Trading Places

Back in 1997, Melissa McDermid was a first-year teacher. Some 3,700 miles away in Croydon, a little town in South London, so was Anna Conquest.

McDermid teaches third-graders at in Farmington Hills. Conquest teaches second- and third-graders at The Hayes Primary School in England. They both love their jobs, both had a deep desire to learn to do those jobs somewhere else, somewhere a little foreign.

And last year, they did. The two literally traded classrooms as part of the Fulbright Teacher Exchange. They also traded their houses, their cars and even their friends and families. This school year, when McDermid returned to Michigan and Conquest returned to Croydon, they found they had an even deeper love of their professions and their communities, as a result of spending last year in the other’s lives.

Former superintendent of schools C. Robert Maxfield planted the seed in McDermid’s mind when he presented a program about a three-week exchange program. McDermid stored that information in the back of her head for years before she finally decided during the 2008-2009 school year to apply to the Fulbright Exchange Program. It took months before she heard the program might have a match.

At about the same time that McDermid began filling out her applications, a teacher from Peru came to observe Conquest’s class.

“He just cried at the resources we had. And at that moment I said, ‘I have to experience this in another country,’” Conquest said. She spent a year filling out her Fulbright application.

Months later, she got a letter telling her she’d be going to Michigan.

“I said, ‘Yay! Where is Michigan?’” she said. “I knew nothing about Michigan.”

Exchange requires adjustments

The August before the 2009-2010 school year, all the Fulbright teachers from all over the world  met in Washington DC.  McDermid and Conquest got to know each other and negotiated their terms – the house, car and life exchange.

One of the hardest things to get used to was driving Conquest’s car, McDermid said. For starters, Conquest drives a manual transmission car. And of course, everyone in England drives on the left-hand side of the road. And by golly, if there’s a hill in Croydon, chances are McDermid had to drive over it en route from Conquest’s home to The Hayes School.

“Here, it’s easy,” Conquest said. “Your roads are wide, and you’ve got automatic transmission.”

Trading classrooms and students was far more exciting, and a much greater challenge.

They both reported a sense of reliving the hardest year of any teacher’s career, that first year, when everything is new and unfamiliar. Differences in English and American communication styles and accents also took up a great deal of McDermid’s time during the first week in her classroom at They Hayes.

For example, in her Kenbrook classroom, students store their supplies and work in bins. But in England, a bin is a trash can. When McDermid instructed her students to put their things away in the bin, they started throwing their supplies into the trash.

Conquest had a tough time getting used to American money. So her students enjoyed teaching her about identifying American coins.

McDermid ran into trouble while attempting to share the quintessential Thanksgiving dish, pumpkin pie, because it's impossible to find canned pumpkin in England. So her friends and family mailed her cans of pumpkin, and stuffed them into their suitcases when they visited her.

Their efforts paid off when McDermid made 140 miniature pies to share with her British students and colleagues. They were a hit.

A different way to teach

McDermid came away from her year abroad with a deep understanding of a different way to teach.

At The Hayes, the work of teachers is collaborative and well-planned. Weekly teacher meetings often lasted more than two hours, to review specific lesson plans and assignments, something McDermid learned to like.

“Here, it’s not like that. I don’t work that way. We do talk about what we’re doing with each other, but then we do it our way. There, it’s much more specific,” she said.

Conquest said that she likes the specialty aspect of teaching in Michigan. In England, she teaches religious studies, gym, English, math, French (McDermid doesn’t speak a word of French, and had to make a go of teaching it anyway), and music. Here, the students study art and gym and music with another teacher.

“That support is great. I’m not an expert in physical education or music, so I did like that,” she said.

Both feel like they’re better teachers as a result of teaching abroad and learning another way to teach.

McDermid’s standards for courtesy have been elevated; she expects her students to observe a higher level of etiquette. Conquest now teaches her students to be a little more self-directed, especially during reading time.

McDermid has also brought home to her Michigan students some of the structure she enjoyed at The Hayes.

“One of the greatest things I learned is when you specifically tell your students what you’re working on and what you expect, what you’re looking for,” McDermid said.

The two teachers have certainly stayed in touch. Conquest is here in Michigan for a couple of weeks to visit. And McDermid will go to England in June.

“It was just a spectacular year,” McDermid said.