Stick To Your Plan

I am the Academic Decathlon coach at Wheeler. (My assistant coach and I are competing to see who the biggest nerd is, which just proves that this is the right job for us to be doing.) This year our topic is The French Revolution, so this weekend I took the team to Boston to the Museum of Fine Arts to see some of the 18th century French paintings and just to go over Art fundamentals in general. It all started out well at Providence Station that morning and our train ride there was very uneventful. We arrived in Boston and had lunch at Betty's Wok and Café, which is like a 50's anglo diner but that serves Chinese/Hispanic food. We had hoped for a French restaurant, but we were on the wrong side of town. We visited the museum and saw some beautiful artwork and sculpture.

It was all working out to be a great trip. However, Evie (my assistant coach) and I noticed that on the metro map there was a closer train station than the one we had planned on using to get back. So, when we were done at the museum, we asked the museum guide how to get to the closer train station. Well, he sent us in the OPPOSITE direction from the station. I knew we were lost when we started wandering around the Wentworth Institute of Technology. So we started back towards the museum and asked some people on the street how to get to Ruggles Station. Do you know every single person gave us different directions? Oh, yes, and right about now it started snowing. Finally we found a street map and located the general vicinity of the station. At this point we were close to missing our train and had to make a mad dash across the campus of Northeastern to finally find the right road. I am sure we looked like some kind of weird running team with backpacks. But find it we did! Unfortunately we arrived at the train station seven minutes after the train had already left. We had an hour and a half before the next train so we hung out in the Northeastern student center and drank hot chocolate and had some dinner/snacks. We DID make the next train and the evening ended well. The team is mostly boys this year and they are extremely chill so it actually made things more fun to have time to sit around and chat.

Anyway, the moral of the story is stick with your plan because trying to make things faster doesn't always make things faster and sometimes makes things much slower! Here is a picture of everyone at Betty's before we changed from the Wheeler Academic Decathlon team to the Wheeler Night-time Track Team:

The novel the kids are reading for the competition is Tale of Two Cities and after our experience we decided that our motto for the year should be:

"It was mostly the worst of times."

Do I have a fun job or what?

Feeling Proud

Yesterday the copies of Juan Carlos' first book arrived in the mail. While it's not a book that will top (or even make the bottom) of the bestseller lists, it is still quite an accomplishment for him and one that I think he is still a bit surprised about. As someone who has lived with JC while the manuscript was being written and who watched him go through the editing process, I find it incredible that anyone has the patience to write books, let alone try to make a living doing it. It is grueling, painstaking work. And the editing! Oh, my friends, the EDITING. So here it is:

I have mentioned before how extremely lucky I was to marry JC, for just about every reason imaginable. But one thing I have always admired and envied is his motivation to work and to set aside what he wants in order to do what needs to be done. I don't think I have ever had to ask him to do anything, he just gets things done. There are only two people that I have seen work like JC works, and one of them is his mother. So I guess he comes by it naturally. At times I can get in a mood and complain  about how much work I have, but then I just look at Juan Carlos and it makes me shut up immediately.

Juan Carlos is in Spain right now doing a presentation for a university that has an exchange program with Stonehill, and when he arrived they surprised him with a newspaper interview. He was pretty nervous but it turned out to be a good experience for him.

http://www.granadahoy.com/article/ocio/570662/entre/la/historiografia/y/la/memoria.html

This has been such a trial for him and such a ghastly amount of work, but something that has helped him grow and develop as a scholar and a writer. I am not going to say I am in any hurry for him to start another book, but I appreciate what an accomplishment this is for him. And I am very proud to be his wife.

Model UN

It was my singular opportunity to travel with a group of Model United Nations students to a conference this weekend. It has turned out to be a fun and enlightening experience! We had a bit of a complication because the state of Rhode Island has decided that any child that wants an H1N1 vaccine has to get it through the school and only on the day that the state decrees for the distribution of the vaccine. You don't show up that day, you don't get it. Our day was the day after we were to have left for the conference. So of course half the team had to stay, get their shots, and join us halfway through the conference. It has been a great exercise in resiliency. We had a few frustrated moments with the kids who arrived late and didn't know what was going on once they got to their committe sessions, but most everyone has caught up now and is having a good time. We did get to take a tour of a nearby university yesterday, which was very nice. Can you tell where we are from this picture?

It has been fun to watch the kids as they reenact the International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda, discuss and propose resolutions to world issues, and deal with legal issues involved in international dispute. They even have sessions where they wake them up at 1 in the morning and they have to go deal with crisis situations, like wars breaking out or political assassinations and their aftermath. I have never been remotely interested in politics, domestic or otherwise, but I have to admit that it's great to see that there are young people around who are. And now I know why when kids get back from the Model UN trips they are always totally dead in class. Well, we are going home tomorrow and at least there are only two days before Thanksgiving break.

