Last week of school and a trip to the petroglyphs

As a final road trip of the year, a group of us drove out of the city to see the petroglphs (a UNESCO Heritage site). It’s not that far from Almaty, but it takes several hours to get to (driving slower on unpaved/damaged roads).  It was well worth the trip, though!  We walked for several kilometers with our guide, and there was hardly a rock not covered with an image of an elk/mountain goat, horse, hunter or dance party.  Some of them were quite elaborate or quite large – covering rocks more than five feet high. We stopped and had lunch in a little gazebo, gazing at images of the sun and sky, eagles and turtles.  It was a great day out.

The last weeks of school were very eventful, and it included my birthday!  We had a small popcorn party in my classroom, and kids brought me flowers, cards and little presents.  My favorite gifts were the drawings they made, depicting me and them in various places (hiking, traveling, playing outside).  Michael cooked up carnitas and we had a fiesta at our friends’ house (our usual location for a Friday afternoon).  Another of my friends went to the trouble to even make horchata to go with the carnitas, and I was feeling very loved by my group of friends here.  

Another party was for the people who are leaving the school this year.  Many of them are very good friends of ours, so it was a somewhat sad event – but I’m very excited for them all to have their new adventures.  Most of them are moving on to other schools in the QSI network, so I’m sure I’ll have a chance to work with them again.  Other people went on to other adventures, traveling to other continents to return to their previous jobs (on hold while they were here) or finding new ones (like our friends now in Morocco).

The last week of school was a lot of fun, and it was on a field trip that I realized how much I am going to miss my second-graders.  We went to a park across the street, rented row boats and paddled on the lake.  Three of the boys ran up and hugged on to me, saying they wanted to ride the boat with me.  So cute!  It was fun to teach them how to row and everyone got a turn.  We took sidewalk chalk and signed our names all over the park’s walking trail, and looking down at each of their names made me smile.  I’ve really enjoyed being their teacher.


And then, before I knew it, we were at the end of our last day of school and kids were rushing out with their certificates and their backpacks, saying goodbye for the last time this year.  Most of them will be back next year, so I’ll see them in the hallway and will get to high-five them when they pass me.  I hope they will look back on this year and smile.  I know I will.

End of the school year

We made it!  The school year officially ended for students yesterday after an awards ceremony and some time for yearbook signing.  For teachers, the year ended today at 10:30 when the director opened his door to begin signing our check-out sheets.  Our rooms are cleaned, student files turned in to the directors, and furniture moved to the center of the room for whatever happens while we're away during the summer.

On Friday, once again, I was struck by how well-rehearsed our students are at saying goodbye.  I commented on this back in my post in December.  We've signed up for a transient lifestyle.  Students and teachers come and go.  For us, it's a sad time of year saying goodbye to all the other teachers who have become our family away from home.

Tonight we're part of the "party plane", the Lufthansa flight from Almaty to Frankfurt that many of the teachers head out on.  We're going with our friends Brock and Cathy to Europe, first visiting one of Brock's friends in Düsseldorf.  Afterwards, we're on to De Klinge, Belgium to show them why this little country is so great!  We're also using this opportunity to lighten our load.  We'll be checking in tonight with some things that we haven't used here and some things we just don't want to have to move with when we finally leave Kazakhstan, probably next year.  We've also decided to take our bicycles to Belgium to live with our family there.  Kazakhstan, at least Almaty, seems a little stressful for me for bicycling, nothing like the cycling around De Klinge.

Here's to the start of a great summer!

GPS class and "water day"

We're down to the last few days of school.  Books had to be turned in over a week ago.  Kids have all turned in textbooks.  The classrooms need to be totally packed up so classrooms can be reassigned next year.  

Finding a clue hidden in a tree

Finding a clue hidden under a swing

Units had to be completed over a week ago so that "outcome cards," an ancient system we use here to keep report students' grades, can be turned in and centrally entered into the system.  So what to teach?  At Life Academy and Oakland International, our schools in Oakland we used to teach at, we did postsession for the final three weeks.  What a grand idea -- and kids get credits for the classes that they take all day with us!  I don't think this system is ready for that, but we did have a mini-version of it this week.

For two days I taught a geography class using GPS technology.  Students had to find geocaches that my co-teacher Dave and I had set up around campus and the neighboring community.  So, for example, students had to answer the question like "Amorgós, an island in the Aegean Sea, is part of which group of islands?" or "Which country does not border the Red Sea: Jordan, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, or Eritrea?" and then go to the teacher listed on the clue to see if they had the right answer.  If they did, they got a clue, Amazing Race style.  The clue then might send them to 43.20935°N, 76.81440°E or 43.20966°N, 76.81827°E where, if they look "up, down, in, under, through, beneath, an any other preposition you can think of" they would receive another geography question to answer.  It was lots of fun for all and Dave was kind enough to bring cold drinks and ice cream for students to enjoy when they finished running around under the sun.  It was good for all.
On Thursday, we had field day, which should probably be called "water day".  I volunteered to do the water bottle fight station and was absolutely soaked for hours by the multiple groups of students who passed through this area.  Many of them were my students who, I think, were feeling like they were getting revenge for a year's worth of essay-intensive curricula.  Others I didn't know at all, yet they still attacked with ferocity.  I have to so I had a bit of my own revenge.