I’m three days into my vacation and I have been feeling the need to write a blog post because so much has been on my mind since wrapping up Summer of Algebra at Northside. I’ve also realized that this vacation is my first break from work-related activities, so it’s my first time to really sit down and reflect/write. I’ve been ruminating a lot, but I figure it’s better to get these reflections down on (metaphorical) paper than to just keep going over them in my head. This post is my late summer brain dump.

Johan and I finished up our short-term Fulbright at JRU. Rufo planned a closing ceremony with more music and short talks by teachers. The teachers (and students!) showered us with gifts on our last day, too. One student made a framed pencil sketch of Johan and me. I was so touched by their thoughtfulness and their expressions of gratitude.

Rufo, Johan, Molly and me.

We got back from Manila on July 7 and then I started teaching Algebra at Northside on July 9. I wasn’t too jetlagged, so I didn’t feel slow and sluggish that week. With the expansion of the program to four other schools, my mind wasn’t allowed to be sluggish. As much as I am mindful in the moment of teaching, I couldn’t help but have miniature freakouts when I’d think about the four other schools and eight other teachers using the curriculum that I wrote and compiled for the summer. Did the teachers understand the notes for the lesson plans? Were the learning objectives clear enough for each task? Did I allot enough time for each activity (generally, no)? Did the sequence of tasks make sense to them? What would they be skipping when they didn’t have enough time to do all that was in each day’s plan? Was this summer program enough for them to get to know their students as learners to determine next steps for them? While focusing on our own students, I couldn’t help but worry about the students at the other schools. On top of this worry, I had to leave my own students in the capable hands of my co-teacher to go hang out with other math teachers.

At the end of my first week of Summer of Algebra, I had the privilege of going to Desmos headquarters in San Francisco for Desmos Fellows Weekend. I’m finally a Desmos Fellow! After applying for it three times, they finally let me in! I told my colleagues that I was just going to keep applying until they relented, so it’s better for everyone that I got to go this summer. It was a whirlwind weekend. Friday night was mostly about community building and getting to know each other. Most of the Desmos team was there, along with 40 teachers from all over the US and Canada. There were a lot of people to get to know. I’m not usually gregarious in those situations with lots of people. I usually feel overwhelmed with the number of names I’m supposed to learn and the details about people’s lives I’m supposed to remember. I did my best. Throughout the days on Saturday and Sunday, we participated in sessions lead by the staff on the driving principles of Desmos Activity Builder (I’m on board with all of them!); the design process to build a Desmos activity (not enough time with that one); and computation layer (need a LOT more time that!). We also had breakout sessions with other teachers where we worked on our own projects (again, I needed more time!). Saturday and Sunday nights were reserved for more fun stuff – trivia competition and dinner and local places.

As much as I wanted to keep Desmos-ing to reinforce what I learned over the weekend, I didn’t have that luxury. After the extended weekend at Desmos, I was back at Northside for Summer of Algebra.  We had to deal with some flux in the enrollment, and we had some students joining us late, but we made the most of it. We had 31 students whom we would say completed the program. We have made our recommendations for their course placement in the fall. We recommended that two of the students take Algebra in the fall. We felt that these four weeks were not enough for them to really be solid with the content. I spoke with one of the students before he left on the last day and explained to him why we want him to take Algebra. He said that he was disappointed, but he understood why I was making that recommendation. He also explained that most of the material that we learned this summer was new to him and he sensed that it wasn’t new for other students. He was right. Another handful of students we recommended for Geometry, but we had some reservations about them and we let them know it. In the email to them, I said that we expected them to go to Math Tables at Northside regularly so that they could be as successful as possible. It was interesting to me and my co-teacher that it was much more difficult to make these recommendations this year. The students were always surprising us. Some days, they seemed really solid with the material and other days, they didn’t. Some of them wanted to exude confidence, but they didn’t always have the mastery to back up that confidence. Pretty much all of the students said in their self-reflections that they were ready to move on to Geometry, so that didn’t make our recommendations any easier. Except for the two students who are going to take Algebra, we erred on the side of allowing the students to progress, with the caveat that they have to stay committed to their learning in the coming years.