Emotional

Most of my friends know I am not a very emotional person. I always say I got it all out in my teenage years and early twenties. It's not to say that I don't have emotions--I just don't like it when they take control. Mostly I keep them on the back burner. However, every few years those pesky feelings do come out and force me to acknowledge them. I am having one of those times right now. One of the things that has always affected me emotionally and also helped me to deal with emotion has been music, and in particular, participating in music making. Maybe it is the control you have to have to create something beautiful with your voice or with an instrument, but it has always been an emotional outlet for me and something I have loved for as long as I can remember. The holiday season is coming up and I am getting ready for the holiday concerts that I will be doing with the Boston Pops. I think it will be good to get into the spirit of the season; however, most of my holiday performances in the past have been more religiously focused. I think this one will be less so, although I plan to enjoy it regardless. I have also been spending a lot of time at the piano lately going through many of my favorites, and it is wonderful to get in touch with them again, like spending time with old friends.
I have been listening to some pieces lately that have really touched me emotionally over the years and are very healing music. The first is O Magnum Mysterium, a Christmas piece by Morten Lauridsen that I sang in college. No matter how terrible I feel, this piece always makes me feel better, and usually more peaceful. This version is the Brussels Chamber Choir and they do a lovely job for such a small group.

Latin text


O magnum mysterium,

et admirabile sacramentum,

ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,

jacentem in praesepio!

Beata Virgo, cujus viscera

meruerunt portare

Dominum Christum.

Alleluia.

English translation

O great mystery,

and wonderful sacrament,

that animals should see the new-born Lord,

lying in a manger!

Blessed is the Virgin whose womb

was worthy to bear

Christ the Lord.

Alleluia!




The second is called The blue bird, by Mary E. Coleridge and C.V. Stanford. The choir at my school is learning this one right now and we always hear them practicing during my Spanish 3 class. It is particularly nice to listen to while taking a quiz! This version is the Boys Air Choir. This song is gorgeous and boys' voices just add another dimension of ethereality. The words are not life-changing or sentimental, but the combination of voice and words is very calming.

"The blue bird"

Mary Coleridge (1861-1907)

The lake lay blue below the hill,

O'er it, as I looked, there flew

Across the waters, cold and still,

A bird whose wings were palest blue.

The sky above was blue at last,

The sky beneath me blue in blue,

A moment, ere the bird had passed,

It caught his image as he flew.
 


Be aware that neither of these pieces are going to motivate you to get up and go run a marathon or change the world, but they may bring you a sense of peace and tranquility for a few minutes, as they do me. And these days I really need it.

The Things You Learn

Today in one of my classes the kids had an assignment to speak for two minutes in Spanish about one of their most memorable days, without using any notes or prompts. Their grammar and pronunciation is graded as well as the content and the development of their topic. Usually this assignment causes quite a bit of consternation and nerves, and today was no exception. However, this year I have a group of kids who, for the most part, really like to talk and share. They are all good friends with each other and feel little to no hesitation talking about themselves and their lives. I am really enjoying them and we have had some amazing talks about everything from swine flu to whether it is possible to love someone too much, or even debating immigration policy in the United States. I look forward to that class every day.

Anyway, back to the assignment. When you teach school you do get to know the kids pretty well, but you do only have them for 50 minutes a day, and there is a lot that goes on in their lives that you are not a part of (and that is generally a good thing!) So today I learned some things about my students that really expanded my vision of who they are as people, and not just as students.

1. One student talked about going to the baseball game where the Boston Red Sox finally won the World Series after 86 years. He talked about sitting and cheering with his dad and how everyone went out into the streets afterwards and were hugging and kissing each other. We asked if he kissed anyone and he laughed and said "posiblemente". 

2. Another student talked about visiting Israel and climbing the plateau to visit Masada. She talked about how much it meant to her to be in Israel and to explore her Jewish heritage. She mentioned how difficult the climb was and what a spectacular view it was from the top and how it was an experience that would affect her whole life.

3. One girl shared her experience of writing and directing a Christmas Eve play for her church and how it was so hard for her because she is not a playwright or a director and how she did not have a lot of support. She wanted to do something nice for the children of the congregation and so she took the initiative to write and put on this play, which was very well received and will be repeated this year.

