Welcome to my blog on my year (July 2010 - June 2011) in the Marshall Islands! The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a Micronesian nation composed on 29 coral atolls and 5 islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. I am here on the Dartmouth Volunteer Teaching Program which you can find out more about at this link: www.dartmouthrmi.com. I am staying in the capital, Majuro, and am teaching two sections of 7th grade English Grammar/Writing and English Reading at Majuro Middle School (MMS). I am living in dorms on the Marshall Islands High School (MIHS) campus, where MMS is located. If you have any other questions please feel free to email me at l.andrew.rayner@gmail.com, and thanks for visiting my blog. I update on Sundays as regularly as electricity/internet availability permits.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Reading Groups, Parent Teacher Conferences, and Halloween In Paradise (Which is the Scariest?)




This week was full of firsts. My grammar class focused on prepositions, which concluded my long unit on parts of speech. In both of my classes about two-thirds of the students got either 100% or an A (90% or above). I was very happy about this. I topped the week off by playing "Grammar Rock" from the "School House Rock" DVD that my parents sent me for my birthday. The videos go over all of the parts of speech and as I watched I was proud that I had taught my kids so much. My students loved the music videos, as all children do. In reading class, I used each day of the week to model the different activities we would be doing at each of the reading stations when I am leading guided reading. I broke the class up into five reading ability levels. I made these groups based on my experiences with them in class and how well they did on a sight word test that I administered to them (Dolch sight words are words that one is supposed to be able to read just by sight; they do not necessarily follow the conventional rules of phonics). My five stations are guided reading (with me), rhyming/poetry (where students can either try to come up with as many rhymes as possible and/or can read and try to emulate poems by Shel Silverstein), art with books (where the students do a project based on a book that I have read aloud to them), descriptive writing (where I bring in an object and the students have to describe it using as many senses and different adjectives as possible), and a word/sentence game. The word/sentence game was originally crafted by Mandy. I made a bunch of notecards with the letters of the alphabet on them and the "dealer" draws 4-8 cards (depending on the group level) and the players have to be the first to come up with a word. The sentence game is less competitive in that the entire group works together to create sentences with the huge number of word cards I made. In this game, I am able to incorporate my grammar lessons, the word cards contain examples from every part of speech and grammar lesson that we have had (ie. plurals and possessives). The students loved both of the games. This week, instead of me modeling the activities in front of the whole class, the class will break into the reading groups and switch between the stations each day while I move from station to station (for this week, guided reading will be replaced with silent reading). This will allow me to make sure that every group understands every activity. I am excited to get the proverbial ball rolling. While I was very nervous about getting reading groups started, I think it will actually be very successful.

On Wednesday I had the two winning teams from the end of last term come over to my house for pizza. I think they really enjoyed the opportunity. All but one of the students showed up. It was strange how docile they were, however. When I finally let them in, they all sat down and did not say a word. When I opened the pizza and told them to come get some, they did not move. I told them that I wished they were this good in class! I think they were just nervous to be in my home. They stayed for a little while after the pizza was gone (which was almost instant) and played games and then left in under and hour. A simple and easy prize that I think they appreciated a lot (the picture above is with the two winning teams after eating).

This past Friday, MMS had parent/teacher conferences. The teachers were supposed to be available to give out report cards for their homeroom and meet with parents from 1-5 (we had a half day). I went into my first PT conferences very nervous. I did not know how many parents would show up and I did not know how good their English would be. However, my worries were all for nothing. About two-thirds of my parents showed up (21 out of 31) and I had only a few parents who struggled to understand me. It was a very good test of how far my Marshallese had come in that I did not need any help to convey the jist of what I wanted to say to each of the parents who did not speak English well. Before going to the conferences, I thought I would be very happy to talk to parents of my failing or poorly behaved students, but to my surprise it was really painful for me. It was sad to see parents be so disappointed in their children. I hope that those parents can motivate their kids somehow. On the other hand, I relished in talking to the parents of my best students. I even went out of my way to find the parents of a student my non-homeroom class to tell them that their son could go to college in America if he keeps up the good work (his English is near perfect). During this process I had my first feelings of regret of knowing that after a year I will be gone and that I will not be around to see my kids succeed (or to encourage those who fall by the wayside). I plan to do my best to stay in touch with my top students to continue to encourage them for years to come.

