67. Explain why Iranians in the late 1970s wanted to get rid of the shah and begin an Islamist republic (give at least 3 specific reasons). (4 points)
because the Iraninans were belligerent & they didn't want the shah they wanted a islamic republic
That's his complete answer. Oof.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
ESL moment of the week.
"My brother is afraid of retorted people because he doesn't know how they can twist like that."
Context: Vocabulary portion of a quiz, in which the vocabulary word "retorted" was to be used in a sentence in some way that shows the student knows what the word means. It's worth noting that another word in the vocabulary list for this week was "contorted." But still.
Context: Vocabulary portion of a quiz, in which the vocabulary word "retorted" was to be used in a sentence in some way that shows the student knows what the word means. It's worth noting that another word in the vocabulary list for this week was "contorted." But still.
Friday, October 21, 2011
ESL moment of the... last little while...
"My favorite movie is: Charlie and the Chocolate Fabric."
-M., 11th grade
(For the record, this was included in a colon-use exercise, and she did not use a colon correctly. The material that comes before the colon should be able to stand on its own.)
-M., 11th grade
(For the record, this was included in a colon-use exercise, and she did not use a colon correctly. The material that comes before the colon should be able to stand on its own.)
Monday, September 12, 2011
...smashing ice into tiny, little pieces
I don't recall if I've blogged on the concept of chapel at IST before. If I have, or if you have talked to me about it in the last 2 years, I'm sure you didn't hear great things. I've never been thrilled with chapel down here. I don't exactly know how to pinpoint what's wrong, but it's got something to do with a not-so-prevalent faith life of many IST students (rendering chapel "useless" to, or at least not worth attention of a high percentage of students) coupled with a general lack of focus for messages and content (this is opinion based upon the past 2 years; not enough time has elapsed to judge on this year).
One of the biggest problems with high school chapel is the length: a full 42 minute class period (once a week) is allotted for chapel. That's twice as long as chapel at Calvin (though, admittedly, Calvin has chapel every day) and almost twice as long as the (thrice weekly) chapel I thoroughly enjoyed at Holland Christian High School. I think a 20-25 minute break in the middle of the day is about perfect to set itself off as a special time to honor God, but not so long as to get restless as teenagers are wont to do. 42 minutes is long for me, even.
This year, they've tried to offset this length of time by beginning with music videos playing as students come in and doing a couple "Ice Breaker" games before anything spiritual happens (please read with a sense of verbal irony on my part). Ice breakers are meant to do what they say - break the ice among people who may not know each other or are unfamiliar with each other. They're not something that is used week after week among students who've know each other for years. Maybe I'm just getting caught up in nomenclature, but trust me, the ice has been broken. Many, many times.
At any rate, these activities that take up usually half of the period have included Human Bingo, an identify-the-teacher-from-a-high-school-photo game (spread over 2 weeks), and karaoke. Today, as was common for chapels of last year, the activity was of a style you'd see on the TV show "Minute to Win It:" a basic challenge to be completed in 60 seconds or less. This week, four students sat up on stage, leaned their heads way back, and had an Oreo cookie placed on their forehead. The goal was to get the Oreo from forehead to mouth without using hands (quite difficult - try it!)(Remember, this is the weekly chapel.) None of the students succeeded, and in fact, most of them dropped the cookies off their faces several times and replaced them before the minute was over.
Next, of course, Mr. Barahona suggested the teachers may do better. So let's get some teachers up there! Show that they're not frumpy and all that! Make them look silly! I sang in the karaoke last week, so I wasn't inclined to volunteer (I don't really want to be THAT teacher) despite several students pressuring me to go up. But the third chair remained unfilled. Finally, I said to heck with it and went up (secretly, I wanted to see if I could do it, but not necessarily in that context). I looked skyward, felt the cookie's placement, waited for the countdown, and proceeded to wiggle my forehead muscles.
The Oreo inched toward my eye socket, then suddenly was there. My chocolate wafer and cream monocle twitched with my eyelid. I tested the angles and (literal) gravity of the situation, and realized a slight flick of the head could effectively flip the cookie, but I didn't want to overdo it and send the Oreo to the floor. I had one shot. My mouth instinctively opened with concentration, my neck muscles flexed, and the cookie fairly magnetically shot from eye to mouth.
