Niagara Falls

Last summer I traveled to Niagara Falls. It is located about 150 km from Toronto and is on the border between Canada and the United States of America. There are a total of 3 waterfalls that drain from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario. The falls area total height of 50 meters. I went in the summer time and the falls were very beautiful. You could hear the water crashing and feel the mist that came off from the falls.


I went on a boat ride called Maid of the Mist where a ferry takes you in the middle of the river and very close to the falls. They gave us ponchos and as we were getting closer to the falls I could feel the mist from the falls which actually felt like we were in the middle of a rainstorm. I could barely see anything because of the rain, but I was able to get a number of good pictures. I also saw a nice rainbow.


The view from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls is much nicer than the American side. Looking across the border, there were not that many tourists, and all the nice hotels and tourist attractions are on the Canadian side. In the evening there were lights that were shining onto the falls and made them look very pretty.

An Exemplary Teacher

I have a friend named Ann. Ann's career takes her all around the world and her children usually attend American schools. She told me of one particular teacher who really stood out for her attentiveness and sensibility when dealing with Ann's son, Thomas.

Thomas was a very active young boy who could not sit still for very long. He was easily distracted and although very bright, he found many of the lessons in school quite boring. He would normally listen for ten or fifteen minutes, and then his mind would wander to other places. Because he had many different areas of interest including astronomy, sports, cars, art and geography, his mind would take him on long journeys and he would lose attention. Often, he would draw (beautifully) in class and his mind was so occupied with the drawing that he wouldn't even hear the teacher call him. 

When Thomas was in the third grade, his family lived in Singapore. His main (homeroom) teacher was an elderly Singaporean teacher by the name of Mrs. Wong. Mrs. Wong immediately recognized Thomas's difficulties and her long years of experience told her what to do. Whenever she saw that Thomas was fidgeting in his seat and moving too much, instead of admonishing him or even commenting on it, she found tasks for him to do - tasks that would take him out of the classroom, before his movements would disrupt the rest of the class.

Sometimes, Mrs. Wong would ask Thomas to take a note to the Principal's office. The note, in a closed envelope, would simply ask the Principal's secretary to send Thomas to the storage department and bring some teaching materials back to class. Mrs. Wong would tell Thomas that this task is important - and urgent. She asked him to walk very quickly. By the time Thomas would return to class, after having missed five to ten minutes, he would be tired from his brisk walk and would sit quietly for the rest of the lesson. By receiving these tasks, Mrs. Wong achieved four objectives: she took care of the issue without embarrassing Thomas or admonishing him; she got him to spend a lot of pent-up energy which allowed him to sit calmly through the rest of the lesson; she empowered him and strengthened his confidence by giving him tasks and responsibilities; and she dealt with what might have become a disruptive element for the rest of her class.

There is much that we can learn from Mrs. Wong about how to deal with the challenges posed by over-active students in the class, with wisdom, experience and sensibility.

Unpleasant Experience In The Classroom

 

Hi everybody,

I would like to share with you an unpleasant experience I had during the "teaching practice week".  The beginning of the lesson was stressful because the students didn’t arrive and I was being observed by a teacher from the college.  Earlier, during the break I'd seen their replacement English teacher (their regular teacher was in the U.S) and I'd reminded her to send me the students. But in spite of this the students didn’t turn up. Then, a few arrived. I asked one of them to go downstairs to her class and call the others, but she herself didn’t come back. Finally, I was forced to go down myself 15 minutes after the lesson should have started. I found the students with the teacher, who was giving them back their test, and discussing it with them. She hadn’t even told me what she was going to do it! It all made me feel tense and it was very tiring having to run up and down after the students. In addition, the students didn’t have time to present their work. I saw that teacher after the lesson and I told her that it had been difficult for me running after the students and she just laughed. In general, I feel that experienced teachers sometimes need to be more sensitive to the difficulties faced by "students teachers", especially when they are being observed. After all, they were students themselves, once.

Have a good week,

Natalie