Fulbright Orientation - Washington DC

Something I have always known is that teachers are often the worst audience. We talk while others are talking, we fidget, we hide our phones to send text messages, we are late to "class", we come to class unprepared, and we all learn with multiple teaching styles... in short, we are much like our students. Add to all of this the challenge of addressing a multi-lingual, international group of 120 of teachers, and you better have some good tricks up your sleeve. When one is preparing to "teach" this group "of teachers one should plan on being extremely creative to address such a diverse group or it could be a long week. While it was an overall positive experience, there were times when I felt like I was sitting in pointless professional development meetings and I was impatient with anticipation to talk with Samantha about our own individual schools, curriculum and lives.

Throughout the whole of our communications with the Fulbright AED staff in the US everything has been very organized, the few snafus we have had have not been their fault, namely the crazy hoops the American contingent had to jump through to get our visas. My counterpart had a very organized "field trip" to the British embassy for all the UK participants where they quite nicely got their visas in an expedited process. Makes a lot of sense to me - so overall, for the participants next year I hope that the British Border Agency steps up and makes the process a bit easier. The AED staff is a crew of young, polished, professionals who have worked very hard with the Department of State to make our experience with our Fulbright journey a successful one, and overall the orientation week was a great experience, however a bit of adjustment could be made including more one on one time with our individual partners and more dynamic presentations and cultural tours or experience to provide one on one time with our partners and other teachers from all the other countries represented.

The hotel accomodations at the Renaissance M, on New Hampshire Avenue, were very upscale and clean with a very friendly staff - so friendly at times I wondered if indeed I was really in Washington, DC. Americans eat a lot - three full meals a day - so the food was always plentiful, although there were times when in the middle of a break I was looking for something salty and a can of coke - when all I could find was a glass of ice tea - which was also good. The Illy coffee cafe at the hotel was fabulous and I quickly discoverd my coffee drink of the week , "the caramello machiaotto" to go. I found myself sitting on the sidewalk cafe, savoring this very drink, when I first spied my exchange partner, Sam alight from her shuttle bus. I had no idea what this young lady would look like, as she is extremely photophobic and never posts any pictures of herself, so all I had to go on was a description of "long, curly hair" - luckily she was the only person to fit that description so she was not hard to spot at all...and I just observed her from afar as she gathered her baggage, bantered with other travelers and made her way into the hotel. I decided I would not follow her into the lobby, but I would let her check in and I would wait for her to come down to the lobby in her own time.

I gradually made my way from the hotel coffee shoppe to the hotel bar, and as I was indulging in my favorite drink, a margarita, I spied her at the Fulbright check-in table, called out her name to which she promptly responded and from the first moment we met I could tell that I would like her very much. I am generally very guarded and my circle of very close friends, who serve as whole-hearted confidantes are few - but yet from the start I had a feeling that she would become one of them. Certainly the week I have spent with her has proven to me that I am definitely making a life long friend in Samantha - "Sam" as she prefers - and despite the fact that our exchanges will be spent apart, I know we have become fast friends. I think, that in this process, bonding with your exchange partner is a crucial part to the success of the exchange experience.

The week in Washington, DC, for many of our fellow participants was the one and only time these people had to actually meet in person, chat and spend time together before departing for each other's homes and schools - and sadly, there was a lack of opportunity in this short, fully scheduled week, for personal bonding as we spent most of the time in "professional development" lectures, which varied from very interesting and enriching, such as the very last session of the week on Friday with other Fulbright alumni where we were inspired to organize our own cultural projects and/or exchanges with our students, to sessions that were irrelevant to our personal experiences and exchanges.

In the end, the five hour walk through the city that Sam and I engaged in proved to be the most valuable part of our week. When finally given our first "official" session with each other we decided to escape from the hotel, despite the "debriefing" session we were asked to attend, and we took the Metro across the city to the Smithsonian Museums. We wandered through the Native American Indian Museum and the National Air and Space Museum and then meandered our way through the city, all the while chatting non -stop about everything from curriculum and discipline procedures at our schools, to taking care of our respective pets and commiserating over past relationships. In those five hours we soldified the foundation of our friendship and worked to develop trust with each other, both of which will ensure that this exchange is successful. We are also lucky in the fact that Sam has "moved" into my home under my guidance and we have this entire upcoming week to share more information about our school's and our lives before I depart for "Whales". NO, I did not make this typo... it was actually spelled this way in our email contact list.

My week in Washington was an overall positive experience in that I did get to meet many of my fellow UK Fulbrighters and I feel that some of them too will remain lifelong acquaintances and we will always have this experience in common. The first international teacher I met was Gillean from Aberdeen, Scotland and she was very pleasant and I had a wonderful conversation with her on the first afternoon, albeit I had to listen very closely to her when she spoke as her accent was very new to my ear, however, I found myself sitting with her at many of our meals and when I return to the U.S. this winter, she will still be in Virginia and I am hoping that in the Spring she will visit me in Massachusetts. "At the end of the day", as Sam would say, that's what it's all about; to make lifelong contacts, friendships and learn as much about educational systems in other parts of the world.