I learned a great deal about teaching through this Summer of Algebra experience. I honed my capacity to be as clear as possible in articulating learning objectives and teaching moves. I realize that there is so much that I know about teaching that I don’t often get the chance to articulate – perhaps if I blogged more I would? I learned how difficult it is to write plans that other teachers had to understand. In the moment of teaching, I know how to launch a lesson, how to ask questions as students explore the task, how to monitor what they are doing and that to look for as they do it. I know how to weave in related ideas based on what students are saying and doing. I know how to get students talking to each other and to me when they are feeling confused about the material. I know how to ask students to share their ideas in their groups and with the whole class. It was extremely difficult for me to tell other teachers – through text – how to do those same things, or close approximations of those things. It’s one thing to have a lesson plan that I will implement. It’s another thing to have four weeks of lessons plans that eight other teachers will be implementing. I can’t say that I’m an expert at it now, but I did grow in that way. It’s forced me to think more deeply about all the choices I make as a teacher and to something think, “How would I explain what I’m doing to a teacher who has never done this before?”

Because I was co-teaching, I had the opportunity to *really* listed to another teacher while she was teaching. It forced me to reflect even more on what I say when I’m teaching and how I say it. I was *listening* to myself talk and teach more than I usually do. I noticed a few things. I noticed how easy it is to fall into the habit of saying “right?” after making a statement. It sort of turns the statement into a fake question where the listener has no choice but to agree. “This is the rate of change, right?” or “Divide both sides by 7, right?” Whether it was me or my co-teacher, I listened for this and noticed that students would subconsciously nod their heads in agreement. Of course they are supposed to agree, the teacher just said it was ‘right’! It can be almost trance-like to follow along with a teacher who keeps saying “right” at the end of a statement. When I realized I was doing it, I avoided it as much as I could because I noticed that it kills real discourse and students just tend to zone out. Instead of saying a statement like that I would either say nothing or ask a real question that students could answer.

Speaking of asking questions, I also decided that I don’t like to ask “Why?” when I follow up with a student. Of course, I still want their explanations and for them to develop their thinking more. But, I’ve decided that asking “why?” is another coded way of asking students to give me the correct answer, instead of them really explaining themselves in their own way. Students have a sense that there is a correct way to answer a ‘why?’ question when it comes from a teacher and they may not feel like they have the correct reason for an answer. As a result, they sometimes answer with “I don’t know” or “because that’s the correct answer” or something else that doesn’t really explain how they came to a certain response. Asking “why” sometimes feels like an attack, too. Students can feel like it’s an affront to what they just came up with. It can come off as a little too forceful to some students who have a more reserved nature. Also, in outside-of-classroom life when someone says “Don’t ask me why I just…” it usually means that they don’t want to tell you the reason, that you wouldn’t like or approve of the reason, or that they are embarrassed with the reason that the person did the thing they are talking about. And, since I’m a mom and I ask my own kids ‘why’ questions when I don’t really want to know the reason (“Why did you leave your cereal bowl on the kitchen table?” and “Why did you just smack your sister?”) it seems like asking ‘why’ is another way of expressing disbelief or exasperation at someone’s actions. Answering a “why?” in the classroom gets to feel perfunctory.

In addition to avoiding this fake inquiry in my personal life, I’m going to keep avoiding asking ‘why’ in my classroom, too. Instead of asking “why?” I tried to say, “Keep talking about that idea” or “Anything else you want to say about that?” or “Keep going…” or “OK, thanks, and?” or “I think I’m following. Ca you go on?” I’m sure that there are other replacements, I just can’t think of them now. As I wrote up above, I know these kinds of responses I can make in the moment of teaching, I just can’t articulate them when I am not teaching.

So now that I have these thoughts down, I have to figure out a way to get online and post them to my blog while we are almost wifi-free and LTE-free here at Lake Crescent Lodge in Olympic National Park. This brain dump may either free up some of my personal RAM so I can enjoy my vacation more or I’ll worry that I didn’t get all of it out when my family and I take our hikes through these gorgeous grounds. Whether I’m set free or set up for more reflection, this will likely be my last post for a while. Perhaps I’ll check back in when I have more replacements for the classroom “why?” question. Now, why would I do that?

