I recently had the honor of coaching my son’s U9 lacrosse team.  As a culminating event, we participated in a 2-day tournament along with several other Metro Atlanta teams.  The weather was beautiful and the competition was great!  However, as I coached our games and watched several others, I began to notice a pattern develop.  When teams began to face adversity and ultimately lose a game, storm clouds would roll in despite the cloudless skies.  Parents would inevitably begin screaming at the other team, blaming the referees, and demanding retribution.   Instead of greeting their children with smiles following the game, they would instead seek out a coach, referee, or another parent to demonstrate their disgust, all in plain view of their sons.  What message is this sending their child?  Frustrated and disgusted, I was inspired to send the following message to the parents of my team.

It’s always tough to end the season with a loss.  However, losing can be such a positive learning experience for all of us.  It’s easy to make excuses and justify each loss by blaming the referees or the other team’s aggressive style of play, the weather, or the bumpy uneven playing field.  What does this actually accomplish?  Sometimes we just need to accept that we simply scored less points than the other team.  Losing is becoming a lost art form.  It’s our job to teach our gang that it’s okay to come out on the short end, even if as parents, we feel there was an unfair advantage.  Let’s use it as motivation and reflect on what we can do as an individual or team to better our chances next time. Let our children develop their own mechanism to handle defeat. Allow our players to be kids and have fun.  Let’s model gracious behavior both in victory and defeat.  Following a tough loss, the last thing our guys want to do is dwell on it.  Losing is not the end of the world.  A positive character is what will make our budding sons into great men.  That is priceless.  

The way a child handles failure can help them to face the certain failures life will throw them in the future.  The worst thing for us to do as parents is give negative advice and justify every loss with excuses immediately after a disappointment.  We need to let our children cope in their own way.  In my experience as a teacher and coach, a child generally takes about 1-2 minutes to recover from a loss.  Then they just want to play, have fun, or take a trip to Dairy Queen.  Together, let’s win back the art of losing!

I just read a fabulous article from Education Week called Four Steps to Jumpstarting Global Collaboration Projects by Ben Curran.   This is part of a larger “Spotlight” about Global Learning and Language.

The author outlines these four steps:

Step One: Develop Habits of Collaboration

Step Two: Before You Go Global, Go Local

Step Three: Join Existing Global Projects

Step Four: Use Social Networks to Create Your Own Projects

The author of this article talked about how our students need to be proficient at collaboration.  I pondered  the importance we place on cooperative learning and extending it beyond our classroom at Trinity.  Ben Curran says, “Before connecting with another classroom, take time to develop these skills so that students become adept at collaboration. These skills will serve them not only in their schoolwork, but in the 21st-century workforce as well.”

As I continued reading, my mind shifted from conversations on cooperative learning to practice with the art of questioning.  In his explanation of “go local,” the author suggests to ask an open ended question, pose a challenge, and use digital collaboration tools (such as google drive or wikis) to start practicing collaborative effort.  I love the idea of partnering with other classes (possibly across grades) to practice the skill of collaboration before reaching across the globe to do so.  And the good news is, I think a lot of classes are already doing this!

These ideas lead up to a class joining a global collaboration project that is already in motion, such as Challenge 20/20, The Global Read Aloud, The Global Virtual Classroom, and iEARN.

What would it look like for an elementary classroom to engage globally?

Maybe Trinity School classrooms have already started this work.

Either way, I would be excited for a World Languages class (or any class) to expose children to global collaboration now and see where it takes them in the future.

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

I have been going to church on Sundays since I can remember.  My grandmother was one of the first female deacons of Corinth Baptist Church in New York and my mother and her sisters sang in a gospel group that often traveled to churches around the south.  For me, going to church is an engrained tradition that speaks to who I am, how I live, and how I raise my boys.

Going to church also brings back fond memories of tasty Sunday dinners, soulful singing, Easter parts, and colorful hats.  Yes – colorful hats! As I sat in church this Sunday, an usher walked two elderly ladies down the aisle to their seats.  I noticed the elegance of both women, the way in which they walked gracefully down the aisle, the “sharp” way in which they were dressed, and the confidence they exuded.  Each woman wore a brightly colored hat (pink and blue) with a wide-brim that twisted festively to the side. I thought, “What a beautiful sight!” I also noticed how they were the only two women with hats.  See, “back in the day,” African American women always wore hats to church, a tradition that has been relegated to “hat-themed” bridal showers and women’s clubs.

It forced me think about the importance of tradition in a world that is rapidly changing.  Can we, as a society, balance both? I’m thinking that I can as I look forward to my 4 year old acting in his first Easter play and reciting his very first Easter part.  I think I might wear a “brightly colored hat with a wide-brim, festively twisted to the side”. My grandmother would be extremely proud J.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.  If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. ~Nelson Mandela

Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, along with Libia Gil, wrote a piece that highlights our obligation as educators in our endeavor to grow future leaders.  The authors remark, “We challenge our schools and communities to invest in our future leaders with biliteracy and multiliteracy skills.”  While much of the writing talks about ESL learners as an “asset,” the article also describes multilingualism as a tool of significant importance for both the global economy and national security (and I would add to that- cognitive development and cultural competency).

