Village across the street update

The gate at the corner was wide open one morning. It was unusual. Then suddenly, the next day, one of the families across the street was gone. The shacks torn down, except for one in the far corner. My neighbor asked the family of squatters on the next street what happened. They just shrugged, he reported. Where did they go?

Writing Tips

I was emailing my friend, Linda Case, in Connecticut, to thank her for encouraging me with my writing. I confessed to her that I have always been somewhat intimated about my writing, since I seem to have many friends, like her, who are professional writers. I often struggle with doubt when writing; does this really convey what I am trying to communicate? Linda replied with the following writing tips, which I thought were terrific, and wanted to pass them on.

Regarding writing...the best advice I can give: Keep on doing what you’ve been doing. The key thing is to do it without pretense, without needing to sound hifalutin’ “for a book.”

If you effect a style, or consciously try to make the material Important, capital I, that will not make things better. In fact, it would hurt the venture.

One trick I do, when facing the blank page is to say to myself: “This will be my ‘pretend’ copy.” I even mark the file as PRETEND, at the outset. That way allows me to plow right in, and to move forward without that censoring voice in the background that can always be there:

I don’t have anything to say.

Who would want to read this?

This is no good....and all the other kill joys your mind can go through.

This fast-writing principle is a tip of Natalie Goldberg, a wonderful coach.

You always know you can throw the thing away because it’s only your “pretend” copy. However, I have found nine times out of ten, the momentum totally gets me going, and the material (freed from the bonds of hyper self consciousness and condemnation) can be pretty good.

Of course, you can still tweak it; pare it down, whatever. But your original voice has a good chance of being in it.

And she added in a follow up message:

Sometimes, in a modified way, I try to use these tips with the kids in middle school. I say there seems to be nothing so daunting than a blank page. If they have to write as little as three paragraphs, they can sit there for a half and hour immobile.

That describes me in middle school and high school; I spent a lot of time starring at blank pages.

UN Assembly at ISD

Friday, ISD celebrated UN day--in addition to letting me off the hook about celebrating Halloween, it was an amazing day--children came dressed in national dress. Enjoy looking at these pictures. The children were fabulous. During the assembly upper elementary grade children volunteered to give greetings in their native language, and holding their flag.





















There are two other children in the class, but not in the picture--two of my more difficult children, and they didn't want to or were not prepared to have their picture taken. In the picture are two UK, three USA, two Indians, one Dutch, one German, one Mali/Australian, one French (but born in Ethopia and wearing dress from there), one Ivory Coast. and one USA/Sierra Leone. I didn't pose them this way, just all the girls wanted to be in front!

Problem solving success

On Tuesday we talked about the problems kids were having building with the colored blocks. I was not limiting the number--and it generally started out alright--but then degenerated into arguements about people not having enough blocks, who was building with whom. I felt that I was just putting band-aids on the situation when I went over to problem solve with them. We needed to step back to think about the problem, so I made it a topic for discussion during morning meeting. I described the problem and asked the kids to think about how they could solve it. One girl said it was "a boys problem" and when they fought, they should be sent to the principals office.



One of the issues that is a frequent focus of disagreement is how many blocks each building has--and if two children are working together--then they need more than a child working alone.
So the solution that we agree upon, is that there are four colors of block, so four children can use the blocks at a time, each one getting all the blocks of one color. If two children want to combine their blocks they can work together. The first day that we used this method, one child picked a color of blocks, but his best friend was on the waitlist to use the blocks. So he invited his friend to work with him with those blocks.

The same day, three boys wanted to play a lotto game with pictures of animals, but there are four game cards and three boys. The matching cards are all together in a bag to be drawn. At first one child (he is the type of child who wants to be first, have the most, and win all the time) took two cards and the other two boys each had one card. The two boys, pushed their cards together, and then the first child objected--I think he figured out that if the two boys were each getting a turn to draw cards they would fill up their cards faster than him. So he proposed that they push all four cards together, and as they drew out the matching cards, they would find the match and place the card on the game board. After several rounds, the first child, drew two cards at one time and placed them on the board. "Hey, you drew two cards." objected one of the other players. As I was sitting near by, I just looked at him and said, "You draw two cards too. I guess he is changing the rules." The rest of the game proceeded with them passing the bag around, drawing two cards, and then finding the match. They all cheered for themselves when all the matches were made.

Parents, parents, parents

What a week dealing with parents! A spokesperson for some of the parents asks to meet with me on Monday--from some comments I thought it was going to be about my substitute assistant; they had said her English was not good enough to be working in the classroom. Five mothers showed up to complain that their children were getting short changed because I wasn't academic enough. The other class sent home worksheets and gave homework. They had already scheduled a meeting for the next day with the Elementary School Principal. He said, "I think they had the meeting with you, just so they could say that they had met with you--not that they were going to listen to anything you said." The principal is very supportive--and recognized the very different style the other teacher has.

