Classroom work-shop 
I had a lovely time this week working with one very special teacher. She has a senior position in a primary school and is also in charge of Learning Support. I was mesmerised by her way with the children, her firm gentle kindnesses that steered them through the ups and downs of an ordinary school day. She wanted help with her room, but didn't know where to start. She had squirreled into her space, piles and piles of supplies, making the room look like a store cupboard and not like a workshop geared to accelerate the basic skills of Special Educational Needs children. A work shop...a place where there are comfortable spaces to work, with easy access to appropriate resources to make that work smoothly possible, but where she also needed to think of the "shop" part of the word workshop too.
In Dominica the shops are having a sort out. The shelves, once full of Christmas things, are now needed for more appropriate items, which are labeled and put into related and easy to find areas. Shopkeepers give lots of attention to selling their goods. Teachers need to give lots of attention to "selling" education.
Together we worked out a priority list of jobs to be tackled one at a time, so allowing for those inevitable daily interuptions of a senior teacher.
1) Plan where you want your different areas, your Book Nook, your chalk board area, your Language Arts resources, your special theme area to display charts, children's writing, drawings, puppets, your word wall.
2) Give no space to things that are not appropriate..remember those after Christmas clear outs in the shops. If a classroom book or resource is too hard, in too bad condition, then do not let it take up valuable learning space. Have three piles, to keep, to move on elsewhere, to throw out or recycle.
3) Make labels for your areas and resources in fonts appropriate to the reading skills of the children and then, choose a theme, plan a project around it and make a really special display.
All children are special, make their classroom special and have nothing in it that room that is not promoting their efficient learning. Have no space anywhere there that is tatty or looks like a dumping ground...and this includes your desk top!!!. The children will work and learn much better in such a room and you will too. Everyone will like being there.
I left this lovely teacher with a look of enthusiasm and comfort on her face. She said she couldn't wait to get started. I look forward to seeing how she gets on..and have, of course, offered any help if , during this transformation, she needs it. What an enriching day we had together. Thank you Mrs C. It was inspiring!
4th January 2009
Looking Backwards.
Well, the celebrations are mellowing and people are getting back to work and back to the old routine, and, on radio and television, there's the tendency to run programmes that look back on the events of the 2008, back on the main news items, back on the main sports events, back on the music that topped the charts. So what do I look back on via show-me-Wow?
I have been in more schools, met more enthusiastic teachers, have delivered more short academic philosophies backed by practical, fun work. I have been involved in two "Make it and Take it" sessions, in a series of four workshops for teachers of French and, in between all this, have been throwing together the odd ideas for this BLOG and sorting, boxing and distributing the many gifts that have arrived from all over the world for our schools here in Dominica. What a bumper year! 1,500 children's beautiful books came from England, 8 big plastic boxes of stationery from those wonderful middle school children in Upstate New York, 70 First Aid boxes from Florida, bags and suitcases full of supplies (pencils, crayons, rulers, stencils, fabrics, glue, merit stickers, scissors etc.etc.) from visitors to the island of Dominica.
And in schools, I see a difference in teaching styles, in teachers setting up book corners in their classrooms, in teachers making their areas a better learning environment and, I have to smile, in teachers taking my advice and moving their teacher's desk, which had been taking up prime learning space at the front of the classroom, to...a space at the BACK!
There is certainly much value in occasionally looking backwards, as it often results in a feeling of WOW! But what's next? Well, I look back on one of last year's top tunes here in Dominica heartily sung by hundreds of celebrators at the stadium during the Reunion for the 30th Anniversary of Independence ...
"Forward we go, forward we go, forward we go!"
1st January 2009.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to all those people who have anything to do with Show-me-WOW....to student teachers, who visit the site, (especially when they have an assignment to do to!) to teachers, who welcome me into their classrooms and try out my ideas, to principals, who invite me into their schools to do whole staff training, to Education Officers, who ask me to help them in training sessions, to Senior Education Officials, who give me their blessings, their support and their thanks, to donors who send (or even personally deliver to my house), school supplies and, to the children, who see me in the street, or in their schools and flap their hands beside their faces and then stretch out their arms and say "Fantastic".
May you all have a FANTASTIC 2009!
26th December 2008
Sunny Greetings
With schools starting back next week, I am already looking forward to several teacher training sessions. You see, I am always greeted with welcoming smiles and sometimes an, "It's Chris! The cavalry has arrived!" Of course, many of these friendly teachers carry on that welcoming sunny greeting as they go into their classes to meet their pupils, but amazingly, some of the nicest teachers seem to change their persona once in the classroom and take on what I call the cold, factory inspector style. I am sure they do not realize how counterproductive this attitude is and I feel very sad when I see children missing out on a friendly start to the day.
It was the same on Christmas morning, not with factory inspector style teachers, but with tourists! They flocked in 4 minibuses to one of our favourite beaches, the very beach we had chosen for our Christmas Day, before lunch walk. This beach is all nature, untouched and superb for snorkeling, with hot bubbles coming up from the sea bed. My son once swam with a turtle there and was ecstatic! This beach offers so many possibilities. The sea was so blue you could not believe it and the sun glistened like fairy lights on the water. Going back to the car parking area is a wooden walkway and I stood on this to take in the view of such a beautiful place on Christmas Day. The tourists were now straggling along the walkway towards a snack and the ride back to their cruise ship. One after one, as they passed me, they averted their eyes. Now I'm sure they are all very kind and friendly people and, being an English lady, I'm also sure I was not dressed inappropriately or anything like that. So, one by one, I made a point of attracting their attention and wishing them a "Good Day and a Merry Christmas!". I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge after a bad night of being visited by the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future! "Hey you there! Is it still Christmas?"
Well if you can't exchange welcoming greetings here, in one of the most beautiful places on earth and on Christmas Day what next? I do hope none of these underneath, quite kind and friendly tourists, are not factory inspector type teachers but, if they are, I hope someone writes a BLOG like this to gently tell them. Oh and by the way, as well as to them, to you I also want to say,
"Good Day and a Merry Christmas!"
22nd December 2008
My chicken wire challenge.
What an excellent turn out of about 25 teachers to the whole day "Make it and Take it" workshop last week...and on the first day of the school holidays too! There were lots of ideas to copy, but I could see, on some faces, an apprehensive "I can't do that!" look or an "I am not creative enough" stare as they examined my home made examples. Some were probably despairing that I would never be able to empathise with them. Huh! They should have seen me a few days later, when I experienced that same apprehension!
On Saturday we were having a special "Lighting of the Christmas Tree" celebration in the large and beautiful garden in our village, so, on Friday, everyone was busy setting out pot plants and doing amazing flower arrangements. "What can I do to help?" I asked.
I was shown a roll of chicken wire. Well that did fit in with a gardening theme but what was I to do with it?
"We need you to make lots of animals and make two adults, life sized, one standing and one kneeling in prayer."
"Out of this chicken wire?" I asked amazed. I was thinking, "I can't do that! I'm not creative enough!"
I was feeling wobbly about taking the job on, just like some of those teachers at the "Make it and Take it", but, like them, amongst friends and lots of supportive comments, as well as giggles and chat, I managed a life sized Mary kneeling in prayer and Joseph standing beside her, and a sheep and finally a Baby Jesus to put in the manger. Some creative electricians skillfully lit the scene.
In the right setting and with the right atmosphere and the right support, it's amazing how creative anyone can be. Certainly the "Make it and Take it" teachers were all smiling as they left the workshop, loaded with so many things they had made, that I wondered how they would manage to get on the buses to go home. Oh well, they would just have to smile and be creative again!
Thanks for the fun during all that creativity everyone and wasn't it satisfying that it all turned out so well in the end?
7th December 2008
Poor Marie Antoinette!
There is some dispute as to whether or not Marie Antoinette, when told of the starving poor of Paris, actually did say "Let them eat cake!" but it certainly seems she did not have a clear view of the situation of the needs of the people there! How different are the kind, show-me-wow donors, who have a very clear view of the situation of the needs of schools here in Dominica and so send appropriate, much needed and much appreciated school supplies.
I have been sad to see some charity donations that have arrived (not through show-me-wow), that have made us thankful for the kind and well meaning thoughts, but that are not really appropriate,..a pile of new books on "How to look after and maintain your lawn" on "The British Hedgerow" and "The Hyacinth"...and children's clothes suited for a cold climate.
It is hard when you are not in Dominica, to have a clear view of the situation of the needs of schools here. It is easy to think of sending computers, and yes we need these, but there are schools where there are not enough pencils for all the class to write at the same time, or so a teacher at such a school told me. The teacher has to break pencils in half for them to go round. 
And I am currently trying to get strong plastic spoons and bowls for a school's feeding programme, as the children at the moment are managing with great difficulty, with bendy plastic forks and such an assortment of margarine tubs and anything else that will hold their chicken broth and a dumpling.
I am so grateful to those kind show-me-wow donors who have not been the least like Marie Antoinette. Your wonderful gifts have always been just what we really need and so I say a big thank you for the trouble you take to so carefully choose what you send. Poor Marie Antoinette!
3rd December 2008
Angelic teachers.
When you are a young, inexperienced teacher, don't you just cringe when you are struggling with the behaviour of one particular class or one particular group of pupils and a more experienced teacher, seeing you don't know what to do next says, "Well they are never any trouble with ME!" Don't you just squirm as you try to come to terms with what you label as your own dreadful inadequacies?
I suppose all teachers are guilty of occasionally feeling they do a better job than others, their class gets better results, their classroom is more inspiring for learning, their relationship with parents is never less then harmonious. Maybe we can all take a lesson from the poem that was read on the B.B.C. recently... and learn to try to always give each other an angelic star!
Fancy Meeting YOU!
I dreamt death came the other night and heaven's gate swung wide.
With kindly grace an angel came and ushered me inside
And there, to my astonishment, stood folk I'd known on earth
Some I'd judged as quite unfit, or but of little worth.
Indignant words rose to my lips, but never were set free
For every face showed stunned surprise!
No one expected ME!
(Anon.)
2nd December 2008
Hoping for a tune
I have described some schools here in Dominica that are very crowded, and there are others that have lots of space. The school I visited today has space.
At one time the library not only housed books, but it was also the room where music was taught. Now I think you will agree that libraries need to be fairly quiet places and music is necessarily noisy, so the two subjects don't exactly...well, harmonise! But this school now has the space for music lessons to be in a spare room and the music teacher has worked wonders in the last few weeks, painting the concrete floor, setting up rows of chairs for choir and making a music experiment corner with any bits and pieces of musical instruments she can find, even setting up a row of tuned bottles with various amounts of water in to make the note. What work and what inspiration! But, as she sits there in the quiet, she dreams of having some simple instruments, for example, some recorders, some drums, oh once she starts dreaming she sees a whole orchestra... and she would love some manuscript paper. Instruments and paper! Mmm!
