Another American!

Tuesday October 21, 2008

We had initiatives and canoeing today. It was a bit chilly, in the lower 60*s F (15-16*C) but not too cold.

So yesterday I found out there was a student teacher from America here with the group! With the busyness of the first day we didn’t get much of a chance to talk so today we had a nice chat after lunch during free time. She is from Northern New Jersey in her senior year at Boston University and is studying abroad for the semester (Sep-Dec, like I did) but is doing her student teaching over here – wow! As you can imagine I had a ton of questions with her: how her student teaching is structured, if she’s taking classes as well, how her time in a private Christian school is going to transfer to a teaching degree and certificate at home, which I never really got a clear answer on!

So it was really interesting to talk to her. It made me think about how a year ago I was in the classroom; just getting my feet wet 3 days a week. I’m so grateful for the program I went through; the awesome mentors I had and the small-sized courses and seminars that helped me learn and grow.

We also talked about outdoor education and she agreed that it is way more common over here than at home for schools to take their students on camp. She mentioned how they have physical education as a class but then in addition to that they have an hour and a half of sport each week. It seems their education is a bit more holistic, with the student as a whole in mind where as at home there is much more pressure to focus on academics and intellectual growth.