The Large, White, Fluffy, and Windy Elephant in the Room

The hotel wifi is still not cooperating, and I cannot upload pictures right now. I may try from my phone later.

We haven't talked much about the excellent weather we have been having here in England. Believe it or not, today's tour of Stratford represents the only time we have had any precipitation fall on our tender heads... and that rain barely lasted ten minutes. We have been gifted with sunny skies and temperatures in the high 50's/low 60's. It has been a bonus that in no way we could have expected, considering the normal weather in Northern England at this time of year. Even after the brief rain this morning, the sun came out over Shakespeare's hometown, jackets were stowed in backpacks, and students enjoyed another beautiful day on tour.

Obviously we are carefully tracking Tuesday's storm. We have been in contact with EF about possible changes to our travel plans. It is impossible to say right now what is going to happen. We will have a better sense tomorrow afternoon; when I get any updates, I will certainly let you know as soon as possible. I don't even want to hazard any guesses at this point. I think it's probably safe to say that we won't be at Logan on Tuesday at 4:48pm, but stranger things have happened.

As far as today's activities are concerned, the students had another wonderful day. We met our local guide Alan, and he led us through the sleepy village (nothing happens in a European town before 10:00am) and showed us the multitude of the locations related to Shakespeare. We had the opportunity to walk in two of the three homes that Shakespeare lived in during his time in Stratford: Anne Hathaway's Cottage and the Shakespeare Birthplace. The third home, New Place, was destroyed as the result of a nasty neighbors' dispute long after Shakespeare's death.

Local docents gave the students humorous lessons about the various shady dealings of both Shakespeare (Shakespeare's first child was born only six months after Shakespeare got married... wink, wink) and Shakespeare's dad (the guy spent more time in prison than one might think) and some of the more smelly parts of their lives. Shakespeare's dad made gloves for a while... leather gloves... if you know anything about how leather was tanned in the "old days", you understand what I'm talking about... if you don't know, let's just say that no animal waste products went to waste, so to speak. The docent at Shakespeare's Birthplace gave a multi-sensory demonstration of how it worked... the sense of smell part of the presentation was handled by cute little boxes the students could sniff... not the actual waste product.

After the guided portion of the tours, the students had another nice chunk of free time to explore Stratford on their own. We are all now back at the hotel waiting for dinner... nice to get the blog done before dinner... may actually sleep tonight! 😉

Again, I'll let you know as soon as I hear of any changes to our travel plans. Until then, enjoy the rest of your Sunday. We go to Warwick Castle tomorrow; it's one of the best preserved medieval castles in the United Kingdom, and there are numerous interactive exhibits, including a gruesome dungeon! I will keep you posted. Thanks again for reading!

As Happy as Pigs in... (that will make sense later in the post... it's very late)

The wifi in this hotel is pretty unreliable, and it is not cooperating with the posting of pictures. I will try again tomorrow.

This has been quite a long day but will probably have the shortest blog post. It’s currently 10:09pm, and we are still on our way back to the hotel. We just left the RSC Swan Theatre on the banks of the river Avon in Stratford (we will be back in Stratford in a scant eleven hours). The students are still buzzing and as full of energy as I’ve seen them this late. That excitement is the direct result of the adrenaline that can only come from the engagement with as powerful a piece of art as we just experienced. I’ll talk about the play in a bit.

On any bus tour, there will always be at least one day that is a transit day. The tour company does their best to keep the actual bus trips as short as possible, but at some point, there must be a long haul to get to one’s final destination. This was one of those days, BUT the experiences we had today more than made up for the three and a half hours (one and a half in the morning, two in the afternoon) that we had on a bus. 

After checking out of the hotel this morning, we traveled to Bath for our last bit of Roman England, but it was quite a finale. The physically infirm have visited the location of the city since long before the time of the Romans. The legend goes that the great Briton King Bladud was sent to Athens by his father, but while Bladud (9th century BC) was there, he contracted a nasty case of leprosy… as one does. When Bladud returned home, he was promptly exiled (THANKS, DAD!) and started working in the fields around present-day Bath. The legend claims that Bladud’s pigs also somehow caught leprosy… it is a legend, after all…, but Bladud noticed that they loved rolling in a particular patch of mud. One day he noticed that the pigs’ sores were healed, so he went over and felt the mud… sure enough, it was nice and warm and showed healing properties. When the Romans invaded, they built a sprawling spa complex over the original Briton site… and then a medieval town… and so on and so on. In 2006, a luxurious new spa hotel was built to take advantage of the only hot springs in England. We met our guide Lindsay who showed the students around the city; they then had free time to explore the Roman Baths and the rest of the sites Lindsay pointed out in the morning.

