Dalkeith High School

Joe High School began life as a student at Dalkeith High School on Monday. DHS is in a new building, the result of a controversial partnership between the local Catholic high school--which is state supported in Scotland--and the state run non-demominational high school. The religious wars are still very close to the surface here--on his first day, Joe was urged by one of his mates at the non-demominational side of the school to enter the Catholic side and give a Hitler salute. He declined to be a pawn in their ongoing game....

He wears a uniform of sorts--black sweater with the school name, black pants, and a white shirt. Today he rebelled and wore a striped shirt. We'll see whether the fashion police get him....

There is no homework, partly because the teachers don't want the books to go home....

Dalkieth

When you think about it, a jump from Minneapolis to Dalkeith, Scotland, is a journey both in miles and in time. Nothing in Minneapolis is much older than the US Civil War, and there's very little of that about. The palace in Dalkeith, Scotland, where Joe High School, OLGS, and I are now installed, is built on the foundations of a 12th-13th century castle. But it's not just the age of the structures that differs. It's an attitude about how one should live that appears foreign, even though the house is equipped with wi-fi, and KLM will deliver the missing luggage to the front door. The issue of resources, especially heat and electricity, is a big one in this house, with warnings everywhere to turn out lights, turn off the space heaters (don't ask), and guard against the insidious dripping of faucets.

Americans live in a land of seemingly inexhaustible resources, with cheap access to almost everything. There are cheap meals, cheap gas, large cars, cheap housing, and a throw-away attitude about all of these things. In the rest of the world, most middle class people do not live in large detached houses with three car garages. It's incomprehensible to most peoploe that they could, or should live like that. And the Brits, while certainly immersed in the modern world, still exhibit a slight WWII rationing mentality. Hence the notion that there is a cost, however, slight, to using heat, eletctricity, etc. We could probably use a little bit of that.