Local Face: Mark Stride

Mark Stride was born in Stoke Mandeville Hospital and moved to Wendover, with his family, at the grand age of 2. His permanent address is still his parental home here but he is currently on contract with an international school in Bogota, Colombia. He admits to 24 very happy years spent in Wendover.

After playgroup, Mark attended John Hampden County First School passing on to Wendover Middle School at the appropriate age. Whilst in primary school, Mark joined the Cubs at the age of 8 and has been in the movement ever since, rising through Scouts to venture Scouts and Assistant Leader of the Saturn Cub pack, sometimes helping with the Scouts on Monday and Wednesday evenings. This year, the Saturn Cub Pack went on its 11th annual camp and Mark returned from the other side of the world specially so that he would not let them down. He has attended every one so far. This year they went to Leeswood near Watford and enjoyed themselves making campfires, hiking and organising traditional scouting wide games.

Mark really enjoyed primary school in Wendover and, like so many children, found the move to secondary school in Aylesbury disconcerting because at the new, bigger school he had left his friends behind and soon lost contact with them. However, Mark worked hard and in due time went on to study French, German and Politics at Loughborough University. During the course spent a year in Stuttgart, Germany where he became a language assistant in a mixed secondary school. Mark suddenly reallsed that he wanted to teach, although not French and German. Nonetheless, he finished his degree and remembered his time at primary school. He went back to John Hampden County First School for three weeks of classroom observation before embarking on his PGCE, also at Loughborough, specialising in Juniors and has loved every working moment since.

As a student Mark ensured he had plenty of experience working in various capacities: including a printing works in Switzerland and a bakery in Bavaria. His first teaching job was in a Middle School in Milton Keynes teaching Year 7. While he was still a student, he had come across an organisation which sent teachers abroad: now, he found himself being headhunted.

Mark was soon flying across the Atlantic to teach Year 7 in one of the top international schools in South America. In such a macho society, he is the first male primary school teacher that many of them have met. He teaches Maths, English, Science, Art and ICT. All other subjects are delivered in Spanish. The children all come from very privileged backgrounds so there is an armed guard at the gate.

Mark did not go abroad to become part of an ex-patriate community so he has made every possible attempt to make Colombian friends such as Miguel, Juan Pablo and Ana-Mercedes. This means he is exposed to what some claim to be the purest form of Spanish, another language to add to his list. He lives in a rented 3-bedroomed house, shared with another teacher, in a society where it is de rigueur for every teacher to have a maid and every building to have an armed guard. Mark has just completed the first of the two years of his contract. He is enjoying it so much that he would like to renew.

The most unexpected experience during Mark’s first year was the Colombian earthquake. Living in England did not equip him for this and the children all stopped writing when their third floor classroom started moving. Through the windows they could see nearby buildings swaying. Everyone felt queasy but stayed calm. Fortunately Bogota was not at the epicentre of the earthquake. That dubious honour fell to Armenia and the consequences were widely reported.

Mark is taking every possible opportunity to enjoy and explore this fascinating country. The climate varies between tropical jungle and a snowline. Altitude sickness can affect the untrained body. The main natural resources are gold and emeralds while the major cash crop is coffee – although other stimulants are grown too! Unfortunately there is a civil war happening in Colombia which contributes to the statistic of 1 in 10 of the world’s murders happening there. Another tragic consequence is terrible poverty driving many children onto the streets of the cities. Mark has travelled to the Caribbean coast but needs to be careful because of the climate of kidnapping to claim ransoms to continue to fight the war.

When Mark returns to these shores he will continue to be an enthusiastic junior school teacher with the inspiration of international experience to back him up.