What If It All Goes Pear Shaped?

The heading for today's post was a headline that caught my eye on the "IT Help" page of the teacher training handbook. Just like you, I had NO IDEA what this heading meant, but by the glorious power of context clues, I managed to deduce that it essentially means "What if everything goes wrong?" So I guess this is today's lesson in British slang. Brought to you by the letter "zed."

Sorry it's been a while since I wrote. Things have gotten pretty hectic pretty quickly. And even now, I should probably be lesson planning, or memorizing my students' names from the pictures I've been given, or learning how to play field hockey (you'll know why in a few more paragraphs), or studying the government-issued tests that I'll have to give to my Lower 6th form kids throughout the year, or even just getting ready to go to the pub (YET AGAIN) to meet more staff. But right now, I'm frustrated because I've been thwarted for the third bloody time in trying to get myself a cell phone, and I'd rather just write to all you lovely people.

Starting on Tuesday, this sleepy little town came alive. All of the staff who had been "on holiday" for the summer came rushing back to town, and the staff training began. There are 28 new members of staff, and we all had to attend the New Staff Drinks Party on Tuesday night. Here, we met the Headmaster and all the other staff who weren't new but decided to crash our party anyway. Then, afterward, we partook in the very British custom of the Pub Exodus: all of the staff, new, un-new, young, old, Chem department, English department, Sport coaches, even the partners of staff members, all headed over to THE SHIP.

The pub known as THE SHIP is an Oundle phenomenon. You can meet every type of staff member or townie here. You can buy British beer (which is served only slightly cooled and tends to be much hoppier than the American stuff), "lagers" (which are what the British call the types of beers Americans drink - the stuff that's served cold and it a bit waterier), or glasses of wine. There is liquor in THE SHIP (haha, I'm just capitalizing it because I think it's funny to say THE SHIP in a booming voice, and hopefully you read the words in a booming voice when you see CAPS), and in fact the liquor is on tap, but if you buy a mixed drink, the whole pub will stop their galavanting and turn around to stare are you like you are a creature from outer space. It was explained to me this way: "Why would you think of having a cocktail when you can have a pint?" And I guess he had a point . . . I'm lucky that I like beer.



Ah yes, but the social phenomenon of THE SHIP. The impression I get is that every single person goes every single night. Now I know this can't possibly be true, but so far I haven't seen my theory disproved! I've been invited to go tonight, and I was there last night, and the night before, and the night before . . . you get the idea. The pub, I've been told, is the center of British social life. You can just hang, smoke cigarettes (blech), have a pint, watch Sport, play poker, and meet all sorts of folks. The pub is just what people do. They unwind with a pint and friends. It's a pretty beautiful thing, actually. I just can't keep up with them quite yet. And I imagine the other staff will tame it down a bit when term starts . . . on Monday.

The new staff spent Wednesday in new staff training. Which was a lot of sitting in a cold room listening to people who we will never see again talk. It. Was. Tedious. The plus side was that they fed us steak, wine, and cheesecake for lunch! Another British thing: lunch is the big meal of the day. What they call "supper" is very light. Then Thursday was a training day for the whole staff, and it was Even. More. Tedious. Goodness, I was glad to get out of there at the end of the day.

Today was a day of running around between lots of different meetings pertaining to my different types of responsibilities. Now that I know a bit more about what I'm doing beyond teaching, I think I'll fill you in.

My job has three primary facets, and each different zone of my job has a few duties it entails. The three facets of my jobs are these: 1) academic teaching, 2) pastoral care, and 3) coaching sport. I think each of these warrants its own few paragraphs.