Well we found a computer programme that will supply free manuscript paper..but wonder if there is anyone with spare musical instruments of any kind who would give them to show-me-wow so that I can pass them on. Maybe, just maybe, there is someone reading this BLOG who could help turn this new venture music room into somewhere a little more noisy.... and turn a music teacher's dream into a reality. With all the work she has done, she certaily deserves any help we can give, so I'll cross my fingers and hope for a tune.
28th November 2008
The real thing
There are artificial evergreen wreaths swathed in red bows, and never- to-see-the-real-thing-here fir trees decked in plastic icicles all around Dominican shops, whilst sound systems blare out traditional carols with a Caribbean beat and the speaker on the sun soaked doorstep of one shop once again announces "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas".
"What is snow like Miss?" ask numerous children at any time of the year here.
Well I can describe what snow looks like, what it sounds like, what it tastes like and what it feels like, but whatever I say and whatever pictures I show, they will never truly know what snow is really like unless they get first hand experience. There is nothing like the real thing when you are learning about something, whatever that something is. Which is why it is so important for teachers to get children out of their classroom seats to experience the world around them. Oh I know you can't take them to experience real snow, but there are so many opportunities for true learning overlooked by teachers, who rely too much on their own droning voices followed by children doing exercise after exercise from the chalkboard! One enlightened teacher told me she had "just walked her children across the road to the beach to listen to the sounds of the shore".
"It was fun and they had so much to say and write about these sounds when they got back!" she said.
"Lucky class!" I say.
If I crush some ice cubes, maybe I could make Caribbean snow for the children, but in these year-round, warm temperatures it certainly wouldn't last. Ah well, we'll just have to experience the snow in our "Dreaming of a white Christmas" hoping that teachers here take much more lesson time for children to experience, first hand, all those Dominican things that are as wonderful as snow. Mmm..the sounds of the sea shore is a good start.
21st November 2008
How to make babies!
I was told this morning of a primary aged child who arrived home from school announcing that she now knew how to make babies. Her surprised parents were lost for words at this, so the child chanted,
"You cross off the Y and add I,E,S,! "
Children learn spellings much more easily when they chant the letters or have a mnemonic. Perhaps her teacher had read the show-me-wow page on spelling. I imagine her parents were surprised, but I also hope they were not too speechless to say "Well done!" to their daughter for her improved spelling skills!
Click here for page on Spelling Skills
20th November 2008
Lost luggage
It's funny how some teachers have their own stock phrases they use so often, that even years later they can pop up in your memory. My husband recalls his geography master who could not pronounce his rrrr's, but was frequently referring to "fwost fwee days". Well we have plenty of frost free days in the Caribbean. One schoolmaster I recall, frequently advocated "Always be in the right place at the right time!" to reprimand pupils arriving late for a lesson, handing in late homework, or forgetting a sports practice.
I remembered his words last Friday, when we flew my mother to a nearbye island where we would stay overnight and then have an easy next day, ready for her evening flight back to London. Having packed Mum's bag, I'd kept back her winter clothes for the long haul flight, putting them in our bag. At our island destination, a buggy took Mum across the tarmac and we were led to the head of the immigration queue, so Mum would not have to stand for long. We were first into the room with the carousels and I found mum the only chair which was behind a desk. Other passengers from our flight were coming through now and baggage was accumulating on the moving carousel. We were all searching for our individual luggage, eventually realising that not one of us had found any! None of this moving luggage belong to any of us! Instantly, there was a mass rush to Information whilst I went back to Mum to explain, only to find someone mistaking her for airport staff and asking her for help. Mum's 92, so we all had a chuckle!
It seems our small plane had been filled with so much back-log luggage, there was no room for any luggage belonging to any of the current passengers. Tensions were high, airport staff were harrassed. We waited for the next plane. No luck. We returned early the next day hoping to retrieve the bag with Mum's winter clothes in, in time for her to change from her frost free clothes. Again no luck. My 92 year old mother returned to grey and wintry Gatwick in her pink summer outfit and her pink flowery sunhat. Mum cheerfully said, "Oh well, it can't be helped!" I suppose at 92 you mellow. Q and I stayed on for two more days, no swimwear, no shorts, no luggage, having take away suppers, which we could eat whilst draped in bath towels as our clothes were once again washed in a hand basin and pegged out to hopefully be dry ready to wear yet again the next day.
In all this, I couldn't help remembering that school master who always advocated "Always be in the right place at the right time!" What a shame our luggage was never in his classes. I wonder where our luggage is now!
10th November 2008
Good teachers go on learning
I have always said that good teachers go on learning, whereas bad teachers think they know it all already! This is what makes good teaching fascinating, because someone who is striving to be a good teacher is always willing to listen and to try out new ideas.
With this in mind, and having been recommended Harry Wong, I visited his website and even filled in the "What is your teaching effectiveness" questionaire, despite the fact that the "yes" and "no" answers it demanded made me often want to say, "Ah, but that depends!"
Having worked my way down the questions, I then clicked to the next page to find out my score. I was maybe arrogantly dismayed when I discovered I had done quite badly and was in the sort of category of:
"You're just surviving aren't you!"
Well, as well as being an educationalist, Harry Wong is also a business man and so he kindly recommended the various titles of his books I could buy to address my deficiencies. I am still thinking about all this, but at least it has reminded me that
good teachers are always learning,
so with my low score still stinging, I had better get on with it!
1st November 2008
Lost in translation!
Having lived in Wales, we were used to each Welsh road sign being in Welsh with an English translation on the same sign, so we were particularly amused to read the story of the making of a not-too-usual Welsh road sign which said,
" No entry for heavy goods vehicles.Residential site only"
English instructions were sent from the sign maker to the Welsh speaking translator, who sent back an email in Welsh saying,
"Gone out for a while. Will do this on return"
The non-Welsh speaking signwriter, thinking this was the translation, duly inscribed these Welsh words onto the new road sign!
It is so easy for the intended meanings of words to get lost in translation. I felt sorry for a new child who, with both a very poor language facility and poor social skills said to a teacher "Cor Miss you stink!" Everyone knew that this teacher always wore a heavy perfume and the child was simply remarking that she had noticed this not unpleasant, but heavy scent. Wanting such personal comments to immediately STOP, the teacher sent the surprised child out of class for insolence, the child completely unaware that her words had been so very misunderstood!
In English schools we often tell children to "Finish now" particularly at the end of an examination. The children put pencils down straight away. So my English teacher friend, teaching here in Dominica said "Finish now" to a Dominican child here in her class. The child went on writing and so the teacher repeated "Finish now!" The child wrote even more feverishly. To the child, the instruction meant "get the work completed!" Maybe the English teacher should have said "STOP!"
Maybe that is what the signwriter should have written on the Welsh road sign to avoid confusion all round!
Despite having so many examples of incidences in schools where words have been sadly misinterpreted, I think that now I had better STOP too, so you can have a think about all this!
27th October 2008
Those salad days!
I spent too long in a local school the other day, where the class were busy making lists of unfamiliar words from a text. I dashed home to make a quick salad for lunch, nothing special as there was not time to be artistic, 'though I have always been interested in art, though can claim no talent. As I washed the lettuce and tomatoes and sliced the beetroot, I recalled an art lesson years ago when I was a pupil. The new teacher told us to "Paint a plate of salad"! Now I know what a salad looks like, but I could not recall all the details in my visual memory to reproduce the colours and shapes on paper. What shape were the different lettuce leaves, what pattern did the tomato seeds make and how did the circles go in the beetroot? I peered around the room finding nothing to remind me. If only the teacher had realised we need to be exposed to a visual image time and time again in order to fix it into our visual memory. And so it was with the children in the class I had just been visiting. They could copy down the unfamiliar words correctly, but so many of them were struggling to write the title, "Unfamiliar words" They had no visual image in their visual memory of what the word "unfamiliar"looked like. They were unfamiliar with the shapes and letter strings in the word "unfamiliar" and some, like me at their age, peered round the room, even closed their eyes for a moment to try to capture, from anywhere, the correct spelling. For some, their spelling attempt of the word "unfamiliar" was, in many ways, like my attempt to paint a salad...almost unrecognisable!
Children need to have access to the visual image of a word many many times before it becomes fixed in their visual memory. "Sound it out" works so rarely in English spelling and "Look it up in a dictionary" is too hard and arduous a task if you can't almost spell it in the first place!
And that salad I was making for lunch? Well, although hastily put together, I did take a look at those tomato seed patterns before I sat down to eat it!
Click here for page on Spelling Skills
23rd October 2008
The Corgi Dog Syndrome!
You'll know the characteristics of the child who has this, but maybe you have not heard the name before! The small corgi dog is known as one of the Queen's favourite breeds, often photographed dashing so near to the Queen's walking feet, that I wonder how Her Majesty copes with it. These dogs are constantly irritating, pushing their luck, nipping at the ankles, yet smart enough for you to go on and on putting up with it, because they cleverly know when to stop...that is, just before you reach your breaking point. So now you recognise what teachers in an English staffroom call, "The corgi dog syndrome!" Sadly, such behaviour from pupils can gradually wear a teacher down, can drain a teacher's energy and patience to the inevitable detriment of the quality of teaching and learning going on in the classroom. Yet you never quite put the finger on what is happening, and you never quite get round to nipping the problem in the bud. The child goes quiet for a bit, but is soon back irritatingly nipping at your heels.
Well, children who misbehave go on doing so all the time you maintain the same response. You can only change the behaviour of a child, or of your class, by changing your own behaviour. If you don't, the situation is perpetuated. Teachers complain to me, "I have told them so many times not to keep calling out in class!" or "I keep telling them not to keep running in and out at snack time, but they go on and on doing it!" It's the corgi dog syndrome and to overcome it, you have to change your approach, surprise them and finally put a stop to all that ankle nipping that drains your patience and energy. Good luck to everyone, who is bothered by the corgi dog syndrome, respectfully including Her Majesty of course! Oh and if you could send us a few tips Ma'am, it's www.show-me-wow.com
21st October 2008
The best seat
There are so many activities and events going on this month here in Dominica's 30 Years of Independence Celebrations and, with extra visitors here from overseas, there is a more than usual effort to get to the different venues in good time to find the best seats. I, too, set off early, often with my mother, who is also a visitor to Dominica. I look out for a seat from where she can see and hear well and from where she can have the best chance of understanding what is happening.
Going round different classrooms on the island, I look for similar things in a classroom layout. Has the teacher thought which seats in the classroom give the best chances for children to see and hear and understand well? Many teachers have already taken my tip of moving their own desk to the back of the room to give all children a better vantage. However, some children miss out because the teacher has not realised that, when doing chalkboard work, some children have a much better seat than others. For example, if the teacher is facing the board with her back to the children and if that teacher is right handed, then those children sitting over the teacher's left shoulder have the "best" seats! The teacher's body is not hiding so much of the blackboard work from those "best seat" children, so they are the lucky learning ones. (Alternatively, it works the other way if the teacher is left handed of course.) So look at the "best seat" positions in your classroom and put as many children there as you can. Certainly, don't waste those "best seat" spaces with shelves of school bags or a table laden with piles of books such as I recently saw. A quick shuffle of the furniture in those two classrooms meant more pupils can see, hear and understand the lesson better and this has certainly got the nod of approval and a smile from the teachers concerned!
