Friday, November 9, 2007

More From England

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to spend the day in a British school. Yep, I came to England for the week and landed in school. My husband has a collegue who's wife teaches in a local primary school here, and when she found out I was a teacher, she invited me to spend the day with her so I could see what education is like here in England.

It was great. First of all, it was the day we were switching hotels, so I had to go somewhere for the entire day anway. Second, if I could make a career of visiting schools and observing teachers and students, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I was actually surprised at the similarities between the two systems. I guess I was expecting some drastic difference, but there wasn't, at least at the school I was at for the day. The teachers were excellent, and I would say the students were a step ahead of American students in the area of respect.

I could go on and on with the differences/similarities, but I won't bore you with all that. The funniest part of the day was when the students found out I was from America. The 11 year olds said, "Woowwww," and that was about it. A group of five year olds immediately bombarded me with questions, "Have you seen Mickey Mouse?" "What language do you speak?" "Have you seen the princesses?" "Did you have jet lag?" (from a 5 year old!) "Have you seen Disney on Ice?" They were so cute. The 7 year olds just started laughing when they heard me talk. I never knew American accents were so hilarious.

It was a great day. I learned many things for my 10 on Friday list!

1 comment:

k said...

they have a monarchy, and are asking you about princesses! lol! guess they mean the disney variety...