Hi, all:
Thank you for joining me! I am hoping that it will be an exciting, introspective, up-and-down, round-and-round kind of journey. I am looking forward to building a community of parents, educators and philosophers who can build off each other's ideas to revolutionize our classroom/everday learning experiences for both our students and for ourselves. I am sure that I will be posting sporadically; please bear with me as I figure things out around here. I hope that I will respond to people who visit, post some thought-provoking questions, and take on some new challenges. If you haven't already, take a look at this wonderful video about how geese work together to get an idea of what I hope we can all be to each other as we challenge ourselves, meet new people and develop ourselves as a community of learners. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsukj_lessons-from-geese_business
A special thank you to TESOL's Blogging 4 Educators for sharing this video and for inspiring me to finally start my own blog!
What new challenges are you taking on for 2008?
Please tell me a bit about where you live and work and share something that will be new for you in 2008.
Thanks for being here,
Alison
Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living. John Dewey
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. Albert Einstein
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11 comments:
Hi Alison,
Nice splash - I felt the wave way down in Kyushu!
The bit you wrote in your blog description about "learn[ing] without interference" was inspiring, to say the least. We've both shared jamsoun's Lessons from Geese video on our blogs, and the quotations at the end of your inaugural post resonate with another quote from Dewey that I like to share:
"To discover what is really simple and to act upon the discovery is an exceedingly difficult task" (Dewey, Experience & Education).
Blog on!
Paul
pab's potpourri
Hello Alison
I'm Erika Cruvinel from Brazil. I work as an EFL teacher in BrasÃlia. Since I joined the webheads community 2 years ago I have met many special people online who have helped me improve my teaching skills and taught me a lot about working collaboratively.
So I have been learning the Geese lesson every day.
Just a tip: maybe you could change your blog settings to English. Some people might find it difficult to find where/how to post if it is in Japanese.
Hugs
Erika
Hi Alison,
You asked, "What new challenges are you taking on for 2008?" Two of my goals for this year are to blog and study Japanese more regularly. My daughter will most likely be starting at a Japanese daycare soon, and her language skills will develop. I want to learn more with her!
Hope we'll have the chance to meet f2f sometime!
Thanks for sharing your blog with us! Being part of an online community of practice is a wonderful opportunity :)
MaryH
Dear Alison, your quotes brought a smile to my face as I nodded agreeing with you and the famous educators you included (Einstein too, of course).
Quite true, very often we concentrate on the future of our students or simply testing and completely forget about what is really important in the learning-teaching process.
I do not teach children but I guess it must be difficult to do so in an educational system that is very traditional, as the Japanese one seems to be and where your future is decided at a very young age depending on your early academic accomplishments (or so I have heard).
Our community of practice is really wonderful; some of us participate less, others more but we all feel welcome, valued, respected and we always find a helping hand (or two) whenever in need.
May this be just the first of many wonderful blogging experiences.
Warm regards from sunny Caracas,
Berta
Hi, Paul:
Thanks for being the first to comment! I'm glad to have at least three things in common and to find out that you live in Kumamoto, an area of Japan that I haven't spent much time in (yet). I love Kyushu and we seem to always head that way on family road trips...
I took a trip over to your blog last night, too. Now I just have to figure out RSS feeds, I think. It seems that that will be the key to following some of the interesting people I am meeting through TESOL's Blogging 4 Educators (now if I could just figure out how to stick a link in here). See, now there are at least two things to figure out today!
Thanks for helping me on my journey. Hope to see you here again soon!
Alison
Hi, Erika, esteemed leader ;-)
You and the other moderators of Blogging 4 Educators are inspiring me. And I don't just mean about blogging, but also about going to Brazil someday...
If you could tell me how to change the language, I would really appreciate it! That's one of the things left over as homework from yesterday.
Thanks for dropping by!
Alison
Hi, Mary:
Thanks for visiting! I am excited about your goals for 2008. Maybe you can help me with the blogging and I can help you adjust to your daughter starting daycare. I have been really impressed by the daycares in Japan, by the number of acitivites that put on (pools in the summer!) and the creative play they encourage. One day I arrived to pick up my daughter and the teacher was sitting at the table with a fancy hat on and a menu in her hand ordering dinner while the kids had aprons on and were writing down her order and bringing the food. Then they switched. Everyone looked like they were having so much fun and playing restaurant at our house was really popular for months after that.
