Bruce the Buddhist Monk

It might come as a shock to some of you, but as part of my education to become a teacher I have to instruct my Scottish students Religious and Moral Education. Effectively, this means that I have to instruct my classes on the 6 major religions prescribed. We have weekly lectures on the various religions and have covered Christianity and Hinduism. This week the topic on the table was Buddhism.

Our team of 32 student teachers is split into 6 groups and each week your particular group must either submit a report on the religion, or make a presentation to the class. The presentation needn’t be long, but it must be at the stated age level and speak to the major teaching points laid out in the Scottish curriculum. Well, this week my group had to present our lesson on the 10 precepts of Buddhism.

Now, this sounded very scary at first, particularly where I was supposed to gear this presentation to students of about 7 years of age, but it turned out to be quite easy. My team members and I worked well on the assignment and put together a very nice power point presentation, developed a suitable script, and some props to make the lesson more interesting. It came together smoothly with no major problems, but I drew the short straw and had to dress up like a monk. If any of you have ever seen a Buddhist monk I can assure you I look nothing like one. Perhaps a comparison is in order. Check for yourself.

I looked ridiculous in my orange toga (I seriously felt like breaking out the ‘T-O-G-A, TOGA! TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!’ chant from Animal House during the presentation, but I figured it might be in bad taste) but the class loved it. Clearly they just like seeing the ‘foreign’ kid dress up like a goofball. The best part was the bald cap that I put on. It didn’t even cover my hair! Priceless! It's a photo of a clip from a video that a classmate made...sorry for the poor quality.


Otherwise, life here in Scotland is good. We are starting to get all geared up for placement. We have a 6 week block of placement starting on the 27th of October and we are all pretty excited. I’m getting a little sick of all the university classes. Many are dull, or seemingly useless, and really all I want to do is go back and teach in my school. However, before that happens I need to get some of my assignments out of the way. Apparently the hardest part of the fall term is managing to teach for the 6 week block and still turning in the assignments, do the lesson prep, and do all the planning files I need to complete in order to fulfil my course. It should be a good six weeks. Keep posted…I may get pretty incoherent very soon as the stress mounts.

Anyway, take care and stay posted. There will be more from Scotland soon.

Bruce