Welcome to Beijing! Day One

Here's Simon, our Tour Director





On June 23rd, 2011, we arrive in Beijing, surprisingly hardy after a 15 hour flight. We are the NEA Foundation, Awards of Teaching Excellence winners and we come from all over the United States to meet here in China. Simon, our Chinese Tour Director, is waiting for us at the airport.

We gather in a big circle, once we get our bags. Simon's easy and open way of relating is immediately clear to all of us.

I half listen to Simon while also thinking, "Ah, I need money - now what is the currency here? Oh, yeah, it's Yuan....hmmm...I remember that 6 and a half Yuan are a dollar."

I scoot over to an ATM just behind the group. My legs have a way of running while my arms hang stiff at my side. I get to the ATM and see Chinese symbols written all over the machine, but something is wrong. Oh, no! This isn't an ATM, it's fresh drinking water. English is written on the machine too and there is a clear line drawing of a cup.

But nearby I see an ATM and I successfully manage to get some Yuan. Yahoo! Bill after bill pops out with Mao's picture.



Simon follows up by explaining the currency to us, on the bus.

"Here we have a five Yuan note and you can see Mao's picture. Here is a 20 Yuan note and guess what? Mao's picture. Actually, every Yuan note has Mao's picture. He's an important guy."

That's Simon. He lays out the facts with passion and humor. His English is really good and it's clear that his tourism gig has the focus of a great teacher.

We get into our hotel and shower off the dust of the day. Some folks get money and others venture right out, for coffee, tea, whatever.

Debbie Calvino, the Awards of Teaching Excellence winner from New York (also the New York State Teacher of the Year for 2010) is my roommate for this trip. I appreciate having a smart New York roomie with a sense of humor for this trip.

Debbie and I are both pretty tired, but we settle into our room and quickly change clothes to get ready for dinner with the group. I'm not too hungry, but we are breaking out into real China by going to an actual Chinese restaurant. What will that be like? Will my favorite local Chinese restaurant - Bo Bo kitchen in Teaneck - have compared to real Chinese food?

A while later, we leave the hotel and walk to the restaurant, feeling better for the change of clothes and a quick splash of water. Once inside, we notice that every table has a gigantic Lazy Susan - a kind of rotating glass center portion of the table which spins, giving each person at the table a chance at the food offerings.

Soon, I see why this is necessary.

Dish after dish arrives along with a couple of liter bottles of beer and pitchers of soda. There are noodles, swimming in sauce, a tureen of vegetable soup, fish with their heads in thick soy, tiny chunks of chicken and veggies, strips of beef, fried rice, white rice, something that looks like translucent noodles, sprinkled with greens, a large bowl of thick chopped cabbage and carrots, cut on a diagonal.

We spin and grab - some of us struggling with getting slippery food from the bowls with chop sticks. Some teachers dive in and try over and over again to do it with the chop sticks and others just reach for the big spoon.

Once we're sitting down, we feel the energy starting to drain from our bodies, but the hot food in this local restaurant still feels good and welcoming to eat.

I look around and I see that almost all the tables are filled with Chinese people. They are indeed looking at us, but in a very friendly, open way - the way a mother looks at a child who has just tasted a favorite desert, which took her hours sweating in the kitchen to prepare. The Chinese diners are smiling in an encouraging way, and I think they seem relieved to see us dig into the food.

Not every teacher is happy with the food, but most are at least good sports. Traveling to a new country is challenging to one's cultural norms, especially if one's culinary experience is locally limited and unchallenged.

So this food thing is hard for a couple of us from day one.

"Oh, I'll have some white rice," says one tall and friendly looking teacher, with crystal blue eyes. "And some noodles."

I withhold judgment. I have a lot of advice about how you have to just throw yourself into a new culture, starting with food, but food limitations are tricky for people. It's hard to push out of one's comfort zone and personal experience to break through certain, previously invisible barriers.

Still, everyone's challenge is different. I am food open, for example, and like to taste my way through culture, but that doesn't mean that everything is easy for me on my cultural road.

