A gypsy scribbler's musings & ruminations
A couple weeks ago, I took a largish group of high school students to Kenya for a choir festival. Wait ... this sounds familiar ... wasn't it India? True, I did recently get back from a choir festival in India. That trip was a small group of middle school students heading to AMIS. This trip... Continue Reading →
* The title of this post is taken from the children's book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day" by J. Viorst. The school "Intercultural Trips" have been a highlight each year I've been here. This year I signed up for a trip in which kids would learn mountain biking skills. This included: studying... Continue Reading →
When the temperature drops, what do you let loose? Gentle rain? Snow wrapped hail? Lightening and thunder? A swirling vortex that pitches cows and cars into trees? When the rain falls, do you squish like mud? Soak it up like the grass? Disappear it like sand? Let it roll off your granite back? When the... Continue Reading →
So, a week ago Friday I performed for an assembly at school. The kids were doing a talent show and I was the teacher "filler" act while the judges deliberated on a winner from the student participants. I decided to do a song by Ingrid Michaelson called "The Chain." Lauren introduced me to it a couple... Continue Reading →
As I mentioned a couple posts ago, I went to the coast with 18 high school kids in the last week of January. In many ways, it was like the trip I did last year at the same time. There were improvements since then - the logistics were smoother, the cooking was cleaner, and we... Continue Reading →
If anyone ever catches me considering a career switch to the United Nations or US embassy or some other such massive bureaucratic tangle, please slap me upside the head! About two weeks ago, I received an email - a forward of a forward - asking for volunteer school choirs to come and sing for (get... Continue Reading →
Peacocks do it. We know almost all of the bird cousins do, but so do monkeys, whales, wolves, frogs, bats ... and it's the males that do it best. So what's up with humans? Or to be more specific: modern, western-culturalized human males? Why is it so common to hear men say "I can't carry... Continue Reading →
Feb 23rd - 26th The American International School of Muscat (TAISM) is an international school much like ours here in Nairobi. Parents who work for governments or major companies or multi-national organizations Kids from all over the world K-12th grade A modified American-style curriculum in an international context They also have a fantastic choral program.... Continue Reading →
Feb 18th - 23rd If you were to pin me to the wall and demand to know what this year's "big idea" has been at work - the theme, the big-picture pattern - I would say this: planning and logistics. For example: How do you get students to organize and execute a fancy fund-raising dinner?... Continue Reading →
Feb. 12th For the last two years, I've been involved as the teacher sponsor of the student chapter of Habitat for Humanity. (If you are not familiar with the organization, look it up. It's cool.) Last month, two other teachers and I took a group of about twenty students to a build site an hour... Continue Reading →
Of Wonders & Wanders 
Recent Comments