An Amazing Woman

Last summer I spent two weeks in Liberia doing teacher training and traveling around to different areas and meeting people who are agents of change. One of the people I met was a woman who is absolutely incredible. Her name is Martha, and her story is amazing. In the 1990’s, her country of Liberia was in the midst of a lengthy civil war that would eventually take more than 200,000 lives and make orphans of about 50,000 children. Martha saw needs all around her but had no resources to do anything about it. All she had was $5.00. What could she possibly do with that sum of money? Most people in her situation would have thought of themselves and how far they could stretch it to feed themselves. No one would fault anyone for having that thought. Martha had a different plan for the money though. She decided to start an orphanage. There were some buildings that were in poor repair that had been used as an orphanage in the past, but they had been abandoned. She moved in and word soon got out that there was an orphanage where children could go. The number of children fluctuated but settled at about fifty. These boys and girls ranged in age from very young to their late teens. Martha soon realized that if she could raise $70.00 a month she could feed all of the children enough nutritious meals to keep them alive until times got better. Help came from a variety of sources and fortunately most months the needed money was in place. Times were not always peaceful though. The battles that raged across the country sometimes came near the orphanage. On more than one instance, Martha had to take all of the children and hide deep in the forest as the fighting raged nearby. In those instances she left all of the doors to the orphanage open so that the rebels would think that the buildings had already been looted and nothing of value was left inside. Her strategy worked and she was able to sneak back in the middle of the night and bring food to the children who were still hiding in the woods. When the war ended Martha continued running the orphanage and decided to start a school since she knew that the boys and girls would need an education if they hoped to have a good life in Liberia. This has increased her financial burden but there are people in Liberia and abroad who have stepped forward and offer support each month. The orphanage and school are functioning but there are still many needs. The government has at long last promised to start helping as well but to this point no help has come. So what is the next step? I am trying to start a child sponsorship program with Martha’s school and a few others that I visited last summer. The program will be administered through the group I went to Liberia with called Compassion Corps. It will take some time to set up though since the internet is very slow in Liberia.  I am also trying to set up some kind of a pen pal program between classes here in the states and in Liberia. This too has hurdles which will be overcome with patience and perseverance.  If you would like to get involved send me an email or leave a comment below. My life was changed by what I experienced this past summer. Now I am trying to change the lives of some children in Liberia. Join me…you won’t be disappointed.

When Things Don't Go as Planned

We had our first technology session yesterday, and I had high hopes. I decided to try TitanPad with the whole class. We got to the lab and got onto the blog where I had posted the link that would launch the pad. It looked good in the beginning as I could see screen after screen opening up to the pad. (I never thought I would tech a class from the back of the room, but in technology it works way better if I can see their screen rather than their faces. If I'm in the front they won't be looking at me anyway.) The first hint that something was amiss was when a student got a screen that said the pad limit of 16 had been reached. With 18 students plus a teacher we needed 19 log-ins. Fortunately the boys sit in pairs in the lab, so I instructed one boy in each pair to log out, so that they could share a screen. The boys impressed me in that each group quickly complied and there was no dispute about which boy's computer should be logged out. The problem was that with even 10 log-ins the pad seemed unresponsive. Had we overloaded the Calvert server? Had we overloaded TitanPad? I'm not sure, and there was not much time to brainstorm. We were a few minutes late getting into the lab, and it took me longer than I had planned to hand out the computers, get them all turned on, get them all on the internet, get them all to the blog, let them feed the fish on the blog for 30 seconds, (never place a temptation before a student without allowing him to do it), and then get to click the TitanPad link. I will modify the experience and try it again in a few weeks. Since I will be launching all of my activities from the blog I will work on this skill in our next class. We normally have the tech class that I lead on Mondays (Anne McGraw teaches different tech skills on Wednesdays) but through an administrative sleight of hand, we followed a Monday schedule on Friday. It did not go as planned, but I learned a lot (I think the boys learned a lot as well...they were very excited about the possibilities of TitanPad) and I will try again.

