We've made the local paper. (With just a few mistakes: my interview was in Spanish and English and there were only three people there, not 600! Oh, and I don't seem to remember worrying about my ipod and computer, just saying that they would be a good way to keep Baby Llama busy during the flight!) Who said that any press is good press?
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Trading PlacesSouthwestern teacher, Irish counterpart will swap jobs, homesPat WhitneyCourier Staff Writer
Michelle Stuart’s son, Ethan, will join her in Northern Ireland where she will participate in a teaching exchange program. (Staff photo by Pat Whitney)Michelle Stuart and Carol Simpson live worlds apart.Stuart lives in Madison, while Simpson resides in Green Island near Belfast, Northern Ireland.Until a few weeks ago, they were strangers.Starting in August, their lives will intersect.The two women, matched by the State Department as Fulbright award recipients, will swap locations from Aug. 4 through January 2007.Stuart, a teacher at Southwestern High School, will fly to Belfast and travel by train to Simpson’s hometown of Green Island. She will live in Simpson’s house and teach at her school, Green Island Primary.Simpson, who was educated at Oxford, will cross the Atlantic, move into Stuart’s Madison home and teach at Southwestern.The similarities don’t end there.Both women teach Spanish.Both are single mothers of one son.Both live in small historic towns.Both teach in schools where a
high school and middle school of about 700 students are connected. “We will exchange houses, class schedules — basically our lives,” Stuart said.“We are language teachers and we both love words,” she said.Stuart is thrilled about the opportunity to teach in Northern Ireland, where she will be the sole Spanish teacher at the school, but is equally thrilled that her son, Ethan, 4, will start his education there.“In Ireland, kindergarten begins at age 4,” she said.Simpson will enroll her 8-year-old son at a school here.For Stuart, the culture shock will begin with her teaching at an all-girls school where students wear uniforms.For Simpson, the culture shock will begin teaching at a co-ed school where they don’t.“My students keep asking me why I’m going to Ireland to teach Spanish,” said Stuart, whose heritage is Scotch-Irish. “The Spanish population and language are my passion. Ireland has a national curriculum where every school learns the same material. I want to bring what I learn back to the Spanish population and schools here without trying to invent the wheel.”Stuart, whose bubbly personality might leave a hole in some Southwestern hearts, has no plan to leave her students behind while she is gone.“I plan to start a blog, an online journal, once I get to D.C.,” she said. “I plan to update it every night, sharing my thoughts and reflections of my experiences with everyone at home.”She also plans to set up teleconferencing between the two schools and communities.“I want to pair up conversation partners where students can interview each other in Spanish about their individual lives and cultures,” she said.Winning the Fulbright award entailed a lengthy application period — nearly a year — including interviews with 60-member peer teams made up of French and Spanish department heads at the University of Louisville, Stuart said. Just six weeks ago, she got word that she was going to Northern Ireland. Three weeks later, she learned who would be trading places with her. The trip promises to be a bonus experience for the Stuarts, one that holds special meaning.Ethan, an African-American boy whom Stuart adopted, will be meeting his 6-year-old brother Haroun for the first time. Haroun, adopted by an American woman and a Moroccan man, lives in Paris. The two families will meet at Euro Disney during a vacation.“We’ve communicated for a long time, e-mailing each other and sharing photos of the boys,” she said. “It’s amazing how much they look alike.”Stuart will leave the last week of July for Washington, D.C., for an orientation before flying to Ireland.“I thought about going to a country with the history of an 800-year conflict,” she said, laughing. “But, they say that Northern Ireland is one of the safest European countries to live in.”Her biggest challenge, however, might take place before her trip.“I’m concerned about packing enough clothes for seven months when only two suitcases are allowed per person,” she said with a grin. “But since Ethan will be wearing a uniform, that should free up some extra space.”Then, there’s her iPOD and DVD player that she fears she might lose before she gets to Ireland.“What would Ethan and I do during the seven-hour flight without them?”
