I am here in Ikoma City, near Osaka, working and playing with Fumiko Fujikawa, amazing English teacher and ECE.  Fumiko has taken the learning through play philosophy and adapted it fit her F.L.A.T. English School www.flat-ed.com curriculum for adults as well as children.  F.L.A.T. stands for Fun to Learn And Teach. It has a very positive meaning in Japanese.  Cleverly, it also stands for Fumiko, Lynn, and Terry; three friends and Early Childhood Educators.  The late Lynn Caruso was Fumiko’s professor at Seneca College in Toronto, her mentor, inspiration, and extremely close friend.  We are still mourning the loss of Lynn to cancer just a few short months ago.  While I am here, we are remembering Lynn a lot. People here who met her on her previous trips to Japan are missing her and still giving their condolences.  But, in the way Lynn would want, we are also having a lot of fun.

 The gorgeous and brilliant, Fumiko!

Lynn, Fumiko, and Terry,  tired and happy in Japan 2010

     While I am here my first duty is to be a model native English speaker.  This means I must remember to speak slowly, clearly, avoid slangy jargon, and odd Canadian expressions.  No “Haliburton Mumble”, that a friend says I slip into sometimes.   My second duty is to assist with the children’s classes and special activities that Fumiko has arranged.  It is fun to learn English when all of your senses are engaged, as in the water balloons that we played with.  It took me about 20 minutes to fill them all and less than five to burst them all, but what fun vocabulary! Burst! Explode! Break! Wet! Blue, red, green, pink, yellow!  Fun! Wow! Oops! Roll, throw, catch, bounce! 

It took 20 minutes to fill the balloons.  My job, nice and cool considering it gets to about 37 degrees!

 And less than 5 minutes to break them!

 

     Fumiko incorporates so much art into her work.  The children are so engrossed in the engaging activities they don’t realize how much English they are learning.  No drills.  Their parents are impressed with the outcomes.   “Water balloon!”  “I am painting my dinosaur!”  The children learn in the natural way, without having to conjugate verbs.  

 More updates very soon.

For 10 days this July, 9 Jamaican ECE's will be touring 11 early learning and care environments in Toronto Peel Region and York Region.  Students Crossing Border alumni will be hosting them in their homes, their centres, and their hearts.  We will also get a chance to hear about the Jamaican early childhood experience.  Mr. Junior Rowe and Mrs. Christine Stennett are leading the group.  We will also visit Family Day Care child care and Ontario Early Years sites.  The Oak Ridges Ontario Early Years outreach locations are also on the itinerary.  The group will also visit the Children's Treatment Network in Oak Ridges, and the lab schools of Humber and Seneca Colleges. 

And of course. We will be taking the group to Niagara Falls!  Back to the preparations . . .

 Attendance board in Chinese Kindergarten (I think!)

 Children's Expo, Zone Eight, Kingston Jamaica Apr 2012

Home made puzzle  - Children's Expo, Kingston Jamaica

Social media and digital photography have done so much to move our field forward.  I just love it.  Recently, just simple pictures of home made toys (water bottle shakers and the like) have inspired my students to make their own creative versions.  And these great pictures were made known to me via Twitter and Pinterest.  Videos on You Tube demonstrate stages of play or any other aspect of child development you care to name.  The ideas come so quickly on Twitter, that it's like a 24 ECE conference that I can attend any time.  Love it!  And pictures are worth a thousand words, and help us all to achieve more.  Makes teaching in a digital world so much fun.  However, there are still classes where the computer/av system should never be switched on.  We discuss and debate and live in the now!  Whoops, there goes my BlackBerry.

Vacant Lots

There are several vacant lots waiting for commercial development in my neighbourhood in  UltimateSuburbia.  I never see anyone in them - except the guy in the black SUV who threw bags of garbage in one and when I followed him he did a U-turn and sped away.  

Way back in the day (!) the vacant lot down the street from where I lived is where I learned about spit bugs and praying mantises, and where I closely examined a dead mouse. I remember its long, very yellow front teeth.  I learned how it's some insects' jobs to eat these dead creatures so that they become part of the earth again. I remember having to deal with a bossy kid and that other people's little brothers were somehow not as annoying to me as my own.  We made maps of where the best wild strawberry patches were. We made milk-weed wishes.  We collected and compared rocks.  We hunted butterflies and moths.  We became familiar with several types of thistles. We learned that some birds build their nests on the ground. All that went on in some nearby lots that didn't even have any trees. 

A child-free, vacant lot.  So much potential.

