Glad it's all over! (But it went remarkably WELL!!)

Last week's ENORMOUS logistical challenge of inviting the entire Greentown Primary school to visit our school during the course of the morning (only one year group at a time, at least; although that almost made things even more demanding, as we often had columns of hundreds of little kids trudging past each other in opposite directions - in the pouring rain) passed off far better than any of us could have hoped. I think we only had one emotional tantrum, one very minor injury, and - as far as I was aware - NO-ONE got lost at all.... which is little short of a miracle.

My most cherished observation on the day came from one of the accompanying Chinese primary teachers, who I am told commented ruefully to his American colleague, Tom Frost, "Oh, this is very bad - for me. The kids are loving this so much, they'll find my lessons very boring from now on."

That's a major commendation for these first teaching efforts by our students, who were really flung into the deep end with this, given very little time to prepare or practise.

I was very impressed by most of what I saw going on in these lessons: as I said at the farewell debrief last Friday evening, I enjoyed witnessing so much energy, so much creativity, and so much love being put into the teaching. And everybody seemed to be having a ton of FUN.

Some of my colleagues, I know, hope that our students might become a bit more appreciative of their efforts in the classroom now, a bit more aware of what a demanding job teaching can be. But for me, I think the major benefit of this activity has been as a bonding exercise for our new intake early in the year. Well, that and the possibility that this may have been a successful bridge-building exercise with our Chinese partner school, paving the way for more, and easier and closer inter-school collaborations through the rest of this year. We shall see.

Despite the onerous responsibility of being in overall charge of the event, I did somehow find the time to take plenty of photographs.... and I couldn't resist turning them into a slideshow. (It's a bit long, I'm afraid. But it has some very jolly music accompanying - an old favourite of mine, DJ Dain's inspired mash-up of I'm Yours by Jason Mraz, Don't Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin, and What A Wonderful World by the great Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo’ole.)