A Report On The Class Session We Had With The Teachers From Reepham High School, Norfolk, U.K.

Reepham Church

All students must have been taught at one time or the other by a teacher of another school in their locality or taught by senior students on the Teacher’s Day when the students try to give a ‘break’ to a teacher from teaching them the whole year!! Well, I suppose that not many students had the opportunity to exchange information with teachers, not with any other school in their city but with a teacher from a school from another country!

But we, students of PSBB Nungambakkam, had received this opportunity when two gentlemen, Mr. Humphrey Borgnis and Mr. Timothy Reeve visited our school. They have been in our school for quite a number of days and went back to Reepham on the 1st of February. During all these days, they have been interacting with students and sharing knowledge with them. Students had almost become friends with them and we surely did enjoy talking to them about their school, their teaching methods, technological developments, etc.

Mr. Humphrey is a teacher in the IT department and Mr. TimothyReeve is the Head of the Department of Geography in the Reepham High School , Norfolk, U.K.

On the 30th of February, Mr. Timothy and Mr. Humphrey entered our class. We greeted them with the traditional way of welcoming a teacher in our school i.e. “Shri Gurubhyo Namaha”. So, we began with our session. Mr. Timothy started with the Geographical features of Reepham, a small town in Norfolk. The moment he started teaching, we had so many questions hovering in our minds that we could not decide which one to ask first as one does not get much opportunities to interact with a school teacher from another country! But during his course of teaching, all our answers were answered until our minds were satisfied. That high was the level of his teaching. It seemed to us that he could read every question in our minds.

Mr. Timothy not only told us about Reepham but also showed us pictures of that place. We were so excited to know about a town which was so different from ours. Ours is a metropolitan city where, the moment you step on the roads, you hear varied sounds from car honks to the shout of the vegetable vendors. But our first impression on Reepham was, a place with peace, with beautiful farms on both the sides of the roads, the sun setting and diving into the sea and give the day over to the moon, a place with fire colored autumn leaves….in short, a really beautiful place where one would love to live his entire life.

We always took permission before interrupting so that the speaker finds it convenient and can finish his/her speech and then give a chance to speak to the other. This way, the class went on smoothly and we listened to everything with a lot of interest because whatever the gentleman said was something new to us and one should always be ready to grasp new knowledge. Thus, discipline plays a very important role in creating new relationships and leaves a good impression in the mind of a visitor.

We had a wonderful joint session in our class. Mr. Timothy was explaining the different physioraphical and climatic features of Reepham and U.K., while our Geography teacher, Mahalakshmi ma’am, explained the corresponding geographical features about Chennai and India. We were discussing the weather in Norfolk and right after that we were taught about the weather pattern of Chennai. While Mr. Timothy talked about the rainfall patterns in U.K., which is quite often there, Mahalakshmi ma’am talked to us about the Indian rains. We were also taught about why there was so much climatic difference between U.K. and India and how it affected there lifestyle and Economy.

In this way, we were taught to draw a parallel between the different Geographical features of both U.K. This helped us to gain a lot of knowledge about the similarities and the differences between Norfolk and Chennai. While we were taught about the landscape and buildings of Reepham, we also side by side studied the features of Chennai and compared them to each other. This joint session was something really wonderful and should be encouraged In every school. Also, different and changing teaching methods can make a student more interested in studies and in class. Something really good and innovative like this should we welcomed everywhere around the globe. We also came to know about the 3 Churches built by the three sisters, thus a part of Reepham’s history.

The Church

Both Mr. Timothy and the students gained a lot of information about Chennai as well as Reepham. Our Social Studies teacher, Mahalakshmi ma’am also told us about her experiences at Reepham when she had been there with our Principal, Mrs. Valli Arunachalam.

Mr. Humphrey teaches IT at Reepham High, Norfolk. He is a very interesting gentleman to talk to and one will find a lot of knowledge in whatever he speaks. His suggestions to improve computer skills were incredible and we are sure to implement them. He also came and watched the websites developed on both the schools and really appreciated the hard work and the effort put in by all the young web designers. They took suggestions from Mr. Humphrey who also took the websites with him to show them to his students. Mr. Humphrey is a very nice man who respects and loves his and others’ work and that is what has made us admire him so much. One can learn a lot from him too.

Some students, who had made a common website on both the schools for the ISA, were given the expert tips for their project to be made better. Even I was a part of the web designing team and had experienced the day along with him. Mr. Humphrey gave many of his school pictures to us. He also explained the structure and location of Reepham High School. We had a really good experience listening to him and were satisfied enough by the answers he gave to our questions.

He also visited the other classes and discussed different topics related to IT. He basically talked to us about the differences in technology in both the schools. He told us many of the activities that are held in their school, for example, an excursion and camping. It sounded similar to our Duke of Edinborough Award program.

