John's Next Step

This past week was midterm week with a holiday on Thursday and no school on Friday. Wednesday was a staff development day. Tuesday, as part of child month was a school fun day. I did have Monday to teach. A good way to ease back into school after the week on St. Lucia I guess. However, as we had a PTA meeting after school that day it was a bit long. Assembly on Monday A police officer gave a talk at the PTA meeting Our school joined with another nearby school to enjoy the day on Tuesday. Grenada had rain every day I was in St. Lucia and it continued through Tuesday, but we still got to play on our field most of the day. Kids from both schools hang out together After the rain delay Part of the activities was cricket. There was a girls match and a boys match. Our school won one and lost one. The teachers played the tie breaker. I have been watching the game but some things still do not make much sense. I asked one of the other teachers a few ques...

This past week was mid-service training (MST). The conference was held on St. Lucia at the Mount of Prayer Coubaril run by the Benedictine Nuns. It was a lovely place with hospitable people as you would expect from Benedictines. A couple of years ago in Ghana I was able to spend a little time at a Benedictine Abby (popular with volunteers) – so it was a nice connection with the two Peace Corps services. I got a little spoiled with the great meals and the WiFi. I intentionally don’t have WiFi at my house so I’m less tempted to stay inside. I do have better data service than Dondometeng in the Upper West - no complaints there and so none here. Their Church Their view Their conference room Getting ready for a meal My room was the only one with a television.  It did work, but I didn't watch anything. My guess is the picture was a little fuzzy because of all the estrogen, but that's just a guy theory with a dirty phone This was actually my firs...

This month is child month in Grenada – focused on keeping children safe. On Fridays the students can wear t-shirts to school with the child safety theme, rather than the normal uniform. So in some pictures you will see orange t-shirts. I’m been mainly focused on teaching math at school. I am responsible for math and I help out with the other classes. Math is going well enough.  No student is consistently picking up every topic easily, but all are learning at their own rate.  I have more faith in their ability to learn than they have in themselves sometimes. I routinely co-teach, if not teach, language arts. (The principal is the primary literacy teacher and she is sometimes unexpectedly tied up.) On breaks and other times I can get in some one-on-one help for those kids needing to catch up or to strengthen a topic. School is busy and then of course school prep in the evening as every teacher knows. One of the students doing extra work Sitting on my lap doin...

I was not even remotely considering continuing this depressing conversation. I would much rather talk about school and the kids. However, news this week reminded me that the third graders I’m teaching and those in the U.S. and around with world will suffer in a greatly changed world depending on how the “adults” in the developed world act over the next several years related to our emissions of greenhouse gases. It’s “do or die” time. This week I read reports that our administration admits that if the world does nothing about greenhouse gas emissions the earth will certainly warm at least 4 degrees centigrade over per-industrial within 80 years. Further, they say that if the only thing the world does is to keep Obama’s automobile emission reduction in place, a false proposition, then things don’t change much. They use that as an excuse to roll back the regulation so that a few large corporations and shareholders make some more short term profits by externalizing the huge costs ...