Where are the kids hunting for bugs and snakes now?  Playing hide and seek?  Making forts?  I think I know where they are actually, they are inside learning about snakes of the far-off rain forests on their computers.  They are virtually building structures for the Sims and their ilk. They are inside their homes, safe from crazy, wandering pedophiles, (but maybe not the online ones or family members). They are not looking at garter snakes, nor figuring out how to make a structure out of boards and grass and how to have cool picnics in there. Nor are the children wondering about why they have pre-wrapped sausages and not pre-wrapped bacon (as the Bare Naked Ladies did in their tree-fort of If I Had a Million Dollars).  They are more likely being driven to their organized sports, private tutors, or music lessons, safe and risk-free.

     I've been back from Jamaica for 13 days. I wonder how everyone there is. I wonder how the rest of the group I travelled with are doing.  11 amazing early learning and care professionals, some of whom had never met each other before, all joined me in this incarnation of Students Crossing Borders.  We lived and worked in Kingston for 9 days.  It was a bittersweet trip.  Everyone was remembering our recently deceased, Lynn Caruso.  The children of Riverton gathered around me to ask questions about her illness, her death, her funeral, her family. The wanted to know if I cried.  They wanted to know if it was true that Lynn didn't want anyone to wear black.  (It was.)  They wanted to know if it was true that her body was "burn"; cremated.  They wanted to know how her husband and children were.  They knew Mr. Junior Rowe, a community leader from Riverton went to the funeral.  When I described how he gave a powerful eulogy they smiled.  When I teared up when talking about it all, one young boy, Anferny, put his had on my arm, "It's okay, Miss."  Another boy said, "I no cry when I hear.  But my heart, it move."  He showed me how is heart was no longer on the left side of his chest, but had moved over. 
   

                                With my friend Carl.  He's 11 now. I first met him when he was 7.

                                                    Richard reading to his little brother.

Marsha and friend helping spread gravel on the rain-soaked yard in Cooreville Gardens, in preparation for the ECE Children's Expo and grand opening of the 

Zone Eight Early Childhood Education Resource Centre.

  As we gave workshops, shovelled gravel, bought mangoes, road the bus, visited schools, everywhere, there were reminders of Lynn's energy, warmth, and love.  People remembered her smile, how she'd ask about family, and how she spoke so much of her own grandchildren.  She did so much through her collaboration with the people in Kingston and Spanish Town:  helped build an ECE development centre, put in water pipes, improve a school yard, put on youth conferences, facilitate ECE conferences and trainings, built a parent drop-in centre, a reading room and computer centre, brought so many people down to connect with the people and, and,and, but it was just her warm smile that everyone talked about.  

Lynn receiving a formal thank you from the ECE community (Junior Rowe)  in 

Kingston, May 2011

As Junior Rowe said, "Rest well my friend."  And know that your work and love are continuing. 

Going to Kingston, Jamaica with Students Crossing Borders

On Saturday, our group of powerful and knowledgeable early learning and care specialists will leave Canada to travel to Jamaica as part of Students Crossing Borders.  This will be my 4th time going. And it will be my bittersweet privilege to do so.  Our dear, passionate director died from cancer on April 1st, 2012.

Our group will be doing workshops and professional development with the wonderful early learning and care folks in Zone 8 of Kingston, as well as a group in Spanish Town.  We will spend a week there. I am really looking forward to seeing so many special people again.

Finally!

Our two weeks in China were wonderful.  Unfortunately, I could only blog once while on Cherry's ECE's computer.  She's downloaded a program which allows you to use an ISP from a country that allows free speech.  However your minutes are limited.  Being on our hotel's internet connection, we could not even download that program. Nor could we use You Tube, Face Book (not that I do), and some news sites.  Very interesting.

Our hosts, Cherry and Leo were amazing.  We ate well, and had all our needs met.  They even helped us negotiate a massage at a massage spa, when we showed an interest.  More on that later.  They took us to eat in   a variety of places so that we could try different cuisines and local specialties - river fish, shrimp,  eel, winkles, vegetables.  Changzhou is located in the delta of the great Yangtze river.  So the farming and fishing are fantastic.

We met with the assistant chair of the Changzhou's Ministry of Women and Children, and the Chairman and Vice Chairman of The Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese of Changzhou. They welcomed us very formally at the impressive city hall building, with tea and spherical fruits, (representing perfection and thus a positive beginning to a new relationship. No one is allowed in the city hall without an invitation.  Cherry and Leo had never been there before.  They then took us to a private dining room and were served many dishes, the local dishes plus extras such as pigs' ears and many other things I couldn't name.  We were toasted warmly with French wine.  Wonderful warmth and civic pride.

! 

We spent part of June 1st, National Children's Day at a show at the City Hall's theatre watching children perfom.  


Well, more later, including excellent signage and great streetscapes.