Doing some educatin'

Greetings!

We've just rounded the corner into 4th quarter here at Lukop Elementary School. It'll be my final quarter as a classroom teacher, since next fall I'll act as a resource teacher for the whole school before I depart in November. Time is flying. I'm very much going to miss my students when we part -- especially my 8th graders, since they've been my students as long as I've taught in Pohnpei.

All is well here. No earthquakes, tsunamis, or toxic runoff are ruffling our feathers on Pohnpei as of now. In fact, we've been blessed this month with a whole lot of business-as-usual, with oodles of academic competitions -- math olympiads, essay contests, science fairs -- coming our way from the DOE.

In addition to the official doings, we've had a few special events happening around campus.

First, we were lucky enough to host a group of Japanese Medical Students here on an exchange program a few days before the tsunami. They came to our classrooms to meet the students, learn about their families, and make lots of balloon animals and oragami boxes. My favorite part of their visit was when we all went to my host family's house to talk to them about local medicine. I got to act as an interpreter, which was a great way for me to learn about my host parents' work, too!

The next bit of big, educative news is that L.E.S. now has a library! It's small, and only the junior novels have been catalogued, but it's a definite start! Hopefully the whole thing will be organized and ready for student use by the end of the summer. I'm ecstatic now, though, because all of my 7th and 8th grade students were able to check out their own independent reading book last week. For many of them it's the first book they've EVER read on their own/for fun. As a lifelong reader, it brings me joy to see them diving into books for the first time!

The independent reading project also has brought some amusement on the homework front. Earlier this week I assigned a writing response on the topic of setting. I asked each student to identify the setting of their novel and to say whether or not they would like to visit it.

My favorite response came from my student with the best sense of humor, Alex Alexander. With his permission, I've included his unedited response to "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" below:

I want to go to this place, because I really want to see it with my own eyes. If there is a man half goat. I want to touch him, talk to him and teach him how to plant sakau. I want to see the beavers. I want to see their faces. I want to sit and watch if a female beavers know how to use a sewing machine.
Its very funny to read about these things. I’ve been so eager to see it. I want to talk to the lion and his crew. And to see if ther’s a wich that has a magic wand. I want to kill her and take her wand away. And turn my enemy in to stone.
Finally, I really want to see these things, to sea if they’re real. I want to be the tourist to all these stuffs. To find more about these creatures. To learn more about them because I’m so interested.

Hopefully the interest keeps up, as well as the occasional blog for you all!

Lots of love,
Mollie