I feel, for example, sad that I cannot speak Chinese right now. I would like to chat to the waitress about the food or ask questions about the ingredients, tell her that it's good to be here, in CHINA, on our first day - all about my flight and about how I did some toe touches in the back of the plane and mini leaps in a space between the last seat and the bathroom, so that I could keep the blood flowing.

Not that this polite waitress would care about my prattle, but I like to chat with people who cross my path about matters, both profound and mundane. I've learned too that the homeliest of topics can produce great insight for those conversing. But it's not happening today.

Instead, I say, "Sheah, sheah" which means "thank you" and waitress nods, looking at me with a tiny smile.

OK, that's something.

Catching up

Where do I begin?

It's been five months since I've on this blog! Over the past months, I have been reorganizing my life and moving to D.C.

In the meantime, I went to China and Spain. It's a pretty long story, but I'm going to tell it in the order that it all happened, skipping parts of my life whenever I feel like it.

I couldn't write much about China before now. China was working on me and I needed to process that before writing any kind of story about it.

China!!!!

As a Horace Mann Teaching Excellence Winner for the NEA Foundation, I was invited to visit China with a group of 31 of my peers. We visited China in June, traveling from Beijing to Shanghai to Hong Kong.

China is very far away - not just because it's literally around the world and you have to hop over the planet to get there, but because my life had developed no cozy feeling about this nation or its people. Going to China changed my life because it broke down barriers that I didn't know were there - my own internal Great Wall.

Note to self: there are more in there, waiting to be uncovered. Do I dare find them? Can I keep up the bravery required of searching out inner rigidities?

Today, it helped me to share my experience of the trip with five fellow travelers at the NEA Executive Board meeting. We passionately told our stories the best way we could and I am sure that the group was moved and felt like they had also traveled some of the distance with us.

By telling the story, in the way we did, the story came back to me. I could see those colors, smell the scent in the streets, feel the people near me as they walked down busy streets. The world un-flattened itself and China, its schools, street vendors, skyscrapers and rickshaws came back to me with all of the force of a dream, remembered.

Yes, I went to China and now, I'll try to tell you the story of where I traveled and why this matters to me.

I've been in a classroom for 33 years and now, I've come to Washington D.C. to work as a Fellow in the Department of Education for one year. Every day, in the Department of Education, we do serious work in our cubicles and conference rooms as we discuss outcomes and project success. We talk to many people, both inside and outside of the solid buildings with their W, C and E conference rooms on every floor. It's good and important work.

But for now, I want to remember what it was like to be somewhere I never had dreamed of going before - a place that tested my limits and stretched my comfort zones - China, a land I fell in love with and a people who had me at Ni How.

The way this will go is that I'll share some of my pictures and I'll intersperse them with words. I'll do my best to help you see what I saw and feel what I felt. There are people who know more facts about China then I ever will and others who will take photographs so vibrant that you could step into a landscape.

But what I know how to do is to be honest about what it is I think I saw and what it meant to me, a lifelong teacher. I hope that doing this will matter to someone who might have been hesitant to venture forth on any kind of adventure to a new land. It's not easy crossing the Great Wall we build within.

Philosophy in Spanish

The following is taken directly from the Dwight Englewood School website (www.d-e.org)

Students Chosen as US Delegation to Int'l. Philosophy Olympiad

3/31/2011
Dwight-Englewood School (D-E) proudly announces that two Upper School seniors will represent the U.S. at the International Philosophy Olympiad (IPO), scheduled to take place in Vienna, Austria, May 26-29, 2011.

Joseph Murphy, Chair of the D-E Ethics Department, confirmed recently that Kelly Greiss ’11 and Andrew Loeshelle ’11 have been accepted to participate in the 2011 IPO, through the Olympiad’s sponsoring organizations, the American Philosophical Association (APA), and the International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP).

The IPO was founded in 1993 and is associated with the international organization UNESCO, receiving funding in part by corporate sponsors such as Coca Cola and Generali. Open to all high school students globally who study philosophy, the IPO entails a competition in which students must compose an essay on one of 4 topics given to them at the competition. The main theme of the 2011 Olympiad is “The Power and Powerlessness of Philosophy.” The topics are submitted by philosophy teachers and professors worldwide. Students are required to write their essays in a language that is not the primary language of their country or their own mother tongue; English, French, German and Spanish are the languages allowed for the essay writing.

