Thanksgiving in the UK

Thanksgiving in the UK? Well, not officially. I spent the day at a professional development workshop in Hereford, which was not the most exciting way to spend the day, but at least I wasn't in a classroom! It was a pleasure, however, to engage in traditional Thanksgiving activities just the same, albeit later than usual.

Many weeks ago I was fortunate to meet an American, Jack Walsh, whose children attend Fairfield. Jack has lived in England for about 25 years. We met at a dinner party at the home of Claire and David Kerby, whose daughter is one of Micaela's friends. Jack and his friend Katherine were also invited and from there Thanksgiving plans took shape. Jack's daughter and son are also Micaela's friends and have spent much time together.

I have taken a keen interest in the Fairfield basketball team, attending what games I could in the past weeks. I am often the only other fan in attendance, other than Jack, his daughter and Micaela. Occasionally there are one or two other parents present. Sport at Fairfield is not well attended by spectators, certainly not what the average high school team at Northbridge would expect for fan attendance. Thursday afternoon there was a game at the nearby rival school of Kingstone High School, as the school is on my way from Hereford to Peterchurch, I attended the game. It wasn't the traditional Thanksgiving football game, but it was sport nonetheless.

Following the game we all headed to the Walsh home for a traditional feast! Roast Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, carrots, green bean casserole (but much better than the recipe used at home) and many other choices of vegetables. We had homemade pumpkin pie, apple pie and ice cream for dessert! The Kerby's and the Beaton's joined the Walsh family, along with myself and Micaela. We watched the Green Bay Packer NFL football game, Skyped with my family and the oldest Walsh son who is attending college in America. All around it was a fabulous feast. I spent the evening in Peterchurch and had a five minute drive to school the next day... the most wonderful thing to be thankful for!

PD...UK Style

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I have experienced three different professional development opportunities...all within the last two weeks. I have determined that professional development in the UK is as exciting, useful and interesting as it is back home.

First, for two hours during class time two weeks ago, I had to be trained in the health and safety laws pertaining to children and teachers in the UK. Basically this was a review of the mandatory reporting process when teachers learn about any abuse that puts a child in danger. Since I work with children, and it is a law that all people who work with children be trained, I needed to participate.

Second, about a week later, from about 5 p.m to 6 p.m. last Wednesday night, Fairfield teaching staff gathered with their departmental counterparts from a nearby school, Webley, to discuss the differing ways things are done in each school. This conversation was followed by a curry buffet - but since the curry man was running late, and I had quite a distance to travel, I skipped the curry and got mine for lunch the following day.

Third, on Thursday this past week I attended an AQA examining board session in Hereford from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Frankly, I was sent on this mission because a) someone from the school is mandated to attend each year to calibrate all schools who are using the mark schemes for coursework, and b) Jayne & Mel have already been in the past- so I drew the short straw! Preparation for this included each member of the department being required to read about 20 student work samples provided in the mark scheme booklet, determining a grade for each and then further determining, as a full department, a consensus mark. Once at the meeting the "correct" marks were provided and each school in attendance was to report their "consensus" scores - for which a +/- of 4 in one category and 7 in the other was acceptable. Fairfield scores were indeed within the acceptable marking criteria.

The majority of this training involved reviewing the entire mark scheme booklet, that I had already read prior to attending... basically the leader of the workshop read the booklet to us. We then went through each individual student work sample and discussed any discrepancies or questions. During these discussions I interposed some questions to further hone my understanding of the differences between the US and the UK. I did determine and perhaps confirm, that the UK is much more test oriented than the US; and, indeed most schools are working within very prescribed guidelines of instruction. Test scores determine placement on the League Table, a ranking of the "best" schools in the area, and something many parents consult when deciding on the school where their children will attend. It is much more "competitive" in the UK as far as where your child can attend a high school. Unlike the US, where a small amount of school choice is available, and where most students attend the publicly funded school in their town or opt to go to a private school at their own expense, people here can choose form among many schools in the catchment area. Students then apply to these schools, visit and are then accepted or rejected. If rejected from a school, a family can appeal to a higher educational body, who can overrule or support the appeal. High test score results are imperative to enticing families to choose a school. Also, the more students in a school, the more funding is available and the higher the salary for the head teacher. This kind of pressure is not as high in the US.

Most teachers in attendance expressed the desire to study individual works of literature in more depth than they do currently, rather than focus on excerpts and bits of chapters. I heard of "theme" based units, where more focus is put on a whole piece of literature and linked videos, where multiple pieces of course work are assigned using that one piece/theme, thereby allowing students to choose their best piece of work and submit that as their coursework. For example, a student may read a piece of dystopian literature and write a literature/reading coursework essay, present a speech on propaganda as their speaking and listening component, watch the film based on the book and write a film review, and write an original piece of writing based on dystopian themes. They then would study another novel with a different theme and do the same, thereby having multiple pieces of coursework to choose from. It was interesting to hear about various ideas of differentiation, from alternative essay topics to selection of literature based on gender preferences. I also appreciated hearing about the many pieces of literature being used throughout Hereford to address coursework assignments, from timeless classics to very modern pieces. Since I have not yet had the opportunity to observe at a different school, this was appreciated as it is nice to know how things are done outside the realm of Fairfield. (I will be going to Hereford Academy this week to observe.)

