Relieved to make it to Friday, it has been a busy week and I don’t think I’ve stopped. I’m up early this morning to write and the coffee tastes fresh. It is hot and sunny outside and the fan above me gently chops the air and keeps me cool.
This week I returned to teaching, a restless sleep on Monday night before my first lesson had me overplanning, thinking of ice-breakers as I lay in bed, going through discussion points, assignments and expectations. This semester I have one class which will be remote-only and another which will be taught in person. So on Tuesday I put on a smart shirt, tidied the shelf behind my desk and fired up zoom. I’m so lucky to be co-teaching with a wonderfully generous colleague and as soon as he appeared on screen my nerves calmed and the conversation kicked in, as much muscle memory but also the natural confidence and openness of the students. We got to know each other a little, we chatted about ourselves and I’m sure we’ll get round to all those planned activities at another time. Sometimes it is just comfortable, the class is a type of flow, breathing in and out, like yoga.
A week of new starts for our sons too, one into 6th Grade and the other into Highschool. They are troopers, excited and nervous, but brave and ready to take it all on. They have been ever since we got to the US, I’m super proud of them.
Also thank you for lovely messages last week, so great to hear from you all. Okay, I get that you not crazy about commenting or liking, thank you to those that do, but I do know that you do like to send an email, and I love that, so if you want to ask a question or tell me a story, then just hit reply and your words will find their way to my inbox.
Stephan
Teaching & Learning
This first week’s lessons seemed to go well, I felt relatively at ease slotting back into remote-teaching mode, but next week will offer a new challenge, with classes in person, in my classroom on campus.
Luckily I spent last week tidying and finding a few things, so I think the physical space is in good shape, and it will be different again with students. We will be masked, but hopefully sat around the same big table with some space between us. I’m wondering if I can use flip chart paper and marker pens? Can we play with lego if there’s a big tub of hand-sanitizer on the table? I suppose it will depend of people’s comfort levels and we’ll have some conversations about what we feel is safe and what we’re be happy to try, or be cautious about.
It’s the hands on stuff I miss, I can’t wait to get the room messy - I’m hoping that I can start to bring together more materials over the semester that people can play with. There was good guidance on remote making during the pandemic, and I’m looking to the same sources for similar tips on a safe return.
It felt like so many people embraced the maker spirit during lockdown, finding time to craft and create, and express themselves with little projects. I have to admit that this was an aspect of life in lockdown which got me through. Again, I have to check my privilage here, for so many people life was incredibly challenging and continues to be, but I know these projects brought us together as a family and I miss those moments of quiet concentration, not that I would want any of that time again, I wonder if there are ways to harness that good feeling and retain that spirit in post-pandemic times.
Life Lessons
Driving through the city this week I passed an advertising billboard with a photo of Malala Yousefzai and her words “Girls should learn history and make it.” I found out later that this billboard is sponsored by a nonpartisan, nonsectarian organization called The Foundation for Better Life who in their words “believe people are basically good but sometimes just need a reminder.” Malala’s defiance seems particularly powerful in a week of desperate news from Afghanistan and fear for women and young girls that they will see a return to the past of twenty years ago, when they were banned from attending school, accessing healthcare, or leaving the house.
It is worth reminding ourselves that Malala was shot by a Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistani gunman in an attempted assassination. She had written about her life in the Taliban controlled Pakistani region, about her desire to learn, and that story had been taken up by a journalist at the New York Times and later Bishop Desmond Tutu nominated her for the International Children’s Peace Prize.
The Taliban fear education, in their eyes learning is dissent, and the right of women and girls to attend school, work, and live as equals to men in society is an anathema to their values and worldview. Malala’s activism continues, and in this article for the New York Times she shares her concerns for her Afghani sisters, thinking about her youth, she can not imagine “…going back to a life defined for me by men with guns.”
My teaching colleague highlighted SOLA, School of Leadership in Afghanistan, a private school for girls. Last week they have decided to leave their country to spend a semester in Rwanda. Please read the messages from their founder Shabana Basij-Rasikh who has burned the records of her pupils in order to protect them and is planning to return to Afghanistan when circumstances permit.
Lost and Found
During the summer, the Global Languages & Cultures Room where I work put out a call for artists and organized a micro-commissions project. You can see some of the work via instagram and on the screens around the center. Again the work explores themes of isolation, missing family, navigating culture and thinking about language.
Probably a bit too late for many of us, but there are so great ideas about media-based syllabus design in this article from FLTMAG.
Great Future of Education newsletter about why the time is ripe for flipping the classroom.
This is very cool, in the next version of Apple’s iOS you’ll be able to highlight and copy text from an image. Take a look at the video below.
Thank you
I managed a nice big bike ride on the Tour de Donut, which took us through the countryside, past Amish farms along little country lanes, up and over rolling hills and open land. It was a hot one and I was grateful for the feeding stations and chance to refill water bottles, and yes, perhaps partake in a donut or two.
The route rather reminded me of cycling across the Downs and thinking about those rides back in the UK, through Hampshire lost and finding a pub or resting in the shade of a tree watching the cricket. If all that sounds wonderful and idyllic then it sort of was, the aches and pains of cycling up those hills sort of melted away everytime you got to a little village and found somewhere to rest.
Plans for a mid-week ride were scuppered by the rain, which I can just about cope with, but the thunder and lightning made me feel uneasy about heading out, better to be safe and opt for a drink and a chat.
So, that’s all for this week. I hope that you’re doing good. Take a deep breath if you’re starting classes next week. I got some good advice to pause writing and research to concentrate on the sessions, ready to pick things up again very soon. Let me know how you get on, especially if you’re back in the classroom.