AUSTRALIA
Sunday 8/8/2004
VIF stands for Visiting International Faculty, a program that was established to promote intercultural communication and interaction, chiefly through the work of international teachers in the host school systems in the United States. I saw an advertisement for the program in Courier Mail Newspaper (Why not teach in the USA?), August of 2003, while I was teaching at Redcliffe High in Queensland and I rang the Australian director. I was a little concerned at my age but he said that he did it when he’d been older so I applied. This was followed by a battery of submissions, forms, tests, interviews and references, and finally in March 2004 I was interviewed by the Deputy Superintendant of Personnel for Loudoun County VA, one Matthew Britt, and he offered me a contract on the spot, So I signed on the line and all was fine and it was time, to move on in line, and thus began the following odyssey…
After a sleepless night of anticipation, waking up at 4am and unpacking the laptop to surf a bit of web, we finally left Peregian Beach and my Mother’s home for a one-hour drive to Brisbane Airport for the flight to Sydney. I had packed exactly 32 kg for I remember this being the weight limit from previous trips that I’d been on. However, when I plonked my bag on the check in it weighed 34 kg and despite my bathroom scale-driven protests it was to no avail and I had to remove two kg of items from my bag. It turned out that I was allowed 32kg per bag, so in fact I could’ve brought two bags of 32kg each duh me, for not asking.
We left at 10.10am and I was of course sitting in the wrong seat and this woman comes into the cabin and says, “oh hi Enzo”, and I of course didn’t recognise her, so I said “oh hi…” back, making out like I remembered her name and everything. I figured she must be another VIF teacher so I nonchalantly said something banal like, “All the way to Loudoun huh”, and she nodded so at least I had established where she knew me from, now I just had to remember her name, I am terrible with names. Then Steve came in and I remembered him because we’d sat together at orientation and talked a bit, so I didn’t have to be subjected to that embarrassing moment where I have to ask a name that I had been already told, maybe Steve would mention it in conversation.
In just over an hour we flew to Sydney where a shuttle took us to the International terminal where we were to begin the 14 hour leg of our journey to San Francisco. I sat next to a dude from Adelaide who was going to Alaska to do some Oceanographic work and we had a good chat but this soon wore out and we just tried to sleep and pass the time. I got to thinking though, speaking of Oceanography, like yeah it’s ok to know what it’s like at the bottom of the sea, but do we have to spend so many resources making maps of the place, I mean, are people going to go there on vacation? I can just see it now, “Hey Martha, I think we’re going the wrong way, the map says to turn right back at that reef back there. Can you imagine setting up a tent, or lighting a campfire?
USA
08/08/04
13 hours later we arrived in SFO, and then began the frantic lining up to clear customs and connect to our next flight, we’d been told to get a move on, as there wasn’t much time. We all made it as it turned out and we were soon on our way to Washington/Dulles Airport, luckily they didn’t show Die Hard 2 on that flight! At this point began the biggest muck about as to our connecting flight that I have experienced in all my travel.
We were told to go to another terminal, Terminal G, which we named the G Spot, for reasons that will become apparent later in this story.
Drama 1: the computers were down so any information on the boards was wrong.
Drama 2: The staff didn’t seem to know what was going on and were not real helpful.
Drama 3: The guy at the departure gate where we figured our flight was leaving from was a youngish guy who didn’t seem to know his job real well.
Drama 4: The terminal had resorted to announcing over the PA which flights were boarding etc, and most flights were announced by this woman who had a grating but clear and loud voice.
Drama 5: Wouldn’t you know it, the guy at our gate was a LOW talker, so when I finally went to ask him when our plane would board, he informed me that it had left already!!! I of course proceeded to crack up and ask why he didn’t call us; there were 8 of us. He said that he’d announced it several times, and we didn’t turn up, which is bullshit, because no one heard him, and our colleague Allison who did board we later found out had tried vehemently to notify us, all to no avail, thanks to United staff.
Drama 6: We had the boarding passes re-issued for the next morning and we decided to sleep at the main terminal, Sunday night. Max, the clerk who works for United ticketing, said he would procure for us some airline food, which was the least, he could do after we’d been stuffed about so much.
Drama 7: We were in the main terminal, starving to death when Max shuffles past us on his way to knocking off, all the time attempting to avoid our gazes until we called out to him. He finally came to us and confirmed he’d be back with food, yeah right, we never saw him again!!! Not happy Max!!!
Drama 8: Every attempt to find a vending machine was fruitless, there were none.
Drama 9: Noeline, one of our company, had brought Aussie chocolates and sweets for her students, and with her approval we made short work of them.
Drama 10: on one of my fruitless vending machine safaris I came upon a kiosk, which was locked up but only had bars drawn down over the food containers. Now, I reasoned, a man with my thick arms had no chance of success but there were girls with us who had slim arms who would easily reach between the bars and open the food containers… hmmm food perhaps, however, on consultation this was rejected as the last thing we and VIF would need is a phone call from DC police in the middle of the night.
Drama 11: I finally asked this cleaning lady about vending machines, and after many gesticulations and mannerisms and explanations (miming inserting coins and taking food items out) she took me to the staff common room and there were two vending machines, I got some food and called the rest of us and we almost emptied the machine of food.
…and so after spending the night at Dulles airport, and sleeping (not!) on the benches, and telling jokes and amusing each other in the wee hours, we had been surely blooded into the sport of travelling in the USA.
I n a couple of different flights we finally arrived at RDU airport a day late, all that is, except for my luggage which spent another two days in the twilight zone.
Drama 12: We’d arrived at 8.30am and after everyone had found their luggage, I was still standing like a dork at the carousel waiting. After I had watched the same luggage go around about 30 times, I figured there was no more to be seen and I went to make enquiries. They checked the ticket and it turned out, or so they said, that Qantas had only booked it through to Dulles and not to RDU. Could our beloved national carrier be at fault here?
Next followed a period of relative calm, we checked in at the Millennium Hotel and registered with VIF, got our kits etc and had welcome showers and sleep. 6 hours of sleep later, at dinner I was told that my luggage had arrived at the hotel.
Drama 13: I excitedly rock up to the reception but no one knew anything about it, so I went to VIF and they rang around but no one could find it. I offered to go to the airport and get it, then they tell me it’s really not there but it’s still in Dulles. I’m still living in borrowed clothes.
Drama 14: The next day I insist that I go to the airport whose baggage claim had insisted it had not arrived and see for myself. This very helpful driver Joe took me out there and I ran inside to the baggage area. The lady recognised me and said, “Sorry sir your baggage is not here yet!” so I just said that I’d have a look for myself, and I immediately said to her, “What’s that bag there, the big black one?” she looks calmly at it and replies nonchalantly, “oh that’s not yours” I couldn’t believe it , was she blind or what, “ Bullshit!” I said, “it’s got VIF tags and my bloody name all over it, who else’s could it be?”
“Err so it has, you’re right sir, it is yours” she finally relented.
“Thank you” I shot back, and grabbed it and took off before she tried to tell me that I was someone else too!
Drama 15: As it turned out, the very plane that we’d been told had left without us was still parked outside the terminal where it stayed for 90 minutes. We worked out that Max and the young guy just lied their whole way through everything, maybe they belong to United’s Disaster Mitigation, or (Disaster Migration) branch. Nevertheless we had a good chance to bond with each other as colleagues because we went through it all together.
As an ironic footnote to these dramas, the luggage of Allison, the teacher who had in fact boarded the correct flight, arrived at RDU last, even after mine!
Notice here that I am now using the official IATA designation letters for the airports, this is because I can claim to be an experienced international traveller, sounds good huh, or I’m just being a pretentious pratt, one or the other. Anyway we retired to the hotel for some well-earned showers and sleep, eagerly awaiting what was in store for us in the coming days.
