Write - Write - Write

Marisa Fusaro's Canadian Television Production

2009-11-08T21:00:00.002-05:00

If you look at my previous blog, you will see a LONG, LONG, web address! That is the web address that Marisa Fusaro, my former student at Adams Street School (see former blogs) sent me last week to my e-mail address. I tried to copy and paste it to my blog but it will not turn blue, However, if you copy and paste it to your address bar you will see a delightful rehearsal of Marisa's childhood writing of "THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING EMERALD. What really comes through with these wonderful Canadian actors and actresses is their cameraderie and enthusiasm for their craft. They are a lot of fun to watch. Marisa tells me that the production will take place sometime in December. This is all taking place in Ottawa, Canada. Many of you who regularly read my blog know about this already, but if you are new, let me fill you in. Marisa grew up on Shrewsbury Street here in Worcester (Ma.) and went to Adams Street School through the sixth Grade. You can read about our writing and publishing the book "Togetherness" in previous blogs. When she and her group decided to produce the works of children, Marisa recalled her work as a child and looked me up on Google. That's how it all got started.
Another kid in that class was Vinny Pedone who is now a state representative from Worcester serving in the state legislature. Vinny didn't write a play but that troup up in Canada should consider his contribution for production also. Let me summarize it for you: He wrote a story about a dream he had that he was in Antarctica and he found a blueberry bush that was 7centimeters high! (How this blueberry bush was growing in Antarctica I will never know!) Anyway, Vinny and his friends dig up the bush and bring it back to town (wherever that is.) They watch it grow. They contact the President of the United States and are invited to the White House! (Leave it to a future politician to wrangle an invite to Washington!) He gets to Washington only to be rebuffed by the guard at the door because the guard does not believe that this kid could possibly get an invitation to visit the president with his foolish blueberry bush. The story unfortunately ends abruptly as dreams do naturally when Vinny wakes up with his mother asking him, "WOULD YOU LIKE SOME BLUEBERRIES WITH YOUR CORN FLAKES".....(Marisa said she is going to send me the link when the television production takes place in Canada. I can hardly wait!!!!
Postscript: Marisa, if you are reading this: You know, besides the African-American author, Corrine Bostic who has since passed away, there was another lady who was in that project. Do you remember who she was? Her name was Princess White Flower and she was a Nipmuc Indian who came from Grafton, Massachusetts. The ONLY reason I know that is Anthony Petrone wrote a story about her coming to visit the class and teaching the class about Indian celebrations called "POWWOWS". She told the class about a weaved basket that held water and also taught them how to count to five. I can remember Corrine very well, but I have no recollection of Princess White Flower at all. I think she came to the class that one time only. I also remember asking Corrine, who as I recall was an excellent author, whether I had any promise as a writer. Her reply?....."Well, maybe as a newspaper reporter." Hmmm.When I look at that poem I put in "Togetherness", I couldn't agree with her more!......Newspaper reporters are okay though.

2009-11-08T20:23:00.002-05:00

http://www.reademtheirwrites.com/Read_Em_Their_Writes/Stories/Entries/2009/8/28_THE_MYSTERY_OF_THE_MISSING_EMERALD.html

Congratulations to Dianna Biancheria

2009-11-04T10:13:00.004-05:00

Another alumnus of Adams Street School has made the news in a positive way and made all of her former teachers proud of her I am sure. She is Dianna Biancheria and she was one of my students when I taught at that school. I taught everything there from Grade 6 through Grade 8 and was also the Assistant Principal. Dianna was just elected to the Worcester,Massachusetts School Committee in her first attempt at public office. I am absolutely thrilled for her! Another distinguished graduate of Adams Street School, Vincent Pedone (who was also in one of my classes) currently serves as a STATE REPRESENTATIVE in the state legislature. (I put that in capital letters because the last time I wrote about Vinny I called him a senator.
Adams Street School has had many graduates to be proud of I am sure. I am going to brag here a little about some in my era. In 1983 and 1984 I took two groups of students from the school through the rigors of the Massachusetts History Day contest and won it both years and through the generosity of the neighborhood groups was able to take them on to the National History Day Contest which was held at the University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland. I attribute the success of those two teaching years to a philosophy of teaching and a teaching experiment that I tried. A woman came to Adams Street School one day. Her name was Carol Baldassarri and she was both a lady carpenter and classroom management expert. She was connected with Leslie College and sold me (after long discussions!!) on the idea of a new teaching philosophy. The idea was to do away with the "egg crate" classroom where the children were lined up in rows looking at the child in front of him. We changed everything and included the children in the makeover. We built a loft in the middle of the room. We built "Learning Centers" around the room. We had a math center, a social studies center, a science center, a reading center, an art center. The Loft was the central place and had a ladder to get to the place to do quiet reading. Every day we had a "20 minute reading time" at which time everybody including the teacher read a book.....However, the most important part of the whole concept was it operated on the idea of TRUST WITH RESPONSIBILITY! In other words, those kids got it thorugh their head that I as their teacher was not going to stand over them like a drill sergeant. I was going to TRUST that they would do the right thing, but they had to be RESPONSIBLE. If they had to go to the bathroom, they did not raise their hand and interrupt me while I might be working with another group, they just signed their name on the board and walked out....TRUST.. After awhile it works, but it takes time. After awhile kids respect that trust and will take responsibility.
I think it is this work I did that got me that SIRS/NERC Award at the Boston Sheraton Hotel in 1984. I am really bragging now, but what the hell, the next person to get it from Worcester was Superintendent Caradonio in 1999 and that was it. Nobody else from around here as far as I know.....Well, back to Adams Street School and enough of that....So we Have Vinny, Dianna, ...as famous now...and oh we can't forget Marisa Fusaro up in Canada...read about her in some previous blogs...I hope she gets her play she wrote in my class on television.....Now lets see...who else????....There must be some more famous people.....I can't think right now, but there must be more and I apologize to them for forgetting, but when I remember, I will write about them........Oh, one more thing: Back when I taught at Adams Street School, I wrote a History of the school. Someone told me that that history is now in the Worcester Historical Society Library. I know I don't have a copy of it here at home. I have one copy of "Togetherness", the book we published with Vinny Pedone and Marisa Fusaro's class, but the history of Adams Street School????....I will have to go find it myself..........I didn't intend for this to be so long!...I hope Dianna sees this........

