Currie

Currie

Continued from page 10

“On the first day of school I didn’t realize that they were supposed to stand behind their chairs waiting for you to tell them to sit down. I first thought the door was locked because they were all standing on the side waiting for me to invite them to come in and sit down.

“They all wear uniforms. They had to wear the school tie and a jumper and dark socks. The justification for the uniforms is that no one stands out. They’re really class conscious. The students didn’t seem to mind wearing them.

“A number of teachers there told me that this was probably the worst possible year for me to do the exchange because the teachers were on strike there. That-meant that they work to their contract and do no extra curricular activity. So I didn’t see any extra curricular activities.

“They don’t have substitutes as we have substitutes. If you have a free period and for example John in biology is out that day you’re expected to cover that spot'. If there is a long term absence they’ll ask some one to come in. If they could not cover a class, that class was sent home.

“Everyone walks to school. At lunchtime there were no hot lunches. Kids had to be off of the school site during lunchtime and then they’d come back on.

“I very seldom had a parental complaint. One reason for that was we didn’t give grades all year because of the strike. Even under normal circumstances no one fails. There is no competition in the school. What they strive for is to be able to take the TO’ level exam and it is very hard. Even if you have five TO’ levels it will still be very difficult to find a job in that area. You’d have to relocate.

“There’s a very different population of people there. There are English, very few Irish, some Welsh, but the biggest minority are the Indians (many are Pakistanees). These are people from India who were asked back in the 50’s to do the menial jobs that the English didn’t Want to do. We had probably about twenty percent at our school.

“Teachers are in a faculty here but there we were the staff. They live much closer together so there are more things done together. The staff was very close.

“The only reason a teacher would leave to go to another school would be for promotion. They are on a tier system, like we are here with the years experience being steps but there is a 1, 2, 3 and 4 scale as well. The higher the scale the higher the salary for each year. You get so many scale points for extra responsibilities you have. For instance, a scale one teacher who does various duties may move up to scale two. The only way you’re going to get promoted is by assuming more responsibilities to advance up the scale ladder. Some people realize that the department head is never going to leave so they’re going to be stuck there at that scale or move to another school. (All 105 burroughs in England have the same pay scale).

“I could never live in England. The advancement capabilities are very limited and cloudy days get to you after awhile. We only had three weeks of weather over 70 degrees. It just rains too much.”

Mr. Currie concluded that he enjoyed having the opportunity to live, work, and travel in England for the year but “there’s no place like home.”