Durham NC at the Millennium Hotel was where we were orientated etc so that we could begin to survive in the USA. We were given driving tests just to ensure that we could actually drive, as I believe that people have lied about this in the past and tried to bluff their way through. But an unfeeling automobile has no sympathy for the person who does not depress the correct pedal or press the right button, these charlatans have been subsequently sent home. I of course, being a cab driver extraordinaire, passed with no troubles, but she told me not to speed so much in future. If I had to sum up life in USA at this point I would just say ‘Forms’.
Forms, forms, and more blessed forms. And they tell us that this is just the beginning. We filled out Social Security forms, medical insurance forms, car insurance forms, car hire forms, alien whatever forms, exemptions, allowances, tax, banking etc. Basically we sat in lectures and form filling all day then we had a break of a couple of hours where we were asked to present some kind of cultural show featuring the traditions of our home countries.
Of course we Aussies had to put on some kind of performance so as a group we all went in front on stage and sang Waltzing Matilda using the original Queensland tune, and then in keeping with the Banjo Patterson theme I recited The Man from Ironbark, with all the accompanying gestures and actions, and my paper beard. Following this we all sang the national anthem Advance Australia Fair properly first then to the tune of Gilligan’s Island. Each country that was represented performed something uniquely cultural to that country.
We also had a chance to meet all the VIF honchos that we’d be dealing with during our stay.
The bus left the hotel in NC early Thursday to travel on up to VA. We stopped for a watering break just over the VA border and most people made a beeline for Maccas, but four of us decided to avoid the crush and walk a bit and go to Burger King, or Hungry Jacks as it’s known in Australia. It was pretty much like a coach trip in Australia and I had a really good chat with Allison from Boonah near Brisbane and we clicked pretty well, talking about school, life in general and most importantly, Church. I hope we get to go to some services together. We arrived in Leesburg around lunchtime and were met by our advising teachers who took us immediately to pick up our car options. Mine was a Rental so I was taken along with several teachers to a Rental office in Leesburg where I was given a Chevy Cavalier, which was fine in and of itself but we then had to all meet up at the same drop off point back at LCPS office, Duh… hello… we just arrived here, so I asked the rental people how to get back and they totally misunderstood the question, must’ve been the accent, the girl said, “oh sure, it’s just around the back here” now I have been a cabbie long enough to have some idea of how far I had travelled, and it certainly wasn’t just around the back! I tried to carefully retrace the landmarks I’d seen back to LCPS office, no good, nothing looked familiar.
Let’s see, I remember the Loudoun Times office, we turned left there, so if I turn right I’ll be heading back, yeah, duh, nuh, no good, maybe it was down that one way street, maybe not. Anyway to cut a long story short, I drove around Leesburg seeing lots of stuff, and being hopelessly lost, until I saw a cop car, so I pulled up, or rather, guttered up to him, I’d misjudged the distance to the kerb and whack scrape. I jumped out of the car and told the cop “Excuse me sir, I am hopelessly lost, can you…” but he yelled
“Sir I can’t do nothing for you, Ah am escorting this truck and you have parked in between him and me, now move your car please… then I’ll talk to you, when ah get time.” I decided that since I didn’t find a readily vacant spot to park that discretion would be the better part of valour, and I just kept driving. Eventually I pulled in at an Exxon garage which I had passed a few times already. I must’ve looked quite stupid at this point because I had stumbled almost back to where I was looking for, and was just one block away, the garage guy said, “whaa sir, it’s raaght there, the next block.” There it was I had driven past the front of the building and not recognised it as the bus had taken us to the rear of the building duh duh once again. As it turned out, I was not the only one who got lost coming back to the school board office, note for future, About nine of us descended on Nidia’s (Local advisor) apartment where we all sacked out on the floor or on air mattresses, after the customary fast food evening meal.
The next morning we went to a Realty office nearby which was prearranged, and they showed us to some apartments. This turned out to be a bit dodgy because they were quite pushy and while the apartments looked quite nice to me, I really didn’t want to rent on my own. Luckily I met up with a Kiwi girl, Anne Maree, and we decided to share a place. We looked at apartments all day and she had certainly done her homework, as she was an alumnus and had done it all before. She was very finicky about what she wanted and I was quite happy to defer to her, when it came to which flat. I was basically happy anywhere that had a roof. We ended up finding a really quiet place late in the afternoon, but the landlords only took cheques or money orders so we had to return with one the following day. We filled out the applications, (more forms), then I nonchalantly asked the landlady, “What if someone turns up with a cheque book and writes one on the spot, will you give it to them?” and she hesitated to answer so…Next morning we were waiting when they opened, and paid by check and that was that, we had it.
CHURCH SURFING AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
Sunday 08/15/04
Went to church Our Saviour Lutheran, drove around Eagle Ridge. Went shopping with Nidia, to Shoppers etc. Reported LCPS, fingerprinted, TB tests, BB&T Cashier check for rent. Slept at Nidia’s again. Moved in at Apt, Paid Bond & rent, bought air mattress. Need to buy car now.
There was a big Kafuffle about buying cars in Loudoun County. The word was Tyson’s Corner, which I logically envisaged was literally a corner with a few car yards on it. Well, what else would it be? I mean, who would call a whole town, ‘Tyson’s Corner’? Anyway, it was south from Leesburg and closer to Washington, and I figured like this: Surely the closer one went to Washington the more expensive cars were likely to be, business goes where the money is…So, I decided to the maxim, “go west young man,” in search of a car, and I drove over the Shenandoah river, resisted the temptation to break out into ‘Country Roads’ and I finally arrived at Winchester, where I stumbled into a car yard called Clarke’s. Here I met a guy called Wayne, who says to me, that he had some reliable 2nd hand Dodge Neons.
I informed him that it was my experience, in Australia, that one doesn’t use ‘Neon’ and ‘Reliable’ in the same sentence. A cultural difference here, I actually said, “Neons in Australia are a heap of shit!” Wayne said that, yes, they were also a heap of ‘stuff’ in USA also but that problem had been fixed.’ I mumbled my disbelief, but when he mentioned the lowest price at $8,000, I said, “Whoa there mate whoa!, I am not spending a cent over $3000,” so he says he has nothing for that price. He did however send me to another car yard. He told me to go to a place called Big Daddy’s, in Winchester and ask for a guy called Brett, and tell him Wayne sent me, hmmmm, so I drive on down to Winchester shops and driving all around the Mexican restaurant where it was supposed to be, I couldn’t see a car yard.
So I walk in the back of the Mexican restaurant and ask the Hispanic dude there in a kind of darkened pool hall where Big Daddy’s was, and he said, I was standing in the sales office. So I asked, where the cars were, and he gestures out to the shopping centre car park, and sure enough, what I had thought were shoppers’ cars were in fact the Car Yard inventory. The best looking car they had was a Toyota Tercel with a marked price of $2400 so I asked about it and the guy says ‘Cash or terms’ to which I reply ‘Cash’ and he proceeds to drop the price by a half. I was mightily impressed with this so I asked if he had any better cars, and he said that there was a nice Chevy at the main yard. He gave me directions then to Big Daddy’s at Berryville. Finally I arrive at a car yard that looks like a car yard is supposed to look. An office, a garage with a hydraulic hoist and the owner’s BMW parked in the driveway. I inspected the afore mentioned Chevy and as I was talking to the secretary about prices, I informed her that I would not go over $3,000.
