For The Love Of London East Valley High Humanities Class Studies British City With Eye Toward Traveling There

Julie Seipp, fanny on the floor and back against one wall, surveys her class. Some sophomores have flopped down with equal ease. Some are sticking with their desks.

All are deep in adventure, their noses in books or papers. This is Seipp’s sophomore honors humanities class at East Valley High School.

The 29 teens are studying European history, British literature and the fine arts. Although their study started with the Greeks and Romans, they’ll focus on 300 years of history of the city of London - and write a novel set in the period from 1666 through 1975. And, this school year they are attending at least 95 hours of fine arts events: concerts, rehearsals, lectures, plays.

“We nearly lived down at Cheney Cowles (Museum)” for lectures that accompanied the Greek and Roman antiquities exhibit now on display.

“There are easier ways to get a 4.0,” Seipp summarizes. Successful students need an insatiable curiosity and the ability to read, Seipp says. They’ll earn 2.5 credits for the year-long class.

That’s not all.

Next October, the group will travel to London for five days.

Seipp knows the kids are bright. Although she despairs over the class days lost to the ice storm, she knows the class will succeed.

“I firmly believe I am teaching future governors, senators, doctors, attorneys and amazing parents. That’s really the bottom line: I’m creating better citizens.”

Meanwhile, student Dean Langford can’t quite believe he’s actually made a telephone call to London.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever talked to anyone British,” Langford says.

Langford is researching a term paper on the British Broadcasting Corp. He chased information on the BBC over the Internet. But he needed more depth, so he called the famed institution.

“I couldn’t get beyond the information desk,” he admits, and the information desk wasn’t equal to his demands. He’s still on the search. Anyone out there have a good source for the history of the BBC’s first 20 years?

Seipp’s students are using a wide range of research sources, from a shoebox full of notecards, to e-mailing the London Museum at the Barbicon, the London Symphony Orchestra, the British Broadcasting Corp. and the American school of London. At last count, they had about 30 e-mail correspondents.

Libraries - public and parents’ - have been pillaged.

Tourist souvenir booklets are on longterm loan by parents who visited London in 1992. One contains illustrations and information on instruments of torture; it’ll add color to the novel. From National Geographic magazine comes a well-illustrated package on Martin Luther and the Reformation, the best source Seipp has found to give her the combination of depth and conciseness she’s after.

The veteran teacher lures these sophomores with such a grand goal, she says, because neither the dry dates of history, nor the demands of the English language are, by themselves, compelling.

Instead, she builds a base of facts. “Now take that and create beauty,” Seipp says.

Using the workplace as a reference point, as is popular for today’s educators, isn’t Seipp’s style.

Instead, today matters in Seipp’s classroom.

“I’m not practicing to be good later,” Seipp wants her students to believe. “My essence is on the line right now.”

“She’s really for pure knowledge,” says student Holly Ellis-Brown. “She really pushes you as far as you can go.”

“Hey, guys, I didn’t know this. Chaucer went to the 100 Years War,” Seipp announces, fortissimo.

Often she delivers pronouncements in a voice calculated to wake any backsliders.

Where some teachers would simply thank a student, Seipp says: “I adore you.” Or “You’re a gift to God and man.”

The students respond.

“I can’t believe kids can do all this research,” says Langford.

“She’s my favorite teacher,” says Ellis-Brown.

“This (course) is one of her longtime dreams…. she’s begged to do it for a long time … she loves kids, you can obviously tell.”

And next year?

Seipp’s new class of sophomores will start the year by reading the historical novel on London. Then they’ll launch their own study. Paris, here they come. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 Photos (2 Color)