feldmanlarry

I’ve decided to have two posts per day at least for today, one for the school and one for everything else. I taught a lesson over three days of about 75 minutes per day at Horace Mann Elementary School in Indiana, PA. I had the absolute best teacher to work with for this project, Katie Bungo, who has been a colleague for many years. She began as a participant in our graduate classes designed for teachers many years ago. The spring after the summer workshops, the teachers give presentations of how they had actually implemented the ideas for hands-on, conceptually-based math instruction. She had done with her students every idea we had, she had improved them, and she had come up with several wonderful new ideas.  We hired her the next year and many years since to be an co-instructor in our classes. She had gone through a lesson study experience about this exact lesson so I almost got her to do the lesson while I could sit in the back and watch. Fortunately, I decided to do it myself since I would be doing it in Cyprus and later, in South Korea.

I think I can explain the lesson in terms that are understandable to someone who may just barely care. The children’s literature piece is called “Spaghetti and Meatballs for All” by Marilyn Burns. A couple decides to have a dinner party for 32. They rent 8 tables so that four people can sit at each table. As people come early to the party, they push tables together so that people can talk while waiting. For example, they push two tables together and now six people can sit at those two tables. I get the fifth graders to put two square tiles together and count that six people can sit there. The story continues with new configurations. (If you’re still following, you might want to draw the next part out) I let the students come up with their own configurations before showing them what the book did. For example, one way to get 20 people is to have a row of four tables that would hold 10 and then another row of 4 tables (tiles).

As the story and the children’s models change, I introduce the terms “area” for the number of tiles and “perimeter” as equal to the number of people. The main goal is for children to understand these two key concepts in a gut way. I also have the goals of having them see how perimeter and area relate to each other and of course, problem solving, where they hopefully become more flexible thinkers and use their imagination in math. The great Dr. Stephen Brown’s influence is also felt by me having students pose problems. I spent quite a bit of time one day having them follow up on their question of what happens when tables overlap by 1/2 unit.

It went really well with the Cyprus students the first day. Katie had her students write pen pal letters to the Cyprus students, which included pictures. They were wonderful letters and I’m hoping students on both ends get a bit of a similar multicultural experience from what I got in Africa (see Day 4). I gave the pen pal letters out first thing since the teachers had mentioned it to them and it was an excellent ice breaker. They were very excited and definitely interested in replying.

I’m forgot to check whether it’s OK to post video clips or photos of the kids. I’ll check with the headmaster. For now, I’m attaching some photos that don’t include faces. I’m not sure at this point whether I’ll be able to give my question at the end that I gave students in Horace Mann. It was a tough question and originally designed for teachers.

The students seemed very bright and excited. They caught on very quickly and didn’t seem to have many counting problems, there were some. I taught for 4 periods of 40 minutes, 2 periods for each class. They go to school from 8-1:30 and have recess twice each day for 20 minutes each session. They had a recess area that was partly outside on the second floor for the upper grades. The students were of quite a mix of ethnicities. One student asked if I had ever been to Georgia and I said I had. I was about to ask if she had been to Atlanta when I realized she meant the Georgia Republic from the former Soviet Union. There are many Eastern Europeans, Greek, and of course Cypriots. The teachers seemed to have all lived at some point in England or possibly the US or Australia. I think it’s a requirement, but they’re mostly Cypriot, although at least one is from Virginia and one from Australia.

Here’s some student work from the first day.

Second Floor Playground

I was getting annoyed with the shower when I got here because no matter how much I turned the control to the left, it didn’t get hot. Fortunately, some elementary problem solving skills clicked in and I turned it to the right and got almost scalded. We treat “left” so badly — “left behind”, “left-handed compliment”, “leftovers”. Left handed people are “left” with few if any left handed desks and so on. Literally on the other hand, we have “our inalienable rights”, the “right” way to do it. Just another form of discrimination but driving on the left does disturb me a bit. As long as I look both ways like we were taught as kids, I should be OK. The history of driving on the left is supposedly that the driver wants to use his right hand to attack people coming the other way if needed. If the driver is on the right side (as they are when the vehicle drives on the left), the sword is in a better position. Then during the French revolution, royalty drove on the left and forced the peasants out of their way to the right. When they overthrew the monarchy, they switched to the right.

