A year behind. A year ahead.

A year ago, I ended my year long temporary status and decided to accept a permanent contract. I still felt like I could learn more from this country and this school system. I saw room for growth. And I've hit a growth spurt. I was still trying to decide if I was doing a good job teaching these girls when my head of department moved up the ladder to a well deserved spot as head of the sixth form (the last two years of secondary school when kids take A level courses and apply for universities). I've been asked to take over as acting Head of Physics. What a Head of Physics does, exactly, I'm not really sure. But now I have a department to run. I'm still hoping that the exam scores of the first group of students I've fully taught turn out well. There's more to teaching than that, but you can't underestimate the importance of those scores here. If they go well, everyone will trust me a little more. I might even trust myself a little more. 

This past year, I've had plenty of students that I just don't think I reached, and a few that I definitely did. Teaching is all about effective communication, and these folks communicate far differently than I'm used to. Three years here, and I'm still adjusting to them, and they to me. In the USA, being overtly and persistently positive worked well at helping kids believe in themselves, though certainly not everyone liked that style.  Honestly, I think many of the students here just think I'm full of crap. In the USA, asking a few open ended questions when someone was having a bad day tended to earn their trust. Here, that's tended to make people uncomfortable and actually made it harder for them to trust me. 

The great challenge with communication is that what you try to say is not always what they hear. So I'll have to adapt my style. To a point, I am who I am, and I have to embrace that. But I can adapt, and I'll be a better teacher as a result. 

I have earned my colleague's trust, though, and that's a big bonus. Maybe teachers are better at hearing what I'm trying to say, even if I'm not speaking the Queen's. I've helped look after techies during the musical, helped calm nervous travelers in China and Switzerland, and helped keep up the spirits of hikers on rainy days. I've really enjoyed the hiking/camping trips they take here as a part of the Duke of Edinburgh scheme, and I'm going to do more of that in the future. I also helped guide some girls through an engineering scheme where they did some serious civil engineering design work. I'm getting involved here. 

So, looking forward to this next year, I'm going to have to figure out how to run a department here. I'm hoping to earn the trust of my tutor group as I help guide them through post-secondary school planning. I'm going to try to inspire girls to give engineering a try. I'm going try to help my girls earn those scores that they so desperately want, and hopefully get more to believe that they can indeed achieve them. My school trusts me to run this department for at least one year, and I need to prove to myself that the trust is well-earned. 

I have two more years left on my current work visa. So, after this next year, I'll have some more serious thinking to do. 

A layover in Iceland

Icelandair are trying to cut into the transatlantic market by offering cheap fares connecting through Reykjavik. They are trying to boost tourism by offering week long layovers at no extra cost. Both of these efforts worked on me, and by the sound of the American accents all over Iceland, I'm not alone. 

Iceland is definitely worth a visit, especially in the summer. They have geyser fields, tons of waterfalls, huge glaciers, and countless camping and hiking opportunities. The 24 hour daylight allows you to take full advantage of them all. Everything's pretty expensive, as with all Nordic countries, but the people are gorgeous and friendly (again, as with most Nordic countries) so it doesn't feel so bad. The beer is even pretty good. 

Cool weather, but hot water. Just like Yellowstone. No chance of getting eaten by bears, though. 

Serious waterfalls. No jagoffs in barrels. 

Waterfalls you can go behind. Or use to shoot shampoo commercials. 

Really picturesque waterfalls you can camp next to then hike along. 

Down the road, you come across lakes with freaking icebergs in them!

You can even pay people to show you how to put spikes on your shoes to walk along glaciers. Then take pictures of the schmuck who wears a helmet on top of a baseball cap while standing a foot from  an icy death. 

Then you can pray at churches that look like rocket ships commanded by Leif Ericson. 

Iceland is fun. It's worth a visit if you're heading across the Atlantic anyway. 

Room to Grow

In conversation with my colleagues, I have heard the phrase "career path" often. Most teachers around me have an idea of some leadership role they'd like to hold at some point, along with the path they must follow in order to do so. One of these teachers with whom I recently traveled to China on a school trip asked me if I had considered a particular role, in this case pastoral. I allowed that I hadn't, and it led to an admission that I had never truly considered a leadership role. It's not that I have no ambition or confidence in my abilities, but simply that there were few options open to me until now. 

In the American system, there were two main roles into which I could grow. The first was science department chair.  This involved organizing schedules, equipment orders, professional growth opportunities, and the like, all activities at which I could excel.  I did consider this a possibility, but the position was eliminated in Calvert County and replaced with the more data driven role of Core Lead. This largely involved analyzing test scores for the one subject Maryland tested, biology. I felt less interested in and less qualified for this position. One of the teachers I respect the most, Rob Halstead, served as Core Lead of the Math department for a year and seemed to hate it for all the reasons I thought I might as well, most notably that it replaced teaching time with number crunching. 

