Class Distinctions

Harlaxton Manor has been my college campus for the last few weeks and I never dreamed of studying in a place so grand. The manor is a nice background noise to the intellectual rigors, once I got over my initial shock of being in England and got used to the idea that I would actually have to pay attention to the "study"part of study abroad!

Having formal "class" in the manor conservatory is a treat, and study hall on the lawn cannot be duplicated at home.







But the real reason this study abroad experience has so impacted my life is a truth that I believed as a home school teacher for 18 years but am only now experiencing as a student. Classrooms without walls create minds without barriers to truth, beauty, and wisdom.
Being on the receiving end, rather than the planning end, of field trips with a true purpose for education in mind has only steeled my resolve to attempt to duplicate this experiential learning for my future public school students. My learning on the moors of England may not be duplicated in a brick-and-mortar classroom, but I am more determined than ever to bring the world to my students and take my students into the world.

The structured informality of our classes abroad is also something I will try to duplicate at home. I know this is how I learn best, with time allowed to talk through my thoughts in a safe intellectual atmosphere. I have been blessed with a few college classes at UC where this was the case also, but alas, they have been the shining exceptions. I hope to be that shining exception for my own students and attempt to remove the stigma of intellect in my classroom. A learning community rather than a formal classroom can make all the difference.

Looking back over our study abroad course entitled "Literature in the Landscape" I think it could easily be subtitled "Learning in the Landscape." In order for academic knowledge to become internalized it must be experienced as far as time and location allow. To experience the landscape that inspired the creation of text or image not only gives deeper understanding, it also inspires a closer look at our own personal, day-to-day landscape. I have noticed that my best creative writing has occured when I allowed myself to place my characters in landscapes that were personally familiar to me. Being away from home for a stretch of a few weeks will hopefully help me to see my own landscapes with fresh eyes.

Attitude of Beatitude

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth - Jesus in Matthew Chapter 5
[or at least free bus fare]

Okay, so I got out of the wrong side of the shuttle van (forgetting once again that the driver sits on the RIGHT) While the older gentleman driver was a little perturbed and grouchy for a few days, the more I made fun of my own ignorance and stupidity, the more he warmed up to me. Only one week later, he went out of his way to volunteer to make an extra stop in town just so I could jump out and run to the ATM in order to pay the cabbie for my 4:00am ride to the airport.

On another day, after a flight delay had worn my patience, another crotchety old bus driver was visibly agitated that I did not understand his heavy accent and he had to repeat himself several times. I kept pleading my ignorance of the bus routes and the appropriate fare and asked him to assist me in getting to the right bus that would accept my pass. The entire busload of people were chuckling at this exchange and finally the driver said "I'm tired of messing with it! Have a seat (for free!)" As walked back to my seat with the other girls, both exhausted and triumphant (for we were all broke from Dublin), I got lots of smiles and nods. Another older man, by his manner of dress and accent of a higher socio-economic class than the driver, came back and assured me with a wink that he would see that we did not miss our stop. The entire busload of passengers seemed very amused at the exchange and did not resent my "foreignness."

It was quite a different attitude when I made a mistake in public without opening my mouth. Going the wrong way in a line earned me a surprised, indignant look and some impertinent words from the gent behind me. The shop clerks rolled their eyes impatiently as I slowly rummaged through the unfamiliar currency until I spoke and my American accent became apparent for all to hear. Then, and only then, were they helpful as I worked with the system. I guess confusion is okay for foreigners, but I got the distinct impression that the English are not very patient with the inept among themselves. The English seem to expect more common sense from their own citizenry than they expect from Americans, and I'm also sure that they get just what they expect!

I thought this through to its logical conclusion and realized that in America, most people are far too impatient with everyone, especially with foreigners on American soil. Americans are impatient with those who are attempting to work their way through our culture, impatient with the elderly, impatient with children and teens, impatient with their own families and loved ones. As Americans we are too arrogant, too self-centered, and far too demanding.

People like to be needed. The "damsel in distress" role produces more satisfactory results for a tourist than the demanding role of "Arrogant American." Searching my own soul, I see that I have allowed my Americanism to trump my Christianity far too often. Once again I see the pure truth and beauty of the The Golden Rule in all situations.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

Newstead Abbey

Through thy battlements, Newstead, the hollow winds whistle:
Thou, the hall of my Fathers, art gone to decay;
In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle
Have choak'd up the rose, which late bloom'd in the way

So, I had to squint a little to see the decay that Lord Byron spoke of when he wrote "On Leaving Newstead Abbey. The gardens are definitely NOT choked with thistle, but the house itself was depressing, even when dressed up by subsequent owners and now put on display for tourism purposes.

