Category Archives: Teaching

AES Graduation 2016 – Tony wows ’em

For 20 years, I’ve watched Tony grade essays around the world – in his cramped study at our old house in Kansas, at the ruins of Troy and cafés in Istanbul, by the Great Wall of China and Starbucks in Shanghai, on the deck of a rainforest lodge in Borneo, along the banks of the Mekong River in Laos, among the terraced rice paddies of Bali, and at the beach in Phuket, Thailand. “Everywhere, every city we’ve ever been in,” Tony says. “I’ve graded papers everywhere.” It’s true. Even on vacation, we’re never alone. For as long as I can remember, I’ve shared my husband with William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Toni Morrison. In part, that’s the life of a high school English teacher. (“Why don’t you just give multiple choice tests?” I whine, staring out the window and wishing I had brought a friend on this trip, every trip. “Because I’m supposed to be teaching them how to write,” he responds, exasperated.)

For 20 years, I’ve watched Tony get to school at the crack of dawn and stay well after the final bell. His classroom door is always open for students who want extra help with an assignment (even assignments from other teachers) or who need a letter of recommendation for their university applications. In his free time, he reads the novels, plays, and poems he plans to teach, even when he’s read them a million times before. He highlights, color codes, writes notes in the margins, fills the pages with sticky notes, and always finds something new.

Tony jokes with his students, “Most people will tell you they became teachers because they love kids. They get energized by you. Well, I don’t. You suck my energy away. I became a teacher because I love books. I love literature. I love the academic life.” But everyone knows that he really does love kids and worry about them and care about them. The students know it best of all.

That’s why I felt especially proud of Tony when the high school seniors chose him to be the faculty speaker at their graduation this year. “The odds were in my favor,” he said when the announcement was made. “I have taught almost all the seniors.” True. Still, it feels good to be appreciated, he admitted.

Tony’s speech perfectly captured his quirky sense of humor, reflective teaching style, and connections with the graduates. He spoke to them, weaving together themes from his classes with life lessons. He referenced inside jokes that only the students would get, and – best of all – in my opinion, he reminded them to carry on the values that AES instilled in them: compassion, service to others, and a growth mindset.

Here’s the American Embassy School of New Delhi graduation video. Skip ahead to 44:50 to see Tony’s speech.

A few people have asked for the script. Here you go. Feel free to share. Tony later realized he misattributed the phrase, “Pavements gray,” so he fixed it in this version.

I am truly honored to be speaking to you today. But, before I begin my speech, I would like to say something that is actually important.

Simply put, I care about you – many of you. I’m fond of you. I’m proud of you. You’ve earned my utmost respect. And when you are gone, I’ll think about you; I’ll remember you; and I’ll miss you, starting Monday, when you definitely should be gone.

OK, the speech.

Earlier this year a traveling salesman came to our school. OK, he wasn’t actually a traveling salesman. He was what Paul Johnson would call a teacher trainer.

But, I like stories about traveling salesmen, so here we go . . .

Anyway, this salesman made us all think about what AES teachers do, and he tried to make us worry and wonder if we were, in fact, preparing you for “the real world.” And by “the real world,” he meant – I guess – life beyond AES, where you will all go and exist, starting in about 40 minutes.

Now, I was a little traumatized by his premise that AES is “not the real world.” We aren’t real. Ironically, in the place where we teach you “to be or not to be,” we are … NOT.

Let’s think about what this means.

You can’t BE a student at AES. Apparently, you can only NOT BE a student at AES. When you move those tassels, of course, you won’t be students at AES anymore, but for a few more minutes you are students at AES … NOT.

This happens in every class, I’ve lost a few of you. Don’t worry about it.

The idea that AES isn’t the real world is sort of a great contradiction to Descartes and the fundamental keystone of all western philosophy: Here, at AES, “we think, therefore we are” . . . NOT. In Latin it would be: Cogitamus, ergo NON sumus.

Now, I did wonder if, in fact, I had prepared you for “the real world.”

But, I’ve been an academic all my life. So, I guess I never have actually really been in or seen the real world.

Oh, I’ve heard of it. It comes up occasionally in class. It’s what the poet William Butler Yeats called “pavements gray.”

And Wordsworth said,
“Where getting and spending we lay waste our powers
For the little we see in nature that is ours.”

That’s from Mr. Glennon’s favorite poem by the way.

Indeed, the real world, as I understand it, is what the Romantic poets, and Walt Whitman and Thoreau and even Huckleberry Finn on his raft were forever trying to escape.