Oops! Please excuse me if I now dash off to the next Dominica's Independence Event. After all, I want to get the best seat don't I?
16th October 2008
Counting steps in the classroom
My mother loves those breakfast cereals that go "Snap, crackle and pop!" and is working her way through a box during her stay here in Dominica. But the box contained not just Rice Crispies, but also a free gift, a step counter, which you clip to your waist band for it to count the steps you take. It made me think of the different teaching styles I see here in Dominica and reminds me of a comment one teacher wrote in her feedback following one of my series of teacher training sessions.
"I notice Chris walks about a lot and is always on her feet, so I am doing that more now and it has improved my teaching"
Well, maybe it is a European classroom habit I have. Maybe it is not so easy to be so in-classroom active in this tropical climate, but I am saddened that so many teachers here in Dominica get settled behind their desks and "teach" from there for much of the school day! How can they monitor what is going on with all the children in the room, especially with the ones who sit quietly and can thus go so easily unnoticed? How can they give that important word of encouragement to such a child, or conversely correct a child who is just starting to make those first wobbles over a new concept? Well I have no answer to this, but maybe if I had more of these step counters, I could hand them out and so prove my point. Perhaps I had better write to Messrs Snap, Crackle and Pop! In the meantime, I could loan this free gift step counter I already have, but I guess the applicant would be a stepping-round-the-classroom type of teacher anyway!
8th October 2008
Savour the moment. 
Many people in Dominica feel sure that time goes much faster here than anywhere else. Certainly, I am amazed at how the half term break is not that far off and although there is probably much to do before then, everyone looks forward to a holiday away from school routine, everyone, that is, except one child I knew. We'd been talking about holiday plans in class time and one boy quietly announced he did not like school holidays. Oh dear! Was it that he missed my wonderful lessons, was there a crisis at home too hard to cope with?
"Miss, it's just we always have to write about our holiday when we get back to school!"
Now I know I encourage teachers to use every opportunity they can to promote learning, but I ask them to remember this boy. There are times when having to write about something joyful is not everyone's cup of tea! Even making sure some children write about each book when they have finished reading it can cause a silent groan. I know there are times when even I would hate to finish the experience of reading a lovely book by having to write about it. And the trouble is, the child who finds reading a struggle, is often the child who also finds writing a struggle, so there's a double, silent groan there!
Sometimes it's more educational to complete enjoying something by just sitting and savouring the moment, be it school holiday memories or a just-read good book....... or looking at a sunset on a Caribbean sea, or observing a beautiful humming bird gathering nectar from a tropical flower, or just exchanging a smile with a teacher. Mmm! See what I mean?
7th October 2008
French wobbles!
I was looking forward to the input I had been asked to give during each of 5 sessions of training a total of 70 primary and secondary teachers of French. My French is not that good, but I was to talk about the pedagogie of teaching the language, the principles of which are all over on the various pages of www.show-me-wow.com I was particularly enthusiastic about working on the second session, with "new teachers". I think of them as enthusiastic and full of interest and ideas with hopefully at least a little passion, but when I trundled my brght yellow www.show-me-wow.com luggage bag across the floors of Alliance Francaise, there were many stiff and serious faces, even when I'd cheerfully wished them all "Bonjour!" I felt as if I had just arrived in the dentist's waiting room. But I set up my colourful puppets and workcards and other home-made classroom resources topping it all with the tricoleur flag I had made out of three old table napkins of blue, white and red.
We soon had these young teachers smiling and when I had a chance, I asked why they had earlier looked so serious and gloomy and reluctant to take part in the activities. They had all seemed so unready to learn.
"We were scared! We didn't know what we would have to do! We were nervous we wouldn't be able to do what we were asked, and we'd be embarrassed in front of everyone!"
"Wow!", I said with a chuckle. "I'm glad you felt like that!"
They looked amazed at my comment.
"Now you know how important it is that your pupils don't feel like that about any of the lessons you give them! They learn so much better if they don't feel threatened and if they feel confident about what they will be expected to do"
The young teachers nodded knowingly and we had a most successful and fun session, despite the ranges in their French speaking ability. We even said goodbye with an "A la prochaine" (here's to the next time), so they obviously looked forward to coming again!
2nd October 2008
"Miss...the pig's in the car park!"
During the snack break of a teacher training session promoting creativity in teaching and learning, teachers enthused that they would love to be more creative, but that the over detailed lesson plans they have to do daily take time away from them getting creatively started.
During the course I urge teachers to encourage children to be more actively creative and more actively responsible in their learning. Sure, there will be slip ups in such a system... as happened with one group of young teenagers doing a pre-vocational agricultural course. They decided the school pig needed a bigger space so they creatively designed and were actively responsible for extending the pig pen by moving the fence nearer to the oak tree that shaded the teachers' cars. Of course, it turned out to be a bigger job than they had planned! On eventually returning to the classroom for my English Literature lesson, the last member of the group arrived even later than the others, but nevertheless puffing and panting.
"Miss, Miss, the pig's in the car park eating all the acorns from the oak tree and making a terrible smelly mess on the teachers' cars!"
So much for burning the midnight oil to prepare burdensome detailed lesson plans when adopting creativity in teaching and learning. The two don't go together! Lessons plans should be succinct, flexible and adaptable.. well that's what I think anyway. It is far better for teachers to spend their time planning creativity in their head and getting a good night's sleep to enjoy the fun of it... than for them to exhaust themselves doing detailed lesson notes that a pig can scoff at in a moment of pig pen escape don't you think!
September 23rd 2008
High Flyers and Glasses.
"Children are not so serious as grown ups and they love to laugh!" said Roald Dahl, the famous author of very popular children's books.
My mother, currently having her first visit to Dominica, travelled from London Gatwick to Antigua on her own, taken care of by wonderful British Airways staff. We met her as she was wheeled through the Arrivals doors airport surrounded by three smiling stewardesses, who handed her over to us so that we could bring her on the last leg to Melville Hall Airport, Dominica.
Well, as you know, I often use my visitors in schools and Mum was soon visiting the village school to be interviewed by a group of 11 year olds about "What it's like to be 92"..Oh didn't I tell you? Mum was 92 a few days after her arrival!
The children took copious notes of Mum's family details and the fact that she had lived through two world wars. But what did they most remember about the interview? It was Mum's story of her having to wear glasses when only 6 years old. A boy called her "Four eyes!" so she hit him round the face! She admitted that even when he had grown up, she still felt sorry she had done this. The children laughed at her antics and listened to her sorrow, but they still "love to laugh" at the story.
Yes, Roald Dalh was right about children loving to laugh. No wonder his children's books are so child centred. He would have enjoyed the birthday interview.
Thanks and well done Mum and Happy Birthday now you are 92 years young!
(Teachers please note that there may be several children in your classes who really need glasses, but have no chance of getting them, so be aware of this and help them all you can towards being high flyers.)
September 11th 2008
Crocodile Tears? Not really!
I can't help it, I am one of the world's worst at saying "Goodbye" so it was with a huge lump in my throat and tears behind my sunglasses that I waved off my visitors as they boarded the ferry for Martinique. I watched their boat from the shore and flashed a mirror to them as they did likewise to me. I was clinging on tightly to every second until finally the boat disappeared over the horizon. I was left standing there and how heavy my heart felt!
So I was reminded of this when I heard wailing outside a school office at the beginning of term..wailing and sobbing by a new little one who just hated to say "Goodbye" to her family and to be left standing there with a heavy heart. I knew this feeling only too well. I had had a big build up to my own very first school days being chivvied along with how big I was getting to be a real schoolgirl. I carried it all off well for a few days, but soon the novelty wore off and, pondering the next school day, I decided, "Thanks, but no thanks!" (I had not realised this new going-to-school-business was well, compulsory!) I can remember the head teacher grabbing my wrist, (I can feel her nails in my skin now) and dragging me to my classroom, walking so fast, my feet could hardly keep up. "We'll have none of this nonsense!" she declared with a steely stare. From that moment I lost confidence and trust in all her former smiles. Well of course I did!
But this other child had a head teacher with a different philosophy. With empathy for the sobbing pupil the lady gently took the small hand to set off together to see all the nice things in the school, and talking tenderly. It wasn't long before the sad child's attention was directed away from that heavy heart, now feeling confidence and trust in her new head teacher.The pupil was soon occupied with a classroom activity and felt much better, in the same way as I, popping the mirror in my bag, left the shore to head home and to get on with changing the beds .....confidently reminding myself that you have to say goodbye to say hello again!
29th August 2008
Painting places, painting faces....
What a face lift a group of us were able to give to one village school last week. We chose the same colours as before, grey on the lower part of the walls and pale green above. This way we managed with one coat of paint, so we had enough over to do other classroom areas as well.
Outside in the yard, village volunteers were soap and water scrubbing old wooden desks and benches ready for a coat of varnish. Next day we added finishing touches arranging books and covering a chalkboard, that is no longer used, with fabric donated by some visitors to Dominica. Then we made a helpers chart, so the children can take on the pride and responsibility of keeping the newly painted areas looking good... and a word tree.
A few days later, and in another part of the island the talk was again about paint, but this time face paint! An after school drama group made up of vulnerable, underprivileged teenagers from different schools, has been meeting once a week for some time now. The students have grown in self confidence and maturity and have developed great skills in working as a team. Yet, what was most impressive was their creativity..their ideas and imagination showed such potential and there was often talk of past productions and ones to come. But they dream of having some grease paint to really enhance their work as they have none. What a shame we didn't ask all those actors filming "The Pirates of the Caribbean" here in Dominica, but maybe there is someone else somewhere who can help paint a smile on these young acting faces.
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Click here for drama ideas
21st August 2008
Learning for all ages
What a busy couple of weeks! I had the privilege of working on a summer school at The Old Mill Cultural Centre with one of our wonderful Dominican artists Earl Etienne, a talented painter and a charmingly mellow man of, shall we say, slightly mature years, but certainly not old..just a comfortable age! On seeing him start one of his lessons with teenagers, I afterwards humbly muttered,
"Earl, would you be offended if I gave you one or two teaching tips?"
"Certainly not Chris! I hope I am never too old to learn!"
So I tactfully said what I wanted to the Maestro, he smiled, sincerely thanked me and even asked me to write my points down so he could read it again "for homework"! We laughed together.
P.S. The list was not this long!!!!
Then today I started a new venture. Many mums in the village see me delivering supplies to schools and ask about books for pre-school children. So, having obtained the kind permission of the Village Council, I found a stout cardboard box, gave it a coat of emulsion paint, then labelled and decorated it and filled it with 32 beautiful pre school story books to leave with a signing out book in the council offices. Young parents can now borrow a book to take home and encourage their pre-school children to develop a love of books and then hopefully a love of reading. Little ones are never too young to learn.
(I just hope that I will never be too old to go on having all this youthful fun. What do you think?)
9th August 2008
It's good to talk
.
