Inner terrain...Outer adventure

Thursday, July 19, 2007

“…as important as methods may be, the most practical thing we can achieve in any kind of work is insight into what is happening inside us as we do it. The more familiar we are with our inner terrain, the more surefooted our teaching—and living—becomes.” From The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer. This is the passage I used to open my teaching with the idea that I wanted this to be my guide. I loved working, playing, and laughing with these teachers.

I was picked up by the principal’s car again this morning. Trang (pronounced “Choung”) came with him, which made the ride nicer. She had ridden home with me yesterday and will be going on the trip with the (American) teachers this weekend. It was a smaller class today, but I had done some research on syllable stress rules in English and was able to give them that information. I also ran across some ESL grammar games that we spent some time playing today. Now that my initial nervousness was over, it was easier to interact and see each of these teachers as individuals. What a lovely group of women. The assistant English head, Ms. Huong, had her 5-6 year old son along today. He walked in and said, “It’s nice to meet you.” I laughed because I was so surprised by this little boy’s English. He showed off more of it during the morning and gave me a pen when we went up to the office for our break.

One of the games we played this morning was “Secret Word.” The class chose a word while someone was in the hall and then we had to ask them questions to get them to say the word in the answer. My favorite moment was when Lan was being asked questions. One of the other students said, “It’s something all of us have.” She said, “Breasts” without missing a beat. I laughed along with everyone else, then I said, “True, but not what we were looking for.” She eventually got “mobile phone,” which was the answer.

I had wanted a picture with the class, but when I got to school, I realized that my camera was gone. I called Sandy to see if she could find it, but she didn’t have any luck. I spent time retracing my steps and figuring out when I last had it. When I got home, I did finally find it, but it wasn’t anywhere near where it should have been. I quickly caught up on backing up all my photos, in case that really DOES happen!!

After lunch at the school, they sent me home by myself in a taxi. There’s nothing like a cab ride in a foreign country to make you realize how much trust you need to put in humanity. I wasn’t completely confident in the route home and I couldn’t have found it myself yet, but I know we went through many new areas that I had never been to. Sandy said her street is hard to find, but you never know whether you’re being “taken for a ride” or just taken for a ride. He was the SLOWEST vehicle I’ve been in (or on) here. He even yielded for pedestrians. I was just beginning to wonder and remembering what Sandy said about just paying what is fair, even if they tell you a different amount, when he asked to see the address again. He looked around and seemed as genuinely glad to find it as I was (and his rate what exactly what it should have been!).

Sandy had errands to run and had asked if she should do it in the morning or wait until I got home. I asked her to wait, I mean, after all, one woman’s errands is another woman’s adventure in the city. And what an adventure it was…

We took Xeoms (pronounced SAY—ooms) which are motor scooter taxis. The 2 men came to pick us up. We had a large bag of books that Sandy was selling and an LCD projector. With our bags and our beings, we loaded up. Riding through the town awake and at daytime was amazing. In the course of today, I saw a 26” TV (in a box—I didn’t measure it.), a ladder, a 10-12’ bundle of molding or trim, 5 1-gallon paint cans, a small mattress, and (my favorite for the day) a gym-sized exercise bike ALL traveling by motor scooter. That’s not even counting the regular bicycles with flowers, fruit, pots, etc.

Intersections were the best (and the worst). We ran several red lights, or so I thought, until I realized that there is a “countdown” monitor for both the red and the green lights. When I light is changing to red, many folks run it. At the same time, the light that is ABOUT to turn green gets to about “5” left and people start going. In this way you have a 5-10 second overlap of traffic going in both directions and the same time. At most intersections or crossings, there is a weave of motor scooters, bicycles, cars, trucks and an occasional pedestrian! In order to turn right on a scooter, you go to the farthest LEFT in your direction, get all the way to the front of the line by the intersection, then merge through traffic within 5 feet to turn right. This works “really” well, especially if you have a horn and hold it down the whole time!

