September Adventures: Car Bazaar and Iron Chef

We had a number of good adventures this month.   We went to the car bazaar on the 11th and bought a new VW Golf -- hooray!  We really like it and can't wait to drive it.  It might be about 3 weeks before we get the keys in our hands, though -- there are a lot of hoops to jump through and a lot of paperwork to submit.  Two of the school's mechanics came with us, as well as the school director (who likes a day in the sun with a bunch of cars -- this was his third trip there!), a fellow teacher acting as translator for us and the mechanics, and three other pairs of teachers looking for new cars.  It was a long, long day in the sunshine, but with good company and a successful catch of car booty, we were pretty cheerful about it.

We took some amazing hikes this month, too.  There are some beautiful places up in the mountains of Almaty, and so many trails heading into dense forests and crystal-clean glacier water gushing from the peaks.  There are a lot of teachers at our school who like a day on the trail, and are willing to go for the fun of it without having to race to the top (thankfully for me and my sea-level lungs).  We even got to stop at a delicious Georgian restaurant (the country, not the state!), and replenish valuable fluids with some local brews.  Nice.

One very cool thing we did this month was an Iron Chef challenge at our friend, J's, house.  J made up a whole bunch of rules about how teams would be formed, how much time could be used, and which ingredients were mandatory... she also allowed us each to bring our own "secret weapon", which was any item from our own pantries.  The mandatory challenge ingredients this time were puff pastry, carrots, zucchini and mozzarella.  I got paired up with another friend's husband, P, who had an awesome idea for a stir-fry with the carrots, zucchini and his secret ingredient (peanut butter!).  I brought in my secret ingredient from my pantry, Pumpkin Pie spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, etc.) and made a tiropita-type cheese pastry with the Pumpkin Pie spice on top.  And we won!  So, so glorious!  We get to be judges next time.

How will the Iron Chef Brooke spend the next month?  Choosing the next challenge ingredient, of course!  I wonder what people would do with the horse-meat sausage I see around town... ?  :D

Quotes of the week

Quotes of the week (from an earlier Facebook posting):

"Mr. Michael, I want to be a writer when I get older. Could you please grade my essays harshly? I want good feedback."  Students were writing personal narratives (vignettes) in our writing class.

"Mr. Michael, is it okay if I write two poems instead of one?"  We were writing acrostic poems and I asked students to use vocabulary words from the Cultural Studies class (ancient history) that I also teach.  There are some great poems that I might share a bit later.

"Mr. Michael, can I answer the review questions at the end of the chapter even though they weren't assigned?"  Of course!  It's a different world. This, in fact, is more common than it might seem.  I've caught students not listening to me in class because they're answering chapter review questions which I rarely assign anyway.  I guess it could be worse.

"Mr. Michael, would it be alright if I used my iPhone in class so I can take a picture of the assignment so I don't have to take the book home."  Yeah, that would be just fine.  Good thinking!

Hoe, sickle, stick

I’m really enjoying teaching my 12-year-old students (7^th graders) here at our new school in Almaty.  In our system of international schools we use ages instead of grades because students are coming from so many different school systems around the world that use different grade ranking or numbering systems.  This alleviates a lot of misunderstandings among parents about their kids being placed in the correct classes.

The kids, generally, are very eager to learn and challenge themselves.  I love this because it was totally me when I was their age.  I think I’d drive my teachers nuts by giving them a lot of extra work to review.  Mrs. Wood’s world studies travel itinerary assignment for one country turned into an epic round-the-world journey annotated with current exchange rates for the countries I’d be in, visa requirements, and alternative flight and overland connections.  Spanish homework would be also done in French to make it more of a challenge.  I can identify with many of my students.

I teach two sections of three different classes, reading, writing, and cultural studies (history), plus a homeroom.  There are about 40 12-year-old students in total so I see each of them three times a day and I think we’ll really get to know each other.  In reading and writing we’re doing poetry units.  In order to get to know each other better, we’re writing personal narratives in the form of a vignette.  They have picked an event from their lives which they think has made them into who they are today and tell what they learned from that experience.  It has been interesting.

In cultural studies we’ve been learning about hunting-and-gathering societies and the agricultural revolution and the changes farming brought to societies around the world.  One of the technological advances that came about during this time period was the development of tools for farming, including sticks, sickles, and hoes.  “What’s a hoe?” one Russian student asked out loud, shattering the silence of a whole class reading.  Okay, in America, in just about any classroom I’ve worked in, this would summon hysterical laughter and possibly even initiate a volley of personal insult on each others’ mothers.  Here in Almaty, in my 12-year-old class, not a snicker.  Eyes were on me, “Yeah, what’s a hoe?”

"What's a hoe?"

“Ah, it’s a tool used in the garden that you can use to dig a trench to plant seeds.”  Not being an artist, I did my best to draw a hoe on the whiteboard.

“Oh!  I know that,” said a Hungarian student.  “My grandmother has three of them in her shed.”

A Kazakh student added, “We used a hoe this summer at our dacha to plant vegetables.”

Gotta love it!  The students were making text-to-self connections.  In their 12-year-old way, they all wanted to tell a story (lessons can easily get sidetracked by the number of stories these kids like to share with each other).  They were giving examples of the use of the tool.  And there wasn’t a single reference to “street walkers.”  (Brooke's students at her old school in Oakland could, from their classroom windows, see prostitutes working on International Boulevard.  The students even had nicknames for the 'regulars', and knew when any one of them was having a 'good' day!)

These kids are great.  I do miss my students in Oakland though and am happy that many of them send me emails keeping me updated on the goings-on at my school there.

We're enjoying how social everyone is here.  There's a gathering nearly every night at someone's house if you want to get out.  We've gone to game nights several nights this week.  On weekends, there are lots of outdoor events like hikes in the Tien Shan Mountains just a few minutes out of the city.  It's all very supportive and friendly and we're having a great time.