Time really does fly

Remember when you were a kid a summer would seem everlasting?  Now it goes by in the blink of an eye. When you´re 8 years old, three months is a big chunk of your life, at 32, they are just a few out of many many month you´ve lived.  I think the theory that times goes by quicker the older you get is so true.

Walking to school today, I realized it was exactly one year ago that I was working vigorously on my Fulbright application.  Over a bottle of wine and tears from a rough time at school, I took the idea of applying out from the back of my head where it has been hiding as Anton encouraged me to take the plunge and do the application.  For two weeks I did nothing but school and the application, barely pulling it off at the last second.  Now here I am!

Hearding dogs would be easy

Some of Santiago's many well-fed street dogs or "quiltros" outside my apartment building to welcome me home for lunch.  Funny to see them here as they are usually right in the middle of the hustle and bustle.  They normally choose a doorway or sidewalk for snoozing.

Sometimes, a hard part about doing my inquiry project is containing all the information, ideas, and questions that happen at the same time during a visit with a school or person.   I think the expression is used for gathering people together but it might be like herding cats.  I'm afraid that by the time I've totally grasped one idea, another might escape.  There is so much useful and interesting information coming at me at once and they translate to scattered notes in my notebook.  My mind and heart overflow with insight and inspiration and I worry won't be able to sift through it into a coherent whole.  That happened today.  I hope a blog post is a good way to synthesize.

The greatest school visits have happened by following up on random leads and by the graciousness of schools to accept my offer to visit.  I've been visiting Colegio Latino Cordillera thanks to the owner of a tour company who mentioned he sent his kids there while a friend and I met him while dining out.  A few weeks ago, I met with an educational consultant I connected with through 5 degrees of separation.  She works in maintaining native languages and supporting schools in developing culturally relevant curriculum.  She mentioned that her daughter goes to school where they do a lot of investigations and projects.  Of course, I followed up.  This morning I went to the Escuela Franciso Varela, in Peñalolen, a pretty part of town I had never been too. The director generously spent time with me, answering questions, explaining the founding and guiding principles of the school (meaningful learning, happiness and transparency) and touring me around the while introducing me to students and staff.  I was totally blown away by the school and had never seen anything like it before.  The campus was a Waldorf School and is beautiful.  It is just three years old, accepts all learners and 1/4 of the population is on scholarship (both things VERY rare for private schools here).  The school has a Buddhist inspiration, not to indoctrinate students with religion but to use some of the principles for character development.  It was named after a famous Chilean scientist known for linking science and Buddhism. Students start each day with a mediation practice and do yoga twice a week.

At the end of the visit around the school, he sat me down and said he likes talking more about educational history instead of didactics.  Again I was taken aback with admiration. He told me some brief history of education in Chile, including the persecution of educators who organized during the dictatorship.  In the 80's three prominent educators were kidnapped and murdered and the director himself was shot in the stomach and went to recover in Germany.  We discussed how Chile's political history and educational history are so closely intertwined.  He remarked that anyone who things schools are just about teaching kids are greatly mistaken, referring to the fact that schools are political institutions.  We also talked about the current demands of education reform, the two main tenants being quality and opportunity. Currently teachers do not need to hold a master's degree and are required to take no continuing education courses after they acquire a teaching position. Leo, also mentioned some resources to learn more about the school philosophy, most authors who follow Reggio Emilia and Loris Malaguzzi.

I left the school feeling totally overwhelmed with info but mostly grateful and in awe (a recurring theme of my time here).  Just when I thought the morning couldn't be more special, I saw there was a place called Herbarium across the street.  It was an herb and garden store that was more like a secret garden.  Almost no one was there.  There was bright sun, chirping birds and beautiful views of the mountains.

The day isn't even nearly over yet!  Anton and I are going to finally climb one of Santiago's big hills, San Cristobal.  I still have to reflect on the practical information and ideas for the classroom I observed today but in terms of collating some my ideas, mission accomplished.

Regresé de mis viajes, navigué construyendo la alegría

I love Pablo Neruda's idea of traveling as navigating happiness, especially after two of the greatest days in Chile.  They started off with the presentation at a Symposium of Cooperative Learning.  It was really neat to use my experience and an area of interest to present to 100 eager undergrads. Ahead of time, I was hyperventilating and nauseous from nerves but pulled it off well.