I left the meeting with parents to go to the early childhood staff meeting, where we are discussing the book "About the Authors" as the K, 1 and 2 teachers want to shift to writers workshop. I had to share with the group about the parents complaints. It made me think that writers workshop will not go over well with those parent

By Wednesday, several of the parents had heard about this meeting, and contacted me in various ways to express their support of me, and in some cases extreme disapproval of certain complaining parents. I began to worry about being caught in the cross fire. One of the "complaining" parents is very reasonable and I think she helped calm the others. Then another one e-mailed me to say how much she liked my style, saw growth in her son, but just wanted to see more of the work he was doing.

By Friday, the principal, the other kdg teacher and I had a plan. I would eliminate my rest time, add a half hour to guided reading. We would have a joint newsletter to the parents about the curricula, weekly. I drafted a letter to my parents telling them about the change. And I am putting together packets with take home games for families to do with their children. I am still resisting worksheets in the classroom, but will be sending home more of their work and not waiting until the end of the week. The math program comes with "home-links" and I'll be sending home those pages that are interactive with parents. I continue to push reading aloud from higher level texts--I have sent home a list of suggested chapter books that the school library has in their collection.

During the week the kids continued to be terrific. On Friday, Sedi, the assistant teacher on maternity leave came to visit with the new baby. We had read the book, "Honey, honey, Lion" and in which the honey badger's "tummy is as flat as a pancake". One of the boys (who has two younger siblings) ask Sedi, "Is your tummy as flat as a pancake?"

We have also been doing lots of rhyming, and during the day, kids will dash up to me saying, "chair and hair rhyme" or some other rhyme. Thursday, one of my most proficient rhyming boy, said excitedly, "say and sand, (Pause), they don't rhyme."

When I skyped my sister, Monday evening, she said, "Lucky this happened to you now, not your first year teaching!" And as an experienced 5-6 grade teacher--she added, "This happens more in the early grades, K,1,2 so I had to deal with less of it" I am also much more sympathetic to all the teachers who have complained about having to deal with pressure from parents who want more of everything. I remember Sally saying that when parents asked for more of something at the nursery school she directed, she would ask them what should be eliminated to make room for it.

The village across the street

Across the street from my apartment is a small rural village, with shacks, outhouse, goats, chickens, and vegetable gardens. Down the street there is another family living and farming what had been an empty lot. It is a good reminder to me that most of Senegalese are poor and do not live like I do. When it is dark, it is dark in the village, they get up with the sun and the rooster. No electricity, A/C, running water, I wonder what they think of us who live across the street. Do they wonder what our lives are like?

The mother of children across the street is disabled, she crawls on her hands and knees within the immediate area. I see her leaving early each morning in her hand cranked bike-wheel chair. The youngest girl sits on the back and the older daughter walks and sometimes pushes from behind. I say "bonjour Madam, ca va?" to her each time, and she has the most beatific smile as she greets me in return. There is also an boy, about 10 years old, I think.

One day I saw the youngest girl, pushing a partly broken toy wheelbarrow with a very soiled white cloth doll in it. I haven't seen it since. I think about what toy could I get for the child. I wonder if the children go to school.

The first photo shows the water jugs that they refill--I don't know from where. The third photo on the right, I took during a terrfic rain storm. I was intrigued by the child proping up an umbrella as she did the laundry.

I was told that they might not be swatters, they might even be paid a little to occupy the land. I think one of the men does some work for the family next door. I see him opening the garage sometimes and working in their garden. It is a French family that lives in the house, with swimming pool.

A few weeks ago, the French family had a party, and the village seem to be having their own celebration, each with their own traditions. It was quite a contrast.

I don't think the village has noticed me taking pictures from my window--I will continue to document life across the street.

Coaching from the kids

After an exhausting week, unfortunately, Thursday and Friday are my longest days with no specialists, I was at a loss, as most transitions turn into a frenzy of running around the classroom, climbing and jumping off bookshelf. All be it, only a few kids do it, but it feels like chaos.

After the kids were finally settled, I asked them what their ideas were about how to make it go better. There were the usual suggestions of punishment (send them to the principal's office or put them in time out). The kids haven't yet noticed that I don't use time out, it has been so much a part of their experience to date. And then I called on Alexis, who is wise beyond his years. And he gave me a suggestion that I have often given teachers--rearrange the room to block the running area. Duh! Why couldn't I remember that.

I am now working on how I will rearrange the room. By the way, the first early childhood assembly--on the first Friday of the month--each teacher gets to nominate one or two children for recognition. Most kids got awards for academic success or being good--Alexis got an award for being a good problem solver--and I gave an example of how he helped other children solve problems. Next he should get an award for coaching his teacher!