Pasir Ridge International School: "Eyes twinkling in sunshine"

What’s weird, conducts electricity, and is a good citizen?

The poets of Pasir Ridge International School in Balikpapan, Indonesia, of course!

Balikpapan is a strange sounding place populated by friendly and familiar faces.  Who could forget a mascot such as the one above? I even recognized some of the faces in the assembly.  Taller bodies, bigger feet, but the same smiles.  Michael and I were here 2 years ago and were pleased as papayas to be back in this special learning place. 

Pictured here is the reading space a middle school classroom, complete with pillows and plenty of books and space in which to stretch the mind and the legs.

In Theresa Marriott's 3/4 grade classroom, we tried our hands at personification and then performed close surgery on our drafts to pare them into more precise poetry.  During our second visit with her classroom we wrote definition poems about electricity where I learned that a circuit has to be closed and cannot be polka dots.

This year there are both a K-1 and 1-2 splits at PRIS.  We were lucky enough to spend two full hours with each class -- two full hours with beginning writers is an incredible opportunity for us as we are generally limited to one 30 or 40 minute writing session with this age group at a school.  Sometimes all we get is a drive-by where we share a few poems and then are hustled off.  But being a small school has some definite advantages, with class sizes of about 10, we had time to get serious about writing and get a little goofy afterwards.

In each class we introduced writing lessons from our book High Impact Writing Clinics that had originally been conceived for students in grades four and up.  But as this is a writing school, the kids were quick to engage as we first co-constructed poems, creating our own mentor text, and then wrote independently.  We wrote about feeling weird (why not?) and talked about how important a conclusion is in our writing.

Weird

eyes rolling

arms slapping  

body shaking

skin purpling

brain bubbling

feet wiggling

ears flapping

The best part is

I’m drooling on my desk

Weird 2

Eyes blinking

Mouth talking

Feet stomping

Arms shaking

Head wiggling

Body spinning

Knees skipping

Ears shaking

Lips growling

The best part is making a silly face.

After this writing adventure, we brainstormed what it means to be a good citizen, first co-constructing the bare bones of a poem using a refrain and then going back to add in vibrant details before taking our clip boards and writing on our own.

Special thanks to Principal Seamus Marriott for the invitation, the opportunities, and the yummy meals.

Surabaya International School

An umbrella, hats, a bug zapper and plenty of warm smiles – what else does a poet need in Indonesia?  Our (too short) visit to Surabaya International School was a blast. What a welcome!  They gave us all that we needed to feel at home and more. After a couple of assemblies, we were happy to join writers putting words on paper.  Michael and I split up to visit all grade levels.

Third Graders in Liene Leiskaine's class were just starting a unit on money and trade so we collaborated in small groups to write questioning poems based on a lesson in High Impact Writing Clinics.  What is money for?  Who invented it?  What will money be in the future. Are coins better than paper? At the end of class we shared our poems aloud. A true test of a successful visit (as far as I'm concerned) is if the kids are writing after we leave.  Guess what?  I received an email the next day from Liene with the following questioning poem that her student had written that night.  

Nature

By: Subin Park

Why is the earth a sphere, not a square?

How do we compare?

Who gets to create the nature and how?

Isn't it cute when a paw meets a paw?

Why is an ocean deep?

Why don't we see green sheep?

Why is the nature so green?

Why is the nature so adventures for me?

How cool is that?  Thank you Subin for extending the lesson and making me imagine paw meeting paw. And why indeed don't we see green sheep?????

Another primary class gave me a send off that made me cry.

In the upper grades we talked about how poems can be starter seeds for longer essays stories and essays.  We wrote "bump in the road" poems, which are really story poems about triumph.

And many many thanks to librarian Leslie Baker and her kindly and professional assistant (whose name I have no chance of spelling correctly) for the hours of work put into making the visit happen.  We move on leaving poems and friends behind.  Thank you, thank you, thank you my friends!

My Global Moment

#MyGlobalMoment from The Ubuntu Center on Vimeo.

“And you call yourself an educated man.”

I was having a buffet breakfast in 2006 with two Afghan teachers at a conference for Middle Eastern educators (TARA) in Bahrain.  The man was young, maybe thirty, the woman, Hamaira, more seasoned, with a married daughter of her own. She had told me of her marriage at the age of 11, how she was in the garden playing with dolls when her father came to fetch her to meet her new husband.  While they had grown close over the years, she was quick to distinguish her marriage from her daughter’s, which, with a slight straightening of the spine, she described as a “love marriage.” Her daughter lived in Atlanta, far removed from her but also from the fighting in Kabul. “It is good,” she said definitively.

Hamaira, who had endured refugee camps and had very little in the way of material belongings insisted on giving me her headscarf when we parted, an act of generosity that I could not refuse, but which hurt to accept.  Years later, it still smells of her perfume.