                                  Straight after Anton and I headed to Viña del Mar, 1,5 hrs from Stgo. to visit with Cathy, a Fulbright Scholar living there.  She introduced us to her super nice friends Natalia from Chile and her boyfriend Nabil from France.  I had it in my mind that Viña was a snobby resort town but I was pleasantly surprised to learn it was a lovely seaside city. It was so nice to walk along the water and dine out with great company.

The next day we rode down to Isla Negra, the crown jewel of Neruda's three houses and it did not disappoint.  The house itself, like the other two, are heavily influenced by Neruda's love for the sea, good company, food and drink, and his writing.  It is also full of handpicked collections and objects from childhood and world travels.  Every item has a reason or a story. Like shelves of colored glasses in the bar room because Neruda though wine tasted best from a tinted glass.  Or the table made from the door of a boat that washed up from a shipwreck.  None of the houses allow photographs inside which in a way is too bad but on the other hand it makes it more special to rely on memory.  It is quite magical to walk the rooms and the grounds with the stunning views of the sea.  While there, one feels fortunate to be in such a special place.

Nabil, Natalia, Cathy, Me & Anton.  New friends at Neruda's.

After visiting Isla Negra, on a tip, we took a micro about 10km and walked for about 20 minutes to get to a seaside restaurant in the small town of Las Cruces.  Totally worth the trip.  A fantastic meal off the beaten path in the open air with spray from the sea.

Doesn't look like anything special but the house special was awesome.  Corvina (a white fish) covered with spicy shrimp and mussel sauce.

                                       

 On the jacket cover of a book I still plan to read, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, it says something like the best things in life are novelty and challenge.  Even though these can sometimes be the same thing and they exclude the comfort of the familiar, I whole heartedly agree that these are essential for happiness.  On the sign for Las Cruces was the motto "Paz y Encanto" (Peace and Enchantment).  I think these can also be great words to live by which allow for one's own interpretation.  To me, peace can be satisfaction with one's place in life in terms of their relationships and work, and acceptance of themselves without fighting any inner battles, basically overall contentment from tranquility.  Enchantment can come in many forms such as seeing new places, meeting new people and learning new things, and being curious about and in awe of the world.  If not words to live by, they were great words to reflect on as I returned to Santiago with a full belly and an full heart.  

Agradecimiento

Those that know me, may agree that being super positive unfortunately isn't always my mo, so although 100% genuine, it seems cheesy to say that not a day goes by that I don't feel lucky to be here.  Even when the sun hasn't shined for days and I've spend hours on the subway and buses to get where I'm going, I feel grateful.  On a day like today, when the spring sun is shining bright and I spend the morning at a school that is truly wonderful and get information for a project topic I'd given up on searching for,  it's a dream come true to be here.  With the overwhelming, never ending to do list at home, I can be too exhausted and pressed for time to reflect on teaching, let alone research areas I'm interested in.  To be able to do that on a break from teaching, in a foreign land, on a continent I've always wanted to reside in, is a gift.

The least surprising finding I've had is that kids are the same everywhere.  Not uniform of one another but the same in showing wants and needs and in being totally enchanting.  While kids were working in a grade 2 classroom today, I chatted with a few and a boy told me about his family and that he never sees his 17 year old sister because she is working and studying.  His classmate chimed in that he never wants to stop being a kid, to which their other classmate added, "nunca quiero sufrir como adulto/I never want to suffer like an adult".  Sage words indeed.

I need to start grazing through all the notes I've been taking during classroom observations and conversations with teachers, to take out and expand on the nuggets of information.  Another great moment this week was visiting the Gifted & Talented teachers at the top international school in the city.  They shared some of their wealth of information and gave some super ideas about project based learning that I hope could be applied in the classroom setting.  There, and today while interviewing a teacher, I also had some thoughts of how to make cooperative learning with dual language learners more structured to better target academic language learning.  When I had all but given up on the idea that I could learn about my original idea, there it is.  Can't wait to put it all together.  Even more excited to be able to implement all I learn when I return to the classroom.

Weekend Update: Pasta, Bikes, Condors and More!