My co-teaching went well on Thursday because I completely over planned for the previous day. I had many more google slides with questions and more patterns for students to decipher. I talked with my collaborating colleagues about how to divide up the work and we went to it. I was fortunate to be co-teaching because my voice was still scratchy, so it was good to rest it a little during the classes. By the end of Thursday, I was nearly as tired as the day before. I had gone to a yoga class Wednesday night that helped me a great deal. With all of the traffic and slow commutes that we have, it seems like my body had been stuck and immobile. Yoga was the remedy to that.

On Friday morning, we observed in three different elementary classes. In the first class, I was with sixth graders and I introduced myself. They were impressed that I was a math teacher. “Is Algebra hard?” a student asked me. “It’s hard if you are lazy, ” I responded. “If you work hard, then it’s easy.” “Please teach us some Algebra!” another student said. I asked the teacher if it was OK if I taught a little bit, she said that it was, and I set up my computer to the first slide of visual patterns that I posed with the 10th graders two days before. They quickly engaged. There was some faulty reasoning that was reminiscent of what the 10th graders did, but then they had some productive techniques. Two students presented their answers, with the correct answer coming second. I was happy that they were willing to try the problem that was meant for 10th graders!

After lunch on Friday, we left early to prepare our PD for Saturday morning.

On Saturday I led a 3-hour training session on using Desmos in teaching mathematics. I planned to start with the graphing app and then do more with the activity builder. When I realized that half of my participants were teachers of grades 5 and 6, I had to think quickly on my feet to give them material that was more relevant to their teaching. I am not aware of too many Desmos activities for content in grades 5 and 6 (though I am sure that there is a lot out there – I just didn’t have time to vet them), so I decided to show them how they can use google sheets to create circle graphs and bar graphs. The teachers were unaware of these features, so this was helpful to them.

Yesterday, we went on a tour of the countryside to Batangas and Tagaytay. Our girls went with us and we saw a different side of the Philippines, outside of Manila. It was great to get out of the city for the day and breathe some fresh air! We saw the oldest church in Asia – a 400 year-old basilica in Taal. We walked through the church and then visited museums in the town for more learning on Filipino history and the struggle for independence from Spain, from the US, and from Japan. It was clear in these historical renditions and in the current conditions in the Philippines that the country is still trying to recover from colonial rule.

Today, we presented to two groups of 10th graders on cultural aspects of the US. We had lots of pictures to share. We also talked about colleges and universities in the US so that students considering studying there will have new perspectives to think about.

I forgot to mention earlier that teachers asked me for feedback after I had observed their classes. I loved that they were willing to listen to my limited perspective and my suggestions. I humbly offered some ideas. They were interested in what I saw and the suggestions I had for them. They demonstrated that they are true teachers – people who are always willing to learn.

As we are fully into our program now, I have less time to blog about it. That’s the way life works, of course.

While Rufo had made plans for us on Sunday, Johan and I begged off so that we could hang out with the Taboras. Rufo took Molly on what sounded like a lovely countryside tour, getting out of Manila to see some beautiful mountainous regions in this tropical country. Meanwhile, us Taboras went to a beautiful brunch buffet that afternoon at the Shangri-La. There were mountains of delicious food that we enjoyed there. We also went shopping (one of the national past times of Filipinos, according to Johan, because the malls have air conditioning) and went for a quick swim at a local club.

On Monday morning, we visited the PAEF office to touch base with Gigi, the Interim Exectuve Director. The Philippino-American Education Foundation is under the auspices of the Fulbright program. I learned that the Philippines is celebrating its 70th year as a Fulbright partner with the US and I learned of the several different exchange programs that Fulbright sponsors.

Later that day, we briefly met the president of JRU and the board of directors and had a delicious lunch (prepared on campus!) with several of the teachers. I observed three math classes that afternoon, in grades 7 and 10. Later in the afternoon, Rufo MC’d a welcome program that included student participation. We heard some awesome ukulele playing by some sixth graders and then an outstanding soloist who was only 12 years old.  I had to get a selfie with her in case she’s famous one day!