Goodbye to Sikandar

2009-10-20T15:17:00.003-04:00

I feel a little sad today because I have to say goodbye to my good friend Sikandar who is moving to Woburn, Massachusetts. Sikandar was a second year fellow in the Department of Renal Medicine of The University of Massachusetts. Sikandar is a nephrologist (kidney doctor). His hometown is Lahore, Pakistan and during the time that I have known him he returned there twice to visit his parents. Sikandar's first language is "Irdu" which my wife calls a "crossword puzzle language" because the word appears so often in various crossword puzzles. Sikandar and I would meet to work on English and he always carried this Blackberry communication device with him that does just about everything including sending and receiving e-mails, telephone calls, etc. Many times I listened to him use this "blackberry" in his native language and at times switch from one version of Irdu to another version of the same language! Try that sometime. Sikandar gave me a blue satchel with the name NEPHROLOGY printed on the side of it. I carry a bunch of myy ESL materials in this with me wherever I go and it will be a reminder of one of the busiest and hard-working people I have ever met. Good luck, Sikandar and I hope our paths will cross again. You were great to work with.

A Busy Week

2009-10-16T14:57:00.003-04:00

I thought it would be a busy week and it certainly was. My online Moodle English as a Second Language student from New York City came back to Worcester for a brief weekend visit. She kindly invited me to go apple picking with her church group out to Tougas Farms in Northboro and that was lots of fun. They were a very fun-loving yet serious minded group of people as well. I met one lady from Lebanon and her teenaged daughter who live in Boston. She was very proud of the fact that her daughter goes to Boston Latin School. I would be too. It is probably the best high school in America! This particular lady gave me a small cup of what I call 'Turkish coffee". Have you ever drunk that? You have to acquire a taste for it.... I don't know how much "my lady scientist" will appreciate my blabbing about her on my blog, but, I will tell you something: My experiences over the past year and a half have convinced me that there are certain people in this world who desrve the label DEDICATED TO THEIR JOB. Here they are: Research Scientists, Doctors, Priests, Teachers. I am sure there are others, but those are the ones that I can give examples for. Research scientists? They work all kinds of hours. The same is true for the medical doctor.(try tutoring one when they have a million lectures to attend!) A priest? They have weddings and funerals and still I know one who has a parish out of town who STILL finds time to say Mass at a local nursing home for about 25 elderly patients every Thursday morning. Teachers? I have been a teacher all my life and I have seen very few of my colleagues that I would not be proud of. There is one thing for sure for all four professions. You cannot fool people. If you believe in what you do and you are dedicated to it, it will show through to everybody after awhile. The same is also true if you are a "phony baloney" so to speak.
Well, enough of the lectures. I also had fun last week helping Quinsigamond Community College enroll ESL students in their day and evening programs. They will have a huge waiting list, but the state finds itself in difficult financial circumstances and not much can be done about it.

Next Week

2009-10-03T14:52:00.003-04:00

I am going to be busier than usual next week. On Monday I have to pick up my lawn mower which has been in the repair shop for the past month. (I have been borrowing my nice neighbor's.) On Wednesday the 7th I will be traveling down to Woburn, Massachusetts for my once a month meeting of my veterans' organization (Military Intelligence Association of New England). This meeting is our annual "lobster meeting".(I am the Vice President this year.) On Thursday, I will travel to Hopkinton, Massachusetts to attend the second Moodle Conference which will be held from 4:00 P.M.until 7:00P.M. at Hopkinton High School. You can read more about this at http://imoodle.imgsoftware.com/img. I am also hoping for a special visitor from New York next weekend. This fabulous lady scientist has done some work in English on my distance learning Moodle site and I am anxious to talk with her about it. Moodle has been very sucessful in the k-12 program across the country. I think it has potential for ESL as well, but it is going to take work and some modifications. I love the challenge. In the meantime, I await my audience with the new superintendent of schools, but that has been over two years now and I am a patient man. (Guest access to my Moodle site ccan be obtained by using the web address above and the password----"scallops".

The Hole in the Letter

2009-09-16T19:34:00.002-04:00

Both of my parents were immigrants to the United States. They both came to this country prior to World War I. My father worked in a wire mill and my mother was a domestic housekeeper for a doctor on Harvard Street in Worcester. My father was drafted into the United States Army BEFORE he was a citizen of this country and very nearly gave his life for this country in the Argonne Forest of northern France where he fought in some of the bloodiest fighting. He was a soldier with the 77th Division.
There were five boys in my family. My father kept his war memorabilia in an old steamer trunk and sometimes when we had a snow day in the winter, we would explore that trunk. We would look at and try on the old gas mask. (It had an awful musty odor!) There was a picture with an angel with a sword and a soldier on one knee. The angel appears to be knighting the soldier. Other papers were yellowed and crumbling with age. The one prize that stands out in all our minds was a small envelope addressed to my father containing a letter. Both envelope and letter had a hole through the middle of it. It was a BULLET hole. We all know the story by heart...
The 77th Division was fighting in the Argonne Forest of Northern France. It was 1918. My mother wrote my father and told him about the terrible deaths happening in the United States (The Flu Epidemic of 1918) My father wondered what in the world she was complaining about when he was seeing such terrible death all around him every day in the Argoone Forest.(He did not realize just how bad the epidenic was at home.) The American division was advancing against the Kaiser's German soldiers just outside the town of Saint Juvin (France). The fighting was fierce. My father felt something go between his pack and his back. He asked a comrade to check him to see if he had been hit. He thought the bullet went between his back and his pack. After it was determined that he was okay, he continued to advance with his unit. A few minutes later he was hit by a sniper's bullet and the bullet pierced the letter from his mother which was in his rear pants pocket. Two medics placed him on a stretcher and started to carry him back from the frontlines. When the firing became too intense, the two soldiers dropped the stretcher and ran! My father was left there on the battlefield and had to crawl back under fire to a church on the edge of town. Growing up we listened to this story many times and we told my father (kiddingly) that the fact that the letter was in his BACK pocket proved that he must have been running away! Of course, he would always defend himself by saying that we did not understand combat!! We had to understand that the enemy was not always just in front, but could be all around you. Of course we knew this, but we enjoyed getting my father to react the way we could predict that he would every time!
When the war ended, a group of soldiers who were immigrants were taken from Fort Devens, Massachusetts down to Boston, Massachusetts and sworn in as citizens of the United States. That is how my father became a citizen. Perhaps this is why today I look with some suspicion upon these characters who look with disdain upon the word MULTICULTURALISM. I wish they had known my father and the soldiers who stood beside him in that room in Boston and became citizens that day. They might not be so narrowminded.

