Marching On

Coming back to work after a two-week holiday isn't any easier here than it is back home, but reality strikes again, and so I'm back at it. It was a busy week, though, and the days went by very quickly. The girls were sweet on our first Monday back, excited to see all their teachers and friends and show off their new hair dos (I would guess about three-quarters of the girls at our school came back with new hairstyles!). Their energy and enthusiasm helped pass the day quickly. Plus, we were starting all new curriculum this term, so that always makes for fun lessons. I enjoy getting a feel for the new units and seeing what kinds of twists I can put on them to make them work best for my particular classes.

In England, there are three terms (Autumn, Spring and Summer) and each term is divided into two (Autumn 1 & Autumn 2, Spring 1 & Spring 2 and Summer 1 & Summer 2). Luckily for us, we get at least a week off in between each half term (which is called a "Half-Term Holiday"). That's why I've been blessed with so much travel time. In the English department at my school, the curriculum is pretty much set and laid out for us lesson by lesson (aka class period by class period) with some wiggle room, and the curricular units change each half term. That means I've just begun a unit on biography/autobiography with my Year 7s (aka sixth graders), a unit on news writing (yay! my specialty!) with my Year 8s (aka seventh graders), and a unit on "Romeo and Juliet" with my Year 9s (aka eighth graders). One of the biggest benefits from this teaching experience is how much new curriculum I have added to my repertoire, as this is already the third unit of study for all of my Year 7 to Year 11 classes. I'm most excited about having taught "Oliver Twist" and "Macbeth" because these are works I've never taught at my home school but hope to someday teach again. So far this year, I've also taught units on gothic tales, the novel "Holes," WWI poetry, the novel "Stone Cold," travel writing, and the novel "Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry," plus a bunch of lessons in film making and media theory that I'm learning along the way. It's been a busy year so far! 

When I first started working at my London school, I was very overwhelmed by the sheer number of classes I was assigned to teach. Even though I ran both the newspaper and yearbook programs and taught at least three other courses at the same time at my home school, my work load at my new school felt so much more intense. However, it's funny how quickly we can adapt. And while I still find my days at my London school to be pretty hectic, I'm not nearly as overwhelmed as I once was. I've just sort of adapted and figured it out, I guess. I try to keep up with things the best I can and have learned to not worry about what's going to happen more than a day or two in advance. This is a big change for me, as I used to be such a major planner. But here on this exchange, I find that if I'm planned out three or four days then I'm really doing good. 

One of my work friends, Frances, bought me this mug as a silly Christmas gift.
Little does she know that it actually completely sums up my life here most of the time.   :)

Sometimes this means big events sort of sneak up on me. Like the Year 7 Parents Evening we had this week. One of the major differences between my home school and exchange school is the timing of events. Back home, our school is very careful with planning the school calendar, and we hardly ever plan big events in the weeks before or after a break. However at my new school, it seems any school day is fair game. We have meetings much more regularly (in fact, we have a staff meeting EVERY Monday morning 15 minutes before classes start, which I'm pretty such would cause a rebellion at my home school) and sometimes we even have two meetings or two events in one day. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when the Year 7 Parents Evening was scheduled on our first Wednesday back from holiday...but of course, I was. Ooops. I had nothing to worry about, though, because the event went off without a hitch.

Parents Evening is basically parent-teacher conferences. One of the main differences is the format. At my home school, we sit at a table and the parents queue up to speak to us. But at my London school, the parents come in and sit at a table, and then all the teachers walk around and find our parents to talk to. Luckily, the parents had name tags with their daughter's name on them, or else I would have been in trouble! I was really skeptical of how this would work, and so I was really surprised to see how easy it was. I even had a mom say how much she liked the format because it was less stressful for her since she was able to sit and wait instead of frantically search for teachers. Seems like this method serves our parents much better. It also worked well because of the fact that it was only Year 7 parents attending this evening, which leads to the other big difference between my home school and London school.

Back home, we have one night per semester of conferences. Here, they have one night per grade level. While that means teachers give up a lot more of their personal time in the evenings, it also means that we really do have a chance to talk to almost every parent of every child we teach, which is an incredible tool for teachers. 

Year 7 is a student's first year in secondary school, and so the Year 7 parents were out in full force Wednesday night. Even though I was tired, I really did enjoy meeting my students' parents. Many of them were excited to meet "the American teacher" and they really appreciated hearing all the great things their girls are doing at school. My school in London is very data/assessment score driven, so discussing each student's progress was a breeze with my spreadsheet in front of me. As a personal philosophy, I try to be as positive as I can at parent-teacher conferences. I've learned that parents really just want to hear nice things about their students, and while we need to be realistic about grades and accomplishments, it never hurts to emphasize with every parent all the great things their child is doing. Most of the girls were there with their parents, and I saw a lot of little faces light up at my compliments. I can tell the girls enjoyed the night, too, because the next day, a bunch of them rushed into my classroom to rehash the night with me:

"My mom liked your accent, Miss!" 

"Why, thank you!"

"My dad liked you best." 

"Isn't that nice!"

"You told my mom I was lovely." 

"Well, you are." 

"Miss, thanks for saying those nice things to my mom."

"Thank YOU for being so good in my class."

All seems to be well with school right now. Even though it's busy, I just keep on keepin' on, ticking off the days and weeks. To give me something to look forward to, I've planned some mini-holidays. In the upcoming months, I'll be heading up north to see a couple Fulbrighters friends to places like Scotland, York and Bentham. Before I know it, it will be Easter and my parents will be here for the big European tour! I can hardly wait for these grand travel adventures to begin as I find myself coming more and more alive with each trip I take. For now, though, I'll just keep marching on.