A few hundred years before the poet was born, King Henry VIII in his quest to turn England Protestant ( and get a divorce) took this abbey away from the Catholic monks and gave it to the first Lord Byron. The church itself was destroyed (too Papal!) but the facing wall was preserved as it was integral to the structure of the rest of the house. Kinda ironic, dontcha think?? The sight of the trees through what was once, surely, a beautiful stained glass window, was both melancholy and satisfying, leading me in many directions of thought about how mankind chooses to symbolize our worship of God.

Much of the Gothic architecture is evident in the spires and the pointed arches, and the huge stained glass window (now gone) that was made possible by the flying buttress wall supports, now also mostly gone. Since much of this would have been gone or deteriorating during poet Byron's time, I can see how this place would have been depressing in a Romantic way. However, my Romantic side would be saddened by the loss of religious fervor about the landscape and in its place, the decadent living of the many Lord Bryons. Byron could only see into the past as far as his own ancestors and the heroes of England were concerned. He vows that he will never disgrace the memory of his Fathers that so permeates Newstead; from what I know of poet Bryon's life, he pretty much lived up to his heritage!

The grounds and gardens of Newstead Abbey are now lovely and meticulously landscaped. Walking through these landscapes was so very different from what I've experienced so far in England. The moors of the Brontes was enlightening; it felt wild and free in an open, expansive, windy sense, and it made me want to be free of society and the mask of myself that I show others,
like Cathy in Wuthering Heights. Sherwood Forest felt merry and made me want to make merry with my friends and be my happy self rather than my tortured self.

Newstead Abbey's gardens were pretty but much too structured and requiring much work to keep flawless. I think it was too much for Byron to handle, emotionally as well as financially. Too much structure, too much molded, too much restriction. These proper English gardens were too easily overrun with thorns and thistles. I think Byron relished the ruin as it gave him much "scope for the imagination." (I hope my kindred spirits caught that reference) Even though he began renovations with a lot of good intentions, he could never restore the house and grounds to his satisfaction, in a way that would honor his Fathers and yet still allow him the freedom of decadence. I must admit, I cannot sympathize! There is very little of Byron's whining that I can stomach; however I can see how these sculptured and molded house and grounds could make his Romantic soul long for the Scotland of his youth with its wildness and roughness.

Yet, Caledonia, beloved are thy mountains
Round their white summits though elements war
Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth-flowing fountains
I sigh for the valley of Dark Loch na Garr

Different dialects in English

As I continue my travels in England, Scotland, and Ireland, I am struck by the very different ways that "English" is spoken. It is even more apparent to me that I speak American, not English! I've made a conscious effort to listen to the language around me looking for differences and similarities in how people talk to each other and if it is different in how they talk to me, a foreigner. Since the cities I have been in have been very multi-cultural, I am often forced to ask directions or advice (even when I don't need it!) from random police officers, bus station workers, and museum staff in order to try to hear a native speaking. I have, on more than one occasion and without shame, eavesdropped on conversations in parks and restaurants to catch some local flavor in language. On more than one occasion I was disappointed in my eavesdropping and thought, "Darn! They are not speaking English!" only to discover after a few minutes that they were, indeed, speaking English, just not American, and it took my brain a few minutes to make the transition. It was a surreal experience, as if my Star Trek universal transmitter was malfunctioning for a moment and then kicked back in.

The biggest difference that I've found in England is how LOUD Americans are vs. the English. When a group of English young people are walking along in the shopping mall, they talk in their "inside voice" whereas in the US, if you are in a group in a public place, it seems everyone is using their "outside" voice! The difference in the noise level of the mall is amazing! However, a bus ride in Ireland with a group of teenagers on their way to a professional soccer game was loud, boisterous, and very physical with little regard for personal space.

This seems to be the norm in Ireland, at least in the city. Greetings were loud with back slaps and hand pumping, at least among the men; it was much less reserved than the English. The Irish are louder, more coarse, much more likely to sing along (loudly) to a traditional Irish tune in the pub.