I'd done it. The other teachers were still struggling, getting closer than the students had, but perhaps 20 or 25 seconds in, the contest was over as a cheer resounded from the 11th and 12th graders in the chapel. The Oreo crumbled under the triumphant closing of my jaws. I returned to my seat, proud of myself and ready to sing with the praise band that was coming up to begin the more chapel-ish protion of chapel.
Now, I do have to make sure to note that I'm much more pleased with chapel thus far this year than at pretty much any point in the last two years. I attribute that largely to the group of students that are in 11th and 12 grade this year (a truly solid set of 140 or so kids) and no longer having the terribly disrespectful class of 2011 in that context any more. I'm hopeful and optimistic for this year, in ways that extend beyond my classroom, where things already feel very positive.
Now I have just one more day before a 5 day Independence Day break. Nicaragua, here we come!
One of the biggest problems with high school chapel is the length: a full 42 minute class period (once a week) is allotted for chapel. That's twice as long as chapel at Calvin (though, admittedly, Calvin has chapel every day) and almost twice as long as the (thrice weekly) chapel I thoroughly enjoyed at Holland Christian High School. I think a 20-25 minute break in the middle of the day is about perfect to set itself off as a special time to honor God, but not so long as to get restless as teenagers are wont to do. 42 minutes is long for me, even.
This year, they've tried to offset this length of time by beginning with music videos playing as students come in and doing a couple "Ice Breaker" games before anything spiritual happens (please read with a sense of verbal irony on my part). Ice breakers are meant to do what they say - break the ice among people who may not know each other or are unfamiliar with each other. They're not something that is used week after week among students who've know each other for years. Maybe I'm just getting caught up in nomenclature, but trust me, the ice has been broken. Many, many times.
At any rate, these activities that take up usually half of the period have included Human Bingo, an identify-the-teacher-from-a-high-school-photo game (spread over 2 weeks), and karaoke. Today, as was common for chapels of last year, the activity was of a style you'd see on the TV show "Minute to Win It:" a basic challenge to be completed in 60 seconds or less. This week, four students sat up on stage, leaned their heads way back, and had an Oreo cookie placed on their forehead. The goal was to get the Oreo from forehead to mouth without using hands (quite difficult - try it!)(Remember, this is the weekly chapel.) None of the students succeeded, and in fact, most of them dropped the cookies off their faces several times and replaced them before the minute was over.
Next, of course, Mr. Barahona suggested the teachers may do better. So let's get some teachers up there! Show that they're not frumpy and all that! Make them look silly! I sang in the karaoke last week, so I wasn't inclined to volunteer (I don't really want to be THAT teacher) despite several students pressuring me to go up. But the third chair remained unfilled. Finally, I said to heck with it and went up (secretly, I wanted to see if I could do it, but not necessarily in that context). I looked skyward, felt the cookie's placement, waited for the countdown, and proceeded to wiggle my forehead muscles.
The Oreo inched toward my eye socket, then suddenly was there. My chocolate wafer and cream monocle twitched with my eyelid. I tested the angles and (literal) gravity of the situation, and realized a slight flick of the head could effectively flip the cookie, but I didn't want to overdo it and send the Oreo to the floor. I had one shot. My mouth instinctively opened with concentration, my neck muscles flexed, and the cookie fairly magnetically shot from eye to mouth.
I'd done it. The other teachers were still struggling, getting closer than the students had, but perhaps 20 or 25 seconds in, the contest was over as a cheer resounded from the 11th and 12th graders in the chapel. The Oreo crumbled under the triumphant closing of my jaws. I returned to my seat, proud of myself and ready to sing with the praise band that was coming up to begin the more chapel-ish protion of chapel.
Now, I do have to make sure to note that I'm much more pleased with chapel thus far this year than at pretty much any point in the last two years. I attribute that largely to the group of students that are in 11th and 12 grade this year (a truly solid set of 140 or so kids) and no longer having the terribly disrespectful class of 2011 in that context any more. I'm hopeful and optimistic for this year, in ways that extend beyond my classroom, where things already feel very positive.
Now I have just one more day before a 5 day Independence Day break. Nicaragua, here we come!
Friday, September 9, 2011
...celebrating children
In Honduras, Mother's Day is celebrated (as far as I have seen) on the same day as in the United States. Father's Day, rather than the month after Mother's Day, comes the month before, in April. (Every bulletin board at IST seems to include a tie of some kind in its decoration this time of year...that's what a father is, after all - a guy who wears a tie.) But a further difference can be found in that Honduras has a specific day set aside to celebrate CHILDREN in addition to Moms and Dads. That day is today. I think. At least today is the day that International School celebrates it.