After our second long bus ride of the day, we checked in at our hotel in Coventry, had a quick dinner, boarded the bus again, and drove to Stratford for our evening of theatre at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Unfortunately, the Rome 2017 Season (Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Titus Andronicus… all productions sharing the same set and under the artistic vision of a single director) has long been sold out, and despite EF’s best efforts, we could not get tickets. However, much like the entire trip itself, EF found a remarkable replacement.

In an effort to bring more world drama to the RSC repertoire, they commissioned a playwright modern playwright Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig to write Snow in Midsummer, a modern translation of the traditional Chinese drama, The Injustice to Dou E That Moved Heaven and Earth. The play was originally written and produced by Guan Hanqing during the Yuan Dynasty (13th and 14th centuries AD)… so a couple of hundred years before Shakespeare. And Shakespeare could have taken a lesson from Guan on how to craft a narrative. Shakespeare wrote beautiful, moving poetry and crafted some of the most human characters in the history of the English language, but the guy just could not write plots (ask your ninth-graders about Lady Montague’s death at the end of Romeo and Juliet); in fact, Shakespeare never wrote an original plot… he borrowed stories from other sources and adapted them for his audiences. Our students were literally on the edges of their seats during the carefully-plotted story of a woman who was executed for a crime she did not commit and the subsequent curse her ghost levies on the town that wronged her. Not only was the story gripping and moving, but the performances and theatricality caused more than one student to gasp audibly. To top it all off, the lead character Dou E was portrayed by Katie Leung, a talented Scottish actress better known as Cho Chang in the Harry Potter movies… yes, she kissed Harry Potter.

So today saw a blend of Ancient Briton, Ancient Roman, Victorian England, Yuan Dynasty, and Modern Chinese cultures. I’m not sure Ms. Neely and the Global Studies program could have planned it better.

If Mr. Bean can make it here, you can too...

Inspired to Learn * Encouraged to Explore * Empowered to Lead

Brimmer and May’s new motto outlines the ways our students will be ready to engage with the world and the habits of mind needed to effect positive change in whichever communities they will join in the future. All of the school’s signature programs across all divisions act in service of these ideals. The Lower School Buddy Program shows the importance of leading by example and looking out for those who may be a little more fragile or less experienced. The entire 6th and 8th grades right now are in the midst of an entire week devoted to exploring new ideas and studying fields outside of their regular curriculum (oddly enough it’s called “Exploration Week”). Today’s England Winterim experience created a palpable sense of the first part of the motto, and Ms. Pendergast may want to brush up on the application process to the oldest English-speaking university in the world.

There has been an place of higher learning at Oxford since AD 1167, and obviously the university’s reputation far exceeds any words I can muster up to describe it. Currently there are 38 colleges that fall under the “umbrella” of Oxford University, and the students had an inspiring tour through a couple of those institutions. We met Heidi, our wonderful local guide, at the Martyr’s Memorial (a structure honoring a couple of Protestants that Bloody Mary executed for daring to stay true to their faith), and she led us to the spot where the martyrs were actually burned at the stake. In fact, a ninth-grade history student (Libby Foley) was able to answer some of Heidi’s questions about Henry VIII and his two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth I… Ms. Neely would be proud!

Heidi then took us into Balliol College and explained then process of how students are assigned to various colleges in the university and generally described how the “umbrella” system worked. In order to keep the young ones interested and engaged, Heidi expertly wove stories of famous Oxford students (who knew that Rowan Atkinson… MR. BEAN!!!… went to Queens College in Oxford), pointed out buildings that were used in the filming of the Harry Potter movies and other films, and showed landmarks that served as inspiration for famous authors who completed their most notable works while studying/teaching at the university. Students became visibly excited when surrounded by the possibilities that passionate study could bring them. One student (noted bibliophile Cora Williams) remarked repeatedly that she felt faint from her excitement and started asking what courses at Brimmer she would need to take in order to apply to Oxford. 

