Less than a month into her time in Northern Ireland, Lehighton High School teacher Cristi Marchetti can unequivocally say it has been the best experience of her life.
Marchetti left for Belfast Jan. 25 as one of 45 U.S. citizens traveling abroad through the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program.
Based out of Queens University, she will research full-service extended schools.
Popular in the United Kingdom, the full-service philosophy makes schools the hub of a community, with services targeted toward students and the broader population.
Joining Marchetti is her daughter Vivian, a second-grade student in the Lehighton Area School District.
“The people have been incredibly friendly,” Marchetti said. “We’ve gotten lost pretty much each day, but what is interesting is one of the best ways to make contacts is to get lost.”
Differences in cultures have been easy to spot for Marchetti, just as her accent has been noticeable to the natives.
One thing that has stuck out is the emphasis on the collective.
“Americans are a little more focused on the individual,” she said. “Over here when everyone waits for the sign to turn to cross before crossing the street. In America, you would just go if there was no traffic. In the classroom, it’s also very much about doing what is right for the group. I see that happening in Lehighton, but I don’t know if that is an overall American thing.”
Vivian started at a private school in Belfast several days after the duo arrived in town.
Marchetti said she has been great about adapting in a different educational setting.
“They are learning about World War II and one of her recent projects was to make a gas mask,” she said.
“They were studying about evacuees and went to a castle for a field trip. They packed a bag for a kid who would have been evacuating and wrote letters about what it would be like to be an evacuee. It’s a little different from what you would see back home.”
Despite a few differences, Marchetti said the education students are getting in Lehighton is “right there” with what Vivian is experiencing in Belfast.
While she would have been working on writing in cursive in America, students in Northern Ireland are not doing that.
On the other hand, Vivian is currently working on times tables that she hadn’t yet gotten to in Lehighton.
“The curriculum is for the most part very similar,” Marchetti said.
Days have started early for Marchetti, with research taking up a lot of her time during the week, while weekends have been more for exploring.
“We’ve taken a tour of castles and been to a rope bridge that I was too scared to cross,” she said.
The Fulbright program will run through May 31.
Marchetti will have one month from the end date to complete her inquiry project.
Between now and then, she continues to fill her calendar.
“Fulbright Finland is paying for us (through a grant) to go there for a week over Easter so I’ll get to do school visits there as well,” she said.
“And in March, I’ll be in Berlin to present at a Fulbright event.”
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