Children's Day, or Dia de Niños, is one of the banes of existence for most middle and high school teachers at IST. It's marked with a program in the last hour or so of school, where the entire elementary school gathers in the polideportivo (essentially an outdoor gymnasium with a roof over it) and...stuff happens. The poli is located directly next to the MS/HS building, with windows (perpetually open this time of year due to the heat) looking out over it. This program is LOUD. Comically loud. Music is blaring such that one cannot hear the average student speak in a typical classroom setting. You hear the emcees voice carrying into your classroom much better than your own voice - good luck maintaining attention of your class. Kiddos are encouraged to cheer at pretty much any given opportunity, and if there's one thing all kiddos are good at, it's screaming loudly.
To put it plainly, teaching is essentially impossible. (I'm blessed this year to not have to teach on Friday afternoons, thus avoiding this and most other similar party afternoons - yes, there are several over the course of the year.) Sure, there's no other place to put such a hubbub - IST is not blessed with an abundance of space (due to poor planning ahead, but that's not for this post), and in situations like that, sacrifices should be expected to be made. OK. I'll grant that. But the problem is really that we (at least in the high school; I can't speak for the middle school) were NEVER informed that it would be happening. This is typical. Often, large, well-publicized events that will actually affect our teaching are never announced to us in the high school, so we are unable to plan ahead to maybe have a strategy to deal with excessive noise outside our classrooms (more excessive, that is, than normal - there's constantly NOISE going on all over the school, but days like this stand out, to be sure).
When this same thing happened my first year, I was livid. I found out about Children's Day this year through facebook last night. Though I knew it wasn't personally going to affect me, I made sure to inform the new teachers on my side of the school (which is most affected by noise from the poli). They told me, "Well, I teach right by the chapel anyway; I'm used to it." I tried to express the gravity of the situation, that this was no muffled guitar noodling - this was CHILDREN'S DAY, but I guess you really can't understand it until you experience it. This they were able to do around 1:30, when the music and cheering began in earnest.
Though I regard Children's Day with massive skepticism, I can't help but watch car accidents as I drive past either. As I didn't have to teach, I meandered my way down to observe the festivities, quickly recoiling in horror. Children's Day is appalling.
The first thing I noticed was the Pepsi display up - I guess Children's Day is corporately sponsored these days? - with two random women in pink shirts standing in front of the display, not clearly there for any purpose. A surprising number of elementary kids were dressed as your favorite Disney princesses and Pixar characters: I recall Snow White, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Incredible, Jessie from Toy Story 2 and 3, and at least a Batman and another generic princess thown in for good measure. Naturally. Children's Day, like most other days, is an excuse to wear costumes in Honduras. Several of the Honduran teachers were dressed up in student uniforms, although these uniforms were not designed with adult bodies in mind. Suffice it to say, jumpers did not cover as much leg as they are mandated on female students. There were sack races, or at least I thought where things were heading - there was so much build up, and I saw teachers getting into bags, but I looked away and the teachers were coming back before I realized it. They played an audiobook style story of Cinderella in Spanish over the loudspeakers, with no visual aspect going on. That part lost me and most of the kids. Popcorn and sno-cones were flowing with abandon. Blown bubbles filled the atmosphere. With any excuse, kids got up to run around and push their teachers up to the front to "volunteer" them for games like the sack race. Dances, both choreographed and spontaneous, punctuated the opening of the program, with hundreds of little arms flailing across the poli. The non-cynical part of me can see the joy and excitement that permeated the event on the part of the children, and enjoyed chuckling at the odd kid squirming on the ground on his back and the kid who sat in the middle of the basketball court with no one else around him within 15 or 20 feet in any direction.
Alas, there's a healthy, pulsating cynical side to me, as you well all know. And that cynical side was horrified by the spectacle. That cynical side looked at the 6th grade classes (living life for the first time without Children's Day and other such festivals) smushed against or hanging out of their classroom windows for the entire program, rendering the afternoon devoid of education. That cynical side sees how coddled children are in general in this country and questions the need to specifically set aside a day to coddle them even more. That cynical side can't get past hearing of one classroom that asked the teacher, "What are you doing for us today? Did you bring a piñata?" only to be scandalized upon hearing that the day was still to be filled with lessons.
Don't get me wrong. Kids are great. They should be celebrated. I just find myself very skeptical of spectacles, such as is found on days like today.
