Today was my first day at Wilberstone Primary School and talk about the most adorable Year 5 students in London. Okay, okay, I still don’t know their names, but can you blame me? The only name remotely recognizable was Ahoub because it kinda sorta sounded like Abe. The diversity is like nowhere I’ve been. The “Welcome” signs and “Office” signs had Arabic and Bengali translations under it. Five out of the 25 students (both boys and girls) were wearing head wraps. Also, there was one white person, one. Different, isn’t it? Like I mentioned in a blog before, they call erasers “rubbers.” Imagine how funny it was hearing kids saying, “hey, you’ve grabbed six rubbers already, what in the world are you doing over there?” or “can I use your rubber when you're done.” What a laugh out loud momento. The day started at 9AM, but we were there at around 8:30AM. (Kara Schillings and I are “we,” by the way). The two biggest differences between American and English culture in the classroom are: One. Students in England do not get held back in schools even if they don’t meet specific benchmarks (nope, no summer school here!). That means there are students of all different levels of intelligence/ comprehension/ literacy/ etc in the same classroom. For those “falling behind,” they have adults in the classroom helping them out, personally. Second thing that’s different: the breaks the teachers get from their kids. America- teachers eat lunch, go to recess, all that jazz with their students. In da UK, there are other admin who take care of your students when you’re on a 15-20 minute break in the morning at 10:30AM and then again at 12 for your glorious HOUR long lunch break. In twenty minutes “we” plus Breez/ Breezy/ Bhriel are heading off to class… its our Teaching Fellows seminar. I’m very curious to hear the stories of the gals! After class, there’s more! ...but GOOD more! I’m in that theatre class on Tuesdays and tonight we’re going to see “Six Degrees of Separation.” I’m anticipating this play like whoa. It’ll have a lot of America in it too! Today, I found myself answering every SINGLE question asked of me just to hear my own American accent- you really miss it. When we pass people in the streets speaking with that nostalgic accent, my heartstrings pluck. ß What a queer line, huh? So that is my busy day. I also want to share some hilarious quotes the students in Andy’s Year 5 class said today. Also. Weird. The students call their teachers by their first names, hence, them calling their teacher Andy:
“Jasmine. You’re from America? Are you friends with Hannah Montana?”
“How do cows make babies?”
“Andy! We was talking about cows making babies, but now he brought up ladies and men!”
“In a beauty salon, they had free internet and there was S.E.X on it!”
“Ew, don’t be spelling it out!”
“It was disgusting. Blehh”
Forever Young,
Jas
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