The remainder of the session consisted of being trained to use the speaking and listening mark schemes by watching video sessions of student presentations of work. New exam guidelines and a review of the new controlled assessment processes was also done in the afternoon. Coursework pieces are evolving from open ended time frames, where the literature, computers and notes can be used to complete the work, to more "controlled" environments, where time limits will be imposed, teacher input will be limited and word processing systems will also be limited if computers are used. Controlled assessment would be much more similiar to what is done in the US regarding exams such as MCAS, AP and SAT.

Overall, professional development in the UK is not that much different than what is often provided in the US. Some are mandated by law and still others can be a mix of useful information and boring routine. In the end, I still believe that a healthy session of teachers teaching teachers, where best practices and instructional modalities are shared with each other, is the very best form of relevant professional development. Add a curry buffet to this and it could be perfect!

Christmas Shopping in Worcester...

Worcester, England - the twin city to Worcester, Massachusetts. Having come 3000 miles from my home, and Worcester, Mass, being the closest major city to my Northbridge home, it seemed only appropriate that I make the journey at least once to this twin city before returning home. Several ladies from Fairfield plan an annual Christmas shopping journey to Worcester each year, and I was kindly invited to join them. I am glad I was able to spend some time with these ladies outside of school - it was quite fun.

The city of Worcester, England is a mix of Victorian factory architecture, modern architecture and Tudor style architecture. The city was the home to the final battle in the English Civil war where Oliver Cromwell emerged victorious. Like the sister city in Massachusetts it has a major river running through it, the River Severn, which supported its industry and occasionally floods its banks. On this day, the river was quite high, as there has been about 30 days of straight rain in the area.

This particular shopping weekend also found us visiting during the annual Victorian Christmas Fayre ( the spelling of this word is not in error). There were many street stalls selling cheeses, meats, vegetables, wines, clothing, gloves, jewelry, and, of course, roasted chestnuts and mulled wine. Ware mongers were dressed in traditional Victorian costume and there were carnival rides, especially a beautiful carousel. There were street performers, including dancers and the Salvation Army band playing Christmas carols. It was a festive atmosphere and the weather was crisp and chilled - perfect to get one in the mood for the holidays.

I had much fun, bought a few bits and bobs for my family and friends at home and enjoyed the day very much. Thank you, ladies, especially Kath, for thinking of inviting me along.

Lost Treasures...

One of the bright sides of teaching in an older building are the surprising things that can be learned about the uses of the building as the history is revealed, for example, my current classroom used to serve as the children's playroom. Another is the amazing treasures that can be discovered throughout the building. This week, as Jo Parson's was preparing to put up a new display of student work in the corridor outside the library, she discovered a fabulous jungle mural underneath some old bulletin board paper, which had been painted some years ago by a former Fairfield student. Who knew...

My 44th in the UK!

I've never been one to be embarrassed about my age... I think teaching high school students and spending so much time involved in their activities, in and out of the classroom, along with having children of my own who are high school age or just starting college, has always kept me young in mind and spirit. I also never thought I'd ever be so far away from home celebrating a birthday. Combine my birthday with the Thanksgiving holiday, and I've had a bit of homesickness this week, because this week is traditionally quite a busy and fun-filled one for me. Short week at school, pub hopping at home and seeing all the old friends from high school, Northbridge Rams football game, turkey dinner with friends & family, Christmas shopping and decorating the tree are all traditions for me, so I was pleasantly surprised today when so many people at Fairfield remembered my birthday.

I had cards from many friends, and two signed by all the faculty and staff. I had a few gifts from the ladies in the English department and even my form sang Happy Birthday to me, as well as my Year 8 students. At break, when I went downstairs to get a cuppa and a flapjack, I entered the staff room to find just about all the staff gathered, the room decorated with American flag and birthday decorations, a chocolate cake decorated in a New England Patriots theme, complete with mini replica #12 jersey with "DeJong" on it, a likeness of myself as a football player (photo taken off my blog or facebook) and candles, other cakes and a CD mix of Bruce Springsteen playing "Born in the USA"! Everyone sang happy birthday and I discovered that one of the ladies who works in the office, Mandy, also had a birthday today - Happy Birthday, Mandy! It was nice to be remembered this way by people and it truly made me feel like part of the Fairfield family.