Parents' Night

Two words that strike fear into the heart of many teachers. But why? In the room are parents who are extremely dedicated to their children. They want the best for their child. Teachers want the best for their students. We're all on the same team. So why worry. Perhaps it is a matter of experience I used to be worried, but last night was my eighth Parents' Night, and I wasn't worried. Next year I need to talk more slowly though. I tried to do too much because I adapted another teacher's PowerPoint, and I was pressed for time. My natural enthusiasm means I already am excited for the presentation. Feeling like I was going to run out of time (which I did) made my normal fast Parent Night talking style, even faster. Do the parents think I talk this fast all the time? I hope not. I do get excited about the subject matter and talk fast sometimes but most of the time my speech pattern is reserved. This has given me an idea. I want to tape one of my lessons and posting it on this blog. Back to the Parent Night thoughts...

Maybe there is the fear of something going wrong. I used my computer and a projector to show a PowerPoint. If things had gone wrong which certainly happens from time to time I am ready. I had printed out the slides with 3 slides per sheet of paper using the print preview feature and made enough copies for all of the parents. As it turned out the technology came through.

Maybe there is the fear of a difficult, controversial question. I have had a few, but only a few in my eleven years. Some I have been ready for and others have caught me completely off-guard. My responses have been concise at times and rambling at others. The hardest question is not the most controversial but rather the one to which I feel that I should know the answer but draw a blank. It usually starts with "Why." An example from a few years ago is "Why do you have students copy from a worksheet onto a folder paper." There is a good answer which I worked through over the next few hours after the meeting, but on the spot my answer was muddled. The irony is that the question did not come at Parents' Night.

My hardest Parents' Night question in the past was "Why does Calvert alternate Spanish and French from year to year with each incoming class?" I did not make the decision and I was not in on the conversations when it was being decided. I probably should have ducked the question, and passed it off to the head of the Lower School. I hate ducking questins, so I gave it a shot. My answer was a bit muddled and rambling, but I got the main points across. I'm not sure if the parent was happy with my answer. Fortunately at the end I let the parent know that the answer was my best assessment, and that she should certainly ask the head of the Lower School.

Getting Ready for School

I was writing a note this evening to a student who will be in my class this year who had sent back a questionnaire I had sent to him (and all of my other students). At the end of the questionnaire I had a place where the students could ask me a question. The question I was asked by this student was, "Are you ready for the best year ever?" Setting aside for a moment whether I am ready, I love the premise of the question. The fact that this is going to be the best year ever is a given, a foregone conclusion. But will it be? Every year I try my best to make sure that this year is better than last year. Depending on your perspective I would say that most years I have been successful. What about this year? Will it be the best year ever? It certainly has the potential. In my note to the student I compared the school year to baking a cake. Each year, starting in September, I have all of the ingredients ready to go, and with my students I laugh, toil, enjoy, sweat, play, and many other things as I work with them on the cake that defines our year. My job in the summer, and it is a critical endeavor, is to gather all of the best ingredients. This past summer I have worked harder than ever before getting everything ready for this school year. The curriculum is rock solid, thanks to a lot of hard work in the summer of 2009 putting everything in the curriculum into a shared OneNote folder. The emphasis then was on composition, grammar, and history. The emphasis this summer was working on geography as a stand alone subject and as it relates to the rest of the curriculum. I will be doing many things I have never tried before. Many will work; some will not, but even those that do not pan out will offer valuable lessons. So, am I ready for the best school year ever? All that I am still lacking is the students. In a little over a week they will be streaming into school ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work. I can't wait.

Jing

Earlier this summer I was thinking about how best to help faculty when they come to me and ask for help in doing some computer related task. While the questions I am asked range far and wide, there are times when the same questions come up more than once. I found a program called Jing which is a very well designed application to make screencasts. An example can be seen here. While this screencast will not work for you unless you are a Calvert teacher it does give a sense of how Jing works.

Two Great Geography Websites

In looking around for geography websites that I can use at school and that students can use at home I am very impressed with Owl & Mouse and Sheppard Software. Both sites offer appropriate challenge with beautiful graphics.

Bridges2Fridges

I am extremely excited about the Bridges2Fridges project that John Fladd is putting together. In a nutshell we will be tracing where items in our refrigerators come from and analyzing the local foods around the country and perhaps around the world. John is a middle school teacher, so I will have to scale it back a bit, but the process that the students go through and the learning that takes place should be amazing. We have a few pre-fridge activities planned to get the students into the swing of the project which should be educational and enjoyable. Stay tuned for more details.