There was a guy fiddling around under a desk in the office whom I had figured was a telephone repair guy or something, well, he pops up when he heard me say $3,000 and he says, “Whaa heck, ah’ll let yah have the Beemer for $3,000. It turned out that he was the owner of the yard, and that he was the illusive Brett that I had been told to speak to. So he was in fact Big Daddy. He was famous in that town because he had played in the Minor League Baseball, and was now the baseball coach at the County high school. The following day I returned to Berryville with Mark, and bought the car, Mark drove hire car back I drove the BMW home, and then went to Manassas to DSS to get a Social Security No.
LET’S GET READY TO TEEEAACH!
Friday 08/20/04
Woke up late, drove to LCPS, meeting at Dominion, raced there, late 1 hr, registered got stuff, went to ERMS after lunch, met colleagues, classrooms, curriculum etc. Bday Party for Steve at his place. Went to DC with Allie and Anne Maree
Collected four patio chairs from Kate on loan, waiting for Cable guy. He turned up at 5.30, ½ hour late, now we have three cable outlets and only one TV.
This morning Alison, Anne Maree and yours truly went to Algonkian Baptist Church, and I realise it was different from the one I went to last week but we are doing, as Allison so eloquently puts it, ‘Church surfing’, until we find a good one. This is not to imply that the ones we have been to are necessarily bad but, you get the picture.
The apartments have a Dumpster and recycling area where people throw out what they don’t want etc, so I saw that someone didn’t want a bookshelf, so I decided to recycle it and it now hold pride of place in my bedroom.
We had to go to Belmont Ridge Middle School for the morning for lectures and what have you, to do with orientation into Loudoun County teaching, Then in the afternoon we went to our Schools for more candy and fizzy drinks, and school stuff. There are some really nice teachers at Eagle Ridge, and we actually have two ex-attorneys who have decided to become teachers no less. Kristina, one of them, is the grade 8 social studies teacher, and I will enjoy being her colleague, on a professional level of course.
Today started at 8 am at the school and I just decorated my classroom until lunch- time. Not that I actually knew what I was doing at first. You see, not being an Elementary teacher, I don’t really have much of a clue about how to decorate and adorn a classroom. Therefore this called for some selective spying on other classrooms. The teachers in surrounding rooms were very helpful with materials and I found out about these rolls of coloured paper in the staff room, just for the taking, and so I took. I arranged colours and came up with a pretty good display on the back wall of my classroom. Green and Yellow for Australian colours with an Aussie flag, and a Eureka and New Flag with koalas and Steve Irwin and other artefacts. One thing I didn’t get was my keys, so I can’t get into my desk drawers of my cupboard or filing cabinet. Hence there is quite a clutter of resources all over my desk, so that it looks like a cycl….no, hurricane, went through it. (note to self) remember you are in the northern hemisphere. Phone got connected today, called Bonnie in Alexandria, had a nice chat then called Alessandra in Fayetteville NC, and she called me back, we had a nice chat also and made promises to meet up again as soon as possible. Aren’t women great, where would we men be without them?
Today was the first real day for teachers in Loudoun county, all the usual teachers turned up in the school. Well it was just as boring as all the other days, what with lectures and legal stuff we had to do, we even got to watch the BBP video again, joy joy. I knew you’d want to know so I’ll tell you, BBP stands for Blood Borne Pathogens, exciting eh?
One exciting part of the day (not) was when I arrived in my classroom for the first time, I had observed another Aussie teacher’s room and her “Aussie corner” so I set about decorating a notice board, which incidentally, Americans call a ‘bulletin board’, but I can deal with that. When I had stuck up what I had, which was not much, I nonchalantly sauntered, (this is redundant, as they both mean the same thing), over to my buddy teacher’s room and had a squizz at hers. Well, shock horror!!! Hers was wonderful, colourful, artistic, practical, and even nice, so I said, “Gee, I didn’t realise one had to be an interior designer to teach grade 6.”
She showed me where to get all the coloured paper and borders so now I have a room to rival ‘Queer eye’
Same again today with lectures and seminars about educational and County stuff, and after school I went to do some shopping well, after I bought some groceries I dropped around to some friends and we ended up going to Kirkpatrick’s for dinner, and this of course included a drink or five, unfortunately for me I could only quaff one as I was driving. The waitresses get very protective of the service. We bought drinks at the bar before we sat down and she insisted that we should’ve been her order etc, because she lives on our tips I guess. Nevertheless she got our tips anyway for the food and the barman was good enough to give her the drink tips also. She was really ready to get stroppy though, still I wouldn’t mind going a round or two with her, she’d win of course.
ust had to work in our classrooms all day today preparing etc for the kids to come in. I chose the first unit I am going to teach, and luckily one of the books that was on the list was one I had already taught in Australia, ‘The Great Gilly Hopkins’ and it happens that I brought the unit materials over with me so the whole thing is planned already with all of the resources I’d made at home. My buddy teacher has also selected this book next and will borrow my materials.
After school one of the teachers had a gathering at his place for some drinks and nibblies. He had a nice place on the edge of the man made lake and I quaffed a few ales and wine and we chatted about sport at first, but when the rest of the ladies arrived the chat turned to shop, what a shame. Still it was nice to just talk in a relaxed setting and get to know each other out of the school. I left around 7 pm and drove to Kirkpatricks to meet Mark and crew but no one was there so I went home. I dropped in at the common room I met some high school girls who are looking forward to going back to school, the said they like going to school, how refreshing, teens that enjoy and appreciate what we do for them, I complimented them on their good attitudes and they wished me luck at middle school.
n February 1995 I was in University, and I had bought a 486 computer (state of the art) the previous year and, hearing snippets about the ‘Internet’ I bought myself a 9.6 modem and in my ignorance bought a BBS account. This included an email account and access to the newsgroups, but of course I didn’t know anyone’s email address so I had no one to write to, so I used to just surf the news groups. I would read interesting stuff of lots of topics but everytime I tried to download something, it wouldn’t work and all I had was this black screen. I would often read these groups where someone would post the text, “Wow guys, look at this!” and there’d be an attachment in coded computer jibberish and I’d try to unscramble it but it never worked. But of course, I felt very proud that I was savvy enough to be on the net, unfortunately I couldn’t do much except read other guys’ posts.
Anyway, one day I was doing this said surfing, and I came across a post about cuteness. Some girl called Bonnie Brown had put up this post about the connotatioins of describing someone as cute etc and who you’d call cute and who you wouldn’t. I chose this post to experiment with and try to answer it. My answer was so articulate that I don’t remember what I actially said, and I wasn’t even sure that it had successfully gone anyway. To my amazement, the next day when I logged on there was a post on that same news group and Bonnie had answered my answer, saying that she was a teacher too, so we started emailing directly.
Over the next 91/2 years we emailed back and forth, and wrote snail mail when I went through my unemployed phases. I would often dream about going to the USA and whisking her away and we would joke about it, but the likelihood of it ever happening was pretty slim.
However, Thanks to VIF and this contract here, we actually met in person today. She and her husband are moving to Sterling which is the next town from Ashburn and I drove down and met her at her new house, and we spent the afternoon together. It was great! She was exactly like I’d expected, I had pics of her of course, and she’d brought her young daughter with her. Her car was full of movinf stuff so I helped her unload it and then we drove into Leesburg to buy some teacher stuff, then we dropped in at my place on the way back to Sterling. We parted amid hugs and kisses and promises to get together often.
In the evening I went to the puter room to check emails and got chatting to Marilyn this other resident of the complex and we talked till after midnight.
Went to the Ashburn Pressy church this morning and it turned out to be a PCUSA church and I stayed for the service but I asked the Pastor where the PCA church was and he directed me to a school nearby so I went there and went to that service as well. I think I will go to the latter in future as it is affiliated with our Pressies in Australia. The Church is called “Potomac View Ciommunity Church PCA” Tonight the girls have planned to have a Olympic closing party at the common room, so I will go along there…..
