Coming full (Cleveland) Circle

Boston, très vite, très fort, m'a semblé être "chez moi", comme si la ville et moi-même nous appartenions mutuellement à un degré que je n'ai jamais retrouvé dans mes autres villes d'étude (Paris et Reims), même  si j'y suis resté plus longtemps.  J'ai retrouvé cette sensation dès la première vue sur le fleuve Charles depuis mon wagon de métro, depuis mon premier achta de "Charlie ticket" pour prendr ele métro, en fait. Alors évidemment, la première chose à faire était de revenir sur le campus de Boston University, reprendre mes arrêts de  métro habituels, revoir ma maison, l'hôtel où j'ai vécu deux mois, les bâtiments où j'ai étudié, et retrouvé toutes mes petites habitudes.

Goodbyes of sorts

Goodbye, English Educaotrs Club (here with Finnish education expert Pasi Sahlberg).

Goodbye, dining halls, every day pancakes and grandma's homemade pear cinnamon almond jam.

 Avec la fin du semestre approchant, il fut temps de dire au revoir à différents cercles d'amis lors de derniers concerts, réunions, départs...

Emily and Sarah before our last concert as the BU Flute Ensemble...

The Wind Quintet

The BU Flute Ensemble

With my roommate Natalie.

Murder Mystery Night

Mary Pope Osborne, Kurt Vonnegut, John Green, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Emily Brontë, Louisa May Alcott. On the second row, Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, Albert Camus and H.G. Wells. That's right, the English Educators had a Murder Mystery Night!

 

Mardi dernier, le club des English Educators organisa un cluedo géant. Des auteurs célèbres de tous les temps réunis pour une conférence, et un double meurtre. Albert Camus et Emily Brontë succombèrent à la folle jalousie d'Emily Dickinson, au plus grand choc des spectateurs... et du bonheur d'Agatha Christie !

Albert Camus and Emily Brontë as doomed lovers. Emily Dickinson showed no regret.

Fatal love triangle.

#KeepTutoring

Ce semestre, tous les lundis, j'ai passé deux heures et demi avec les élèves du CE2 à la Sixième de l'école élémentaire William H. Lincoln de Brookline éligibles pour un programme d'aide aux devoirs. Au programme : soutien scolaire, aide aux devoirs, animations pendant la récréation et cours d'enrichissement sur différentes formes de littérature.

Si vous avez suivi sur Facebook, vous connaissez déjà les perles de mes petits élèves, depuis le fameux "La Première Guerre Mondiale, c'était pas un truc qui s'est passé en 2011 ?" jusqu'à "Ben non, je joue pas à la corde à sauter à l'école ! C'est une arme tu sais, tu pourrais étrangler quelqu'un avec, c'est trop dangereux."

"I'd rather do my homework under the desk than on it". C., 3rd grade.
Every Monday, I spend the afternoon tutoring 3rd to 6th graders at the William H. Lincoln Elementary School in Brookline. I love my kids, whether my mission of the week is helping with multiplications, hearing a recitation on pilgrims, discussing Lois Lowry's The Giver, playing four-square, watching a musical on YouTube or writing with them their very first poems. I keep track of their funniest or most surprising quotes with the hashtag #keeptutoring on Facebook. Whether it's because they think "WWI was some stuff that happened in 2011" or "I'm not allowed to play with a skipping rope because it's too dangerous. Someone might get strangled.", there is always a new motivator about helping them do their best in school and learn about the world around them.

I have two team members. Here is Melody, working with E., a math genius with penmanship troubles. Many of the children in our program have special needs and IEPS and it is definitely challenging, especially since as volunteer aids, we don't have access to their files.But we do our best with the support the school staff can give us: we are definitely learning as much as the students are here!

And here are Kristen and G. 

At the Museum of Science, où comment perdre son chemin, et retrouver un dinosaure

... mais aussi la mesure de votre voûte plantaire, des castors nichés dans leur barrage et des poteries mayas. Il y a tout ça,  et bien d'autres choses, au Museum of Sciences de Boston. Ce qu'ils n'avaient pas, et c'est bien dommage : un sens de l'orientation en boîte,  à vendre. Et non, je ne parle pas d'un GPS (que j'ai suivi à l'envers, mais oui mais oui).

Sinon, le musée dans lequel j'étais initialement pour observer la section découvertes enfantines pour mon cours sur jeu et développement, s'est révélé charmant, plein d'activités interactives et d'animaux. Comme toujours, on ne peut pas tout faire. J'ai donc apprécié les sections sur le corps humain, la faune et la flore de Nouvelle-Angleterre et les parties pour les enfants, dans lesquelles je n'ai pas pris de photos.

