Our day started with getting in the car at 6:15 to go
to East High, Kansas, Missouri. Here Diane coaches a teacher in the classroom,
giving ESL-classes to kids from various places around the world. They have been
in the USA for less than a year and they are put in a program to learn the
language fast (NT2 or Schakelklas would be the Dutch equivalent, I guess).
Diane and the teacher had a small conference on the lessons for the day and how
to deal with them, the topic being sequencing words like first, finally and so
on. I had a look around the classroom and since I was not allowed to take
pictures when the kids were in, I took the opportunity to do so at that moment.
Students came in, greeting the tacher and their friends and foes, being the
averag 13-14 year olds: giggling, sizing each other up, comparing notes and
nice accessories. The teacher had a great rapport with the kids and you could
see they liked her very well too. There are some problems with these kids, that
range from being illiterate in their own language, to mental problems and being
digitally illiterate too. It took the class quite long to log on to the schools
server to do a task. The teacher hopes to make big progress within a few weeks,
because the students only received a laptop two weeks ago. She thinks they might
catch up quickly! During the lesson I saw the sunrise, and it was impressive.
East High is on a hill overlooking Downton Kansas City, MO, and it was a really
nice view, but no pictures, since I had to refrain from taking them.
We drove to Dianes office at the University of Missouri
Kansas City, because she had to prepare lessons and presentations for professional
development of ESL-teachers. In the mean time I talked to Sarah, who was able
to explain the system of ESL-learners in the state. First there is an intake,
and then there is an assessment of the language proficiency of the child. Based
on this they are placed in their level. At the school the child is attending,
the ELS-teacher will plan ESL-lessons for him/her and the rest of the day they
are in the regular classroom. The children have to take standard tests at
several moments to make sure there is enough progress. Actually, schools are
paid in general according to the students progress rate! The ESL student will
stay in this program as long as is needed, but once they are released, the
ESL-teacher still has to monitor them for two years. If they fall back in
performance, measured against the average progress of a student, they will
re-enter the program. It takes somebody around 5-7 years to achieve near-native
aptitude, so it is wise to stay on top of things in this respect! All this is
according to the bill: No Child Left Behind. The name speaks for itself.
Today we looked at many parts of Kansas City, Kansas and the suburbs that surround it. You cannot evade history here, so we saw part of the Lewis and Clark trail (http://lewisandclarktrail.com/), a route that is in commemoration of the two people who put the US on the map after Napoleon sold part of the country in his possession to President Jefferson. Then we saw where the Underground Railroad partly took place (http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/underground-railroad); nothing underground and not a railroad as such, but a hub in the route to get slaves that were set free or had escaped from the South to a safe place. Only if they would get above the Mason-Dixon line, they would be in a place where they would be safe and would have a better chance of surviving and having a better life (see for information: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason-Dixonlijn). At some point we came to the statue of John Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)). We would know him from the song with the "Glory, glory, Halleluja" chorus, but actually he was an abolitionist who wanted to start an uprising among slaves. He was found guilty of this and was therefore hanged; later this lead to the secession and the Civil War.
We saw a suburban part of Kansas City, Kansas, where the residents are warned through a sign that there are deaf people in the area; there used to be an institution for deaf people in this area, and this sign is a remnant of that. It is Strawberry Hill, that gives a very good view over the river and towards Downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The houses are small but mostly well maintained, and the Hill has some steep approaches to houses, which was interesting to see. We could actually see where we had been before: an iron bridge from the era of the industrial revolution. The interesting thing about it was that there is a concrete motorway on top of that! This area used to be full of cattle, waiting to go to the slaughterhouse. Kansas state is well known for the beef it produces, and there used to be large pens; it must have been noisy there. The area underwent big changes after a big flood in 1951, when everything was flooded and the damage was huge. In fact, many places were torn down and not much was being put there again. It is a dilapidated area, where you might not be safe at night, we were told.
For lunch we ate at Joe's barbecue, very famous in Kansas. The waiting line can be very long, but we were lucky. Apart from that, they work quite fast, so we got to the food very quickly. And indeed, it was lovely food. Only the taste of the water was a bit off, because it was chlorinated. We are not used to that anymore. After lunch we saw a lot of neigbourhoods with different levels of maintenance. Dilapidated, getting better, being even better because the residents get help to learn how to keep up a home, normal areas and areas were people live the really good life. Some of the areas were old, some were brandnew. But all are very spacious, compared to the Dutch residential areas. So much space here!
According to the ladies that live here, a visit to Scheels should not be avoided and so we saw a Ferris wheel indoors, in a shop! Lots of blue and white for the Kansas City Royals and so I purchased a nice cardigan there in the exact same colours! Finally, we visited the Centre of Grace, where many residents can come in for a free meal, free health care, free English lessons, free clothing and nearly free pre- and afterschool child care. All provided for by sponsors, companies who donate leftovers and volunteers. It is painful to see that this is necessary in a wealthy country like the States, but there you are.
During a one hour tour around Johnson Community College Campus, which stretched to ninety minutes, elsbeth and I learned quite a lot about the college. For instance, students are helped by a group of tutors to finish their writing assignments, but people from the community can use this service too. It helps in persevering and it actually also helps to let the students start a new course or a course on a higher level. Tutors can be other students as a job to earn money, or staff from the college. A student can have help with grammar issues, thesis statement, writing concise sentences or the structure of the thesis. The same principle applies for science and mathematics, but only actual students can attend these student support groups. These groups serve a purpose and it proves that the succes rate of the college is higher than without. Would it be useful to incorporate this into our college? I guess so! We experienced the scale of the college by just walking from place to place, there are a lot of buildings. You can get to nearly every building without going outdoors but you can also walk outside, which we did because the weather is still beautiful! Talking about scale, everything is massive here! Not only is the campus huge, the student number is large (46.000!), the buildings are big, coffee comes in large cups and classrooms are very spacious. I would say, spacious is actually a very good word for this part of the US. And I did not even tell you about the highway yet!