Children's Day, or Dia de Niños, is one of the banes of existence for most middle and high school teachers at IST. It's marked with a program in the last hour or so of school, where the entire elementary school gathers in the polideportivo (essentially an outdoor gymnasium with a roof over it) and...stuff happens. The poli is located directly next to the MS/HS building, with windows (perpetually open this time of year due to the heat) looking out over it. This program is LOUD. Comically loud. Music is blaring such that one cannot hear the average student speak in a typical classroom setting. You hear the emcees voice carrying into your classroom much better than your own voice - good luck maintaining attention of your class. Kiddos are encouraged to cheer at pretty much any given opportunity, and if there's one thing all kiddos are good at, it's screaming loudly.
To put it plainly, teaching is essentially impossible. (I'm blessed this year to not have to teach on Friday afternoons, thus avoiding this and most other similar party afternoons - yes, there are several over the course of the year.) Sure, there's no other place to put such a hubbub - IST is not blessed with an abundance of space (due to poor planning ahead, but that's not for this post), and in situations like that, sacrifices should be expected to be made. OK. I'll grant that. But the problem is really that we (at least in the high school; I can't speak for the middle school) were NEVER informed that it would be happening. This is typical. Often, large, well-publicized events that will actually affect our teaching are never announced to us in the high school, so we are unable to plan ahead to maybe have a strategy to deal with excessive noise outside our classrooms (more excessive, that is, than normal - there's constantly NOISE going on all over the school, but days like this stand out, to be sure).
When this same thing happened my first year, I was livid. I found out about Children's Day this year through facebook last night. Though I knew it wasn't personally going to affect me, I made sure to inform the new teachers on my side of the school (which is most affected by noise from the poli). They told me, "Well, I teach right by the chapel anyway; I'm used to it." I tried to express the gravity of the situation, that this was no muffled guitar noodling - this was CHILDREN'S DAY, but I guess you really can't understand it until you experience it. This they were able to do around 1:30, when the music and cheering began in earnest.
Though I regard Children's Day with massive skepticism, I can't help but watch car accidents as I drive past either. As I didn't have to teach, I meandered my way down to observe the festivities, quickly recoiling in horror. Children's Day is appalling.
The first thing I noticed was the Pepsi display up - I guess Children's Day is corporately sponsored these days? - with two random women in pink shirts standing in front of the display, not clearly there for any purpose. A surprising number of elementary kids were dressed as your favorite Disney princesses and Pixar characters: I recall Snow White, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Incredible, Jessie from Toy Story 2 and 3, and at least a Batman and another generic princess thown in for good measure. Naturally. Children's Day, like most other days, is an excuse to wear costumes in Honduras. Several of the Honduran teachers were dressed up in student uniforms, although these uniforms were not designed with adult bodies in mind. Suffice it to say, jumpers did not cover as much leg as they are mandated on female students. There were sack races, or at least I thought where things were heading - there was so much build up, and I saw teachers getting into bags, but I looked away and the teachers were coming back before I realized it. They played an audiobook style story of Cinderella in Spanish over the loudspeakers, with no visual aspect going on. That part lost me and most of the kids. Popcorn and sno-cones were flowing with abandon. Blown bubbles filled the atmosphere. With any excuse, kids got up to run around and push their teachers up to the front to "volunteer" them for games like the sack race. Dances, both choreographed and spontaneous, punctuated the opening of the program, with hundreds of little arms flailing across the poli. The non-cynical part of me can see the joy and excitement that permeated the event on the part of the children, and enjoyed chuckling at the odd kid squirming on the ground on his back and the kid who sat in the middle of the basketball court with no one else around him within 15 or 20 feet in any direction.
Alas, there's a healthy, pulsating cynical side to me, as you well all know. And that cynical side was horrified by the spectacle. That cynical side looked at the 6th grade classes (living life for the first time without Children's Day and other such festivals) smushed against or hanging out of their classroom windows for the entire program, rendering the afternoon devoid of education. That cynical side sees how coddled children are in general in this country and questions the need to specifically set aside a day to coddle them even more. That cynical side can't get past hearing of one classroom that asked the teacher, "What are you doing for us today? Did you bring a piñata?" only to be scandalized upon hearing that the day was still to be filled with lessons.
