The Rest of my Bruges Trip

So I left you last on Wednesday morning, having enjoyed a good first day in Bruges on Tuesday. After breakfast on Wednesday (kindly provided by my hostel, simple but adequate), I made my way to the tourist information centre where I bought a 48-hour Bruges city card for easy access to all the city museums plus other important cultural/historical sites, and a boat ride around Bruges canals. I decided I was going to make a stab at as many museums as I could that day. I went to the Memlingmuseum first, a former hospital for pilgrims/travellers/the sick that had in its early days commissioned local artists such as Hans Memling to create art pieces to grace the walls of the hospital. The museum was set up as the original hospital, combining art and medical care (such as it was at the time).

Thursday morning I headed out to the Friet Museum first thing. Who knew that French fries were actually invented by the Belgians? Or that they are delicious eaten with mayonnaise? The museum was very interesting, provided samples of the original tubers that were originally eaten by people in the Andes before being transported to Europe. It was a museum of the history of the potato as much as of the French fry, though there was a snack bar selling fries at the end. The fried snack was invented in the 17th century, and likely confused by the Americans during WW1 who only knew that the commanders who gave them the snack spoke French. Then it was on to the Chocolate Museum...I know, healthy morning for me...I actually thought the Friet Museum was slightly better done, though it was less busy than the Chocolate one. After that, I checked out a number of churches, and ended up at the Beguinage--a beautifully serene place where the Beguine sisters once lived. They were a religious order who sought to serve God without taking all the vows (retreating from the world) that other orders did. The community in which they lived has been preserved as a quiet, restful place. Later that afternoon, I had an interesting conversation with a woman in one of the shops in town. She is looking forward to getting out of Bruges (Belgium) and going to Dubai. She had the sense that many young Europeans are looking to leave their homelands and was interested when I said that I'm teaching overseas for a year or two, but intend to return to Canada to settle eventually. I don't know how much truth there is to what she was saying.

entrance to the BeginageI went on the boat tour next, which was a highlight for me. The tour guide was funny and informative, and it was neat to see Bruges from the canals (I had already been on a bus tour the day before). Some of the bridges were quite small, one a few people had to duck to get under it, and there was another one that our guide didn't even try to venture under. Another highlight that afternoon was the Groenigemuseum, which housed many paintings by 16th-century Flemish masters: Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, and ? Pourbos, among others.

Friday I got an email from Eurostar saying no trains were getting through to Brussels yet. So I made plans to travel back the way I came, from Bruges through Kortrijk to Lille--from which I could catch my Eurostar back to London. Again, the trip went very well, for which I was grateful, especially having heard a few horror stories about people who had spent 11 hours and countless trains trying to travel from Amsterdam to Bruges or other such trips. I got a first-class seat on Eurostar since their 2nd-class seats were filled, and I got home at 3:30 pm rather than 9:30, for the original price of 44 quid.

This was my first holiday really on my own, and it went pretty well for the most part. French was not widely used in Bruges as it's a more northern city in Belgium, thus Flemish is the mother language. However, English was almost universally understood and spoken. I enjoyed walking around Bruges and was able to communicate well most of the time. Bruges does shut down early (by 6 pm most places were closed) so a couple of nights I sat in the bar at my hostel with my book/prayer journal/puzzle books. There was no lounge, but at least they didn't make me buy a drink to sit there...: ) I also talked a bit with the Belgian woman and her two daughters who were my roommates the first two nights, and more with the American backpackers (a brother and sister) who were my roommates the last night there.

The greatest highlights on this trip: chocolate; the boat trip; the Groenigemuseum; the Memlingmuseum; discovering new interesting places at the end of another street or alley.

