Passion for Reading

Dear incoming 8th graders, this is what you SHOULD be reading this summer. For the rest of my friends and family, I recommend these books if you are looking for something easy and interesting to read:

Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix - about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes
The Time Travelers by Linda Buckley-Archer - juxtaposition of London in two time periods

The Hound of the Baskervilles

I am reading The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of the summer reading books for my incoming 8th graders, so I need to be one step (at least) ahead of the kids! I really like it. It took me two pages to realize that much of the dialogue between Watson and Sherlock Holmes is full of sarcasm, so now I am enjoying it. Hopefully, my students can get past the first few pages!!

Tomorrow I start my two week behind-the-wheel bus driving training. All coaches have to have their commercial driver license to drive the teams to games, and apparently my plea to not have to drive was ignored. :( The other coaches say it's no big deal, but I don't see how that's possible! Any helpful or encouraging words????

Sifting

I am still working to sort through all of the info, pictures, and items I brought home from my trip. As I sift I am hoping that I can pull together all of my experiences to inspire my students. I am up for the challenge!

There's No Place Like Home

I cannot be more grateful for the wonderful trip from which I just returned! It was a growing experience for me as well as an educational trip.

I went into this trip expecting to gain knowledge about mythology, and I have. BUT...I have also learned about Greek culture, language, cuisine, and politics. We visited in a time of economic turmoil and we saw the effects - soldiers with machine guns on 24 hour guard at the government building and many tourist sites; empty tourist sites; and businesses with very little foot traffic.

We talked to Dimitris and Elena, shop owners in Delphi. Dimitris shared with us his frustration over the media's embellishments of the recent bank burning in Syntagma Square. "People are scared to come to Greece. They think Greece is unsafe."

He explained to us that when Greeks go on strike, the strikers file paperwork with the government and police to notify them about the reason why, when, and where. The government can then look into the problem, while the police can set up barricades to protect the strikers and allow them to express their opinions. He said it may seem foreign to us, but it is normal for them. Random injuries and broken shop windows near the strike area are generally not due to strikers. It's others who get carried away. He also pointed out that with Athens being the "big city" and hub for travel, people are not coming to ANY Greek cities for fear of traveling through Athens.

His souvenir shop in Delphi is two and a half hours from Athens, and to me it seemed like a world away. It is located on the slope of Mount Parnassus overlooking the Corinthian Sea. It is easily one of my favorite places because of the peacefulness and friendliness of the town. Dimitris said that bad things that happen in Athens don't happen in small towns like Delphi because everyone knows each other and everyone looks out for one another. Yet, the restaurants and shops are being affected by the bad press that events in Athens have gotten. It's amazing how a few news stories can greatly affect so many lives. Not just those involved in the story, but even those unrelated to it.

I plan to keep in contact with Dimitris and Elena and see if they can be my classroom's connection to Greece. Who knows, maybe I'll return to Delphi one day to show a group of students around the ruins!

In addition to my newfound knowledge about Greece, I've had some wonderful "epiphany-like" ideas for other teaching units and my classroom set up. I think next year is going to be the best ever! I cannot wait!

THANK YOU FUND FOR TEACHERS!

Book Review #2

I am finished with Lyddie by Katherine Paterson and I could not read it fast enough! It is so good! I love the character of Lyddie and I feel like I understand her struggles, despite how different my life is from her's.

For my students' 8th grade pre-ap summer reading choices, the students can choose Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix (same author as the Shadow Children Series). I HIGHLY recommend it! If you like Uprising, you'll enjoy Lyddie as well. The struggles are similar but you don't necessarily feel like you can predict the ending of one just because you read the other.

Travel, Travel, Travel

We left Naxos this morning at 11:30am on a Hellenic Seaways highspeed boat. We made one stop at Paros island before we made it to Athens. Who would've known that the metro system would be on strike the last day we are here!!! We were encouraged to use the busses to get to the Athens airport, but we kept seeing people filtering into the train depot so we waited around to find out if anything was running. A janitor took pity on the obvious tourists and told us to take the train (she even pointed to the right one) to Monastiraki where we could change to the train bound for the airport. How did she know where we were going??!?!?

The strike was scheduled to last until 5:00pm (we began our train extravaganza at 3:45), so we figured we'd just ride as far as we could and then either wait until 5:00 to go further or get a taxi. Turns out, we didn't even have to wait. We were able to stay on our train all the way to Eleftherios Venizelos airport, where we checked in (one day early) and caught a shuttle to the Holiday Inn Athens.

So here we sit, with dinner in our bellies (expensive hotel dinner) ready to go to sleep. We'll be taking the 4:30am shuttle back to the airport to catch our 6:35am flight from Athens to Amsterdam, and from Amsterdam we'll fly to Houston. We are pretty excited to get home to our own couches, bed, and closet instead of suitcase. I'm not sure how ready we are for the summer humidity though. It's dry heat in Greece, so we've been pretty spoiled the past two weeks.

Naxos Cheese

Dinner was amazing tonight. I had a Greek salad - you'd think I would be sick of them by now wouldn't you? Not even a little!! After eating from street vendors, I was excited for some fresh veggies. I am not a big fan of feta cheese but I decided to give it a whirl anyway and much to my surprise, I loved it. Well, it wasn't traditional feta. They put local Naxos cheese on their Greek salads. It looks like feta but is more creamy and less crumbly.

I was so hungry and it was so delicious that I ate the whole thing and then said, "I wanted to take a picture!" Oops!