Don't get me wrong. Kids are great. They should be celebrated. I just find myself very skeptical of spectacles, such as is found on days like today.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
...with a reputation that precedes me
So first I must apologize for my delinquency in posting. This is certainly my longest hiatus in blogging - on this particular blog, at least - and I don't plan on repeating it until I draw it to a close (which will happen when I am certain my time in Honduras is drawing to a close itself). In fact, I hope I can revitalize my blogging with a fervor not yet seen on "I May Be in Honduras..." Now that the apology is out of the way, let's move on...
I just began my third year of teaching. Year 3, Day 1 was a half day, with an assembly on top of it, cutting classes down to about 15 minutes apiece. Fortunately, I have 2-period blocks with each of my 3 11th grade classes, giving me close to 34 minutes of time with each, which is actually long enough to do something! I opened with my trademark joking around and looking/acting awkward to make the kids laugh, then moved into a devotional surrounding Haggai 2:4-5, in which Haggai is talking to Zerubbabel and the Israelites as they work to rebuild the Temple after the Babylonian exlile: through him, the Lord tells them to be strong and work, rather than fear the magnitude of their undertaking, for He is with them and His Spirit is among them. I related this to the undertaking (magnitudes may vary) for each of the students in my three sections to ace, or merely pass, or merely survive their 11th grade year and wind up as seniors. I don't devotionalize often (something I hope to improve this year as I have a more regular schedule), and even when I do, it doesn't feel authentic all the time. But boy did it today. I could feel God in what I was giving to my students. Please pray that this can continue, that I can continue to effectively shine His light on my students and coworkers.
All in all, it was a successful first day. I've been back in Hondu for 9 days, or rather this is my 10th day in the country, or whatever - I arrived on the 14th, and today's the 23rd. Got it. It has felt surprisingly good to be back. I'm living in the same, rather great house, and it just feels in many ways like last year never quit, and that's a good thing for someone who's been frustrated with his transient life situation for the last 7 years and desires to just settle somewhere long-term. One of my 2 roommates is new, and Ben is a great guy to live with me and Matt, who has already been established as a great guy through a year of roommatehood. Additionally, the rest of the community, new and old, is a great group of people. I have already valued the time I've been able to spend with my old friends, and the new crowd is chock full of fun folks. Couple that with being used to the quirks and frustrations of life in Honduras, and I'm able to apporach these days from a thankfully similar mindset as I do the days of summer.
Speaking of summer, it was one of the best on record. Seriously. Everything has been going great for the last 3 months or so. Compare this stretch with the equivalent months of 2009, where I was legitimately, if not officially clinically, depressed, and you have one of those discrepancies that can only be attributed to God working in various areas of my life. But back to summer: I was able to make some worthwhile and gratifying purchases, including the new laptop I'm typing on, some trendy and thrifty additions to my wardrobe, and some exciting new books, albums, and DVDs. I saw some interesting movies and plays, managed to make it out to the beach a couple of times, spent a good deal of time with important friends who are still in the West Michigan area or who were able to make it up at some point during my stay, and I went to 2 excellent concerts: Bon Iver and the Decemberists, as well as 2 major league baseball games, including my beloved Detroit Tigers. Most importantly, though would be the start of a new and extremely promising relationship. That dominated my time home, and it dominates much of my thoughts down here (fortunately, I have work to distract me at intervals). Long distance is not fun, though I am very confident of everything working out positively :)
(I know I'm jumping back and forth from topic to topic, but there wasn't a good place to stick this in the first-day paragraph with my tangential writing style.) This year's students have come to me with a reputation. Perhaps one of the best reputations I've heard of for a grade level - from both teachers who had them in 9th grade AND teachers who have them last year. And while the first day is not necessarily an accurate portrayal of 3 classes of 11th graders, I can see that reputation proving itself. Talk about gratifying. Certainly, I can see students who may give me challenges, but I think I'm more than prepared to handle any behavioral/management issues gracefully at this point.
Also, at this point in my career, I am pleased to have a fairly solid reputation as a teacher built up over my past two years, especially the past year. I feel that this only sets me up for more success. My students are expecting to enjoy my class, at least somewhat. I don't feel pressure to entertain, or amuse, but I think I'm set up to have an entertaining, amusing, and most importantly insightful class. I may not know many individual students from this year yet, but seeing them in my room, responding to what I was saying, felt as though I was talking to students who've already had me for a month, because they know a fair amount about me. That's going to be a tough thing to give up when it does come time for me to move on to the next step in my life.