For my Play and Development of Children class, I got to visit the Museum of Sciences of Boston for free! Although my GPS did not cooperate much, I finally found it and had a great time among the discovery section, the animals of New England and the discovery of my own body.

Who got to see chicks hatch in live?

Ocean ridges, just like in high school. That was pretty cool to see, once you've learned all about it, even though it was three years ago and already fading in my memory.

Please humor me, for beavers are my college's mascot. See, no reason to regret not choosing the grizzli!

The purple Prudential flotting in the night on my way back.

Boston Book Festival

Samedi 25 octobre, je me suis rendu au Festival du Livre de Boston en compagnie d'autres membres du club des English Educators. Au programme, une conférence par un ancien conseiller du ministère de l'éducation finlandais sur comment la Finlande arrive toujours en tête des classements PISA (ne me reste qu'à lire le livre original, qui a l'air fascinant !), un peu de slam et de burritos, de bonnes conversations, une visite guidée de Boston avortée, une entorse à la cheville et un rossignol bleu. C'est parti !

The English Educators Club organized an outing to the Boston Book Festival. Our first stop was the excellent lecture Finnish Lessons, by Pasi Sahlberg, a former Finnish Ministry of Education official. In an ideal world, my own career will be dedicated to educational policies, so I listened intently. During question time, I asked what were his feelings on the current French reform on school schedules "réforme des rythmes scolaires". His answer? You should not need to give more hours of teaching to children. Repeating is less important than providing high quality education from the start. I'll let you ponder.

The not so happy PISA ranking, whether you look at it from the point of view of France or the US. First column was reading, middle column is maths and the last one is sciences.

I hope you LOVE that picture of a blue robin Sara spotted because while I was looking at it in the air, I saw at the last minute a fallen branch and badly twisted my ankle on it. Two days of bandages and icing later, I can happily affirm it was only a minor sprain, but still a less-than-ideal situation in the midst of midterms, moving out and generally  playing tourist.

The happy gang!

Apparently, in the US, tackling tough topics in young adult litterature means talking about sex, from abuse to the quest to find one's own identity to simple coming-of-age stories, if it evokes sexuality even slightly, then many people will find it taboo. I'm sad to think such similar puritan movements are gaining visibility in France too. I believe teenagers should be able to access without shame books depicting honestly every aspects of real life, even the not so rosy ones.

This is me with my foot in a sink full of icy water. Praise the Holiday Inn for free, unlimited ice machines.

Ohé Matelot : kayak adventures

Mieux vaut tard que jamais, voici donc les photos prises lors de mon expédition kayaking sur la Charles River le 20 septembre, avec mon amie et voisine de chambre Maÿlis, à qui l'on doit une partie de ces clichés.

Au programme : époumonnage de comptines enfantines, draguage pas du tou lourd par un étudiant tchèque qui colla à notre kayak pour une bonne quinzaine de minutes, proposant échange de pagaie et plus si affinité, de jolies vues sur Boston, quelques évitages de dernière minute de bateaux à moteur, bouche grande ouverte devant l'entraînement d'une équipe de rameurs (vivement la Regatta le 25 octobre !) et beaucoup d'éclaboussures. Voilà, ayant navigué sur le Charles, nous sommes officiellement de Boston !

On September 20th, I wen kayaking on the Charles River with my friend Maÿlis. She took some of the pictures on this article.

I might be wearing a pull on the picture, but the weather was actually perfect, not too hot and not too cold. Which is a good thing, because I'm so bad with a paddle I managed to soak myself.

Bridges!

This is more like the sun we enjoyed while on the river.

Carolomacériens reading this blog will recognize a giant recycling bag, which we used to protect our belongings from the water.

More soaked than if we actually had dived into the Charles, but happy!

View from a bridge.

Yup, we were very close from one of the Harvard annex campus. I still need to visit the real, historical campus though.

Agreeing to waive responsibility if the kayak was defective was however not our happiest moment. Fortunately, we survived just fine, and the team guiding us was always pleasant and helpful.

Cool paddle tatoos!

Some sort of duck/goose mutants on the side of the road on our way back. Those things were not frightened by humans and were way bigger than normal ducks. Any ideas what they are? Their black beaks clearly were not an invitation to steal their food...

The School of Education student in me had to smile when noticing this early attempt at sounding/spelling/writing. Way to teach literacy in a meaningful context, yeah!