Kamp Amersfoort

I was slightly regretting not getting to a concentration camp while in Europe. I was talking to Brian about on Friday and he told me that there was on about 45 kilometers away! I had absolutely no idea so after some research, Emily and I decided we could go today since we didn't have any class until 2pm. After checking with our teachers, who were on board, we took the train to the town of Amersfoort, a small, pretty, quiet town in the country. Except on the edge of town is a Nazi transit camp used during WWII as a temporary camp for the Jews of the town and surrounding area before they were brought to death camps in Germany and Poland. We had some trouble getting to the Kamp because it is well hidden and not very well known, kind of a town secret. There is not much there, a small road overgrown on the sides, with a small side half hidden in the brush. The first thing we see as we walked down the road was the watch tower. While it was restored with posts with barbed wire surrounding it are original. Once we passed that we walked into an open courtyard where they made the prisoners stand in line for hours. To symbolize this are posts with barbed wire and rose bushes reaching up to the sky where each person stood. It was absolutely beautiful and touching. We then passed a monument in Dutch and found execution lane. This was a 350 meter straight walkway with tall earth mounds on each side that the prisoners were forced to build. We were the only ones on the Kamp and as we walked down the lane is silence the sun was shining, birds were chirping, bunnies were playing in the flowers on the sides- and I thought I was going to throw up. I was not about to shield myself from where I was, I made myself think about exactly where I was walking, that when I got to the end of this walk I would have been shot. Half way down my legs were shaking so much I could barely walk and by the time we got to the end, we both burst into tears. At the end of the lane is a 10-15 foot statue called The Stone Man, which is a thin man in prison clothes, a shaved head, his ribs showing, and a defiant look on his face, saying "You can kill me but you can never take my soul." We stood there in silence just looking up at him, I placed a flower at the base, said a prayer and just cried for everyone who had lost their lives there. It was the most touching and emotionally draining experience Ive ever had. It made me so thankful for everything I have, just the fact that it was a beautiful day made me feel undeserving. We then walked to a huge overturned tree stump that was starting to decay, however if you looked closely, it was riddled with bullets. Here, Nazi's would put prisoners up against the tree to shoot them. We found the old foundation of the original morgue building where people from the town could pick up the bodies of their relatives once they had been executed. There were not mass graves or cover up at this camp like there was at concentration or death camps because the Nazi's told the town this was a prison and those in the camp were seen as criminals and their death was just a part of that- definitely a different feel from many other larger camps. The buildings of the camp had been destroyed which is understandable since I can't even imagine how those who live in the town of Amersfoort feel- some who were alive then still live there. If I ever come back to Europe I will definitely get to another camp because while I was thoroughly depressed and emotionally drained for the rest of the day and just writing about it gets me choked up again, it was the best experience Ive ever had. It not only taught me about what was happening in the camps, but about myself as well and exactly how much Im blessed and everything I take for granted.

We got to school before lunch and ran the last double block of the day. Today was the last time we met with Ken's 7th grade class and they were able to have one more work day on their assessment which is due at the end of the day tomorrow. We walked around and helped different students, although I stayed mostly with the students Ive been working with the past few days. It was really great to see how they have progressed and the where they have trouble and where they excel. Over the weekend Emily and I bought a pair of unfinished wooden clogs and asked all the students to sign each of them for us. They wrote some really sweet messages and I got really sad saying bye to them. They are amazing kids and I cant believe I wont see them anymore. It was nice to see that they were sad too when we told them we were leaving on Thursday! As they were leaving one by one they came up to us and offered out their hands to shake. At first I couldn't comprehend what was happening, that a 12 year old was offering their hand saying "Thank you so much for everything" or "Its been such a pleasure meeting you and working with you" It was amazing, Ken didn't say anything to them, it was completely on their own. They are going to grow up to be smart, kind, beautiful adults and I'll really miss them. I really wish we had remembered to get a picture with all of them!

Watch Tower, with original posts

Posts where the prisoners stood

Posts with the rose bushes and barbed wire

Execution lane

The Stone Man

Teaching

Tuesday
Today we were still exhausted from Paris, however there were some interesting experiences that we got to partake in. In Ken's class they had already debriefed from our lesson on Religious Extremism and had moved on to the West Wing video. The episode of the TV show, the West Wing, that was made right after 9/11 to explain the difference between Muslims and terrorists/ extremists, was the entire basis for this part of the Islam Unit. Every lesson we had made and helped with has been leading up to making sure the students understand this video. In it they give the analogy of Terrorists: Islam as KKK: Christianity. Before the character in the video writes down KKK, Ken stops the video and asks them what they think the answer is. After a few guesses, finally one of the students say it, explaining that while the KKK call themselves Christians, we cannot affiliate Christianity with the KKK, just like terrorists and Islam. Emily and I were supposed to present the assessment we put together however the class had to be cut short for an assembly! It was frustrating that we couldn't do everything that we wanted, while at the same time was good practice for what happens in reality.
Today we also got to help grade essays and practice using the IB rubric, which is pretty much all they use for grading. Ken gave us four 7th grade essays to read and grade and then compare our answers with each others and Ken's. It was very interesting and reassuring to see that for the most part the grades we put on the rubrics were all very close to each others. We explained why we chose the numbers we did if there were differences and even convinced Ken to change his answers twice. Ken says they do this practice in a lot of team and IB meetings, so it was great to get the practice and experience, especially if I can ever work in a school like this.

Wednesday
Today Emily and I taught our Religious Extremism lesson for the second time to one of Brian's 7th grade class. This class was very different than Ken's class, they are really sweet kids and very bright, although there is a little more varied skill and intelligence level. While Ken's students are very smart and independent these kids just needed a little more explanations and push to get them going but eventually had some really great conversations. I think this lesson went better simply because we were more prepared for some of the questions that might be asked and it flowed better because we were more confident. I was nervous because we had only met this class twice before but they were really nice and listened to us without any problems.