Students Greiss and Loeshelle were chosen to participate in the contest due to their dedicated study of philosophy at Dwight-Englewood, their approaching fluency in Spanish and for having participated in the School’s “D-E in Spain” summer language immersion program at the Universidad de Salamanca.

In addition to the essay writing competition, the IPO entails multiple collaborative discussions and ‘philosophical walks’ between students, teachers, and professors. All participants will also attend a Mayor’s reception hosted in their honor at the Vienna Town Hall, and a closing ceremony at the University of Vienna.

Murphy noted, “Hundreds of students compete in the IPO; and dozens of countries participate. Many countries have philosophy as a required aspect of their curriculum, so this is a very prestigious and highly competitive event. Our students are the very first team from the US to participate in the IPO using Spanish, which is an incredible honor for our School. Right now we are in training to prepare for the competition. We are finishing a reading of Brian David Mogck’s Writing to Reason and Historia de la Filosofia by Fernando Savater. In April and May we will be writing practice essays every week."

Murphy continues: “In a time when critical thinking is profoundly needed in our society, beyond our school, and where communications and collaboration are essential, where reflection and deep thinking are imperative, I hope that our School’s standing as the US Delegation to the IPO will inspire more students to think more deeply, philosophically, creatively, and reflectively. This can inform everything else they do, in ways that they cannot imagine yet. Suffice to say, we are quite thrilled to have this opportunity to participate in this unique international academic event.”

Blogging with students

I've started to blog with my students. I'm just jumping in. I'm not perfect at any of it, but since a classroom happens in "real time" with lots of action and responsibilities, it's important to collaboratively explore new technology with students.

I'm calling it "Mundo Maestra" (http://woodsmurphy.edublogs.org/) which means "Teacher world." Students from all of my classes are responding to prompts that relate to our readings or classroom discussion. This way they can connect with each other online and I am able to extend the reach of my classroom. Even though they make grammatical errors typical of learners of their age, they learn by engaging in conversations with each other.

Isn't that what we do when we speak? Practice our vocabulary, forms of expression and discourse - in the moment.

So too, they are writing and sharing in "real time." I post their comments. I need to "approve" them, but I don't correct what they write. Some might fault this because what is "published" should be edited and impressive. I'm using the blog in a different way, which attempts to take away the fear of expressing oneself in a second language and also to give students experience with an online classroom structure.

Many college classes have online components nowadays and kids who come from high school are not used to having to jump into online chats and formalized postings. I'd rather have them work on these skills before they leave high school so I am incorporating these sorts of lessons into my Spanish class.

I want the kids to be writing and thinking in Spanish. I am thrilled with their progress. An added dividend that I hadn't even predicted is that students from different classes and ages can see each other's work online. This way, all classes can potentially connect - older students with younger, students in other classrooms, schools, nations. Is there a limit? I don't think so!

Teachers

This is a link to a story that aired on CBS, on Thursday's Evening News, February 24th. In it, you see how my family responds to their teaching jobs in the middle of a critical time for educators everywhere!

Coming soon: The making of a news piece!

Governor Christie's budget address

Governor Christie made his budget address today - a long awaited moment!

He said that he cared deeply about public education and will restore 250 million to the schools. Good!

But what happened to the 1.3 billion cut last year - that's five times what we are getting back!

What about the 10,000 state education workers cut?

What about larger class sizes and the programs lost? We are all feeling it!

The governor says that it's not about blue and red, it's about the "black and white" of fiscal difficulty and our need to rectify issues in our state budget.

He says that New Jersey has had enough and that the state workers can't enjoy "rich benefits" paid for by the rest of the state.

And he says that our schools need "fixing."

First of all, state workers are contributing to their benefits and have worked out ways to share fiscal responsibilities with the state. These efforts need to be applauded and highlighted to the public so that the public realizes how collaborative state workers are.