Safe Bets at Every Restaurant

2009-08-24T13:18:00.003-04:00

Although some restaurants list nutrition info on their menus or websites, most of the time it’s a guessing game. These are usually the healthiest picks.

At a Chinese restaurant Egg drop or wonton soup to start, anything steamed with sauce on the side (shrimps, vegetables or chicken with broccoli and garlic) and brown rice.

At a diner Egg-white omelet with spinach, tomatoes and feta (or turkey bacon) with whole-wheat toast, or open-face (leave half the bun) veggie or turkey burger with Cheddar: fruit salad or side salad with vinaigrette.

At an Indian restaurant Tandoori chicken or shrimp with raita yogurt sauce; whole-wheat roti bread.

At an Italian restaurant Tricolore salad, insalata mista or minestone soup to start: baked, broiled or grilled fish or chicken entrée (like Chicken Scarpariello or Marsala).

At a Mexican restaurant Fajitas ( steak, chicken, shrimp, veggie) with 1-2 tortillas and a dab of sour cream, or grilled fish soft tacos with salsa.

At a pizzeria 1-2 pieces of thin crust pizza piled with veggie toppings: salad on the side.

An Open Blog to Marisa Fusaro

2009-08-15T22:26:00.004-04:00

Marisa, I have to tell you first that you now hold the all time record for "comments" on my blog without being a listed contributor: FOUR! That is fine though. Each one was necessary. I want to tell you that I really wish I had an extra copy of the book "Togetherness". They really do become precious with time, don't they? However, the last extra one I had I mailed to REPRESENTATIVE Pedone and that was a few years ago. (You see how much attention I pay to politics. I thought Vimmy was a senator. I think it was last year that another teacher and myself went to the statehouse to lobby for the cost of living increase for the retired teachers. I saw Vinny's aide and he gave me a tour of the state house. (I met his mother a few months ago.) In fact Vinny voted for it, but I think the governor vetoed it. Anyway,that's not why I am writing this. My daughter Cathy told me she would scan your play, "The Missing Emeralds" and send it to you. She lives out of town and if she doesn't do it fast enough, i will get a copy of it to your mother on Daniels St.
Maybe you should consider producing Vinny
Pedone's letter "The Dream" in which he dreams about visiting the President in Washington!! No kidding. It is really something. You should see the handwriting! What a class that was! Phenomenal. Now, when you produce this play and have the red carpet and the search lights shining back and forth across the night sky and you are prancing around with your REAL emeralds around your neck, I hope when the TV reporter thrusts that microphone in your face you won't forget how to spell my name!!! .....Was Judy Warren around during your time? She televises the Worcester School Committee meetings now. Those classes melt together with time. I remember that we had some old (new then) television equipment that we took out on the street and took to D"Amico's Bakery on Shrewsbury Street and videoed the bread baking in the oven. Was that your class? Did you join the blog yet?...I will bug you until you do......I will send you my enrollment key so that you can look in on my Moodle online ESL class ) (one student--a scientist in New York) if you want.....Bye for now..

The Story of "Togetherness"

2009-08-12T13:14:00.010-04:00

The year was 1977. I was teaching a split fifth and sixth grade class at Adams Street School in Worcester, Massachusetts. One day I received a visit from an African-American lady by the name of Corrine Bostic. Corrine was a local author and had spoken with school administrators in the central office (Dr. John Durkin, Eugene Applebaum,) and she in turn spoke with Mr. Carroll, the school principal. Corrine was interested in working with children to get them doing creative writing. Corrine and I met together and planned what to do with the children and I carried it out in the classroom. The culminating activity was the publication of a small red-covered book entitled "Togetherness". I originally had THREE copies of this book, but I mailed one to Vincent Pedone our state senator, who was in that class and is published in the book. Another copy of the book I brought to the Greendale School library, but I took that home when the school closed and I have that at home and the other copy is my own personal copy.
Why now after 32 years am I suddenly bringing up this subject? Well, if you click on the word "COMMENT" under the last post about Walter Rodriguez, you will find out. I was sitting at my computer this morning working on my English as a Second Language Moodle coursesite when I switched to my e-mail and saw an email from a former student named Marisa Fusaro who was in this grammar school class that published this book back in 1977 at Adams Street School! I nearly fell off my chair! Marisa wrote this fabulous play entitled"The Mystery of the Missing Emerald". It runs for three pages and unless I can figure some other way, I will type it as a blog!(Maybe I can talk my daughter into doing it for me.) The next thing I am going to do here is type in the names of Marisa's classmates. I know she will look in on this (I think she is in California now.) and maybe know where some of them are living and let them know> Here it is Marisa:
Grade 5:Jean-Paul Brouillette, Anthony DiPilla,Mary Flaminio,Marisa Fusaro, Michael Hayes, Vincent Pedone,Michele Scricco,Christina Simone, ...Grade 6: joseph Ambrosino, Thomas Casilo, Christie Daboul, Joseph D'Olimpio, Maria Del Pilar Fernandez, Christine Forget, Anthony Locontore, maria Prizio, lawrence Sasso, marie Simone, Richard Simone, Jean Weldon,Teresa DiRodi, Marie MacArthur, Anthony Petrone.
If you remember, Mrs. Martello sent three kids into us for this project and her names were Daniel Suarez, David Surrette, and Joseph Tolson......That is enough for now Marisa. My fingers are falling off! I will send you an invitation to join the blog. You need a six letter password. By the way, I got your classmates names from the Table of Contents of the book. (Marisa, I edited the blog and now have the kids in the grades they were in at the time. Thank you for the correction.)(i edited it AGAIN !)