Arriving in Bruges

I thought I should give a brief update for the family and friends (particularly my mother) who were wondering what came of my trip since the trains to Brussels were cancelled. I decided on Monday night that I would go in for my 7:30 am train to Brussels anyway; I thought there was the remote chance that it might go ahead after all, and assuming it didn't, ask Eurostar what they could do for me. I thought it might well be an option to go to Calais or Lille (both Eurostar destinations) instead, and I could always take a highway coach if worse came to worse. So I arrived at St. Pancras station at 6:50 yesterday morning and found signs everywhere immediately informing me of no travel to Brussels for the day. I made my way to an information desk where I was told that yes, they would take me to Lille instead, I just needed to go to the ticket counter to get my ticket changed. I left the ticket counter about 7:10, and got to my train just in time for its 7:27 departure. It was a pleasant, uneventful trip to Lille and we arrived shortly after 10 am local time (one hour ahead of London time). I walked from one train station to another one very closeby that would operated trains in the direction of Bruges. Having barely had time for breakfast that morning, I stopped for an apple-filled pastry. Then I bought a ticket to Bruges via Cortrai (the cashier, whose English was as poor as my French very kindly wrote out locations and times for me so I'd know where and when I'd be transitioning). I made the transition at Cortrai (spelled Kortrijk at the station, the Flemish version) without difficulty and found the train to Bruges. I arrived in Bruges (alternately spelled Brugge and Brugges) around 12:20, and took the number 6 bus to my accomodations at St. Christopher's Bauhaus, a local youth hostel I had booked online. Then I spent the afternoon wandering around Bruges. It is indeed a beautiful city, and I'm kicking myself that when I was repacking my things, my camera didn't make it back into my luggage. I guess I'll just have to buy lots of postcards instead. I will provide more detail about Bruges later this week, but very much enjoyed myself. I went to a concert in the evening at the concert hall, a very intimate gathering (maybe 100 people there?) lining the outside of relatively small room. In the middle of the room was a pianist/dancer duo. The pianist improvised freely using a variety of classical and jazz idioms, some prepared piano (that is, pens or a variety of other objects that have been placed inside the piano to change the sound it makes) while the dancer moved in harmony with the music, sometimes using fast, spastic movements and sometimes long, slow, graceful ones to paint the music being played. At times he looked like a marionette being moved. I had walked the city enough during the day to be quite confident to find my way back home that night...the streets felt quite safe. So after a good night's rest, I'm out and about to do as much as I can in this city today and tomorrow. Brussels on Friday...

Ciao.

Taking Stock...

Much has happened since I last updated this blog. I had a hard week two weeks ago, at the end of which I had a discussion with my mentor teacher which resulted in her agreeing to seek more support for me from senior levels of administration at the school. I had a visit with the VP at Gascoigne last Wednesday (nine days ago) and she asked me how I was feeling. I replied honestly that I was still struggling somewhat with the behaviour management side of things, but that I was continuing to work on it, and happy with the support I'd had from the other yr 1 teachers, and generally happy at Gascoigne. She then expressed the same concern--though never fleshed out in any more detail than what I had said--and told me that since I was employed through an agency (and Gascoigne has many agency staff) I would not be funded for any extra support, as I would be if I was permanently employed on a contract as a Newly Qualified Teacher by Gascoigne. (NQTs are eligible for one day off every week to observe other teachers and/or attend workshops, as well as regular observations and feedback and team teaching with a more experienced teacher.) She essentially gave me to understand that I was on probation for the next week or two.

After the initial shock of her message--and the sting of perceived failure--wore off, I realized that I was really feeling pretty stressed out by this job, and perhaps the best thing in the world for me would be to get out of this long-term job and go back to day-to-day supply. So it was without a great deal of surprise or sadness that I received the news from TimePlan (my agency) on Friday last week that Gascoigne wanted me to finish my tenure with them this Friday.

I have spent this week packing up my things, trying to get everything in order for the new teacher who's taking over (who turns out to be another young teacher from TimePlan) as much as possible, and doing the best job I can with these kids for my last week with them. Yesterday and today, Shola (the replacement teacher) was teaching for much of it, and I have been sent into the reception and nursery classes on day-to-day supply. So it was kind of a weird way to end--I only saw my kids for ten minutes to say goodbye today.

While I don't feel much attachment to most of my students, I feel regret for the turmoil they're going through again. Shola is now the fourth teacher they've had this year. sShe and I had a meeting with one child's parents yesterday who are concerned about the impact on their son, who was noted as having social difficulties already in reception, of this ongoing disruption which has cut him off from the friends he was making early in the year before this "overflow" class was formed, also wondering what will happen to him next year.

So it's over. I have said goodbye to my yr 1 class, and can now enjoy my break without thinking at all about planning (or marking) for the Monday after the break. I am definitely looking forward to stepping back from all the paperwork, all the planning, all the pressure and all-consuming nature of having my own class.