As if the students needed more inspiration to expand their educational opportunities, Heidi made a special detour to visit a lesser-known and much smaller college in the university. For one year, Lincoln College was the intellectual home for someone to whom the students have gotten to know much better during this trip: Ms. Smith. She shared many fond memories of her time and encouraged the students to think about the process of writing and how even the greatest of writers and thinkers used their everyday encounters as muses for their creations. 

After we said goodbye to Heidi, the students had a large block of free time, and for the first time in my chaperoning career that I can remember, the students did not immediately head for food and/or shopping. The students chose to go back to the wonderful, exciting places they learned about from Heidi… some students went to the Balliol College dining hall (it served as one of the inspirations for the dining hall at Hogwarts), some to the Museum of the History of Science (to see Einstein’s original blackboard), some to Blackwell’s (a favorite bookstore of Ms. Smith), and some came with me to the Ashmolean Museum (a wonderful collection of artifacts from the ancient world).

Programs like Winterim shift education from an extrinsic model to an internal one, and today was a perfect example of why they make Brimmer such a special place. As we were driving away from Oxford, Gareth asked the students how many of them want to come back and study, and there was a vigorous affirmative reply… what better goals could we ask for?

Tomorrow we have a tour of the beautiful town of Bath in the morning, and we head to Stratford for the performance at the Royal Shakepeare Company. It will be a busy day, but I will try to post something on the bus ride back from the show. I hope you all have a great weekend! 

Heidi pointing out where the Oxford Martyrs were burned alive 

It was right there, actually

In the courtyard at Balliol College. It is a big no-no to walk on the  grass; Heidi said that at some colleges, it is a 50 pound-sterling fine

Heidi explaining how one gets to Oxford.

Showing the students the Balliol College Dining Hall. It was closed in the morning, but some students doubled back in the afternoon.

Balliol College has only been open to women for about forty years. This installation celebrates the welcoming of women to the college.

At the Bodleian Library. Think Library of Congress, but for all written material published in the history of the United Kingdom.

One of Ms. Smith's classrooms while studying at Oxford.

The building behind the students was used to film the infirmary scenes in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Another stop on the tour... A STRIKINGLY BEAUTIFUL STOP, THAT IS!

The lamppost that served as inspiration for C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When Lucie Pevensie first  enters Narnia, she sees a lone lamppost in a snowstorm. This is a lone lamppost in a quiet alley over which Lewis worked at the university.

The lamppost is right next to a decorative satyr that served as inspiration for Mr. Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The students audibly squealed with delight at this stop on the tour.

Ms. Smith and Lincoln College

Ms. Smith's room at Oxford was one of the ones under that tower

The Dining Hall at Balliol College

Land of the Yew Trees... and chocolate

When the Romans invaded Britannia, they took their time in spreading their influence throughout the island. They weren’t quite sure what they were getting out of this new province and didn’t yet want to exhaust too many resources developing the harsh British lands. The expansion into Britannia started in AD 43 in the south and slowly moved north. It wasn’t until the early AD 70’s that the Ninth Legion established a massive fort on the Ouze river. The Romans named it Eboracum (roughly translates… we think…the word has Celtic roots translated into Latin... to the “land of the yew trees”), and the fort quickly became one of the largest Roman cities outside of Italy. Today Eboracum is known as York, and today’s tour of the modern city exemplifies the value of programs like Winterim. Students had the opportunity to walk through almost 2000 years of history and culture, experiencing learning that no classroom lessons could match.

We started the day by meeting our Blue Badge guide, David; he is a reformed history teacher who is an expert on Yorkshire (Blue Badge guides have to undertake a brutal eighteen-month training that culminates with a 500-question written test), and his knowledge and professionalism were evident from his first interactions with the students. David led us into York Minster, one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in Europe, rivaled only by churches in Milan, Seville, and Cologne. It was built over a span of 250 years in the Middle Ages and is particularly well-known for its striking stained glass windows. The cathedral is located on the center of the original Roman settlement, and in classic European fashion, medieval architects and builders simply started their construction over the previous smaller Roman and Norman churches and buildings at the site. David explained that perhaps only 5% of the Roman settlement has been revealed to the modern world, but the cathedral gave us the opportunity to experience most of that percentage. 