What steps are you taking to improve your Japanese? I majored in Japanese so I had a good base when I came to Japan, but having kids and reading school announcements required lots of new language. Do you have a group of Moms who can help you with translating things if you need? I had a bunch of moms and one mom with an older daughter over before school started and she went through all the things we needed to have and where to write names on things before the first day of school. We were all a lot more relaxed about it after that!
It would be nice to meet f2f! I really liked the picture of torii gates on your website and would love to visit there someday.
Thanks again for coming by!
Alison
Hello, Berta in Caracas:
Yes, I agree with you that it is wonderful to be part of a blogging community. This is definitely one of those things I couldn't have started without a community to hold my hand.
Yes, teaching styles in Japan can be very traditional, but I also see all the creativity and hard work that the teachers I work with put into their days. Elementary schools here are very well balanced with outdoor activities, growing vegetables and cooking them, looking after the school's animals (we have chickens and a rabbit) and bringing in people from the community to learn with (tomorrow we will be talking about what life was like for their grandparents and parents when they were kids! - I will learn something, too). It's junior high/high school and exams that worry me!
But it is also hard to teach to the individual child's interest with a class of 30! Hope you can provide some advice at some point...
Lastly, you are right about starting new blogs - my daughter wants one now. She is only 9 but has a history of mastering technology faster than me - you should see all the functions I didn't know I had on my cell phone!
Thanks again for commenting. Hope to see you here again!
Alison
Hi Alison,
"You can change the language of the help pages and [dashboard] menus by choosing a different one from the drop down menu in the upper right corner of any help page" (Blogger tip: Changing display language; April 24, 2oo7), among other ways.
Some link recipes are here:
http://tinyurl.com/2un5pm
Cheers, Paul
Hi Alison,
Sounds like a deal to me! We are looking in to a Montessori school right now. A couple of the children in our community are also going there, so we're hoping that will help to make the transition easier for all of us!
As for my resolution to study Japanese, I am trying to be more aware of my surroundings. Many times I catch myself tuning out the TV or not reading signs because I assume I just won't understand them; however, when I am more present and actively engage myself, I find that I can learn and understand more than I ever imagined at first. Other than that, I have a subscription to Japanese Pod 101, and a textbook to study, but I don't utilize either of these resources as often as I should.
If you can recommend any useful materials or strategies for learning more Japanese, please share them!
Hi, Mary:
Nice to see you here (and nice to see you at your blog, too)! I'm glad it's a deal. I have been enjoying your blogs and can see there are lots of new tricks to learn there. I want to work on Bubbleshare next. I just love that they provide a little link underneath so anyone can pick up a new thing they like from someone else's blog!
Montessori sounds great! Do go up to some of the Japanese Moms, or ask the daycare to introduce someone, who can help you figure things out. As you know, people here love to help and it's a great way to make friends, because people might be shy about approaching you at first. It's like how talking in the car or while cooking is so much easier the first time you meet someone (talking while doing something) rather than standing face to face and coming up with spontaneous conversation. I was too shy with the other Moms at hoikuen at first (and always worried about doing something wrong or missing an announcement). Another great way to make friends was to play at the park across from the daycare after I picked my dd up.
As for the Japanese, I think getting your ear used to it and not starting with something too difficult is great. You should watch programmes with your daughter. I also like Sazae-san because you can learn a lot of day-day-to-day, family (intergenerational) language and cultural patterns for communicating. I completely understand what you are saying about focusing. I have the same problem with reading. I majored in Japanese at university, so I have already studied all the toyo kanji, but if you don't use them... So I avoid reading, but if I put my mind to it and don't worry about understanding everything, then I realise I know more than I think! And then I improve! Confidence in our abilities is 95% of the battle, I think.
What is the name of the textbook you are using? And tell me more about Japanese Pod 101? Sounds intriguing....!
Thanks for coming by.
Alison
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