I love watching the Olympic sports, any of them, I will get into the spirit of things. Well except for Curling at the winter games and Synchronised swimming. I don’t normally watch the opening or closing ceremonies because I don’t really give a rats who’s there, I mean the media beats it all up so you know who’s going anyway, and the performances, blah blah, ho hum, so what, If I want to see dancing, I go to a show, I I want to see singing, go to a concert. I want to be a good cultural guy so I went along to be with the guys as it were. and of course NBC is the carrier of the Olympics and they want to get the most out of the advertising dollar, so what do they do? They start at 6.30 with documentaries of Ancient Greece, interspersed with copious quantities of commercials, then fast forward to the 20th century and WWII and the Nazi Occupation yada yada yada, and they keep throwing in 6 commercials to break up the boredom of the docco, this history lesson. Half the guests left before the actual ceremony started and all I wanted to do was see the Aussie athletes. The first half of the ceremony was filled wiith Greek performers dancing around fires and singing in their language, well, it’s all Greek to me. So, now it is 10pm and I am back home and I haven’t seen the Australians, once again reinforcing my notion that I don’t watch the opening or closing ceremonies. It’s just a commercial exercise for the broadcasters and waste of precious time that could be better spent watching grass grow.
Another day of meetings at school, staff development more handouts and powerpoint presentations, holiday snaps etc. Once again I drove the long way to get home, this happens because everything is around the other way here, and what would normally be a simple retracing of the morning’s route, but of course, U-turns are a part of life here, that is, when you realise you’ve driven past the turn you have to make, when you start driving past unfamiliar houses.
Tonight I went as usual to the computer room and after checking my emails which is basically the same each day. On average I get about 12 emails a day, 11 of which are spam and viruses. There must be an end to this. I started talking with Marilyn and then this Latin looking girl comes in and she catches some of our conversation and she does like I do, she puts her two cents worth in as well. So anyway, the three of us had a long convo for a few hours about subjects from Psychology, Colleges, Massages, boyfriends, families, websites, culture, Middle East, Renaissance, Reformation, heaps of stuff. School and colleges are about to recommence and quite a few students have moved in to the apartment complex because it is handy to many colleges and schools. Well our convo was cut short by a couple of college types coming in and requesting the use of computers, and sure why not?
Today we listened to a couple of speakers of the motivational type, one from California – Dude, and one from the south side of Chicago – Yo, but seriously, they were very good, and talked about creativity and expectations.
One of the reasons that we chose this apartment complex is that they have 5 yes F I V E computers on cable internet in the common room, so of course we think this is very good and handy. Yeah? Well we have been here for two weeks, and in the first day we discovered that one puter was always ‘had it’, and the others worked at varying speeds. In this age of Pentium 4/5, one would naturally expect that a facility in America would have the state-of-the-art computers, but no such luck. Two of the 4 not 5 computers only run Windows 98….old hat! And the monitors are the old cathode Ray type…old old hat!! And the other two, even though they have LCD monitors, they only run Win 2000, and have virtually no RAM so that any speed it does have has no memory to run. If this wasn’t bad enough, school kids who live here and are on summer holidays, and are supposed to have parental supervision before accessing the computers, don’t. They look up porno sites and download programs onto the hard drives which are set up in such a way that one can’t delete the crap that has been installed on it. This further slows the puters down, and of course stuffs them up. Tonight there were 2, just two computers working, and the TV room is locked every day at 5.30pm, unless you sign the keys out, yada yada yada.
This morning we had another workshop for in-service. I chose to go to Park View High where I went to a workshop for writing groups, which was very useful actually, much better than the similar in-service stuff I have had to sit through in Australia. In the afternoon we met back at our schools for faculty business and classroom preparations. I have a very decorated classroom with posters etc and things to keep students on task.
More of the same, I actually have planned the first three weeks of lessons, basically because I basically want to have heaps to do. They have given me 3 grade 6 classes, two academic classes and one honors class. The school runs on A and B days, and the kids have 8 subjects, 4 on A days and 4 on B days. I don’t fully understand it yet, but it’ll work itself out.
I decided to explore my surrounds today, so I changed into suitable garb, shorts, Tshirt, and Nikes. I power-walked, well years ago it would have just been walking briskly, but today whenever you walk with purpose it’s called power-walking, so that’ll do. I went past the soccer fields at the back and there was a boys’ and a girls’ team practicing and I went past, and continued into the scrubby area behind. Now we had been told that there was 70 acres of bushland leading to tje Potomac River, so I thought this will be a good chance to see how hard the river was to get to. Pretty hard in fact, I went through the scrub track and came to a fence, which I jumped over and continued down the road there towards where I thought the river was. I walked past a movie type backwoods house with a pickup truck in the driveway, I hal;f expected a member of the NRA to come out and take pot shots at me. Shortly after that I came to a cul de sac and a fence with NO TRESSPASSING signs on it so….so much for the Potomac River. I turned around and walked back. In consolation I did get to see two deer fawns while I was walking back through the scrub. They poked their heads out of the scrub and checked me out, then ran off. I thought this was quite neat, to have them so close behind the apartment complex.
While driving to school today I saw a squirrel running across the road. They are quite small, I thought they be bigger but they’re about half the size of a hamster. Today we had an orientation day mainly for the new grade 6 students, where we got to meet them and have a barbecue at the front of the school. I almost seemed like the last day of school in Australia, because usually it is a uniform free day, but here in USA it’s a uniform free day every day. I had 20 kids turn up out of 22 so I got a fairly good idea what they’ll be like. I have already learned some of their names but I will have them make little name plates for their desks until I learn their names.
I have to ask one of them to be a penpal for Sally Anne back in Brisbane. I think I will ask Jenny, she seems to be a girl who would click with Sally.
We have a long weekend, but fat lot of good it is right now, these days are pretty boring now because I am broke, so there is no use going out as I can’t spend anything or use up petrol. I have $20 to my name until I get paid on the 15th, still 11 days away. My pastimes are merely the computer room which only has a couple of puters working and listening to the radio. Oh yes, and writing this journal.
I went to the Potomac Hills Pressy church again today, and I met this cutie little girl, Jessica who invited me to sit with her and her mother. After the service I met the husband and they invited me to lunch with them at a Thai restaurant. Lunch was 3 hours long and we had a great time. Then back at home there was a bolt of excitement, Maybe? My roomie breezes in and asks me if Rob had told me about a Reggae concert at Belmont Hills country club, I vaguely remembered it so we got ready and went along, all the while I was saying that if there was an admission, my limited budget would preclude any entrance. We were assured that there was no admission price and we poured over the ad looking for a $$$$ sign and there was none. We drove there in two cars, in case I had to bail of course, and when we arrived there were about a million cars and ushers. Now this was suspicious, I said to myself, “self,” I said, “now how can they employ all these ushers and traffic attendants if it’s a free show, hmmmm, curiouser and curiouser.” So anyway we parked and walked over to the gate where two blokes were checking bags for drinks, even water, food, guns, clubs, spears knives etc. Annemaree had a bottle of water so we polished it off at the gate, then proceeded to walk in like the others had. This guy says, “Tickets please!” so I said,
“What tickets?” and he said,
“Man you gotta have a ticket to get in, go out front and buy a ticket.”
Anyway, the upshot was that it was going to cost $10 to get in and as this was half my budget for the next week, I decided that I did not like Reggae Music so much, they’re all marijuana smoking, dreadlocked, cocaine dealers anyway. I drove home and surfed the net for a couple of hours and Noels comes home and tells me that Rob won a return trip to anywhere in the US, hmmmm.
