Today was our last day of school in Tashkent. It was a great experience, and we leave with many great memories. The last few days have been tiring, both physically and emotionally. It was hard to say good-bye to so many wonderful students and truly outstanding educators.
Now it's off to the US for a nice 7 week break. In addition to seeing family and friends, I predict a few glasses or red wine, lots of good food and a few scoops of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. After we gorge for 7 weeks, it will be time to begin our Guangzhou, China adventure...and work off all that ice cream!
Now, it's time to sleep and get mentally prepared for our last time through the Tashkent airport.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Friday, May 17, 2013
Far too long...
Since we posted something. Just looked at the blog and realized I inadvertently posted a "school" post. Guess that's the problem with using blogspot for my school and personal blogs. Of course, now you all know that Paul's class is doing the exhibition, an incredible 8-week student-led inquiry unit. It's amazing to see students carry out their own inquiry. Fun stuff!
We are down to 3 weeks left in Uzbekistan. In addition to teaching and after-school activities, we have been busy with our transition to China. The moving company has stopped by to see what we will ship. We have located an apartment in China (30th floor of a high-rise) and signed the lease. We have our plan tickets from US to Guangzhou, and we are completing the paperwork for our Chinese visas.
We depart Tashkent on June 8 and spend a week in Maryland visiting Paul's family. Then we fly to Seattle to see Jeanette's family for a few days. Then it's off to Portland for 5 weeks. We're renting a place in the Pearl District where I'm sure we will spend most of our time drinking coffee, eating good food and drinking a glass or two of red wine. We have considered bringing a bottle of Uzbek wine back to share with everyone, but we'd like to keep our friends :)
We fly to Guangzhou on July 26. Our new school has a week's worth of orientation activities scheduled for us. Then it's a week of getting ready for the students to arrive. We're excited about our new adventure.
We are down to 3 weeks left in Uzbekistan. In addition to teaching and after-school activities, we have been busy with our transition to China. The moving company has stopped by to see what we will ship. We have located an apartment in China (30th floor of a high-rise) and signed the lease. We have our plan tickets from US to Guangzhou, and we are completing the paperwork for our Chinese visas.
We depart Tashkent on June 8 and spend a week in Maryland visiting Paul's family. Then we fly to Seattle to see Jeanette's family for a few days. Then it's off to Portland for 5 weeks. We're renting a place in the Pearl District where I'm sure we will spend most of our time drinking coffee, eating good food and drinking a glass or two of red wine. We have considered bringing a bottle of Uzbek wine back to share with everyone, but we'd like to keep our friends :)
We fly to Guangzhou on July 26. Our new school has a week's worth of orientation activities scheduled for us. Then it's a week of getting ready for the students to arrive. We're excited about our new adventure.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Exhibition Update
A quick update on the Grade 5 Exhibition. Yesterday and today, we began our "retreat" to kick-off the exhibition. Students have already selected their exhibition issue and have been grouped accordingly (please ask your child about this).
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| Looking at artifacts to learn about Transdisciplinary Themes and Key Concepts |
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| Students reflecting on the process |
We spent time working on the following items which will prepare the students for the work to come. Here are some things we did:
- Began brainstorming for "Group Agreements"--we looked at the Learner Profile and turned each profile into agreement statements; groups will use these statements to create group agreements on how they will work together
- Reviewed the Transdisciplinary Themes that guide the Primary Years Programme--we had students access their background knowledge about the themes and determine which theme(s) their issue fit under
- We also began generating inquiry questions based on the Key Concepts--students will narrow their list of questions down to a manageable number and use these to guide their inquiries
Next week, students will do further work on their questions and then create a research plan. They will also schedule their first mentor meeting.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Still here, and China here we come!
Sorry for the lengthy pause between posts. It has been a very fast-paced start to the year which has kept us very busy.
Life in Tashkent proceeds as normal: crazy driving, almost daily visits to Bon!, our local coffee joint, and way too many dinners at the Italian restaurant across the street. The weather has finally taken a turn; it has begun to get cold with some rain, and snow may soon be on the way. We can't really complain since our weather up to now has been so nice. The hope is that winter will be kinder to us this year than last. Add snow to the driving here and the blood pressure slowly starts to creep into the danger zone.
Life at school has been very busy. Paul is finally done with soccer. He coached the JV girls this year and had a great time. He had the only undefeated team this year, and the girls won the local championship. He has the medal and the hoodie to prove it! Jeanette is still busy with her on-line Masters program. She spent more than her share of weekends writing papers, but is finally done with her last one for the course. Now she has a break until we return from winter break.
