Merry Old England

Turns out I’m pretty much the worst blogger ever. I did so great when I first moved here, but now I forget to share all the great stuff that happens because it’s just become my life.  Suffice it to say, I still live in England two and a half years later (yikes!) and I still love it here.  I especially love it in the spring. I don’t think there is anything as lovely as an English springtime.  I don’t feel the cold quite as much anymore, and I’m totally competent when it comes to knowing what to buy in the supermarket.  I can distinguish between different types of English cheese, as well as different types of English accents.  It weirds me out to see cars on the TV driving on the right side of the road and the rain hardly phases me.  I even walked all the way to the supermarket in the spitting rain yesterday without an umbrella.  I even say banahna like a proper Brit.  The ‘u’ has entered the spelling of many words and the ‘z’ has morphed to an ‘s’ in many others.

It’s strange, the process of acculturation.  There are things that I thought were so odd about England and the English people when I first got here that don’t even faze me anymore.  The fact that all the eggs in the shops are brown, that the postman doesn’t pick up your mail, and that the shops all close by 6 don’t bother me anymore.  I’ve just gotten used to it all.  I’ve found so many things that I love here, that I worry about how long it will take me to get used being back in America, once I finally decide to come back.  I don’t know what I’m going to do when I have to live without golden syrup, my electric kettle, and the glorious array of trees and flowers.  It might be harder coming home than it was coming here in the first place.  I can’t actually think about it.  It just makes me too sad.  

Back in the Saddle Again

I have now successfully completed my first half-term at my new job. I’m working at a fancy-pants girls’ grammar school in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. Beaconsfield is one of the poshest areas in England, so the girls tend to be pretty posh as well. Perhaps needless to say, there has been a pretty steep learning curve. The school system here is quite different. When the kids are in their last year of primary school, they can take an exam to get into grammar school. If they pass, they’re funneled into the grammar schools, which are the best schools around. The general expectation is that grammar school students will go on to the best universities in the country and excel in everything they do. It’s a slightly different system than the good, old public schools of America that I’m used to. Added to the fact that the students are super clever, grammar schools are single-sex so there aren’t any boys around to distract them or make them feel bad if they’re smart. It’s fabulous. I think I like it even more because of the lack of all the spitting and other nightmares I had to endure as a full-time supply teacher.

Anyway, I was pretty intimidated to work there, since the girls have lofty ambitions that I could possibly destroy through my lack of knowledge of the English school system along with a general rustiness of the old teaching skills. Luckily, the person I replaced spent loads of time helping me prepare and giving me resources to use. Also, it turns out teaching is like riding a bike; once you learn, you never forget. Plus the girls are marvelous, they think I’m cool because I’m American, and they’re super keen to learn. It’s by far the easiest gig I’ve ever had as far as the classroom management is concerned. Basically it consists of an occasional well-placed look of disapproval or, as a last resort, a brief “Ladies, this is not the type of behaviour I would expect from you.” (It has to be spelled with a ‘u’ because it’s at an English school.) That is quite literally all I have to do to get things under control and that doesn’t even happen on a daily basis.

While I feel that I generally have the classroom management under control, the subject matter is another story entirely. The courses are run on a fortnightly schedule so I see each class a certain number of times over the course of the two weeks. For example, I see the year 9s twice per fortnight, while I see the year 10s and 11s five times over the same two-week period. I think it’s a lame system, but it allows the students to take a wider variety of subjects. What it also means is that I’m preparing a whole load of lessons that I may only teach once. Some days I have 5 different lessons to teach, with a different 5 lessons to teach the next day. Add to that the fact that I’m teaching subjects I’ve never taught before, like Irish history and Medieval English history, and you can see that my workload is massive. Luckily, they don’t expect me to grade nearly as much as I’m used to. That being said, I was supposed to mark a truckload of papers over Easter that I didn’t do. Oh well.

I’ve enjoyed learning new material and I feel like the girls appreciate my efforts and are engaged in the lessons. They also really like it when I say words like ‘awesome’ and ‘dude’ so I throw those in there every now and then. My fail-safe method of getting their attention and adoration is to speak in my English accent, which for some reason is exceptionally posh. It never fails to produce gales of laughter. They really are wonderful girls and I’m amazingly blessed to have a job there. The staff members have made me feel welcome and have incorporated me into their world with very little difficulty for anyone. I enjoy working there so much that I’m actually kind of excited to start back tomorrow after a two week Easter holiday. Now I just need to figure out a way to convince the teacher I replaced not to come back off maternity leave…