Rain, Spiders and Christmas!

Just a quick update from Bali-

Rainy season is here! It rains at least once a day, December and January will bring lots of rain!! And it is hot hot hot! Not July in NC hot. More like June heat and April showers. But since we are outside all the time, we are constantly sweaty!

I saw the biggest spider of my life two days ago. It was on a small box that I picked up!! I did drop the box and run away, but I did not scream a bad word in front of the children, so I reckon I handled it pretty well! My classroom assistant took care of the beast, gently waving it away with a piece of paper. I’ve learned the large spiders here don’t spin webs, they are hunters, so they walk around looking for food...I do not like anything about this!! At least with webs they stay in one spot!

The ants and mosquitos are annoying and the spiders are scary, but then I look around at this beautiful place and try to take it all in! Right now I’m sitting in my classroom while the kids are at art. I can hear laughter, talking, a few bands of instruments, bugs, frogs, the river, and rain. Oh and of course the Christmas music I am streaming from 101.5 FM!

I am so looking forward to going home for Christmas!! But in yogi terms-I’m also trying to “stay present.” I can’t wait to be home, but I really don’t want to wish this time away! Tonight we’re having a potluck dinner for Thanksgiving, two more weeks of school and Alissa is coming to visit!! So many wonderful things are happening, so I’m balancing my excitement with focusing on the here and now! : )

Grateful

This is from a colleague and friend's status-beautifully written and so true! 

"Everyday I walk into my classroom at Green School. Our path is lined with lemongrass and our bamboo classroom is magnificent. An enormous blazing sunflower has just come out. On the way to the toilet hut is an enthusiastic pineapple growing freely out of it's cactus. Chilis, eggplants, bananas, and bamboo are growing around our wall-less-ness. We hear the winter-less wind rip through them sometimes. Most of all I love the amazing people I work with, so generous, so unafraid to show true love and care, great people. My students are an international crew of awesomeness and I am so proud of everyone one them."

Wednesdays my kids have two hours of thematics, two hours of proficiency (math and English) and two hours of Bahasa Indonesian (language and culture). I teach the first two classes, break, two more hours, then lunch with the kids. Today I remembered my Wednesday schedule from last year. It was the exact same-2 classes, snack, 2 classes lunch. The difference is now, Wednesdays do not feel like a long day!!! Of course I'm tired after work-being outside in the heat all day will do that. But it's a good tired! I think there are a few reasons it feels so different. 

1. These kids are kind, caring and value "peace." 
2. I only have 14 students! 
3. There are 3 adults in the room-I have an awesome Indonesian teacher and classroom assistant!
4. Thanks to no walls, noise is never a concern.

I guess my point is on this Wednesday afternoon is that I am feeling incredibly grateful for this opportunity and thank God everyday for bringing us to this island!  

Singapore

This weekend we made a quick trip to Singapore for a visa run. We've heard mixed reviews-some say Singapore is boring, just go for the day; others say it's great, make a weekend of it! We decided to go early Friday morning to get the paperwork done and stay until Saturday afternoon, and it was wonderful! 

Don't get me wrong-we absolutely love Bali! But it was great to get away for a bit. We joked that we had gone back to civilization! We had hot showers, went to Starbucks, Lululemon and two microbreweries.  I didn't pack a hair dryer when we moved to Bali and never bought a new one, so at the hotel I used one for the first time in months! We also pumped the AC and slept under a duvet. The best part of it all...no bugs crawled on me for over 24 hours! 

This morning we visited a church for a second time and really enjoyed the fellowship and worship! Looks like we found a winner! And on Friday at school we have BamBOOpalooza-a big Halloween carnival! Can't wait to dress up! 

Lembongan and Teacher Talk

Last weekend we took our first trip outside of Bali to Lembongan!

We caught a ferry in Sanur, a city on the east coast about an hour’s drive from Canggu; in 30 minutes we went from the normal black sand beach to white sand beach with crystal clear water! I knew the diving would be good, but I didn’t know the island would be so beautiful. We spent Saturday and Sunday in Lembongan. They had diving, snorkeling, paddle boarding, and banana boats! I went the relaxing route-$10 full body hour long massage followed by an afternoon of tanning and sunset dinner with friends. It's amazing how rejuvenated you feel after going away for a weekend! 

This next part is teacher talk! 

For starters, one of my goals for this year is to not use the printer. We have journals for math, writing, homework and thematics, and I improvise for other things. For example, I use Starfall for calendar time instead of a bulletin board (partly because I didn't have room to pack my sweet calendar set) For assessments like running records, I just keep on my computer in student folders. Homework is a daily entry in their journal like:

Find a pattern in your home.

