From the Staff Room...

Ok, I'll admit that I started it. I was talking about how my job, at times, seems less to teach children than to civilize them. Then, one teacher (also from overseas, but from a Commonwealth country, not from America) said this:

"It's interesting that after hundred of years of going out and 'civilizing' the colonies, England is now having teachers from those colonies come in to civilize their own students."

(And in my more cynical moments, I've been known to point out that you can tell how far a monarchy has declined when people who once ruled half the world can't even schedule a wedding.)