One of the stops was the bank. When we walked in there were several open lines, however, we needed to go up to a small box to get a “Queuing Ticket.” The directions were to push button “A” and a ticket with a number would come out. There was also a button “B,” but there were no directions on what would happen if you pushed it. When I exchanged money at the airport, I got over 3,000,000 VND for $200 USD. Apparently the $200,000 bill of money is new, but the 200VND is being “retired” as no longer necessary. There is now 500, 1000, and 5000 VND coins (as of the past 2 years) which means that now there can be (and are) vending machines. Coins did not exist before this.

Sandy and I went out for dinner tonight. We were having rice and 2 great “hot pot” dishes when Sandy looked over my shoulder, got very wide-eyed, and said, “Kimberly…Kimberly…” As I looked over my shoulder, there was a waiter walking by carrying a turtle by his head. The rest of the body was just hanging and swinging underneath. She said, “Kimberly, did you SEE that turtle. I’ve never actually SEEN a turtle being carried by his head.” That was NOT what we had in our meal!

One tired teacher...

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Amazingly full day and nights. Last night the Amsterdam teaching team came over for dinner along with 3 or 5 other people. The “Amsterdam” team is not from Amsterdam, but that is the name of their school. Apparently, the city of Amsterdam donated money to start this school many years ago. It was pizza and ribs and Coke for dinner, so the college students felt right at home. They were here until past 9:30, which doesn’t sound that late, but I was completely exhausted!!!

This morning I got up and got ready for my full teaching day. I was up by 6 am, at breakfast with Sandy and waited for my ride. I wore pants and had my laptop, etc. in my backpack because Sandy said I would probably be picked up by motorscooter. This time I was ready for that. (Just for reference, I realized that I was SO surprise on Monday because I had only seen 1 scooter and 2 people. I was trying to figure out how we were going to get 4 people on that bike. I’d seen it done, I just wasn’t seeing how Sandy and me being 2 of the people was going to work.)

Lan called to say she was on the way and get the address from Sandy. When she got there, we asked something about the motorbike, but she said “no, we will go by car.” It turned out that the principal of the school had sent his DRIVER with Lan to pick me up and that he would also bring me home. The principal’s car is a very comfortable (and new) Toyota Camry. It is not what you normally see on the roads here. Lan took my arm and walked me down the alley, chatting the whole way. At one point she took my hand and walked me hand in hand the rest of the way to the car. While that’s not something we’d do in the States, it was a very sweet gesture.

We actually left by around 8:15, so my thoughts of starting “on time” in my Western mind, were quickly ended again (though this time I was expecting it, so not as anxious). When we got to the school, we were not dropped off on the street. Rather, the gate at the school’s entrance that is guarded was opened and we were driven right through the courtyard to the door of the classroom. If you’re going to be 35 minutes “late” for presenting, I guess driving up in the head master’s car is the way to “apologize.”

We spent a great morning on a variety of vocabulary instruction techniques, including 2-column notes, mind maps, and vocabulary cartoons. Before lunch, we did some phonics instruction, but the teachers really wanted “rules” for syllable stress. How do you know which syllable to stress? How do you know when to say RECord and when to say reCORD? We had some conversation about it, but I hadn’t prepared that, nor had I brought the books that I would need. I told them I would look up what I had at the house, but when I got home tonight, I realized I hadn’t brought the book I thought I had. I’ve sent emails to a couple people who might be able to help, but I’ve also found some great internet sites that I’ll use tonight.

At 11am, we broke for lunch. I was just going to wait for the other Americans from ELI down by the gate, but the young women from my class, ushered me upstairs to the English head’s air-conditioned office. Specific rooms here have “aircon” and so we waited. While there, someone made me glass of iced tea and we chatted a bit. I am SO amazed at how young all the English teachers are. I think a few are older, but most of them are in their 20’s and look even younger (14-17). At 11:30, I met the team for lunch. One of the teachers walked me down and then introduced me to some of her English students who came to see her.

After lunch, I was stopped by one of the teachers and told that the principal’s office was open for me to go in and have my rest. I went over there and knocked, but no one was there. He was at home having his noon rest. I had the room to myself and looked over some things for the afternoon and then listened to “Wait, Wait. Don’t Tell Me” on my iPod. It was relaxing, but an odd disconnect to hear an American news quiz show in a Vietnamese principal’s office. At 2pm, I went downstairs and, on my way, stopped at the faculty restroom only to discover my first restroom without toilet paper. It wasn’t “out” like at my school at home, but rather there was no place for it and it had never been a thought. Fortunately, Sandy had warned me and I had a travel roll in my bag!