Many of the biggest advertising hoardings here in Dominica promote the use of 'phones, (though the number of people you see using them here, there and everywhere makes you wonder why advertising is necessary!) It all reminds me of an earlier phone advertising slogan, which exclaimed "It's good to talk!"
Practicing communicating through the spoken word is so important in all walks of life isn't it? I am told in racing car circles, that it is not necessarily the best car that wins the race, but the car whose driver can communicate the most succinctly and clearly when he drives in with a pit stop problem. It seems his driving skills can often be of secondary importance to his spoken communication skills. Wow! And speaking to an ex pupil who is now a doctor, he complains that he could do his job a lot better in helping improve health, if only his patients could describe their symptoms more clearly and accurately. And if you ask someone here for directions you can be told,"You start at the bus stop" (we have very few bus stops... you just have to know where to stand in the road) " and then you go up so!"
So teachers who might be beginning to think about next term's programmes, please remember to fit in lots of lesson time for talking and also consider adopting the slogan in with your class..."It's good to talk". Remind yourselves that just because talking is not filling up pages of exercise books, it is still very educational and what's more it can, in its many aspects, be such learning fun....and I don't mean just talking on the 'phone!
Education Transportation
The past weeks have brought a marvelous amount of school supplies from generous adults and children from overseas and I am overwhelmed by their generosity. I made up boxes of books and stationery to get to drop off places for teachers to collect, school buildings being locked for summer holidays. I also gave supplies to the Western Dominica Children's Project, who help very under-priviledged children have basic equipment for lessons. But this has meant spending hours at the port, (three and a half hours on one pick-up, seeing 16 different people,) as well as frequently digging deeply into our personal pockets to pay the fees. For too long, I tried to find a better system, but this week met the Permanent Secretary, who offered to make changes.This includes having all donations addressed to me via the P.S. The new address is:
The Permanent Secretary
Ministry of Education
Roseau,
Commonwealth of Dominica
(CHARITY SCHOOL SUPPLIES FOR THE ATTENTION OF CHRIS LAWRENCE)
Retrieving of gifts can give much consternation so it's tempting to ask "Is it worth it?", but seeing the children trying to manage with so little, you know they deserve your perseverance, which is what I have been doing at the Post Office chasing a missing parcel posted by a kind Texas family on January 1st. Their package arrived recently, having taken a long vacation on the Dominican Republic before finding its way to the Commonwealth of Dominica! I immediately emailed the donor, who said she would keep the good news to announce at the family's evening meal and "they will be delighted!" I thank this family for their perseverance and assure them the wait was worthwhile and the children will love the things they sent.
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27th July 2008.
Remember that old song
"Oh the farmer and the cowboy should be friends" from Oklahoma?
Well I have been thinking about it several times as I meet students with parents out on school holiday. They proudly tell me which grade they will be going into next term. They are even more proud of this news here in Dominica, because the upgrade is looked upon a promotion. (Children who don't make the grade must repeat the year and my chats with grade repeaters makes me realise how emotionally hard this is for them.)
But back to my holiday chats. I ask the name of the next teacher and, as the child proudly tells me, I notice, in the background, the look on the face of the parent. Some are delighted, some relieved, but some look as if they will, at the first opportunity, be going into school with guns blazing!
Other days I meet teachers, who chat to me about next term and say, in horror,
"But I've got that naughty little .... next term and you know what those parents are like!"
Parents and teachers as partners...such an important philosophy, when wanting the best educational opportunities for a child. So let's all start the new term with a positive approach, because, although I don't know about farmers and cowboys, I feel parents and teachers certainly should be friends
18th July 2008
Life's lessons
I came across a quote by Dudley Moore,
"When I teach someone it's a joy....and I love it!"
Dudley Moore, a television comedian, film actor and brilliant musician suffered a degenerative brain disease similar to that of my own brother who, although now hardly able to move, continues to have a sharp intellect and who follows my work in Dominica with love. He cannot control his wheelchair, but his wife walks beside him steering it, whilst they shop for gifts of blackboard paint, merit stickers and all sorts, to send on from Texas to Dominican schools. My brother is a joy, cheerful and caring for others. What a thousand lessons we can learn from him and how proud I am of him. I thank him for yesterday's parcel, which will be a great help in teacher training here on this little island.
17th July 2008
Special Offer to Dominican Schools!
What an adventure! At the end of last week, 25 boxes of books, all in beautiful condition, arrived for
www.show-me-wow.com at the port in Roseau. It was an adventure because we worked our way, in the mid day heat, through 16 officials and were there for a very long time going through the formalities. But the weekend for me was less hot and more peaceful. I sorted through these 700 to 800 books, putting them in age groupings and subject areas, a long job because I could not resist stopping frequently to get lost in the pages. Well look at some of them in the photo. Wouldn't you love to have a relaxing browse through them?
These books are to be sent out as soon as possible to schools who need them, who will give the children easy access to them and who will get good use from them. (Sorry, but some schools hide lovely books away in boxes, or lock them away from eager readers and browsers, or even have a "look but don't touch policy! That is not where these books are heading!) Please let me know if you can offer the sort of school show-me-wow would like these books to go to by clicking,
14th July 2008
Let's Celebrate!
My friends, living near my former home in France, are celebrating their French National Holiday.
My Australian friends are in France too, celebrating the fact that the Aussie in the Tour de France has accumulated enough accolades to be in a very strong position..maybe it's the thought of their roadside blow-up kangaroo that spurs him on!
I shall miss not being with them (and the blow-up kangaroo) cheering the cyclists on with "Allez! Allez!"
as we have done together in former years when Le Tour goes near our French village. But I am celebrating too, because today, the www.show-me-wow website has had it's
2000th visitor!
WOW!... and thanks for visiting.
6th July 2008
The 2008 Graduates
This, the end of the academic year, has been busy with Graduation Ceremonies and I was honoured to be invited to several. Being from an English education background, my only experiences of Graduations were held at universities to present degrees. I had never attended a Graduation for secondary or primary pupils and as for Pre K, I was fascinated and, I have to admit, a bit doubtful. At one school, where the day was not a graduation as such, but a Celebration, the pupils and visitors sat round the edge of their playground. I was asked to present the Pre K with their certificates and there they sat waiting for their names to be called. It was a long stretch to walk to collect their certificates, especially for such little legs and they had obviously had a practice beforehand, But all twelve approached me in a different way! One little girl, so shy, her fist was in her mouth as she walked, another had her hand up all the way twiddling her hair, one boy came in a formal march, swinging his arms like a soldier and another heard his name and in his rush to stand up, fell off his chair! The audience of parents, teachers and other pupils gasped, but the boy got to his feet and made a smiling and hasty dash across the tarmac into my arms for a swirl round in the air and a big clap from everyone! Wow!
Of my earlier reticence, I have to think again. I am not entirely convinced Graduation for smalls is a good thing, but I have to admit the sense of pride in education came over throughout, from those little hands that clutched their certificates tightly, to those moist palms of teenagers who, gowned and mortar boarded, tried to sort out the hand shake and taking of certificate without getting tied up with the presenter, to the parents and visitors who had a very special occasion to applaud education in its widest sense. Mmmm...I hope I am invited again next year.
(Following requests and ideas from Dominican teachers, there are two recent additions to the
Show-me-WOW website
5th July 2008
From out of Africa
Yesterday I had a wonderful email from a teacher in Zambia:
"I just thought I'd let you know I was able to take a workshop at the Christian Vision School here in Zambia recently, using lots of your ideas for poetry and creative writing"
"I have given them ideas for making their lessons and classrooms more interesting"
"Show-me-WOW gave me lots of practical ideas especially as this is a rural school with few resources"
"We did lots of sensory work which was really new to them...it's mostly chalk and talk here!"
"I want to thank you Chris for inspiring me"
"I love your BLOG and will keep visiting Show-me WOW for even more wonderful ideas".
Thank you Lynda for your kind words. Feed back and teacher requests for help and ideas really inspires me to go on site building. I told one of our Dominican Education Officers about your email and she was pleased too, but wrote,
"I am encouraged that others (elsewhere) are using the site. I wish our teachers would let you know if they are..and that they ask questions for their development"
So come on Dominican teachers, how do you find the site and what would you like help with next? I have writen back to Lynda with more ideas, but I would be pleased to help you in a similar way.
And our very best wishes to Lynda and the teachers in Zambia, who seem to be working in very similar circumstances to many of our teachers here in Dominica.
29th June 2008
Replying to an email from some friends in France, I thought I would take a short cut and slip my answers in CAPS between their questions that were in the usual lower case. Now my French is very basic. I can chat away, but do not always understand what people say to me. Q says that when I chat in French, I have developed a habit of doing all the talking, so that I am not faced with the problem of understanding the person with whom I am conversing! I suppose he is right! No I know he is! But this time I was writing and I was suddenly finding myself in a position which truly backed one of my philosophies in teaching. I was struggling badly with recognising the words I was typing, because they were not in my usually comfortably recognised lower case. I was having to look twice at my CAPITAL letters French words to double check the spelling. My brain was not in sinc with these less-familiar-to-me word patterns. It felt very un "comme d'habitude!"
This is what many children experience when faced with having to read a block of text that is all in CAPS. Their brains are not in sinc with the less-familiar-to-them word patterns. Teachers need to be aware of this. Children need opportunities to be exposed to texts that are all in CAPS, and teachers of early stage readers should not expect pupils to just cope with blocks of the less familiar CAPS when making charts or writing out school notices. Oh the secretary who was given the job of typing out the school exams for the lower sets. She typed the instructions to every question in CAPS. The pupils knew the answers, but could not display this knowledge, because they could not easily read those CAPITAL letter instructions.
Having just pressed the send button for my CAPS letter French email, I suddenly realise, more than ever before, how it feels.
P.S. We would love a pile of comics (in English or French) to help children get over the reading text that's all in CAPS problem. This would truly help them to make their reading CAPS texts "comme d'habitude". (Texts in comics are usually all in CAPS.)
22nd June 2008
The dentist's teeth.
Do you suppose dentists are born with good teeth and it stays that way, so they never need drastic dental treatment?
Yesterday was dentist's day, me for a filling and Q, my husband, for a clean and polish. There were some uneasy people in the waiting room amongst the tropical fish tanks!
"Petrified!" I told the dentist as I slid onto his plastic covered chair. "Petrified?" he chuckled. "It's not funny!" I teased just before I opened wide! "Just a little injection" he warned. When do dentists ever say, "And now a huge injection, which will badly sting as the needle goes in and which will stay for some time as the fluid slowly eases out under you gum skin and you start to feel the loss of the use of your jaw" No it is always "Just a small injection". One dentist once said to me, when I questioned this "Just a short injection" warning "Well you wouldn't like me to warn that I'm just going across the room to fetch my 6 foot needle to charge madly with it towards your mouth, would you?"
Maybe dentists have such good teeth they have never experienced such difficulties as the person they are focusing on. And maybe teachers have never experienced such reading or writing difficulties, as the pupil they are focusing on. Worth considering that isn't it? Need I say more?