Thursday
Today we taught two lessons! In Ken's 7th grade class the students had an 80 minute double block that was spent entirely working on their Islam Assessment that Emily and I made up. The students had come up with a lot of great ideas. One group of boys is making a response video to Jim Jones, one girl is asking classmates questions about Muslim extremists and interviewing them on camera to make a video, other students are writing letters to politicians, editors and writers of extremists news articles, etc. Im very excited to see what the students come up with.
In Brian's 7th grade class we ran the debriefing for the Religious Extremism lesson, which was a little shaky because it was our first time and there is always confusion when group teaching on who is going to say what and when. We then explained the Islam assessment for that class and they had some time to start it. Just like the first time we presented our Religious Extremism lesson, I think this lesson will get better with practice.

Friday
Today we taught our Religious Extremism unit for a third time! I was particularly nervous about this one because it was Brian's crazy class on a Friday at 2pm. They are crazy because they get super excited and noisy about what they are talking about in class and always want to ask questions and tell stories that take the class off topic and they can't get very much done- not too bad of a problem to have, but a problem nonetheless when you have to get things done and not very much time left in the school year. However, the lesson went really well, one because we were confident and had the lesson down pact after teaching it 3 times and because the class was very respectful to us and stayed on task. Towards the end of the 80 minute class and the end of the school day a few of the boys started to get rowdy, but other than that everything went great. There were a lot of good conversations and one that really stuck with me. At the station about the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, a group was trying to understand why it was offensive. Most of the group didn't understand but a boy in the group was Muslim and was trying to explain to them that it is against Muslim scripture to depict Muhammad in any image. They still didn't see the big deal in this until the boy said "Its like me spitting on the Pope." This was the best analogy of the station I had ever heard, it was absolutely great and his group members really understood. I was very impressed, especially because it was said by a student who does not usually dominate the class discussions.
In Ken's class, the 7th grade had another work day. Because we were nervous that not everyone was really understanding the assessment or had enough information, we spent part of the day making up a reference handout for the students. We saw that a lot of students could tell us that the extremist example or article was not correct in its depiction of religion and they could tell us what Christianity or Islam was not, but couldn't give us specifics of what the religion was. So we made up a handout that gave them examples of stories from the Bible that taught values (Noah's Ark, the stoning of the prostitute etc), a list of the 10 Commandments, explanations of the Five Pillars of Faith for Islam, and reminded them that they had a sheet that compared both Christianity and Islam. I think this really helped because the students could use a specific example in their project and didn't have to just use the knowledge that they could remember. I was again really impressed by this group of students. I specifically worked with one boy that is very quiet and usually needs a little extra help. He is writing a letter to Geert Wilders a Netherlands politician who is strongly against Islam, is on trial right now for hate speech against Muslims, and was in the US last week giving a speech called "A Warning to America" about the dangers of Islam and it taking over America. I was nervous that he was writing a letter because he was not the strongest writer, however he came in on friday with most of it planned out and organized and we worked together during the class to use some specific examples from the Bible and the 5 Pillars of Faith. I think he will do a great job and Im very excited to see the finished project.


Sunday
Today Emily, Matt, and I went to the Holland Resistance Museum which was dedicated to the different types of resistance to the Nazi occupation of Holland during WWII. I had originally thought there was just a small organized group but in the museum I learned that not only was there a small group but much of the effort was spontaneous and almost universal unwillingness to go along with the Nazi's from just regular people. There were many strikes throughout the years of occupation, small groups organizing the hiding of Jews, bankers committing fraud and illegal loans to finance the resistance, armed resistance and setting fire to Nazi buildings, making fake ID cards to make it easier for Jews to get out of Europe, etc. It was absolutely amazing. The museum was small but packed with so much information and artifacts and organized in a way that made it very interesting and easy to understand. We then went to the Nemo Museum which is a hands-on exploration museum designed for children, although we had a lot of fun too. There were a lot of cool activities and it is a great museum for field trips for younger students.

We only have 3 more days here and Im really sad to leave. I feel like we havn't been here long enough and the students are just starting to feel comfortable with us and say hi to us in the halls. They are all really great students and people and Im going to miss all of them!

Paris

While it would be nearly impossible and far too long to tell you everything that we did in Paris in detail, I will be my best to give you a quick overview of the past 4 days!

Friday (5/20)
We took a high speed train, getting into Paris at about 2:30 in the afternoon. With only 1 out of the 6 of us knowing even a little French, we knew it was going to be difficult, although I was able to get by with only knowing "Hello", "Thank you", "Can you help me?", "I don't speak French", and "Do you speak English?" We first bought a Metro pass for the weekend which is about the equivalent of the NYC subways, but even easier. Once we found our hotel which happened to be about 100 yards from the Place de Republique we got onto the metro to the center of town and found the Notre Dame. It was absolutely gorgeous! We went inside and spent about an hour wandering around in complete awe. Catholic Churches, particularly those built 800 years ago, were meant to make people feel small, and thus closure to God, Notre Dame did its job. We were able to stay for mass and between sitting in a Cathedral that has been there for over 8 centuries and the choir brought tears to everyone's eyes. I absolutely loved it.

Notre Dame

Balcony of our hotel room

Saturday (5/21)

Today we made our way to the Palace of Versailles. Ken told us it would be really easy to get there- it was on a train stop, right outside the city. However, we had many mishaps with the trains and it took us 3 hours to get there. So unfortunately we did not have as much time as I would have liked and we unable to see the gardens which extend for miles around the palace. Emily and I took a tour of the palace and it was the most incredible thing I have ever seen. If we saw nothing else but the ceilings there I would have walked out in awe. The palace was built by Louis XVI during the time when ancient Roman and Greek art was rediscovered, and was covered, both inside and outside, in beautiful guilded, romanesque architecture. Every ceiling boasted the most amazing paintings of Greek gods, marble statues, etc. in brilliant colors. We walked through King Louis's chapel, his work rooms, entry ways, his and the Queen's bedrooms- which were indescribably beautiful, to finally the Hall of Mirrors. This is what I had been looking forward to because it was in this long, spectacularly ornate room that they signed the Treaty of Versailles ending WWI! To stand there where such a historical moment took place made me emotional! Once we finished our tour of the palace we walked outside to the gardens yet only made it to the closest sections, we could have spent hours just wandering the gardens and still not seen everything. There were beautiful statues, fountains, flowers, etc. When we originally planned to go to Paris I was not planning on getting to Versailles, so I was beyond happy to see it. 