The day continued with some successful poetry presentations and comparison discussions, along with some "meaning of Thanksgiving" lessons to the younger age groups. They all made their own "thanks" turkeys!

At the end of the day, doing a favor for Ian, I rode the bus with the Year 7 U14 boys to Hereford, where they were scheduled to play in a 5 on 5 football tournament - the winner of this tournament advancing on to the Midlands League tournament in early February. Ian was unable to ride the bus to the tournament, so Micaela and I gladly offered to accompany the boys to and from the match. I am so very glad I did. Three of these very talented players are boys in my form group, and I was able to see a very exciting series of games. It is easy to see that football (soccer) is a sport that children play here, probably from the time they can run, and the spirit of competition and level of talent I was able to watch, even for such young boys, was excellent. Even though they were not my own children, I found myself anxious as the final minutes in the third game ticked off, hoping for the Fairfield boys to hold their lead. Indeed they did...and they are the first group of boys from Fairfield who will advance to the regional Midland's tournament. Well done boys! I am glad I was there to see such excellent team work.

It was a wonderful birthday on the whole... so thank you to everyone here who helped make it special and memorable. Thanks also to all my friends at home who sent messages and well wishes through the email and on my facebook; it is nice to know I have so many people in my life who care about me and I am very thankful for all of you to be in my life.

Year 7 Football team photo printed with permission of Fairfield administration.

Charities Afternoon: The Thanksgiving Challenge!

Part of the Fulbright Experience is to share cultural traditions, in addition to educational experiences. Part of this sharing and exchange process is also meant to culminate in sharing experiences with our school communities once the partners return home. Yesterday was a hole-in-one!

One of the best traditions from America, which is somewhat directly connected to our English ancestors, is the celebration of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in the month of November. It stems from the harsh realities of a New England winter for the Pilgrims and the aid they received from the Native American Indians, specifically the Wampanoag tribe and their adopted brother Squanto. It was a joint celebration of the harvest and the friendship that developed between the Pilgrims, who left England with permission of King James I in search of a place to worship freely and establish their own colony in the New World. They set forth on their way aboard the Mayflower with 102 passengers; in the end only half survived both the journey and the first hard year of settlement. They landed far north of the first settlement in Jamestown, on what is now known as Cape Cod in Massachusetts, and established the first colony known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony and settled in what is now known as Plymouth. Plimouth Plantation, (not a typo, as that is the traditional English spelling) on Cape Cod is a working village which celebrates the original life of the Pilgrims. It also had once served as an Indian settlement. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated on 1621. It was first encouraged to be celebrated nationwide by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 as a way to unify the country. In 1941 it became an official federal holiday. Schools typically have a half holiday on Wednesday afternoon through the entire weekend. Officially known as Thanksgiving Break... please note: I will be working on Thanksgiving Day this year! However, a wonderful family has offered to host a very large Thanksgiving Dinner next week, so I am very much looking forward to it when school is dismissed for the afternoon. Instead of a football game, I will attend a basketball game and then feast on turkey!

This holiday has always been one of my favorite, not the least reason being that I was actually born on a Thanksgiving Thursday! It is fitting, being a native New Englander, that this would be a culturally rich tradition that I would seek to share with students and staff from Fairfield. Not many of these students were familiar with Thanksgiving, so Mel and I decided that we would use "Charities Afternoon" to introduce two house groups of Year 11 students to the experience of feasting on turkey,mashed potatoes, corn, peas, cranberry sauce, gravy, pumpkin pie and apple pie & ice cream! (Usually, people here do not eat turkey until Christmas, but there were af few whole, frozen birds to be found.) The students also watched several videos, courtesy of United Streaming - a resource I have been very happy to have at my disposal on this exchange,as my full bag of tricks is safely abiding in a cabinet in a classroom back home - which taught them about the history of Thanksgiving, the traditions and foods involved from the first Thanksgiving to the present day, and also an animated feature on Squanto and Governor William Bradford. Students also made their own turkey craft and colored cornucopias pictures. It was a pretty fun time. It also was typical of many Thanksgiving dinners - from arguing relatives, food that was gobbled far too quickly in relation to the preparation for such dinner, loud dinner talk, overstuffed bellies, and a giant mess to clean up afterwards! The only thing lacking was a good American football game to watch on the telly!

Charities Afternoon is a tradition at Fairfield. It involves a full day of students wearing their street clothes - no uniforms- but they must pay one pound to have the privilege of doing so. This also raises money for the various charities that benefit from the afternoon activities. For the first time I almost felt like I was in an American high school - with all the kids dressed to match their personalities. After lunch, students are taken off timetable and are put into house groups, by year (form groups) and they are guided by faculty in some fun activity, for which they have raised money from sponsors to be donated to various local charities - hence the name of the day. I like the concept of this day, and it reminded me a bit of the full weekend of activities put together by the National Honor Society at NHS last year when they were raising money and locked in themselves in the field house for the 30 Hour Famine. There was no fasting involved, but it was all in the name of charity.