I was excited to see my first "major" international holiday celebrated in the RMI. I was a bit discouraged when I asked my students about Halloween a few weeks ago and many of them said they did not celebrate it because of its anti-Christian implications. I did not think that Halloween would amount to much of anything as a result. But, thankfully, those students of mine who were against Halloween were in the minority in the country. Friday, the students at MIHS made a haunted house and had a party in our shared gym for all young people. While unfortunately there were kids there who were drunk, the students seemed to have a good wholesome time for the most part. On Saturday, one of the women's groups on island had a fundraiser party at a club called Lani (Luh-nai). They club was decked out in Halloween finery and most of the ribelles on island were in attendance. Thanks to a clever idea from Justin, I dressed up as Quailman from the Nickelodeon TV show "Doug" (see original photo here: http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/2/29812/581278-image_2_quailman_large.jpg). I unfortunately forgot the "Q," but the costume was a success. Sadly, very few people actually knew what I was (I knew the Marshallese would not know, but I assume the ribelles would--I forgot that they are all 4 or more years older than me). Still, I did not think I would have a costume so I was happy that I was able to come up with something last minute. Alex and Christina (a World Teach volunteer who was in for the weekend from Arno, the closest atoll to Majuro) went as pumpkins and Eric went as a comic from he Marshall Islands Journal.

Finally, a shout out to Dartmouth. It wasn't until Friday night that I was reminded that this weekend is Homecoming. I hope the 10s had a good showing and let the 14s know how things are really supposed to be (I hope you all ran your 114 laps!). I miss you all.

Bar Lo Kom,

Andrew

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Quarter 2, Week 1


This week was fairly low key after a week of multiple birthday celebrations and end of the term exams. As I wrote in the blog last week, I wanted to start this term by giving my students some study and thinking skills. In my reading class on Tuesday (we reviewed the final on monday), I instructed my students on three different ways to study - memorization through repetition, notecards, and self quizzing. I also told them that there would be a quiz the next day on describing one of these methods and that I highly encouraged them to use at least one of the methods to help them study. The next day, many of my students came into the classroom with notecards made from the night before and almost everyone passed the test. Unfortunately, these study skills did not seem to carry over for most of my students for our grammar test at the end of the week (though I did see one or two students using notecards), so I guess I need to constant reinforce the use of the notecards.

Wednesday, after the quiz, I gave my students seven questions to respond to: Why is the sky blue? Why do mosquitoes bite? What makes the waves? Why do certain fruits (pandanas, apples, oranges…) grow on trees? How did dogs get in the RMI? Why do people speak different languages? Do you think the Bikini bombing was “for the good of mankind”? I knew the answer to some of these questions (the moon creates the waves, the sky is blue because of the ocean, dogs got to the RMI on the boats of European invaders) and I was able to fake my way through the others (natural selection for the plants question, the development of language as a necessity as humanoid groups moved across the world) but the real purpose of the questions was the get the students to think outside of the realm they usually did. These were questions that the students, I was sure, had never really thought about. It was my hope that the students would stretch their minds attempting to come up with answers. The project met with little success. The students did not do the assignment for the most part so I had to give class time on Thursday to do the work. When I collected the work and looked at the answers I saw that many of the students simply stated that "God made it that way" or that "because its good that way." As a Christian myself, I saw that I would need to explain that the belief in God does exclude the rationale of science and that many scientists are religious people themselves. Some of the students did think cleverly. Some tried to explain that the movement of fish or of boats in the water created all of the waves. I was also surprised to find that not all of the students believed that the Bikini bomb tests were a bad thing. The next day, I progressed through the questions and was surprised that I was able to explain such complex concepts simply enough for my students to understand them. I was a bit disheartened to learn, however, that my students thought that the moon was larger than the Earth and that the Earth rotated around the moon. In a place where the two greatest resources were the sky and the water, I was shocked to find out that the students did not even know basic scientific concepts about either. I guess that is a testament to the usefulness of practical science (like understanding the winds or where certain fish dwell) and the superfluousness of hard science to a people so firmly rooted in their native culture. When it came to discussing the Bikini bomb testing, I did my best to explain the idea of every situation having two sides. We discussed the reasons that the Americans and the Marshallese thought that the testing were a good thing at the time, but also discussed the negative consequences. We did not have much time to talk about the issue before the end of class, so I hope to bring up the topic again in a more constructive manner. Overall, I was happy to provide the students with knowledge of things that they had never heard of (like Darwinism) and discuss with them some things they had thought about before, but I was left troubled by the inability of most students to think outside of the box and come up with answers themselves.