I don't want my first post in 4.5 months to be a real lunker, even though there's plenty to talk about. Rather, I'll try to make up for it in more frequent posts in the coming weeks. Suffice it to say, life is remarkably positive right now. It feels good to be back, in more ways than one.
I just began my third year of teaching. Year 3, Day 1 was a half day, with an assembly on top of it, cutting classes down to about 15 minutes apiece. Fortunately, I have 2-period blocks with each of my 3 11th grade classes, giving me close to 34 minutes of time with each, which is actually long enough to do something! I opened with my trademark joking around and looking/acting awkward to make the kids laugh, then moved into a devotional surrounding Haggai 2:4-5, in which Haggai is talking to Zerubbabel and the Israelites as they work to rebuild the Temple after the Babylonian exlile: through him, the Lord tells them to be strong and work, rather than fear the magnitude of their undertaking, for He is with them and His Spirit is among them. I related this to the undertaking (magnitudes may vary) for each of the students in my three sections to ace, or merely pass, or merely survive their 11th grade year and wind up as seniors. I don't devotionalize often (something I hope to improve this year as I have a more regular schedule), and even when I do, it doesn't feel authentic all the time. But boy did it today. I could feel God in what I was giving to my students. Please pray that this can continue, that I can continue to effectively shine His light on my students and coworkers.
All in all, it was a successful first day. I've been back in Hondu for 9 days, or rather this is my 10th day in the country, or whatever - I arrived on the 14th, and today's the 23rd. Got it. It has felt surprisingly good to be back. I'm living in the same, rather great house, and it just feels in many ways like last year never quit, and that's a good thing for someone who's been frustrated with his transient life situation for the last 7 years and desires to just settle somewhere long-term. One of my 2 roommates is new, and Ben is a great guy to live with me and Matt, who has already been established as a great guy through a year of roommatehood. Additionally, the rest of the community, new and old, is a great group of people. I have already valued the time I've been able to spend with my old friends, and the new crowd is chock full of fun folks. Couple that with being used to the quirks and frustrations of life in Honduras, and I'm able to apporach these days from a thankfully similar mindset as I do the days of summer.
Speaking of summer, it was one of the best on record. Seriously. Everything has been going great for the last 3 months or so. Compare this stretch with the equivalent months of 2009, where I was legitimately, if not officially clinically, depressed, and you have one of those discrepancies that can only be attributed to God working in various areas of my life. But back to summer: I was able to make some worthwhile and gratifying purchases, including the new laptop I'm typing on, some trendy and thrifty additions to my wardrobe, and some exciting new books, albums, and DVDs. I saw some interesting movies and plays, managed to make it out to the beach a couple of times, spent a good deal of time with important friends who are still in the West Michigan area or who were able to make it up at some point during my stay, and I went to 2 excellent concerts: Bon Iver and the Decemberists, as well as 2 major league baseball games, including my beloved Detroit Tigers. Most importantly, though would be the start of a new and extremely promising relationship. That dominated my time home, and it dominates much of my thoughts down here (fortunately, I have work to distract me at intervals). Long distance is not fun, though I am very confident of everything working out positively :)
(I know I'm jumping back and forth from topic to topic, but there wasn't a good place to stick this in the first-day paragraph with my tangential writing style.) This year's students have come to me with a reputation. Perhaps one of the best reputations I've heard of for a grade level - from both teachers who had them in 9th grade AND teachers who have them last year. And while the first day is not necessarily an accurate portrayal of 3 classes of 11th graders, I can see that reputation proving itself. Talk about gratifying. Certainly, I can see students who may give me challenges, but I think I'm more than prepared to handle any behavioral/management issues gracefully at this point.
Also, at this point in my career, I am pleased to have a fairly solid reputation as a teacher built up over my past two years, especially the past year. I feel that this only sets me up for more success. My students are expecting to enjoy my class, at least somewhat. I don't feel pressure to entertain, or amuse, but I think I'm set up to have an entertaining, amusing, and most importantly insightful class. I may not know many individual students from this year yet, but seeing them in my room, responding to what I was saying, felt as though I was talking to students who've already had me for a month, because they know a fair amount about me. That's going to be a tough thing to give up when it does come time for me to move on to the next step in my life.
I don't want my first post in 4.5 months to be a real lunker, even though there's plenty to talk about. Rather, I'll try to make up for it in more frequent posts in the coming weeks. Suffice it to say, life is remarkably positive right now. It feels good to be back, in more ways than one.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
...as a word nerd
There's a phrase many of my students use a great deal: "Eso!" Literally, it means, "That!" as in, "Yeah, that's good! Keep doing that! Well Done!" Just wanted to point that out, to set up for later.