The big news on our front is that we will be moving to another school at the end of this year. The recruiting process begins very rearly for international schools; we began interviewing in October. After speaking with 4 schools, we accepted teaching positions at American International School Guangzhou. Yes, we are returning to China and are very happy about it. The school has a very good reputation and is doing some great things that will push us professionally. We have friends who were there for 10 years and loved it, and some co-workers here at TIS know people there, and they say it is great. In addition to being excited about the school, we are looking forward to the 1 1/2 hour haircuts, foot massages, and all that great food.
If you'd like to read more about our new school, you can check out their website http://www.aisgz.org/
That's it for now. Take care and keep in touch!
P and J
Life in Tashkent proceeds as normal: crazy driving, almost daily visits to Bon!, our local coffee joint, and way too many dinners at the Italian restaurant across the street. The weather has finally taken a turn; it has begun to get cold with some rain, and snow may soon be on the way. We can't really complain since our weather up to now has been so nice. The hope is that winter will be kinder to us this year than last. Add snow to the driving here and the blood pressure slowly starts to creep into the danger zone.
Life at school has been very busy. Paul is finally done with soccer. He coached the JV girls this year and had a great time. He had the only undefeated team this year, and the girls won the local championship. He has the medal and the hoodie to prove it! Jeanette is still busy with her on-line Masters program. She spent more than her share of weekends writing papers, but is finally done with her last one for the course. Now she has a break until we return from winter break.
The big news on our front is that we will be moving to another school at the end of this year. The recruiting process begins very rearly for international schools; we began interviewing in October. After speaking with 4 schools, we accepted teaching positions at American International School Guangzhou. Yes, we are returning to China and are very happy about it. The school has a very good reputation and is doing some great things that will push us professionally. We have friends who were there for 10 years and loved it, and some co-workers here at TIS know people there, and they say it is great. In addition to being excited about the school, we are looking forward to the 1 1/2 hour haircuts, foot massages, and all that great food.
If you'd like to read more about our new school, you can check out their website http://www.aisgz.org/
That's it for now. Take care and keep in touch!
P and J
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Back to School (said with a smile on our faces)
See, we really are smiling!
After a very nice summer break, we are back in Tashkent. We arrived a few days before the first teacher meeting in order to re-acclimate to the heat and the driving. We were met at the airport by Jeanette's wonderful teaching assistant Lyuba and her husband. It was a wonderful welcome back to walk out into the heat and dust and see some familiar, smiling faces.
We just finished our first week of school, a short 3-day week. We got a happy surprise on Friday and were told that Monday was a holiday (Eid). We will have on of those "rolling start" years; a 3-day week, followed by a 4-day, then back to full weeks. Our kids are great, of course, and we also have some new colleagues who are equally wonderful. We are at the same grade levels as last year, Paul at 5th and Jeanette at 2nd.
Next week we get busier. Paul will be doing soccer tryouts all week long after school. He is coaching JV Girls soccer and will help out with all varsity and JV tryouts. Jeanette is taking an on-line course and is the new elementary science lead teacher, so she''ll be busy as well.
Other than trying to get back into our normal routine, not much else going on. Bon Cafe is still open, so a large part of our routine is already set :)
Hoping our friends and family around the world are doing well. We love to hear from you all, so please keep in touch.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Year One In Uz'
Well, it's been a fast and furious 10 months since we arrived in Tashkent. It seems like yesterday that we were scrambling for a baggage cart at the Tashkent International Airport, waiting to get through customs and being blasted by the heat as we exited the airport.
It has been a really good first year in this place we now call home. Tashkent continues to grow on us, and we feel as though we have settled in nicely. The local coffee shop baristas know our drinks (double espressos with milk, please!), and the Italian restaurant waiters can put in our order before we find a seat. Driving in what seemed like utter chaos has now become rather normal and even fun at times. We also found a great place to hike, a lovely river about 1 1/2 hours from Tashkent. Jumping over boulders, sitting by the rapids and hiking among the cows reminded us of our hikes in Eastern Oregon.
Of course, not all has been peaches and cream, but that comes with the territory and it's easy to find humor in all of it. I mean, how hard can it be to find a shower curtain without purple and pink dolphins gliding through a pale green sky? Pretty hard as it turns out. But when you find that plain white one you've spent 3 weeks searching for, it's all the sweeter.
We're looking forward to year two and the experiences it brings us.