So, maybe I didn’t teach you how to live in “the real world,” but I know I taught you how to escape it – you can pick up a book. You can pick up a book, too.

Here, in “NOT the real world,” we spend way too much time trying to teach you something totally irrelevant out there: how to be self aware.

What we teach at this school is how to look at the world critically, logically, creatively, theoretically, artistically, mathematically, communally, politically and compassionately

And I have always tried to do that without taking away the sense of wonder that 5-year-old you initially brought with you to kindergarten.

Now, some of your parents don’t know what I mean by wonder. But it is the most important thing I teach!

Socrates taught us that “wonder is the beginning of knowledge.” So I’ll teach you the way I taught your children: Do you remember when you were a kid, probably 3 or 4 years old, and you were riding in the back seat of the car. It was night and your parents were driving. For some reason it was quiet and you looked up and you noticed that the moon was following you?

Amazing that you still remember the emotion! You remember because you wondered.

That emotional joy of discovery is why I teach literature, a topic which has always been an exploration of what it means to be a human being. When you examine everyone from Macbeth to Gatsby, Frankenstein to Elizabeth Bennet, Job to Hermione Granger, you learn something.

I mean that here, in the “NOT the real world,” we think about the infinite possibilities that is man all the time. “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties!” as Hamlet says.

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Socrates (who, by the way, they poisoned right out of the real world) said, “The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.” I do verily believe it.

And so let me give you my one bit of advice for people about to go into the real world. Don’t go! Don’t go! Some of you girls couldn’t walk very far in those shoes you’re wearing anyway. So, don’t go!

Don’t go into the world that Willy Loman describes by screaming: “The competition is maddening!”

I don’t know if we prepared you for the real world. And I’m not sure I’m ready for tomorrow either. I do know that AES is special though.

Here, in “NOT the real world,” we constantly strive to better ourselves.

Here, in “NOT the real world,” we value community, and the noblest trait is caring about others more than ourselves.

Here, in “NOT the real world,” we think about learning as a lifelong goal, something we continue to do until our very last breath.

Here in “NOT the real world,” we know that what you spend a lifetime building can be torn down in an instant, and yet you should spend your life building anyway.

Here, in “NOT the real world,” we actually mostly try to teach you how to continue living in a world like this one, by being awake to the infinite possibilities that is humanity and your own unlimited potential.

So, did we prepare you for “the real world”?

I don’t know. I worry about it. Most of you can’t drive or make an omelet or write a check or iron a shirt. I had to tie four ties before we could get these kids out here.

No, don’t worry. None of that matters.

Truthfully, I kind of assumed you were ready for “the real world” the first day I met you. You were probably ready for “the real world” when you graduated kindergarten.

Bob Fulghum sums up the kindergarten curriculum this way. This is what you were supposed to learn:
Share everything. 
Play fair. 
Don’t hit people. 
Put things back where you found them. 
Clean up your own mess. 
Don’t take things that aren’t yours. 
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. 
Wash your hands before you eat. 
Flush. 
Live a balanced life. 
Learn, think, draw, paint, sing, dance, play and work some every day.
And take a nap every afternoon. 
That’s why your teachers have couches in their rooms.

Kindergarten … I swear to God, that’s really all you needed to know to live and be happy in the real world.

Not ready for the real world? You knew everything the day I first met you! I’m not worried about you! I’m jealous of you, and I’m hopeful about the world because I think you’re going to change it. I think you’re going to make it better. I think every one of you is going to make it more like AES. And that’s what I was preparing you for!

Change the world and make it better. That’s your homework! That’s your homework, too. When is it due? Well, life takes a lifetime. How many days do you have left?

Eventually, when you’re done, they can dig a hole and bury you right in the actual real world. Nothing in the real world really lasts, anyway.

But in the meantime, don’t get sucked, pulled, drawn or contracted into the real world. Don’t ever surrender any part of your soul. That moral truth, by the way, is what you were supposed to learn from every tragedy I’ve ever taught you.

Now, if you’ve ever looked at “Cliffs Notes,” and I think some of you have, and I think some of you have, and I know some of you have … you will learn that the theme of almost every book not written by Jane Austen is “man’s inhumanity to man.”

Man’s inhumanity to man!

Well, from what I’ve heard, that happens out there in the real world. So, don’t go! Don’t contribute to it. Stay here – at least in your hearts.

Thank you.

Taipei Get-Away: filling up my brain, belly and heart

Sometimes you visit a place and get exactly what you need at that moment in time.