Do you care about any of that? Sorry if you don’t. It feels good to me to ramble about something probably mostly unrelated to get started. Getting back to my travels, my hosts took me on a tour of Limassol including a packed pizza and pasta place. In the late 1980’s I decided I was sick of pizza and would only eat it when everyone else was and other options were scarce. It’s taken me up to last year to get over it. I especially liked the very thin crust, the greek spices, and the real tomato taste. We then went to a child care fair that their children were involved with. I used to be chair of the board of directors of the Indiana County Child Day Care organization (which has since improved their name) so it was interesting to see that things seemed pretty much the same.

Another ramble here, it’s good to rediscover that child care and so much of life in some very different cultures is almost the same. I was in Africa for half a year as a ninth grader. I was the first ever European to go to that high school. I was scared at first but discovered that we had many of the same tastes — stupid jokes, dropping pens at a pre-arranged time, trying to avoid homework, and so on. However, when we described our homes and our food tastes and many other things, we were in very different worlds. It was the classic multicultural moment, we’re the same underneath even though we have many valuable differences.

Back to the hotel for what seems like will be a four week recovery, simultaneous to the four week trip.

I got up at 7:30 AM after alternating sleeping, tossing, and turning. I’ve read that you can’t really make up lost sleep. It seems to happen to me though. I feel about 1/2 way towards being caught up. I’ll try to keep getting caught up more as time goes on. The best way to do this for me will be afternoon naps, which is very un-American.

The free breakfast was great (again my obsession with free things). Fried and scrambled eggs, local cheeses and meats, cereal, real OJ, lots of other stuff. Irini and Yiorgio picked me up before 9. I’ve decided to use their Greek names instead of Irene and George, as a sign of respect for their language and also because it’s more fun for me to try to learn some Greek.

They’ve been wonderful, the ideal hosts. They’re taking me around and sharing clothes with me while I’m waiting for my bag (his clothes not hers in case you’re wondering). They are incredibly busy. They have a very beautiful 34 month old and a 14 month old. I offered to trade my bald head for the boy’s long curly locks, one brown and the other blond. Besides that, she teaches math at a secondary school and he teaches music at the same school. After he’s done he teaches at another school part time. They both sound like amazing teachers, very creative and dedicated.

They gave me a tour of Limassol, which is the second biggest city in Cyprus. It has an outstanding harbor on the Mediterranean and seems to be doing very well. There’s a castle built by Richard the Lionhearted, which unfortunately is closed for repair. We went to an amazing archaeological site from 300-400 AD, called the Curium Palace, which is the name of my hotel also (I think I can figure out which came first). It’s on top of a mountain and has amazing tiles on the ground. My favorite is one of a woman holding a “Roman Foot Measure”. I have taught a lesson for third graders expanding on the “How Big is a Foot?” children’s story. This picture will be part of my lesson from now on.

It’s 3:20 AM on Jan. 27 and I have to be up around 8 to start the longest trip I’ve been on in decades. I’m going to Cyprus to do my sabbatical work, then to Israel, Jordan, Egypt, back to Cyprus, then to Greece and home. I’ll be on 10 flights, 8 of which will be going from one country to another. There will be 5 different currencies and 4 languages. My sabbatical proposal was turned in in March 2008 and I started on it in the fall of 2007 so this is a long time coming. I was supposed to go in the spring of 2010 but had nasty shoulder surgery and was on medical leave instead.

Why do people give up the comforts of home to travel? We get our homes to be as close to what we might call perfection. The right pillow, the comfortable chair, favorite foods and beverages in the refrigerator; all that and much more (like a loving wife) is gone for me for close to 4 weeks. Hopefully, this blog will at least partially answer that question.