Geography Class

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Currently Enrolled Students:
- Arianna Lynn Patterson
- Jemma McLaughlin
- Connor Greene
- Anabelle Black
- Graeme Donovan
- Ethan Kim
- Jessica Brown
- Adonia Mitchell
- Davina Keeley
- Bay Cromwell
- Cara-Jean Kitchi
- Callum Razamuth

My apologies if I've missed anyone out or spelled someone's name wrong - and more students are, of course, very welcome to choose Geography as one of their subjects and join in! The more the merrier, after all

- Miss Theresa Godfrey

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Well, first days were always rather nervewracking, and today was no exception. Her first time teaching as an actual, regular teacher as opposed to a part time teacher - well, she figured she was allowed to be a little nervous. That didn't stop her enthusiasm, though, and she'd arrived early to her first class to get everything set up.

Her classroom had been appropriately customised on her very first day, and now very clearly said 'I Am A Geography Classroom'. The desks were set up in groups of four, as she was a great believer in group work, for which students needed to actually sit together. The walls were artfully covered with a variety of maps, flags, and informative posters about geographical subjects from 'Desertification' to 'The Arctic Icecaps: Are they shrinking and why?', while the bookcase at the back of the room was stuffed full with textbooks, geography dictionaries, and additional geography books that interested students could read, as well as a selection of relevant magazine - The Time, and BBC Wildlife being two of the main culprits.

Looking around with a satisfied smile, very pleased with her organisation, Theresa turned her attention to the board at the front of the class. They were starting off the geography course by looking at 'Glaciers', and her first order of the day - after introducing herself and explaining a little bit about the course - was to show a section of a video, which was why she was very thankful that the projector in the room seemed to be working fine (she'd tried it earlier) and that the projector screen that pulled down in front of the board wasn't broken either. Laptop connected up to the projector system, she was all set to go, and wasn't at all sure whether she'd be using the actual board particularly much.

Neatly attired in a white blouse and black trousers, the former of which set off her dark skin, her hair was loose, and she absently twirled a section of it around her fingers as she perched on the edge of her desk - avoiding the globe which was the desk's main occupant, apart from her laptop - and waited for students to arrive. This was the problem with arriving tp set up early, of course...

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara walked down the hallway, her black ballet flats making a soft click, click as she took each step. In one hand she carried her black mock leather satchel, in her other hand she held a note. After much deliberation and her getting bored, she has asked to swap classes and the class she had asked to change to was geography, as she hoped that this would be a non predictable class where the answers wouldn't always be in the work in front of her.

She paused outside the geography room, raising the hand holding the note she knocking lightly on the door even though class was due to start soon. Drawing in a deep breath, she pushed the door open and stepped into the room. walking over to the teacher's desk, she dropped a small, but graceful, curtsy and offered the note to the woman behind the desk. "Excuse me, Miss Godfrey?" Her clipped English accent still strong on her softly spoken words. "I am Cara-Jean Kitchi. If it pleases you, I have asked if i can join your class rather than attending the algebra class I have since been taking." She knew that for her age she spoke strangely, but that was how she spoke.

Outfit

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Drawn from her thoughtful fugue by the arrival of the small teenager, Theresa beamed at the girl as she entered and approached, even if she was rather surprised by the curtsy she was suddenly offered. That was... unexpected, and she found herself trying to remember if anything mentioning curtsying had been in the stack of papers she'd been offered when she'd first arrived. She remembered the fire-drill protocol, but nothing about methods of greeting people... maybe it was just her way.

"It's very nice to meet you, Cara-Jean - or do you prefer Cara? - and I'm always glad to have new people," she said, brightly, sounding far more casually spoken than her student, as she took the proffered note and ran her eyes over it. Yep, looked pretty standard, and based on an instinctive, utterly illogical assessment of Cara she didn't feel that she was the type to change classes for silly reasons. "There's plenty of space, after all," she continued, looking up from the scrap of paper. "Feel free to plunk yourself down anywhere."

She waved expansively at the classroom, almost managing to knock the globe over, and aborted the hand-movement before she sent it tumbling, friendly smile not leaving her face as she looked at Cara again, tone curious but friendly. "So, what brings you to study geography? It's a definite change from maths!" And though she would always choose geography over maths, well, that was kind of expected given that she was teaching the subject. It just seemed a very drastic change for someone to make... but maybe that was just her.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

The girl was thrown slightly when asked what she preferred to be called. "Cara would be fine, thank you Ma'am." She responded. Her eyes surveyed the room, noting that the tables were in groups of four which gave no choice but to work with others - something that made the girl feel a little uncomfortable. "Excuse my forwardness, but I found algebra to be too easy, Ma'am." She offered - yeah, not something that every fifteen year old would say. "I feel that geography could offer me more of a chance to research the answers rather than always have them in the working."