ON THE EAGLE’S RIDGE
Tuesday 09/07/04
Today was the first actual day of school and kids turned up. Not much got done as we had assemblies, and orientations and I didn’t have class sets of texts etc, which I would be receiving in the next few days. Daily I have been receiving dictionary sets and Thesauri and even a childrens’ Thesauri set. My buddy teacher has given me three boxes of Childrens’ story books to fill up my bookshelves. I decided to start off with some teaching using the Australian English texts, and the students took to it fairly well, I figured that I wouldn’t start them on the novel until they are settled into the routine of middle school.
The rest of the week went pretty much the same except that I stopped using the Aussie books on Thursday and started using the VA curriculum texts that had been provided. Thursday night I wrote a new week of lesson plans using another set of texts which I had to have supplied, because with lessons lasting 90 minutes I couldn’t just read for the whole period, and therefore I was able to break it up with reading, grammar, writing, and oral work.
Sometimes well-laid plans aren’t so well put to work, Firstly at 9.00am we had a fire drill, one of 4 this month, and then we’ll have one a month for the rest of the year. Friday I had all my lessons planned out and I started off well, then 15 minutes before the end of the period Martine (Buddy) comes and says are you ready for Friday 15? This is a reward we worked out for kids who are good, and this first week everyone gets the reward. The reward is given when kids bring all their materials and remember what they’re supposed to remember, and this first week everyone gets it. Well in my frenzy of lesson planning I had forgotten all about it, so, no worries, we’ll go out and have fun, and I’ll have 15 minutes where I don’t have to teach, fine with me.
However I hadn’t realised that we had to do it with all three lessons, duh. So during the second period, after lunch, I remembered that I had nominated Friday as the day for our library visit, so, with half an hour to go I decide that we will go to the library. Fine, the librarian was waiting for us and she took over, and did the talk with the kids. After this went so well and I was pleased, I told students that we’d go back to class.
At this point, when the kids were lining up for the walk back to the classroom a couple of kids casually ask, when they would have their Friday 15 reward, and I confidently reply that we have already had it with the first class. “Yeah” they say “but what about us?” When we got back to the classroom, Martine sees me and says, “Where were you guys?”
“Library Roster” I said, so she says I’ll have to change it. So hastily I start thinking about how I can fit it all in with the least fuss. I just arranged to go to the library 20 mins earlier, thus leaving me with a 5 minute buffer between the reward times, problem solved, and this new arrangement worked in the next lesson when I implemented it.
I had decided to go to the 9/11 memorial in Leesburg starting at 8:30am but after a night of pain I doubted whether I’d actually make it in time and then be back in time to meet Bonnie who was coming by to spend the day together. She came by and I went to her and let her in and then we went to a bank, now I have mentioned before that I am flat broke, having spent all my money on the car basically, I have been scraping by on a few dollars, I even borrowed $20 at one stage. Well I picked up my wallet this morning and it had $6 in it and I decided to take out all the receipts and papers that you collect over time and I felt some paper in the zippered section, dang! What was that, I remember, It’s the Aussie money that VIF told us to bring to do a currency lesson, holy money, there was $AUD200 there. I am saved, I’ll just cash it into $US and if I ever teach currency, I buy some from a bank I thought.
Well, not so easy, I just thought I could just go to a bank and change it, so I went to Bank of America, and rocked on up to a teller, “I have 200 aussie dollars, I wanna change em into American.” She looked at me startled, oh dear, “Do you have an account here?” “Well no, but look it’s just cash, I don’t want anything else I just want cash for exchange.” But she wouldn’t do it, and I walked out in a huff and back to the car and Bonnie. We went to the BB&T bank at Sterling down the road and the same thing happened with the teller, and I was tearing out my hair at this stage. I went over to the enquiries desk and said, “I thought this was a bank, now who is gonna change money if you don’t.”
“Oh dear sir, I don’t know how to do it, err, I know someone does it but I never have.”
I was ready to tear out my hair by the roots and scream loudly, when the young guy nearby looks over. She asked this young guy at the next desk and he says, “Sure you can, this is how.” so after filling out many forms and showing a card, he comes to me and gives me a receipt and says, “there sir, it’s done.” with a smile. I was afraid of this, that they’d notice I was overdrawn and just take the money to cover it. But I said, oh, I just wanted the cash, we get paid direct on Wednesday, and he promptly says “no worries” and gives me the cash, which I thought was quite good as I was overdrawn after all.
Bonnie and I went to Walmart and bought some stuff, then we went to her house where I helped them unload their moving Pod, well I should say I started to help them, then I had an attack of the pain which I had been having over the last few days. I had thought it was just a pulled muscle, and last night it felt like I had a hairline fracture, as it was agonisingly painful. I writhed around in pain on the lawn then crawled inside and sat at the table where I was eventually able to sit and eat something. Larry, Bonnie’s husband, was finally able to identify the problem, in my Sciatic Nerve, He’d had the same thing happen, so at least I know what it is now, even though it still hurts like hell. Bonnie and I drove home and we bought some Ibuprofen, which I scoffed a few tablets of, and shuffled up the stairs. Bonnie is coming back tomorrow. Well as it turned out she doesn’t have to come tomorrow because the 4 Ibuprofen I took have done their job and the pain is essentially gone and I can walk again. I rang Bonnie and told her and she invited me back to her place, so I drove down there and had a meal with them, and basically spent the evening there. Her daughter reminds me of Josephine, Patty’s daughter, who was also extremely well behaved and never cried much. I drove home about 10pm and I took 3 more before I went to bed in case it flared up again.
Today was spent taking Ibuprofen and bemoaning my pain and hoping it wasn’t too bad. At least I knew what it was now.
Labor Day, and what was supposed to be a good day off saw me not doing much. First my leg was too sore to do a real lot, and second, the fact that we hadn’t been paid yet, meant I was pretty broke still. Oh well, nothing for it except writing stuff on my laptop.
I gave my first homework assignments in class today, I am starting to get a routine going with the classes. I haven’t been able to do much planning while at school because they have Apple computers and dang if I’m going to devote time to learning another word processing system, stuff it, I’ll just use my laptop and WinXP/Word.
Payday at last, I figured that after all this time we’d get paid directly into our accounts, which they’d made a big fuss over our setting up the direct deposit thingos when we’d started. As it happened, when I walked into the school secretary’s office in the afternoon, she says, “Oh by the way, you have a Check here, Duh, I thought, do they mean I have to rush to a bank now and deposit this, so that I can pay the rent?” We had been here over a month and filled out so many forms and now this. Oh well, I jumped into the car do drive to a BB&T bank, I’d been told that I couldn’t get to the closest one in Sterling because there’d been a big prang on Route 28, and traffic was banked up, so I’d have to race 8 miles in the other direction to Leesburg. There were actually closer ones but I didn’t know them and I didn’t want to muck around with maps at this stage, so I just went to the one I knew.
It took me about 25 minutes to drive 8 miles, and I got the Check deposited alright, but it was going to take two days to clear, great! At least the staff were pleasant to deal with.
The classes are getting more settled now, I decided that I’d not teach the novel today as we are going quite quickly with it, I gave them full Language Arts lessons where we covered materials from the VA syllabus quidelines. I started teaching on Subjects and Predicates, and that sort of opened a can of worms so to speak. I went on to Objects, and Parts of Speech, and Point of View, well nearly, but I’ll save that for another day.
One girl, she’s quite chatty and the centre of attentionkept calling me over, so I modelled how to find the Subjects and Predicates for them on the board, then I talked her through doing it herself, and pow, an Epiphany! She says, hey tyhat’s cool, I never knew that, I can do it now, and she busily starts to complete the whole exercise, getting them all right!
Now that’s why we become teachers!
