Goole Day 2

On Monday, I arrived for my second day at Goole High School coated in snow and with a new ID badge - bar code and all. I met with Louise (the wonderful geography teacher I'm working with) and with Nate and Sara (HTHMA's fabulous interns). First, I sat in one of Louise's lessons and watched as she sang, taught and inspired her kids. I was invited to work with a student sitting by himself who proved to be a car expert (much more excited about cars than geography).

After the first lesson, I rejoined Nate and Sara and helped them with ideas for their 1 hour Intro to PBL lesson (which they would be delivering to all of the year 9s, aka 8th graders) and the 9 hours of lessons they would be delivering to one particularly spirited group of Year 9s that I will be co-teaching with Louise once we launch the Goole Docks project.

Nate and Sara had great ideas and we worked through lunch when a photographer from the Goole Times came to take a picture they'll be running about the Goole High School and High Tech High connection. It will be the second recent news story run in The Goole Times (building the pressure on us to help our students create beautiful work for the community).

After school and a glimpse at Goole High School's detention, I met with Stuart - the director of Goole Studio School to open next year. Stuart and I talked and asked each other questions for about an hour. Then, Stuart spared me the mile walk to the train station in the snow and drove me 40 minutes to the closer train station in Wakefield (named before Chris arrived ;-)

Stuart spoke passionately about his belief in PBL and the real-world connection to real problems and jobs in the community that Studio Schools would offer. The school has been working hard to make connections with local businesses to build projects with tangible effects. Stuart also shared some of the history and context of the British education system before he dropped me off at Wakefield Westgatate Station - a short 20 minute ride to Leeds. That final ride marked the end of another productive and informative day in Goole.