The Story of "Togetherness"

2009-08-12T13:13:00.002-04:00

A Message for Walter Rodriguez and Other English Writers

2009-07-31T15:32:00.003-04:00

Well, Walter now that I know that you are the husband of that famous lady from Uruguay by the name of Lakale, perhaps we can make a bargain. You see, in all these years that I have been teaching English as a Second Language I am ashamed to say that I can only say a few words in Spanish. They are "Keep quiet!" and "Caution, wet floor." Isn't that awful! Now that you have written a blog (more properly called a "post") and told us all about the ghost of your mother becoming a chicken (!), I am going to make a deal with you, and this is it: (the colon means "stop and pay attention to the information that follows.) The deal is this: I will correct your next post if you write a COMMENT to this post at the bottom and teach me the Spanish word for "Chicken coop", not chicken SHED---that's in Uruguay! This is the United States. We call them Chicken COOPS here, okay?......So, write in a COMMENT at the bottom the Spanish word for .........Chicken COOP........Bye......Leo

P.S I hope you get a chance to write a post on my Moodle site and that is really something you should see someday. UNBELIEVABLE 21st Century stuff!

A Look Back at the Teacher Corps

2009-07-27T12:17:00.002-04:00

Facebook on the internet certainly brngs people long forgotten back to the forefront! In my case, people whom I have not heard from for almost forty years are suddenly poking back. Cathy Hannowell, who was a teacher intern in the UMass African Studies Curriculum Development Project in Worcester that I spoke of in the blog before last has contacted me from Washington State. I also heard from or about others in that project. Some are just names so far such as Mary Lea and Pat Corey, but maybe I will hear more from them if they read this!
Facebook has brought back memories. Some not so pleasant. My job after pre-training at Temple and UMass, (Amherst) which ended in August of that moonwalk year, was to find housing here in Worcester for the teacher/trainers in the Teacher Corps who had recently returned from 16 different African ccountries. I had help with this job from Dick Donohue, a Worcester teacher and fellow team leader.
Finding housing for the interns was not easy for several reasons, but one inescapable one was because they were of mixed racial makeup. In one instance, I had two female team leaders staying at my house wit my family for a time: one white and one black. (Marianne was white and Marcia was black.) One morning, one of the neighbors came and rang my front doorbell. I answered the door. The neighbor whom I had known for a number of years demanded to know if I had a black woman living in my house. I explained the situation to her instead of simply closing the door. Marcia was standing in her housecoat behind the door! i was totally embarassed! When I closed the door finally, I averted my eyes from embarrassment. That is what life was like then in that job. But it got better from that point and here we are today....

Once a time there was a farm...

2009-07-24T20:45:00.004-04:00

I lived my young age on my father's farm WHICH WAS my home. From this time, I have tales and feelings. THESE feelings are still CLEAR IN MY MIND. THEY ARE not tales that appear like shadows. THEY ARE Tales of
my family and neighbors.
Close TO our farm, there was another farms. ON one of them lived a woman, the owner, with her young brother. SHE HAD no more family. no one else lived with them.
This womanWAS named Barbara. SHE WAS serious and noT tolerant OF ANYONE. SHE told her brother, " Hens are UNTOUCHABLE". SHE HAD A REASON FOR SAYING THIS. Jonas, the boy, liked EATING CHICKEN BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE. It was A passion.
Jonas, trIED TO forget hens. HE walkED by the farm, but in his mind, slopes on the ground appearED TO BE chicken breast! If he looked to the sky, clouds seemED like
chickenS running and jumping. IT WAS HIS CRAZY PASSION.
One day IN January ( THIS IS summer there which is like July here) he got up AND MADE A DECISION. He went directly to the CHICKEN COOP. (I dont'know this name), and when he WENT to the kitchen with one hen in his hand, Barbara appeared, her face absolutely red, FOLDED HER hands, and walkED fast to Jonas.
The boy stopped, looked at his sister and saID, "Hold on, Barbara, I'M gonna explain TO you !! Looking for a GHOST, I went to the COOP and A RED HEN APPEARED. I brought her corn grains. She ate and gave me thanks. After her,A WHITE HEN APPEARED, and I brought corn grains again. She SAID thanKS ALSO and left. At the end THIS HEN APPEARED. JUST like the others, I brought her corn grains, but she didn't move, so I asked her: "Dont' you eat, dear?" and this hen lift the head,
moved her eyes, and told me: "GO TO HELL! !!!. YOU SEE, BARBARA!!!
THIS HEN WAS...OUR MOTHER !!!