In big news this week, Anton arrived to Santiago!  He decided to cut his bike trip short to be able to spend time together here.  It's been wonderful.  Even just strolling around and having some of the world's best ice cream is 1,000,000 times better when you have someone to share it with!

One night, he made his famous homemade pizza.  Best meal I've had in Chile!  Other highlights from the week included wandering around a neighborhood full of used bookstores and kiosks and an evening out in the lovely Barrio Italia.  It is full of these little converted shopping centers with amazing stores with handmade and local designs, and sweet cafes in courtyards.  We ate a delicious dinner of homemade pastas with Italian and Chilean cocktails!  

Yesterday, we joined the Andes Hiking group again for an awesome hike to Rio Clarillo, about an hour outside of Santiago in Pirque.  It was an amazing day filled with interesting international people and spectacular views and of course the mandatory empanada and beer following the hike!

Two things not pictured below are the majestic condors and the greatest sunset we saw. The amazing birds got up close as we reached the summit of the hike.  They always fly in pairs and they were enormous, graceful and cartoon-like all at the same time.  On our drive back into Santiago we were accompanied by a gorgeous pink, orange and red sky.  

          

A few weeks back, I joined the bike share program here.  Today we will head out on our bikes together and pedal the city streets that close down for recreation on Sundays.  Perhaps we'll head to a French food festival and a map exposition. Update:  we lounged around eating croissants and listening to french music then went to another park to paddle boat around and visit the Natural History Museum.  Trés bakán!

In project related news, I've happily gotten into a steady groove of school visits.  I found out that my original project plan cannot drastically change so I'm sticking with the topic of cooperative learning and how it can be used as a strategy for differentiation in the classroom.  Something that is interesting and would super useful to me back in the States is how to incorporate more cooperative activities through project based learning.  Another good suggestion given to me is to research how to strike a strong balance between direct instruction and cooperative learning in the classroom.

I'll also be busy today and tomorrow preparing for a short talk I was invited to give to undergraduates at Universidad Alberto Hurtado.  I will be presenting about my experience with cooperative learning at a Symposium for students training to be teachers of English!  Very exciting stuff!

Hallelujah! The ball is rolling!

You know what they say, "time flies when you're having fun".  Also, in my case, time flies when you're in Chile on a Fulbright Award and have only 4 months to get settled, understand the history and current context of the education system, build relationships with schools and conduct an inquiry project!  I can not believe I've already passed my one month mark here.  After the delays with the spring break and getting adjusted to the Chilean timeline for replying to emails, this week and last are full of various school visits.  I'm pumped!  The focus on what exactly my inquiry will be has gotten a little blurry am I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not.  Luckily I am meeting with my advisor tomorrow in hopes to get ideas straightened out.

The other day I introduced myself to a hiking companion and after explaining the reason why I am in Chile, to identify best practices to bring back to the states, she remarked, "I think Chile is in the business of importing best practices not exporting".  This sums up how most introduction exchanges have gone here.  I think sometimes Chileans think something is wrong with my Spanish when I try explaining Fulbright and the purpose of my stay, since unfortunately many have negative impressions of the education system here.

I have an ever deepening sense of appreciation for immigrants who come to the USA.  In this case, those who had professional careers in their home country and then in the USA enter in the service industry or something like it.  At home, I was so grateful for congratulations, encouragement, and recognitions about my Fulbright Award.  Here, almost no one has heard of Fulbright and most think I am a student, not a seasoned teacher!

The purpose of the program, in my understanding, is NOT to see a type of pedagogy and copy it back home but to engage in inquiry based on observations.  Despite the difficulties I´ve had, I know that I have benefited in many ways here already (por ejemplo, I will never complain about 24 kids again).
I realize I haven´t written much about my project or my school discoveries in my blog.  There have been many changes from my naive initial ideas.  I have struggled with how to present all my learning and reflections, but here goes a little recap:

In my application, I proposed that I would get to know my assigned school (ideally an intercultural bilingual school), identify participants and conduct an action research study.  The study would aim to discover how classroom talk in groups and pairs aids in the transfer of academic language skills to less proficient students.  In order for this to happen, there needs to be schools with economically diverse populations and schools that engage in cooperative work.  Both barely exist in Chile.  It would be a challenge and last far more than four months to implement cooperative learning where neither teacher nor student are accustomed to the idea.