In grammar class, we learned about interjections and conjunctions this week. I taught the students a variety of interjections, including "bangarang," an interjection made famous by the 1991 Steven Spielberg film Hook starting Robin Williams (it was used by the Lost Boys whenever something good happened). My students liked it so much that they have already started using it when they answer questions correctly in class. As I said before, the students did not do well on their quiz this week. It was the first time that I had used a matching format on an exam and since the kids had used it before in other classes I figured they would do well, especially since the bulk of the quiz was based on matching interjections with emotions. I will have to remember to test out formats before using them in assessments. In lighter news, my parents sent me BBC's Planet Earth and Life for my birthday. They also sent me the entire collection of School House Rock videos. Grammar Rock is my favorite, and I look forward to using them, and all of the videos in class. Thanks mom and dad!

I also learned this week in school, through journal entries, that many of the kids here do not believe in celebrating Halloween for religious reasons. Mandy and I had planned on having some kind of Halloween party for our students, but now we have decided against it. While some of the students said they would dress up, many of them said that it was a bad holiday. I believe that the volunteers, the other ribelles, and myself will find some other way to celebrate.

Outside of class, this week was lacking. I got hurt playing soccer a few weeks ago (because of a fairly grim scratch, I now know why shin guards are so necessary in the sport) so I have not been as active, but hope to spice up this week by regularly going to gospel choir rehearsals after school at MIHS.

That is all for now,

Bar lo kom,

(and please, somebody, send some snow?)

Andrew

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

End of the Term and Turning 22 in Paradise




This week was highlighted by the end of the quarter and birthdays. The first quarter came to an end after 9 weeks of teaching (which is so crazy to think that that much time has passed already). MMS had finals on Thursday and Friday. While I think it is strange to have "finals"--literally or conceptually--at the end of the quarter in middle school, I prepared my kids and wrote my tests nonetheless. We spent the first part of the week reviewing everything we had learned over the quarter. For reading, this included literary elements, parts of a story arc, Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (which we have not finished but I thought it was important to review anyway), and the concept of main idea and supporting details. For grammar, we covered a lot of ground this term including identifying nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, subjects, and objects, proper and common nouns, subject, object, and possessive pronouns, making words plural and possessive, and articles and demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, and those). Phew!

Initially, I was worried that testing the kids on all of the content we had gone over would be too much for them. My plan was to give them all of the answers for the reading test (since most of it was vocabulary) and re-teach everything from grammar as a means to make the test not only about how much the kids retained but to see if they would actually study or not. Surprisingly, during the review I was shocked by how much the kids had retained. I was especially proud that many of my students who did not speak English well were able to answer many of the questions. I went into the testing days thinking that all of my kids would do better than I expected.

Unfortunately, I was discouraged by the results. In my homeroom (104), only 14 people out of 31 passed the reading final and only 14 passed the grammar final. In my other class (107), 14 people out of 30 passed the reading final and 20 passed the grammar final. I was highly discouraged by these results, especially since the review went so well. It was a clear indication to me that the majority of the kids did not study. It also made me question the final format I created and how I had been teaching and assessing understanding throughout the term. I computed the grades in the hopes of a bit more encouragement towards my efforts as a teacher this first term. After computing the grades, 14 people passed reading and 15 people passed grammar. In 107, 16 people passed reading and 18 passed grammar. I am happy that a bit more than half of the students passed both classes, especially recognizing that I was pushing them harder than they had ever been pushed before. I come from a background of parents and teachers who always expected the best from me, even if I was not able to produce it. It was their hope that if I aimed high, I would still come out well even if I did not reach my goals. This was my mentality going into teaching my students. Still, I think that those methods did not necessarily work well with all of my students. Many of them have not ever been asked to do anything in a classroom besides copy down notes from the board and memorize answers. Thinking skills and study skills are completely foreign ideas as a result and so the kind of results I was hoping for might be too far out of reach if those skills are not put into place. I feel like my next big challenge is to teach my students how to think--not only outside of the box but inside of it as well. My hope this week and this term is to change how I am teaching to make it a bit more holistic so I can reach all of my students at their various levels. I started this week by telling my students that I will not let them fail this term and I hope that is a promise that I can keep. Still I recognize that my students have to want to work if there is going to be any success. Motivation and inspiration and two things I am still struggling to figure out how to teach.

