Then I went to JHS 2; that's our eighth grade. Their teacher Belinda told me they were a pretty unengaged class and she was hoping I could do some hands on work. We measure desks and found square area, talked about a range of data and then went out to the courtyard to measure out a square. We're working towards bearings (angles and measurement) so tomorrow we'll find the true center of our square and Madam Belinda and I are going to stand in fixed positions and the students have to determine what angle we're standing at from center. We'll see; this is another new venture for me. Thanks to Joey for coming up with the rope idea - a big help.
Greenie has been busy all day every day between time in the individual classrooms, schoolwide projects, construction projects, keeping track of and helping Joey and I make sense of every thing, her school connections projects....well, the list goes on. Greenie is amazing. I can see why she and Charles have such a powerful connection. Honorable, compassionate, focused and generous in all ways. Two peas in an exceptional pod.
This afternoon I worked with four boys on adding and subtracting using word problems. They ATE IT UP! "Four more, Madame Kate, let's do four more." This was after school.
As a complete aside, I went to visit the nursery today. They have 48 kids in their ages 2-5. It's unbelievably well organized and exactly as chaotic as you would imagine it to be. That many little people in one place......The teacher was singing a series of familiar children's songs and after making shy eye contact with me for about an hour, gradually the students started coming closer. In the end, there were about 20 of them in a semi-circle singing "You are My Sunshine" to me on their own. 20 rabbits singing. It was magical. That room is a trap; you can get lost in their smiles, their warmth, their voices.
Ok, Joey's turn.
Kate said that we arrived at 8:15-- my students were so excited when we showed up (kate has a very valid reason for being late and she doesn't want to blog about it- but it was a very scary moment of our trip. it was quite shocking and Charles made sure that the hotel fixed the problem)
so when we walked into the courtyard of the school (all the classrooms are open to the air- have no windows) and the students can look over the "wall" of their classroom and my students looked so relieved to be able to get out of class (somehow the students that have been assigned to me or have gravitated to "construction crew" are just like Parker stagecraft kids- they want to build, use tools, and skip regular class.)
We finished two bookcases today and I have reached the point were I can assign a leader and the other students work with them- they all now no how the tools work and understand the process and they listen to each other and help each other. So I am just there to answer questions and help when needed but basically I just stood back and beamed. I am so proud of them. One of the tools is a Bit & Brace (not sure what a Bit and Brace is? Me neither until three days ago...pictures are in Greenie's camera so they'll come in the next day or so when Joey's able to wrestle the camera out of her hands - she has a bit of a death grip on the thing) hand drill and we are using it to drill holes and screw in screws. We have a few parts of the bookcase that require 2-1/2" screws (huge) and at one point it took all four of the students to push down on the tool and turn in the screw - seeing all of them struggling together, smiling and laughing while doing so is an amazing sight for me. so proud.
We finished an hour early and so I got out the Wayne Barton Chip Carving tools. Yesterday I showed Gabriel (the 17 year old that lives with Charles family and is turning out to be the team leader)- he was showing the other "crew" the technique and they started learning from him- made me feel like a good teacher- then the whole school let out and all the kids circled the boys and watched as Gabriel demonstrated a pattern. Awesome end of a school day.
We got back to the hotel after skipping home electrified from the good day and then all sorts of entertaining mishaps and room changes and entertainment, but I'll let Kate tell you about that when she is energized to do so.
One more thing from Kate....We were talking with Greenie about some of the bigger structural projects that need to happen at the school. Two in particular are of interest to us looking ahead to the next two to three years: the water filtration and the solar powered electricity. More on this later but I wanted to get it down. Start generating ideas people, we have some work to do back home.
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