She bowed her head respectfully as walked over to one for the front groups and lowered herself onto one of the chairs. She then set about setting up her desk. Pencil case at the top left corner, folder - labeled Geography - in the centre of the table, glasses case at the top right, and red, blue and black pens along with a writing pencil lined precisely in the centre top of her table above the folder within easy reach when needed.

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"That's similar to the problem I always had with maths," Theresa confided, feeling that it was only fair to return the favour given she'd put the girl on the spot. "Not that it was too easy, persay, but I didn't like the fact that there was always a right or a wrong answer." She smiled again, and shrugged. "I like my fuzzy research questions, and conclusions based on analysis rather than just technique." Making a mental note of Cara's preferred name, she added the girl to her register list, head coming up again as another student entered the room.

This student happened to be Jessica, who did her usual thing of poking her head in to check if she was in the right place before entering the room properly. Brightening as she saw that Cara was already present - not that her friend being early was very surprising, but she hadn't realised Cara was signed up for geography - she offered Miss Godfrey a tentative smile as she walked towards the front of the class, taking in the table layout, and dropped into the seat next to Cara.

"Hello," Theresa said, warmly, answering Jessica's tentative smile with an enthusiastic one of her own, "I'm afraid I don't know anyone, yet, so you would be?"

"Oh, Jessica Brown, Miss Godfrey," the girl in question responded, flushing slightly as she realised that introducing herself probably would have been a very smart move. "But Jess is good."

"Well, Jess, welcome! You have the distinction of being the second student to turn up, as you can see." Theresa smiled at the girl again, recognising the girl's clearly rather nervous personality, and responding by being as customarily friendly as ever. Jess smiled in response, not quite sure of what to do, and covered her confusion by pulling her stuff out of her rucksack. Notebook and pencil-case were soon retrieved and placed on her desk, though not nearly as neatly as Cara's rigorously aligned belongings.

"Hi," she said to Cara, when she was done with her organisation and Miss Godfrey had turned her attention to her computer which was flashing an error message at her, "I didn't know you were doing geography!" Her tone clearly said that she was delighted by the surprise - everything was just that much nicer when Cara, her first really good friend here at Blue Ridge, was around to share it too.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara looked up as another student entered the room, the smallest of smiles touching her lips as she saw Jessica.

The teen put her pen down as the younger girl took the seat next to her. "Hi." She returned. "Originally, I wasn't taking geography. I've seen enough of the world I really didn't see the point in learning about it." She kept her voice soft as she picked up her lead pencil and began to doodle in the margin of her paper, down the left side she roughly sketched world flags that she had seen on a poster at the front of the room. "However, the math class I was taking wasn't pushing me enough academically so I thought I'd see what this class could offer me." She bit her lip, suddenly guilty for how her words sounded.

Never before had she had the opportunity to change classes if she wasn't enjoying the one she was participating in. She would normally just sit through the class she was assigned in and do the work like a good girl. She would complete the class work, do the homework assignments as she was supposed to. She would add enough working into what she was doing so that the teachers could see how she had got the answer she had, but not too much work so that she showed off. She would sit the tests and get all the answers correct, tempted to answer one question wrong, but she just couldn't do it.

Once the flags of the world were finished, she went on to drawing a map of the world along the bottom of the page. The doodling would stop once the lesson started, but for now she needed something to do to fill in the time. She contemplated failing the next test she had. It was hard to completely fail a test though, because one had to know the correct answers to get them all wrong. Contemplating it was easy, she didn't think she would ever be able to actually do it though.

[Onzyy]

Jemma McLaughlin, Connor Greene, Graeme Donovan and Annabelle Black

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Jemma walked down the corridor towards the geography class. Apart from her natural horsemanship, this would be one of the first true classes she would have at the Academy. It was a daunting task for her, as her life had been rudely disrupted so many times this year alone. First the death of her mother, and now a new school. Jemma hefted up the strap of her messenger bag, braced her shoulders, and walked into the class.

One of the girls from her horsemanship class was there, and so was another student. Jemma walked up to the teacher, and introduced herself. Jemma McLaughlin, a smile on her face. Nobody knew how fake that smile really was, because inside she was crying. She took a seat towards the middle on the side.

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The two males walked beside each other. They didn't know each other, and they planned to keep it that way. In classrooms it was death by association almost. Connor allowed the darker haired one to go first. Graeme was wearing the usual of baggy jeans and shirt, His fox-like face was marred by the dark shadows under his eyes. Morning ma'am. Graeme Donovan, he said, before joining Jemma, sitting in front of her. He had met the girl once or twice in the barns, but she wasn't the talkative type. He gave her a warm smile instead.

Connor followed soon after, but his eyes held a defiant look. He had some issues at the moment, mostly towards his twin. The class clearly shouted GEOGRAPHY, and for some reason, Connor already felt some antimosty towards it. Connor Greene, he said softly. Irish accent marred his smooth, soft vocals.