The most exciting part of theYork Minster tour was our visit to the undercroft (or crypt) of the church. It was here that students literally and metaphorically descended through centuries of history. As they walked down the steps into the crypt (the York Minster Trust has crafted a wonderful museum to guide visitors), students interacted with exhibits that showed them first the pilings and columns of the original Norman church and then the Roman foundation upon which all of the subsequent churches were built. In one of the exhibits, students insisted that their current dean (your humble blogger) don the costume of the cathedral dean… I could do without the costume but sitting in the dean’s “throne” was pretty neat, and perhaps in the new building, we could arrange a throne in my office… 

After a thorough exploration of York Minster, David led us on an entertaining and informative walking tour of the city in which students could feel first-hand what life might have felt like in a medieval town, thanks especially to one street in particular: the York Shambles. The Shambles is probably most notable today for being the inspiration for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter books, but its actual history is even more fascinating. Plumbing wasn’t really a "thing" in medieval cities; if one needed to attend to personal waste management, one would use a chamber pot. However, the sticking (or perhaps “stinking”) point of a chamber pot would be how to deal with a vessel that has been filled, so to speak. Well, Occam’s Razor would indicate that you just dump it out, and that is exactly what the denizens of medieval cities would do. This obviously got a little messy, especially if one were to walk directly under one of those windows, so overhangs were built over the street. The pots were then emptied in the middle of street, and the tops of the buildings leaned into one another, creating that iconic look of crooked buildings that seem allergic to right angles. In addition to the obvious mess that the chamber pots presented, the York Shambles was the street where the butchers would ply their wares. The word “shambles” originally referred to the counters on which the butchers placed their best cuts of meat, but the word has evolved to refer to the utter mess that would gradually build up in the middle of the street (human waste intermingled with the various pieces of offal from the butchered animals). So the next time you refer to your darling young ones’ rooms as “shambles”, you have a clear reference point. Thankfully, the York Shambles cants slightly downhill toward the river, so a healthy rainfall could help with the odor in the city (and residents of medieval towns wondered why they had so many outbreaks of the plague... public health was also not yet a "thing").

Around noon, we bid goodbye to David as he dropped us off in front of a great attraction showing another great bit of York history: The York Chocolate Story. At the turn of the century, York’s economy was dominated by two industries: the railways (the National Railway Museum is located in York… alas, we did not have time to visit it) and more impressively and uniquely, the manufacture of sweet treats, particularly chocolates. Some of our most beloved chocolate confections can trace their origins to the work of such candy pioneers as Craven, Rowntree, and Terry (KitKat, Rolo, et al.) The York Chocolate Story is a guided tour through the history of those chocolatiers and their influence on York’s growth through the Industrial Revolution. Along the tour, the students learned the tropical origins of cacao and its gradual spread through Europe as a luxury item… and there were samples of chocolate in all of its forms throughout the tour… including a recreation of the original elixir the Aztecs consumed as a health drink (it was pretty brutal to get down… I’m not going to lie). At the end of the tour, the students got to create their own sweet treats and sample fresh, handmade chocolates. 

For the last couple of hours of the day, the students had the opportunity to walk around and experience York on their own. Many of them chose to revisit some of the locations that David pointed out on the morning’s tour, and more than a couple of them frequented the numerous chocolate boutiques that pepper the landscape of the city. In all, it was one of the most wonderful days I can recall in almost two decades of leading Winterim trips, and I know the students will bring back many memories and probably as much chocolate.

Tomorrow we head south to Oxford and a tour of the New College. I look forward to sharing our adventures in the world of British academia. Thanks again for reading my ramblings! CHECK OUT THE PICTURES BELOW.

David starts explaining the construction of York Minster

      

The Great East Window

A view of the nave looking east towards the choir screen

A rather dashing dean in official dean-wear.

