And what about the students.... are they similar or different...? Well, as I’ve seen over the years through various CFE trips all over the world (in Europe, Asia, Africa, and more) teenagers are teenagers! Truly, most of the students we have observed and talked to at the school here could easily be walking the halls at MA (and indeed, several of them have through our school’s mutual partnership), and vice versa. I always enjoy experiencing this phenomenon on local, national, and international levels, and it just never gets old for me to witness... students are students no matter where you are in your city, nation, and greater world. As a teacher that really enjoys this age group, that is always fun for me to see and observe. Sure, we have certain cultural differences, but overall we’re usually more similar than meets the eye.
After our morning classes we all had lunch - the students headed again to the cafeteria and another school administrator (their equivalent to the Director of Curriculum), Marian, took Dr. DiNardo and I to a small cafe for lunch nearby that we walked to from the school. Similar to the previous day’s lunch meeting, Marian asked us several questions to better understand processes and procedures at our school, including how we recruit new teachers for open positions, how we train and develop our teachers, what our students’ daily class schedule looks like, what our curriculum involves, etc. He also asked us what we thought of the morning classes we attended, and what we thought was done well, areas for possible improvement, etc. It is obvious to us that the C.S. Lewis School is trying to learn as much as they can from MA as they grow their school after opening its doors only 14 years ago. They have some amazing potential in front of them - for example, next week they have 350 (yes, you read that number correctly) students coming to their admission testing event to see if they might be able to be accepted to attend the school next year. WOW! That is so exciting. So, I believe the already excellent school is at a tipping point of sorts to transition into even deeper levels of excellence in many different areas. It is great that we can share ideas and encouragement with a like-minded school.
The rest of the afternoon was spent outside of school at Danubiana, a fabulous art gallery and sculpture garden on the Danube River. We walked to the bus station from the school and took the city bus to and from the gallery. It has been wonderful to have our Slovak hosts with us to guide our way around town - so fun to be with them and SO helpful for navigation!
After Danubiana we went our separate ways - Lexi and Elsie went shopping with their host family, the guys went back to their home and had pizza, and my host family took the adult leaders out to dinner. Photos of our day below!
British Literature class - they were doing a mock trial on a book they had recently read, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
Dr. DiNardo and I liked this box inside one of the classroom doors for phones - leave your phone in the box when you come in, pick it up on your way out. This was inside the Public Speaking classroom - the teacher’s name is Sierra and is from Oregon. Great idea!
Critical Reading and Writing class where we talked about the speech patterns of the POTUS and a bit about Brexit. Interesting!
Riding the bus to Danubiana... some of us got a bit sleepy. :)
After we walked through the whole art gallery there was the “Art Cafe” at the end of the building. It had huge floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Danube - it was so relaxing to sit there and watch the water flow by. A nice treat at the end of a great day.
I just had to snap this photo of Elsie and Lexi with their fancy drinks - Lavender Blueberry Lemonade. I think their bright smiles accurately sum up our trip so far... we’re all having a great time! Tomorrow (Wednesday) we get to go on a day trip to Budapest, Hungary - we are all so excited about going there! Stay tuned for more pictures coming soon...
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