On the other hand, it has been a huge learning experience for me. I have learned much about planning, about the National Curriculum, about assessment, and about management. Gascoigne is a large school (1000+ students) so I have had the opportunity to get to know and work with a bunch of other teachers, and it has been nice to have a team of 4 other yr 1 teachers to bounce ideas with. I got to know some teachers and teaching assistants whom I'll be sorry to leave behind. Several have asked me to stay in touch.

Where God closes one door, I believe he opens another. I look forward to the next stage of the journey with anticipation. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to having some relaxation time this next week, as I take the train through the chunnel to visit the medieval city of Bruges in Belgium.

Quiet Weekend

It's been a while since my last post. Last week, I felt worn out dealing with children who wouldn't listen and ended up yelling far more than was wise or necessary. I paid the price by not having any voice all weekend, and it's just been slowly returning this week. The upside of all this is that I couldn't teach and therefore have had a much more leisurely week thus far--it's felt like a four-day weekend. I watched three movies on the weekend and put together a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle. I've also done a lot more walking the last few days because I had the time to do so, as well as getting an acupuncture done today. Today I did go into school in the morning for a workshop on Big Writing (the new initiative recently adopted by Gasgcoigne to help lower-ability students--particularly boys--improve their writing) in the morning which was really good. The speaker was really engaging and gave us some good ideas (including how to teach children to count to ten in Japanese in three minutes or less). He talked about giving the kids nuggets of information to think about and gave us some ideas of the kinds of activities we can use to help them build meaning out of the information they're given. I expect to be back at school tomorrow, and hope to put into practice a few of the ideas he gave us today. I've talked to my mentor teacher and am hoping to get a bit more support--particularly for my guided reading program--soon. And I'm counting down the days until the half-term holiday and Belgium!

Science Museum

I had a good weekend, pretty social this past weekend. Spent most of Saturday with some friends from Nipissing (teacher's college) who are all teaching in London like me. Two of the four of us had just arrived within the last two weeks, so were still getting over jetlag. I had brunch with Erin at a lovely crepe place near the museum, and then we met Theresa and Jess at the Science Museum. There was lots to see there, beginning with a materials exhibit--we saw some housing material that had been fashioned together from all kinds of different materials (from carpeting to wood to plastic and foam). That is to say, each layer was fastened together to make very heavy and well-insulated walls. We also looked at a display which showed all the different materials that are used to make replacement body parts, from dissolvable stitches to pins for hips and knees to stints to keep blood flowing through one's veins. The high heels made out of carpet were a highlight, as was the evening jacket made out of steel wool.

We also saw an interesting exhibit outlining different inventions that have changed our society over the last 1000 years, and a favourite of mine, showing the progression of "things" in our homes over time--from the wash tub and scrub board to the oldest washing machines to a contemporary one; and similar displays for irons, lamps/lights, stoves, etc.

Toasters!
Me, Theresa, Jess, Erin.
the progression of agriculture:Massey combine harvester, circa 1953, I believe.

Sunday I got to the London Mennonite Centre for their monthly lunch, and then played piano at church. I was able to sign the "leaving book" for the LMC hosts who are heading back to the States in just over a week's time, and then skeddaddled on home to do some schoolwork which I had left largely undone for most of the weekend. Finding the right balance between wanting to go in prepared Monday morning and needing time off to relax too is something I'm still working on. My kids are quick to comment every time I forget to change the daily schedule or the day's helpers or the behaviour board! Happy late January to you....

Goodbye to my Canadian Housemates

It's been a busy week. On Thursday, Melissa and Dusty left Park Avenue for the last time. They arrived in September 2008 on the Holidaymaker's visa, which entitled them to live here for 2 years, but only work for 12 months of that. I'm on the Youth Mobility visa (applicants up to 30 years old may apply) which replaced the Holidaymaker's visa) and I'm allowed to live and work here for two years. So we had a farewell dinner at a local restaurant early in the week, and then I said goodbye to them on Thursday morning. They took 7 massive suitcases/hockey bags to the airport with them. I'm missing them already. I am finally starting to get to know my Swedish housemates a bit. The two teens (Sona and Dennis) have been working really hard on correspondence studies to complete their high school education and get ready for university this fall, so I had barely seen a trace of them the first week they were here. Maria quit the job she had taken on mid-week, she got thrown into a nightmare class without any warning or support. She is now much happier on day-to-day supply work. Two of my friends from teacher's college arrived in London this week, so I'm hoping to get together with them soon.