With the turkeys roasting in the ovens and Mel peeling all the potatoes (sorry about that Mel) - I joined the Fairfield female faculty in a traditional British game of Netball vs Fairfield girls. This is a sport played by only girls in this country. (They don't have any laws here requiring matching girls and boys sports.) It is a game somewhat similar to basketball. It is played 7 on 7 - there are only certain areas of the court (divided into thirds) that certain positions can play in. Only two people on each team are designated as shooters and the nets are about the height of regulation basketball nets, but do not have backboards. It is a fast paced game, as you only have three seconds to pass the ball, no further than one third of the court. There is no dribbling and no running with ball. You are allowed only one step on a pivot foot, or can throw the ball while you are still in the air. Defenders are allowed only to be within one meter of the person with the ball, allowing for room for a person to run in between a defender and a teammate in order to get the ball.

The rain let up, Ellie swept the water off the court and the teams gathered during the lunch hour. The faculty ladies blew the trousers off the girls,with a score of 7-2. Somehow I ended up being a designated shooter, and for a rookie, did not play too badly- scoring 2 of the seven shots. We also played short handed for 1/2 the game, and then recruited an injured Year 10 student to help us out...we still won! It was great fun! It is also a game I would be interested in bringing back to NHS - even if only as a physical education activity, an intramural sport or a spirit day activity- it will be a piece of England to bring home.

I think that the concept of Charities Afternoon would work well back home at NHS, as community service projects are part of the fabric of our school culture - and it is a way to ensure participation by the entire school. There were very few students who could not participate because they had not raised the minimal amount of donations required - which was 3 pounds per student.

It was a really fun afternoon and I enjoyed sharing a bit of home with all the students!

Writing Class Sonnets: Here & There

One activity that both my colleague, Matt Reilly, and I do when teaching our sophomores at NHS about sonnets, is to write "class sonnets". Several years ago Matt introduced this idea to me and since then both of us guide our full, individual classes into creating class sonnets - usually a parody of a Shakespeare sonnet. I have started keeping a record of these sonnets and a very funny collection is starting to take shape.

This week, during a lesson on sonnets with my Year 8 students at Fairfield I decided to try this same activity. At first, I divided the class into small groups of five, mixed boy and girl groups, and directed them to try to create their own. They were instructed to do the best they could to keep to the iambic pentameter rhythm of a sonnet, but more importantly they should follow the rhyme scheme. I opted for the small group, rather than the full class group, as emphasis is placed on cooperative learning in small groups of mixed genders and abilities. This task, however, proved too difficult for this set up, coupled with the fact that these students are three years younger than the students at home - so I returned to the first philosophy of the large, whole class group.

I decided to give them the first line - a similar one to that used by one group of students from home. I wanted to see if any similarities would arise from the two groups. From there the ideas flew around the room, and as we repeated the lines out loud we eventually were able to edit the sonnet to a pretty close rendition of iambic pentameter and a correct English sonnet rhyme scheme - complete with rhyming couplet. As with any piece of writing, editing can always improve it, but neither are bad for a first try in a short lesson. Below you will read a Year 8 Monnow original sonnet, and a sonnet written by a group of 2008 Year 10 students at NHS, who happen to be Seniors this year- some of them may recognize their work.

Fairfield Year 8 Monnow 2009

Shall I compare thee to a pair of smelly trainers*?
Thou art more stinky and more horrible.
Your rough worn soles do pierce large containers.
Oh, get far from me, thou art so intol'r'ble.
Sometimes too sweaty; sprinting far from you.
Oft your odors worship in the temple of my nose.
If to heaven I with you go, I'd smell eternal poo.
You ne'er will e'er smell of a red, red, rose.
Although thy eternal stench shall not fade
Ne'er the rubbish bin shall you go in.
Etern'lly thankful, I am, you were made.
To throw you away would sure be a sin.
So long as you don't choke my healthy lung
I shan't wheeze or sneeze, nor toss you in the dung.

Period 5 2008 Sophomores

Shall I compare you to a pair of gym socks?
Thou art more lovely and more putrid.
Rough feet are calloused, flaked and hard as rocks
And season's scent is much too hard to rid.
Somtimes too much a toe doth show from holes
And oft the nails do seem untrimm'd,
And every hair and mole do cover o'er the soles;
In their own moist sweat the soles doth swim'd.
But thy eternal scent shall never fade,
Nor lose possession of thy fungi stump,
Nor shall detergent's scent obeyed
As thy forever do remain amid the gym bag dump.
So long as sports are played and socks are worn
So long live gym socks; sweaty, disgusting and torn.


*smelly trainers = smelly sneakers!