My filling over, I return to the uneasy people in the waiting room and my husband takes his place on the dental chair, opens his mouth wide, and the dentist starts to do the cleaning and polishing. Then, one of his assistants interupts the dentist with an "Excuse me, but what was it you wanted from the shops?" "I need you to buy a big fluffy mop to do some polishing!" My husband, mouth fixed open, can say nothing, but looks in horrified amazement. Poor Q, he only has a small mouth!
Now where was I? Oh yes, are dentists born with good teeth and it stays that way, so they never need any drastic dental treatment?
P.S. Our nice, kind, reassuring dentist looks nothing like the man with the mop!
19th June 2008
Applause or ripe tomatoes?
In his blog,www.workplayexperience.blogspot.com my actor son Adam writes,
"We actors are lucky for many reasons. Not only do we get free beer, wealth and all the best girls, we also get immediate feedback when the customer applauds...or doesn't!"
Funny, but I was talking along this theme to a teacher only yesterday. He is also a musician, having once been a professional trumpet player and I was asking him to consider the parallels between his two careers. He had been complaining about how the children often get edgy, irritable, and fractious at times when they are doing a prolonged task. I suggested he compared them with his audience during his trumpet playing days. Unlike a dissatisfied audience, pupils can't walk out of the theatre, or throw ripe tomatoes. When they are unsettled like this, read their body language. That's their feedback for the way the lesson is going. It is no good to tell them to sit down and focus on what is happening. You can't use that approach with an audience and it doesn't work with pupils, who are actually telling you, in their own body language way,
"I need a change of activity! We have been doing this task for too long and it is no longer interesting me! Your teaching skills are plummeting and my learning efficiency is spiraling down! Please, please do something about it!"
On the other hand, your applause comes when you tell them to pack away and they take no notice! That is when true learning is happening, when they are really engrossed in what they are doing and don't want to stop. "Please go out to break" you say. "But Sir, Miss, this is fun and I just want to....."
Take a bow teacher when this happens. It's one of the greatest pupil-to-teacher compliments in the job you do and you deserve the applause.
18th June 2008
Gifts Galore!
What with my new computer having to be loaded, (why can't you just plug them in like a television set and just go?) and, with the swirl of so many things going on in and around schools..a "Make It and Take It Day" for 30 plus teachers, a whole staff training at a village school across the ravine, (the only school I can see from our house, yet an hour and a half round trip), the distribution of a donated consignment of 120 second hand children's books from England, etc. ...the blog writing habit has ebbed! It's a bit like a teacher letting a subject slip off the timetable a few times and then it's hard to slot it back into the weekly routine.
But back I am, though how regularly I'm not sure, as there are already summer schools being planned for August and one teacher has contacted me today to ask for help in re- vamping his classroom during the holidays....(and this will be quite a challenge!)
Soon, even MORE second hand children's books are due to arrive from England and an amazing school, East Irondequoit Middle School in Rochester, New York has, through their Builder's Club and through knowing about www.show-me-wow.com, been collecting school supplies as a special Support Dominica Schools project. They are about to send EIGHT large totes of school supplies for me to distribute. They had an inter tutor group competition to see which group could collect the most supplies and they organised an impressive system of collecting and sorting and packing, including making a line of coins to pay for the transport. How do you say thank you for all this kindness, when the thank you is so strong it is not just a word, but a feeling in your heart? If only hugs could travel as easily as emails do!
I wonder what it is like to be bored. I am so glad that my passion for teaching does not give me a chance to find out and I am so grateful to all those across-the-world-people, who make it possible for me to do such big things on the tiny little island of Dominica.
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1st June 2008
Now let's think!
Whilst I was doing a demonstration lesson on poetry writing with a grade 6 class, a visiting dignitary unexpectedly came into the open plan classroom. The children were deep in thought, each with strips of paper and each composing a few lines in response to the theme "Orange". Their teacher was taking notes, the room was hushed and the children fascinated and involved. They had never done anything like this before and it was quiet fun.
Ignoring me, the visitor approached a pupil and standing above her, and in a loud voice, interupted her train of thoughts (along with those of others!) by asking her what she was doing.Of course, suddenly jerked out of her concentration, she did not know where to start to answer such an imposing question. I quickly approached the visitor and, in a whisper, explained she was composing a line for a poem. He looked at me, listened and then peered over his shoulder to check she was back on task.
"But you are not getting on with your work!" he loudly accused her.
"Oh yes she is" I said. "She is thinking! Children as well as adults need opportunities to think!"
He, an adult, obviously hadn't taken the opportunity to think!
24th May 2008
Smile please!
Grade 1, ages around six, second lesson after lunch and it's a hot and sleepy Dominican time. The teacher needs to liven the children up and so decides to get on with the Tooth Project.
"Why do we need teeth?"" she asks.
"To eat!"
"To chew!"
"To look pretty!"
They nod at all these answers.Then they are told to look in each others mouths to see if all the teeth are the same.
"Some are pointy and some are flat!" they discover.
The teacher writes the names on the board, molars, canines and, adding the next name to the list, asks the children to try to read it.
"In...!"
"In...!"
She gives a clue. "The second "i" is a long one" she says. The children are trying hard to decode the word when one little girl correctly exclaims, "Incisors!"
"Yes!" said the teacher and the girl gives a proud and radiant smile with not one incisor in sight! Hers have recently fallen out and she is waiting for new ones. But despite this, she still looks pretty and everyone sees the joke, even her, so there they are, the whole class giggling and displaying incisor gaps all over the place.
Takes you back doesn't it?
15th May 2008
"The", the rude word!
When I first came to Dominica, I found it hard to understand the accents of some of the children. I recall one boy in a writing class, who came to me and said,
"Meess, ees eet de dee oo dee zee?"
I told him I was sorry, and asked him to repeat his question.
"Meess, ees eet de dee oo de zee I need?"
Changing my approach I asked, "Please tell me what is it you are trying to write?"
"Meess, do I put "Dee banana is on dee tree", oo do I put, "Zee banana is on zee tree?"
Last week when working with a teacher of very young children, we were talking about teaching the first basic words for reading. We discussed having pictures beside words like ball and hat, but I said that I found it helpful to use other mnemonics for words that are not common nouns.
"Like when you want to teach them to remember how to read the word "the" whisper to them that
it's a rude word as you have to put your tongue out to say it!" I explained
"Good idea!" she said, "And that will avoid them saying all these dee dees and dee zees!"
I smiled as I recalled the boy who wanted to write about dee banana on dee banana tree, (or was it zee banana on zee banana tree?)
April 2008
Oh dear, my Toshiba laptop is ailing. It has given wonderful service, but I fear it won't last much longer so please accept my apologies if I am behind with my regular Blog entries.
I am hoping to be back on track as soon as possible!
Chris
29th April 2008
Ode to my laptop.
My laptop just died, I well nearly cried,
I'd thought it would last me forever,
It stopped in its track, its small screen went black
I whined, "This can't happen, no never!"
Next day with a frown, we set off for town,
To look for an expert or two
Each one shook his head, "This laptop's quite dead
There's no more a person can do!"
The girl at the till, was listening still
"Well I'm no technology nurse!"
She took off the plate, said "Oh what a state...
I'll try, as it cannot get worse!"
She blew out the fluff and all sundry stuff
Then put back the plate and the plug
The screen lit up clear, I said, "You're a dear!"
And instantly gave her a hug!
It now comes and goes, has me on my toes
It's terminally ill I can tell.
I must say "Goodbye" with a fond yet sad sigh
And await its replacement from Dell.
18th April 2008.
Making a difference?
A recent visitor to Dominica, and long time trader in the Caribbean asked my husband what I did here and, as soon as my work in schools was explained to him, he said,
"Warn her not to be too disappointed! So many people come out here from developed countries with ideas. The people here might listen, but nothing changes. You can't make a difference!"
No way! Why, only in the last few days, I have had a letter from a principal thanking me for the difference I am making in her school, I had an email from a teacher thanking me for the difference my ideas were making in her classroom and I have frequent emails from an Education Officer thanking me for the difference my contributions make in helping lighten her work load. And the children smile too,and I take that as thanking me for the difference I make in their lessons.
Maybe it is easier to make a difference in education than in trade. It certainly seems more fun.... at least for me anyway!
16th April 2008
Playround learning
It was a paintily scene at a school I visited this week...the blue Caribbean Sea in the background and a man in a huge straw hat squatting on the playground painting a big map if the Caribbean on its surface. At the other end, he had already completed a map of Dominica with various landmarks beautifully written in a font style suitable for early readers as well as more able ones. And all the children in this school had set off in buses, each armed with a map of the island, to spend the day visiting the different places to experience them in reality. What a magical way to get to know the area where they live and to have the map on the playground surface to remind them and to help them revisit these places in their memories?
There is a growing interest here in making the playground a learning space and there are plans for outside word walls, for signposts, for a wall of honour, for a compass beside the maps, for various grid set up with words for hopscotch, easy words in the early readers grid, those "ough" words in the middle range, like though and through and rough and cough, or a quadrant graph to teach co- ordinates or even to set up a huge multiplication chart...and what about different words on the risers of the outdoor staircases, each word meaning "to go up"?
But the best teaching tip was from the man in the straw hat. "Do you draw out on a grid and then move it onto the playground surface?" He laughed. "Everyone asks me that and I tell them that, as boys, my friends and I used to play a game with old atlases and choose a country and look it up and just look and talk about what we could see" Now there's a philosophy for teaching children..a visual image, looking and talking and then finding you have the memory of it in your head. Another reason to take on board the fact that classrooms need to be visual places where charts and spellings and pictures need to be looked at and talked about.
...........................................Oh and I loved the straw hat!
9th April 2008
Goodwill Literacy
Goodwill Primary School, (such a lovely name) are having their Literacy Week and on Monday I attended their Opening Celebration in their new auditorium.This is Dominica's biggest primary school with 600 pupils and, through shortage of classrooms, half the children attend school in the morning, the other half in the afternoon. With all this squash, they certainly deserved their new auditorium. Many different activities are planned this week to encourage reading, including inviting adults into classes to read a story.
So yesterday, I trundled along with my customised, bright yellow suitcase on wheels, which shows the name of this website and a drawing of children outside their school doing the Fann-tass-ticc sign. In the suitcase was Bottle Village, which was ready for an airing.
I arrived at Grade 1 and demonstrated setting up the model, then told the story. I packed away ready to move onto the next class where I did the same, then the next class and the next until the 12.30p.m. bell rang for the end of morning school. I had just finished setting up the model and telling the story for the 5th time! Exhausted, I set off for home, but not before many, many children had flapped their hands by their smiling faces and said "Fannn tasss ticcc!"
Thank you Goodwill Primary School! Have a really good Literacy Week.
Click here for Bottle Village the story
Click here for Bottle Village to Promote Literacy
Click here for Bottle Village and Cross Curricular Links
8th April 2008
Loves me, loves me not?
Funny how some things come in threes! During the Easter holidays, a Mum contacted me with worries about her son and his school work and, as she gave details, she said, "It's so sad that he feels the teacher does not like him!"