View of the Palace from the Courtyard 

Ceiling of the Chapel 

Hall of Mirrors 

Sunday (5/22)

Today Emily and I went to the Louvre for the first half of the day. It was amazing- of course. It is absolutely gigantic and there was no way we could fit everything in, in one day so we chose to visit the Egyptian exhibit, some of the Ancient Greek, Italian Renaissance Paintings (Da Vinci of course), and French 18th century Paintings (David). The Egyptian artifacts were amazing, they had huge Sphinx, hyrogliphs, sarcophaguses, a mummy, and an amazing room called the Temple room with amazing stone statues of pharohs and wall carvings and paintings. I was blown away by the amount of artifacts they had. We then went into the Italian paintings because we had to see the Mona Lisa. We stopped to see many other famous paintings both by Da Vinci and other amazing Renaissance painters. Everyone says the Mona Lisa is built up so much that when you actually see it, it is disappointing, so going in I knew not to expect much. It was hard to get to it because there were huge crowds so when we finally got close enough to take a picture, we got pushed back out and couldn't stop and just look at it. But it was beautiful and Im glad I was able to see it. Even more beautiful I think is his Madonna of the Rocks, which everyone simply rushed past so I was able to stand a foot away and just take it in. We then went to the French paintings exhibit so I could see work by David, the painter of the Revolution. I found the Death of Marat which was stunning and was particularly effective because I learned about it in my French Revolution history class. All the paintings and artifacts we saw were so amazing because I learned about them and saw pictures of them in my history and art history classes, so to see them in person was unbelievable, I think my jaw was dragging on the floor the entire time. 

We then make our way over to the Tour Eiffel or Eiffel Tower. Im not sure what I expected, but it was a lot bigger than I thought. Emily really wanted to go to the top and although I cant get 5 feet above the ground without an anxiety attack, I said why not! We took the first elevator to the second floor, I was already shaking and had to hold Emily's hand. It was so far up that I thought it was the top! Emily then tells me not to look up- so of course I do, and wish I hadn't. The clouds going by made the top look like it was moving (there are rumors that it does move, and was built for some movement but does not actually sway and you can't feel it when you are up there) and it even higher that we still had to go- at this point I thought I was going to faint. However, we got into the all glass elevator to take us to the top and we made it up there with me picturing the elevator breaking and us falling to our deaths the entire way. It was not scary at all once we got up there. I was picturing a rickety, unstable ledge at the top with a little fence that wouldn't stop anyone from going over with a strong gust of wind. However, it was all fenced in with a very stable platform all the way around. The views were amazing. We could see for miles and miles and still couldn't see the end of Paris. It felt like we were on the top of the world. 

The Louvre 

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Egyptian Sphinx 

Mona Lisa 

Tour Eiffel 

Monday (5/23)

Lets start off with a fun fact - 1 Month until my 21st b-day!

Anyways, today Emily and I visited the Arc de Triomphe. This was built during the reign on Napoleon in celebration of his armies conquering much of Europe. It was so much bigger and more spectacular than I thought it was going to be. On each side of the Arc were huge, beautiful statues depicting and romanticizing war and its heroes. It was gorgeous! After successfully spending an hour staring up at it in awe for over an hour, we walked down the Champs Elysees - the Paris equivalent of Rodeo Drive. It was great- we window shopped and marveled at the expense of the European designers and even wandered into the actual Louis Vuitton to stand in awe of 2,000 Euro purses. After than we made our way back to the streets near our hotel, stopped at a small French cafe to have delicious, authentic French food and wine, one last time, and visited a beautiful church down the road that I had been looking at from the balcony of our hotel room for the past few days. Everything was so amazing a beautiful. 

Arc de Triomphe 

Angel of War -statue on the Arc

Church by our Hotel 

All in all I had a great weekend. Everyone warned us that the French are rude, that they don't like Americans, but I didn't find that was the case. I think it was like any country or city with a language barrier, we are in their country so we should try our best to fit in and speak the language. If you walk up to someone and just start speaking English, expecting them to know it then they will probably ignore you, as anyone in America would do, seeing as its rude. I tried my best and if my few sentences in French didn't work, we spoke with our hands and pointed and signed. Everyone was nice to me and smiled when I butchered their pretty language, laughing that at least I was trying. The sights were gorgeous and it was so amazing to be surrounded in such history, to stand in places that are older than our country by centuries! 

Religious Extremism and Technology

Its been a while since Ive written in the blog and Im sure everyone is dying to know how the lesson I taught on Monday went!

Monday (5/16)
Today we taught the lesson we have been planning and preparing for the past 2 weeks, finally! The class happened to be during the last two blocks of the day right after lunch which is never the best time to have 7th graders, however the class that we taught was a very well-behaved, intelligent class. We started off by introducing what we were going to be seeing- saying that although we hear about muslim extremists and terrorist the most, these things can happen in any religion. We then split them up into groups by telling them to line up alphabetically by the last letter of their first name, silently. They did it pretty quickly and we then split them into 5 groups of 4, finding out that luckily the groups were very equally diverse between level of students and English language learners. They each started at a different station.
Station One: The Denmark Muhammad Cartoons. At this station the students had to look at 6 of the cartoons drawn in 2005, analyze them answering questions such as "Why might some people find these offensive?" Then the students looked at newspaper headlines and pictures of the Muslim reaction to the cartoons, answering questions such as "Do you think every Muslim had this reaction or only the extremists?"
Station Two: The Westboro Baptist Church (my personal favorite). At this station the students looked at posters from the groups protests saying "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "America is going to Hell" and then watched a quick news broadcast about them protesting at a Marine's funeral, the father suing them and losing. They then answered questioned like, "Does this contradict what you know about Christianity? How so?" and "Should they be allowed to protest?"
Station Three: Jim Jones and the People's Temple. They read a background summary of his cult and how over 900 people drank poison and committed mass suicide in 1978. They then listened to audio clips from Jones' actual speech convincing his people to commit suicide. Answering questions such as "Based on what you heard, why do you think they resorted to suicide?" "Are there any mainstream religions that support suicide?"
Station Four: Aum Shinrikyo the Japanese Doomsday Cult from 1995 that let out poisonous gas in the Tokyo subways. They read an article about what happened and answered questions like "Compare these actions to Jim Jones and the People's temple. Which do you think is more extreme- attacking others or mass suicide?"
Station Five: The Florida Koran Burning. The students were given a quick summary of what happened, how Terry Jones a Christian preacher in Florida and his congregation burned a Koran. They then looked at pictures and news headlines about Muslin reactions including a bombing killing 12 in a UN building. Then answering questions such as "Who is the extremist is this situation? Terry Jones for burning the Koran or the Muslims who responded with excessive violence?"

