Jay Loomis
Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.
- Marian Wright Edelman
Freedom School
I participated in a week-long training workshop at Marian Wright Edelman’s farm in TN to prepare for the six-week summer reading program for 3rd graders from low-income districts. During the summer course we met every morning for Harambee. I organized the classroom, displayed students’ work, wrote lesson plans, provided daily assessment, went to daily staff meetings, and attended weekly meetings with parents.
I found that my Chinese students had had few opportunities to talk in front of a group of people; they were very nervous and uneasy about being in the spot light.
I decided to use pictures as the source of inspiration; the students worked in pairs and had to develop a short story about 2 pictures that they received.
By the end of the course, I was pleased to see some of my shyest students with low English proficiency, speaking loudly and clearly, and at ease.
The group of students below decided to send condolences to the Virginia Tech campus in April of 2007, after the shootings. They asked about how such a thing could happen, it was so crazy to them that at first it almost seemed comical. We decided to talk about it and think about how the families and friends must have been feeling. Each student wrote a note of encouragement for the families and friends of the victims to be sent together in a package.
Another part of the care package that we prepared was Chinese calligraphy. We went to a part of Xi'An full of calligraphers and found an artist who wrote a traditional Chinese blessing for the Virginia Tech community.He had a list of translations of blessings and proverbs that we could choose from. This is the kind man who wrote the blessing, and one of my students checking out the work.
Spain
China
I implemented a specific curriculum to prepare Chinese college students who were preparing to study abroad (Global Assessment Certificate). I taught writing and culture classes, and beginning to advanced conversation.
EDUCATOR
Mexico
I taught English to 7th and 8th graders at el Colegio Bilbao, in the mountains to the south west of Mexico city. The school integrated ecological studies into their curriculum. Here they're doing a tree planting activity.