With an open mind, I strived to contact and arrange school visits within various school contexts.  Chile is going through a long overdue educational reform.  Since the dictatorship, there have been private, public and subsidized schools.  A main tenant of the reform is that subsidized schools can no longer be for profit and must accept anyone who applies.

Catholic School values

My assigned school from the Commission here is a subsidized school. I have also visited a public school with the help of contacts from Barbieri school psychologist who is a former Fulbright Scholar. I've trekked to three private schools, one that instructs in Hebrew, English and Spanish, and a British International School that uses the Primary Years Program.  I´ll also start to visit a less prestigious but super interesting private school that instructs in Spanish but follows the Assessment for Learning model from England which emphasizes independent learning and metacognition versus results driven instruction. There, I was invited to deliver a presentation about Accountable Talk, something we have been working on at Babieri.  This is the school closest aligned with my ideals and therefore the one I am most eager to spend time at.

My thoughts exactly!  It reads, "For a fair selection everyone should take the same test: please climb the tree".

As you can imagine, there are incredible differences between each setting.  The public school is in a neighborhood that I walk through very quickly to get to and from the subway.  Most families seem to live in one room homes.  There there is an actual bell that someone rings to indicate change of classes.  One of the private schools is located high above the city, on a campus more beautiful than most college and there was a line of luxury cars to pick up students at the end of the day.

37 First graders in uniform and ready for math class!

After learning that my original project would not work out, I drafted a few plan Bs.  One, to observe how scholarship students were apprenticed into private school settings.  This did not work out as most of the efforts for social integration have dissolved.  Two, to observe how the special education teachers integrate with classroom teachers.  Chile has a new program dedicated to this cause called PIE (programa de integración escolar).  The third idea, closer to my original idea was to visit intercultural schools, and study how the national curriculum is modified to support development of cultural identity and thus school success.

I want to stick to the foundations of the Fulbright Distinguished Teacher program which is to develop a project that is country dependent.  The latest idea that is brewing is to develop ideas about teaching for global competence based on the observations I make in various settings.  Global competence can be described as "ensuring students have the knowledge and skills to investigate the world, recognize prospectives, communicate ideas, and take action."   I have heard about IB curriculum at international schools, PYP is the primary years program version of that.  After observing it in action at the British school I immediately fell in love with the interdisciplinary, skill based curriculum.  That is my ideal teaching method.  I would like to be able to adapt those methods to fit in the curriculum requirements of my teaching context back home.  If only the clock weren't ticking so loudly in the background!

View from a school. It only took me a train ride, two bus rides, a taxi and 2.5 hours to get there!

My First (Chilean) Hike!

Yesterday was a great day.  With the help of Internations and Facebook, I found an awesome hiking group.  Carlos, the Chilean founder and leader is an experienced sailor turned hiker who has lived in the States and Brasil and is full of energy.  About 30 people met up in the early morning and headed out for Caijon de Maipo, about 200 km from Santiago. t was a great mix of seasoned group members and newcomers like myself.  I was the only one from USA which is miraculous because we are everywhere.  About half were Chileans, and the rest from Holland, England, Germany, Romania, China, Argentina, Colombia and France.  I'd heard that Santiago is like the Bay Area of Latin America, the nest of start ups and tech companies.  This may be the reason why it is almost certainly the most international city on the continent.  

I expected it to be chilly due to the high elevation, but I didn't expect all the snow that was still on the ground.  It was going to be an 18km up and down to see a glacier but once the group set out we discovered the snow was knee deep and the group (including me) didn't have the right gear. I was disappointed about not seeing the glacier but my out-of-shape legs were relieved.  Then plan b was also a no go because the trail was closed.

The group was starting to loose steam but after some hot cocoa and lunch in the little village above the group rallied and wound up doing a great (much shorter than planned) hike.   We hiked out and back for about three hours with some elevation increase.  The company was interesting and great to chat with in Spanish and English.  Felt good to get the legs moving and it was gorgeous.

After 5 weeks in the city it was a gift to be in nature and witness a landscape like I'd never seen before.  The day rounded off with the mandatory beer and empanada post hike.  Awe and gratitude!