. So imagine having a 3rd grade student that should be in self-contained and a 4th grade student that could easily be in the 6th grade in the SAME classroom. It was quite a challenge. But-It was a challenge I am sure I will later be thankful for. The one upside to the challenge is that there were two teacher assistants in the classroom to assist.

A conversation with one of the 3rd graders.

Scenario: The teacher has assigned the students a writing prompt: A new student comes into the class. Tell the student the process of completing a homework project. After some confusion the teacher even wrote on the board--Step 1: Materials, Step 2: Research Topic, Step 3: Write about the topic. Step 4: Present the topic.

Me: "Cindy, you need to tell the student how to complete a project."

Cindy: Blankly stares at me.

Me: "You need to write the first step. The answer is even on the board for you."

Cindy: "Glue?"

Me: Blank stare at Cindy.

The other student I was working with had almost a page written by this point. What do you do!?!

Speed-o Man!

Every Friday, my class goes for swimming lessons all afternoon. Sounds fun right? Unless, you know who teaches their swimming lessons. I had come to know one of the teaching assistant at the school as a not so clean person. He was, honestly, quite stinky and lets just say not the smallest person in the school. So what do you think stinky man wears to teach the kids how to swim? Yep. A speed-o. Just a speed-o. Let that image sink in to your brain. You're welcome.

Canes are used for more than to assist walking...

I was having trouble getting one of the students to comply at all. He was the most defiant child I have ever met. I told him that his mom would probably not be proud of his behavior and that I would have to talk to her after school. "You don't even know who my mum is." Luckily I am glad that I didn't. I told my cooperating teacher about the situation and she told me that it was probably best that I did not talk to his mom. "The last time the head-teacher (the principle) talked to his mum, she hit her with her cane." Apparently, I had averted the wrath of the walking cane. Phew!

Along with school, there were still new experience elsewhere.

If I see Francis naked one more time, I am going to scream. Good grief, put some clothes on woman! The other day I was just walking from our room to the kitchen. When I opened the door, there she was-in her birthday suit. She said "Oh, my" and threw her hands up in the air. I would have preferred her to keep her hands down. Actually, I would have just preferred not to see her naked.

I have been in desperate need of a haircut but I just did not want to spend money on one. Cheap, I know. So I decided to let Jessica cut it for me. I thought she did a fine job. Looked just like any other haircut I've gotten. I saw Francis the next morning and she immediately made the nastiest face I have ever seen and told me my haircut did NOT look good! How the heck do you respond to that? All I could muster was a meager "ok?" I just could not believe she told me that. Anyway, I guess I will get over...in time...maybe.

The adventure continues. If I wrote about all the interesting event and things that have happened I would go on forever...and who wants to read that long. So, I will finish by saying that my journey will be coming to an end soon. The three of us, Jessica, Haley, and Me, will start our "Fun" travelling Tuesday. We will begin in Rome, then head to Barcelona, and finish in Dublin.

Wish us luck.

Pictures of my school in England are here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=10150150392562204&id=580032203&aid=291811

"Chicken _______"

We officially started our placement at our new school on Monday. All of us researched how to get there realizing it was going to take at least 1 1/2 hrs. Most of us are living in Eastbourne; however, Haley, Jess, and my school is in a town called Hailsham which is about a 20 minute drive--if you're not taking public transportation. The only decent thing about the situation is that they don't start school until 9am BUT the Head-Teacher wanted us to be at the school at 8. A detailed description of our Monday travel is listed below...

6:45 am-->Walk 10 minutes to bus stop near our house-->Wait for the number 3 bus to take us to Eastbourne City Center--Ride the number 3 for about 10 mintues to city center-->Walk 5 minutes to another bus stop in city center that will take us to Hailsham-->Bus 54 is supposed to arrive at 7:15 but doesn't until 7:29--> 54 Begins journey to Hailsham and alarm goes off. Bus driver tells us there is a problem. We look at each other.-->We stop and wait on another bus to pick us up. The driver tells us that the bus coming is actually worse than the one we are on. She said the drivers refer to it as the "chicken shit" bus. We think "great we're getting on the chicken shit bus...this is a great start to our Monday."-->Switch buses--> Continue journey to Hailsham-->Arrive in Hailsham then walk 20 minutes from the bus stop to our school-->Arrival time is 8:50 (only a tad bit late, right?)

The day at school went fairly well, until the teacher gave me her lesson for the end of the day and left the classroom. It was a lesson plan for PSHE. I didn't even know what PSHE stood for!! So...I improvised. A lot. Oh, and this was after the French teacher did not show and she tried to get me to review counting to 10 with the students-in French, of course. I don't know French. That was interesting.

My Super Small Classroom

Luckily the Deputy Head-Teacher took us home. We left the school around 4:45 and arrived home right a 5. Public transportation not my best friend at the moment.

Two days down, 22 to go.

Pedro from Portugal

I am happy to inform you that I did make it back from my school on Wednesday. I'm glad to see that you all were so worried.

Wednesday we visited our schools for the first time. The University of Brighton dropped us off at the school and told us just to introduce ourselves and look around the school and that we needed to find our own way home. When we arrived we met the Head-Teacher or in America the Principal. She told us that our school was very recently a failing school and the children were basically running the school. One teacher told us that kids used to run out of the classroom and climb over the fence and go home. I thought this was ridiculous! We walked into our classroom and were instantly greeted by a 4th grader whose name was Pedro. "Hi, I'm Pedro and i'm from Portugal," he stated excitedly. "Hi, I'm Mr. Owings and i'm from America," I responded. He didn't really seem all that excited about us being American. He asked us how we got there and how long it took. After telling him we flew about nine hours he instantly responded that he took a boat and it took much longer. We continued our tour of the school. It is so small compared to our schools.