In its fiscal planning, the state of New Jersey needs to restore ALL of the education cuts, to maintain the high level of education we have enjoyed. The governor believes that cutting the taxes of the rich, and taxing teachers is the way to balance our budget, but state workers are not the problem! Governor Christie's priorities are all wrong and the damage will be done to our children!

If we want our state to be on the cutting edge, to increase the use of 21st Century tools, to improve an already excellent state education, we need to fund it, at least at the level we were funding it prior to our fiscal crisis!

Austerity cannot be applied to our children. Without the clear and focused support of our students, we cannot create a future that will sustain this state.

State workers deferred their compensation and accepted benefit packages in lieu of increased wages. Now, they are being asked to contribute 30% to these benefits which would increase a teacher's contribution to 15% of their salary. Teachers are modestly paid, state workers entrusted with the immensely important job of educating our state's children. When we cut their compensation, we cut their ability to teach the children - teachers are laid off, resources cut, programs eviscerated or lost. The quality of education, overall, plummets.

We cannot fund tax cuts on the backs of teachers, fire fighters and other public workers.

Governor Christie's budget pits middle class New Jersians against the very workers who support their towns and the education of their children. While speaking words of "A day of reckoning" and "a new normal," the Governor proposes a state which under funds its public employees, cuts taxes for the rich and decimates public education as we know it, in favor of privatization, division and distress.

I'm glad that we will get some money back for education in New Jersey. I look forward to a day when the Governor sits down at the table with the representatives of our teachers to map out a plan for a future of success and triumph for all New Jersey citizens!

Wisconsin, we are with you!



Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill Protest from Matt Wisniewski on ;Vimeo.

This video shows the energy and seriousness of the gathered Wisconsin protesters, who will not sit by as their state's education and services are demolished. They rise up to speak, to protest peacefully and to exercise their democratic rights.

The "blindsided attack" on public workers, that we see Governor Walker engaging in, is a rising tide across this country, built on pitting the public against public employees. This is a distraction technique designed to find a scapegoat for our fiscal woes. What's more, Governor Walker is trying to set a tone for the rest of the nation. He must not be permitted to dismantle the hard-won educational strides in his state, to devalue teacher and public voices.

What is happening in Wisconsin is vitally important to all of us! We must support these public workers by standing up, each in our own way, learning about the sacrifices that they have already made and by speaking reasonably in the context of public misinformation about the facts of our time.

Being practical means supporting our children. If we want to attract and retain highly qualified teachers, we must create states which value their voices, the voices of their representatives and which engage them in conversations about the future of our states.

This harsh and unfair treatment of public employees who teach, protect, inform and transport our nation's people is an inexcusable manifestation of misguided priorities.

What's more, we are irresponsibly jeopardizing the public good.

We, the people of these United States, do believe that this democracy is organized in a fashion where all our young must be educated, where the teachers who guide them, must be supported and the public workers must not be used as a convenient source of funds to make up for misused state monies.

My fellow Teacher of the Year, Leah Luke, from Wisconsin is a leader among leaders, an articulate voice for and with her peers. She is a dedicated, responsible, intelligent teacher who will not stand down when her state is in trouble. We need to stand by Leah and stand up to the misguided practices in Wisconsin, Florida and my own state of New Jersey.

If State Teachers of the Year are standing up, in this climate, the public should know that something is very wrong. State Teachers have all been selected based on their classroom and academic abilities, but most of all - for their dedication to the students they teach.

The STOYS, as we call ourselves, have diverse viewpoints and are all across the political spectrum. Not one state teacher, however, would tolerate an attack on education. Listen especially carefully to Leah in Wisconsin and Megan Allen, who is working hard in Florida and my other colleagues among the STOYS, who offer clear and informed perspectives which should be considered.

Soundbites which bash teachers and aim to pit the public against them are bad for our students and ultimately, bad for the economy and our country.

I salute you, Wisconsin, from my home in New Jersey! You must keep fighting for your rights and to find a point where collaboration ensures the audacious belief that all children deserve a fine public education. Follow justice and your voices will prevail!