Tuesday was a full day, too. I observed four math classes in the morning at the senior high school, which is grades 11 and 12. The Philippine Government recently changed the law requiring students to stay in school until grade 12 (it used to be grade 10), so there is a huge influx of students at these grade levels. JRU has over 4300 students in grades 11 and 12 alone. The public schools cannot handle all of the students, so the government gives families vouchers so the kids can go to private schools. I observed classes in Statistics, Geometry, Basic Calculus and General Mathematics. After another buffet lunch at a local restaurant (did I mention Filipinos *love* buffets?), I gave a short presentation about Chicago and Northside Prep to a class of enthusiastic students who asked great questions about life in the US. They asked if students had to wear uniforms and how much tuition students had to pay to attend Northside. They were surprised that there was no tuition and that the facilities were as nice as they were for a public school. I later told the teacher that Northside’s facilities didn’t even compare to those in suburban schools. It’s all relative. Before leaving, I chatted with the two teachers whose classes I would teach the following day. I was to prepare a lesson for grade 10 math and the topic was arithmetic sequences and series. Teaching demonstrations are part of our planned activities for the Fulbright. It’s a little weird to take over another teacher’s class for a day or two, but I also know that seeing something enacted live is a better way to believe that it can be done than merely talking about it or reading about it.

I woke up early Wednesday to prepare my lessons for the day. I had a few constraints: limited access to copies; no laptops or graphing calculators; class sizes of 45 – 48 students; small classrooms;  small, one-person desk-chairs that really could not be moved around the room. I prepared google slides because I knew that I would have an LCD projector and  decent wifi connection. From my observations, it seemed like students were only making superficial connections as they worked on using the formula for the nth term of a sequence. I presented some problems using visual patterns and asked students to make the connected between the visual pattern and the rule. I also asked students to talk to each quite a bit as we moved through the lesson.

Before we even began the lessons, I asked each class for advice: What should I know about that class or about Filipino students in general before I teach them? I stole this idea from fellow Fulbrighter Molly as she asked it while she presented to another class yesterday. I asked for five students to give me distinct pieces of advice and I learned a lot from what they said. They were nervous about using English with me. They wanted me to know that they can get a little rowdy and to be as strict as necessary with them. They told me that math was difficult for them, so please be patient with them. I can’t remember all 15 pieces of advice now, but I loved that they were willing to help me be more successful as their teacher. This was my quick-and-dirty version of a get-to-know-you google form that I use with my students. I almost like this version better because students think about themselves as a collective and consider what success means for the class.

Needless to say, I was exhausted by the end of the day. I think I may be getting laryngitis, but I’m doing my best to save my voice for teaching. Today (Thursday) brings more teaching and co-teaching in the same three classes. I still need to talk with the teachers to decide how we are going to handle the classes and how to proceed to developing the sum of an arithmetic series, the topic that I didn’t have time to get to yesterday. I imagine I will be just as exhausted at the end of this day, too.

We met with Rufo today and got a tour of JRU campus. We also happened to meet another teacher at the school who was there on a Saturday. Robert is a high school math teacher and he didn’t hold back in his enthusiasm for meeting us. I felt very welcomed!

JRU has an impressive campus! There are several buildings that house different levels of the school – from primary up through graduate school. Most of the classrooms were closed because it was Saturday, but there were many college-age students on campus. Rufo mentioned that many of them were there for their required PE classes that don’t fit into their schedule otherwise. I think it’s great that college students are required to take a PE class, but I won’t be advocating for that in the US anytime soon. I gotta pick my battles carefully. JRU will be celebrating its 100^th anniversary next year. As part of the commemoration, they are building a 9-story building in the middle of their campus. We saw the construction for it on our tour. I’m regretting not taking any pictures to accompany this post. I’ll have to be better with that when we return on Monday.

Johan and I met Molly Bryson in person, too. She’s the other US Fulbrighter who is here. After our tour, Molly joined us in meeting Marilou and our kids at Greenhills center, which is a huge mall and Tiangge. Only one of our daughters found the shoes of her dreams, so it caused strife with the other one. We will see if we can correct that at Megamall today. We didn’t stay too long at Greenhills before we made it back home to another delicious home-cooked meal and called it a night.