In Ireland, the government-sponsored signs, like for streets and museums, by law is written in English and Irish. All school children in Ireland are required to learn the Irish language throughout their school years. It is an interesting facet of post-colonialism and I am glad to see a government-sponsored resurgence of the language, but our tour guide said that not very many Irish speak the language fluently, no matter how much they may claim to do so.

So, here is my personal lexicon/pronunciation of English, Scottish, and Irish forms of the American language.

A= American E=English S= Scottish I=Irish

Pint (as in pub) E = pyeent S=whiskey I=point

excuse me (as in,
oops, I bumped you!) E=Sorry! S=(smile) I= (dead silence)

tower E=tar S=tar'r I=terror

excuse me (as in,
Please let me pass) E= hullo, there! S=Sorry I= Sorry


If you want to sound English, put the word "then" at the end of most sentences, especially questions. "Are you staying in England long, then?" "Would you like that in a bag, then?" "Here's your sandwich, then." Use whilst in place of while, use fortnight instead of two weeks, and call people "love" instead of the southern American "honey".

If you want to sound Irish, say the time is half five instead of five thirty, sing in public with perfect strangers, and constantly make jokes about how poor your country has been since gaining independence from England.

If you want to sound Scottish, you'll just have to watch Braveheart a few more times; they've got it down pat! Oh, and make lots of reference to how courageous, invincible, and thrifty you are.

So as I make all this congeal into one lump in my brain, I find myself thinking in the accent of the country I'm in, so that when a statement comes out of my mouth to a local, it sounds in my head a little garbled. I am coming to a deeper realization of the power and logic behind a colonial power subverting a local language in order to subdue the people. Language, even a different accent of the same language, is so much a part of the identity of a culture. The people of England, Ireland, and Scotland seem to be able to hold on to their unique differences of English through the centuries, and it only makes me a little prouder to have my own unique American accent!

Sherwood Forest

So today it was off to Sherwood Forest. I've been reading the stories (Pyle's version is the best!!) in the weeks before I arrived but still I was not prepared. The oak trees here look like something out of Dr. Suess's dreams. Their twisty limbs, massive trunks, and widely spread branches give the illusion of ancient living beings. The largest of these trees are 800+ years old, and many are in the 300-500 year range. The power of these trees up close causes me see how the medieval mindset would believe in the Green Man.

I broke off from the group so I could experience the forest with as little human interaction as possible, hoping to run across the Merry Men, for I was hungry for a feast, of the soul if not the body. The trails leading off into the forest were very picturesque and reminded me of an old PBS painting show the girls and I used to watch. The artist would paint a lovely landscape and at the very end of the show would always add a "happy little road." I love these little roads because there is always a hint of something delightful just around the bend ahead.

Around one of these bends I came upon these ancient dead oaks and felt a sense of the sublime. They looked like monuments set there by God to remind mankind of his majesty, sovereignty, and his very name, "The Ancient of Days"

I was reminded of Job 12:12 "with the ancient is wisdom, and in lenght of days is understanding" and Psalm 22:28 "Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set."

These old oaks are monuments to God and to the people who have gone here before me, stretching back almost a thousand years.

I've been unable to resist taking many pictures of flowers, and there were such a small variety of flowers in Sherwood that I was a little disappointed. The Robin Hood stories often talked (incessantly) about the Merry Men strolling along in forest where the birds are singing and the "hedgerows are green and flowers bedeck the meadows, daisies pied and yellow cuckoo buds and fair primroses all along the briary hedges..." Instead, there were few flowers with the exception of a striking field of purple foxglove.

I started looking lower to the ground, even though it was hard to get my eyes off those big oaks towering into the blue sky. I came across this gem and as I knelt to the ground to take the picture, the class discussions on Lord Bryon's poetry came to mind and I laughed out loud! Bryron was such a whiny brat, wasn't he? For a Romantic (with a capital "R") this picture would cause many a sigh. It may look like just a pretty little weed to you, but notice that it is growing out of a decayed stump of an ancient tree. Even though the flower is pretty, it is the bloom of a stinging nettle, for even beauty must hurt for it to be authentic. So from decay is coming forth beauty, but when beauty is plucked it will cause pain. sigh...how Byronic!