The young man had a permanent look of concern.  He thought the ideas being exchanged at the conference were all good ones, but, he tipped his head, unfortunately not much use to him as his students had neither desks nor pencils.  These were only a couple items on a long list of what had gone missing in Kabul as the result of war.  No electricity. No clean water. His grandmother had no legs as a result of an American land mine.

“And you are sitting here having breakfast with me?” I asked.

“You did not plant this bomb,” he said matter-of-factly, evidencing a maturity of reasoning not present at home where educated folks had actually debated the merits of calling French fries “freedom fries,” a few years prior -- a phrase still in use at that time (and still in use in some restaurants even today).  Americans know how to hold a grudge and spread it with ubiquitous contempt from border to border.

The conference had sponsored the attendance of these two teachers.  They were both classroom teachers and trainers of teachers in a school system in which many children go to school in 2 hour increments because of their work schedules.  Not the teachers’ work schedules, the kids’.  With so many of the men absent from families after decades of war, basic provisions were a joint effort. As we sat trading stories, the young man said something that made Hamaira flare. “Ah, you say these things, and yet when you ask your wife to bring you a glass of water, you do not look her in the eye or speak her name. You wave your hand and say, water.  And you call yourself an educated man,” she sniffed.

“What do you expect?” The young man replied with a shrug. “I live in my father’s house.”

Changing the hearts and minds of people with such deep traditions suddenly looked to me to be a foolish, misguided and painfully arrogant notion, dreamy, magical fiction, transient as freedom fries.

To some extent, we all live in our father’s house.  How we find common ground is never along path carved out by one party.

Do you have a Global Moment?  Post it here and read others: http://theubuntucenter.org/moment/

Dostyk American International School, Atyrau, Kazakhstan

“What were you doing in Kazakhstan?’ asks the customs agent in Newark.

“How much time do you have?” I want to answer, but these folks get paid to not know how to take a joke, so I just say, “Visiting.”

He stares me down. 

“Visiting a school.”

“Do you speak Russian?”

“No.” Neither do all Kazakhs, I’m thinking.  They have their own language.  But I don’t say that part.  It was a long trip; I don’t want to add any interrogation rooms to the legs of my journey.  “English language,” I say.

“What are you bringing back?”

The true answer involves memories, smiles, stunning lines of poetry, new friendships, hugs from old friends, new vistas, tacos, home made beer, a muddy market, laughter, and a slight head cold.  But this guy doesn’t want all that, so I just say, “a hat and some alpaca socks from Frankfurt.”

Thump.  Thump.  He stamps my passport and hands it across the counter.

“Welcome back.”

How do you sum up a weeklong trip to the other side of the planet in a single sentence?  Memories are crammed into the data bank like an over stuffed suitcase, hard to contain even if you sit on it.

My best attempt would be, “Spots of brilliance against an otherwise grey landscape.”  Favorite line came out of Cheryl Fullerton's pre-school class where one student said that "snow is water than looks like sugar."  Most laughable line came from the K-1 class where one writer was searching a word and pointed to my eye for me to help her.  "She's not being rude," explained her writing partner, "she just doesn't know the word."  The word was wrinkled.  

Salinger and I spent a week working with the 81 students at all grade levels at Doystk American International School in Atryau.  The skies may have been grey most days, but the kids were brilliant.  Writing poetry can be risky business, but the kids just jumped right in.  This tells me that they are in an atmosphere where they feel safe.

The kids had illustrated some of our poems before we arrived and are active writers, so were open to trying new approaches as they wrote and revised their way to a culminating performance for classmates and parents.

The first couple of days, I taught in borrowed clothes as our bags got hung up in Moscow and flights to Atyau only happen every two-three days.  

Luckily, they arrived before the evening reading we did for parents.  Lots of good snacks and warmth with the ever gusty winds whipping outside.  Once in a while it's good to share poems just for the sake of the words.  Not teaching, just sharing.  

This was the first time we could leave behind a copy of our new book with projectable lessons, High Impact Writing Clinics, with teachers for follow-up, which was exciting.  We never go into a school thinking we know the needs of the students better than their teachers.  What we hope is that we can add a few more lessons for teachers to draw upon as they help kids find their voices through writing.  Sometimes it just helps to have someone back up what the teachers have been saying all year -- draft, revise, be specific, use comparisons.  The normal stuff made more than normal if kids hear it from more than one place.

Atyrau, Kazakhstan is not a well known tourist destination.  But we had fun touring, one day taking a 5 mile walk.  This picture was taking on the bridge where you can cross from Asia to Europe and back again.  The hat is on loan from Konna, the face mask a souvenir of Vietnam.  

Thanks to Principal Raul Hinojosa and his favorite librarian, wife Patsy for the invitation.  Thanks to Konna and Peter Parker and their therapy husky Toshe for opening their home to us.  Special thanks to the parents who made us feel welcome with spectacular meals and conversation. 

To Brent, Cheryl, Lauren and Maxim Fullerton, how great to see you again! Thank you so much for recommending us.