In just four days, Taipei met my needs for academic discourse, nature, reconnection with special friends, whimsy, foodie lust, culture, local kindness and expat bonding. That was a lot to accomplish in such a short visit. I headed back to Delhi Tuesday feeling energized professionally and personally.

I was in Taipei (along with Marianna and Jeni, two other EAL teachers at our school) for a professional development workshop on WIDA tools. According to its website,

WIDA advances academic language development and academic achievement for linguistically diverse students through high quality standards, assessments, research, and professional development for educators.

Although WIDA primarily targets the 36 states in its U.S. consortium, this particular workshop was tailored for the 150+ schools in the WIDA International Schools Consortium. When I worked at Shanghai American School, we piloted WIDA’s international work, and I’ve been deepening my understanding ever since. The Taipei symposium’s organizers included Margo Gottlieb, WIDA Lead Developer and one of the founders; Jon Nordmeyer, a teacher at the International School of Bangkok who will join the WIDA staff next year to coordinate its international consortium (He was also my EAL supervisor in both Istanbul and Shanghai!); and Virginia Blais, an insightful and inquisitive EAL teacher at Taipei American School. They designed the workshop around conversations, which led to heaps of revelations and excited sharing of ideas with teachers from all over the world.

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An exercise in using the WIDA rubric to score writing helped participants better understand the criteria and process. Loved it!
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Professional development led me to Taipei, but the city definitely won me over.

While Delhi abounds with gardens, public parks, tree-lined avenues and even the wonderful Aravelli Biodiversity Park right around the corner from our house, the toxic air pollution and dust-coated leaves act as powerful incentives to stay inside during the winter months. My workshop took place at Taipei American School, just a 15-minute drive from Yangmingshan National Park. Lonely Planet echoes my thoughts:

How fortunate Taipei is to have this diverse park at its doorstep, complete with forested mountains, hot springs, rolling grass hills, and some handsome lodgings and restaurants. The park covers 114.55 sq km, with a top elevation of 1120m, and is easily accessible from the downtown area by frequent buses.

I didn’t have time to hike, but I did have time to enjoy one of the hot springs. (See my previous post: Soaking my cares away in Taipei.)

On our drive up to the hot springs, we stopped to take a photo, but my camera wouldn’t shoot. I took it to a camera shop near the hotel. The shopkeeper, who was about 4 feet tall and sweet as could be, told me she had operated that shop for 50 years. She had to order a part and repair my camera in just three days, which she did. I popped in Monday morning to check on the progress, and she froze, eyes wide open. She obviously panicked that she had confused my departure time. “I’m just touching base,” I said. “I don’t leave till tomorrow morning.” She grabbed my arm and squeaked, “Don’t scare me like that!” Sure enough, later that evening, my camera was fixed and cleaned – good as new. Her cheerful attitude and eagerness to help were typical of the people I encountered in Taipei.
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Having spent four years in Shanghai, I enjoyed the familiar vibe in Taipei, but the easy-going pace was a far cry from mainland China. At the metro, I stared in awe at the people who (a) lined up to take the escalator and (b) scooted over the right so people could pass on the left. The crowd also lined up to get on the train, leaving room for others to disembark. Not the China I know!
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Another highlight of our visit: Paul and Lisa, friends of friends and teachers at Taipei American School, took Marianna, Jeni and me to the Shilin Night Market. It was mind-bogglingly fabulous.
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So many food options! I got a delicious bubble tea and some steamed pork buns. Yum!
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Shrimp fishing. If you catch any, the booth workers will cook ’em up for you to eat on the spot.
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The most special part of my weekend, however, was a mini-reunion with some of my favorite friends who worked with us at Shanghai American School (2005-2009). Kimbra and Elaine traveled from Shanghai; Kathy and Colleen traveled from Hong Kong; and Kristi and Julian live about 3 minutes from Taipei American School. (You may remember Col from her recent trip to India!) They came to town just to hang out, which was such a treat. I love how we reminisce about old times but also make new memories together.

Julian gave us a tour of the school.
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At Kristi and Julian’s house, Kathy told us to “act natural.”
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Posing with Taipei 101, which was the world’s tallest building back in 2004.
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As we head into the Year of the Ram – which is my Chinese Zodiac sign, I choose to follow the advice from this cheesy display.
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Check out the Taipei Trends website for more reasons to love this city.