We gave the students the normal Friday 15 rewards today instead of tomorrow as we are going to Washington DC tomorrow for a show. We left the school at about 8.55am bound for DC and we arrived at about 10.00am at the MCI center in downtown Washington. It is a Basketball/Hockey stadium, but it is humungous in size. I you could stack three Brisbane Entertainment centres on top of each other, you’d get the idea of the size. And this is just one venue. The US Army put on a show for the kids, marching, and a history of battles and re-enactments etc. The boys were enraptured, so basically I just saw it as a huge recruiting exercise for the Army. At least half of the kids who were there will end up joining the Army, anyway, so it is worth their while to put on the PR exercise. Of course, I had told all my group to go to the Loo before we left the school, and they did, but as soon as we were seated, we arrived last and had to sit three rows from the ceiling, I was having attacks of vertigo we were so high. I felt like I should have had a hang glider so I could soar out over the arena, and make a heroic landing to the rapturous applause of the crowd, but no, I just had to hope my sciatic nerve wouldn’t flare up while I was perched in a seat 60 metres off the floor. I’d hate to have to climb down all the narrow tiers with a leg in agony like last Saturday. Anyway, I digress, no sooner had we sat in our seats and I had arranged all my group in seats cosily together that one boy says to me, “Err, Mr Silvestri, I need to go to the bathroom.”
“What? Already, we just got here, well you’ll just have to hold it because I’m not taking you down again right now.”
“That’s ok” he says, “I know where it is, I have been here with dad to watch Basketball many times.”
Aware that if I allowed him to go it might trigger an avalanch of requests I hesitantly agreed, “Oh alright, but be quick about it!”
What is it with young boys and bathrooms, when the intermission rolled around, I stood and said, “Ok, anyone who wants to go, come now or forever hold your peace.” Well all the boys got up to go, even the one who had been earlier with my permission, I don’t remember having to go to the loo so much during the day, when I was a kid. Maybe they drink more water these days, or more junk? We arrived back to school early and waited in the rooms until dismissal. The mother of one of my students, who had lived in Australia for a while, left me a packet of Tim Tam biscuits on the desk, very nice. I went to Bonnie’s place for supper tonight.
I decided to go to the DMV today to get a tag (number plate) for my car. I had been assured that there was only a ten minute waiting time at Sterling DMV. So I drive down there and it’s 11.30am and they close at 12.00. I figure 10 mins and no worries. NO suck luck! As I drove into the car park there were no parks to be found, and while I contemplated parking illegally, I glanced over at the main door and I saw why there were no parking spots. The queue for the DMV extended some 15 yards out the door, along the path and into the car park. Well, that looked like heaps more than ten minutes worth, so I went to Family Dollar instead, and bought a broom and ironing board. Roomie likes to iron on the floor, but I am a traditionalist, who must stand whilst ironing, or it’s just not ironed.
I was invited along to a baseball training thingo while at Church today, and I arranged for one of the girls at Church Amanda Garnier, because she’s worth it, to email Sally-Anne in Banyo. Many things have been happening over the last few weeks that I haven’t taken the opportunity to update this journal. I am now living and teaching in North Carolina, and How did I come to this juncture, let me elucidate. As I mentioned I was having sciatic nerve problems and this made it hard for me to sit and consequently I fell a little behind in my school work, but of course, not too far behind. Staying at school every evening till 6pm enabled me to catch up on the work which I had neglected due to pain, so everything was going swimmingly, frequent meetings with my mentor assured me of this and so I was preparing for the first interim grades and settling into a routine, even though Grade 6 is really a Primary School grade, and I am a High school teacher, or so I thought.
The deputy principal had a ‘cook out’ (barbecue) for all the staff at his place on the third sunday of school asnd a flyer was deposited in all our pigeonholes. I thought this would be a good opportunity to advance my friendship with a certain teacher I liked and asked her if i could follow her out to his place as it was in the next town to the west. She said she wasn’t going directly there and gave me directions as how to get there, hmmm. I’d brought my guitar there in case we had a chance to have a sing-along and I could contribute, but once I saw the music teachers arriving, natural shyness precluded any show of my musical abilities, or lack thereof. I did get to play one song but everyone seemed uninterested in listening and singing alone so I just gave it a miss and closed up the guitar case again. The aforementioned teacher didn’t show a lot of interest in conversation, with me anyway, so I looked further afield for amusements and I learned how to play ‘horseshoes’ which I have seen in Westerns before but never tried. The party started to break up around 6pm and people were saying goodbye and going home so I decided this was the opportune moment to leave also, especially as I could no longer see ‘her’ anymore, figuring that she must have gone already. I had last seen her being led into the house, and I figured that she was going out to the front or being given a grand tour of the house, but she never returned so I thought the former was most likely, in any case, I chose to leave at this point too. Just before I left, I asked the principal if he was going to observe me this week, and he said yes, and i told him I had a plan for him and would give it to him tomorrow. He nodded and said good. Who Knew?
YOU’RE FIRED!
Monday 10/04/04
First thing I did this morning I took ther lesson plan to the office and gave it to the principal and he received it as I expected him to, saying that he would be seeing me on Wednesday to observe a lesson. So I taught the lesson as normal that day, and the spelling test which I had been reminding students opf each day for the week went rather well, as students were well prepared for it. I even had one kid, who normally doesn’t do homework, insist that I check homework because he had for once done it. And that’s understandable, why do it if it’s not going to be checked and marked. That afternoon as I left I noticed ‘her’ car parked next to mine, so I made a mental note to phone her when I got the chance.
I went to school the bext morning like I had done every other morning, as I had no inkling that anything was different. As I was walking in to the classroom I was told by a teacher that the big cheese wanted to see me, so I diverted around to his office. He sat me down in front of his desk and gave me that look, the look that you give a wounded animal, just before you blow it’s head off. He fired me, I couldn’t believe it, he fired me, he said some crap about it not working out and maybe VIF could put me somewhere else, but he fired me. Here I was stricken with Sciatica, working back till 6 every night…and he fires me because I wouldn’t go play basketball with the staff in the afternoon. Well a big hurrumph to him!
I was stunned at first then I figured it out, the school was run by the parents, and because I had rubbed some of them up the wrong way, I was being canned. It must have been on the ‘Back to School Night’, they didn’t like that I was actually using recources to teach students instead of just grading everything. One parent raved on at me that her daughter was a straight A student at elementary school and I must be a bad teacher for giving her Bs. The following day I gave the class a quiz and they all got an A+ but she got a C, maybe she didn’t understand the task, I took her aside and let her do the quiz again, but she could only manage a B. Hmmm, straight A student eh?
I rang VIF as soon as I arrived home to see what avenues were open to me and the person I spoke with said, “You have to give me a date when you want to leave and go home, and we will give you a ticket.” I said, hang on, I’m not ready to leave yet, I don’t agree with the sacking reasons given and I want to pursue it a bit. Well she was quite unhelpful and kept insisting I had to leave so I figured I’d speak to someone else who might help out. I rang the schools office and the guy I wanted was in a meeting, as always, I noticed, but the bloke I spoke to might as well have been an answering machine, he just kept parroting the official line, “The decision is final, and can’t be reversed.”
We, some other teachers and I, went to the VA website and looked up the law and found that the board had breached their own guidelines, so we figured we had pretty strrong grounds to appeal, so I downloaded heaps of legal jargon and pepared a case for appeal. I felt the wind at my back!
