First, Friday. I got a call on Thursday evening for work Friday in Dagenham in a year 1 class--that's like our kindergarten. Friday morning, I took the tube to Dagenham Heathrow, and made the ten-minute walk to the school without issue. I met the teacher, who was to be in a workshop all day, and she gave me brief instructions what to do with the kids. Allison, the TA there was a good support to have, helping me to find the kids to bring them inside, and just helping me with kids names and classroom routines. In the morning we counted to 100 and played "I'm thinking of a number," and then I got them up and jumping and jiving to a song called "I Can Dance." After recess--"playtime" in the local lingo--we had a read-aloud, and then did some art--painting the letters for a Happy Birthday poster listing the birthdays of each student in the class. For lunch, they all went down to the dining hall, where a full-time staff served a hot lunch to those who either paid for it, or who were being offered a free lunch because of financial disadvantage. The children eating a hot lunch ate together, and the children eating packed lunches from home ate at another table. I was responsible to supervise for the first 15 minutes of lunch to ensure that the children were eating, and then the kitchen staff dismissed them for playtime when lunch was over. After lunch, we went down to an assembly in the dining hall, and following that the children were to be given "golden time" (e.g. free activity time) for their good behaviour earlier this week. After twenty minutes of very hyper children shouting at the top of their voices, in spite of repeated directions from both myself and the TA to tone it down, we chose to take them outside into a courtyard in the middle of the school and let them run off steam. I got through everything the teacher wanted except for a discussion about what they liked about year 1--in their condition, I decided it would be a vain attempt. Overall, I felt quite good about the day, but very concious that I know how an Ontario classroom functions and what the expectations are, but I really have no idea how a British classroom operates, or the implicit understandings there. I hope to get into someone's classroom this week just to observe for a day and see what some of the differences are, in order to make myself feel more confident when I step into a new classroom as the substitute teacher.
Friday evening, I travelled on the c2c and DLR trains from Barking to Greenwich for the Comedy Festival that was happening there. There were three acts, and I liked each one better than the last, particularly the Irishman who came out last. Unfortunately, as Melissa (my housemate) noted, the intervals between acts were almost as long as the acts themselves, an excuse for as much beer-drinking as possible.
Saturday I went into London with two of my housemates for the Thames Festival. Unfortunately, about half of the Tube system--or maybe it just seemed that much--was shut down this weekend, so we took a "rail replacement" bus into the downtown. On the plus side, it gave us a chance to see some of the communities that up until now have just been Tube stop names to us. There was much food there, and a variety of acts, from Korean dancing to a gymnastics event, to people in Swiss costumes performing several acts, and various bands at the Big Swing stage. I had a Ghanaian lunch, spicy rice with a sampling of chicken satay, a black-eyed bean stew, a beef stew, and a lentil dish. I picked up some "caramel clotted cream" fudge at one of the many fudge stalls at the venue, which covered the Thames from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge. On the way home, I parted company from my housemates because I was ready to go home and they wanted to stay a while longer. I got myself quite lost trying to transfer from the tube (a line that was partially in service) to the c2c line out to Barking. I didn't actually know what the c2c station was that I was looking for, and no one seemed able to help me when the initial directions the tube staff gave me failed to help. I finally went back to the tube and found out that while the tube station was called Tower Hill, the c2c station I needed was Fenchurch station. After wandering around for about 40 minutes, I finally found the station and got home about 8 pm.
This morning, I attended Barking Baptist Church, which is about an 8-minute walk from my house. It is about 80% black, and looks to be a congregation of about 100 or so. I was greeted by several people on my way in, including Vicky, who just moved here (with her husband) from Alabama last November. The singing was heart-felt, with a team of about 12 people on-stage (keyboard, guitar, and singers) leading the music, many of which I didn't know except for "Majesty" and "Come, Now is the Time to Worship." They had a greeting time early in the service, but unlike the Mennonites who will politely greet the people in their immediate vicinity, these people were moving out of their seats to greet everyone, 5 pews over or whatever. Then after the service, I met a couple who were pleasantly surprised to find I was a Canadian, and then thoroughly amazed to find that I was a Mennonite who had studied at CMU in Winnipeg. It turned out that they had lived in Steinbach while she was studying sociology at the University of Winnipeg. She gave me their address, and welcomed me--as did a dozen others--to come back next week. I hope you have had a good weekend as I have.
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