As many of you know, I just got back from a two week excursion in Sancerre, France. It was for the Teacher Opportunity grant that I was awarded in August, and I thought that I should go before I have my first baby in April! I had two objectives on this trip. One, I wanted to increase my own language skills/proficiency level in French. Two, I wanted to bring back authentic materials, games, and songs, and knowledge of culture for my students to provide a more real-life context for learning another language. I attended language classes every day (with homework each night!) and had an additional private one hour classes each day specifically focused on teaching French. I’m pictured here next to my school, Coeur de France.

Coeur de France was located in Sancerre, which is two hours south of Paris by train in the Loire Valley. The area is know for their (unpasteurized) goat cheese and wine. Good one, Janet…go there while pregnant so you can’t enjoy either… pregnant women can’t have unpasteurized cheese and well, you know about the wine thing…

Anyway, Sancerre is a  small, medieval town located at the top of la colline. Technically, this translates to a hill, but it was more like a mountain. I know this because I had to walk up it from my apartment to attend my language school everyday. My favorite part about the town, even though I was clearly there in the off-season due to the fact that it was winter and the holidays, is that people did not speak English. I literally had to rely on my French to communicate. As someone continually trying to improve my French, this was truly an invaluable experience. Also, since there weren’t any tourists, I felt like I got a true sense of the town and culture. Sometimes I would pass someone walking the narrow streets and think to myself, “Wow, here is this person who has had a different life than me. There are definitely many similarities in the culture (I was in Europe after all) but it’s also really different. This person grew up speaking French (while I’m trying so hard to improve mine) and experiencing a culture that I’m trying to learn and understand. This is this person’s everyday life. I’m just getting a glimpse.”

Traveling is just such a perspective shift, and I love that. I want to model tolerance, understanding, and learning about others to my students. Learning about differences and similarities makes me feel closer to humanity. A line from one of my favorite movies, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, goes “In the end, we’re all fruit.” I get that sense when I travel.

Here’s info on the school if you ever want to go and learn French!

http://www.coeurdefrance.com/

Learner, Thinker, Writer: Janet Parks serves the Trinity School community as a World Languages Teacher.

3’s Bulletin Board

I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to write about with this post, but I knew that I wanted to incorporate community into the topic some way. Part of my inspiration just came recently when talking to a colleague. We realized that we spend more time with our Trinity family than we do with our own families. One might be saddened by this at first glance, but really, I just like to consider it a greater pool of wonderful people and children that I have a chance to get to know and build relationships with. Having such a strong community here at my place of work definitely provides security and comfort for me personally. It’s the little things how people show each other that they care like Wellness Week and free hugs, random acts of kindness from our sixth graders, hot chocolate or cider on a cold day, other teachers stepping up to fill in for duties or classes, friendship, etc. The list goes on and on. Anyway, I just wanted to give a shout out to how Trinity does a wonderful job supporting one another as well as modeling community for our students. Not to forget, one of our social studies through lines is, in fact, community.

I went to visit our 3’s today because I noticed that they had a bulletin board about community. I was able to pull a couple of students to ask them about what they were learning. If you haven’t checked out their bulletin board, it’s great. They built buildings that are important for a community like a bank and a hospital. They told me about how everyone has a certain job and that it was important that everyone worked together. They then broke into a “teamwork” song which was adorable. Also, I learned from the bulletin board that it actually took a community to keep the structures standing! (the clean up crew willingly worked around these students’ construction sites to honor what they were doing)

Though I know what community is and have a sense of it here, I wanted to research how others view it. I found the following sentences to align with my thinking:  “The idea of community may simply come down to supporting and interacting positively with other individuals who share a vested interest. Whether your vested interest is in the well-being of your neighborhood or extends to the well-being of your global community. A strong community benefits the individual, the community as well as the greater society. People of all ages who feel a sense of belonging tend to lead happier and healthier lives, and strong communities create a more stable and supportive society.” (www.apshelplink.com)

Finally, I would like to quote Nel Noddings to remind myself that’s it’s OK and good to take time to teach not only content but character, values, and community. “We sometimes forget just how powerful incidental learning can be. No responsible educator would claim that all significant learning can be achieved incidentally, but much that we acquire this way becomes more nearly permanent than the material deliberately transmitted and tested in the planned work of classrooms. The great privilege enjoyed by some children is that they have become participants in an on-going conversation with caring, knowledgeable adults. They pick up all sorts of wonderful things in these conversations.” (http://www.infed.org/biblio/noddings_caring_in_education.htm)

Learner, Thinker, Writer: Janet Parks serves the Trinity School community as a World Languages Teacher.