Emily and I walked around listening to conversations, answering questions, and giving them any additional information. I was blown away by some of the conversations they were having. A girl from Turkey whose family is Muslim mumbling "Im ashamed of these people" or a group looking up at me in utter shock and confusion after the Westboro Baptist station asking, "but I dont understand, how are they Christian? How can anyone think that that is right?" The innocence yet intelligence of the conversations was amazing. Unlike American children, these students do not grow up with prejudices or pre-conceived notions of Muslims, they barely know much about 9/11 so we really didn't have to force them into understanding that not all Muslims were extremists or terrorists. When we stressed this they pretty much said- well duh! of course not! Which I absolutely loved! We planned the lesson to take the entire 80 minute lesson, however because they are such good workers, they ended about 10 minutes early, so we had to discuss some of the ideas and responses they had- which I was not prepared for and had a mini heart attack! But we pulled it together and it went over great! As we were finishing up, I saw that I had about a minute to go, so I said I would leave them with one last thought. As Im finishing my sentence the bell rings and I stop, expecting everyone to get up and run out, yet no one moved! Not one student took their eyes away or started to pack up, they sat there waiting for me to finish and dismiss them- I again had a mini heart attack! Overall I was extremely nervous but I think it went great! Unfortunately we wont see that class again until Friday, and we wont be there because we will be on a train to Paris, but Ken will tell us what they say about it Im sure.

Tuesday (5/17)
Today we had a technology workshop for the entire day just for the humanities department. An IT teacher from an international school in Geneva came to give us tips and show us cool websites to use with our students and each other. I was nervous at first because I dont know how to work computers at all and I figured a workshop from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm would kill me. However, it was actually really fun and interesting. Instead of throwing all this information at us, he showed a few tools and websites and gave us time after each to play around with it and really learn them. We learned all the different Google tools- docs, forms, presentations, spread sheets. We also learned about a website called Diigo which allows you to save any cool websites to the web, not just your computer and allows you to share them with others! We joined a group with the other humanities teachers so any time they find a cool website or activity and they save it to Diigo, we can get it and will always have it! We learned some other really cool things that I can really see using in my classroom.

Wednesday and Thursday (5/18-19)
These two days have been pretty much the same, observing classrooms and helping individuals and groups. We have been working on making an assessment for the Islam unit. We are asking students to look at a news article that depicts Islam extremist actions as those of the entire religion. They must take that article and re-write it or re-create it through a project of their choice such as a news skit, a letter to the editor, a response video, etc. They must show the article is wrong by showing an understanding of mainstream Islam. We had to write the rubric last night and that was very difficult and frustrating because we had to stick with a template and criteria that the IB program gives but at the same time, make it fit to our project. Not to mention working together on it when we both have very different ideas and styles with the assessment and lesson. Today Ken looked it over and saw how frustrated we were and helped us with the wording. We are going to give the students a few articles or videos for the project so the last part we have to do is find those and put them together to give to the students. Next week we will present it to the students and oversee their work.

Friday- Monday
We will be in Paris!!!!

Keukenhof

Friday (5/13)
Ken's humanitarian class was spent setting the stage for our lesson on Monday. Ken gave them an example of religious extremism using the KKK. He showed them clips from a history channel special and would stop every so often to discuss what they saw. After the first clip which showed how the KKK first got started after the Civil War, they discussed that the group was first formed as a social fraternity- not a religious extremist or hate cult. It then showed the evolution of the group to terrorism against blacks to stop them from voting- so it turned into a political organization but still with no religious affiliation. Ken then gave a quick summary of the KKK's history for the past 90 years saying that it wasn't until the 1950s during the start of the Civil Rights Movement that they connected with Christianity to gain more support. He explained that no one would want to join if they went around saying "we hate certain people and want to do horrible, violent things." However, if they say "we love our country, race, and religion," people will want to join. I thought that was a really good way to explain it and easy for the students to understand that extremist groups like the KKK don't actually have any real religious feelings, but simply use the religion as an excuse. He then showed them a clip of a KKK protest where one person gave a speech saying "we hate n***ers," "we hate jews," "we hate Catholics," "we hate fags," etc etc. He then asked the class what word they said most. Being typical 12-13 year olds, they took this opportunity to say bad words without getting in trouble, until one student raised his hand and said "hate." He was exactly right. They used the word hate more than any other, yet they profess to be Christian, but Christianity says nothing about hating people who are different (or not white protestants). I think they really understood the message and will be ready for our lesson. For fun, they then went onto the KKK official website and read different things going on and everyone laughed at the absurdity of it all. It was a really great lesson, and it was nice to see a rough topic made for 7th graders to understand.