4. Another of my students is a very gifted musician and he talked about giving his first full piano concert at the Blithewold mansion in Bristol. He talked about how nervous he was and shared the worst thing that happened that night--a piano duet in which his partner turned two pages of the score at once and so they had a little bit of a crash and burn. It was such a success, however, that he has done repeat concerts every subsequent year.

5. A girl talked about a time when she was younger when she and her mother and three brothers left Rhode Island to go on vacation to Florida. She knew something was off about it and sure enough they stayed in Florida for two years. She talked about living in a one-bedroom apartment with her three brothers and mom because living in Rhode Island was too expensive. She talked about how she did not feel the economic difference and never thought twice about wearing the same clothes over and over again. The climate in Florida was not good for her health, though, and eventually things improved enough so that they could rejoin her dad in Rhode Island. I think this was something that a lot of people didn't know about her.

These are just a few of the experiences I heard about today. Now, I can complain a lot about teaching and sometimes I think I chose a very difficult career path. And some days I feel like I should have gone into a field of work that doesn't take over your life so totally. But on days like today I look at who these young people are and who they are becoming and I am, frankly, enchanted.

Still In Love...

I wrote about 9th graders last year at around this time and how awesome I think they are. I have two classes with a lot of 9th graders again this year and I started off the new year thinking that maybe it was just a nice group of kids that I had last year and not so much the age.

Well folks, it is confirmed, I just love 13 and 14 year olds, which is weird because my mother swears 13 is the year she wanted to slit her wrists with all of us when we were growing up. It must also be said it was not the best year to live through, however, I remember being a much bigger brat at 15.

Anyway, the first day in class we go over tips for doing well in class, and number one is always "Lose your fear!" The biggest challenge for a language teacher is to actually get the students to speak voluntarily. The first few days are awkward and I swear they all think I'm a lunatic with all the playacting I do in the first few days, but after a couple of weeks everyone gets into the swing of things. After all, if the teacher is acting like an idiot, then it must be ok, right?

Going back to 13....do you remember being 13? How awkward, how uncertain, how hyper-conscious you were about what everybody thought about you? I do. Think back...if a teacher had told you "Lose your fear!", you probably would have thought, "this teacher is obviously psychotic"; at least, I know I would have, just before collapsing into a pile of tormented social anxiety on the floor.

Anyway, my 9th graders last year did a great job losing their fear, which is why I loved them so much.  I am happy to say that this year's 9th graders have embraced the motto as well! They speak in Spanish to me all the time and when there is a massive breakdown in language (and there are a lot) they don't let it get to them. Sometimes it sounds like gibberish, sometimes they get halfway through and get stuck and have to finish in English. But they are not afraid. They stick with it, they have fun with it. They TRY. And they laugh when they make mistakes and then they try again.

That's why I love them.

My Not So Relaxing Summer

So, as a teacher who finished the last school year at the beginning of June I should be feeling totally rested and rejuvenated and ready to go for a new school year, right?

Since I have had 10 weeks of no teaching, I should be excited and anticipating the new year with alacrity, yes?

I wish.

Today as I was wildly putting together AP binders and student-parent contracts and syllabi I wondered where on earth my summer went. It was supposed to be the first summer I didn't do any major travel, so it was going to be nice and relaxing. At least that was the plan.

June 9th-June16th: I went to Cincinnati, OH and graded about 800 AP Spanish tests. Ok, maybe not 800, but it felt like that many, at least. Eight hours a day of grading for 7 straight days. Now and then some very funny stuff, but mostly listening to bad Spanish and rethinking my career choice!

June 17th-30th: I found out that a colleague and I received a grant from the Rhode Island teacher's association to create a teaching unit. So we started creating forms, setting up interviews, begging for equipment and mapping out the plan project.

July 7th-14th: Lovely trip to North Carolina to visit friends and see if it is really as wonderful as I remember. It is.

July 15th-21st: Non-stop filming for teaching unit project.

July 22-August 4th: Visit from my mother and four sisters from out west. We had a great time and gallivanted all over New England. Made the vow that I will never drive through Boston again.

August 5th-14th: Catch up interviews and review of footage for project. Realization that our primary interview footage is totally unusable and that we need a new video camera to redo some of the interviews.

August 19th-23rd: My first performance at Tanglewood. I went to rehearsal Thursday and drove back 2.5 hours to meet Juan Carlos, who had been in Spain for the previous month. Spent Friday the 21st together, then I drove back 2.5 hours again to Tanglewood for the orchestra rehearsal and performance on Sunday.

August 25th: Went back to school for pre-year meetings.

So it turned out not to be the summer I had envisioned, and I face the school year a little less rested than I had hoped. Since I am trying to focus on the positive, though, I just look forward to next summer and tell myself it's not as far away as I think.