I’ve been back from Singapore for exactly one month today. While my family and I have been adjusting to life back in Chicago, I submitted the two components of my Fulbright project and started its implementation. It’s hard to believe that we are already two weeks into the summer Algebra class that I had been working on while I was in Singapore. My co-teaching colleague and I have 22 eager students in the class and it’s been a learning experience all around. 

For the first days, we were pretty worried as they were SO quiet all. the. time. We planned for a few “ice breakers,” but they didn’t break all the ice apparently. Things improved gradually, though. We regularly remind them to consult their group mates, we offer them ways to start collaborative conversations, and we lighten the mood with jokes, some self-deprecating humor, and breaks that require the students to interact with new people and explore the campus of their new high school. Now that we are into the end of the second week, students are actually having fun. I know this because they are laughing! in a math class!   in a *summer* math class! 

My colleague and I make changes to my plans constantly, which I had anticipated would happen. We didn’t even make it through all the plans for the first day. While we have goals for each day and for the whole program, we remain flexible in the implementation because real, live teaching demands it. Students’ questions, competencies and deficiencies show up and classroom discourse takes some interesting turns. Of course, that’s one of the things that I love most about teaching: figuring out what students know and don’t know and then determining how to address that while teaching. Each student has been loaned a Chromebook so we have been able to seamlessly integrate Desmos activities, Google applications, and other fun tech stuff. It’s too bad that we can’t use Google Classroom as not all students have school emails, yet, but we’ve found some workarounds for now. 

This particular class is for students who want to progress to Geometry in the fall. Some of them have had some Algebra already and some of them have not. Some of them did not pass the CPS Algebra Exit Exam, some did, and some did not or could not take the Algebra Exit Exam. Regardless of what students know already, everyone is learning something new each day. Too many students have a procedural understanding of Algebra, so they have been building their conceptual understanding, especially through visual pattern recognition and contextual applications. Most of the students have embraced the opportunity to explore their own curiosities with their Summer Inquiry Projects and I’ve loved learning about what they are exploring on their own or with their partners. We start coding with Bootstrap next week, and I’m sure that will be another chance for students to stretch their minds…and me to stretch mine, too.

I’m not in class today (Friday) because I’ll be presenting later today at the College Board’s AP Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. My session offers the rationale for my Fulbright Inquiry Project and how I’ve been able to apply some of what I learned in Singapore schools. I’m bummed that my school principal could not join me as my planned co-presenter. She was called into a meeting at the last minute with folks from downtown. As the principal, she has to go where she’s beckoned by the bosses, but she said she trusts what I’ll be saying in my talk. My hope is that I can offer educators from other schools ideas about how to critically examine how they help all students access high level/AP math classes in high school. That’s what we are trying to do.

My flight has been delayed 90 minutes, but I’m hoping this is my only glitch in the day. We are now on our second plane and almost ready for takeoff. I’m also ready with my presentation, too.

Onward Singapore! In our case, it’s more like “Onward from Singapore!” now that we are at Changi to go to Hong Kong and then Hong Kong to O’Hare. I heard Singaporean students sing their national anthem several times during my school attachments. Of course, I never understood the Malay lyrics, but I finally recognized that they say “Majulah Singapura” more than a few times in the song and I had to look up the the lyrics. It makes perfect sense to me that the national anthem for Singapore encourages its citizens to continue onward, to keep improving, progressing, advancing. It seems to be in the collective mindset of  most people here. I’ve been so happy to be part of that majulah mindset. Onward to Chicago!