Then, last weekend, I was visiting a lady whose son (different child, different school) was trying hard at school, but coming home angry and tense. I sat with him on his own and asked him how he felt about school. He screwed up his nose and quietly said, "The teacher doesn't like me!" Rather than ask him why, I asked who the teacher did like and, as if trying to put the balance right and say something positive and reassure me, he said, "The teacher doesn't like any of us!"
And yesterday I was talking to an education officer about a little girl (different child, different school) who had delighted her family by coming home and saying "You know Mummy, I think my teacher really loves all of us!"
It is so easy to recognise which teacher is offering the best educational opportunities, and in so doing, enjoying her job and encouraging the pupils to enjoy their day.One excellent way to help accelerate learning is to create an atmosphere in the classroom where children feel that the teacher likes them. If children feel otherwise, their success is bound to be hampered and they deserve more than that don't you think?
4th April 2008
Helping Brains.
We've just watched a film about Henry Marsh, an eminent London neuro surgeon who, for 15 years, has frequently travelled to the Ukraine to work alongside a Ukrainian neuro surgeon. He takes with him, in his suitcase and in his personally made packing cases, surgical instruments and equipment that, in U.K. terms have "passed their sell by date". The two men are friends, working together and seeing queues of patients, many with brain tumours. After clinic, they search the local market stalls looking for tools that can be adapted for use in the operating theatre and then returning home to file and adjust what they have bought. They have saved many, many lives of adults and children, but they lose many others, because the diagnosis has come too late for any meaningful treatment. They are determined to do what they can, but have to be accepting of the outcome when it is not successful. Henry Marsh is not a young man and, as the film ended, the last scene showed him heavily coated and walking, head down, in the Ukrainian snow, humbly saying,
"What are we if we don't help others? We're nothing, nothing at all!"
Wow!
1st April 2008
April Fools? Not us!
Robot: apparently human automaton. intelligent and obedient but impersonal machine:
machine like person. (Concise Oxford Dictionary).
We don't really want our children to be like robots do we? Now that would be foolish! So why is it so much time is spent getting them to complete exercise after exercise from off the chalk board, all doing the same thing and familiarising themselves day in, day out, with only the words the teacher chooses? What about encouraging individualism and creativity?
Creativity encourages individuality, allowing children to try things out and to risk making mistakes. Often the mistakes lead them on the better things! But it's the individuality that is exciting ..the non roboticness..if there is such a word..well there is because, if there isn't, I have just been creative and created it!
Yesterday I had a fun day at Mahaut Primary School, leading a whole day's teacher training on "Creative Writing". Yes, we did the academic bit, the philosophy, the importance of creativity and of allowing children to develop a wider vocabulary for speech and writing, but we also had fun in writing instant poetry, in making five-minute puppets to create dialogue and in doing improvised drama to create descriptive writing and character studies. So much broader for promoting individuality than telling children to "turn to page 27 and do the next exercise!" or to "copy this exercise from the board!" So no robot promotion at Mahaut and so obviously no foolishness, even though today is April Fools' Day!
Click here for more on Creative Writing
29th March 2008
Well get started!
One evening this week, an 8 year old visitor was fascinated by all the things I had around my desk that were being made into resources for schools. She noticed a small pair of knitting needles and a few small balls of wool. Now knitting is not an occupation much thought about here in the warmth of Dominica...there is not a lot of call for sweaters and gloves and hats and socks! But, she chose some green wool and I cast on 15 stitches to teach her. It is amazing how memory works. I remember once going into my classroom at her age. The boys were sent next door from where their girls had arrived. On each desk in my room was a pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool. My wool was jade green.The teacher told us to "start to knit" and the class did! But I, amazed and embarrassed, just did not know how. I didn't even know where to start! I felt silly and helpless and the more the others knitted, the more I felt the odd one out... not a comfortable feeling!
That feeling, as I sat in front of that pair of knitting needles and green wool, is often experienced by many children when they are told to "start to write"! They sit in front of their paper and pencil and gaze upwards, not knowing where to start. They feel silly and helpless and the more they see other children proceeding, the more they feel the odd one out....not a comfortable feeling!
(Imagine the feeling of a non artistic adult given a canvas and paints and told to paint a portrait!) So, I was delighted to see today's most popular website page is "Independent writing". I hope the tips that are given help many children avoid those feelings I got when I was told to "start to knit". Oh dear, I can still imagine that ball of jade green wool!
Click here for Independent Writers..the current most popular page on the show-me-wow website
26th March 2008
Go for green!
The end of a school day, but still the Head of Departments' Meeting to go, a busy, concentrated time, when much ground was covered, many matters succinctly dealt with, but always exhausting. The finish time of five o'clock was a joy, yet one Head of Department had a frequent habit of stretching out the "Any Other Business" well into overtime! The H.O.D.'s were seated around a large table awaiting the prompt arrival of the Headmaster. "Now John," someone pleaded, "please don't go on past 5 o'clock this time!" "Me?" queried John. "Yes you John!" I added. "If you keep to within five o'clock, I'll give you a Mars bar!" The doors swung open, the Head arrived. The meeting progressed as usual and the clock sped on towards five. At 5 minutes to the hour, one H.O.D. mentioned the poor quality of spelling in the School. As the clock ticked to four minutes to five, the Headmaster said, "Chris, as Literacy Co-ordinator, how can we improve spelling in the School?" All eyes were on me, and John's face held a smerky grin! I felt cornered, but inspiration arrived. "We should use less red ink!" I stated. The clock ticked on again. "Chris, please come prepared to speak to that at the next H.O.D. meeting" said the Headmaster. The clock ticked onto the hour, we stood to leave and I smiled complacently at John.
Next meeting, the Headmaster announced the first item on the agenda, "Improving Spelling", but he asked if anyone had anything to say before I spoke. The Head of History lifted his pen and said, "In my Department, we have already addressed Chris' suggestion of using less red ink. I have provided all my staff with green pens!" Not quite what I meant, yet those meetings, generally so succinct, were always full of sideways glances that said a thousand words under a hidden chuckle!
"All that red ink, exhausts teachers, demoralises pupil effort and undermines their confidence. Pupils use easy words to avoid red slashed spelling errors, and take little learning notice of red ink marks! There are better ways to inspire progress. Kill the red ink and find strategies on the Show-me-wow website to prevent errors in the first place and improve quality at the same time!"
I say.
25th March 2008
Ben's bike.
Ben was going through those early stages of learning to read when the learning is tough. He had lots of books, but deep down I think he hated them. Then, his grandparents shipped a bike out for him and he was full of biking enthusiasm. To Ben, bike time was far better than book time. But the more Ben avoided his books, the harder his reading became so, Ben and I decided that I would hand write a story called "Ben's Bike".
It went like this. Ben's Dad put Ben's bike in the back of his truck to take Ben somewhere to have some fun bike riding, but, as they set off, the truck wheels left the ground and they flew over Dominica, across the ocean, over Spain to the French Pyrennees mountains, where the truck started to come down. Ben and his Dad could see lots of bikers racing up and down the steep mountain roads and, as soon as they landed the truck, Ben joined the race. It was the Tour de France and Ben was soon speeding along overtaking the fastest bike riders in the world. Ben won the race for that day and was given the yellow jersey! What a star!
Ben could read the story of "Ben's Bike" well and he practiced hard, so that he could read it to his family as a treat. They were amazed. This little, home-made, handwritten book with odd, scratchy drawings had given Ben not only a lot of fun, but also some reading confidence. And, as Ben said, "It's sometimes hard to read reading, but easy to read writing!"
Well that depends on the writing Ben...but that's another teacher tip for another day.
Click here for more on Boys' Reading
19th March 2008
Easter hugs!
Some schools here in Dominica had last Friday as their last day of term, but most close today for their Easter break. What a lot of effort has gone on this term, not just in the every day work of the classroom by teachers and pupils, but in the plans for revamping areas of the school to make it a better learning environment. With such limited resources, imagination is stretched and wonderful improvements happen. So, some teachers will be taking a well earned rest and others have plans to use the break to make further improvements. Two schools are re vamping their libraries to make them more inviting and more user friendly. I have even been invited to turn up with a paintbrush, by a secondary school in the north east of the island, and to help regrade books into reading ages in the south.
I hope that whatever teachers and pupils are doing during spring break, they have fun and a well deserved rest. Amongst other things, I'll be planning a course on "Creative Writing" for teachers of Mahaut School, to be held on the first day of next term. Now that makes me extra popular with the children, as, because of my course, they have a short day on that day. No wonder they give me an Easter hug!
18th March 2008
Rhythmic Spelling!
The young primary aged pupil who is an excellent drummer boy, yet who had difficulty with spelling, has been making good progress since I advised him to use his drumming talent and invent a rhythm to go with the words that were giving him difficulty. I saw him pass the school office yesterday and he stopped and said hello. I asked him to give an example of how he used this technique by choosing a word on the office wall and creating a rhythm for it. It was lovely to hear him do this so confidently. He said it was fun and that his teacher had recently told him his spelling has improved.
As he went off to play, the secretary looked up, smiled and said.
"That reminds me of a movie about a young girl who was an excellent speller so was in a big Spelling Bee competition. During the finals, she was given a very difficult word, which she just could not see in her mind. She stepped out from behind the microphone and, standing as if she were holding an imaginary skipping rope, she started to jump a rhythm as she called out the letters in the right order. She had learned to spell her difficult words by skipping as she chanted them!"
Wow, the girl was using a skipping rhythm to do spelling.....and how great that a school secretary takes such an interest in how children learn!
14th March 2008
Tackling mountainous tasks through small achievable goals
On a balmy Caribbean evening, we shivered as we watched "Touching the Void", the gripping film of two mountaineers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, conquering the summit of Siulu Grande in Peru. During the start of the descent, Joe slipped with such force that his lower leg bone crunched up passed his knee into his upper leg! Imagine the agony! Joe believed he would die, but Simon tied a rope to Joe and let Joe's body fall the length of the rope, then Simon would descend to Joe and repeat the process again and again and again. However Joe's final "free fall" left him hanging in mid air over a precipice, with Simon knowing nothing except that there was now no slack on the rope, the pre arranged sign that he could follow Joe. Simon sat waiting for over an hour, with the snow under him moving and threatening his safety too. He resolved Joe was dead and he would die too. He had no choice but to reluctantly cut the rope that joined them. Joe, still alive, fell many feet below and into a very deep crevasse. He could not climb up, so considered two options, doing nothing or lowering himself deeper into the crevasse. He took the latter option, still believing he would die, but prefering to do something rather than nothing! He descended a long way, when suddenly he saw sunlight and, after enormous effort, he pulled himself up to the outside. Now he had a glacier to cross then rough rocks of glacial moraine. "I kept thinking, I can't do this, but then a voice told me to find a point a way off and give myself 20 minutes to get there. When I arrived, I made the same plan again and again!" Eventually Joe was near enough to base camp to cry out Simon's name and Simon heard Joe's cry.