Saturday we went to Keukenhof, a park known for their flowers and tulips. Usually, the tulips are not cut until May 20th, however because April was so warm, they had to cut them early. Unfortunately, that means we missed most of the tulips in the park and the fields and fields of rows of colors but it was still gorgeous! We walked around and took tons of pictures of the different flowers, luckily we had a beautiful day! There was a large pond that went through the park and at one part they had these circular platforms that were just under the water that you could walk on and it looked like you were walking in the middle of the water. Later we were walking and were stopped by a mama duck and her 5 ducklings who proceeded to walk over to me and Emily and nip at our toes- it was adorable! Becky's family is here, including her young daughter so once we met up we got some bread and had the baby ducks feeding from our hands. It was great. I wish we had come before all the tulips had been cut, but it was still a really great experience!

Holland Tulips! 

In Keukenhof Park 

Walking on Water and an Overly Friendly Swan

Ducklings Trying to Eat my Toes 

(For more pictures of the flowers go to my Facebook pictures!)

Learning Experiences

This week has been very busy but I have learned a lot and have had many new experiences.

Wednesday (5/11)
Today was spent working on my portfolio for my Elmira College education class and brainstorming some ideas for the Islam Unit assessment. For the assessment we have come up with a performance assessment that asks students to re-write or recreate a news article or story that portrays religious extremism as a general belief, into something that correctly shows the actions as extremist. They will be able to choose how they want to do this, for example a letter to the editor, a rewritten article, a news broadcast skit, a poster presentation, etc. I think this assessment will be great because it gives them the opportunity to be creative but also makes them use higher level thinking. Im really excited to see what the students come up with.

The wife of one of the humanities teachers Mark Tweedie, from Belfast Ireland, is in charge of a Girl Scouts program in the school and asked if I, and any of the other girls, would like to help out. Emily, Heather, and I stayed after school to help with the Daisy Scouts, the youngest group of 1st graders. They were working on a recycling/ reusing project where they took their favorite old t-shirt and created a design for a pillow that they were going to turn the t-shirt into. Our job was to help them stuff the t-shirt pillow and then help them sew it closed. Once that was done they would decorate it with markers, yard, buttons, etc. I worked with Kate, my teacher Ken's daughter, and had a blast. She did most of it herself, even the sewing once I showed her what to do. Once the Daisys were done with that project they could do other things like make bracelets with beads, which Emily helped them with. At the end of the hour they had a snack and sang a song, finishing up with a special group hug. It was a lot of fun and I loved working with the little kids.

Thursday (5/12)
Today was an amazing day at ISA! Normally we don't observe Brian's 9th grade history class but he asked us to because there was going to be a really cool activity. In that class they are learning about human rights and the international laws for humanitarian aid set during the Geneva Conference. He started off class by having students read the list of laws and discussing them so the students thought it was going to be a really boring class. Then, all of a sudden a group of 10th graders in all black clothes and ski masks with pretend machine guns burst through the windows and door, shooting and yelling (we of course knew this was going to happen and Brian played along yelling and dropping to the ground). The students were then broken up into 3 groups.
The first group stayed in the room. Some of the 10th graders played dead and wounded soldiers on both friendly and enemy sides (including Brain who played a soldier on the students' side with a wounded ankle). The "wounded" soldiers each came with a card saying which side they were on and what their injury was. The 9th graders in that group had to decide who to help first- Brian who was on their side but with only a hurt ankle or an enemy soldier with a serious injury. Brian played his part well, yelling at the students to forget about the wounded enemy, they should help him first- even though the law says you have to help the person with the worst injuries first, no matter what side they are on. After they have decided who to help (which never was the enemy soldier with the worst injury) they had to lift them onto a stretcher, bring them across the room, and take them off of it- all without spilling a container of rice put on the injured person's stomach to represent their blood and organs (it spills, they die). Once they completed the task they discussed why they chose the person they did to save.
The second group was in a narrow hallway with pieces of paper scattered all over the floor. The paper represented land minds and one student in the group had to be led across the mine field carrying a box of aid. However, this person was blindfolded and had to be told where to go by the others. Once the student got across the 10th graders running that station acted as solders who set up a road block and wanted the supplies. They then had to talk them out of taking the supplies so they could get to the people who needed them. Once the activity was over they talked about how much of the supplies from red cross or other organizations actually get to the people who need it.
The third group was set up in another room with pictures of different things taped to water bottles. The pictures included people in camo posing for a picture unarmed, an army helicopter, school children, a child soldier with a machine gun, an ambulance, a forest, etc. The students were given tennis balls to represent bombs. They didn't know anything about the targets, such as if the people in camo were actually soldiers or not, they just had to pick who to bomb. If the bottle with the image fell over- it meant it was destroyed or the people were killed. However, when they threw balls to hit the target they picked, other water bottles with pictures would fall over too or also get hit by the ball- showing that sometimes other things get destroyed, not just the target. So if they threw the ball at the helicopter and it also hit the school children, that meant they had killed both- showing the consequences of bombing. They also discussed the problem with not knowing exactly what each picture or target was. Were the people posing for a picture actually soldiers even though they were unarmed? Should they hit the picture of the child soldier who was obviously armed but a child nonetheless.
This was an amazing activity and really showed the challenges and hard decisions of war in a way that the students could understand. I would love to do this with my class in the future!

Lesson Planning

Today was extremely exhausting and I wasn't even in the classroom! The entire day was spent working on creating the lesson plan and stations and activities for the lesson Emily and I will teach next week. All day was spent working on putting together the activities for the students to do at each station, for example listening to audio, watching news clips, reading news articles, and looking at pictures and newspaper headlines, and writing up questions for the students to answer at each station. It has been a lot of fun planning it all out, but it is also a lot of work.

For about an hour and half the other student teachers and I had a seminar with my co-op teacher, Ken, to work on lesson plans and backwards design. The strategy of backwards design is the idea of starting off your planning for a unit or lesson at the end- with your assessment or a question that you want the students to be able to answer at the end, and working backwards. He gave us a worksheet where we had to pick any topic to teach 7 lessons on. After coming up with a topic and title we had to write an essential question, an assessment, and a breakdown of the 7 lessons. I made a mini course called "Your Own Utopia" where students learned about what a Utopian society is, what makes a successful society, and then they had to make their own societies in groups with all the different aspects of a real one. As the assessment at the end of the class the societies (groups) would have to interact with each other realistically, dealing with conflicts, economy, culture, religious beliefs, etc. The essential question would be: Can there truly ever be a perfect, Utopian society? This was really difficult because there were no restrictions- we literally could do anything (Emily did her lesson on Tie-Dye, while Victoria did hers on cupcakes!) which is a lot like the IB curriculum. However, at the same time its very liberating to have no standards, no expectations; we can teach whatever we want. Ken explained that rather than history class being a mixture of boring facts and dates with some fun activities and stories- its only the fun and interesting part. Rather than teaching to a test, you can teach to student's interests and the important things in history.