Math and English collide in cuteness

When I was in second grade, we sat at our desks and raced through pages of addition and subtraction problems. As a teacher of English learners, I’m sure my students often wish life could be so easy. However, today’s second graders learn math in an entirely different – and much better – way. They learn the concepts behind the place value work they do. It’s not enough to “carry the ten.” Kids need to understand they are conceptually regrouping ten ones for a single ten. I am not lying when I say I only just realized that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 40 years when I “carried the ten”!

Earlier this week, I was working with a second-grade math group, which included three English beginners: one Israeli, one Korean and one from Bahrain. We were practicing the strategy of “Read-Draw-Write” to solve a word problem. With help, they read the problem and I explained some of the tricky words. Next it was time to draw the problem before writing the equation and answer sentence. They had learned to draw a place value chart with symbols for the tens and ones. I turned to help the Bahraini boy, who had been absent the previous day and needed to catch up. By the time I got back to the Korean boy, he had finished his drawing to illustrate giving away 10 seashells. It looked like this:
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So cute! And so wrong. I had to remind him that by “draw,” we mean draw a place value chart.
He did it, reluctantly, but then he insisted on drawing an arrow back to his original sketch. Fair enough.
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Reminds me of another confused little Korean kid I knew in Laos. Check it out: Korean Math Warriors.

What’s your favorite color?

Disclaimer: I wrote this at 3:30 a.m. Stupid jetlag!

As an elementary school teacher, I’ve had the “favorite color” conversation millions of times. Ask a first grader what his favorite color is, and he’ll respond with the confidence of someone who has given it great thought. “Blue,” he’ll say confidently and then add with equal commitment, “No, purple.”

You can gamble on pink with little girls, which I can only attribute to TV commercials. In many Asian countries, pink is considered a masculine color, so my students in China – boys and girls alike – often expressed love for pink. However, it was an American school, and it didn’t take long for the color bullies of the west to convince the Korean and Taiwanese boys that “pink stinks.”

And then there are the little rebels who say their favorite color is black. The other kids get upset and argue that black isn’t a pretty color or it’s not a color at all, while Smug Rebel Child happily colors black rainbows.

By third grade, children have seen the big box of Crayola crayons. They have mixed paint in art class. They have learned the more esoteric names of hues and tints, exploding their favorite-color options to almost unimaginable dimensions. “I used to like teal best, but now I’m really into periwinkle,” one little girl told me.

I am equally fickle on this question. You would think having answered “What’s your favorite color?” at least weekly for 12 years, I might have formed an opinion, or at least developed a well-crafted answer. Instead, I fumble. “Do you mean, like, to wear? Or to eat? Or to paint – and would that be interior or exterior paint? Hair color? Eye color? Skin color? Or my favorite color existing in nature?”

My brain hits “play” on this internal monologue every time an innocent kid poses that confusing question: My “Color Me Beautiful” consultation in the 80s determined I was a “spring,” so I know I look good in peach, gray and some shades of coral. But I’ve opted for red hair in recent decades, which I like to accessorize with autumn tones. Favorite edible color? My friend Tarren loves to eat blue things, and I think she’s on to something. Sno-cones doused with electric azure syrup are pretty awesome. Interior paint colors are overwhelming, but I lean toward bold deep shades of red, brown and green. Exterior? Tony and I both loved a cottage we saw painted a dark charcoal with white trim. As for human coloration, how can you narrow down the infinite combinations that result in beauty?”

Now, my favorite color existing in nature is easy. Green. It’s kind of a cheat, though, in that green is really the chameleon of the color world. Driving from Stratford, Ontario, back to Michigan a few weeks ago, I challenged Tony to see who could spot the most shades of green. (There’s not much else to do as you roll through the farmland …) Newly fallen rain and the morning sun fighting through dark clouds created a rich color-saturated landscape with green’s lusty palette dominating in all directions.

Green’s power over me is global. From Canada’s farmland to Michigan’s meadows and woodsy bike trails. From Borneo’s wild rain forests to Bali’s sculpted rice terraces. From southern Turkey’s scrubby wild sage to the pine-scented hikes in Bavaria. After a 2009 bike ride in Laos, I blogged this:

The rainy season’s gift of green in every hue includes the crackling fronds of the coconut trees, the nearly teal floating pads of the water lilies, the waxy dark leaves of the magnolias, the yellow-tipped fluorescence of the rice plants, the seafoam-colored potted plants with twisted prickly stalks, and the bright tufts of doomed little weeds in fields where oxen graze.