This is going to be an interesting challenge: four people, eight checked bags, and eight carry-ons. Our cabs are picking us up at 3:15 am for our 6:00 am flight. We booked a seven-seater van and a regular car. Here’s hopin’ that’s enough space. I think we’ve done our part in helping Singapore’s economy. 🙂

Oh, Manila, you are a hard city to love, but I do love to visit you. The heat and smog are as bad as I remember from eight years ago. “Smells like Manila,” I said as we exited the airport. “That would hurt Lola’s feelings if you said that to her,” my nine year-old scolded. (I later told Lola what I said and she laughed in agreement.) In chaotic and congested traffic, stop lights seem to be merely suggestions on when to proceed and when to stop. Drivers only pay attention to the other cars, scooters, motorcycles, bikes, jeepneys, and bold pedestrians. Parts of the city have changed in recent years: there are new high-rise developments with adjacent malls, giving parts of Manila a feeling more like Singapore. Other parts are still the same as eight years ago: undeveloped pockets of land with shanty towns, illuminating the difference between the haves and the have-nots. Although, I should admit that even the blighted areas are looking a little better. At least the walls of the homes seem to be made from concrete blocks now, instead of barely overlapping corrugated metal from several years ago. I’ve seen fewer children begging in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, but it doesn’t make it less heartbreaking when I do see it. Even with all of this, I also look forward to visiting Manila. Of course, shopping at the Tiangge doesn’t hurt. But, the cheap prices aren’t all that I love about the city.

Even if I can’t say I love this city, we’ve loved our time in and around Manila, with nearly all of it having been spent with family and friends. It’s easy for us to love the people of Manila, especially our people. Marilou (aka Lola), Jesse (aka Lolo), and Julian (aka Tito Ugz) have tolerated us descending upon them, suddenly creating a Party of Seven at home and for many of our outings. Since I don’t get to spend much time with my in-laws, I appreciate our time together. Marilou, aka Lola, is always attentive and assessing and adapting. I love that about her because it reminds me of what good teachers do! She lovingly pays attention to what the girls like to eat and plans meals around that.  Of course, she usually feeds us before we even realize we are hungry! In our trip to the beach, she altered the booked accommodations because she wanted a better experience for us. She scouts the best restaurants for us to try after Sunday Mass in the mall’s third floor. She gathered extended family in her home so we could share a meal with them and hang out. She arranged for a pediatrician to come to the house so Lu could have her ears pierced. She took us for mani-pedis on our first day here and bought a cake for the girls’ belated birthdays. She suggested the girls spend a day at Kidzania, which was a big win for them (but not so much for Yo and me). She’s planned what food to take to the airport because she’s worried we won’t like the eateries at the terminal. She lets me know that she prays for me/us. (I’ll take all the help I can get!) It’s pretty clear she’s the #bestmother-in-lawever. Lolo is so wonderful, too, of course. He loves to interact with the girls. He greets them cheerfully, asks about them, and makes sure everyone is happy and taken care of. “Lolo is so nice,” my seven year-old observed. “He always holds the door for us and makes sure we are happy.” Thanks for setting the bar high, Jesse (not that Johan doesn’t, of course!). Ugz takes the doting uncle role seriously. He takes us swimming at the local swim club, buys the girls bukos at every opportunity, takes turns with Johan in chauffeuring us around, mostly while I sigh and stress out in the car. Ugz stays unfazed by life in his city, even as he admits that he likes the quiet of small towns much more. Ate/Tita Kris has also been so generous with us. She delivered pasalubongs to us yesterday and we got to hang out for a bit. I hope that our girls realize how lucky they are to travel to a foreign country and to have gifts so generously bestowed on them. (They are currently at a second play date down the street with the kids of Johan’s childhood friends. Yesterday, they came home from their house with a purse, a deck of Uno cards, and a Rubik’s cube. More generosity!) Unfortunately, we only got to see Tita Del once during this trip. She’s always fun to have at any party and quick to make the jokes and everyone laughs. Plus, she picks out the loveliest Filipino-created runners, made from pina plants. 🙂 Johan got to reconnect with a lot of his friends, too. When we weren’t have delicious meals at home, we met up with his friends for yummy meals out.

After being married to a Filipino for 11 years, I’ve earned the status of being one of them. Johan and Ugz were getting the bags from the van at the beach, and I offered to help. “Mayroon silang mga taong naroroon to help out,” Marilou said to me as they walked away. I paused, looked her and said, “I don’t understand what you just said.” “Hay naku! You are so familiar now, that I forget that you don’t speak Tagalog!” she laughed. I feel like I’ve arrived. But…we have to leave Manila tomorrow to head back to Singapore so we can fly back home. Hay naku!