It has been a really interesting day and the work Ive done has really helped me in understanding different strategies and skills that I will use in my own classroom.

On a fun, side note- we just booked our hotel for Paris!!!! We will be going next weekend and Im so excited!

Museums!

Saturday we spent about 12 hours walking around Amsterdam. It was a beautiful day- about 75 degrees, sunny and humid. Today was our museum day. We first got into the city in the early afternoon and headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for some lunch. Normally I would have pushed for a less American choice, however we sat and ate our lunch on their dock, literally over the water of one of the canals. It was wonderful, sitting in the sun with the breeze watching the boats go by. After that we headed over to one of the I AMsterdam signs, although it was crowded so we didn't get pictures on it.

The first museum we went to was the Rikes Museum, which is their national museum and holds many paintings and artifacts from the Dutch Golden Age (1600s-1800s). It was very interesting because they had many amazing things from their ships and colonies, their major source of wealth that the time. The Dutch countries are also known for their painters (Van Gogh, Rembrandt, etc) so it was absolutely amazing to stand 12 inches from original paintings anywhere from 500-300 years old. Not to mention that the building the museum is in, is a artistic masterpiece within itself.

After that we went to the Dam Square, where the Royal Palace is, to visit a church that we had seen but hadn't really paid much attention to. One of the teachers had told us we should go inside but wouldn't tell us anything else. Im very glad we did. The New Church was built in 1408 after the old church for Amsterdam had become too small to house the growing population. It was built in the Gothic style and is extraordinarily beautiful and ornate. While it is not in use anymore, it is open as a museum and houses the tomb and monument of Michiel de Ruyter, a famous Dutch Navy commander in the 17th century. This was particularly amazing because the Rikes Museum had a model of the monument and I was amazed by it, but then to see it in person, to be able to touch it was unbelievable.

After than we headed over to the Anne Frank House. The experience was beyond words. The entire house of where her and her family were in hiding was transformed into a museum with the actual rooms they lived in kept bare ( all the furniture was taken during the Nazi raid) except for a few things she had hung on the wall. The entire museum was decorated with quotes from her diary and you really got a sense of how smart and beyond her years she really was. As we made our way through the secret door hidden by the bookshelf, into the rooms and back down the stairs there were exhibits on what happened after they were taken. Otto, Anne's father the only one who survived Auschwitz, came back to the house to find Anne's diary and published it in 1947. They had videos of women who knew Anne in the camp and each of the family's identification card from when they entered the camp. Finally, on a plain table in the middle of the room was a small worn book- her original diary. It was one of the most amazing, historically enriching, yet emotionally draining experiences Ive ever had, and I hope everyone gets a chance to see it. We plan on going back before we leave. Again, I get the feeling that we are just missing so much of history in the US simply because there is nothing like that back home. On a regular street surrounded by houses and shops, is a part of history, a building where a little girl wrote a book that would change the world. It gave me chills. For a history class to go and see the rooms she lived in rather than simply reading the room would be invaluable!

All in all, a very rewarding second week. Im having a blast and learning so much- about the students, teaching, history, and myself. I love it and can't wait to see what the next week has in store for me. \

Eating lunch on the Canal

Tulips- of course

The Rikes Museum (in Dutch)

Michiel de Ruyter Monument in the New Church

Part of the New Church

The Anne Frank House (they lived where that attic window is)

Student Teaching

Its been a while since Ive written, everything here has just been very busy and exhausting. This past week in school I've really started to get into the teaching aspect of the trip. In the classes Ive only been observing and working with small groups because the classes don't meet regularly so it was not until this Friday that I finally met all my classes.

(Wednesday 5/4)
Because of that Ive only been trying to get to know the students and make sure they feel comfortable with me in the class. However, behind the scenes Ive been working nonstop.  Ken Hansberry (our cooperating teacher) has decided that Emily and I should plan and teach the second part of his Islam Unit. So I have been doing a lot of research and discussing how we want to teach the students about Islam in current events. Ken started off by saying that he has this amazing clip from the show West Wing that discusses terrorism and Islamic extremists, however the show is for adults and is way over 7th graders' heads. So Emily's and my job is to plan and teach the lessons building up to that clip so they will have a better chance of understanding it. A hard enough task if we were to do that in the American schools, however it becomes 10x harder when you are working with students who all have completely different knowledge, completely different cultures (so you can't even reference celebrities or shows to connect with the kids like in the US), etc. So, we decided Emily and I would take over the lesson planning and teaching for the class on May 16th- where we will teach them about religious extremists.  First we made a list of different examples we could think of, for example: the Westboro Baptist Church, Jim Jones and the suicide cult, the Muhammad Cartoon in Denmark, the Florida preacher burning the Koran, etc. Once we made a list of religious extremist examples, we had to do research to gain as much knowledge about these events as possible. Finally, we decided that we would organize our lesson into "Stations" which means the students will be split into 5 groups and each will learn about one example/ event of extremism at that station. After 12-15 minutes, they will move to the next station, until each group has done all 5 stations. Our homework was to set up these stations with activities and questions for the students. My feelings were a mixture of excitement, exhaustion, and intimidation!