On Thursday we took a day trip into London with all of the American students that are studying at the University of Brighton. We saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, Walked to Trafalgar Square, Past 10 Downing St where the Prime Minister resides, then on to Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Fortnum and Masons where they sell tea for like 5 gazillion dollars. And no, I'm not exaggerating...okay..maybe just a little. Then, we split up. Jessica, Haley and I took the tube to see the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, and then rode on the London Eye. It was such a great experience; even though, I had just done it exactly a year ago. I still remembered my way around.

The trip continues...

Living with a host family is taking some getting used to. Our house parents are to my estimation at least 70 years old. They are precious, though. They are trying so hard to make us feel at home. Francis, our house mom, apparently had a cardiac arrest years ago disabling her. She struggles to move around and we can barely understand a word she says. When I can comprehend what she says I get to see her humorous personality. Yesterday Ernie (our house father) asked me how I liked my coffee. Francis chimed in, "I like my coffee like I like my men--Strong and hot." We couldn't contain ourselves.

The food situation is what has been the most difficult. For lunch our first day we had rolls, a salad (not what you are thinking of as a salad. It was only lettuce. Yep. Just lettuce.), and deli meat. We had the same thing for supper that night, and lunch the next day. Yum. Just as we were getting discouraged Ernie offered us a vegetable casserole. Yes! We were excited for something different. Fail. Ernie served the casserole to us for dinner. I opened the lid and the three of us almost exploded with laughter. We tried so hard to hold it in. I bet you're wondering what was so funny... well, the vegetable casserole had, of course, vegetables; however, there was something else. It was basically a bowl of corn flakes. Milk and cornflakes. Yes, I said milk and cornflakes. Don't forget--the meal was vegetable casserole. Definitely not my definition of a vegetable casserole. So, Jess and I decided to snack on the only thing we had--shredded wheat.

I saw Francis naked.

As the three of us were sitting at the table having our delicious vegetable casserole, Ernie comes and closes the door to the dining room and tell us that he is going to help Francis to the bathroom. Theres only one problem. The door was glass. Not frosted glass. Clear glass. So as we chuckle about that I just decided to turn my head away because I certainly did not want to see that. I think I am in the clear so I look up. What do I see? A nude, at least 70-year-old woman, heading to the loo. I am scarred for life.

On Monday we had to venture out of Eastbourne to go the University of Brighton campus in Falmer. Travel is much more efficient here. We have done so much more walking too. We walked the 1.2 miles from our house to the train station. At this point we hadn't figured out the bus system. We arrive at the train and decipher how the get on the right train. We take the 30 minute train ride to Falmer. The view was awesome. It's so great living within a walk from the beach and having beautiful mountains surround you. We arrived at the campus and met up with the 11 girls from Illinois State University that are completing the same program as us. Yep, it's myself and 13 girls!

University of Brighton Education Building

I guess I could share some of my newly learned English jargon...

spend a penny-use the toilet

loo-restroom

heater-clothing dryer

biscuit-cookie

flat-apartment

uni-university

trousers-pants

pants-underwear

rubber-eraser...the university supervisor told us, "don't be frightened if a child asks you for a rubber, they're only asking for an eraser."

rubbish-trash

Tomorrow they are dropping us of at our schools. I will be at a primary or, as we call it, elementary school. Haley and I were placed at the same school. They are dropping us off and leaving us to find our way home. They told us that this was the best way for us to learn our way from the school. If I don't write anymore, then I haven't made it back from the school.

The Trip Abroad Begins

After about 15 hours of travel, I finally arrived in London. Once we got there we went through dreaded customs and were all harassed about coming to this country. It was finally my turn to go up to the counter. "NEXT," the angry lady yelled my way. I eased up to the counter as if I was about to be told to go back home. She immediately asked for my entry card as I tried to utter a nice hello. "What are you doing here," she asked. I said that I was doing my student teaching here. " Who is paying you?" she barked. "No one," I said. At this moment I was thinking--great, here we go... After finally explaining that I would receive NO compensation and that I was actually PAYING to teach she finally let me into the country. Success.

We were all excited to see that our luggage had also made it through. As we exited the airport we searched frantically for the driver we had arranged to pick us up and take us directly to Eastbourne. There were many people holding signs with names on them. Our names were no where to be seen. So we just stood there as we gathered our thoughts of what to do. We knew the drivers name was Adam and thats about it. So we stood there looking for Adam. We noticed a man standing waiting and discussed among ourselves for a few minutes if we should ask him if he was Adam. So we did. He was Adam. Success again. He told us that people have told him that he should hold signs with the names of who is picking up, but I guess he decided that it didn't look cool or something. Anywho, we take our luggage to the car and have a nice 2-hour ride to Eastbourne with Adam. I was very surprised that there were no awkward moments. The three of us talked basically the whole ride.

Then we arrived in Eastbourne to meet our family. The only thing we knew was the address and their names. We were extremely anxious to meet Mr. and Mrs. Ernie Earl. I think we all had some type of picture in our mind of what they would look and act like. Well, all that went out the window when they greeted us at the door. Mr. Earl guided us to the "sitting room" or living room as I know it. He immediately brought us hot tea (welcome to England!) They proceeded to give us a tour of their flat. A flat, for those who may not know, is basically an apartment. If you look at the picture above we are staying on the second floor of the home. To sound British, It's quite lovely. I have my own room which is only large enough for a twin bed and a night stand. The girls, Jessica and Haley, are sharing a room right beside me.

I will keep you posted. Mr. Earl wants to take us for a stroll to show us around Eastbourne. I will have to tell you about our Lunch!!

Can You See Me - Casey Darnell at Bigstuf