As the school year comes to a close, students and teachers are giving much thought to summer plans, and, more importantly, the next school year.  With the opening of Woodgrove High School, many students and teachers will be in a new, unfamiliar setting, but few will get to spend the school year in a foreign country, immersed in culture.  This is just what U.S. History and International Relations teacher Kent Bailey will be doing, though, as he prepares to travel to Hungary to spend the 2010-2011 school year.    

“I studied abroad in college in England and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It gave me a love of travelling and since then, it’s always been my dream to live abroad and do my career abroad,” Bailey said.  

As Bailey began researching teach-abroad programs, he came across a program called the Fulbright Scholarship, an exchange program in which the American teacher travels to Europe to teach and the European teacher comes to America to teach. 

“I learned about the Fulbright and I realized that it was going to be relatively competitive, but I still thought, ‘I’m not going to regret trying it out and applying for it.’ In April, I found out [the decision], and I’m one of only sixty people in the country who are going to do this through Fulbright,” Bailey said.

The application process for the Fulbright Scholarship was intensive, and included an extensive application and multiple interviews.

“I got a choice of three countries and my choices were Hungary, England, and the Czech Republic.  When I did my interview, they told me I should consider putting Hungary and the Czech Republic as my first and second choice, because you had a better shot at getting that than England because everyone wants to go to England- they speak English and the culture is very similar,” Bailey said.

While in Hungary, Bailey will be teaching World History and International Relations at a high school located in Debrecen, Hungary’s second largest city according to population.  The school is a bilingual school where 30% of classes are conducted in English and the remaining 70% in Hungarian.     

“The Hungarian school system is completely different than ours.  They go up to 13^th or 14^th grade, the reason being that in 8^th grade they have a test that kind of tracks them into different parts.  I’ll be teaching kids who speak English, or have at least been learning English, and who are interested in the humanities.  It’s kind of like majoring in college, but in high school,” Bailey said.

Bailey is looking forward to being immersed in the Hungarian culture and hopes to establish some sort of delegation so his former students can visit Hungary during a school break. 

“You make that bond with your students and some of the other teachers and that will be hard to leave behind, but I’m trying to arrange a way to keep in touch with Valley students.  [Getting to visit Hungary] would be kind of a first come, first serve, for people who are interested, preferably people who have had me as a teacher. I would get a teacher like Mr. Buehlmaier to lead that delegation, bring them over to stay for a week, and I’d arrange the families with whom they’d stay,” Bailey said.

Bailey is looking forward to his time abroad and will leave for Hungary in August and return in time for the graduation in June. 

“I’m looking forward to the overall experience, getting to be with students, seeing a new type of teaching atmosphere, what schools are like over there, all the travel I get to do,  getting to learn about a different culture, picking up some of another language that I’ve never heard, and on a more personal level, my grandfather is 100% Hungarian, so on a personal family level, [I’m excited] to see where he came from,” said Bailey.