Applying for a Fulbright in England
In 1987, an American physics teacher named Bill came to my school in England as a Fulbright exchange teacher, and I was asked to mentor him. Bill and his wife had a wonderful year in England and returned again in 1999 to visit their friends. While Bill and I were catching up over a pub lunch, he suggested that I apply for a Fulbright and visit the States. So in August 1999, I discussed it with my principal, and we agreed that I should apply for the following year.

In September my wife, Theresa, and I completed the application forms. We knew we wouldn't have to think long about the question of where we wanted to live. California was the easy answer. But in November, the interviewer's question about how I would feel when I became a "local celebrity" really knocked me off my chair. "You must be joking," I said after picking myself up again. I doubted that things would go that far.

Finally, I attended an April induction (orientation) meeting that helped prepare the 60-strong British teachers for their year in the United States. But this number was later reduced to some 40 teachers as people's circumstances changed and prevented them from taking this chance of a lifetime.

Completing orientation in Washington, DC
In the late afternoon of August 1, my family and I arrived for our orientation at Catholic University in Washington, DC. At our dormitory's reception desk, we found ourselves in a queue of exhausted British teachers, with one politely complaining, "I'm not English but Welsh, thank you very much." Our "disorientation" process had begun.

During our time in the Fulbright "village," the main meeting place for everyone was the dining hall. It was always a buzz of noise as families exchanged information in a range of languages. But despite the teachers' being from many different states and 30 different countries, it was easy to recognize British and California teachers. They were the ones who never wore their I.D. badges.

It was in the dining hall that I first met John, my exchange partner. We immediately hit it off and found that we didn't need any icebreaker exercises. (Sharing a pencil to draw a house was our first icebreaker in class.) We discovered that we had similar philosophies on teaching and both loved our subject, biology. We also realized that our honesty with each other during the endless email messages we had sent had prepared us well. We already felt like old buddies.

Together we got through the endless classes, where we must have heard the "iceberg theory" of culture shock at least 20 times. (According to this theory, nine-tenths of culture is out of our conscious awareness, just as nine-tenths of an iceberg is out of sight.) However, the overall experience was positive. We met teachers from all over the world as well as the States and exchanged addresses. Our children loved every minute of their play with other children from places they had never heard of before.

The final evening had the normal round of speeches, a children's performance, and a raffle of phone cards. As each nationality won a card, a cheer from their fellow countrymen and partners rang through the hall.

The saddest note of the week was the last-minute withdrawal of an American teacher who decided that he and his wife couldn't go through the whole process and left their German partner in tears. We all agreed that this increased our determination to make our exchange a success.

Learn more about the Fulbright Program