School continues busy. We had our first "Big Write" on Friday. The kids got between 20 (yr 1) and 40 (yr 3 and up) minutes to write about the best day of their life. This coming week the theme is the worst day of your life. There's been lots of insets and information going around about that to get everyone on board. We're playing games each morning that target four things: Vocabulary (WOW words), Connectives (but, and, if, etc), Openers (how to begin a sentence), and Punctuation, known by the acronym VCOP. To make this a special time, the school has gone to a lot of effort to get folders for each child to store their Big Writes, special pens and paper that only get used for Big Write, and candles (fake for the younger kids) for the desks. Before recess we play a bunch of quick VCOP games, and then give the kids time to compose their thoughts on graphic organizers, and then after playtime, they come in and we play quiet classical music during the silent writing time.

David ( a friend from the Mennonite church) and I had dinner at an Italian restaurant near Leicester (pronounced Lester) Square last night and then went to see a show called The Misanthrope. It was played in the Comedy Theatre, but it had more of a postmodern cynicism to it...interesting anyway. It had the rhythms and rhymes of Shakespeare in contemporary prose with a modern theme. It was my first experience of standing to watch a show--we got the last two tickets available in the house. The theatre was very tall--we were standing on the third balcony, and looked to have been built in Victorian times. Leicester Square is an amazing part of London. There is theatre upon theatre upon comedy club upon theatre upon more comedy clubs for several blocks.

Snow and the V and A Museum and Little South Asia

London has been dumped with massive amounts of snow this week...approximately 1 inch or so. It's also been extremely cold this week--about -2 C or thereabouts. For this reason, most sensible and paranoid Londoners have stayed home instead of going out into the dreadful weather. My school however, opted to stay open since the main roads were clear (and Gascoigne is located on a main road). The teachers in my staff room were joking that if this were the London Blitz, our head would have said, "The skies are clear. School's open." Sarcasm aside, it has felt damp and chilly this week, and unfortunately the children have not be allowed out to play in it because none of them have snowsuits--an unheard-of thing in London. So they've been pretty hyper this week as it's been an entire week of indoor recesses (and they REALLY want to play in the snow since it's such a novelty), after two weeks of holiday excesses and being spoiled rotten. Furthermore, it's been less than 15 C in my classroom this week as one of the radiators wasn't working. It hasn't been a great week for teaching. However, I've been trying to keep the above things in mind and not take it personally when they get up and start pacing around the room in the middle of a lesson. I'm hoping it warms up soon so they can get outside again.

I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum with a friend from church today. I believe it started out as a gallery for Victoria and Albert's collection of things. It's an extensive museum now, somewhat like the ROM in Toronto. We spent four hours touring through three exhibits: sculptures from Medieval and Renaissance Europe, including Roman fountains and depictions of the three magi among other things; various artifacts from China: Ming vases and furniture from various dynasties, clothing and grave relics (I'm not sure if that's the proper term...various articles that were buried with the dead) and some modern art pieces; and finally an exhibit of photography, of which my favourite was a photograph of a woman selling newpapers while behind her was a flurry of activity making a statement about the constant motion of time about us.

For dinner, we walked down Brick Lane, which was clearly a hub of Indian and other South Asian restaurants and stores. At each restaurant, there was a man outside doing a hard sell job on each person who passed to convince them to come into his establishment. Free wine and beer were on offer, as well as 25-30% discounts off menu prices, and special deals where you get an appetizer plus main course plus dessert and drinks for a single rate. We were accosted more than a dozen times in the span of two blocks by these marketers. I had to laugh as each man politely waited for the man in front of him to finish his spiele, and then as soon as we walked on towards him, he'd launch into his appeal for why his restaurant was better and how many awards it had won from various sources and what better deals he could give us . It reminded me of time our family spent in Nigeria some twenty-odd years ago, when fruit sellers would complain, "Why do you not buy from my hand?" after my mother had purchased bananas from a competing trader.

Have a good week all. JKN