The last few weeks have seen a distinct uptick in wordplay in my life. I'm sure all my readers know that I'm a big wordplayer, but I've been messing about with words IN MY SPARE TIME. Good way to keep my mind engaged, to be sure. A few examples:
About 20 of the teachers held a pool for the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament, aka March Madness. I volunteered to send out updates on the scores and standings for correct choices on brackets. Each night during the early rounds, when there were as many as 16 games a day, I sent out an update, giving each person's total points for correctly choosing winners of games. On a whim, the first night, I included nicknames for each person - sometimes pre-established, sometimes coined off the cuff. I quickly decided new nicknames with each update, while time-consuming, could add a bit of fun to the emails. They quickly devolved into wordplay: Josie, full name Josephine, became Josie "Feen" _______. Then food-related word play: Mr. Camp was "Smores," "Engel Hair Pasta," and so on. I ended up assigning everyone famous videos from youTube, classic rock songs, and so on. To wrap up, I actually turned the list into an online MadLib game. Definitely took a lot of pride in that email sequence.
I've always been a crossword nut, but a similar practice has become my "doodling:" the word square. A word square is a square of letters (4x4, 5x5, 3x3, so on) in which you can read words across each row, and if you read down the columns from left to right, the words are identical, like so:
TOP...FANG...DAMN
ODE..ALOE...ALOE (ALOE is a useful word for this, with 3 vowels)
PEN..NOUN..MOOR
.......GENT...NERD
So yeah, I do those in my spare time, and I introduced the idea to a friend of mine who used to teach at IST and came down last week to visit, who also happens to be a great lingophile. We worked on a few together, and nearly completed a 6x6 square!
Additionally, for this same friend, as a surprise, a fellow teacher and I organized a spelling bee for IST teachers to compete in one evening. As I wanted to participate, I wasn't able to be involved in the words or anything, but I was able to compose some more humorous emails in promotion of the event, centered around the idea of spelling. The sheer fact that we put on a spelling bee for FUN speaks volumes about our lexical looniness.
And now, just yesterday, I came across a triumph of poetry, which takes the word square into the next dimension. Here's a poem by Lewis Carroll, brought to my attention at the good folks at www.inkyfool.blogspot.com :
Read it across rows, then down the columns. That's right. The same.
Naturally, I took this as a challenge, and promptly composed my own (formatting issues prevent me from aligning in the same way Carroll did):
As ever your hair winks,
Ever I eye that turn.
Your eye pierces through me,
Hair that through ages dazzled,
Winks turn me dazzled, woozy.
But I wasn't satisfied. Carroll's is a 6x6, AND it rhymes. Well, my second attempt is still 5x5, but I think it's more eloquent, and it follows a metrical structure:
Under heaven I can sojourn,
Heaven barely can I see.
I can languish or remember,
can I? Or, unwilling, flee?
Sojourn, See, Remember, Flee... Surrender.
I'm seriously proud of this stuff.
I decided to use these in my classes - I try to do a bit of wordplay every week in my class, and I also know that sharing my own writing and showing that this stuff impacts my daily life is a great motivator for students. So today, in one period, I showed them word squares and these square poems, challenging them to come up with any of their own. One astute guy realized that if you take the lower-left-to-upper-right diagonal of a word square, you get a palindrome (a previous wordplay topic - I LOVE connections!) although it's not always a normal word - in the case of the square above that begins with DAMN, you do get NOON, so that's something.
We set out to make a square together as a class (mind you, making a word square can be a process of trial, error, and at times, abandoning attempts, so this was a risk). I cannot recall each of our four lines we were ultimately successful on, but I do recall the second and fourth lines, and have recreated an equivalent square that fits those lines:
MORE
OMAN (like the country)
RAKE
ENEE....ENEE is the Honduran equivalent of Consumers Energy, as far as I know. A bit of a stretch, yes, but it did provided some laughs.
As I was filling in the final E, the wonderment of some students became just too great, and MJ burst out in delight, "That is CRAZY!!"
Anything more than mild chuckles at a wordplay session is considered a success. This bypassed it all. I think I've inspired a couple word nerds to take on a new spare-time filler.