It has been a really good first year in this place we now call home. Tashkent continues to grow on us, and we feel as though we have settled in nicely. The local coffee shop baristas know our drinks (double espressos with milk, please!), and the Italian restaurant waiters can put in our order before we find a seat. Driving in what seemed like utter chaos has now become rather normal and even fun at times. We also found a great place to hike, a lovely river about 1 1/2 hours from Tashkent. Jumping over boulders, sitting by the rapids and hiking among the cows reminded us of our hikes in Eastern Oregon.
Of course, not all has been peaches and cream, but that comes with the territory and it's easy to find humor in all of it. I mean, how hard can it be to find a shower curtain without purple and pink dolphins gliding through a pale green sky? Pretty hard as it turns out. But when you find that plain white one you've spent 3 weeks searching for, it's all the sweeter.
We're looking forward to year two and the experiences it brings us.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Bullet Train to Samarkand
We have been fairly busy since we arrived in Tashkent and have not had much chance to venture outside the city limits. We thought it was about time, so we bought tickets to Samarkand on the new bullet train purchased by the Uzbek government from Spain.
Buying tickets was the first adventure. Being sent to one ticket stand only to be told that the tickets for "that train" are sold on the other side of the train station. Then stand in wrong line for 10 minutes. Get in "right" line where no one is working. Jeanette stays in line while I try to find some one to help us. Some one finally comes (leaving people in THAT line quite upset, with us, of course!) and we get tickets. Fun stuff!
It used to take 4-5 hours by train, or longer by car, to get to Samarkand. But the new train, which reaches speeds of 220 kilometers per hour (132 miles per hour), gets you there in a snappy 2 1/2 hours. This makes it possible to do Samarkand as a day trip which is what we did.
We boarded around 7:45 and found our rather cozy "economy" seats. The train departed at the exact departure time, a minor surprise, but a welcome one. Shortly after departure, we were served breakfast, a nice little roll filled with potatoes and hot green tea. We soon noticed the digitial display for the speed, and were happy to see that we got up to 220 kmh. It's at this moment that two thoughts go through your mind: 1) Wow, it's so cool that Uzbekistan has a bullet train that can get us to Samarkand in 2 1/2 hours and 2) Do we really want to be on a train in Uzbekistan that goes 220 kmh? But alas, we survived and disembarked in Samarkand at the schedule time.
The rest of our day was spent wandering the lovely city with its wealth of Islamic sites. Many of them are some of the most important Islamic sites in Central Asia. You can see pictures at the following link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/coffren19/SamarkandUzbekistan?authuser=0&feat=directlink
We also wandered Navoi Park, had lunch at a small Italian restaurant (they really are everywhere in the world!) and enjoyed some ice cream to take the edge off the heat. We then caught a marshutka (mini-bus) back to the train station for the trip home. Back in Tashkent in time for a late dinner. A really good day!
Buying tickets was the first adventure. Being sent to one ticket stand only to be told that the tickets for "that train" are sold on the other side of the train station. Then stand in wrong line for 10 minutes. Get in "right" line where no one is working. Jeanette stays in line while I try to find some one to help us. Some one finally comes (leaving people in THAT line quite upset, with us, of course!) and we get tickets. Fun stuff!
It used to take 4-5 hours by train, or longer by car, to get to Samarkand. But the new train, which reaches speeds of 220 kilometers per hour (132 miles per hour), gets you there in a snappy 2 1/2 hours. This makes it possible to do Samarkand as a day trip which is what we did.
We boarded around 7:45 and found our rather cozy "economy" seats. The train departed at the exact departure time, a minor surprise, but a welcome one. Shortly after departure, we were served breakfast, a nice little roll filled with potatoes and hot green tea. We soon noticed the digitial display for the speed, and were happy to see that we got up to 220 kmh. It's at this moment that two thoughts go through your mind: 1) Wow, it's so cool that Uzbekistan has a bullet train that can get us to Samarkand in 2 1/2 hours and 2) Do we really want to be on a train in Uzbekistan that goes 220 kmh? But alas, we survived and disembarked in Samarkand at the schedule time.
The rest of our day was spent wandering the lovely city with its wealth of Islamic sites. Many of them are some of the most important Islamic sites in Central Asia. You can see pictures at the following link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/coffren19/SamarkandUzbekistan?authuser=0&feat=directlink
We also wandered Navoi Park, had lunch at a small Italian restaurant (they really are everywhere in the world!) and enjoyed some ice cream to take the edge off the heat. We then caught a marshutka (mini-bus) back to the train station for the trip home. Back in Tashkent in time for a late dinner. A really good day!
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