This week, I plan on teaching thinking skills and study skills. I ask you, blog reader, to give me any ideas you may have in regards to these skills and how to teach them. It has been so long since I have had to actually consider either of them that I am at a bit of a loss. The internet has provided some help but I realize that I need to come up with other ways to teach these types of ideas to make them fun and to make them understood by both my best students and my students who understand the least English. What are some of the thinking and studying skills that you think are most important to develop first? Thank you in advance for your help!

On a lighter note, this past week was FULL of ribelle birthdays! It started on Thursday, which was Justin's birthday and the birthday of Jason Temple, a ribelle from England who works at WAM, and Amethyst Magee, who is the child of Yvonne and Craig Magee, two ribelle College of the Marshall Islands teachers who I have grown close with. After giving my first final, I rushed over to MIR to wish Jason a happy birthday. His girlfriend Aylssa Cowell, had planed a boat trip for him but we had to wait for an additional battery to come lest the one battery die and we get stranded in the middle of the lagoon. The second battery was taking a while to be delivered so we decided to get into the boat anyway. Lo and behold, just as we pulled away from the dock, the battery died. We had to walk the boat back across some reef. It was unexpected but fun time. As I have mentioned in previous blog entries, I go to Yvonne's house every Thursday for dinners with her family and a few other CMI teachers. This Thursday was a surprise party for Amethyst. Mandy and I purchased a cake from a bakery in town and Craig made DELICIOUS homemade pizza. A few of Amethyst's friends were invited as well. She was very surprised and enjoyed the party thoroughly. Alex and Justin came from Ejit to join in the festivities as well and that night we went out to celebrate his birth.

Saturday, Justin and I texted all of the ribelles we knew and told them to come out to the Marshall Islands Club to formally celebrate both of our birthdays. MIC is right on the water and it is a beautiful bar. Many ribelles showed up and it was very nice to see that though we had only been in the RMI for a few months, we had gained many friends. The night ended late (or early) and a fun time was had by all. On Sunday, I had already decided that I was going to go to Enemanit since I had not been there in a long time. After numerous phone calls I found out that someone was still going (the weather was a bit rough) and Yvonne decided to go with me. I have been to Enemanit four times now, and this time was the least crowded. Usually there are around 30 adults and a billion children, but there were only a handful of people this time, which was very nice and relaxing. We barbecued and I went snorkeling with an 8-year-old ribelle boy named Logan. His parents were new on island and they, strangely enough, used to be Community Directors at a dorm complex at Dartmouth! Small world. Anyway, it was nice to have something that I wanted to do actually come together even though my efforts were last minute.

Monday was my actual birthday. I am really bad with birthdays, since I do not like the idea of getting older, but my dorm mates made sure to make it special. I woke up with a handmade card on my door from Mandy. It had a nice note in it about how we had become such good friends in a short amount of time and a poem called "All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum, which can be found at the end of the blog entry. At school Mandy surprised me by having taught all of her and my students "Happy Birthday" in sign language and by having them all sing and sign it to me at the end of recess. It was overwhelming and highly appreciated. It is Marshallese tradition to sing to the birthday boy or girl and then throw money at them (usually bills). Many students appologized to me for forgetting money, but I was relieved that they did, because I would have felt very uncomfortable taking their money/refusing the gift. Anyway, my students also drew a happy birthday picture on the board in my classroom and sang to me as well. It was nice to feel so loved. When I got back from lunch, Bill, who knew of my love for bacon, had cooked me close to a pound of bacon for a present. It was neatly presented on the kitchen counter. Mandy and I made delicious bacon and tomato sandwiches for lunch (and I ate all of the rest of it...admittedly I felt slightly ill afterwards). I came home after school to find Joanna making 22 homemade dumplings for me that were filled with chicken, spinach, garlic, and tofu. They were also delicious (I am trying to savor them but it is really difficult). Then, for dinner, Justin and Alex came in from Ejit and Mandy, Joanna, Hannah, and I (and Erica, a World Teach volunteer who is on the nearby outer island of Arno but is staying with us because she is sick) all went to Won Hai Shen for dinner. Afterwards, we went to Tide Table for ice cream and so that I could wish happy birthday to another ribelle, named Natalie, with whom I share the October 18th birthday. The day was very nice and relaxed, but I will admit that it made me homesick for my family and friends. Know that you were missed on this day, that you were in my thoughts, and that I love you all very much.