Academic teaching is the one that I've already begun to explain. This is all the time I spend in lessons teaching the kiddies chemistry and physics. It is the biggest time commitment of the job, and the one that I think I'm the most excited about. It's also the part that I think I will be best at. But of course, I won't know until I have met the five different rooms full of kids that I have to teach. So far, I've been practicing giving lessons to empty classrooms, but I think having real (as opposed to imaginary) students will make a WORLD of difference. Some time next week, I'll let you know how the teaching is going :)

Pastoral care is the facet of my job that I haven't understood much about until today. Essentially the "pastoral" component of British boarding school life is everything outside of your full day of work. Where you life, what you eat, who looks after you . . . these are components of pastoral care. Much like Yale, Oundle has different houses. There are 13 of them, but these ones are girl/boy segregated. Each boarding student is assigned to a house, as is each staff member. The kids live there, and the staff members have duties that they perform for the house. That's where I step in!

Part of the pastoral system is a grouping of Tutors with Tutees. I'm a tutor assigned to Kirkeby girls' house, and hence I have six Tutees who are girls that live in that house. My duties toward them are essentially to check in on them every week to make sure they are doing what they should be doing. We meet formally for the first time next Tuesday (!!!!) and then its up to me to go out of the way to forge a friendship and to support them throughout the school year. I'm both nervous and excited for this part of the job. Being personally responsible for overseeing the lives of teenage girls is a bit of a daunting task. And then I actually have one student who is moving in TOMORROW, and I'm going to meet her and her parents at five. Yikes! Not only do I have to make a good impression on her . . . I have her parents to impress to. Nervous nervous nervous.

The second component of my pastoral duties is "house duty." The means that one night a week, I am the adult who is "on duty" in Kirkeby boarding house. I am personally responsible for making sure that about 60 teenage girls show up for dinner, do their homework quietly for 1.5 hours, get ready for bed at the right time, and turn out their lights promptly when I tell them to! HAHAHAHAHAHA. Are they serious?!! I CANNOT imagine that they make this system work. One person has to corral all of these teenage girls and get them to behave? I will believe it when I see it. They say that the girls are pretty obedient, but I'm waiting to see the system in effect. Dubious dubious.



The final component of my duties is to coach sport. This is the part that seemed funniest to me when I was hired for the job, but strangely enough, EVERY member of the staff is expected to participate in sport coaching, just as EVERY single pupil is required to play a sport every single season. For the younger kids, their sports are assigned to them, and starting in the 5th form, the kids get to chose their sport. Staff have to coach a sport for 2 out of the 3 terms of the year, and can you guess what I'm coaching? No, you probably can't unless you paid attention at the very beginning of this post. In my very first term, I am the assistant coach for 3rd form BOYS FIELD HOCKEY. Hahahahaha. That's right. I am coaching a sport I know NOTHING about. And it seems like this happens a lot. In fact today, I attended a pretty dreadful 3 hour meeting specifically for staff who have been assigned to coach field hockey, but know nothing about it. I'm sitting here laughing and thinking that its a DARN good thing that I'm an assistant coach to someone who (hopefully) has played this sport before. And is a boy, I hope. It seems like a bad idea to have me coaching an obscure boy's sport, but I have been reassured that really it's fine. Ok. I guess I'll see.

But THEN in the next quarter, I get to have a little more fun. After Christmas, I am an assistant coach for GIRLS RUGBY! Yesssssss. And I met up with the head coach at THE SHIP and he's very very very excited to have me on board. He didn't have an assistant coach last year, and he's just thrilled that there's a young lady who knows a little about the game and is excited to coach it. So basically, hooray! If I can make it through a term of coaching boy's hockey, I get the reward of coaching girl's rubgy. Eyes on the prize, me. Eyes on the prize.



Blargh, I wrote a list of a few more things to write about, but I think I've rambled for long enough tonight. Maybe later I'll write about what it was like in London or about the friends I'm making. I might even write about my lovely housemate Alie who's been living with me since Sunday. She and I have really hit it off, and even though we both went to Yale, somehow we never managed to meet each other. Haha, well I'm glad we have now. I'm finding myself in the best living situation I've had since I lived with my parents in high school. This is good :)

Ok, tonight I leave you with a picture I plucked off the internet of the Oundle Great Hall, which is the building where we have larger assemblies and lectures for kids in the Upper 6th Form. Looks a bit like Yale . . . only authentic :-P

Cheerio, chaps. Much love to you all.

<3 Freddie