Последняя неделя августа – это время августовских конференций
учителей. Они проходят и в школах, и на уровне городских методических объединений,
и в муниципальных округах, где подводятся итоги года минувшего и ставятся
ориентиры, на которые предстоит равняться в наступающем учебном году.
Еще одной замечательной возможностью в этом плане зарекомендовал
себя слет финалистов конкурсов профессионального мастерства, организованный уже
во второй раз в гостеприимном Увельском районе для учителей из пяти регионов
Урала, Тюменской и Московской областей. Целых четыре дня фееричного погружения
в атмосферу творческого сотрудничества и учебы оставили неизгладимые
впечатления у всех участников и дали заряд энергии на весь год.
Наша группа, одна из многих, состояла из финалистов
областного конкурса Учитель года 2010. Эти четыре дня мастер-классов...
There
are only two more relatively quiet weeks left of our summer vacation until we all
have to return back to school as teachers and our kids as school students.
Today I’d
like to share with you what I received recently from a friend in Germany who
got this link from a colleague in the U.S. If you use the link below you’ll be
able to read and watch a video about one of those honest guys in America who
appreciate and support teachers who rally to stand up for their rights and the
rights of their school students.
This is
Matt Damon with his personal attitude put into such appealing words I’ve never
read and listened to before addressed to teachers and those in charge of public
education. On the other hand, this makes me think whether I am willing to put the
right effort to be up to new challenges and students’ expectations at my
school.
You see our colleagues in American public schools face similar problems just like we
in Russia and I am wondering if any of our celebrity fellow citizens or
politicians would say these coming days a few encouraging words of
understanding and support for overburdened but underpaid Russian teachers in
public.
Most of
school teachers are on vacation in the summer and school children are on summer
holidays which are the longest in Russia – from end of May to end of August for
junior school students. These kids can stay at home and sleep longer hours or
go to see their grannies and relatives who live far from their home place.
There
are still those kids who go to summer camps to have some fun and entertainment.
A few teachers and vozhatys (group
leaders) keep an eye on them and involve them into multiple contests and
challenges to make their stay at the camp more fun and useful.
There is
another option for kids in Zlatoust though...
Children's Day, as an event, is celebrated on various days in many places around the world, in particular to honor children. Major global variants include an International Children's Day on June 1, and a Universal Children's Day on November 20, by United Nations recommendation. Children's Day is often celebrated on other days as well. In Zlatoust, June 1 was a special day for junior school students. Representatives of summer school and summer camp teams came to the Community Center where Mayor of Zlatoust Alexander Karavaev announced that he had personally inspected all summer camps and they were ready to accommodate teenagers for summer. After a wonderful concert given by young talents everyone got out to the square in front of the Community Center to let fly colorful balloons to symbolize that the summer has come.
10 schools - 8 countries: Azerbaijan, India, Italy,
Costa Rica, France, Poland, Russia, and the USA have contributes to a great
color edition of the Recipe Book. More information is given by our friend Bill
Reilly in the Introduction to the Recipes for a Better Planet – a great color
edition of 72 pages we received by post this morning from the USA.
From the
Bill’s Introduction to the Recipe Book: "The Global Coalition for Peace, Education and Cultural Awareness”
is an international community of schools who collaborate and communicate to
raise understanding and to develop peaceful friendships across our planet.
Recipes
For A Better Planet
is a collection of original family recipes and environmental articles authored
by the students and teachers of the Global Coalition. The purpose of this book is to raise
awareness of our diverse cultures...
Here is the
first of some great news shared with us by our American friend Bill Reilly. "…Last night we held our Global Coalition
International Children's Art Auction, where we sold many of the pieces of
beautiful art that so many students contributed. We were able to raise more
than $1,000 for the school in Uganda. This will enable us to purchase a
computer and other needed school supplies for this impoverished school.
The
artistic talents of so many of our students have been turned into money which
will enable less fortunate students to receive a good education.
I will send
you a complete list of everything that is purchased for the school, along with
pictures of the supplies as they are sent with volunteers to Africa. Please
thank every student who sent us their art for this wonderful purpose.”
I believe all of our 15 pictures we sent this March to Bill
for the Art Auction have been sold to make our share in the joint effort to help
schoolchildren in Africa.
Another update
I got from Bill last night is on our music video. Here it goes: "… I
finished and posted the first copy. It
was a big challenge to try to blend our separate videos. We did not all sing on
the exact same key or at the same speed. I hope that you will enjoy seeing what it
looks like when we all sing together. It gives me great hope for our planet to
discover all the things that we can accomplish. This year working with all of
you has truly been remarkable. It leaves me wondering what we will try next
year! Here is the link to the video: http://bcsd.k12.ny.us/middle/global/music/music.htm...”
This is a
really great accomplishment of the project with so many kids of different ages involved
from so many countries, and we can see them all sing in the same key that "…every
little thing gonna be all right…”
May is a special month for every Russian – May 9 is
Victory Day. My grade 10A students decided to share what they feel about this event
in a project we named ‘Victory Songs’. They have prepared slide shows and videos
devoted to their favorite wartime songs. Below is one of short videos and the
girls’ reflections on their contribution to the project.
Yana Mulobaeva: ‘I think it’s very important and useful
for school students to participate in projects like this one – Victory Songs.
Because when we do things like these we think of the times past but dear to our
hearts – our ancestors, hometown, native country and learn to appreciate these
values more and more…’
Eugenia Tukbaeva:
‘A good song has always been a reliable companion for a Russian soldier in war
time. He shook off stress listening to songs played on an old gramophone when
it was a brief lull in the fighting, thinking of his family, his friends, his
sweetheart … It inspired him, enlivened for new feats of arms… That’s why
patriotic songs were very important for every soldier…’
Olesya
Shestakova: ‘I believe it is really important to participate in projects like
this one because we can learn much more about our history, important events, and
heroes fallen in battle and their feats. Wartime songs are
part of our history and they help us understand the price they had to pay to
win in the war.’
We are aware that our high school students are
busy and stressed nowadays even more than just a year ago and this burden of new
information and assignments in quite different school subjects from Math
through History to Language Arts including Russian and English is growing from
year to year enormously.
But
kids cannot imagine their life without socializing and they use social networks
to keep in touch and exchange ideas. They use vkontakte.ru or facebook.com many
times a day - so these networks can be also successfully used for educational
purposes as well – it can be seen as a kind of new game. We have been using
vkontakte.ru in English since November 2010 and all my students who
are in our ePals in Focus closed academic group agree - it’s useful and fun. Here is Spotlight 5 April issue to share your opinion in the comments.
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There
are only two more relatively quiet weeks left of our summer vacation until we all
have to return back to school as teachers and our kids as school students. 
Here is the
first of some great news shared with us by our American friend Bill Reilly. 
May is a special month for every Russian – 
