Yesterday, George and I took an adventure to a cool place I'd found in my guidebook to Hawaii. Usually, I wouldn't think of a cemetery as a place to go sight-seeing, but of course there are exceptions. Valley of the Temples Memorial Park is a inter-denominational cemetery with a unique cross-cultural mix of East and West. The main "attraction" at the cemetary is the beautiful Byodo-in Buddhist temple at the back of the park. It is a scale replica of a 900-year-old temple located in Uji, Japan. It is a peaceful and contemplative place complete with wild swans and peacocks and large carp swimming in the man-made ponds. The temple houses an enormous gold-leaf Buddha. Adjecent to the temple is large bell that guests to the temple can ring using a large log. The whole park is situated in a lush valley surrounded by large volcanic mountains and facing a bay out to sea. A gem of a place indeed! More pictures here.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Valley of the Temples
Yesterday, George and I took an adventure to a cool place I'd found in my guidebook to Hawaii. Usually, I wouldn't think of a cemetery as a place to go sight-seeing, but of course there are exceptions. Valley of the Temples Memorial Park is a inter-denominational cemetery with a unique cross-cultural mix of East and West. The main "attraction" at the cemetary is the beautiful Byodo-in Buddhist temple at the back of the park. It is a scale replica of a 900-year-old temple located in Uji, Japan. It is a peaceful and contemplative place complete with wild swans and peacocks and large carp swimming in the man-made ponds. The temple houses an enormous gold-leaf Buddha. Adjecent to the temple is large bell that guests to the temple can ring using a large log. The whole park is situated in a lush valley surrounded by large volcanic mountains and facing a bay out to sea. A gem of a place indeed! More pictures here.
Friday, November 10, 2006
George's Graduation from NCO Academy
After a month of rigorous, sleep-deprived, out-in-the-field, covered-in-mud training, George at last completed the Warrior Leadership Course, also known as NCO Academy. The Army held a nice ceremony for the graduates at Schofield Barracks. George graduated with academic honors, showing me again that he is a smarty pants! :-) If you look carefully at the pictures you can tell that George and the rest of the graduates are completely exhausted, but they all seem happy to be returning to their normal lives. I am as happy as anyone to have my sweetie back at home! See pictures from the graduation here. A couple short video clips click are here.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
A Window into Aiea Intermediate School
I'm mostly blogging because I have uploaded some new pictures I took at the school where I am now student-teaching. Click here to see pictures of the school building, the volleyball circles that are a staple at lunchtime and recess at Aiea Intermediate, and pictures of my students, my mentor teacher, and her instructional assistant. Like I said below, I'm having a great experience and I love working with middle-schoolers.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
The Melting Pot of the Pacific
I have now begun my second student-teaching placement at Aiea Intermediate School. There is no other word to describe my experience except amazing! In typical Hawaiian style, the school is an open-air structure, with classrooms built around an open courtyard adorned with palm trees and tropical plants. If you are standing in the right place, you can see Pearl Harbor through a window-opening in the stairwell in one corner of the school's main two-story building. If you look to the right, you can see the top of the Waianae mountain range just above the roof. (I promise pictures soon!) While the views and the atmosphere are great, the best part of my experience so far is the students. The students at Aiea are diverse and lively and lovely. They love football and volleyball and can be seen throwing one or both in the courtyard after lunch and during their morning "Wiki." (short recess).
The students in my ELL class are especially awesome. They come from a number of different backgrounds and they have diverse language backgrounds. Ilocano (a Filipino language) and Marshallese speakers (language of the Marshall Islands) make up the largest part of my class. There are also Samoan and Korean speakers and a lone Spanish speaker from Puerto Rico. Along with these unusual languages, students also bring unique cultural identities. While I wasn't terribly thrown off when I noticed some students taking off their shoes after entering the classroom, for example, belief in supernatural demons was one cultural trait I wasn't expecting. . .
On Halloween, my mentor teacher prepared a lesson in which students would read ghost stories from several different cultures. One story we read was a Marshallese folktale in which a pregnant woman, after being left alone by her husband for months on end, turned into a mejenkwaad, (Mejenkwaad is a Marshallese word meaning "demon.") It was an eerie story to be sure. Upon the husband's return from his long trip to find congratulatory presents for his wife, he discovers his wife's transformation. He quickly deduces that she has eaten everyone on the island, as mejenkwaads usually do. Students were asked to write responses and reflections about the folktale and the response of one Marshallese girl stood out. My mentor teacher asked her to share her reflection with the class.
The seventh-grade girl, who is one of the brightest in the class and a natural leader, proceeded to tell her classmates about the time her aunt turned into a mejenkwaad. Without hesitation and maintaining full seriousness, she described how her uncle found his demonized wife in the middle of the night preparing to eat one of their children! Luckily, the student explained, her uncle had Holy Water in the house and was able to splash his wife back to her normal self. Another Marshallese student added that the moral of the folktale must be to keep Holy Water handy if your wife is pregnant!
After class, I respectfully inquired more from the girl. I was genuinely curious, and I wasn't about to voice my disbelief skepticism, even though I felt it through and through. After all, I am still a rookie in my new Pacific home. The last thing I want to do is alienate my students by telling them their beliefs are somehow wrong or erroneous. In their own time, they can re-examine and challenge and decide for themselves. That's what a good teacher lets students do, right? Besides, I am a student in my new world, too. Maybe I ought to re-examine and challenge my own beliefs in order to better understand my student's odd and implausible story.
The students in my ELL class are especially awesome. They come from a number of different backgrounds and they have diverse language backgrounds. Ilocano (a Filipino language) and Marshallese speakers (language of the Marshall Islands) make up the largest part of my class. There are also Samoan and Korean speakers and a lone Spanish speaker from Puerto Rico. Along with these unusual languages, students also bring unique cultural identities. While I wasn't terribly thrown off when I noticed some students taking off their shoes after entering the classroom, for example, belief in supernatural demons was one cultural trait I wasn't expecting. . .
On Halloween, my mentor teacher prepared a lesson in which students would read ghost stories from several different cultures. One story we read was a Marshallese folktale in which a pregnant woman, after being left alone by her husband for months on end, turned into a mejenkwaad, (Mejenkwaad is a Marshallese word meaning "demon.") It was an eerie story to be sure. Upon the husband's return from his long trip to find congratulatory presents for his wife, he discovers his wife's transformation. He quickly deduces that she has eaten everyone on the island, as mejenkwaads usually do. Students were asked to write responses and reflections about the folktale and the response of one Marshallese girl stood out. My mentor teacher asked her to share her reflection with the class.
The seventh-grade girl, who is one of the brightest in the class and a natural leader, proceeded to tell her classmates about the time her aunt turned into a mejenkwaad. Without hesitation and maintaining full seriousness, she described how her uncle found his demonized wife in the middle of the night preparing to eat one of their children! Luckily, the student explained, her uncle had Holy Water in the house and was able to splash his wife back to her normal self. Another Marshallese student added that the moral of the folktale must be to keep Holy Water handy if your wife is pregnant!
After class, I respectfully inquired more from the girl. I was genuinely curious, and I wasn't about to voice my disbelief skepticism, even though I felt it through and through. After all, I am still a rookie in my new Pacific home. The last thing I want to do is alienate my students by telling them their beliefs are somehow wrong or erroneous. In their own time, they can re-examine and challenge and decide for themselves. That's what a good teacher lets students do, right? Besides, I am a student in my new world, too. Maybe I ought to re-examine and challenge my own beliefs in order to better understand my student's odd and implausible story.
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