Practice skip counting by twos.

What book did you read tonight?

Write a sentence about...

Write the four greetings in Indonesian

Of course this is easy to do with only 14 kids! 

This past week was Challenge Week. Here is an article from the Green School Newsletter shares all the activities in the different grades with pictures. http://www.greenschool.org/weekly-newsletter/sep-12-2014/challenge-week-update

The idea is to take time and assess the whole child. Challenge Week is a time to focus on intellectual, creative, social emotional and physical developments.

My teaching experience has been in NC public schools and an American school in Kuwait, so I basically have no experience in holistic education! I want to share a little bit of my reflection on this subject and try not to ramble!

What does it mean to provide child-centered education? Is my class subject-centered or child-centered? How does my schedule reflect this? 

I have always worked in a school where the schedule tells me when to teach Language Arts, Math, Social Studies and Science. The goal is to integrate all the subjects and for the children to understand the concepts presented. 

Now I am teaching in a school where the day has blocks for thematics, English, Math and "specials." Our next theme is Indonesian Fairy Tales. I teach first grade, when they still believe in magic. The tooth fairy visits when they lose a tooth, and when I asked last week what they want to be when they grow up, I got two princesses and a fairy. How can we teach Indonesian fairy tales in a way that is relevant to the children? So the next question: 

Is childhood its own culture? Do I speak the language? How do I provide time for kids to be kids? Should there be time for play? 

Many of my students come from a home-school or un-school setting. Some parents want their kids to play most of the day, others are ready for academic rigor. My goal is to find a balance. 

On Thursday, I put out math manipulatives with no instructions or rules for what they could or could not do-this was really difficult for me!! At one center, I put out a balance scale, where two of my students who are learning English, played for 20 minutes. They put in crayons, pencil sharpeners, erasers, then took everything out, sorted the materials, and counted how many were in each group. First-I would have never thought to have a center with a scale and art tubs! Second-they were completely engaged, talking to each other (some in English, some in their native Hungarian and Japanese) and doing math related activities! My Indonesian teacher and I just watched in amazement!

And my last question: Do we allow time for development? Is it okay if Cindy can't add yet, because she is still learning her numbers? Is it okay if Johnny can't label the life cycle of a frog? 

Last year I would have said no, it's not okay. If they don't understand it's, because they're not putting in effort to learn the concepts. One of my colleagues would say "I just want to throw out the whole schedule and do project based learning!" I think I understand why now! 

This year will be a lot more work-planning, reflecting, and research, but I'm excited to see how my teaching philosophy will grow and change! 

And to any teacher friends who read all of that-thank you! : )

My two favorite things!

I'm sitting outside (at the kitchen counter) on this beautiful Sunday morning feeling well rested. We have had an amazing weekend. Friday night we had drinks with friends, Saturday morning we went for brunch at the cafe right beside our house, then I went to a 90 minute vinyasa flow. We spent the afternoon at the beach and while Michael was surfing, I went for a pedicure at the spa right beside our house. This morning we worked out, ate breakfast at a beach restaurant and stopped by the local farmer's market. Now I'm sitting down to lesson plan...but first I want to blog about my two favorite things: the beach and good food!

First, I want to show you where Canggu (changgu) is, so here is a mini geography lesson! : )

Indonesia is in red. 

Map of Bali highlighting Canggu

And this shows the west side beaches. We live on Jl Pantai Batu Bolong. 

The beach we go to is called Canggu Beach, Batu Bolong, or Old Man's-because of the restaurant. On this map it says Canggu Surfing. Echo Beach and Berawa are right next to us.

One of our favorite places to go for food and drinks is Old Man's. They have great seafood, breakfast and happy hour.

photo from google haha 

View from our picnic table this morning. 

The beach is about a minute scooter ride away or a 10 minute walk. Right now the water is chilly, but it's clean and there's plenty of beach to lay on at low and high tide. Apparently the wet season brings trash up on the west side, so we'll see what happens.

Now let's talk about food! We're living in a tropical climate, so the fruits and veggies are amazing! Eating out is really cheap; entrees are $3-5 US dollars. There are always organic, vegan, raw and gluten free options. Most places have a list of fresh juices: watermelon, pineapple, orange, mango, papaya and banana. And at the markets those fruits are easy to find and inexpensive.