When reflecting on the importance of international events, such as the winter Olympics in Sochi, reading this article gave me pause.  I love that the authors quoted one of the most inspiring people to live, Nelson Mandela, who said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.  If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”  This speaks to the need for our educational system to both embrace heritage language learners while encouraging multilingualism, and I am encouraged by the recognition language is getting in our predominantly monolingual nation.

Follow the link for the complete article from the Redlands Daily Facts.

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

Bonjour mis amis,

The reasons for learning any second language are many (helps your brain function at a higher level, allows you to communicate with a whole new group of people, makes it a lots easier to travel around the world, etc…), but why should French be the language you choose to study? Here are just of few of the many reason French should be your choice:

• 200 million people in the world understand, speak, read, or write French.
• French is the official language of 33 countries.
• French is the most widely taught 2nd language in the world.
• French is the official language of the international postal service and the Red Cross.
• French is one of the two official languages of the Olympic games and the United Nations.
• Roughly half of the words in the modern English language are borrowed from French.
• French is lexically more like English than any other romance language.
• French is the second most commonly used language on the internet.
• French is the only other language, other than English, that is taught in every single country around the world.
• There are over 525 French language universities in the world.
• French is the language of love!

Learning any second language will be beneficial to you no matter what language you choose!

Merci! Au revoir!

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

Never have I felt more excitement and sheer happiness than the moment my daughter, Colby, was born. But there was also a moment of sheer panic. I will never forget when the doctor handed her to me and I said, “But I don’t know how to hold a baby”. Her response? “You’ll figure it out”.

Little did I know I would figure out so many different things in the past eight weeks. How to hold a baby, how to change a diaper (in record time, I might add!), how to survive on limited sleep in a way I haven’t had to since cramming for finals in college, how to buckle a baby into a car seat, how to maneuver a pacifier to Colby when she is crying in the carpool line, and countless other skills. Many of these skills were taught to me by an amazing husband who quite honestly may have missed his calling as a nanny.

Maybe most importantly, I have been reminded that I will never truly have it all figured out. And that is ok. Because I want my daughter to see that life is always about learning new things and that the more she knows, the more she has to learn. It is ok for her to see me struggle with the five point harness and get frustrated over the snaps on her onesies. Do I have my child on a schedule? No.  Have I figured out the way to get Colby to sleep through the night? Not even close. But Colby also gets to see me celebrate the little victories when I manage to get her to a doctor’s appointment on time and get her to settle quietly into her crib. I want her to be up for challenges and not expect perfection the first time she tries something new.

I know that the future holds many more skills to figure out as a parent. Some will come easily and some will be tough. But through all of these learning experiences, I hope to show Colby that it is ok to struggle, and it is ok to celebrate even the smallest of victories along the way.

As these are my first days back after Colby’s arrival, I want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank each of you for sharing in our excitement. Trinity truly is a part of my family, and I am deeply grateful for your friendship and support. And if any of you can help me figure out how to teach a baby to sleep through the night, I will take your carpool duty for the rest of the year.

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.

I am a “To Do List” kinda gal. I like adding items that are sure to be crossed off soon as well as organize bigger to-do items on the list. The act of crossing things off provides me with a feeling of accomplishment and order. This matters to me.

Grief does not work this way. A circuitous journey, it requires patience with emotion, with arduous tasks, and with the loss itself. The initial shock and loss gives way to forms of normalcy, yet even these are surprisingly interrupted from time to time with raw emotion that cannot be easily understood.

I like to cut through the Media Center on the way to the Front Desk because it is a few less steps, saves a bit of time, and feels more direct. As I take this journey of grief, I long to make a straight path through the midst of it, side-stepping some pain, saving myself from some aspects that cause aches. But that is not the path of grief. There are times that feel “normal” and there are times that feel surreal. There are items on my to-do list that relate to normal school stuff and items laden with emotion that must be done. I do not fear the circuitous journey, but it often can cause me to feel raw or exposed. My penchant for transparency keeps me from pretending that all is okay, for it isn’t. Yet, not moving forward isn’t okay either. So I take one step at a time.

So all of this to say, thank you for walking beside me. For your forgiveness when I need it. For your patience. For your thoughtfulness in ways that have overwhelmed me. I am grateful to work in this community. I am grateful for the space to walk this circuitous journey with colleagues and families who give kindness and grace.

Learner, Thinker, Writer: Maryellen Berry serves Trinity School as the Upper Elementary Division Head. @fastwalker10