A New Superintendent--A Historic Occasion

2009-06-05T17:05:00.006-04:00

I read a statement somewhere recently that I agree with and bears repeating at the beginning of this essay: " It is okay to look back...but don't stare!" Now with just three weeks to go before Worcester appoints its first African American school superintendent, let me take you back to the spring of 1970 when it seemed as if the country was on the verge of civil revolution. At the time, I was a team leader in the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) Teacher Corps African Studies Curriculum Development Project. I had spent the previous July at Temple University in North Philadelphia in an intensive racial sensitivity training program in preparation for working with a group of 32 people, 28 of whom would be returned Peace Corps Volunteers from many African countries. By May 1970, my team consisted of 3 black women teacher interns who were teaching at Chandler Street and Lamartine Street Schools. It would have helped if there had been some other black teachers in either of those schools, but that was not the case. Indeed, there were very few black teachers in the entire system. However, we were surviving and even adding lessons to the developing curriculum guide.....THEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE!!
By "hell" I mean "Kent State"happened. If you are too young to remember what "Kent State" means, then "Google it." It was just an awful time in the United States. President Nixon sent the troops into Cambodia and the youth of America erupted! The National Teacher Corps in Worcester, Ma. under the auspices of the University of Massachusetts was no exception. A meeting was called and it was decided that some action needed to be taken by the group to show its displeasure against the Nixon Administration and since the school department was seen as an arm of the government, the action would be taken there. As strange as that thinking may seem today in 2009, that is what it was in 1970, and campuses all over the nation were being taken over by students and in some cases wrecked! What should be done? One option discussed was to picket the school department's central office. This was not a joke, and I thought I was about to faint! I think if the material had been there to make and print the signs, the work would have begun right then and there. Cooler heads prevailed. Someone suggested using a day to teach about PEACE. I breathed a sigh of relief (somewhat)and suggested using a day that they plan carefully. I suggested making them reading lessons with carefully contrived questions eliciting main ideas, specific details, vocabulary, and inference. I thought that it was very important that the lessons be extra good because they would be under the magnifying glass of controversy so to speak. Don't leave any openings for criticism if possible. I planned for and did a video of one of my intern's lessons. Later, I invited the elementary supervisor to view the video. Her comment?---"A born teacher." (I am not sure how sincere this comment was however.)...(Back to the dialogue)...
We now had the unenviable task of going to the Central Administration Building (It wasn't the Durkin Administration Building then) and telling the school administration what would happen the next day. Would they approve? Would they throw the whole program out? Is this bringing national politics into the lives of children? (That is what I really thought.) We had 7 team leaders. However, in this case, looking back, everybody scattered, and it was left to the Assistant Director of the project, Joe Blackman(Stanford University) and me to face a rather cool administration alone. I was the ONLY homegrown product in that first floor conference room with all that brass that morning. My other colleagues were nowhere in sight! You could cut the tension with a knife! Joe and I sat on one side, and a host of other people on the other. The one person I remember most vividly was our assistant superintendent, Mr. James McKenna.
Joe broke the ice by saying that the Teacher Corps people were responsible people. There was talk about "using young people" for "political ends". In the end, I can remember Mr. McKenna turning to me and saying, "Let me turn to ONE OF OUR OWN and ask him what he thinks." I looked right at him and said, "I WOULD LET THEM TEACH." That was the end of the meeting.
Mr. McKenna approached me out in the hall after the meeting and said, "Mr. Coleman, we do get involved,don't we?" .....When I READ those words, I regret that you cannot HEAR them, because print does not convey the meaning that was conveyed to me at the time. There are times in life when you have to grin and bear it. This was one of those times.
The two years of that African Studies Project were difficult but also exciting years for me in education. That summer UMass wanted to send me to their school in Uganda in Africa so that I could gain the African experience, but my wife was having a baby (my daughter Karen) and I was not about to leave her.) Marcia Perkins, one of the other team leaders went in my place. She brought me back two beautifully carved ebony wooden African heads which I treasure to this day. Instead of going to Africa that summer, I took a group of children from the Chandler Street neighborhood and with the cooperation of the Appalachian Mountain Club of Paxton, Ma. gave them a camping experience at their camp in the woods. Polaroid Corporation of Cambridge, Ma. also gave us 50 of their instant cameras and later helped us in their lab to develop the photos in such a way that we were able to produce a book for the children entitled, "Our Neighborhood and Camp Bananas".
The School of Education at UMass Amherst published and sold the African Studies Curriculum which was developed in Worcester by these returned Peace Corps Volunteers. My intern, Sharon Carter married Roosevelt Thomas in Passaic, New Jersey at the end of the Teacher Corps program. My wife and I drove down to the wedding and were the only white people at the wedding. Despite all the sensitivity training, it still was an odd feeling to be in the minority. Sharon and her husband went on to fine careers at the University of Miami. The other two interns went on to teaching careers in Mississippi and Texas. Our director, Cynthia Shepard married and became Cynthia Shepard Perry. She became ambassador to Sierra Leone during the first George Bush Administration and then head of the World Bank in Africa during the second George Bush Administration. A few years ago I received an invitation to a dinner at the State House in Boston which was given in the Hall of Flags. It was given in Cynthia's honor by UMass for distinguished graduates of that institution.
Of course it should never have taken until the year 2009 to appoint the first African American school superintendent in the city of Worcester. Back in 1970, my thoughts were directed toward destroying kids stereotypes about Africa being the land of Tarzan and jungle while only one sixth of it was anything like that! Our group was also dealing with racism on a daily basis which was par for the course for my team members but brand new for me! Temple University helped a lot but not totally. I will tell you what happens to a white person in a situation like I was in and it is this: You get mad as hell when you see racism directed at any member of the group and you can't do anything about it. But time doesn't change that.
I am going to get off this kick pretty quick, but I do recommend sensitivity training for everyone although it is PAINFUL. I don't know if you can find it on Google or not. I will try after I finish, but I recall one exercise that I use to do with teachers to give them a taste of sensitivity training. It was called "BODY RITUAL AMONG THE NACIREMA". With this exercise, I describe the strange daily rituals of a culture that still exists and and then ask the audience to make judgments about that culture's strange habits. The surprise ending always shocks people into looking at their own attitudes.
I said at the beginning that it is okay to look back...but don't stare. I am afraid that I have been staring very hard! I will end here. Congratulations Mrs. Boone, I hope I get the opportunity to speak with you.

The Share Fair Conference--A Look at the Future Now

2009-05-30T21:15:00.014-04:00

On Thursday, May 28th, I traveled to Millis High School in Millis, Ma. to attend an educational conference sponsored by Img Information Marketing Group, a company based in Framingham, Ma. who work with school systems in a variety of ways dealing with using computer systems for data management and curriculum improvement for the 21st Century. If you are in education and you have not heard of this company yet, you probably will before long. I listened to their management team speak and if I had to use one word to describe them it would be "visionaries." They look to the future and their business, in a nutshell, is improving education in cost effective ways using modern technology. Their address is www.imgsoftware.com. ImgSoftware manages the "Moodle course site" where, as a novice "moodler", I am attempting to develop a course for Adult ESL students. http://imoodle.imgsoftware.com/worcester

Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) was also represented at the Share Fair and two gentlemen made presentations. They spoke about "open courseware" (OCW) available through the MIT website to high school students (or anybody). An example of this is where MIT collaborated with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to help teach U.S. History through the use of Art. Please look at www.visualizingcultures.com and http://web.mit.edu/star. While one of the gentlemen from MIT was speaking about the collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, I was thinking back of what two of my brothers (Don and Ray) had told me about coming in SECOND for the History prize when they were in high school. Perhaps if they had had the advantage of this kind of technology then, they might have come in FIRST! (Of course, the winners would have had the same advantage, wouldn't they?) Oh well, back to the topic.
The major theme of the Share Fair was a sharing of "moodle" course sites. I attended one that showed how a teacher in Casablanca, Morocco (Grade2) was using Moodle, and I attended another where I listened to a most enthusiastic teacher demonstrate her Moodle site of podcasts of 7th and 8th graders in Chatham exchanging podcasts with Dutch children in the Netherlands who were learning English. It reminded me of my wife's penpal of years ago from her schooldays whose wedding we attended in the town of Forfar, Scotland. That was done with pen and ink, stamps, and lots of time between letters. This was done on a keyboard and in an instant. The time in between?....about 50 years!!.....at least....
I will conclude my brief post with two "firsts" that I experienced at this conference: I have attended many conferences, but this one holds the record for being held in the SMALLEST town....My second "first" is this is the first conference I have attended that was telecast LIVE internationally. When I walked in, there was a videocamera all set to go and as soon as the conference started was sent live to Casablanca. It was also telecast to Texas, Minnesota, and California. I understand also that there were 120 teachers in attendance and five superintendents. My only regret was that there were nine sharing sessions, but I only had a chance to see two of them. However, I am sure there will be other sharing sessions. Teachers are creative people, and they are willing to share with other teachers. At least that has been my experience.

Introducing a Special Lady--Ines Beron

2009-05-26T14:19:00.002-04:00

A few days ago I received an e-mail that warmed my heart. It was from the lady whose name appears in the title of this post. She was informing me that she had just been appointed to a position on the Board of Human Rights for the City of Worcester. She was thanking me for having been her English as a Second Language teacher and having encouraged her to believe in herself. Ines couldn't have known it, but her e-mail came at a very good time for me which may become clear as time goes on. I gave a copy of that e-mail to another person whom I think of as sort of special in this community. But let me tell you about Ines...
I first met Ines when I was teaching Level 3 ESOL(English for Speakers of Other Languages) at the Worcester Adult Learning Center back in 2004. Ines is from Montevideo, Uruguay. At the time I was just beginning to experiment with what is known as "blogging" with adult students. My idea was simple. I felt if I could get the student to write on the computer, I could learn a lot. First I could learn what grammar I had to teach. Secondly, I could correct their writing using capital letters for corrections, Then I would give the corrected version back to the student along with the original. Comparisons could be made, and that is how learning takes place: Trial and error, write and rewrite. It wasn't easy, but it was rewarding when it worked. What I say today (2009)is, give me some laptops, a wifi room, a bunch of students, and get out of my way!
Ines was a great student and took to blogging really well. If I remember right, she taught me things about the computer! I remember one day that she wanted to teach the class something about Uruguayan culture. Well, she brought in a drink similar to coffee that everyone drinks in her country that is called EL MATE. Well, if you are a man, and you don't have any hair on your chest and you want to grow some, just take a few drinks of this stuff! Wow, is it strong!!! I drank it, but you have to get used to it. It is hard to describe except to say it is stronger than any coffee you have EVER tasted.
Ines Beron has been involved very much in the Worcester community. She belongs to a group called Women Together. This group formed when one of its members sons was killed in gang violence. They work to improve neighborhoods. Through hard work and sheer determination they took the empty lot on which stood the old Winslow Street School and caused the Peace Park to stand there today. I was told that on another day this group cleaned Pleasant Street from Harrington Corner to Park Avenue! Now, with that kind of record of community service, is it any wonder this lady was chosen to be a member of the Human Rights Commission??
But how did our relationship continue for five years? After all, I had not yet become the Level 4 teacher then and Level 3 was the end of the line. Well, after Ines left the school, she continued to communicate with me by e-mail and became a blogger with a penname in 2005. Most students chose to write as "bloggers" using a penname and that was fine with me as long as I could keep them straight. Ines would write, I would correct it, and that would be it. Then she dropped off for quite a few months.
Now I am going to skip ahead to the fall of 2007. I had already left (under circumstances that were less than desirable) the Adult Learning Center and I had a commitment to make a presentation at the Network 2007 Adult Education Conference sponsored by the Massachusetts Coalition of Adult Educators (MCAE) of which I am a member which was being held at a hotel in Marlboro. The title of my presentation was "Blogging with ESOL Student". My problem was, I was an unemployed teacher without a class and I desperately needed an up to date blog from a student to demonstrate to the audience of administrators and teachers. I put the word out to former students of my plight and who but Ines answered my need. She wrote a story for me so that I could demonstrate the technique to the assembled audience. Ines wrote under her penname and I let on to nobody that the badge that I wore telling where I worked was a FAKE. (I wrote a blog about this which is in the archives.)
Later I wrote an e-mail to Ines and told her how she saved me because I had no posts at all to demonstrate until she came through for me. Whew! In appreciation, I told her that she could write on my blog FOREVER, and I would correct whatever she wrote as long as she wished.
Ines Beron is uniquely qualified for a position such as being a member of a board for Human Rights. She is extremely sensitive on that subject. Just mention Cinco De Mayo to her and you will soon know what I mean. Her country and those nearby suffered terribly at the hands of very bad dictatorships and the ladies in white kerchiefs have become famous.
I could write on forever about this gem of a lady but I hope I have said enough so that those who may read this will know that our city has a fine citizen serving on one of its boards!

Some Thought about Immigrants,Teaching, Etc.

2009-05-12T12:47:00.002-04:00

My brother Donald lives in Charleston, South Carolina. He is currently in the process of writing our family's history. Yesterday I received Chapter 3. He is doing a beautiful job and I am anxiously awaiting Chapter 4.
Chapter 3 dealt with my parents' immigration to America. Both left their native land seeking a bettter life in America. My father was discriminated against before the tender he was on was out of sight of his native Ireland and headed for the ocean liner waiting in the open Atlantic. (Ireland did not have a harbor deep enough to accomodate the larger ship.) As my father watched his native land recede in the background, a British sailor shouted at him, " GET BELOW BEFORE I THROW YOU OVERBOARD!" My father never forgot those stinging words. (I guess I get my sensitivity to insults from my father.) I won't relate here the history of the Irish in America with the "Irish need not apply" signs and all. Most, if not all, ethnic groups have experienced the same thing, and it has been a very sad and costly part of the human experience.
The United States as it is today was built by hard-working people like my father and mother. They were fortunate in that when they stepped off the boat in Boston, they already knew English. Countless others did not. and had to go to evening classes to learn English after working in a factory all day.
But enough of all this. This is all well known. With all this as a background, here, in writing is what I believe about immigrant students and teaching them:
1. They deserve the full respect of the teacher in front of them.
2. They deserve a teacher who knows the students' needs and is intellectually prepared to meet them.
3. They deserve a teacher who has adequate materials to meet minimum teaching standards.
4. They deserve to be taught in a school that not unlike a computer with the Norton Anti-virus protection, also has adequate outside supervision to guard against exploitation of the immigrant student. (This supervision need not be stifling.)
Tomorrow morning I will be saying goodbye temporarily to a student whom I have been tutoring in advanced English recently. He is a doctor, speaks three languages, and will be returning to his native Pakistan for two weeks. His story is different as is all the other immigrant stories, BUT the same in that he is contributing to this wonderful nation, and what a pleasure it has been for me to have been a small part of his life.