Well it all seems the stuff of boys' comics, but the story is true. Yet I feel that for some older children struggling and struggling with learning to read or some teenagers facing piles of pre exam revision notes, their task can often feel mountainous and impossible. Yet, if Joe could plan and make such a momentous achievement on an inhospitable mountain, with a complicated leg fracture, surely we, as teachers can adopt his tactics and, no matter what the child's difficulty, can......
.............break down each task into small, achievable goals in a classroom.
That way, as Joe proved, we all have a better chance of getting there in the end.
10th March 2008
Well balanced teachers
Teachers are naturally quite sensitive souls I think. They tend to be "difficult to teach to drive" as they are not used to being told, "too private in their work" as they feel threatened if someone crosses their classroom thresh-hold. They are often considered a "bit bossy" by their wider family and "stuck up" by their neighbours. Oh dear!
Also, teachers work with their hearts as well as their heads. There's the brain side with the pedagogy, as well as the emotional side with working so closely with the problems and vulnerability of pupils. Teachers have to balance their hearts and their heads and sometimes that balance slips. On top of all this, teachers get extraordinarily tired...if they do the job properly that is.
So, with all these ingredients, get a crowd of them in the staffroom on an off balanced day and there can be fireworks, and I don't mean celebratory ones! Emotions become heated, colleagues become frosty and everyone suffers.
The best saying, at a time like this. once came from a kind, yet assertive onlooker.
"We' re not in the business of attacking each other!
We're in the business of attacking the problem!"
Everyone stopped and thought. Heated emotions cooled and frostiness warmed up. Professional
attitudes were back on track and heads and hearts back in balance. Mmmm..that's better!
10th March 2008
Like mother, like daughters!
From the moment her mother tugged her to school on her first day, Tracey P. was exhausting! She constantly tried to pull away and her mother said, "My girl's a wild un!" Once freed, Tracey was off , with no idea of boundaries and consequences, inquisitively into everything, cutting anything in sight with scissors, spreading sand along shelves, drawing in books, painting her face, glueing anything to anything, wandering off from the classroom.
On swimming day, when the class was bathing suited and lined up to walk to the pool edge, Tracey was missing! I heard a splash and saw her nude, floundering in the water and gasping for air as I grabbed her! Daily, I sank into a staffroom chair exhausted whilst other teachers tried to reassure. "It could be worse Chris! " "How?" I questioned. No answer and then..."She could be twins".
Years later, and in town, I recognised the now adult Tracey walking towards me, each hand tightly gripped on a wriggling girl. "Mrs Lawrence!" she exclaimed. The children were still tugging for freedom. "My two girls are wild un's!" she confessed exasperated. "Thankfully they start school next week!" Tracey had ......TWINS! Poor teacher!
7th March 2008
..Oops, sorry Miss!................
"That Colin in Year 8 has got to grow up!" complained a group of teachers in the Staffroom. To me they were more teachers of subjects rather than teachers of children, but I had to be sensitive in my response, if I wanted to have at least some of their sympathy. "He's a late developer! He couldn't talk until he was 5. Yes, he's 12 now, but he's done well, even though he's like an 8 year old. We can't force him to be more mature, we just have to help him on his way!" I pleaded. The bell went, they left for their classes, but Mrs B., a P.E. teacher, had listened to me and was undecided about how she felt. Maybe I could win her over first.
The air outside was icy, the fields around the school solid and white with frost. The whole of Year 8 were to do a cross country run, each P.E teacher wrapped warmly and interspersed round the course, clutching a clip board to check off the runners as they passed. Mrs B had checked off all but one pupil and looked back to see Colin, in the foggy distance, huffing and puffing. As he plodded nearer, she noticed his dribbling blue lips, his face muddy and his nose and eyes running. "Miss!" he panted, "I'm so c c c cold and I need a h h h hug!" Mrs B. recalled the staffroom conversation about this 12 year old who acted like an 8 year old. She considered, took off her warm coat and put it on the boy. Had I won her over? Colin smiled appreciatively and then, putting his nose to the elbow of her coat, wiped his face down the entire length of her sleeve! Oh no, I had lost the day! The boy saw Mrs B's face and said, "Oops, sorry Miss!" Ah well, at least he had manners, which in itself melted the frost just a little!
5th March 2008
Well done William!
The restored Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London inspires imagining the settings, the colour, the noise, the shear entertainment of days, all those years ago, when the Bard was alive. What fun! No wonder I cringe at the way Shakespeare is frequently taught in schools, grey old texts, read round the room by bored teenagers... enough to make Will frown in horror!
My Shakespeare class of lower set 15 year olds were hurrying down the corridor, the girls arriving first and in a group. They nodded a quick "Afternoon Miss" and included me in their lively conversation. "It's the boys Miss...all enthusiastic about things in the first place, yet don't have the get up and go to make things happen, just moan and try to get out of it with weak excuses!" "Bit like Macbeth!" I said. By now the boys were arriving and the girls were unpacking their texts, folders and pencil cases at a large conference table in the centre of the room. "Oh Miss, are they still going on?" asked the boys. "They just keep on and on and on push, push, pushing with their ideas and wanting it all done now!" "Bit like Lady Macbeth!" I said.
I thought that would be the end of it, but the conversation continued as the boys unpacked and the girls were finding and quoting text and verse comparing the boys (or males in general) to the character of Macbeth. The boys were volleying a counter attack, insisting girls, (or females in general) were like Lady Macbeth, substantiating their views by confidently thumbing through the pages and also quoting text and verse. The pupils were animated by this and probably, let's be honest, by the fact that they saw this as a way of diverting me from my lesson plan. "What do you think?" I asked a timid girl, who had been silent throughout this banter. We all imagined it had all gone over her head. The room went silent. "Well Miss, I think that if Macbeth had not been such a wimp, and Lady Macbeth had not been such a snake, Shakespeare would not have had a story!"
I could imagine William Shakespeare smiling and nodding his head at the comments of this completey unplanned lesson on one of his plays. Well done William!
29th February 2008
Being blown away
It takes a lot of experience to be able to accurately pitch a whole class lesson, so it is doubly difficult for an inexperienced student teacher. Jane was on teaching practice doing a project on "Wind and Weather" with very young children. She decided they would each make a toy windmill, a stick with folded paper on the end that would catch the wind and turn. She could imagine them at the end of the lesson, smiling and carrying their finished windmills with pride and she carefully collected and prepared all the materials needed. But her supervisor, who had two students to oversee at this particular school, felt the task too difficult for such young children. However, with so much preparation already done, Jane wanted to go ahead, hoping for the best.
The windmill making day arrived and with it, the supervisor! Jane smiled confidently and started talking about the wind. Despite Jane's hopes, the supervisor made no effort to leave the room, although she had not yet seen the second student down the corridor! The children started to fold and colour, but the situation looked wobbly. The supervisor stood to "Pop down the corridor to see Miss X!" As soon as the coast was clear, Jane called her class to attention with a, "Hands on heads!" then rushed round the room finishing each of the 20 or so windmills.
When the supervisor returned, the children were all smiling and carrying their finished windmills with pride. Jane and the supervisor exchanged smiles and no more was said!
I have greatest admiration for that supervisor, who believed you often learn best by experience!
27th February 2008
Maths or manners?
Subject teachers in secondary schools are, like other teachers, often in a dilemma about the priorities of teaching their subject or teaching everyday life skills. Such was the case in Mr. J's lower set Maths class, when twelve year old Tracey W. was at one of the desks there! Tracey lacked social graces of all sorts, yet had an Eliza Doolittle charm. She was a skilled interupter and, with little effort on her part, always seemed to have the last word! Mr. J recognised this problem so, one day, when she continually interupted the steady sequence of the lesson plan, he determined to quash this habit of hers once and for all! He had already told her not to interupt, ignored her arm that was stretched towards the ceiling punching the air..and, at last, he felt she was getting the message. As he turned to face the chalkboard ready to draw grid lines, he looked at her and assertively said, "Patience!" With his back to the class, he had hardly drawn the first line when Tracey's voice piped up...
"..........is a virtue,
Catch it if you can,
Often in a woman,
But seldom in a man!"
Fortunately, his pupils could not see the exasperated smile and look of resolve on his chalkboard facing expression! He decided, yet again, to give up trying to teach Tracey social graces. It was hopefully far easier to sort out her double decomposition, hundreds tens and units subtraction, though that in itself would be quite another challenge!
22nd February 2008
Capital FOOTBALL.
"Chris!", called the Head of P.E. "Why don't any of the boys in the low set reading classes sign up for football clubs or for team's trials. I know some of them are really skilled!"
"How would they know about clubs and trials?" I asked.
"During classes, I tell them to keep looking at the notice board in the corridor outside the gym, as I am always posting information there."
"And how do you do the writing?"
"Ah I knew you'd say that as you're always teasing me about my poor handwriting, so I print the notices clearly, I really do!" he smiled.
"Does that mean you print in capital letters!"
"Yes!" he said proudly.
"Ah, those boys find great difficulty in reading texts that are entirely capital letters! They would be too embarrassed to stand in a public corridor working out your notice. They are more confident reading texts similar to that in their reading books.....lower case and with caps only for proper nouns and starts of sentences. For some of your potential best footballers, you might as well have been writing your notices in Chinese!"
"Wow!" exclaimed the Head of P.E. "I'll change the notices now. But what can we do about this in school?"
"I have boxes of comics for them to read. Comics nearly always use fonts solely in capital letters and, of course, they love reading them!"
Now, years later, and on the other side of the world, I am appealing to anyone wanting to give practical help to boy's reading, to send or bring us a few comics, which are like gold dust on Dominica! Thank you.
20th February 2008
The corner where the stamp goes
Whatever your age, it's hard for anyone to cope with the death of a family member. Such was the situation of a young secondary school pupil, whose mother had died and who found himself in foster care. He was distraught of course, and unable to settle in his new home or to settle into the working pattern of school. I met him to see if I could help. He wasn't angry, but he was so sad and bottling up his feelings. "I don't want my foster people to know that I am not happy or they will think I don't like them and they are too kind for that, but I miss my Mum so much, every time I think of her!"
"I think you ought to imagine an envelope with a stamp up in the top corner. Can you do that?" He nodded. "And what is on the stamp?" I asked. "A face " he replied. "Imagine school and your new home like the envelope, but up in the top corner like the stamp, is your Mum's face. Try to do things that will make her face smile!" He grinned and said he thought he would like to try to do that.
"Would you like me to 'phone your foster parents and tell them about our chat?" "Yes please, because I can't" he said. So I did, and they cried on the other end of the 'phone and were pleased he had at last talked about his feelings.
Next morning, amongst the crowds of teenagers coming into school, I saw the boy in the corridor.
"Oh Miss!" he said. He continued talking as he approached me, turning his head to face me as he passed and speaking above the noise "Thanks about yesterday...and my new Mum and Dad know about the stamp and envelope and don't mind!" He smiled and then turned to face the way he was going, walking on down the corridor to get on with his day. He now had a new "Mum and Dad" and a real Mum's face smiling from "up in the corner where the stamp goes".