Today, the day after my birthday (though I still count it since it was my birthday in the US), my homeroom students told me that they had something for me after school. I had no idea what it might be, but I waited around for the last period to end to see what the surprise was. My students found me in the office and led me to my classroom where they had used their own money to purchase me snacks and cookies. It was en extremely nice gesture, especially knowing that many of them were using their taxi or lunch money to give me a gift. After school I was able to talk to my parents for a little under 20 mins. My mom, per tradition, told me my birthday story (which involves chili, the film Full Metal Jacket, and a very well dressed doctor) which was the icing on the proverbial cake for my birthday celebration. Thanks to all those who made the day/week/weekend special!

And now, on to a new term!

Bar lo kom,

Andrew

"All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you are sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life--
Learn some and think some
And draw and paint and sing
And dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon [...]
Be aware of wonder [...]
And it is still true, no matter how old you are--
When you go into the world,
It's best to hold hands and stick together.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

"Second Star to the Right and Straight on Until Morning..."



I think that Alex Huestis most accurately described the Marshall Islands as a veritable "Neverland" (to be fair, she was describing Ejit, which she claims is actually run by children since there are so many on the small coral island). Where else would you see troupes of children parading down the street chanting tunes and marching in time with smiles on their faces? Where else would children be out at all hours playing in the street, unfazed by cars and wild dogs? Where else could you see kids using all types of things--from sticks to sheet metal--to play games? I have seen children playing militant games from atop huge shipping containers. I have seen kids recklessly climb up the side of the school building Spiderman style (spread eagle between two walls). Suffice to say, they are very brave. While I am sure that these observations are not only centralized in the RMI, the prevalence of children (the RMI is 46th in the world for birth rates at 30.7 births/1,000 population according to the CIA Factbook) and all the sailboats furthers the metaphor.

My life here has been centered around children. While I do hang out with other ribelles on the weekend and play soccer with Fijians on Mondays and Wednesdays, the main focus of my week is on my students (who I have started to refer to as "my children"...please don't let that make you nervous mom). Teaching has required more out of me than I expected. Since the Ministry of Education only provides guidelines, teachers are expected to come up with their own curriculum that meets those standards. This puts the onus of responsibility on the teachers to keep their students engaged, entertained, and learning (to be fair, I know that this is always the responsibility of teachers everywhere but it seems exacerbated here as a result of the lack of standardized curriculum). Being an English major, and somewhat freakishly obesessed with grammar, I do not find creating lessons that difficult for the grammar and writing classes. It is difficult to make grammar entertaining, but because of the competitive system I have set up in my classes, my students are almost always engaged. Reading, however, has really been a challenge. I am someone who from an early age has loved to read. Unfortunately, that zeal is not necessarily present in my students. It is hard to teach reading skills (let alone in another language) when those skills have come so naturally to me for such a long time. It becomes even more difficult when the texts are at a low reading level. Thus, my reading classes have required me to revert to a younger mindset. To help my students understand different reading techniques, I have relied heavily on drawing. This week my reading class focused on making comics as a means to understand main ideas and supporting details in stories. On Monday, I tried to explain to my students the concept of main ideas and supporting details by using simple short stories that I created. I told them "If you were going to retell this story in one sentence, what would you say?" A few of them understood the idea, but I could tell that it went over most of my students' heads. The next day I explained to them the art of the comic. I drew comics on the board and then erased all of the "supporting details" from the image so that what was left was only the main character and whatever action he or she was doing. My students seemed to understand this much better. We then spent the rest of the week writing stories and making comics out of them by picking out the main ideas from some of the stories that the students wrote. The end product was 60 beautiful comics, and some (hopefully) well educated kids.

Ideas like this one, however, do not come easily. I knew that I wanted to do something with comics before I came here and it clicked when I was trying to think of a way to teach the abstract concepts of main idea and supporting details. I have found that it takes a bit of childlike thinking to educate one. I think this is a lesson that is frequently forgotten.