The other leadership roles to which I could aspire were vice principal, principal, science coordinator for the county, and various roles at the board office. All of them, even at the lowest levels, would require me to give up teaching all together. I enjoy teaching, and I think I'm pretty good at it, so these positions held even less appeal to me. Many good teachers must have agreed with me, as in my experience these positions were often occupied by people who either didn't like classroom teaching very much or weren't very good at it. There have been administrators who were quite talented teachers, but sadly they've been few and far between in my career. I often found myself in the position of being supervised by people I felt were far less qualified for the job than I, but who had the only advantage of actually wanting the job. Most of the principals and vice principals I had in 13 years of teaching in the USA were former gym teachers. I don't know why the PE departments churned out such large numbers of administrators, but they consistently did so, at least in my schools. 

So, I had always been happy staying in the classroom and being the best teacher I could be. The leadership positions I occupied were either accidental, as with my performing arts roles that no one else wanted, or somewhat opposed, as with my international trips I organized that my school district discouraged. 

Now that I am teaching in the UK, however, options suddenly abound. One reason is that every step along the way still involves teaching, and the other is that there are two categories of leadership positions, academic and pastoral. 

On the academic side, there is a physics department head, a science department head, an academic deputy head of the school, and head of the school. Each step in that chain involves fewer lessons to teach, but at least they still teach. The head doesn't teach at all, though she certainly could if she wished. Every subject is tested, so the science department has a refreshing balance of physics, chemistry, and biology teachers. There are obviously numbers to be crunched, but far more academic leadership is involved than I've witnessed before now. I have already discussed with Jenny the prospect of growing into a physics department head, and she is of the opinion, at least, that I could do it quite well. 

Pastoral duties are ones that don't even exist in the USA to my knowledge, at least not with the teachers. Britain takes the duties of the high school guidance counselor and splits them among the teaching staff. There is a form tutor, a head of year, and a pastoral deputy head. I am a form tutor now, which means I am assigned a group of 16 students (mine are in year 12) with whom I meet each morning. I register them (meaning I take attendance), give any announcements for the school, speak to them about how life and school are going, and basically take care of them en loco parentis. When they are stressed, having trouble academically, considering different university options, or anything else we Americans would consider the realm of the guidance counselor, it is from me that they seek help. I communicate with their teachers and parents. I communicate any concerns to the head of year, who advises on courses of action and has the final say in all big decisions. Each key stage in their schooling (years 7-9 are Key stage 3, years 10-11 are KS4, years 12-13 are KS5) involves a single form tutor and head of year that follow them throughout. So, I will have my form for two years, until they finish their schooling all together. At boarding schools, there are additional levels like house master/mistress that take on the unique responsibilities involved with housing the students. The colleague with whom I spoke in China aspires to be a house mistress at a boarding school one day herself. 

My current supervisors on both the academic and pastoral side are all talented teachers from a range of subjects. My head of school is even a physics teacher. So, not only do I feel quite effectively managed by a talented group of people, but I also feel an urge to grow within this framework. Both paths seem equally likely at the moment, but we shall see which opportunities actually present themselves. 

I do sense more room for growth in this system, but as another colleague in the Math department pointed out, it seems that the best teachers in the USA are motivated to stay in the classroom while the best teachers in the UK are motivated to leave it. Interesting consequence indeed. 

Nettles--the scourge of the outdoors

That plant right there is called a nettle.  Or a stinging nettle.  Or "Oh, for f***'s sake!" as I tend to call it every time I encounter it.  Apparently it exists in North America, too, but I'd never seen it or heard of it before moving to the UK.  Here, it's everywhere.  It's not exactly dangerous, but damn it, it's annoying.

You know exactly when you have even lightly touched it, because whatever touched it instantly stings and gets covered in bumps. For a first timer, the experience of leaning back in the grass and feeling your hand burn and swell up with bumps nearly instantly is just a tad disconcerting.  There is no label saying "don't worry, this will go away with no ill effects." For all you know, you may be covered in welts soon, they may have to amputate something, or you may have minutes left to live unless you get immediate medical attention.  Anyway, it stings.

This is because the leaves are covered in tiny hypodermic needles perfectly adapted to inject histamine into whatever unfortunate patch of skin it encounters.  It doesn't wait for you to be allergic so it can create a histamine response, like civilized plants do.  The little devil plant carries its own supply of histamine to make for damn sure you're temporarily allergic.  That's why you swell up immediately.  That's what histamine does.  The burning comes from something else, and I imagine it's the acidic blood from the Alien movies.