So I continued on this path as far as it would take me until I came to the dreaded man-made fence that surrounds the parkland of Sherwood Forest. I had been told t0 stay within the fence to avoid wandering into the military shooting range, a sort of juxtaposition of the Robin Hood tales that warned the Sheriff to stay out of the forest! I was saddened by the fence at first, and yet as I pondered on it, I realized that the fence posts were made of the wood of the forests. As i shot this Modern image, I saw the single bare tree standing sentinel next to the shorter, stripped down wooden fence post, and I realized that these stories of Robin Hood were only made possible because of fences. The forest law is still in effect today...don't pick the flowers, don't climb the trees, don't drive your car through the forest. The government is now the keeper of the forest and it is the common people who, instead of poaching the deerand removing it from the forest, destroy the forest by leaving the remains of their food and drink behind them. So, the fence is a good thing and as the trees continue to grow, they will overtake the fence and reintegrate the posts into nature.

After all this deep thinking, it was time to head back to the gift shop and museum to meet up with the group. Walking through the exhibits I saw that the focus was all about the child-like fun and wonder of the Robin Hood stories. While there was some interesting displays at grown-up level, underneath each one was a child's eye view of the stories. The exhibits reminded me very much of the forest/tree house in the Cincinnati Children's Museum. The gift shop was 90% devoted to toys, swords, costumes,and the inevitable Robin Hood erasers and rulers. The gift shop certainly knew who their target demographic was, as was proven when a group of high school students came through and almost bought out the place. I must admit, I couldn't resist either! I've never lost my sense of play...

Benander/Byron lecture quotes

Byronic things Professor Benander is known to have said during the Byron discussion in the conservatory this evening:

If Gothic was espresso, Romanticism was cappucino.

Decaying zuchinni, how Romantic!

Live fast and leave a beautiful corpse.

Overseas Surprises

Hostels...such a study in contrasts. I have been so pleasantly surprised by the youth hostels we have stayed in thus far. Two down and two to go!

The first hostel was in Haworth on our journey to the home of the Bronte sisters. It was such a contradiction to be staying in the house of a mill owner whilst (that's how they say "while" in England) making a pilgrimage to the home of those authors who wrote of the social evils of class exploitation and the evils of industrialization.




I expected hostels to be boring, dirty and crowded with low-life. Wow, that sentence would have put me in the class of the elites of the Brontes' time! Alas, the hostel was lovely inside and out. The entry way, the stairs, and the common room lounges and meeting rooms were elablorate, to say the least. During our time there, we had the place almost to ourselves, as a large group had just left and another wasn't coming for a few days; we even got to stay in the same room like a big slumber party.

In reality, we lived as if we were "to the manor born." Someone supplied us with clean, folded bedding, cleaned our room whilst we were on a walk, cooked a nice, hot breakfast for us in the morning, and then washed the dishes! And we only paid them a small fee for this. It was almost as if we were exploiting the working class. Comical to think of, in a way.




The next hostel was a similarly impressive building right up next to Edinburgh Castle.











I foolishly expected it to be similar to the previous hostel. After all, in the States, mid- priced hotels are all pretty similar (with some exceptions, of course!) However, my pre-trip expectations were much more accurate here. It was loud, I was in a room with perfect strangers, I had to sleep on the top bunk, and the bed was already made when I got there. Did that mean they hadn't really changed the sheets? The hostel was described by a member of our group as "gritty" and I couldn't agree more.






It was also very hostel-y inside, but I was surprised at the sheer silliness of the place! The rooms all had theme names. Some of my group stayed in a Snow White room, and the beds were named dwarf-style; Thelma's was Touchy-Feely. My room was the Latin Room, and the name of my top bunk was Gluteous Maximus. Appropriate, huh?


And now the big surprise; I didn't really care about any of this! I was too tired to care if some stranger had slept in the bed before me. The loudness cat-calls right under my window as a parade of women against breast cancer marched by dressed in breast-appropriate clothing did not keep me awake; I didn't bother to get down from the top bunk to watch. Sleeping in a roomful of strangers did not rattle me; I even invited the Finnish girl in the bottom bunk to dinner.

And the biggest surprise of all? I was not surprised that I did not care. I have always been a confident woman, but this trip at this stage in my life has allowed me to be independent and self-reliant in a way that even I have not experienced before. I felt perfectly at peace leaving the group of younger girls and branching out on my own in order to experience all the sites of Edinburgh that I were important to me. I have come to terms with this alone-ness and accepted Professor Benander encouragement: "Embrace the old lady-ness. It is freedom!"