The next day I had a list of things to do, first I would speak to the VIF Rep for VA and get her perspective, and then launch my legal bid for reinstatement. Well, wind out of sails…We weren’t covered by the VA legislation, it was pointed out that we were under a separate contract which contained a clause that allowed for dismissal without notice, at the school’s discretion. It was basically a way out of the contract, that the schools wouldn’t have agreed to without. So while the school was not morally correct in it’s action, it was well within the contract I was under. I was in a bit of a quandary then, I explained that I was not ready to leave yet and if need be I would go to England, but would rather stay in USA. The Rep said that she had asked if there were other schools in need of a high school teacher but there were none, but then she said, there was a slim chance but I had to agree to go anywhere. I said “ok, hit me”, she said she’d call back on Friday and let make know, but to not expect too much and still make arrangements to leave. So at least I had some hope.
Today I just spent time on the net looking for teaching jobs in Korea, Italy, England, and I made a few phone calls, arranging to take jobs OS if I had to. I had my Italian passport so a work permit in UK wouldn’t be difficult.
Today I was told of the possibility of two positions, one in a high school in NC and one in a middle school in SC, so I took the HS one but it was still unconfirmed but she was hopeful. The Rep had been extremely helpful, and I was very grateful that she was available to help me out. She gave me the phone number of the principal at the HS and told me to ring him the next Tuesday to be interviewed on the phone, so I was glad that something wqas happening that was positive.
The next three days were spent on tenter-hooks, wondering if the interview would go ok. Other VIF teachers assured me that the school would be glad to have me as they were hard up in NC rural areas, so I tried to be cool about it. I spent a fair bit of time visiting with Bonnie as when I went to NC I’d see her less, I am so fortunate that I met her on the net ten years ago. I went to church today and informed them that I’d be leaving for NC. I said goodbye and was assured that there were many PCA churches in NC. I Just veged out basically watching TV and surfing the net, I couldn’t really spend anything as the shift was going to cost me heaps, so I had to conserve wealth.
Interview with Principal Gaskins went well and he tolsd me to come down ASAP, so I told him I’d report next Monday morning. I still felt that I wanted to say something to LCPS and since I hadn’t been able to speak to them on the phone I wrote a letter to them
NOTHING COULD BE FINER
Wednesday 10/14/04
The rest of the week was spent packing up and clearing out my half of the flat in VA and paying what I owe etc. I wanted to spend Friday night drinking with everyone but then I thought, if I go out I’ll spend money and leave myself short for NC so I decided to pike out and stay home, and I am only 350 miles away, it’s not overseas.
Bonnie had baked me a tin of cookies for the trip down and as I was leaving her house she offered to lend me any money I might need, this was to be very fortunate as I would find out. I arrived in St Pauls around 3pm and I left I-95, and went for a drive around and check out the school and township. It was very picturesque and exactly like I expected hometown America to be like. A main street, a city hall, a few churches and houses, not like Loudoun County, VA at all, where all one could see was apartment complexes and parkways.
I drove down further to Lumberton and met up with the VIF teachers I’d spoken to and they showed me to some apartments, but since I was teaching in St Pauls I wanted to live there if I could, so I stayed at Motel 6 that night.
I went to church in St Paul this morning, a Presbyterian church as I’d seen it when i had a drive around yesterday, they welcomed me and brought me into a sunday school thing where they had scripture lessons. Well being a ‘know all’ I had to put my two cents worth in when I felt the guy teaching said something erroneous, so I started explaining myself. He told me I shouldn’t be a teacher, I should be a preacher, that I’d make more money. Anyway, during the service I met two teachers from the HS and they welcomed me and said they’d see me the next day. I went home to Motel 6.
I arrived at school bright and early on Monday and after I met the principal he put me with a teacher that I’m replacing to observe until I could get certified by the board. Later that morning I went to RCPS office to start the orientation, mainly to have the drug test, so I could be certified. I passed it but I couldn’t take it back with me it had to be mailed so I had to wait until head office received it, before I could teach. I was once again at Motel 6
The next day I observed the teacher again, all day, and team taught some of the topics, added my two cents worth here and there, but after school there was not much time and after going on a wild goose chase to check out an apartment complex, which had no vacancies, I drove aimlessly around St Pauls looking for a To Let sign without luck. .I referred to the staff at Motel 6 by their first names.
I followed the substitute (supply) teacher around for a week and I noticed why the other teachers had left, the kids were out of control and the sub, who was a gulf-war veteran couldn’t control them. The School’s about 25 miles south of Fort Bragg, the big Army-Air force base. They were getting good grades but only because the supply teacher didn’t give a rat’s and was grading very leniently, besides, he was a Math teacher. I knew I had my work cut out for me…
All week I formulated rules in my head and the following Monday when I took over, the kids didn’t know what hit em, I totally laid down the law and told them things were going to change, and the easy A and Bs were finished because i was an actual English teacher who’d grade their work accordingly. They tried to laugh it off but after 3 days of straight Fs they figured they had to start actually letting me teach them stuff. They do a lot of grading here, I am trying to get kids to understand that it’s useless to grade something unless I teach it first, but anyway, the schools expect at least 2 official grades a week.
Wednesday, I decided to take the day off from school and find myself a flat. I drove all around St Pauls checking out places, luckily there was one Realty office in St pauls so I rocked on up there to see what they might have. Welcome to down home USA! The sign on the door had their business hours, Monday, Tuesday, CLOSED WEDNESDAY, Thursday, Friday. Exasperated, I drove back to Lumberton and checked in with Century 21. They sent me to an apartment that smelled like it hadn’t been lived in for ages, so scratch that one, then i decided to have another look at the one I’d seen the previous Saturday when I’d first arrived. Yeah cool, I took that one. I could only afford, due to the extended Motel 6 stays, the security bond, and I had to tell her I’d pay in the next couple of days, which she accepted after a ‘have pity on me’ look from me. Then I went to the city hall to get the power connected and that was gonna cost $135 up front, dang! I paid it with my debit card and hoped and prayed that she didn’t deposit my check until I could put more money in the account.
That night I rang Bonnie, lovely Bonnie, and asked her for the loan she suggested, and she was gonna send it the next day. No money today so panic again. I followed the teacher around and observed, but on a progressive note, they did receive my drug test so I can start teaching next Monday. I received the money and deposited it, nothing was said to me so they probably hadn’t bounced my check. I paid the rest of the rent and now I just have a few dollars to live on until I get paid. Now begins the scrounging and begging for furniture, I have been offered some if only I can find a pick-up truck.
Halleujah, a guy at church has agreed to lend me his pick-up truck next week so I will go around and get the sofa and love seat. Still sleeping on a blow-up mattress though. School tomorrow.
Well the students have seen that I meant business when I told them that I was an English teacher who would be grading them according to English standards and not as easily as the sub-teachers had it with them before. Their grades went from being As Bs to Ds and Fs, mostly Fs, and they complained that I must’ve been doing something wrong as they were all A& B students. They immediately wanted me to give them more and more worksheets and tests to bring up their grades, but I explained that one couldn’t grade things until they were taught, and only then could learning be assessed. Amidst grumblings of dissent I proceeded to teach them how to do reading and comprehension and other grammar stuff. The rest of the week proceeded pretty similarly and as the county requires heaps of grades I want to be sure to do them but also to give students a range of different types and not just one or two as they’d been getting.
We are obliged to help out at sporting events and I was tapped on the shoulder by the coach of the football and asked to turn up and sell tickets at the gate. I thought great because I’d never seen a GRID IRON game live before. Well I didn’t get to see much, I was stuck inside the ticket box all night and I only made it out in the second half of the last quarter when the game was all but won. At least we won it. I spoke to some old guys there about Rugby and they said that the game was much too rough for them, as we don’t wear armour.