Outside of the classroom, my life is becoming more child-centered as well. Outside of playing hacky-sac with my male students and volleyball with my female students, I was fortunate enough to teach all of my students my favorite childhood game from elementary school called "bullrush." It works exactly like the game "sharks and minos" except the players are running instead of swimming. Basically, all of the players line up on one side of a field. One player, who starts off as the "bull," counts down, "One, two, three, BULLRUSH," and all of the players standing in line run across the field. The goal is to get across the field without being touched by the "bull." If a player does happen to get tagged, that player joins the original "bull" and attempts to tag other players. The players who are running are considered safe from tagging once they have successfully crossed to the other side of the field. The winner is the last person to be tagged. It was a delight to play the game again after having not played it for years. The students seemed to really enjoy it as well.

The Marshallese children are incredibly innovative themselves. There are two games I have seen them play countless times that I have never seen anywhere else. One is similar to dodgeball. Everyone playing gets into a clump in between two players, one of whom has the ball. That player hurls the ball at the crowd and everyone in the middle tries to get out of the way without being hit. The player on the other side attempts to catch/recover the ball as quickly as possible so as to keep the rally between the two throwers continuous. If someone besides the two throwers catches the ball, the thrower is switched out and the game continues. The other game is a traditional Marshallese game that is a similar to football. There are two teams, and one small ball (the size of a hacky-sac; a small, sapling coconut is usually used). At the beginning of the game, the team with the ball huddles together facing the opposite team on the other side of the field. They all have their hands behind their back in order to ensure that the other team does not know who has the ball. Then, a call is raised and the kids rush across the field, still with their hands behind their back. The defending team tackles all of the players in an attempt to find out who has the ball. The offensive team wins if the player who is holding the ball makes it across the field. It is fairly brutal to watch at times, since the kids can be ruthless, but highly entertaining.

Mandy and I are also trying to make our Saturday field clean up a regular event. The students clean for a little while but it gives us more of an opportunity to hang out with our kids outside of the classroom/school hours. We bring a soccer ball, frisbee, and volleyball and play with the kids for a few hours. It is a great way to get to know them.

I think all of these interactions, in the classroom and outside of the classroom, have forced me to become a child again myself. While my sense of responsibility has become heightened as a result of...you know...having a job, I feel like my job requires me to find Neverland myself to ensure that the students and I have fun. When I first decided to come to the Marshall Islands, I had no interest teaching any age group besides high schoolers. Now that I am here, I am ecstatic that teach the level that I do. The kids are able to engage in higher level thinking but are still on the cusp of being young children who like to play simple games and roll around on the floor like toddlers. More and more I feel like teaching was the perfect choice for me outside of college. I will not lie and say that it has not had its ups and downs (it is difficult to come up with new things to teach every week) but I have always been someone who claimed to have "Peter Pan syndrome" in that I never wanted to grow up (please refrain from all Michael Jackson references, God rest his soul). After the graduation ball dropped, this fear became even more present to me. But here in the RMI, a land overrun with wonderful, fun loving kids, it seems that time as stopped, and the one can in fact stay young a little longer.

Next week Monday (October 18) I will be turning 22. I think that the RMI is the perfect place to step into full adulthood.

____________________________________________________________

While not going along with the theme I also wanted to mention that Fiji day was celebrated on Saturday here in the RMI. I was told that there are around 35 Fijian families in Majuro and it seems like all of them were all all of the programming throughout the day. The day started with field events on the MMS/MIHS field and ended with a huge Fijian feast in the Melele Room in MIR. The feast included Fijian dancing, music, and kava, a traditional Fijian drink. It was a great time!

Also, a big kommol (thank you) to the Doyle family for sending the Bungalow tins full of Halloween candy! We appreciate it very much.