Here are some pictures of this weekend's breakfasts: 

Crate: our favorite breakfast place!

sorry Starbucks and Caribou-Crate might have you beat!

part of the menu

  

breakfast at Old Man's

fresh watermelon juice

papaya, watermelon, pineapple, mango, museli and yogurt!

farmer's market at a local yoga studio

Lucky for me, the lunches at Green School are amazing too! There's also a raw vegan cafe on campus. I've tried their frittata, key lime pie and blueberry cheesecake-all really good! 

Next blogpost: What is our school dress code?? Tropical Professional! : )

And if you suffer from OCD....I apologize for the pictures. There's no way to straighten them!! eek!

A little bit of everything!

We are now in our fourth week in Bali and loving it! We're really enjoying the small beach community where we live called Canggu (pronounced Changgu). It's really laid back and a lot of young expats live in the area.

The weather has been beautiful. It's the dry season, so the high is 80 degrees and the humidity is fairly low. This means less mosquitoes (great) but more snake sightings because their thirsty (eek!). Of course all of this will change in the wet season-we'll see how that goes!

I was going to write about the food tonight, but it deserves it's own post and lots of photos!!

My commute to school is about 11 miles and takes 30-40 minutes on the scooter or "motorbike." I don't have to be at school until 7:45AM (later than I'm used to!) and the kids are at school from 8:15AM-3:15pm. Teachers leave at 4pm. The kids have been great. I have an incredibly diverse group-children from Italy, Norway, Japan, Australia, America, Hungary and Switzerland! It's going to be a fun year!

Michael has been surfing everyday and looking for a job. He's been amazing getting us settled. And I was able to find a really nice yoga studio in Canggu.

The yoga shala at Desa Seni 

That's all for now! I'll update again soon : )

Our New Home!

We found the perfect house!!! 

As you know, when we first got to Bali, we stayed in a place we found on airbnb for 10 days while we looked for a place to rent for the year. Michael did a great job of getting contacts by driving around and looking on airbnb and various facebook groups. Finally we decided to check Craigslist (which is rarely useful in Bali) and we found this gem! It's two bedroom, two bath, and is the perfect location-walking distance to great shops and restaurants, 8 minute walk to the beach, 1 minute motorbike ride. We're also spoiled with an oven, a closed living room and a beautiful yard. We really can't thank God enough for providing a place to live just in the nick of time. 

 Okay, who's coming to visit?? : )

Getting Settled

Hi friends and family! Just wanted to take some time to update y'all on our first week in Bali, Indonesia! Sorry it's wordy tonight!

As you know, I had my first day of orientation on August 1st. The next day, we had informational meeting in the morning, and another fun activity in the afternoon-a Balinese mixed martial arts and yoga practiced in a mud pit! It was a crazy team building activity where we found ourselves wrestling and throwing instructors in the mud, dancing in a circle and doing yoga with a duck on our heads! It was a blast!

a few of the teachers after the mud fun!

The next day we had a morning meeting with our head of school. He is inspirational to any educator who hears him speak and he is so passionate about Green School. While all of these ideas and philosophies are exciting, it can also feel overwhelming in that I will really be pushing myself as a teacher. When we were done, we went for another excursion-this time we rode in the back of a truck to a place where we could climb through Subak tunnels, which is a traditional Balinese irrigation system. At some points it was really scary-you had to completely trust the person in front of you. Afterward, we went to a Hindu temple for a blessing with Ibu Kadek (she takes care of all of the food at school and is like a mom, so it was really special to attend the temple with her.)

After dinner, we hopped back in the truck to head to school. It was pretty dark and I grabbed the railing where a nasty spider was sitting. It bit me! (If you know me, you know I'm terrified of spiders!!) Thank goodness there are rarely deadly poisonous spiders in Bali. It just hurt and my hand went numb for a bit. Don't worry mom and dad, my arm didn't fall off!

Orientation since then has just been lots of programming and curriculum work. Sorry, this paragraph is for my teacher friends : ) I received 3 pieces of good news today.
1. As of right now, I only have 16 students!
2. The library is nice and is fully stocked for guided reading!
3. The other Grade 1 teacher sent me really amazing resources for our thematic units!!
I'm still learning exactly what resources are available. For example, we have math manipulatives even though they are made of plastic, because it was not realistic to make each material. I've learned there are 3 frameworks, proficiency (math and language arts) thematics (taught by me and my Indonesian co-teacher) and experiential (art, music, yoga, PE, etc. taught by specialists).

Okay enough teacher talk. This week, while I have been at work, Michael has been working really hard trying to find us a place to rent for the year and taking care of other errands. I'm really not sure how a new teacher at an international school does everything on top of a busy orientation schedule!