Despite our packed schedules, I’ve carved out time to work on my inquiry project, which is due in less than two weeks. I feel like I should throw in another “hay naku!” after typing that, but I’ve probably used too many of them in this short post. Since we are headed back to Singapore for a night, I guess I have another option: My inquiry project is due in less than two weeks…Alamak! But, seriously, I’m almost done with it. I’m writing, revising, and refining now so I’ll be able to submit it in the next few days, lah.

This was a great way for us to end this trip to Asia. We are so grateful to have been able to live and learn here — all of us. To cap it off with time with family has been a true blessing.

I don’t approve of the bunny ears.

Swim!

It’s gonna sting a little.

Happy to be home.

Never a shortage of food at a Filipino gathering.

Not quite the whole gang, but a few of the extended gang.

Future chefs?

Future dentist?

Sister chefs.

Artists in action

Our view at Anvaya Cove.

More swimming!

Even more swimming!

Belated birthdays celebration.

This is going to be a difficult extraction. Johan and I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to leave Singapore. Yes, it was difficult to leave Chicago, to uproot my family and move here for six months. We left our schools, our friends and family, and our familiar routines. It felt like an upheaval, like pulling a plant out with the roots. Now, our roots have taken hold here – especially for our girls, who have bonded with some friends here. I knew that they would make friends because they seem to do that effortlessly, but I didn’t know that they would become so attached. They also love their school: “Mom, we get to have swimming class and Chinese class, and UOI.” I don’t know what schools can compete with those characteristics. It breaks my heart that I am uprooting them again to go back home and they let me know that they’re not happy about it, too. When I shared with Johan that I felt guilty for exposing them to so much sadness due to upheaval and change, he responded (ever the scientist), “Martha, this experience has been a net positive.” He’s right. It sucks that we are all feeling so sad about having to leave, but, overall, we’ve all gained so much from this. Luckily for us, we have friends and family (and schools we love) to come back to and to reconnect with.

Some pictures of a few outings we’ve had in the last few days:

Marina Bay Sands from the Fullerton Lighthouse Restaurant

Gettin’ fancy at the Fullerton

She loves straws.

Enjoying the view and the late night out.

Note the purse.

Birthday party at Sentosa Wavehouse.

We found Mexican food we like…a week before we leave

Nachos!

Tacos worthy of a second visit!

Tiong Bahru park

Tiong Bahru park

I have thoroughly enjoyed my Fulbright experience here in Singapore. Besides our kids having a great time, I’ve had the professional experience of a lifetime. I’ve learned so much and I look forward to continuing to build on what I’ve learned through this experience, so my work is not done.  I’m also not done with my project or my summative report, but I’m in a good place with both of them. I’ll continue to work on both of them as we pack up, have last-chance outings, and meet up with folks who we’ve met here. We are heading to Manila on Saturday to visit family. We are looking forward to it. And, I know that the girls will be missing school and their friends, so we will welcome distraction in a new city with Lola and Lolo, Tita Kris, Tito Julian, Tita Del and others.

At CIS this week both the Grade 1 and Grade 3 had Year End Assemblies. They consisted mostly of songs that the classes had learned in music and I loved every minute of them. Lulu’s class had some particularly poignant songs: “I’m Glad You Came,” “Try Everyhing,” and “When Will (We) See You Again.” If those three songs don’t speak to our whole experience here, I don’t know what would. I had been hearing and seeing snippets of the songs/dances for a few weeks, so it was great to see the real performance. Lulu also had the privilege of introducing one of the songs, too. She took her role very seriously, of course. Hazel class sang “Viva La Vida” and “A Thousand Years” – two winners in her book as she has become obsessed with singing them around the apartment, too.

I had a great chat over lunch today with a professor from Singapore Management University. We met when we were chaperones on the Open Minds trip a few weeks ago. We talked about schooling in Singapore, particularly the way that streaming impacts teaching and learning.

Tomorrow I get to go to high tea with my professor from my graduate class and a principal from one of my school visits. I’ve never done high tea before. I hope I know how to act. I suppose it’s just part of our “try everything” on the soundtrack to our Singapore experience.