Walt Whitman High School was excited to welcome a group of students from Wales, United Kingdom last week. Whitman was one of three Long Island high schools the students visited as part of a Welsh government initiative to allow their students and teachers to experience our curriculum here in the United States. The group of 15 and 16 year olds was visiting from St. Joseph’s, a Catholic secondary school in Wales.
“It’s an experience of a lifetime, really,” said Matt Hampson, a school counselor from St. Joseph’s who was one of the chaperones with the group. “For them to experience what American education is like is key. And they are literally in awe of everything. It's so incredibly different. The opportunities.”
The school structure in Wales is different from the US in that students don’t attend what we call elementary, intermediate, junior high school and high school. In general, their compulsory or primary school starts at age 4, and secondary school starts at age 11 continuing through age 16, which they call Year 11. Welsh students can then decide how they will finish their education from there - known as FE or Further Education. After that, they can choose to attend university (what we call “college”).
The Welsh students were amazed by the size of Walt Whitman. Their school is much smaller in both physical structure and the number of students. They described their hallways as half the size of Whitman’s, and their entire school has 900 students while the number of students in Whitman is just over 2,000. Whitman’s day consists of nine, 40-minute periods. In Wales, the students have five periods each day that are an hour long.
Their visit started with a look at a dance class where Dr. Radin and her students were choreographing a ballet number. Then the 15 students and three teachers toured our science research classrooms with Mr. Feraco and Mr. Karavias. The Welsh students were able to do some experiments with coral from the reef tank. Then they got a look at auto shop, The Collective recording studio, and the Video Yearbook room. The group sat in on classes with Mr. Pipolo, Mrs. Latko, and visited Mrs. Zamow’s Child Development classroom.
The day wound down with some shopping at the school store where the Welsh students eagerly bought Whitman sweatshirts, and wrapped up with lunch in the North Cafeteria. There, the visiting students caught the attention of some Whitman students. Friendly conversations started up, and ended with emails being exchanged and social media accounts being followed.
Welsh student Gracie Radmore said it’s hard to describe how different things are. “It’s a completely different atmosphere,” she said. “Everyone is so friendly and kind. It's like a community, isn't it? And the sports facilities, they're amazing. The specialized subjects. Marine biology we would never have even heard of in our school. In Britain it's so generalized. It's just biology, chemistry, physics.”
Her classmate Arianna Ferro agreed. “I love dance,” said Arianna. “ And to have dance classes in your school is amazing. And not to be just sitting in little classrooms. That doesn't make you want to learn. When you're interacting in your lessons like here, you want to do more.”
Thanks to all the Whitman teachers who opened their classrooms to our visitors, and to Mr. Karavias, who helped arrange the tour through the Master Teachers program.
The students from Wales visited multiple classrooms throughout the day to get an idea of the various class structures for different subjects.
Walt Whitman students demonstrated fragging in the marine biology lab and let our guests try it out for themselves!
Students were fascinated by the dynamics they experienced from one classroom to another, including the welcoming and eclectic nature of Mr. Pipolo's room.
Students from the UK and US joined in the North Cafeteria for casual conversation before the day was done.