Then, as the students were filing out, Birdo said, "Bye, Mister...wait, I'll make a word square...BYE, YES, uhhh..." And I just had to burst out, "ESO!"
The last few weeks have seen a distinct uptick in wordplay in my life. I'm sure all my readers know that I'm a big wordplayer, but I've been messing about with words IN MY SPARE TIME. Good way to keep my mind engaged, to be sure. A few examples:
About 20 of the teachers held a pool for the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament, aka March Madness. I volunteered to send out updates on the scores and standings for correct choices on brackets. Each night during the early rounds, when there were as many as 16 games a day, I sent out an update, giving each person's total points for correctly choosing winners of games. On a whim, the first night, I included nicknames for each person - sometimes pre-established, sometimes coined off the cuff. I quickly decided new nicknames with each update, while time-consuming, could add a bit of fun to the emails. They quickly devolved into wordplay: Josie, full name Josephine, became Josie "Feen" _______. Then food-related word play: Mr. Camp was "Smores," "Engel Hair Pasta," and so on. I ended up assigning everyone famous videos from youTube, classic rock songs, and so on. To wrap up, I actually turned the list into an online MadLib game. Definitely took a lot of pride in that email sequence.
I've always been a crossword nut, but a similar practice has become my "doodling:" the word square. A word square is a square of letters (4x4, 5x5, 3x3, so on) in which you can read words across each row, and if you read down the columns from left to right, the words are identical, like so:
TOP...FANG...DAMN
ODE..ALOE...ALOE (ALOE is a useful word for this, with 3 vowels)
PEN..NOUN..MOOR
.......GENT...NERD
So yeah, I do those in my spare time, and I introduced the idea to a friend of mine who used to teach at IST and came down last week to visit, who also happens to be a great lingophile. We worked on a few together, and nearly completed a 6x6 square!
Additionally, for this same friend, as a surprise, a fellow teacher and I organized a spelling bee for IST teachers to compete in one evening. As I wanted to participate, I wasn't able to be involved in the words or anything, but I was able to compose some more humorous emails in promotion of the event, centered around the idea of spelling. The sheer fact that we put on a spelling bee for FUN speaks volumes about our lexical looniness.
And now, just yesterday, I came across a triumph of poetry, which takes the word square into the next dimension. Here's a poem by Lewis Carroll, brought to my attention at the good folks at www.inkyfool.blogspot.com :
Read it across rows, then down the columns. That's right. The same.Naturally, I took this as a challenge, and promptly composed my own (formatting issues prevent me from aligning in the same way Carroll did):
As ever your hair winks,
Ever I eye that turn.
Your eye pierces through me,
Hair that through ages dazzled,
Winks turn me dazzled, woozy.
But I wasn't satisfied. Carroll's is a 6x6, AND it rhymes. Well, my second attempt is still 5x5, but I think it's more eloquent, and it follows a metrical structure:
Under heaven I can sojourn,
Heaven barely can I see.
I can languish or remember,
can I? Or, unwilling, flee?
Sojourn, See, Remember, Flee... Surrender.
I'm seriously proud of this stuff.
I decided to use these in my classes - I try to do a bit of wordplay every week in my class, and I also know that sharing my own writing and showing that this stuff impacts my daily life is a great motivator for students. So today, in one period, I showed them word squares and these square poems, challenging them to come up with any of their own. One astute guy realized that if you take the lower-left-to-upper-right diagonal of a word square, you get a palindrome (a previous wordplay topic - I LOVE connections!) although it's not always a normal word - in the case of the square above that begins with DAMN, you do get NOON, so that's something.
We set out to make a square together as a class (mind you, making a word square can be a process of trial, error, and at times, abandoning attempts, so this was a risk). I cannot recall each of our four lines we were ultimately successful on, but I do recall the second and fourth lines, and have recreated an equivalent square that fits those lines:
MORE
OMAN (like the country)
RAKE
ENEE....ENEE is the Honduran equivalent of Consumers Energy, as far as I know. A bit of a stretch, yes, but it did provided some laughs.
As I was filling in the final E, the wonderment of some students became just too great, and MJ burst out in delight, "That is CRAZY!!"
Anything more than mild chuckles at a wordplay session is considered a success. This bypassed it all. I think I've inspired a couple word nerds to take on a new spare-time filler.
Then, as the students were filing out, Birdo said, "Bye, Mister...wait, I'll make a word square...BYE, YES, uhhh..." And I just had to burst out, "ESO!"
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