May 4 is called Remembrance Day in the Netherlands for all those who died in WWII. Similar to our Memorial Day (except school and work stays open) they have ceremonies throughout Amsterdam and the country. At 8:00 pm -8:02 pm there is two minutes of silence. At the royal palace in Amsterdam, in the middle of the city, where thousands are gathered, the Queen comes out, makes a short speech, and puts out a wreath, then the entire city goes completely silent for those 2 minutes. We did not go, but the teachers said that it is always amazing- thousands and thousands of people stay completely silent, nothing moving, for those moments. I can only imagine how magical that would be to see, Im sorry I missed it!

Thursday (5/5)
Today in school we did more planning for the lesson and observed and worked with some classes. Setting up to teach the Islam unit had been extremely valuable because we are able to work so closely with Ken who is probably one of the most intelligent, well-rounded, and experienced teachers I know. He has worked all around the world (literally) and even runs a teacher-training program at Yale over the summer. He is truly amazing, and I am so fortunate to work alongside him.

Today we worked with Ken's 8th grade humanities class, which we had gone on the field trip with but had not officially met yet. The students were working on projects about the field trip to Naarden (talked about in an earlier blog) in which they had to plot the buildings that they had to find on the trip, on a map of the city- color coordinating the different uses of the buildings. They also had to include their own pictures from the trip and small paragraphs about each building's old and modern uses. They had to put all these things on a poster that they will present next week. I enjoy observing the students' work on this project because they are subtly learning geography and how to find and map different points in the town and reinforcing the history and the "gentrification" of the town, which they explored on the trip, all the while simply enjoying coloring the map and cutting out pictures. During the class we waked around helping students if they needed it, but mostly just observing. At one point we were able to take one group out of the room so they could all plot the points on their maps, so we got to work personally with that small group. Even though we are not teaching classes yet, I feel the observations are just as valuable and Im learning so much just from watching the students and the teachers.

May 5, aside from Cinco De Mayo, is Liberation Day in the Netherlands to celebrate their freedom from the Nazi's in WWII. Although not much seemed to happen officially, it is more of a day just for feeling good and celebrating and Im really glad we were able to spend the past two days here experiencing the two holidays. I have to remind myself that unlike the US, the Netherlands (and all of Europe) was at the heart of the fighting in WWII, Amsterdam had been taken over by the Nazi's and there are plenty of people still in the city that remember Nazi troops walking the streets. We simply don't have that opportunity in the US and its an amazing feeling and experience.

Friday (5/6)
Today we again observed more classes and working on the lesson's with Ken.
Im really excited because we were trying to come up with an Essential Question for our lesson (which is simply a question that you want students to be able to answer by the end of the lesson) and I gave him my idea for one and he liked it. So we are going to use the Essential Question that I came up with for our lesson! It just makes me so excited because it kind of confirms my feeling that this is what I want to be doing, and can do it. So our Essential Question for that lesson is: "How does religious extremism create misunderstandings and how is that true in Islam today?" We also came up with our final 5 stations and started to form questions for those. The stations the students will learn about are: The Muhammad Cartoon from Denmark, The Westboro Baptist Church, The Florida Preacher Burning the Koran (Terry Jones), Jim Jones and the Suicide Cult (1978), and Aum Shinrikyo (a doomsday cult responsible for an attack on Japanese subways in 1995). The students will learn about these events through different activities including reading articles, watching videos, listening to audio clips, and looking at pictures. The questions they will be answering will all be different however they all connect back to how these examples of extremism misuse or misinterpret the religion they say they represent and what can happen because of this (fighting, people being killed, etc.).

In class we worked with Ken's 7th grade class (the ones who are working on essays, which we haven't seen since last Tuesday). By this class they were supposed to have finished an organizer that mapped out their essay. Most students were in all different places so they continued to work independently while Emily and I helped students and Ken taught mini lessons on writing transitions between body paragraphs, a road map (pretty much how to write an introduction), and conclusions. Just listening to those mini lessons I gained a lot of valuable information that I plan on using in my own essays! I worked with one boy for most of the time who needed help with his thesis. His essay is comparing and contrasting Cathedrals and Mosques. He was a really sweet kid and had great ideas, so I just helped him organize and word his thoughts. I was very impressed with the work ethics of the students, although they sometimes got off task and fooled around (like every 12 year old does) they really got a lot done. This is the class we will be teaching our lesson to, so Im very excited to work more with these students.

Like every Friday, after school was happy hour in the teacher's lounge. It was a lot of fun because more teachers came and I ended up staying until 7 pm simply talking to the different teachers and school staff. We met people from all over the world and it was very interesting to hear their different stories on how they ended up at ISA. It really is a great school and staff, and everyone just seems so happy and friendly. They have definitely convinced me to look into graduate schools and later teaching abroad!

Student Run Conferences and The Van Gogh Museum

Today in the Middle Years Program at ISA there were student run conferences. This was an entire day devoted to the students presenting to their parents what they have learned thus far in their classes. Each class presented the information differently, however the 8th grade presentations that I sat in to watch put their work in folders to go through with their parents. While students were in their conferences with their parents, I was able to go through some of the portfolios, to see exactly what they had been doing in each class throughout the year. In the portfolios are 8 pieces of work showing different classes and different types of learning. Each "ticket," which showed what assignment they were submitting, asked them to analyze what type of work the project was showing, their thought process, and what they learned from it. Besides utilizing higher level thinking in the actual assignments, students worked on their presentation skills- and their parents were a tough audience. Their work was amazing. One math assignment blew me away in particular, although I could barely comprehend it. In the assignment the student tested and explained why there could not be giant tarantulas. In it she showed the different volume and mass formulas then compared that using the actual measurements of a tarantula to explain why it would be impossible for the legs to hold up more mass, etc. It was very cool and way over my head as far as the math equations go. Another really interesting assignment was an English/ History assignment where the students were given a photograph from WWII. They were not told when, who, or what the picture was showing, instead they had to write a journal or diary entry as that person. They made up their life, what the picture was showing, and the story before and after that scene (historically accurate of course). This was an assignment that incorporated both analysis, content knowledge, and creativity- everything that the IB curriculum brings to education, and everything an assignment should be. I put this assignment in my mental arsenal of assignments to use for later. Because the students and teachers were in these conferences all day and we were intruding on their presentations, we were able to take the rest of the day off.

