'Exciting' Tuc Tuc Ride through Beijing
Labels:
India
The jokes on Ms. Kothlow
For a change, I often give my students a countdown from ten to pick up their books and quickly run to a new desk in the classroom. This was one of those times. New desk, new partner, new beginning. So 10… 9… 8... [students are scrambling] 7… 6… 5… [I turn to write on the board] 4… 3… 2… [I turn back to the class. The last students sit down. Now everyone is ready, quiet and waiting. But one desk is empty. I look around.] “Where did Alan go?” I ask. Two students giggle. I turn around and Alan, hiding crouched behind the back of my legs, jumps up right against me with this huge grin across his face. I don't smile right away; it was more of a shreek at first. Everyone laughs. I have no idea how I didn't see him. Alan grins, touches my shoulder and looks me in the eyes, slightly apologetically, then turns, throws his fists into the air in triumph and walks to his new desk. A new beginning with a surprise is a good sign for a new beginning I think.
Labels:
India
Our Local Market: Manjitan
Labels:
China
Maple Leaf Campus
Labels:
China
Dalian Maple Leaf International School
DMLIS, its 2000 senior secondary students and its 200 or so teachers are located one hour outside Dalian, a north-eastern city of about five million, roughly midway between Beijing and North Korea along the coast.
It aims to "blend the best of Chinese and Canadian education" and I believe that is does this successfully in many areas of student school and life. I really appreciate the value placed on discipline in Chinese education. Simply put: the students are generally remarkebly self-disciplined when they face challenges in their studies and it leads to a lot of success stories in our classrooms.
This is posted at the front door to the grade 10 building and I post it here to wonder what would happen if it was posted in a North American high school.
Labels:
China
I needed a Plan B
Plan A would be sharing the content of this blog in person, face to face in conversation, you share-I share, with dramatic effect, actions... voices.... the whole bit. But my friends and family have become scattered across the globe, making Plan A not always feasible. So, this blog becomes part of a 'Plan B'; to share some of my "special moments":
- Alysha learns something new
- Alysha does something she thinks is interesting
- Alysha thinks it's funny
- Alysha is brought to question
Emily Dickinson wrote to "dwell in possibility", taken by me to mean the possibility that the everyday things are more than the evident; that they stand filled with possible opportunities for laughter, insight, motivation, change... anything really, for those willing to open their minds to them. I don't know what this blog will transform into, but for now I should dwell in all its possibilities. If she had been born one hundred years later and was looking for a Plan B, maybe she also would have written a blog, or at least I like to think so.

I dwell in Possibility —
A fairer House than Prose —
More numerous of Windows —
Superior—for Doors —
Of Chambers as the Cedars —
Impregnable of Eye—
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky—
Of Visitors —the fairest—
For Occupation —This—
The spreading wide of narrow Hands
To gather Paradise—