Plymouth: A week in class

This week the students were on their mid term holiday so we went to class!  Our supervisor, Keith, taught our classes and he is really intersting. I feel like I learned a lot about schools in England and their national curriculum and also just how to be a better teacher in general. We did a lot of hands on activites and learned things that can make us better teachers in the future. The frist day we talked abot Teacher behavior and the National Curriculum, yesterday we talked about assessment, and today we talked about learning outside the classroom. Yesterday we talked about PE in schools, because here they don't have specialists, the classroom teacher is expected to teach the students art, music, PE, etc. We did some fun activites in the afternoon with another instructor in the gym that tested our speed, balance, adgility, etc. They were pretty hard activities, but really fun!
Today since our lesson was learning outside of the classroom we went to Morwellham Quay (prounounced Key), which is a historical town and copper mine. It was really neat because it is pretty much the way the people that lived there left it.  It was a port town that used to mine copper, tin, and arsanic. We got to eat Devon Pasties (which are DELICIOUS!) and go into one of the copper mines, which I thought was kind of scary. There was a boat there from that time period as well, the 2nd to last ship to be built in England. We walked up to the farm they have there and met the pigs, horses, and various birds (roosters, quails, turkey, geese, etc). It was a really neat place to visit and like our instrustor said it was different because a lot of England's history focuses on the rich and royalty, but thus was more about the common people and how they lived. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot.
I really liked this week because I felt that I learned so much in just 3 days, I wish the program was longer so we could learn more! I will be excited to go back in the classroom next week though (Monday we have another excursion, I think we are going to Dartmoor and sailing?), I missed the little buggers ;)
Tomorrow Kelsey and I are going to London for the night and seeing Phantom of the Opera at a Sat. matinee and then heading back to Plymouth after that. I am excited because I have never even seen the movie, so it will be completely new to me! It should be another good weekend in England! I can't believe my time is almost up and then back to the Sates. Anyway, I have a 8:30 bus to catch to london tomorrow, so I need to pack and get to bed!