Life at St. Columba's High School: Hoops and Pipes

Although I have had a number of questions about how my teaching assignment has been going, I've been a bit hesitant to report too much on the day to day happenings at school. One of the things I've discovered is that ultimately kids are kids. As I increasingly adjust to teaching in Scotland, I realize that there are a number of similarities between American and Scottish students. I find that there are many sweet, inquisitive, kind, funny, and academically inclined students in all grade levels, and of course there are kids that longingly stare at the clock, most likely day-dreaming about better ways to be spending the hour. This is most likely the same in every country, except Sweden. However, there are moments when life becomes a bit surreal for me, and notions of how similar everything is becomes flipped on its side by something quite unusual.

For example, today I went down to the gym ("games hall" I believe it is called) to watch the finals of the House Basketball Tournament for 1st years (this would be 7th graders at home). We have three "houses" at St. Columba's- Teresa, Romero, and Mandela, which have been competing in a co-ed basketball tournament this week. As I sat down on the small, wooden bench in the middle of the hall to watch the action, the air was filled (and I mean filled) with the high-pitched sounds of cheering and competing 7th graders. However, the games were also musically backlit with the sounds of bagpipe class in the adjacent gym (the doors were open between both spaces). You're probably aware that the bagpipe is not a quiet instrument, and now imagine a large group of young kids, who are learning to play the bagpipe, in a space with acoustics that bounce in every possible direction. It was sort of a "Phil Specter/wall of sound" moment with cascading wails of pre-teen sports aggression and beginning pipers swirling together in an old brick gymnasium. I sat there and couldn't help but laugh out loud (although nobody heard me) at the strangeness of it all. The basketball was just like home, but the bagpipes gave it a surreal twist. These type of moments, though not quite as loud, happen quite often and make the experience, for all the good and bad, something unforgettable.