We are now in the final quarter of the school year, and the final quarter of my time at my current high school. My current students all know that I am leaving, as do many of my former students, several of whom after they heard sought me out to ask if I would still do recommendations for them when they apply to college or for scholarships or summer internships.. I will accomodate all those for whom my writing same would be of a benefit - I owe them that.
Yesterday was a special day. Several years ago I was contact by a teacher from Australia. She teaches American History in a school in Sydney, had a particular interest in the New Deal and had received a grant to come to the US to study the New Deal and explore possibly setting up a field trip for students. As it happens, the school in which I teach is located in Greenbelt, MD, which was a planned community, one of the first done as a Federal project, in 1935, as part of the New Deal. Somehow she found my webpage and contacted me. Two years ago she came and spent half a day visiting my classes.
This year she was coming on a tour with students. She asked if they could visit our school for half a day. I got permission. What was interesting is that her students, all 11th and 12th grade girls, wanted to eat an American school lunch - go figure. My students were amused by that idea.
So yesterday two teachers, one administrator, and 21 students from North Sydney Girls High School, an elite school, spent the morning at Eleanor Roosevelt High School
Each of the 24 was given an escort by one of my female students. They had a chance to chat, went to first period, then since my 2nd period is free, all 48 joined me and someone else in my room.
Please keep reading.
This was an opportunity for the students and staff of their school to interact with my students, me, and an additional person: one of our counselors is Australian, with a mother who is Aboriginal, and thus could help provide some context of the similarities and differences between the two educational environments.
We chatted for about 35 of the 35 minutes, but then the students very much wanted a group picture. I got all 48 - Australians and escorts - arranged in the back of my room and we took several pictures. But then they insisted I join them in the picture, so the intern to our counselor took some more. The only place I could fit was to lie on the floor in front of the first of four rows.
The visitors were there for four of our 8 periods. They attended two classes, ate a school lunch, and we had the one period to talk. I know my students very much enjoyed the experience.
Our school gave each visiting student several small momentos, starting with an ID with their names on it, and including a pen and a tin of mints. They brought stuffed animals for our students, and their lead teacher had a small thank you gift for me.
I was delighted to help facilitate this occasion. We regularly get visitors from other countries, although with the exception of our annual visit from our sister school in Yokohama Prefecture in Japan, it is usually just adults. We have had foreign exchange students - I have had one from Australia, and coached young me from Germany and Spain. I can in my 16 years in the building remember a group of students from Germany as well.
As I consider yesterday in the context of this my final year at Eleanor Roosevelt, it is in a sense an important representation of what I have tried to do - to connect my students to a larger world, to expand their horizons. It is why I often bring in guest speakers. Over the years that has included clergy in my Comparative Religion class, and in Government Members of Congress, journalists, lobbyists, people who work for the executive branch, etc. I think anything we do in the classroom should have a visible connection for the students with the larger world for which we should be preparing them.
Our school is nationally known. That has made it somewhat easier to persuade some of our more notable guest speakers to come out. I know I can be persuasive, but wonder whether I would be as successful were I teaching at a school which did not have the name, the cachet, that ERHS has. I remember that one of my first guest speakers was the late David Broder, whom as I walked him to his car afterwards told me how impressed he was by the quality of questions with which the students challenged him.
I tried in the 3 classes in which I had visitors to deal with material instructionally that would be of interest to our visitors. My first period is our American Scholars programs. These are students not classified as at an honors level but with an interest in American History - they take an American History course every year. We explored aspects of the Trayvon Martin case as a means of reviewing what we know about the criminal justice system. In the two AP classes 3rd and 4th period in which we had visitors, we have started our review for the AP exam in mid May. We examined three periods of expansion of the federal government - the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Great Society. We were able to connect the first of these very much with things in our own era, specifically talking about the impact of the muckrakers, especially Upton Sinclair with his novel The Jungle. That enabled connection with other influential books - the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin and Rachel Carson's The Silent Spring. Students were also able to connect people's horror over meatpacking with the recent reaction to "pink slime."
I left ten minutes in each class for interchanges - from the Australian students, and from my students to them. During the instructional portion if the visitors wanted to offer comments or ask questions they were encouraged to do so.
Normally I teach 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, sixth, and 8th periods, and am free 2nd and 7th. Yesterday I went 5 periods in a row without a break, and when you add in that I was at the front of the building to welcome the visitors, connect them with their escorts, I went from 7:45 until 1:30 without a break. I was tired by then, very much in need of the restroom (it can be difficult to be a teacher if you have a weak bladder), yet exhilarated. So much so that for my final period, I eased up on the students a bit - they were the only one of my six classes that had no change to participate with the visitors, so I wanted to give them a chance to have something special, so we had a non-academic but useful conversation before sending them on for the weekend.
It is Saturday morning. I still have to finish my taxes, although there is not that much left to dig out and key in, and I know we are in good shape. I have papers to correct, planning to do. On Monday I will be interviewed by phone for a teaching position in a very unique school. I have tons of email on an education discussion group that has just begun to which I need to devote some attention. I have not yet turned to my normal Saturday morning reading.
I wanted to share yesterday, because it was a special day. It provided one of the occasions to which long after I have left the classroom I will still look back fondly.
Have a nice weekend.
Peace.