We decided to go into Amsterdam to visit the Van Gogh Museum, something that I have wanted to see for a long time. Van Gogh has always been one of my favorite painters and to be able to see the majority of his work was amazing. We saw many of his famous pieces such as the sunflowers, irises, self-portraits, and landscapes. There was also a traveling collection of Picasso's early work from Paris from 1900-1907 (when he was 19 to 26 years old). These pictures were very interesting because they were nothing like the abstract work he was later known for. All of these paintings were absolutely amazing to see, especially seeing Van Gogh's work in the place that he spent most of his life.

Queen's Day!

Anyone thinking of going to Amsterdam, must be there for the Queen's Day celebrations! The only way to get close to explaining this country wide celebration is if you mix New Years Eve in Time Square, the 4th of July, all the Super Bowl and World Series parties and parades, get everyone super drunk, put them in crazy neon orange outfits, and let them loose of the streets of Amsterdam (and then maybe times that by 10). The partying starts Friday night (Queen's Night) and goes well into the night and early morning, then starts back up at about 10am Saturday morning and goes all day. While Queen's Day is celebrating the birthday of a Queen, it is the birthday of the previous queen, not the current one, which doesn't make much sense. It seems to be more of an excuse to dress crazy and get really drunk with millions of other people on the streets of the city.

While crowds that put NYC to shame, pot smoke, and really drunk people may not be my scene, it is definitely something that everyone should experience and something I will never forget. Friday night we wandered the streets, sampled some local bars (including an Irish pub so I was able to have a pint of Murphy's - pure heaven and missed dearly for the past year), and people watched as some of the crazy outfits started to appear. Yet Friday was nothing compared to Saturday. By 11am most of the city was drunk and wearing the most interesting things I have ever seen- all in neon orange (the color of the queen). These included orange one-piece jumpsuits, Umpa-Lumpas in full costumes, many different types of drinking hats, etc. We of course had to keep up with the locals donning feather boas, indian chief headdresses, furry leg warmers, giant glasses, crowns and bows, etc.- all of course, in orange. There was alcohol and music everywhere. Another part of Queen's Day is the venders and street tables selling absolutely everything. It is literally a city wide garage sale, with everyone, including children, selling new and used items. Exhausted by 5pm, we made our way home, but I will never forget this amazing cultural experience. It was absolutely worth the initial culture shock and sore feet and I recommend it to everyone!

Street Vendor Selling Orange

Showing off my Queen's Day Pride

A glimpse at the crowds

Some of us just trying to fit in with the locals

Student Teaching- Day 1

Friday was my first real day in the school observing classes. The school day runs from 8:30am- 3:30pm except for fridays when the students don't have to come in until 9:30 and teachers have meetings and workshops for the hour before. There were many options for the teachers, and us, to go to but I, along with Emily, went to the Humanities team meeting where they discussed the IB requirements for the Middle Years Program. During the meeting the teachers of the team went through the list of requirements and discussed what they think they excelled at, needed to work on, or met the expectations. That was extremely interesting to see because it gave me an inside look at the workings of the IB program.

Once the meeting ended and the school day officially started Emily and I were lucky enough to experience a 10th grade assembly. The 10th grade humanities classes are studying Hitler and the Holocaust and had a Holocaust survivor come in and speak to them about her experiences. The woman happened to be a relative of one of the students and still lives in Amsterdam. The speaker, Betty, was a child- 6 years old when her family went into hiding (where they lived in 14 different tiny, secret spaces in 12 months) and 8 when her parents were taken to the concentration camps. In Amsterdam the Nazi's put Jewish families found in hiding in a Jewish theatre for holding until they could be shipped off to the camps, however because of the noise the children under the age of 15 were separated and put into a child care building across the street called the creche. With the underground resistance group were nurses in the creche and those working to smuggle children out. Betty's parents gave their permission and on the morning that they were taken away, she was smuggled out a back door instead of being put onto the truck with her parents. She was then given to a German Catholic family to be raised as their daughter. She later found out that her entire family had been killed in the concentration camps but was later reunited with a distant uncle. It was an unbelievable story and the entire room was silent through her story, a look of awe on everyone's face. It is one thing to read about people or watch them in documentaries, but to actually meet her and listen to her story gave me goosebumps.

We were then brought to observe 7th grade classes. We first watched a one block (40 minute) class taught by Ken Hansberry, who we have been working closely with. The students were working on how to write a 5 paragraph essay. While he was on the field trip with us to Naarden, they had been coming up with ideas, going along with their Rise of Islam unit. Once they were given time to work on building a skeletal outline on their own, I walked around to see what they were writing about and was blown away. While I know the teacher helped them word their thesis statements, it was still amazing to see their ideas, which included the treatment of women in the Koran compared to the Bible, who had the advantage in the 1st Crusade, artistic images during the 1st Crusade comparing the Bible and the Koran, and comparing the value of science in the Bible and the Koran. Listening to these 7th graders made my jaw drop and take mental notes of good college essay topics! It was incredible. All the students worked hard, were great kids, and were extremely friendly, I know Im going to have fun with this class.

The other class we observed was Brian's double block (80 minute) 7th grade geography class. The students were giving presentations on volcanos that they researched. Students were given the option to do a presentation through PowerPoint or Google Docs or could make a booklet and not have to present to the class. Many also made working models of a volcano to blow up to go along with their presentation. The ones we saw in class were great, the students spoke loudly, clearly, and professionally and knew more than I could ever hope to about PowerPoint and the Smart Board. But what really impressed me were the questions the students asked their peer who was presenting. The questions were intelligent and made it clear that they were actively listening and wanted more information. It was a teacher's dream.

Fridays end with TGIF in the teacher's rooms. This is when all the teachers get together to relax after a long week. One of the teachers acts as bar tender and you can get anything from beer to mixed drinks to wine. So after school we sat there with the teachers and had a drink, laughing and socializing. It was great, and I'm sure many more teachers would love their jobs if this was a part of every school!

TGIF in the Teacher's Lounge