And it's just plain green and boring looking.  At least poison ivy looks somewhat distinctive to warn you to steer clear.  Nettles don't warn you.  They derive their little plant joy from luring in unsuspecting people and ruining their lovely day outside.  Evil little f***ers!

A basic UK civics lesson for mama and papa

The UK just had a general election for the leadership of the government of the kingdom (it's a kingdom, it's in the name), and I tried unsuccessfully to explain what was going on to my mother.  When I told my colleagues about that, they weren't surprised.  They even pointed out that the US government was created by a bunch of British folks that were frustrated by the British government, so it only makes sense that they'd try to make something a bit more sensible.

First of all, let's acknowledge that the UK government had no moment of creation like the US government did.  It grew organically over the span of a millennium or more.

So, start at the top with the head of state.  That's the Queen.  She has to sign off on the laws that are passed in Parliament before they are official, just like the President of the USA has to sign the laws before they're official.  Nothing is official without her approval.  Obviously, she's not elected.

The election was for Parliament, but only one half of it.  Parliament is made up of two houses: the House of Lords and the House of Commons.  The Lords are not elected.  They are lords and dukes and earls, that sort of thing.  It's the house of aristocracy and clergy, and it used to hold most of the power.  Now it has very little.  The real power is with the House of Commons.  It is the legislature, writing and passing all the laws.  It is the one that is elected.  Every town elects a member of parliament (MP for short), and the boundaries of the districts are often goofy.

Those MP's are members of parties, just as in the USA, but there are more represented ones than our two.  The two largest are the Conservative Party and the Labour Party.  There are also the Liberal Democrats (LibDems, another left party), the Green Party (environmentalists), the UK Independence Party (UKIP, very conservative anti-EU and anti-immgrants), the Scottish National Party (SNP, that supported the secession referendum), and a few smaller parties.  All of those parties have at least one MP,  The more MP's a party has, the bigger a say it has in creating policy. Every party has a leader.  The party leader guides the party agenda, proposing policies that reflect their priorities.  The Conservative Party leader is David Cameron and the Labour Party leader was Ed Milliband (until Labour did poorly in the election).  The party leader is usually an MP, but not always.  UKIP's leader is Nigel Farage, who is not an MP at all, but he does gather support for the party and its policies.

The point is obviously to get a majority of seats in the House of Commons.  If a party manages to do that, then the leader of that party is now the Prime Minister.  The Prime Minister is not the head of state.  That's the Queen.  The PM is the leader of the majority party in the legislature, so he or she is the head of the government.  In this election, the Conservatives won just over half the seats, so David Cameron is, and remains, the Prime Minister.  Cameron represents his party, but when people went to the polls, they only got to vote on the MP from their district. In 5 years, the process will happen again.

That's about as well as I can explain it.

As active as I've ever been

It has been three months since I blogged publicly, but not because I've stopped thinking.  It's more because my thoughts have been uncertain on a great many things, and I like sorting out my confusion privately.  I blog privately, which is the modern techie way of saying I keep a journal, and when my musings come to any certainty, I like to share them publicly.  The simple fact that I do that helps remind me that the facebook-twitterverse is full of what people want me to see.  That explains all the gym photos I encounter.

I have no gym body to share, nor do I have stories of discovering the joys of steamed vegetables.  The latter would probably worry you, I imagine.  However, this particular week has reminded me that I've successfully become far more active than I ever had been before.  Sunday was softball practice and a run, Monday was beach volleyball and beer, Tuesday was a league softball game and beer, Wednesday was indoor volleyball and beer, Thursday was supposed to be another league softball game but got rained out, and today is tennis.  And probably beer.  My hope when moving to London was to find a more convenient environment in which to live an active life.  Apparently I've been somewhat successful.  A colleague said to me yesterday that women so often seem to be able to get together for no reason other than having company, while men "always seem to have to be doing something."  Well, she's right about me, that's for sure.  For that reason, meetup.com is a godsend.

Volleyball was my first discovery in London.  It's indoor and inherently social, so it seemed a perfect fit.  I found a group that is fun and likes to go out for a post game drink, and that's exactly what I was hoping for.  Volleyball is just about the perfect social game, because everyone rotation gives everyone a chance to do everything, and it's hard for one person to dominate everything.  Even if one person does, it's rude and people will start to avoid him/her.  It's pretty easy to pick up on the game, as evidenced by the fact that I am getting better quickly.  It now occupies my Wednesday nights every week, and used to also occupy my Sunday mornings until I found softball.