19th February 2008
A.A.Milne wrote,
"If a writer, why not write,
Of whatever comes in sight?"
.............so I do!
18th February 2008 
A Teacher's Two Marks.
Mark "A" was such a perfect boy, his parents only pride and joy,
So neat and tidy and polite, and went to bed on time each night.
His parents then would nod and say, "The perfect boy is our Mark A!"
Mark "B", the boy who lived next door, was on the other hand so poor
At his behaviour...far too bold, would never do as he was told,
Would scream and shout in such a stew, his parents knew not what to do
Just got themselves in such a tizz, then groaned, "Well that's how Mark "B" is!"
But Parents' Evening soon was nigh. The parents "A" held their heads high.
The "B'"s looked gloomy all that day, so dreading what Mark's "Miss" would say.
"Mark "A" is lazy, will not work, does everything he can to shirk"
"Mark "B" is really teacher's pet, no cause to reprimand him yet!"
The "A"'s snapped "Our Mark likes to please!" "Our boy's the pain!" confessed the "B"'s
(In school Mark "A" was very bad, and Mark "B" was the perfect lad!) For some people, good kids are bad and that is really very sad.
For others, naughty kids are good, especially if they're understood.
So teachers note that it is true, kids behave only...... as you allow them to.
by Chris Lawrence, who once lived in the same street as Marks "A" and "B"!
16th February 2008
Moving into Space
Such a happy Dominican school, yet so overcrowded and desperately looking for bigger accommodation and the class of 10 year olds were crushed into their seats on a rainy day, yet all polite and their head teacher whispering how well they all read and what progress they had made.I interupted their chat to congratulate them on their reading and asked for tips to take to other schools. They suggested, "Practice", "Find a good book!" "Go somewhere and shut the door!" But one big boy, slightly apart from the others, (if that could be possible is such overcrowding), was not contributing. Back with the head teacher, she explained that he was disruptive and in trouble a lot. Wondering if he was not coping with the work, she discovered he was an excellent reader and a good writer. I slipped over to chat with this big-for-his-age boy, elbows in, cramped there up close to the teacher's desk on this stuck indoors, oppressive rainy day. He smiled when I congratulated him about his reading and writing. I asked him what he liked to read and about, "Space" he said.."And do you write your own stories?" "Yes Miss..always about space!" "So you dream of going into space" "Oooh yes Miss!" "Keep working at it and you'll get there! I suppose you don't have access to the Internet." He did, so I gave him some addresses, this space man I had just found.
Across the room, the head mistress was still surveying the overcrowded classroom. Two people dreaming of space. I hope these space dreams come true.
13th February 2008
Seeing through the colours
Well over 20 years ago, American Helen Irlen discovered children having difficulty learning to read, because they were light sensitive. They did not necessarily have a physiological sight problem, but a visual perceptual difficulty. After much research, she established a screening system and individually prescribed coloured glasses that filtered out the exact amount of light. Their texts were no longer distorted, their reading progressed, as did their spelling. Many became less frustrated about literacy skills and behaviour improved. Some epileptic children, who were also light sensitive, wore appropriately coloured glasses and, over time, their drug prescritions were reduced. It all seemed too good to be true, so I investigated, met Helen and soon knew that it worked! Children who had symptoms of dyslexia, but who were not, in fact, dyslexic, were making huge strides in literacy because their visual perceptual difficulty was, at last, being addressed. There was a lot of antagonism to this discovery, but proof was in the scores and comments of these seeing-through-the-colours children. Cambridge University Research confirmed Helen's findings and U.K. optometrists provided children with prescription coloured glasses.
Here in the Caribbean, I came across a very bright and articulate boy, who had repeated two years at primary level as he could not read or spell. He sat in front of a whiteboard with a fan and strip light over his head. Everything was strobing. He had constant head aches, squinted to keep out the light and wondered why he could not read and spell like others. Soon, two more children with the same symptoms in that same school were brought to me. Others in other schools followed. "Different coloured skin, but we are all the same mixture underneath" my doctor reminded me when I told him about Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome. Now I have found more Dominican children who are light sensitive....all I have to do is work out what to do next! Individually prescribed coloured glasses have not got to this Caribbean Island yet, but at least we know where to start searching!
13th February 2008
Sewing net work
Some pieces of fine net fabric in vivid assorted colours arrived in a box from overseas, so I got out my sewing machine, not to make ballet skirts, or those 1960's frothy petticoats, but to make see- through wall pockets...yes, see-through wall pockets!
There is so little wall space that can display children's work, and workcards here. Walls are hard concrete or open bricks and, when I remind teachers to put up wall displays at children's height, I know that this means it risks children knocking and damaging card and paper as they pass.
But colourful fabric backs with see-through net pockets stitched in rows on the front, has been a very popular idea with teachers this week. The finished article is hung up calendar style and the pockets filled with workcards of the current topic. Children can see the workcards easily though the net and so pick the one they need to do next. The net keeps the waiting cards firmly in place and less likely to be damaged with passing pupils.
So no ballet skirt making at present, but we have certainly found one way of putting things attractively up on the walls tucked in these see-through pockets
...and in some other sets of pockets with solid fabric on both sides this time, I slotted sheets of polystyrene or styrofoam. This make a very light pin board to display work , using push pins, which sink in well.
Now what else came in that box, now that I have my sewing machine out?
12th February 2008
Toothy smiles
As in most schools, the teaching staff deal with a lot of social as well as educational problems. Such was the case explained to me by an amazed head teacher, when I delivered an unusual parcel to her recently.
The day before, she had been working with a very poor mother who was, with social difficulties, trying desperately to provide her children with only the most meagre of needs. Such things as toothbrushes and toothpaste had to be low on her priority list, much to her regret, but she was proud of what she did manage to do for them. The head teacher respected the honesty and wanted the distressed mother to go away with something.
"I had toothbrushes and little tube of toothpaste. I gave her them saying I needed to keep the last two sets just in case someone else came along. To be honest Chris, I wondered how I would come across any more tooth cleaning supplies and now look at your bag!"
I had just offered a carrier bag of two dozen toothbrushes and two dozen sample size tubes of toothpaste saying,
"I know these are not my usual gift of stationary supplies but a donor brought all this in her suitcase. Can you use it?"
The head teacher had opened her mouth in amazement at the co incidence. She gave a beautiful smile, as will so many of her pupils now.
11th February 2008
Writing in threes
I was visiting a school prior to doing a staff training session there on Classroom Management, wanting to make whatever I said, pertinent to that particular school.The school is unbelievably overcrowded, an old church divided into 6 small classrooms by old chalkboards. There are double desks with double benches attached and, particularly in Grade 6, many of the double desks had 3 children seated there for the day! Children, backs twisted, were trying very hard not to knock each other as they wrote, some right handers, some left handers, pencils all trying to work in sinc!
I introduced myself to this welcoming and smiling class and told them I would be teaching their teachers. (They seemed amused that teachers could be taught!) Maybe some of the children could be moved so at least their writing arms were not so easily knocked.
"If you are right handed, put up you hand please" I said. Quite a number of right hands went up.
"If you are left handed put your hand up please" Quite a few left hands went up.
But the numbers did not add up, so jokingly I said, "Can anyone use both hands to write?" About four children each put up two hands! Amazed, I looked at the teacher. "Ambidextrous?" I asked. "Ambi what?" asked one small boy to his friend.
We all laughed, me at the fact that four of these children had developed enough manual dexterity in such overcrowding to be able to write with whichever hand that was most comfortable at the time...or that these four children were very bright and witty. Whatever the answer, there is certainly world talent here!
"Ambi what did she say?" the small boy asked again, thinking he had missed the joke!
8th February 2008.
Ticks and crosses...
How very simple, yet very clever, were the Nike advertising managers when they hit upon the idea of using a tick for the Nike logo! It crosses language barriers and informs everyone of approval, recognition, good quality, praise and status. Just like the ticks teachers put on children's work. Ticks make children feel confident and congratulated, so inspiring them to go on improving with enthusiasm, even more so if those ticks have a clearly written compliment beside them!
But what about the crosses? At one school, a cheeky teenage boy watched me do one of my last ever crosses, as he teasingly implied I was giving him a kiss when I drew my cross! From then on, if work was incorrect, I marked it with a spot. The pupil then went away to self correct, smiling that the spot could soon easily be changed into a tick. I think this was one of the most educationally encouraging moves I made both for children and parents. It gave another chance, it taught pupils to edit carefullly and they ended up proudly displaying exercise books full of Nike ticks!
Funny though, that these days, when I meet these now grown-up tick collectors, they say "Hello Miss!" approach my cheek with a smile and enjoy the kiss we exchange...but then these kisses are not done with a red pen on their school exercise books!
2nd February 2008 
Two school traditions or habits clashed yesterday and I was due to go to two schools each of which demonstrated the two different positions.
On the Friday before Carnival, many schools have a celebration or fun day when the children, dressed in carnival costumes, go to school to play with their friends and have treats to eat. Yesterday was the Friday before Carnival and I went to a school which was throbbing with excitement and bright with various home made or hand-me-down costumes. This school was alive. The children had special snacks and ice cream...which is so expensive here, so a real treat. And the children were happily learning, not the everyday curriculum but one just as important.
But on the last day of the month, the teachers in Dominica are so hard up and needing their pay, (teachers here get a very poor salary) that they close the school and go to the bank for their money and spend the day doing their much needed shopping! Yesterday was pay day and the second school followed this habit. As I drove there to take a class, the gates were padlocked, the shutters barred and the school dead.
The staff in the first school have made arrangements not to have to visit their bank for their pay. The second school's staff prefer to lock the school doors for the day and follow the old bank visiting tradition. I have not yet had a chance to ask the children of the two schools, which way they would choose to spend this "Bank Holiday" day, but I felt sad for the ones I thought had missed out!
1st February 2008
Books and THREE Gazebos!
There are many teachers on Dominica doing their best to improve school environments so that Dominican children can accelerate learning progress.
Jean Thomas-Jeremy is such a teacher at the North East Comprehensive School and is in the final year of a University of the West Indies, Batchelor Degree in Educational Administration. She is also a sparkly, enthusiastic and passionate-about-teaching young lady! As part of her course, she has to undertake a school based project. She has to do a needs analysis, to plan, to fund raise, to inspire others to support her and to teach at the same time! In Jean's school, there is a problem with under achievement in reading in the first and second forms. So what does she do? Take an easy option? No way! She is determined to fulfil her plans, to refurbish the school library with a wide range of books, magazines, comics and reference materials and to build THREE gazebos for children ro read and relax in and for teachers to use as outdoor classrooms!
She deserves all the encouragement and support that anyone can give her don't you think? I wonder what the show-me-WOW Blog can do? I'll let you know Jean's progress.
Good luck Jean from Show-me-WOW!........
(Since writing this blog, we have been able to send several boxes of books to Jean for her school library from
show-me-wow visitors. She is delighted and says a big thank you!)