Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit

Escola Parque is back in session for the new year. A new group of students will have to be trained. New relationships between students will be formed. This is one of the ongoing minor complications. In the USA, our summer is from June to August. In Brasil, the summer is from Christmas until March. Also, there will be more adult students at Escola Parque. It will be interesting for the students to hear an adult perspective other than their teachers'.

We have exchanged questions on the movie, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. After viewing the movie and working on questions separately, we will upload some to TappedIn for the students to share perspectives.

Getting Ready for the New Year

We are through Christmas. Escola Parque students are still on summer break. Lovejoy juniors are prepping for state assessment. Seniors are reading a novel.

Tyrone and I have begun to plan for our next project. He has sent some of the Celebrations papers. I will begin to check them. Lovejoy students will be writing summaries from their research papers.

It is time to view and discuss a new movie. We want to talk about self respect and pride. We want to talk about responsibility to our communities. Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit will be the movie we use as a starting point. We will continue to use Tapped In, our student and professional blogs, and Orkut to chronicle our activities. And of course, we will SKYPE hoping that our web cams will be able to connect as well.

Research Papers Complete

Lovejoy seniors have completed research papers on the origin of numerous US holidays comparing them to similar holidays in Brasil. One of the areas in which there was no comparison was Civil Liberties holidays. The United States has many such holidays, but Brasil does not. Other titles of the research papers include Celebrations of Love (Valentine's Day, weddings, anniversaries), Christmas, Thanksgiving (which is not a Brasilian holiday) and New Years, and Patriotic Holidays.

In Brasil students are out of school for Christmas. Their holiday will extend into late February because it is summer there. In addition to "Language Arts" at Lovejoy and "English" as a foreign language in Brasil, we have learned much about geography, history, and culture.

Work on the book will continue after the holidays.

A setback...

With the end of daylight savings time, came the end of our SKYPE chats. If you remember, cutbacks due to problems in the economy shortened the school day in Bahia. Now that the time difference is 3 hours instead of 2, our students will not be in school at the same time.

We will continue to blog, work on our book, use TappedIn, and e-mail.

Speaking of e-mail, my students have run into problems figuring out what holiday in Brasil would be closest to some of our celebrations. So I told them to e-mail their other teacher and ask. Their delight at receiving e-mail directly to them from Tyrone was surprising. I don't believe they thought he would really write to just one person. They couldn't wait to share with their classmates.

SKYPE visits going well...

We have had several successful SKYPE visits to the delight of students in both countries. One of my students called to me for help. Another admonished that student saying, "She isn't going to help us. We can figure it out ourselves. Move over." The "we can do it" attitude is what I am looking for.

A new project...

The students will be studying Celebrations. Lovejoy seniors will be writing short research papers on a selected holiday and researching how it is celebrated in both countries. They will submit a synopsis describing the American (USA) holiday of choice. Escola Parque students will research information on their own holidays and celebrations. Then they will translate their work into English.

A book will be printed with the student work. The students are already excited.

Sharing the project with other educators...

Tyrone:

Today’s Principals’ meeting was a success!!! Bahia State Board of Education Secretary was there, among other education staff. Professor Eni Ribeiro was also there. She is responsible for State padagogic matters. I could present Global Connections to about 144 principals of Salvador. At the end of the presentation, our Project received lots of congratulations.

Our work together has taught the following lesson to everybody there: When teachers have a minimum condition of work, they can dream and such dreams can even make them cross barriers like we have done during this year of exchange.