Michael and I keep having to remind each other that we have only been here 6 days! We are so looking forward to this new lifestyle, but we are not there yet! We need to find a place to live first and then we can unpack our things, Michael can find a job, get a surfboard, we can join a church, I can find a yoga studio, and we can spend our weekends on the beach : )

First Day of Orientation!

I had my first day of orientation yesterday, and the experience was so unique and wonderful!

It started with a bike ride that the founder of our school John Hardy mapped out. He called it a "princess ride" but it was a long 30 km ride down the Kintumani volcano that my beach cruiser skills were not quite ready for!! It was a great way to get to know each other, and I can already tell I will be working with a great group of teachers! 

view from the top

Add caption

We rode all the way to Green School and when we arrived, we jumped in the spring fed natural swimming pool, followed up by lunch and a campus tour given by the co-founder. As we were walking through, she pointed out the pineapple, papaya, cocoa and bananas. We stopped at the lemongrass to pick it and rub it in our hands-a natural mosquito repellent and of course it smells amazing! She told us the history of the school, the struggles they've had in the past 7 years, and places in the school that are not "green." She showed us the river turbine and solar panels-this will be the first year they are completely off the grid! It was a lot to take in, but I'm so excited to be working here! I can't stop comparing it to a first day at a public school in NC-how would the activities be different, the meetings, the food, the campus tour. It's night and day!

path from Grade 1 to the Heart of School

a meeting area

one of the seating areas in the Heart of School

bamboo and glass table!

quartz 

where they picked the organic lettuce for part of our lunch

the pool beside the river

eating lunch on the bridge-the very first bamboo structure built at Green School

We have arrived!

Hi friends!! It's currently 4:30AM and I am awake and ready to start the day (thank you jet lag)!!

We have arrived in Bali, Indonesia! We left July 28th, flew through Washington, DC to Tokyo, where we enjoyed a long layover in a nearby hotel. The next morning, we flew straight to Denpasar, Bali. A lot of friends asked how long it takes to get there. We broke it up, but it was 1 hour to DC, 14 hours to Tokyo and 7 hours to Denpasar.

We got in July 30th in the evening, met the driver at the airport, and made our way to Canggu (pronounce Chenggu!!) where we are staying for the next 10 days until we find a place to live. The lady renting the place to us has been so helpful! When we arrived-hangry for dinner, I asked if there were any places to eat or markets within walking distance-there's not. She said "Hold on," ran away and came back with a menu of a nearby restaurant, ordered for us, and the delivery guy came an hour later. She brought a scooter the next morning, and when I asked where to buy SIM cards, she said she would take care of it, which she did in 30 minutes!

Yesterday we went for a walk in the morning, drove the scooter to the nearby beach and ate lunch. I have never seen waves like that before-a surfers dream!! Then we decided to visit the school. I sat on the back of the scooter with Michael's phone and google mapped our way there!

The school is absolutely stunning; pictures don't do it justice-but of course I'll take lots today! I have never walked into a school and said, "Wow, this is beautiful." The classroom I grew up in, and later taught in had cinderblock walls and tile floor or carpet. And of course the grounds are amazing, so green and lush.

Well I'm off to my first day at orientation! I'll post again soon : ) 

Next Stop: Bali, Indonesia

For the past six months, I have been searching for an international teaching job. Recruitment for teachers occurs nine months before the school year begins and dive shops post jobs weeks out, so it's easier for me to find a job first, as long as it's a dive friendly location for Michael.

In December, I decided to just look up some places we would love to live, just to see what is out there. Last spring we visited Bali and loved every thing about, so I started there.

When you google "international schools in Bali" one of the first sites to pop up is for a school called Green School. 

I was struck by how beautiful the campus is-all of the buildings are made from bamboo. The school's mission is to provide holistic education for its children and is 100% committed to sustainability. I watched the videos of children singing barefoot, working in the garden, and learning at desks in a room with no walls.

Throughout my job search, Green School remained at the top of my list, and after a rigorous application process, I was offered a Grade 1 position starting in August at this innovative school!

The past two years have been unbelievable-full of travel, friendships and a very different culture, but we are so excited to be back by the water-and Michael in the water!! 

I'll be posting more about our next adventure, but until then, here is a TED talk about the school!

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_hardy_my_green_school_dream

The Job Search

As you know, Michael and I are ready to move to a different country. Kuwait has been a great place to start, but it's time we get closer to the water! International schools all over the world will be recruiting for the next few months, which means most of my weekends are spent researching schools and looking for openings. There are also recruiting sites and school reviews that have been really helpful. 

It sounds easy-we just need a location with kids and water! But, there are a ton of factors that we have to consider....

Here are the easy ones:

Is it on the coast?