So, here I am in Delhi, along with around 20 million other people. Sometimes the brown and gray overwhelm the green so much that I really do feel blue. But this city has a surprising commitment to its green spaces, and for that I am deeply grateful. Here’s an interesting article about Delhi’s battle between urbanization and environmental conservation.

School starts next week, and that inevitable question will arise. “What’s your favorite color?” Maybe I’ll just keep it simple this time.

Blue. No, purple.

Winter break is here! Halleluiah!

It’s the last day of the semester, and only a half day at that. You know what that means! Lots of squirrely, excited teachers students. Kids shared their travels plans – from Alaska to Australia and everywhere in between, said their good-byes to children moving on permanently, made play dates with friends who were spending the holiday in Delhi, watched movies and discussed their holiday traditions.

For many international students and teachers, winter break is especially anticipated. Some of us chose this lifestyle for the opportunity to see the world, and this is our longest vacation of the school year – three weeks of travel time. Some of us struggle with living so far away from our loved ones, and this holiday season is a time for reunions. Some of us just need a break from all things unfamiliar and frustrating.

That sappy stuff doesn’t stop kids from being kids, though.

First thing this morning, I went to my usual third-grade classroom where I chatted with the teacher while students arrived. A burst of giggling got our attention, so we both turned to see what was so funny. Two boys had curled into balls, stretched their hoodies over their entire bodies, pulled the drawstrings closed and were now rolling around the floor, bumping into desk legs and eliciting howls of laughter from onlookers. The teacher and I couldn’t help but crack up. Yep, it’s time for vacation!

Later I headed next door to see my other morning group of third graders. Remember those three little boys who had the deep discussion about U.S. presidents a few months ago? During “free choice” writing time this morning, they decided to write comic books. I sat down with them to admire the creative collaboration. Brilliant stuff.

Boy 1: Look! We’re starting every comic book like this, “I was walking down the street when suddenly…” And then something exciting is gonna happen!
Boy 2: We’re all different superheroes, but we’re like a superhero team.
Me: What are your super powers?
Boy 1: I can shoot ice out of my hands.
Boy 2: I can jump really far.
Boy 3: I can teleport.
Boy 1 to Boy 2: Oh! You can be rainbow colored, so when you jump really far, you make a big rainbow and the bad guys will be all “ooooh, look at the rainbow!” and then I’ll shoot ice at them and freeze them.
Boy 2 to Boy 3: And then you can grab the bad guys and teleport them to another dimension. Like they could be trapped in Captain America’s shield!
Boy 3: Yeah!

In 11 hours, Tony and I will be heading to the airport for our long journey back to the States. This is our first family Christmas in America since we moved overseas 12 years ago! Man, I sure wish I could teleport.

Bye-bye, kiddos! See ya in 2013!
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Presidential confusion

Here is a conversation from my morning in third grade. Kids were “shopping for books” in the classroom library, and these little boys were obsessed with a book about Abe Lincoln. (Names have been changed to protect the sweet innocent little ding dongs.)
Bob: Abraham Lincoln is my favorite president.
Me: Why?
Bob: Because he has a cool hat and he carries an ax.
Tom: And he hunts vampires.
Bob: Yeah, he hunts vampires.
Me: Hmmm … you know that’s just a movie, right? He didn’t really hunt vampires. I don’t think he carried an ax around, either.
Bob: He still has a cool hat.
Tom: My second favorite president is George Washington Carver.
Me: OK … he actually wasn’t a president. George Washington was president. George Washington CARVER invented peanut butter. So that’s still pretty special.
Tom: Oh, that’s awesome.
Bob: You know who else was cool? John Adams and his brother John Q. Adams.
Me: Right. Ummm … John Adams was the dad of John Quincy Adams. They weren’t brothers.
Bob: Oh, but they’re still really cool.
Me: Hey, do you want me to find some books on American presidents for you guys?
Bob: Yeah! I like to read about them.
Me: That’s a good plan. I’m on it.

Sparks fly at middle school play practice

I have filled my life with drama this year. School drama, that is.

Today we had a rehearsal for the middle school play, “The Fireworks Maker’s Daughter,” and the drama teacher, Thaba, wanted students to think about the physicality of working with and watching fireworks. Obviously, we won’t set off real fireworks in the theater, so she elicited ideas about how the stagecraft class might design props and explained that dancers will BE the fireworks in some scenes. To spark their imaginations, she brought them all to the field for a mid-day fireworks show.