A pensive dean in the official dean's seat

An imprint of a dog's foot in an original Roman paving tile. 

Ms. Frank and Jerry examine the original Roman foundations of the building

A view of the York Shambles. Note the channel down the middle (where the gross stuff would be). The raised sidewalks would be prime strolling real estate.

David pointing out the hanging hooks where the butchers would hang their wares. The shelf behind David is an example of  the "shambles" or counters where the butchers would also display their products.

David showing the students some of the wall of the original Roman fort at Eboracum

Alvin simulating the process of mixing milk chocolate.

Students getting a lesson in proper chocolate tasting.

Eddie, Alvin, and Oliver making their own chocolate "lollies"

Nayely proudly displaying her confectionary skills.

Ms. Smith, Cora, and Caroline crafting their "lollies"

A master chocolatier showing the students how to make filled chocolates.

The Lifestyles of the Rich and Genius

A break from our three-mile walk

About ten years ago, The Economist published a series of articles on genius and how the brains of geniuses work. To grossly sum up their studies, geniuses are geniuses in their chosen fields because they are deficient in other areas of their persona or psyche. Michelangelo’s artistic achievements need no listing here, but Michelangelo (the human being) was a misanthrope; he hated people, and people generally returned that sentiment. In fact, Raphael often made fun of Michelangelo’s grouchiness in paintings. In Raphael’s seminal painting, The School of Athens, while all of the other great thinkers of antiquity are enjoying each others’ company and engaging in deep discourse, Raphael painted a grumpy-looking Michelangelo in the corner, picking sores on his feet. Albert Einstein’s name is synonymous with genius, but he was pretty awful at life; if you want to go down a particularly creepy internet rabbit hole, google “Albert Einstein and his cousin.” Today we got to visit the homes of some British literary geniuses, and The Economist study would most definitely apply. 

William Wordsworth was one of Great Britain’s most celebrated poets. His works “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and “Tintern Abbey” are widely accepted as some of the most important pieces of Romantic poetry. Today we visited his home at Rydal Mount in the middle of Lake District, the largest national park in England. The Lake District’s natural beauty escapes words and apparently escaped Wordsworth to some extent because he was one gloomy poet. The juxtaposition of the mountains (“fells” to the locals) and glacial lakes, augmented by gentle bleating of newborn sheep in “lambing season”, completely defy description. Rydal Mount is a simple cottage with views of Lake Windemere, Rydal Water (another name for a small lake), and the surrounding mountains. Despite all of the splendor that surrounded Wordsworth at Rydal Mount, he was a pretty dour fellow. He held rather stilted views of his fellow man and developed a rather profound distrust of society. In fact, later in life he was offered the position of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, but he declined, saying he was too old (students saw the actual rejection letter that Wordsworth sent). He eventually relented after being promised he wouldn’t actually have to do anything as Poet Laureate. Students had the opportunity to explore the house and all of the original furniture and decor from Wordsworth’s family and the previous owners of the house. We then ambled through the beautiful gardens and met the estate’s current resident, Dora the Cat (picture credit to Caroline Champa). After visiting Rydal Mount, we walked about three miles through the hills of the Lake District (picture credits to Ms. Frank and Ms. Smith… I forgot my phone on the bus…heh, heh) and got lunch in the small town of Grasmere.

After another short bus ride, we arrived in Haworth, the location of the inspiring picture in the first blog post. Haworth was the home of one of England’s most prolific literary families: the Brontës. Ann, Emily, and Charlotte Brontë are responsible for some of the most indelible characters and images in all of British literature… Jane Eyre, Heathcliff and Catherine, wind-battered moors, et al. In addition to their remarkable skills as writers, all three sisters displayed prodigious visual arts skills as well. Playing together as young children, they developed fantastical, imaginary worlds that became the inspiration for many of their later writings. Along with their brother Branwell, they were a close-knit, loving family… but also an incredibly reclusive family as well. The Brontës lacked any identifiable social graces and had a great deal of difficulty engaging in the world outside their parsonage house in Haworth. When Charlotte started to earn some literary success and notoriety, a friend encouraged her to visit London and mingle in salon society. Charlotte obliged, but those who met her described those meetings as near-disastrous as Charlotte did not speak with anyone, and party-goers just got up and left as Charlotte sat there saying nothing. In fact, recent biographers have argued that Emily (if not all sisters) displayed some symptoms of spectrum disorder. We walked through the house that, much like Rydal Mount, was filled with all of the original furnishings from the Brontës. As the students moved through the house, they had the opportunity to interact with various exhibits showing the artistic genius of the sisters (Branwell never achieved the success of his sisters and eventually died from opiate addiction). After touring the museum, students had their first taste of free time in the United Kingdom and visited the local shops on Main Street in Haworth.