We also learnt exciting things from him like the NASA astronauts visiting their school. A teacher also was invited by the NASA to a trip to space.

At the end of the day we had a General Assembly (GA) which is held on every Friday in our school where we have various cultural activities. In this special GA for our guests, we had many classical and western performances, like- fusion songs (Carnatic and western), Bharatnatyam (a popular and elegant Indian dance form whose origin is in Tamil Nadu), a keyboard duet, etc. In this way, they also got to know about the Indian culture and its various colors. After the function, they appreciated all the participants and congratulated them for their success. Finally, they were requested to address the gathering. Mr. Humphrey told us about his previous visit to PSBB, Nungambakkam and about how he had once stood on the same platform and gave a speech. He highlighted the importance of Global dimension to this program and said such programs will bring about international co-operation and build peace among the world community. He commended our work towards such a step. His speech was memorable and enlightening. His words really made us feel proud to be PSBBians.

Then Mr. Timothy also addressed the gathering. One special thing about him is that he is a very soft spoken man and is extremely polite and humble. We were in awe with his calmness while he spoke. In his speech, he expressed his gratitude to his school, Reepham High, for giving the two of them an opportunity to come and visit PSBB, Nungambakkam. Typically as a Geography teacher he hoped to see a develop socio-cultural map of the world to bring about better understanding of the people of the world, thereby appreciate and celebrate differences, use the resources of the world productively and contribute to world peace. The few words he spoke were enough for us to get captivated. The entire gathering listened to him on pin drop silence while the two gentlemen spoke.

With this kind of information transfer, not only our knowledge about world Geography enhances but also we get to know about various kinds of people living in other parts of the world, about how they are different or similar to us and how IT has been dominating the world for such a long time. Exchange knowledge at international level is not only being a great fun but also a real need to survive in this world of extreme competitions.

After the guests left for Norfolk, Mrs. Ramjee took a class on natural disaster using a Power Point Presentation sent by Mr. Reeve, where we saw pictures and information on the dangerous snow storm that had occurred in the U.K. We also came to know that on their return flight from Chennai to Norfolk, Mr. Humphrey and Mr. Timothy’s plane had to do an emergency landing because of the terrible weather conditions and had wait for nearly 30 hours to reach home. We were really sad when we learnt that a fifteen year old school girl was killed in the snowstorm. This piece of news was really shocking and we all could only hope that everything comes back to normal as quickly as possible. Snowfall is really a beautiful occurrence but also can take away many lives. We were told by our geography teacher that the lesson on this recent storm was done at Reepham too and that they also completed the same work sheet which we did.

Recently, I also had a chance to have an informal conversation with our Dr. Mrs. Y. G. Parthasarathy, Dean and Director of PSBB Group of Schools and the English teacher, Miss Elizabeth Burr who came from the Reepham High School. Ms. Elizabeth told us about her visit to Shivakasi, India, and her experience with the students there. She taught those students many things in grammar, literature (including Shakespeare), etc. She also took some classes for us on the various paragraph writing skills and we really enjoyed the classes. The class was very interactive and informative. Later she had many sessions in other classes too. She had taken a long leave from her school to see the teaching methods and also experience teaching in India. During her conversation with our Dean, she also got to taste a famous South Indian dish, Idli and Sambhar, which she enjoyed eating. She was also happy to take some tips to take education beyond tomorrow from our Mrs. YGP, our Dean and Director and a pioneer in the field of education in this part of the world. In all, the experience of interacting with her was wonderful and we, as well as she, gained a lot of knowledge from each other.

I must say that our school has taken a major, well- thought-upon-step, to build a relationship with Reepham High School. In fact, it’s a really good decision that our school and Reepham High will now be organizing a video conferencing between the two schools which will surely enable us to exchange a lot of information. Our school will also be arranging debates through video conferencing. This kind of program can remove any kind of misconceptions about other parts of the world. If the students could easily communicate beyond frontiers and have a video conferencing facility, We will be able to appreciate the present and take a step forward to build future together.

Few months back, our school had an ISA project on Chemistry and people from South Africa had come to witness our project. After they had seen everything, I interviewed them. I asked them a question which was well out of the topic but I did receive an interesting piece of information which many of you might not know. I had asked them about whether Apartheid has completely been abolished or not? They told me that the world knows it wrong that Apartheid in South Africa has been completely abolished. In some parts of South Africa, people are still racially discriminated according to their skin color, but it depends on who is in power and whether he is a ‘white’ or a ‘black’. So, this kind of information from a native South African can provide a new dimension to our learning.

I would like to congratulate all of them who have taken this important decision in creating a Global Network. Many like me would benefit from such projects. I would like to thank my school, P. S. B. B. Senior Secondary School, Nungambakkam, for giving me this wonderful opportunity.

By Abhirup Bose

P. S. B. B. S. S. School, Nungambakkam, Chennai