I am having a great time at school, the staff are very supportive, asking if I want anything just ask, and it’s done. VIF have been in touch and I have heard good reports from them regarding my time at the school. Ximena, the Chilean teacher of Spanish at my school, lives next door and her husband and son have arrived from Chile, so she is happy and they aren’t speaking much English, but he’s a good cook and he gives me the occasional meal as well. I found out that my classes here like poetry, especially Aussie Ballads, of which I have recited The Man From Ironbark, along with the accompanying actions and How MacDougal Topped The Score. You can see them getting into the beat and rhythm of the lines.
I discovered a motivating tool in my 2nd block English class. Now after a month here I am loving it, I took a tough line from the start and occasionally I recite an Aussie ballad and the kids relate to it like Rap. I had to tell a kid to be quiet by rapping to her today. First I couldn’t get a girl to be quiet because she was rapping this song and she wouldn’t shut up, so I just started rapping a song back at her and dancing around:
Bridget Bridget, in your seat
shut your mouth
shut your mouth
I told ya once I told ya twice
zip your lip and lemme teach…
I just made it up as I went and the class loved it, they kept asking me to do it again, but they all stopped and listened to me so I could teach them a bit. There are certain rhythms that they respond to well. In fact, I was explaining about Iambic Pentameter to one class in the library and equating Rap lyrics to Shakespearean verse. I showed them how they both had similar rhythms. I asked a guy to give me a line from his favourite rap song, then i wrote it on the board and used the short and long lines to show the rhythm, and how it works out the same. Later a visiting teacher who heard me giving the lesson, came and complimented me for showing her another strategy with poetry education. I felt pretty warm about that.
CROSS-COUNTRY WANDERING
I went to Greensboro NC on Saturday for a Christmas party that VIF put on for us and it was good, eventually. When they had first emailed us and asked if we wanted to go they said we had to accept on their website so they could put us on the guest list. So yes, I look up the site and confirm I am going. So I arrive at the Marriott Greensboro and go to the check-in on the first floor ballroom and the girl says “I’m sorry sir, your name doesn’t seem to be here.” But instead of saying what I wanted to say, I simply smiled and she said, “Oh go in anyway, sit anywhere, there’s plenty of food. The evening was spent hobnobbing around different tables, meeting Aussie teachers who were working all over the East. Most of the guests had taken the sponsor’s hint and booked an overnight stay at the hotel which I am sure is what the Hotel wanted, but I being a cheapskate, decided to take the two hour drive home to Lumberton.
it broke up around midnight and I thought it would just be a two and a half hour drive to come back. well 5 hours later I drive in my driveway. I tried to just drive back the way I’d come, I-40 East then I-95 south, easy, well not so, somehow I took an exit and found myself on US73 south, I could’ve ended up in Askansas if i wasn’t careful. I figured that if I drove East I’d hit I-95 sooner or later so I found US64 East and drove on that for a hour, till I got to this beltway I-440 that was supposed to join I-95. Well I drove around in circles for ages, till finally I took US1 South, and ended up in the sticks in the pitch black night. I drove up this country road through a thick forest till I found myself back at US64 East again, (tearing out my hair) I pulled in to this garage but it was locked up then luckily I saw a Sherriff’s car stopped in the middle of the road looking at me.
I flashed the lights at him and started walking towards him. All the stories you’ve heard about approaching cop cars in the night must be true, he hit me with this spotlight right in the eyes, and I froze, hands high in the air, and i told him I was hopelessly lost and asked how to get to I-95. He tells me I have to go back about 40 minutes along US64 East, and I groan, and I said I had just come from US 1 through the lake forest. He says oh by the way, did you see anyone on foot in there, I said nuh, and he says oh ok, and he drives off. I thought weird, maybe he was looking for someone. So I drive up US 64 east for a few miles conscious of my low Petrol reserve so I exited when I saw a gas station with lights on. I filled up and the lady sold me a map and I could see why I had been going around in circles, I plotted a way out and after another half hour of driving through Route 55 East to US401 South, I finally arrived at Fayetteville a city I knew of (a little), then I finally was glad to hit the long sought after I-95 and flew home, arriving at 5am. Hmm I think I shall have to be more careful in selecting highways here, at least I can say I have driven many of the out-of-the-way tracks now:). It was one of those times when one is glad to see one’s own bed
In my infamous 2nd block today a girl came in tardy, but she had a slip so I let her in. She immeditely sat down and within a couple of minutes she had pulled her jacket off and had it draped over herself, naturally hiding herself from view entirely. Now in my short time in this school I know that when a student does this, they are in fact entering their own phone booth so to speak. Of course I could hear her talking under it so I asked her to hang up and come on out and do some work with us, Nothing. So I grab the jacket and carefully raise it off her head, there she was, mobile in hand, what else? She cracked a spac, a tirade of language, as if I had interrupted her private social time, not that she was disrupting my class or anything. I realised that she had some issues going down because she never usually acted like that so I gave her some time, but she gave me going directions so I went to the buzzer on the wall and called the office. Before someone could come down she stormed out of the room and slammed my door, don’t you hate it when that happens, as if I didn’t have enough door-slammers when I drove cabs, I have to have them in teaching now too. As a footnote to this event, her mother came to school in the afternoon and I met with her and the whole thing was straightened out. The girl had to apologise, her mother said,
“Now you apologise to Mr Silvestri,”
” Sorry,” she says, looking away
“That’s not good enoough.” her mother demands, and the student looks at me,
“I’m sorry Mr S..” she responds. And all is right with the universe once again.
Shortly after the students were passing around a CD player and I went and asked the owner to voluntarily put it on the desk, or lose it till leaving day. Well he spun out, threatening me to try and take it from him, he’d punch out my lights so to speak. I calmly wrote him up and he came to have a look and snatched the paper out of my hand and ran out of the classroom. I hit the buzzer again, and this time the resident cop came and they grabbed him in the hallway and carted him off, and I had a peaceful rest of lesson. I thought he’d be sent home but as I was walking to the next lesson there he was going to class as if nothing had happened, hmn.
I did another Learning centre this afternoon in the cafeteria, I did one yesterday also, and Queonna turned up and I went though her writing lesson with her and taught her how to do it. I turned in my exam to be copied today, all in all it was a big day. I am enjoying my small town school of St Pauls immensely. It’s been a bit topsy-turvy at the beginning of the new school year. At the end of last year with all the classes planned, they gave me two regular Grade 10 English classes ENG II, and one Grade 12 ENG IV class, and I thought great, heaps of work next year. On the last day of school before the 2 week break they change and give me 3 grade nine Success 101 classes, which are the classes for kids who have failed Reading for Success I, which is for kids that fail English I, the regular English.
So I think, ok, If I brought a bunch of grade 10 low achievers up to passing grades last year I can do it with Grade 9s too. To cut a long story short, by the end of the first day I had three grade 10 success 202 classes again with most of my former students in them. Only I had twice as many students in each. Now, they weren’t there because they did badly in my class but because they’d flunked either Math or Science.
The school is trialing this program where failing students do an 18 week course in which they do very intensive 3×6 week blocks of English, Maths, and Science, and rotate between teachers, then it is hoped that the grade will bring them to a passing grade . So now I have my old students back not because they had failed or did poorly in English but in Math or Science. But I still have to teach them English because there are others there as well. Hmm.
There is no final exam in this course, just teacher evaluation and assessment. We are also offering heaps of after school programs where if a student failed a course last semester he can take the after-school class 4 days a week for 9 weeks and have that credited to the failed grade to raise it to a pass. Teachers who supervise it will be paid extra:). Then we will also offer night classes for students who want to do more, from 6pm-9pm. This is open to all students in the county and other schools because each school will offer different courses. Then there is the prospect of summer school being offered as well. I was going to see i could get work at UNC Pembroke near here for summer, but there may be heaps of work at school. I could always come home and do supply work for 3 months.
Memorabilia 