My David Souter Story

2009-05-01T09:37:00.004-04:00

It has just been announced that David Souter, a Supreme Court Justice, has announced his retirement. He is 69 years old. David Souter lives in Concord, New Hampshire and went to high school with my brother-in-law. They both went to Concord High School. My wife and I were married in Concord, New Hampshire and we had our reception at the New Hampshire Highway Motel. Outside on the veranda sat an old stagecoach as sort of a decoration. It was an authentic stagecoach and dated back to the mid eighteen hundreds when Concord had a thriving Coach-producing industry.
My brother-in-law loved to tell this story: On the night of high school graduation, some high school lads (David Souter among them as the story is told) decided to remove the rickety old stage coach from its accustomed spot in front of the motel and take it for a ride around the large field which separated the motel from the highway. Well, I guess eventually the gendarmes were called and everybody "almost" got in trouble, but in the end it was all chalked up to teenage mischief.
Little did anyone know that the "Pretend Lawman of the Western Plain" that night would become a famous lawman for the United States Constitution in later years.I don't know where the stagecoach is now. Probably in a museum someplace. The motel? Well, that was torn down and is now the spot for the Christa McAuliffe Museum in Concord, New Hampshire just off the Everett Turnpike. It is a very interesting place to visit. You should stop there sometime.

Visit

2009-04-19T19:20:00.006-04:00

Hi Leo, I want to apologize because I have been far from your blog so long. All of a sudden my life has become busy. I didn't know that four courses were going to take me so much time. I am hopefully finishing the semester in May. It gave me the opportunity to know excellent teachers who made me love to write in English.
Did you notice that our President Obama is going to learn about Latin America reading a writer from my country? Venezuela's president gave him "The Open Veins of Latin America", whose author is the Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano. You should read this book.
I want also to tell you that Stone Soup had a fire at the end of March. It is very sad. There was a lot of damage inside the building. Many people are raising funds now to bring it back.
In other issues, the Immigrant Coalition is organizing a demonstration on May 1st in front of City Hall. Three unions are sharing the event with us. It will be Friday at 5 pm. You and everybody are invited to attend. We are going to have speakers, music, performances, and much more.
I am glad to see that you have more ESL students. I am now teaching Spanish as a way to survive because my job at the little office died. The state cut the funds that we received and we don't have money for wages.

Two Algerian Ladies

2009-04-16T22:08:00.002-04:00

The best thing about teaching English as a Second Language is meeting people from different cultures. This provides an excellent opportunity to learn by listening to others once in awhile. A case in point: Recently I had a very humbling experience. I had some material which was written in English that needed correction. Well, I corrected the English, and I was comfortable with that, but the CONTENT was Science which is not my field. I decided to ask my friend, an Algerian research scientist at UMass to look at it from a scientific point of view. This beautiful, gentle, and quiet lady proceeded to demolish the scientific content of the report line by line. When she finished, she was still smiling, but I felt like I had been run over by a truck. After all is said and done though, I will pass on her valuable advice. Oh, and I will always remember the best advice of all: " Remember to peel the orange before you eat it.".... Thank you, Miss Algeria, and I hope you can go on Michelle's Maine trip in June.

I can name the second Algerian lady. Her name is Khadidja and she was a student of mine at the Adult Learning Center a few years ago. I call her the "cock-a doodle-doo lady" because of the unique lesson that she generated. She asked me one day, "Mr. Leo, what does an American rooster sound like?" I proceeded to demonstrate. She said that Algerian roosters sounded differently and she demonstrated also. She was right. The rest of the class was amused and decided to follow her lead. Soon I was listening to Korean roosters, a Chinese rooster, a Kuwaiti rooster, a Puerto Rican rooster, etc. We then did them all at once. It was riotous! We learned a new word---CACAPHONY. We ended up with the best conversation and vocabulary building lesson I ever had before or since. This is what is known in those teacher education courses as the "teachable moment". I wish I had a video of that lesson. I would put it on this moodle site that I am getting one of these days soon. Boy, would that be neat. Sometimes in teaching you know, you just have to let it flow...
Algeria's loss is America's gain. By the way, I never saw Khadidja's CV, but you should see Miss Algeria's! Yikes, when UMass recuits scientists, they really recruit scientists!

Thanks, Dad

2009-04-11T19:02:00.002-04:00

It has been a year since my Dad passed away. Leo commented on it yesterday, and I'd like to add a few words of my own today.

We normally greet the approaching death of a loved one with a mixture of fear and sadness. My Dad alleviated much of that for my family. Here is what I wrote in my journal at the time:

My father inspires me
with the calm acceptance
of the coming end
of his worldly life.

He will be here no more
to laugh
to smile
to balance a drink on his knee.

But he will live on
in our hearts
in our memory
in our love.

And I hope that when my time comes,
I can face it with the same grace,
the same good humor,
and the same acceptance that he has shown.

I can still feel that inspiration now, a year later. It was one of the many gifts provided by Dad. He had lived 81 full and active years. Through his words and actions he told us that he had enjoyed those years, but was ready to take the next step, a step we must all take eventually.

Soothing Morphos, comfort me
I welcome your embrace
My days here, they are numbered
I soon must leave this place

I travel to a higher plane
The Kingdom of our Lord
To live among the angels
The ultimate reward

To my family - do not worry
A better life awaits
As I go to see Saint Peter
On through the pearly gates

Those last words reflect Dad's faith. I'd like to close with something that reflects the humor that he passed on.

