Andy Neighbor is a sixth-form college biology teacher near London, England. Sixth-form colleges serve 16- to 19-year-old students who are pursuing academic studies. John Melton is a high-school biology teacher in Northern California. In the fall of 2000, Andy and John began a one-year teaching exchange sponsored by the U.S. government's Fulbright Program. In Andy's third article about his experiences, he summarizes his findings from a regional meeting of Fulbright exchange teachers in California.

A British Teacher in California: A Fulbright Field Trip to San Diego!

In October, the Fulbright Program set up regional conferences for all the Fulbright teachers in the United States. I traveled to our meeting site in San Diego with two other British exchange teachers from Northern California. The three of us had become good friends through the support network we had set up.

The mood was positive and upbeat as everyone checked in at the hotel. But as soon as we met colleagues we had not seen since last summer in Washington, DC, it was clear that everyone had their own stories to tell. The group of 32 teachers from 12 different countries quickly gelled and had plenty of ideas and solutions to offer for the problems they had encountered.

Day 1 – Visiting San Diego-area schools
We spent our first conference day visiting two schools that had developed some excellent schemes. In the elementary school we toured, every classroom was decorated with posters and student work about one country, so as you entered each classroom, you entered a different country and culture.

We also visited a middle school where students run an on-site business. Started by a teacher and now in its thirteenth year, this food business is so successful that it out-competes the school cafeteria. Some $14,000 a year profits are plowed back into the business, which now has its own portable building on the school grounds.

Both these schools impressed and inspired us and gave us some excellent ideas to implement either at our exchange schools or at home.

Day 2 – Brainstorming and discussion sessions
As we talked, it became clear that we all felt concerned that we were no longer the experts at our jobs. In fact, we felt like beginning teachers who were not even fully aware of the system we were working in. We were not used to such large classes and so much grading. We had all come from countries where class sizes were smaller and the students were primarily assessed on major pieces of course work and the all-important end-of-year examinations that counted for everything.

The former Fulbright exchange teacher from the U.S. was great, however, in telling us to "get a life and set lower realistic targets" because we were no longer the best teachers in our schools.

We also brainstormed and listed the many positive experiences we had enjoyed as exchange teachers. Generally, we felt that we had brought some fun to our classrooms and that the students enjoyed learning about our home countries. In my case, the students laugh at my rotten jokes.

Conclusions from the conference
Our conclusions were threefold:

1. Accept that larger classes mean less individual support for students.
2. Maintain our own sanity by assigning less homework and developing strategies such as having students grade their own work to ensure that the grading load does not sink us.
3. Remember to take chances. The reason we were here in the first place was that we were prepared to take a major risk in order to improve our professional development from the whole exchange experience. Our original goal was to return home better teachers for having experienced the best of both systems.
   

Andy's prior journal entries

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