Tomorrow we have a full schedule in York, so there will be much to share with you. Thanks for reading!

Dora the Rydal Mount Cat

Flowers at Rydal Mount

The view from our walk through the Lake District... Wordsworth needed to lighten up a little.

Students and Ms. Frank waiting to get into the Brontë Parsonage Museum

Gareth explaining the practice of using snuff to our students

Caroline trying on some dresses

Cora, Nayely, Catherine, and Nayely trying out their hands at Gothic poetry

Our view from the top of Main Street in Haworth

OF COURSE WE NEEDED PICTURES WITH A PHONE BOOTH

Greetings from the United Kingdom (I promise I will be more clever with more sleep)

Tuesday England Blog Post:

Well, that was a pretty long day. Right now it’s 8:24 Greenwich Mean Time, so school would normally be getting out for you yanks. We are wrapping up a twenty-eight hour day. The flights were fairly uneventful; actually the students were tremendous helpful and flexible as we navigated a great deal of downtime at both Logan and Newark International Airports.

After connecting with Gareth at Glasgow Airport, we met Paul, our bus driver, and started the journey south from Scotland to England. All those clichés about the hills of Scotland and sheep are clichés for a reason. We saw many, many sheep; in fact, for some students, it was their first time seeing actual livestock… lots of livestock. Rather than succumb to the temptation of heading to the hotel and falling prey to the clutches of an early sleep and the subsequent trap of jet lag, we had our first encounter with Roman Britain: Vercovicium (or Housesteads Roman Fort, as it is currently known).

Stop me if you’ve heard this before… the leader of a powerful nation is determined to manage a relatively tame border by erecting a wall. No one is quite sure why the wall will be useful, and it will require a great deal of resources to build and maintain that wall. The wall will not necessarily keep anyone from crossing the border, but it will look impressive. The wall eventually becomes a financial and bureaucratic boondoggle, and it is eventually abandoned. That leader is…. take a guess… NOPE! Not that one… It was the Roman Emperor Hadrian.

Around AD 122, Hadrian visited the Roman province of Britannia to check out the success of the latest imperial expansion. Northern Roman settlements had to deal with the occasional raiding party from tribes such as the Picts (think early Viking-types). Not long thereafter, construction on a wall that would span the entire eighty mile width of Great Britain (at that latitude). Hadrian had decided that Rome should no longer focus on expansion of the empire but rather the defense of the current empire. Every couple of miles along this wall, there was a fort to house a garrison to protect the Northern Roman border. Vercovicium is the most intact ruin of these forts, and we got to explore those ruins and walk along a portion of the wall. In fact, the Vercovicium ruins have one the best-preserved examples of a Roman latrine. In AD 138, after Hadrian’s death, the next Roman emperor, Antoninus, gave up on Hadrian’s wall and built his own wall one-hundred miles north. Forts like Vercovicium were abandoned despite the considerable cost of building and maintaining them.

It was a great way to stretch all of our muscles (mental muscles included) after a long travel day. After the tour of the fort, we boarded the bus for our hotel in Gretna Green. If you recall, Gretna Green is the elopement capital of the United Kingdom, and sure enough, as we were driving up to the front reception, a wedding photographer was staging shots of the most recent happy couple to wed at this picturesque little hotel. After a filling dinner (some of us… including me… had traditional Highland Chicken… chicken stuffed with haggis), we are all retiring for a well-earned rest.

Tomorrow morning we will board the bus for Rydal Mount and Haworth, respectively the literary homes of Wordsworth and the Brontes. I will post again tomorrow night and wish you all well.