Are there any dive shops or is it a place where tourists want to go diving?

How many years of experience do they require?

Do they hire teachers with a non-teaching spouse?

What benefits do they offer?

Then it gets a bit harder...

What are the accommodations like?

How large is the school?

Is it in a city, suburb, or remote area?

Is there a sense of community with the faculty/with the families?

What leisure activities can teachers do on the weekends?

Is it easy to travel to other areas/countries?

What resources are provided for the classrooms?

Do the teachers collaborate and work in a team?

Does the school use best practices? and a hundred more teaching questions!

It's crazy to think that we don't know what continent we'll be living on in 6 months!!

I do know what continent I will be on in 2 days! Europe : ) We will be meeting Michael's parents in Italy and visit Rome and Florence. Looking forward to the sights, the food and the wine! 

Kuwait will be celebrating their National Day and we're doing activities this week to celebrate their country. Here is a cool video that a company here made. They are in the huge mall-Avenues. Enjoy!

Zain Kuwait National Day Lip Dub

I also wanted to add this video that I talked about earlier. The quality isn't that great, but it does a good job of painting a picture of Kuwait. (and I love Oprah!)

Zain Al Sabah on Oprah

I just noticed they both say Zain. In the first video, the company is called Zain. In the second video, the lady being interviewed is named Zain. It also means "good" in Arabic. : )

Enjoy!

The Philippines

The Philippines: 1 L, 2 P's, colonized by Spain in early 1500's until the 20th century, located in Southeast Asia, made up of 7,000 islands and one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited.

If we spoke to you over Christmas, our original plan was to volunteer in the Philippines to help with relief efforts in places that were destroyed in the super typhoon. But our plans changed and with flights already booked, we decided to travel on the island of Palawan.

Palawan is known for its beautiful beaches, water and diving and is not visited as much as some places in the Philippines such as Boracay and Cebu. It sounded like the perfect place for Michael and I to spend two weeks!

We flew into Manila and took a flight to Puerto Princesa City. Then we visited Port Barton for 4 days, El Nido for 6 days, and back to Puerto Princesa.

Puerto Princesa is the "city" we started in. We spent our first morning walking around town. 

Tricycle-the mode of transportation in Palawan

Walking around Puerto Princesa

After lunch we decided it was time to visit one of the local beaches. As you know, we always miss the sea. It was cloudy the first day, but it was good thing or we would have been fried! 

The next day, we took a bus to Port Barton. That was an experience...after 4 hours of bumpy roads, and stopping at a hundred houses, we made it to our destination. Port Barton is a small fishing village. Not many people stop there on the way to El Nido, but we were glad we did. It's basically one cove with small cottages, inns and restaurants along the beach. The town itself is rural, relaxed and remote. Michael and I didn't wear shoes for four days! The power goes out in the morning, but we didn't need it. I read most places to stay here didn't have AC and thought that was crazy, but we didn't need that either! The sea breeze was perfect. 

Port Barton

The first day we went island hopping. The banca (traditional Philippino boat) took us to a place with great snorkeling, then to Paradise Island for more snorkeling and lunch, and lastly German Island. 

Paradise Island

During our stay the food was amazing!! Every meal we had fresh seafood, fresh veggies, fresh fruit and rice. I was in heaven! Dinners were about 10 dollars total for me and Michael-that included our 1 dollar beers! (and yes, that's in USD!) 

We spent some time relaxing on the beach in Port Barton, which was glorious. While we were on vacation I was able to finish two books (exciting for a teacher who doesn't get the chance to read!) 

Our last destination was El Nido. It's a little bit bigger, but most of the activities were the same such as island hopping and kayaking. We rented kayaks one day and made our way to two islands. The first was just me and Michael; we had the whole beach to ourselves! After some snorkeling (or as my dive husband says, dorkeling) we kayaked to the second island. I hope the photos do it justice!!  

kayaking

The second island

We also went on an island hopping tour. It was a lot busier compared to Port Barton, but the islands were incredible. We saw caves and lagoons and did some dorkeling. 

We stayed in Corong Corong Beach, which is about a 15 minute walk to El Nido. It's famous for the beautiful sunsets. Every night we sat on the porch, had a drink and watched the sunset before heading to town for dinner. 

We're very blessed to be able to visit countries like these, and I hope the job search for next year takes us in a place as stunning as Palawan! 

My plan was to write about Nepal (months ago) and Istanbul, and another post about Kuwait with a neat video I found...I'll get to it Insh'allah before our February trip when we meet Mr. Steve and Mrs. Debbie in Rome, Italy!