Time Out
I’ve not written in several months as there has been a major shift in my life with my husband Robert deciding to retire, my choosing to leave SFU and now taking a break from teaching for the next year. So, we’ve packed up with our 15 year old daughter and given ourselves a year to travel. As I write this we’ve landed in Mallorca, Spain. We’re living in an apartment in an old house right on the water. The house is old and quite rustic, but charming in a funny sort of way.
The view from our deck.
We’re loving the view from our front covered deck and the sound of the waves lapping on the shore beneath the house. There are big, very spanish arches framing our view of an island with an old brick tower on it.
Apparently the tower is one of a ring of towers around the island, all built in the 1500’s and used to warn the islanders of approaching pirates. The islanders would light fires in the towers and when one was lit, the next would immediately be lit and so on until the whole ring around the island signaled the warning, all in less than an hour. The history all around us is quite intriguing and fun to learn about.
So, I’ve changed the blog title here to Betty Online – Time Out. I contemplated just starting a brand new blog on WordPress.org, but it isn’t set up as nicely as this edublog site and after the first couple of posts and finding myself not able to add photos the way I wanted to I’ve decided to stick with this blog. I realize that I’ll lose many of you who may have chosen to follow this blog for the small bits of educational insight I may have occasionally had, but at the same time, maybe I’ll gain some friends and family who want to follow along on our adventures. I’ve struggled a little with the whole idea of writing a blog about this year out, not wanting to write just another travel blog and thinking that I’d have some thoughts about education too. Not quite sure where I’m going with that but shall see. Certainly my interest in education and research in education is one that I will continue to carry with me. Where ever I go I find myself asking about the education system. There is certainly lots and lots of fodder here where the system is very demanding, with secondary students taking up to 11 courses per term. But at the same time the failure rate is ridiculous. We looked into putting Hannah into a school here, thinking that if nothing else she would benefit from the socializing, the spanish and the sports, only to find that generally physical education is only one day per week and many of the schools where she could attend at great cost, are in English. Plus, if we are only here for a few months, she won’t actually get any credit for being in school. So Hannah is doing all of her schooling on her own, online through Vancouver Learning Network. That alone will be an interesting adventure for me to follow.
I’m looking forward to hearing more about your adventures this year! Best of luck to Hannah. I teach at a distributed learning (DL) school and I know that it can be challenging for student’s overseas to keep up with their school learning when they are learning so much from their travels already. The best advice I can give –yes, yes, I know it is unsolicited, I’ll pipe down after this
— is that communication with her teachers is key. There are no silly questions. As DL teachers our job is to make things go as smoothly as possible for our students. With you as Hannah’s guide I’m sure things are off to a good start!
Hey Claire, great to hear from you. I actually appreciate the advice so don’t hesitate to provide more as we go through this. (So there, now I’m soliciting it from you and any other DL teachers out there. We can use the help, believe me.) “With you as Hannah’s guide” assumes a lot. So far she has dived right into English and Planning on her own. She is also doing an independent studies course to earn credit for traveling, improving her Spanish and learning about the culture here; more on that in future posts for sure. And for now, for this term, she is also doing Science 10 which I’m working through with her, at her request. So far I’m doing a great job of relearning how to write and balance chemical equations. Hopefully she’s gaining from the experience too. Time will tell. The experience is definitely giving me some insight into the other side of the DL job. All in all though, I think the year will be great for teaching Hannah a bit more about herself as a learner. She’s having to rethink whose responsibility the learning is. That’s all good as far as I’m concerned.
Thanks for commenting.
Yay! So glad to be able to follow along on your big adventure. How’s the Spanish coming along? I have a funny language story. When I was just a little older than Hannah my mom dropped me off in Lausanne, Switzerland with a homestay to do my grade 12. That week I ended up at a health clinic to get a chest x-ray (something showed up on some pre-school medical exam). The doctor said to me from the other side of the screen, “prenez un souffle”. My brain did a quick scan of my high school French vocabulary list… I took in a BIG breath…pursed my lips… and let out a loud WHISTLE! He burst out laughing, and I was so embarrassed in the 16 yr old kind of way.
Hola Sylvia, todavia mi español no es bueno. Hopefully it will get better. I am at least starting to be able to understand more and more words when people speak them at me. Unfortunately understanding a string of words doesn’t always help me to even get the gist of anything. I have managed to perfect that absolutely blank idiot look though. In fact it comes quite naturally these days. That’s a great story of yours though. As Hannah would say “awkward!” I hope you were able to laugh about it even then. Luckily Hannah is quite comfortable with herself and laughs most things off. I’m sure that helps.
@Betty, hmm, balancing chemical equations is definitely one of the more challenging parts of Science 10 for students–in or out of the classroom. This site has some good advice on balancing (once you get over the annoying animated gifs). Feel free to contact me if I can assist with any of the DL stuff. (You have my e-mail as I entered it when I commented.) Cheers!
Hey Betty…I love your reflections in your travel journal/learning process….What a great idea! I hope that I can do this someday too….not sure where-but Spain would do for me! hehe…or back to Ireland again maybe…Brazil!
Travel and education (esp with teens) VLN is the perfect choice for this…it was not right for my son but I know kids who do use it and succeed (I heard they are a minority tho’ about 5%!!) are usually self-motivated and either out of the country or acting. What I’ve come to realize since beginning in the education world is how diverse children’s (and adults) learning is…what works for one inevitably does not work for another. Its still a challenge for instructors/mentors to engage student learning for all these learning types. anyways, thanks for posting some great comments etc.!
Sleinte!
@ Tania, Thanks Tania. Glad you’re enjoying it. I have fun writing. I’m just working now on a bit of a photo journal on a separate page. My intention is to add a photo a day.
You’re certainly right that DL learning isn’t for everyone. I think she’s doing ok at it for most of the stuff. I’m enjoying the little bit that I do get to work on with her. So true that needs are so diverse. It is amazing that classrooms of 30+ students can work at all in terms of a learning environment.
@Claire. I appreciate it. I just may be in touch. I will definitely check out the resource you suggest.