Would you believe that they play softball in the UK?  I thought it unlikely, too, so I didn't even search for it.  Then I got a suggestion from meetup.com to check out a new group.  There are slow pitch leagues, fast pitch leagues, and even full baseball leagues. There aren't too many purpose-built fields yet (though some are being built), so they just play in the parks.  I decided to stop by and meet the slow pitch folks, and apparently they are quite intensely into the game.  I'm not even that good, but they were friendly anyway just because I'm American and already knew the rules.  I ended up getting along with them well enough that they invited me to play in a tournament with them.  I didn't have a glove, and it's not easy to find a sports shop that sells any here, but luckily I have a kind brother with nearly identical sized hands that found me a good one and shipped it over.  I successfully caught one fly ball and hit a double during my 4 games at this tournament, so they asked me to join the team.  Two, actually, since there's a London city league and a Windsor League west of town (many of my teammates are British Airways employees that live near Heathrow).  This Tuesday, for the first time in my life, I played an actual softball game that counted for something.  I've played socially before, but never for a team that had jerseys, umpires, and league standings and everything.  I chased down one fly ball, gunned down a guy trying to stretch a single into a double, and got a single myself, so no one is regretting the decision yet to invite me onto the team, which is nice.  We won the game, too.

I've always loved playing sports, I'm just not very good at them.  As a kid, we'd play whatever was in season or whatever could be played with the number of available friends we had that day.  At Cornell High School, however, the teams were rather limited.  Football, basketball, baseball, and golf were the only guys choices, none of which are my strengths.  We did start a tennis team my senior year, and I joined the golf team because they only had 4 people and needed one more to field a team.  It took me about 10 years before I found another team of anything to join, and that was a volleyball team and soccer team that played over an hour's drive away from where I lived.  That was difficult to keep in my schedule.  Now, all of the sudden, options seem to abound.

I don't know what the health effects will be, since all my teams like to grab a beer after games, but I sure am having fun.  

Oh, sweet karma

Today, I smashed a tennis racket.  It was only partially because I messed up a shot, and mostly because something needed to be destroyed.  Composure, self-restraint, maturity, and a racket frame, all seriously dented in one swing.

The thing is, I should have seen it coming.

On Friday, I spoke with a student about life, the universe, and everything, and I asked if she had a pretty fierce temper.  She said, "Oh yes.  How can you tell?" I had never seen her lose it, but I had seen her relentless public positivity.  I recognize it as similar to my own, and I certainly have a temper.  I have been told it goes along with being German, and along that vein, I have explained it to people as "I'm cool. I'm fine. Then, BOOM! I invade Poland."  She seemed surprised to know that I have a temper to lose, and she immediately wanted to know how I keep it under control.  That's the thing about us temper-management folks.  We don't want to lose it.  We hate it when we lose it.  We are embarrassed after we calm down.  I wanted to tell her that I'd found a Jedi solution to this, but I had to admit to her that I'd just screwed up enough times to recognize riskier situations I should avoid.  I had to admit that I still lose it now and then, and it's usually when tiny things pile up. Well . . .

It started with getting the "just friends" speech from a person with whom I had enjoyed two lovely dates.  Dates are rather hard to come by, and of course I thought things were going swimmingly, so that was a bummer.  But just a little bummer.  Then a friend called me up, and while mostly we had a great time talking, she mentioned all the dates she'd had since deciding 2 weeks ago that she was ready to date again.  Of course, she'd met this amazing guy, blah blah.  I'm normally happy for friends in that situation, but the timing was just a tad "salt in the wound" ish.  Then I decided to explore the London theater scene more.  I found an interesting little play opening next week. So, I bought a ticket.  Only later in the day did it dawn on me that I bought it for the wrong night, when I will be at work until 8:00.  Then I decided to go to the movies, because I had a gift certificate.  The only movie I wanted to see, the reason I traveled 30 minutes instead of going right down the road, was sold out.  At this point, the steam was starting to come out of my ears.

It's okay, because volleyball and tennis would calm me down, right? Well, volleyball was completely booked.  My Sunday group usually has 10 free spots at least, if it runs at all.  Not this time.  That's okay, it's sunny.  More tennis.  I confirm with my tennis partner, and I get the dreaded text "I'm bringing a friend.  Is that okay?" Firstly, that is not a question.  There is no socially acceptable way to say, "No, it is not okay.  Screw your friend." Secondly, tennis is designed for two or four people.  Not three.  Lastly, I hate being a third wheel in any situation.  Relaxing tennis day became awkward third wheel pretending everything is hunky dory day.

So, that racket was toast.

Then a second friend of my partner came by late to make a full doubles game.  And I'd smashed my racket already.  So, embarrassment followed quickly on the heels of rage, as per usual.

On the bright side, I have a great story for my student the next time we talk.