My Cambridge Experience: June 11-12, 2012

June 11, 2012

GO ENGLAND!

My traditional English breakfast today was served with eggs, bacon (which is a small piece of bacon connected to a small piece of ham), half a tomato and sausage. Then we can choose from tons of other things and eat whatever we want. There is a fresh fruit salad, Activia, granola, fruit/nut mixes, cereal, orange juice, apple juice, coffee, milk, toast, and croissant. We have a very healthy selection here :) Also, breakfast is served from 7-8:15, this isn’t the normal hours for breakfast but we are the only ones staying in this bed and breakfast so they are nice enough to accommodate our needs.

After breakfast we had a seminar which we received emergency contact cards and our bus passes for almost the remaining time we are here. (They are only good for four weeks so the last two days of our interning is not covered but we get some “milk money” to cover those two days.)

Afterwards we went to a nearby convenient store and bought a few snacks for our rooms, and I found Kinder Eggs!

I am also going to try several new chocolate candies I found.

After returning our groceries to our rooms we continued exploring and found a mall, in the middle of a building… it is so conspicuous.

After we all did a little shopping we decided to come back to where we are staying and relax, which turned into everyone hanging out in our room, listening to music, and me braiding everyone’s hair! You know I loved that and I learned the new waterfall braid :)

June 12, 2012

This will be the best experience of my life!

Today was my first day of school and we (the other two girls at my school and I) navigated our way on the bus to our stop then walked about a mile through the community to our school. Upon entering we were greeted by several receptionists and were asked to sign in and then we met the principle. One quirky descriptor is that she has a purple pixie cut. She explained our classes to us that there are two classes for each year that work together and they believe in full inclusion. We then met our teachers, who proceeded to show us around the school and introduce us to everyone. My teacher seems awesome and she was very welcoming and approachable. I am in a fourth year class which in the US is considered third grade. She introduced me to the class telling them I was from Florida; however I am not sure how many of them knew where that was because later they didn’t know I lived in North America. The teacher also explained to me a lot about what the students are currently working on a project to be presented on Thursday to other students who are coming from other schools. Their projects focus on North and South America as well as the Olympics. I was asked to help a few students on researching their topic, which happened to be pop music. They chose to research Justin Beiber, Hannah Montana and I later told them that was a stage name when she was younger and her real name was Miley Cyrus, and Shakira. Other students chose to research: basketball, Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Native Americans, baseball, volleyball, American Football, the culture, and the food. I am not sure if the students researched this or made assumptions because they told me Canadians love maple syrup and bacon, Americans love PB&J’s and Mexicans love burritos. The students also could choose to display their information in any style or format and were asked to get creative. I also noticed before the students begin their work the teacher writes on the only section of white board they have the focus of the lesson and reminders to achieve the focus. And yes I did observe all of this within an hour.

All of the teachers also have their own aid and students who have special needs are assigned their own aid. So there are 30 students and now 4 adults in the room.

I feel so in awe of what I think I am going to be able to learn in this internship. I see myself exceeding my own expectations and the students. I think teaching is also going to be completely different because the students are ahead of the students back in the states. The students are expected to begin school at age 4 (called reception) and then at age 5 they are in Year 1, which we call kindergarten. My friend is in Year 1 and her students write and read cursive, work on adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing (of course nothing to complex), and are learning about the Greek culture. The expectations of the students here are much higher than the schools I have seen.

After interning today a few of us were back so we decided to go exploring so I took a few pictures for you to see what I live around.

This is Parkers Piece which is right across from where we are staying, there are always people out here lounging or playing some sort of sport (thus far I have seen soccer, rugby and cricket).