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Annabelle walked softly down the corridor. Her converse trainers made no noise. Bella knew that she was a few minutes late, but honestly she couldn't help oversleeping. The classes all looked alike, but she quickly found the one she was mean't to be in.

There were a few students there already, and instantly Bella felt the flush return to her cheeks. Sorry I'm late ma'am. Annabelle Black, but Bella for short. She didn't want to sound arrogant by saying she preferred Bella.

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Callum walked slowly down the corridor, at a pace much slower than his usual brisk walk. Geography was not a subject he particularly enjoyed. He would have been perfectly happy doing horse lessons, Music and German, but the class requirement meant he had to take more classes than that - Geography being the lessor of two evils. Silly, he reprimanded himself, it's never going to go well if I think like that.

He reached the classroom door all too quickly. Poking his head round, in the hope this was the wrong class, he was disappointed. Definitely Geography in this classrooms, there was a globe on the desk, and a poster of different world flags on the wall. Walking fully into the room, Callum was please to see a mixture of guys and girls in the class, rather than just girls, which slightly scared him.

He walked past the teacher, pausing to offer his name "Callum Razamuth, miss, hi". Spotting a slight, light-brown haired girl sitting near a girl called Cara - who he recognized from Natural Horsemanship - he decided to sit next to her.
"Hi, I'm Callum" he offered shyly, his head down apart from a quick flash of a smile. Deliberately not asking anything in the way of a response, that didn't stop him hoping she would respond.

Whilst waiting for what might be a non-existent answer, Callum reach down into his plain black canvas bag, and took out a biro pen and an A4 notebook full of paper, some already filled in from other classes.

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Watching with a slight smile the interaction between Jess and Cara - clearly friends, if their demeanors were anything to go by - Theresa's attention was drawn to the door again as a positive stream of students poured in. Oh, good! It looked like almost everyone was here. She wondered if she knew how much they were giving away about themselves simply by the way they entered the room - those two boys were obviously rather tense towards each other, Jemma perhaps a little subdued, Callum maybe a little apprehensive.

Smiling at everyone as they introduced themselves, Theresa waited as one more person poked their heads in, the decor of her classroom giving them the instant hint that they were in the right place, then advanced in fully. The Korean boy introduced himself with "Hello, I'm Ethan Kim," and sat himself down near Connor, for no particular reason other than that the chair was in his line of movement. He didn't really know anyone particularly well, after all, and with his brother adamantly not doing geography he didn't even have that safety-net. Well, at least geography was a subject he enjoyed, even if the looks of some of the other students suggested that they didn't all feel the same way.

Seeing that everyone looked to be settled, Theresa got started. "Well, hi everyone, and thanks for choosing geography as one of your subjects. This is actually the first time I've taught full time - and I probably shouldn't have told you that as it's not the most confidence inspiring thing to say - so I'm pretty excited about it, I have to say." Tone chirpy and enthusiastic, she bounced up from behind her desk to the centre of the front of the room, right in front of the board.

"So, we're going to be starting by looking at glaciers, which are actually more exciting than just being big chunks of ice that sit around and make things chilly, honest. So, we're going to start of by watching a bit of a National Geographic tv program, which had an episode about Ice. We're not watching all of it, because I actually have to get you guys to do some work, but it's a nice little introduction into glaciers. If you want, you can take notes, but you don't have to. Any questions? About, well, anything?"

After waiting for a reply, she flicked off the lights, letting the room remain partially lit by the natural light through the window, and returned to her desk and her laptop, on which she'd already set up the DVD. Switching on the projector, she was pleased to see that it did in fact seem to be working, and pressed play, images of ice soon filling the projector screen.

((If you're interested, a section of the video is here: channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/earth-the-biography#tab-Videos/05399_00 . And, yes, I'm actually sad enough that I've watched this little tv series XD.))

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara fell silent as the room filled up and she finished drawing her world map and decided that an enlarged version of that would make a good title page for the folder - not that she normally worried about title pages as the first page was often left to information about the class: teacher, a short definition of the subject matter and classroom rules. All the boring stuff that most people don't bother writing down.

She put her pen down as Miss Godfrey started speaking and shook her head slightly when the woman asked if their were any questions, she then turned her attention to the television set. In the social sense Cara didn't watch, in fact the only time she even looked at a set was in a classroom like this. Picking up her pen again, she began to make notes while the DVD played. The note taking was more for something to do, rather than the need to do so. She just didn't want to be one of those students that sat glued to the television set while it was on.

The documentary was quite interesting, the young student couldn't imagine being inside a cave under 200 metres of ice. And the fact that within three days the ice had retaken the cave that had meticulously been created. She knew that glaciers were were than just blocks of ice, she also knew that parts of glaciers broke off due to the rising temperature of the oceans and then became icebergs, which were in turn adding to the volume of the water surrounding the islands that called themselves countries. Sure, she didn't watch TV, but all this was also in books.