work and play

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both."  —James Michener

                 

This week I gave my second teacher training.  The theme was Writer's workshop.  The thing about writing and sharing ones's writing, dear world, is that it takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there.  Perhaps that is one of the reasons why teaching writing is one of my favorite things to do (besides the fact that I love to do it myself...)  There is a great opportunity to build self-confidence when you are teaching writing...besides just teaching the skills of getting letters on the page (hopefully with some connection to the sound that they make and the message that they are trying to convey).

Here the teachers are participating in a roleplay on how to give positive, specific feedback, while building student independence--have you ever tried to spell out every word that 20+ kindergarteners want to know how to spell... 30+ in the case of Guatemalan classrooms?? Good luck with that. 
 

Teachers writing an evaluation..and smiling! :) Yay!

The promoters (who are the other Common Hope staff that are supporting teachers in public schools) also modeled reading activities for the affiliated students who come to the foundation's library for story hour. 

At the end of this busy and very active week, we shared with each other at least one thing that we had learned from other...keeping in gentle balance the idea that we are all students and all teachers. 

I've felt so much gratitude this week, to have been placed to work in this fun, forward-thinking atmosphere with warm and motivated people.  We are in the first phases of a large stategic plan and spent most of the day yesterday reviewing the goals and action plans that we are taking as the new school year is getting ready to begin. 

 

Another exciting thing that is happening is that my parent's are coming to visit in early February!  They are gathering materials through First Presbyterian Church, Bonham to bring down that will support our goals.  If you would like more information you can contact them through the website http://www.fpc-bonham.org/ 

We topped off the week with some fut. 

Work and play, work and play :)