Bar lo kom,

Andrew

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Imagination and Reality



This week presented interesting ideas and challenges to my experience in the RMI. In my reading classes, Bill inspired me to do a unit on imagination. On Monday, we discussed what imagination was and I instructed my students to draw a picture of a fish with legs, feet, and fur, who is singing while making a pizza. The point was to teach the students that the same picture formed in their minds from my instructions are the same kinds of pictures they should have in their minds as they read. I also showed my students the video clip of "Pure Imagination" from the original Willy Wonka film. They had never seen it before and were mesmerized by it (one of them asked if it was real in fact!). The next day, I read from a wonderful children's book called What If... by Regina Williams. The book is a collection of beautiful illustrations of "what if" situations a little boy is dreaming up before going to bed. Some of these scenarios included gardens made of candy, dogs growing on dogwood trees, and clouds becoming what they look like and putting on a show in the sky. The assignment was for the students to make up their own "what if" situations. My two favorites were "what if I flew a plane into a rainbow and broke it," and "what if it snowed in the Marshall Islands." On Wednesday, I read from one of my favorite books from elementary school, The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell, which I had been reading to the students before. I then had them draw pictures of what they saw in their minds from the chapters I read. On Thursday, final day of the unit, I showed the students a book that Mandy has used in all of her classrooms previously called Flotsam by David Wiesner. The book has no words but tells the story of a boy at the beach who discovers an underwater camera that has fantastical pictures on it such as huge starfish with islands on their backs, schools of robotic fish, and tiny aliens riding on sea horses. It was a delight to see the faces of the students change from wonderment to shock as each page turned. The students were then asked to write the story themselves. I think that the unit was well received.

At the same time, each night Mandy and I watched movies that were about or involved imagination. On Monday, we watched Hook (the word "bangarang" is thankfully back in my vocabulary as a result), Tuesday we watched Finding Neverland (about the creation of the story of Peter Pan; an absolutely amazing film if you have not seen it). Wednesday we watched Howl's Moving Castle, (in an effort to lighten the mood after watching such a sad film the day before). Thursday we watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I think that watching these movies in juxtaposition to doing a unit on imagination really reawakened my inner child (well, that and working with children everyday). I concluded that as a result of this week, when I come back for the summer I want to work at a summer camp, because I myself never went to one (and also because after seeing Hook I have an irrepressible urge to be in a food fight).

On Friday, I took my two winning teams on a field trip to WAM (Waan Aolen in Majol) to go on traditional Marshallese canoe rides and to have ice cream. The students really enjoyed the trip and it was nice to play with them outside of the context of school (pictured above).

This weekend, I moved quickly from a week full of childlike wonderment to the reality of the world around me. On Thursday evening, after dinner at Yvonne's house, I learned more about the culture and politics of the Marshall Islands. I realized that this is the first country I have ever visited that I knew literally nothing about before coming (besides the little information I gleaned from Wikipedia). Politics and culture are very ingrained in the everyday life of the Marshallese. I believe this is because of the scarcity of land and familiarity that everyone has with one another. It is a testament to the Marshallese that while the Marshall Islands is heavily influenced by outside countries--especially the United States--the people have successfully held on to their roots. In addition to having a president and a republic, the Marshall Islands also have iroojs, who are highly respected community leaders and landowners. The Marshallese concepts of land, power, and money are very different from the American concepts as a result. I think this is why it is difficult sometimes for volunteers to come and attempt to help with various aspects of Marshallese life. We just do not know enough about the culture, and, in many ways, we never will since we come from such a different context. The Marshall Islands are a small group of islands and atolls in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They have followed their customs for many years and no word view could or necessarily should change that. There are so many ways that I want to help here, but I learned this weekend that the help has to come out of the Marshallese context and perspective, not an American one. What is progress? What is advancement? What is beauty? These words mean different things to different people. When I look out at the lagoon, I still have a hard time believing that what I am seeing is real. When the Marshallese look out, they see the same water that they have seen for hundreds of years. They see a life force and a source of food, commerce, and transportation. I was shocked to find out that many of my students do not even like to swim! I need to first see things with Marshallese eyes before I can try to work for change. It will take a lot more time and patience on my part to learn what I need to know to help outside of the classroom and I worry that a year is not enough time. There is still much to learn. I feel fortunate to be in a place where I am required to listen more than speak so that I can in fact learn as much as possible. I hope that in my time here I will be able to make a difference inside and outside of the classroom by working with the Marshallese and their culture.

More shockers from the island:

23) The realization of how Americanized the RMI is yet how different it is from the places I am familiar with was striking to me, especially after having been here for two months.

24) Despite the idea that the pacific islands are isolated and paradisical, the islands (including the RMI) have had major influence from outside parties. They are not as disconnected from the rest of the world as one might think.

That's all for now!

Bar lo kom,

Andrew