The afternoon session was nice and we talked about and practiced reading strategies. We also had some classroom management questions that we talked about. This was something I was very familiar with. After the session, we went back up to the English chair’s office and then the driver from the principal met us up there. He will also pick me up in the morning (at 8:15, even though we said we’d like to start at 8!). One of the teachers rode with me to Sandy’s and communicated with the driver. I was surprised she was going with me, but very grateful that she did and could help with the questions.

When I go home, another of Sandy’s teams was here, hanging out, checking email and doing laundry. Some of the locations are very expensive for laundry, so the teams use Sandy’s washer. The team from last night was doing a ton of laundry and, when it got picked up, some of mine went in the pile. I rescued some, but I don’t know if I got it all! We had Indian food delivered for dinner and Sandy and I ate with a friend of hers who was having a meeting here tonight. Sandy and I were supposed to go see one of the teams do a culture presentation on Christmas tonight, but I decided I needed some down time this evening. Tomorrow is the last day of teaching, so hopefully, I’ll feel more rested after that.

Teaching begins

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Teaching began today. We left for the Lomonox school around 7:15 am. On our way there, there was a major road block that made our taxi driver need to figure out a new way around. It was closed in front of the stadium that hosted the Japan vs. Vietnam game last night for the Asia Cup. It was unclear why the road was closed off, though, because the game was last night while we were at dinner. It was actually on TV while we were at the “sportsbar” for dinner last night and we had to pause conversations several times for major cheering and celebration. Even though Japan won the match, they showed another match that meant that Vietnam stayed in the tournament. The drive home was like any drive out of a sports stadium—crowded and full of major cheering, shouting, and horn-honking (though this is more common in everyday driving here).

By the time we got to school, it was 7:55 and there was no one to meet us. We waited in the lobby of the main building and about 10 minutes later the principal arrived and was dropped off by his driver. We went up to his office and waited until the head of the English department came in. We then went to her office and had iced tea as other teachers started arriving one by one. We talked about the teaching “schedule” and they wanted me to do “all day” for 2 days. We decided that today would still be just the morning, but that we would do “all day” tomorrow.

When there were 20 or so people in the office, we all went down to the training room. All the seats were neatly lined up in rows with attached desks, so the first thing Sandy and I had the students do was turn them to create groups with two desks facing each other. This would make it easier for them to do the type of work in groups that I was going to require and also make it easier for me to get around the room. We started around 8:30 after the desks had been moved, already challenging part of the comfort zone.

We had a wonderful morning together. One young women was very sullen and not engaged, but when we went around doing the introductions and I invited her to share, the woman next to her said that it was her niece and that she wasn’t a teacher. This now made sense and it was easier to feel at ease. For introductions I gave them a sheet of symbols and they needed to choose one and introduce themselves and explain why they chose their example. One woman chose a key because she liked finding the answer to unlock her questions.

I did a lesson on multiple intelligences and then we read a story together. After we talked about the story, each group was assigned one of the intelligences and they needed to use that one to retell the story and explain the moral. The kinesthetic group did an entire play of the story and another group retold it as a comic strip. It was a very fun morning together. We finished at 11 and discussed the schedule for tomorrow. It was decided that we would go from 8 (or 8:30…) until 11 (11:30 was vehemently protested) and then the afternoon would be from 2pm until 4pm. Later, at lunch, I found out that this is the school schedule and that, if I wanted to take a nap, there would be an office for me to do that.

We went to lunch with a team from Auburn, Alabama at a restaurant across the street. It turns out, the assistant principal/head of the English department’s family owns the restaurant and the ELI team that is there eats lunch there every day. I will eat with them tomorrow and Sandy will leave me all on my own!

When we got home today, I took a major power nap. Now I have some details to finish for tomorrow’s lesson and in an hour we’re having 16 people over for dinner. Thanks for all of you who were praying for my first day. It went really well.