Students crowded around our visiting fireworks expert, Mohinder, who unloaded a big bag of goodies. Thaba reminded kids to closely monitor the actions involved in lighting fireworks. As the fireworks exploded, shrieked, swirled, whistled, and showered sparks, she encouraged actors and dancers to remember their own physical reactions. Back in the rehearsal space, students debriefed and shared fantastic insights gleaned from the experience.

Such a fun, creative, caring bunch of adults. Such talented, reflective, committed kids. Sometimes I have to pinch myself.
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Patience and appreciation

Yesterday was Back to School Night at the American Embassy School, New Delhi. Here’s what BTSN tends to look like for English as an Additional Language teachers:

Me – Hello, everybody! Thank you for coming. (gesture at PowerPoint) I’d like to tell you a little bit about myself and our EAL program.

Hands go up. I call on a parent.
Parent – What does my child need to do to get out of the EAL program?

Me – (smiling) Well, I’ll get to that in a minute. First, I’d like to explain how I work with your child’s teacher to help meet English learning needs and ensure that all kids feel successful in third grade.

Same Parent – Yeah, but how long till they can go to Spanish or French instead?

Me – (still smiling) I promise I will explain our process for transitioning out of EAL, but I think it’s important for everyone to understand how the program works. I spend time in your child’s classroom every day …

Same Parent interrupting me – Yeah, but my son speaks English every day and he says he’s bored in EAL. So when can he get out?

Me – Maybe YOU should tell ME why in the world you would NOT want your child to have an additional TEACHER in the room providing EXTRA English language support and helping your kid to access the third-grade curriculum? Will you please explain WHY you wouldn’t want your child to learn strategies for building his vocabulary, strengthening his understanding of English grammar and developing his reading comprehension? Help me understand WHY you think learning French or Spanish is so important for a third grader who is still learning the language of instruction at our school???

No, of course I would NEVER say that. But … I admit I do think it. Instead, I usually just take a breath, remind myself that most parents don’t have a degree in language acquisition and suggest that we set up another meeting to chat about that specific child.

I’ve had THAT kind of BTSN many times over the years. Yesterday’s BTSN was NOT one of them! What a relief!

Parents asked important questions about learning English, choosing appropriate books, how to support English learning at home, expectations in the classroom and so on. With heart-warming sincerity, they openly discussed the challenges their children face daily as English learners in an English-medium school.

All teachers play therapist now and then. I hope I was able to reassure parents that their children are in good hands. Many of our teachers, including me, are Third-Culture Kids. We understand and empathize with students living outside their home culture, surrounded by peers of myriad ethnicities.

Our principal, Susan Young, started a tradition of giving teachers Power Rocks at the start of school. A local calligrapher writes inspirational words in English and Sanskrit on the rocks, and we choose the ones that resonate with us.

Last year, I chose “patience.” This year, I chose “appreciation.” Sitting on my classroom desk, the rocks remind me every morning to approach the school day with gentleness; assume children, parents and teachers have the best intentions; and to give even the most stubborn kids opportunities to shine and share what makes them special.

I hope the parents who visited school last night felt a spirit of patience and appreciation.

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Discover India Week at AES

Discover India Week, Jan. 27-Feb. 3, was my favorite week so far at the American Embassy School here in New Delhi! Every morning started with dancers and musicians at the school gates. The hallways burst with color as students and teachers dressed in their Indian clothes. Children tried their hand at block-printing, pottery, traditional construction methods and other cultural pursuits. Everything felt so … Indian!

Each grade level focused on a specific aspect of Indian culture across the curriculum. I teach third graders, who explored Indian Folktales and Stories Showing Courage. They learned about India’s visual storytelling tradition with demonstrations by Sharon Lowen, the head of Indian Studies at AES. She visited their classrooms with story scrolls and a wooden box that opened to reveal hinged panels painted with beloved tales of Hindu gods.

Lowen, a renowned expert in three forms of classical Indian dance, also demonstrated storytelling through Odissi dance movements. She brought some of the kids up on stage for a workshop.

Students met puppeteer Anurupa Roy, who taught them how to transfer the nuances of physicality from their own bodies to the puppets on their hands.

Many artisans spent the week at our school, demonstrating their crafts and selling the products. I was most fascinated by this guy, who made “lac” bangles. They are quite expensive, and I never understood why. Now I do! The craftsman makes the bracelets from “lac,” a type of tree resin by warming it over hot coals until it’s pliable. Then he twists and works the resin, using a mold to distribute it evenly. Very interesting!

Other artisans demonstrated glass blowing, kite construction, traditional toy making, weaving, and wooden puppet carving. Here’s a slideshow.