I have to make you aware of the art-school, the nurses school and the culinary school; thes are the three tops of the US community colleges. Ceramics are a large part of the art school!
Diane holds a job as a consultant and teacher trainer at the University of Kansas, Missouri, and we went there after the JCCC tour. She had to do work on a presentation for teachers to be, so I looked around, talked to some co-workers of Diane and looked at books that are used for the training. The office was really nice, because there were "cubicles" like we tend to see on the television or in movies, and the building was old but it was repaired with love and care and with respect to the former use of it. I liked that. Tonight I am in the classroom with Diane, she teaches a class of adults in level 2 of Second Language Learners, for me and for the students an enjoyable experience. We watched a video about a car that drives itself and she centered her lessons around this theme. The students engage in talking to each other, they are not frightened to make mistakes and actually learn from worling with each other. Especially interesting to me was that the students had to express their own expectation of their behaviour in this class: when you set yourself a goal it is probable that you want to make it work, so you would be willing to perform excercises and tasks. Really nice to see! The classroom itself is spacious, but then it is meant for 31 students. It was quite interesting to see how Diane works with her students, but also that she has more tasks to do than just teaching.
She showed me the administration that teachers have to do, in order to show how much students progress. Also the results of several tests have to be registered in a certain format. As funding of this part of the school is based on this progress, the management regards registering as very important. However, Diane showed me that figures don't always match with the students' ability to use the language. And do not forget, taking care of registering these figures is unpaid! So today I saw her teaching and being paid for three hours, but she worked five hours ont his day alone to make it work. I saw the same behaviour from her colleagues at this college. It makes you think about your own job!
After work we went for a beer and to see the end of the Royals' match. The opponents, the Toronto Blue Jays, had so many scores already that the Royals winning the match was not to be expected, so after the beer and fried pickles we went home, tired but for me the feeling was entirely: happy!
On Sunday we worked (yes, we did) and we went to have lunch in the oldest diner in town: Winstead's. We ate fried onion rings, some tater tops and a burger for me. Next we went out into the lovely autumn day to enjoy the sunshine and Kaufman's arboretum. We saw some stunning flowers and the bronze statue of the Kaufman's, who were adorned with parafernalia from the Royals. The Royals have one more base ball game to win and then they will enter the World Series! So the Kaufmans are important to Kansas not only because they donated the lovely arboretum, but made sure the Royals were part of Kansas City, back in 1969.
Then we had a stretching series in the yoga hall (sorry, no pictures ) and made our way home to do some work again. I am typing this blog during that time and I did some filing work for Diane, which gave me a good insight into the level of proficiency of her students (we would call them NT2-students).
After weeks of looking forward to going to the States it was time for Nina and me to go, October 17. After a short meeting at the airport to say goodbye and to wish each other good luck, we actually took off, Nina to Chicago and I to Minneapolis and a connecting flight to Kansas City. From my group of three participants, one was not allowed on the plane, so that was a problem! I was together with Elsbeth from ROC Tilburg, and we made it to Minneapolis and on to Kansas City without problems. Our hosts, Diane and Janice, were there to pick us up and they made us feel welcome immediately. We were each whisked off to their homes, but I had a detour through Kansas City Downtown, which, much to my surprise, is in Missouri! Kansas City, Kansas, is actually in the state Kansas, which is what I expected for the complete city. The home of Diane is, compared to other homes, fairly small, but it contains everything a person would need to live comfortably.
The evening we have spent talking a lot about family, family life and other topics that came to mind. Of course I was knackered after extending a normal 24 hour day with 7 hours, so I went to bed after dinner and was immediately oblivious of what went on in the world. Morning time saw us having breakfast and talking a lot about teaching; how to teach and what not to do during teaching. We were also comparing salaries, requirements and job conditions. Teachers here are mainly paid by the hour, preparation time is not paid. Many teachers hold a part-time job. Diane, my host, prepares her lessons on Sunday (six hours of work!) so at the moment I have some time to start this blog and write the first post!
Today we looked at many parts of Kansas City, Kansas and the suburbs that surround it. You cannot evade history here, so we saw part of the Lewis and Clark trail (http://lewisandclarktrail.com/), a route that is in commemoration of the two people who put the US on the map after Napoleon sold part of the country in his possession to President Jefferson. Then we saw where the Underground Railroad partly took place (http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/underground-railroad); nothing underground and not a railroad as such, but a hub in the route to get slaves that were set free or had escaped from the South to a safe place. Only if they would get above the Mason-Dixon line, they would be in a place where they would be safe and would have a better chance of surviving and having a better life (see for information: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason-Dixonlijn). At some point we came to the statue of John Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)). We would know him from the song with the "Glory, glory, Halleluja" chorus, but actually he was an abolitionist who wanted to start an uprising among slaves. He was found guilty of this and was therefore hanged; later this lead to the secession and the Civil War.
During a one hour tour around Johnson Community College Campus, which stretched to ninety minutes, elsbeth and I learned quite a lot about the college. For instance, students are helped by a group of tutors to finish their writing assignments, but people from the community can use this service too. It helps in persevering and it actually also helps to let the students start a new course or a course on a higher level. Tutors can be other students as a job to earn money, or staff from the college. A student can have help with grammar issues, thesis statement, writing concise sentences or the structure of the thesis.
) and made our way home to do some work again. I am typing this blog during that time and I did some filing work for Diane, which gave me a good insight into the level of proficiency of her students (we would call them NT2-students). 