I look at the face in the mirror
and see my Dad's features stare back.
Should I be happy to see the resemblance?
Or cover my head with a sack?

Of course, that's not a fair question.
My looks are his gift to me
(but why a part of the body
for all the world to see?)

To be frank, I like the resemblance.
Its a daily reminder of Dad.
Of all the life lessons he taught me,
And all the good times that we had

But I'm Steve and not Frank, so continue...
On this point we all must agree
My Dad was really quite handsome
(...and the apple falls close to the tree...)

It has been a Year--How Time Flies!

2009-04-10T16:53:00.002-04:00

It has been one year since my brother Billy passed away quietly at home in Grafton,Massachusetts. It doesn't seem possible. How time flies! It seems like only yesterday that I was visiting him in the hospital about a week before he died. His daughter Patty was there receiving instructions from the doctor about hospice and medications to administer at home because everything that could have been done for Bill had been done and he would soon be discharged from the St Vincent's Hospital. I took the opportunity to speak with my brother and I went up close to him as his voice was weak. He told me that it was important for him to die with dignity, and I tried to assure him that he was doing very well.
My brother Ray and I made the drive down to Grafton the day my brother died. I will never forget that scene as long as I live. His son David was at the foot of the bed slightly to the right playing songs beautifully on his violin. You could tell that his father was listening. Cousin Bob Ford came in and made a nice impromptu narration to Bill about what a great job he did as a father. After Bob left, it was time for Ray and I to leave. I knew it would be the last time. What happened next had to have been planned by Bill just as he planned the whole thing---funeral and all!!! As I started to leave I heard his voice stronger than I expected call me back, and this is what he said, "Leo, I'm leaving NO FORWARDING ADDRESS."... Billy had a certain look like someone who stole the last cookie from the cookie jar. He had that look at that moment. Only someone who worked in special delivery in the post office for all those years could think of a perfect ending line like that! Perfect, but too emotional for me. It was tough going home. The music of David, the poetry of Steven, the sensitivity of his daughters, and the strength of his wife
said to everybody, This is what FAMILY means, and I noticed that at the wake it seemed that most of the people there were "neighbors".
My brother Billy planned everything including the music at his funeral. The one song that he wanted but was not sung was "DANNY BOY" and if sometime if his son David will accompany me on one of my nursing home jaunts, I will sing DANNY BOY for Billy accompanied by David Coleman on the guitar or the violin or that third instrument you play, the name of which escapes me at the moment, but you can add as a COMMENT......I would say more, but I have to go....It is Good Friday and Shirley and I are singing in church tonight in about an hour.......

Two Acts of Kindness

2009-03-25T20:04:00.003-04:00

My day started out ordinarily enough. I drove down to St. Vincent's Hospital, picked up my ticket, and parked on the roof. Then I walked ten laps on the second level of the Atrium for my morning exercise. Next on the agenda was some planning for my English as a Second Language tutoring session one on one which I will have on Friday morning. Most of that I had already finished; there was some more I wanted to do, and I can use my laptop in the Atrium because St. V's has wifi service available which is very nice.
Now it was about 10:45 and I thought I should take a walk over to City Hall and a return visit to the City Manager's Office. I didn't want to go there, but felt that I should. I had been there last week. You see my street has been sinking very slowly for the past four year due to water undermining it from a leaking sewer pipe. (This is what we think.) The pipe from my house to the main pipe in the street broke four years ago and I had to pay about $7,000 to a private contractor to reconnect it. We are afraid that it might happen again. I thought I might find out something in the City Manager's Office this morning, but I got no information.
When I came back to the hospital,it was time for lunch and the hospital has an excellent cafeteria which I have eaten at several times. I went to the cafeteria and bought the following:
l. soup---(lentil)
2. bread and butter
3. a 14 0z bottle of white milk
4. a pear
5. a fresh green salad
I know the routine. When you get to the cashier, you put the salad on the scale and you pay a certain price per ounce. I PUT MY SALAD ON THE SCALE. That was a mistake because there was a man in front of me who also had a salad and I did not realize that he had not yet put HIS salad on the scale! The cashier told me to take my salad off the scale because it was not my turn. I apologized. (My mind was still in the City Manager's Office, you see.) However, the man in front of me said, "Oh, that is all right. I know the routine" Then the cashier proceeded to cash me out AHEAD of this man. My cost was $8.01. I thanked both the man and the cashier and proceeded to carry my tray into the cafeteria. A few minutes later when I was seated at a table, the cashier came over to me and looked over my food. I thought something was wrong. She said that the customer was a doctor and thought that I had PAID TOO MUCH MONEY FOR MY FOOD! The cashier came over to me to doublecheck to make sure that I had paid the correct amount of money. As it turned out , I had.
I thought, "How often does something like that happen these days?" It kind of restores your faith in people. When I got through eating, I went to find out who these two people were. One is SANDY BRYTOWSKI and St. Vincent's Hospital's cafeteria is fortunate to have such an honest employee working for them. The other person is Doctor CHARANJIT RAO, a general surgeon, and if he cared about a stranger's pocketbook, I am sure he probably is a man of compassion also-----just perfect as a surgeon! You both made my day!

A Message for Myoung Heon

2009-03-24T13:46:00.003-04:00

Hello Myoung wherever you are! I thought it was very nice of you to read and respond to my English grammar post on my Write--Write--Write blog. Most people think that they have to be members of the blog to make a "COMMENT" on a post, but that is not true. ANYONE can COMMENT simply by clicking on COMMENT and typing whatever they want to say.
Now, with regard to your comment: Your sentence was like this: The doctor,who flew to Pakistan, helped four people on the flight with medical emergencies.

It should have been like this: The doctor who flew to Pakistan helped four people on the flight with medical emergencies.------The clause "who flew to Pakistan" is essential to the meaning of the sentence and therefore would not be set off with commas.
You may notice,Myoung, that I have changed my original post to make a difficult concept a little clearer.
Myoung, if you would like to join my blog, send me an e-mail and I will send you an invitation by return mail. My e-mail address is leocoleman@rocketmail.com
Again,thank you and I hope I was of some help.