What's Going on with British Politics?

We're nearly a month into the Caterham school year -- in fact, we started the same day Reserve did. I'm teaching two different groups of students: the Upper 6th Form is studying U.S. politics whereas the Lower 6th is looking at the British political system. One of the big differences that Caterham students have picked up on quickly is the "fixed" time for holding U.S. elections compared to the episodic nature of British elections, called by the sitting government at any time within a five-year period from the last election.

So, the big buzz in class now is: will Gordon Brown, the new Labor Party prime minister, announce an election in the next week or two. If he does, the actual election must be held three weeks! after the announcement. How's that for a blessedly short campaign? If that were ever transported to the States, what would cable news networks have to do?

The students seem pretty evenly split on whether the early election call will actually occur but, as an American interested in British politics, I hope it does. Prime Minister Brown, however, has not returned my call urging him to go foward. I guess he thinks he's got better things to do.

Topic for next time: Caterham students' perceptions of the U.S. political scene.

Photo: Courtesy of ukfree.tv

The World Keeps Getting Smaller

As you may have heard, the Headmaster has been in England for the last few days. Last Thursday night I caught a train up to London and had dinner with Dr. Flanagan and another long-time friend, Michael Miller, director of external affairs for the American School in London.

This morning, the always busy Dr. Flanagan stopped at Caterham on his way to Gatwick Airport and back to WRA. The two of us met briefly with Caterham's new headmaster, Julian Thomas. We talked about next month's arrival at Reserve of 12 Caterham students for their two-week visit beginning October 19.

As a final point on the meeting, how about this? A former student had asked me recently to write a letter of recommendation for his application to study history at the University of Oxford. The application is due at the end of this week and needs to be included with the rest of his application materials. So, even though Caterham is about 50 miles from Oxford, I handed the recommendation off to Dr. Flanagan, he put it in his briefcase, it's now going with him back to Hudson where it will be picked up by the student, and then mailed back to Oxford -- total distance traveled by the time it gets there will be north of 6,000 miles!

A Day Off from Teaching - A Visit to Cambridge

As those of you in the WRA History Movie Club will remember, the Academy Award winning film Chariots of Fire was set primarily in Cambridge, England. On Tuesday, with no classes (they call them "lessons" here), I took the train up to Cambridge for some historical sightseeing. The trip was fairly long -- about two-and-a-half hours each way, but very worthwhile. I saw both Caius College -- the alma mater of Olympic gold medal winning sprinter Harold Abrahams, and King's College, famous for its world-renowned chapel choir. Cambridge is a beautiful city, much more compact and managable than Oxford. There was a lot of punt traffic on the River Cam thanks to a gloriously warm Indian summer day. Cheers!

Academics Aside

On the non-academic front, the weather over the five days since my arrival has been great -- sunny and warm in the day time, cool at night. On the sports front, England is getting ready to defend the Rugby World Cup championship it won four years ago. The opening match is Saturday against, of all teams, the United States. I'm not looking for great things from the Yank ruggers, but we'll see. Cheers!

Starting Classes

Well, today is the first day of classes, just as it is at WRA. But, because England is five hours ahead of Ohio, we'll be finished up with day one while Reserve is still in first or second period.

Here at Caterham we'll be getting started on United States politics by looking at the U.S. Constitution in detail and then comparing it to the (largely unwritten) British Constitution. It looks as if I also will be assisting several upper sixth students (approximately equivalent to WRA seniors) in writing research papers on United States history. The research topic involves the evolution of the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. over the period from 1865 to 1968. Should be interesting.