Another
early morning getting to Kansas East High for coaching of one of the teachers.
Again kids came in and had to do their work, but this time the girls running
team had won the cross-country run the day before. This was announced during
class time and everybody started clapping! After this, even the principal came
in and gave his congratulations. It was his birthday too and then everybody
clapped again. That was nice! We talked to the teacher for a bit during the
break, but then we had to rush to the JCCC campus because I was going to have
lunch and a visit in Indepence, MO, with Elsbeth and Janette from the
International Education.
This is a
small town not far from Kansas City, MO, and we started by visiting the Court
House, that did not function as such anymore. The tourist office was there,
were we got to know that Lees Summit, a small town in between Kansas City and
Independence wasnt named after General Lee from the Confederates, but after a
citizen who lived there and was killed during the period that Kansas and
Missouri were in a bloody feud about the choice for a slave state or a free
state. We had a lovely lunch at Ophelias, a luxureous restaurant in
Independence, after which we went to visit the Truman Library. This was an
impressive building, on a hill, from local lime stone, quite surpringly built
in a tucked away part of a park. When we stepped into the hall, there was another
surprise: a Thomas Hart Benton, from one wall to the other, as high as the ceiling!
It appears he was commissioned to do this work in his later years, but it was
strong and powerfull nonetheless. The exhibition was really interesting,
covering the last two years of WW2 until now. We learned more about the Greek
and Turkish position during and after WW2, and became more knowledgeable on the
topic of the Cold War in the USA. I knew the country went through a difficult
period then, but I started to understand it better. It was interesting to see
the difference between the States and Europe in development, and we saw the
working of the Marshallplan too. To our and Janettes surprise, Truman wanted
to change the health care system, but this was voted away by his opponents. There
was even more that he wanted to reform, but here the opponents were stronger
too. The exhibition ended whith many people quoting what he once had said. That
was interesting. We had no time left to walk in the park, so we were in time at
the ESL classes and I went to work with Diane. I was tired, though, and so I was
glad the day was over.
A three hour drive to Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri. We were going to give a presentation to some of Diane and Sarah's co-workers in the State Department of Education. But first we had a quick tour around the Governor's Mansion, as you'ld expect a nice home, overseeing the River Missouri, with lots of elaborately carved wooden doors and window sills. Also chandeliers, portraits of the governors and their wives and many other nice artifacts, spacious rooms and lovely carpets. The governor and family still live there, but their rooms are on the top floors, so they are not disturbed by the public. We had dinner at a cafee, with one of the staff members, Jaya Bashir, who is originally from Senegal. He could tell us a lot about his home country and Elsbeth had lived there for some time, so we had an animated conversation. After the lunch, we went to the State Department of Education and presented to the staff members. Elsbeth went first and she gave an overview of the ESL education in the Netherlands from the 60s till now. My presentaton went well too, and after handing out our presents we were brought to the Capitol, which is the House of Representatives and the House of Senators. Again, a very spacious building, made from local lime stone in which you could still see some fossils. A guided tour, the guide could explain a lot to us about the building and the people who work here and why there is so much art in this particular building. One room especially was interesting: the room were the representatives could rest. Completely covered in a painting by Thomas Hart Benton! Again, he made the picture in his own style, representing the history of the state Missouri. He left nothing out, and that is why the painting nearly was white-washed, because some people only wanted to have the nice parts of the history there. Since the painting was paid for by the taxpayers, they could not spend the money and then cover it all up, so the painint survived to be seen to this day. Luckily, because wherever you look, the history is expressed in nice colours, stylized individuals and from ceiling to seating. Amazing! We could visit the actual assembly hall of the Representatives, which was impressive because of the stained glass windows, the large painting of the first World War and the seating arrangement of the Representatives.
We went to get some gas after that, because we had to take the trip back to Kansas City, KS; we stopped at the Dutch Kountry Shop, but sadly there was no product from the Netherlands to be seen. Even the Halloween-themed "hagelslag" was sugar, disappointingly. But well....
Coming to Kansas City, we had a tour of Sarah's apartment and the home Elsbeth stays in, Janice's place, and then we went to my "home away from home" to have some dinner (lovely spaghetti) and talk some more and put our bodies and mind to sleep.
On Monday, 26-10, I was taken to the Missouri Office by Sarah; Diane was there already from 6:30 on. I was appointed my own desk and had a good go on the blog and my presentation, that should be given the day after. I watched Diane prepare a very large project,t hat has to be done when I am home again. The amount of planning and the detailed information she was gathering again struck me as very important! I talked to some other staff members to find out about the ways teacher training is done and how they handle professional development after graduation. Very interesting to see how this works. There are differences, for instance, we have a set budget for professional development, but here it is up to the school directors how they deal with that. Schools are financed by the results students show, so the director or principal knows that performance is of the utmost importance, yet they do not always set money aside for professinal development or the teachers that are asked to go do not feel like it. Also, new Americans are placed in schools, no matter what, so there are no "Schakelklassen" as we know them. The students have to be trained in English in the school they go to after moving to the States, so teachers are faced with students who sometimes have no clue what the teachers are asking them; some of them cannot even read or write in their own language!
We decided to leave early to go to a stained glass shop, which proved to be closed. That was a pity, but luckily people were working there on the structure, so we were invited to come in and have a peak. I know my Sinterklaas and Christmas present now! I bought a pair of plyers to bring home, they cut through the lead far easier than the knives I have. Lovely.
We went to the ELL classes and the adult students again made me enjoy their efforts to learn the language. They had a nice program to have them talk and write about medication and how to take it, the outcome was a set of flipover sheets with sentences that were corrected by another group. We hung them in the classroom and the students were really proud! We were tired, so we just had some bread and took to bed.
Saturday and Sunday we were taken to the Flint Hills, an area of grassland, called the prairie. We felt in America at that point and could see where some famous films acutally copied the background. Only 4% is left of the original prairie, and very few bisons or buffaloos are left, but still it was an impressive sight. The highlight was a walk on this prairie, where you felt it was endless and the prairie would go on and on and on. It must have been difficult to live here for settlers, making a life for themselves with so few neighbours. The Native Americans were having to deal with this treck westwards of the new inhabitants. They were pushed westwards, their normal way of life destroyed and many of them died of diseases formerly unknown to them. We saw a memorial in the form of a tree (there were very few trees on the prairie) where people placed messages in a hole in the tree for the ones that came after them; it served as a post office, and later they actually build a post office next to it. We also saw the Madonna of the Prairie, a commemoration to the wives of the settlers, that had to be very strong and resourceful to survive in this world.
For me, one of the highlights of this trip was the stay at our B&B, where we found ourselves in the midst of this prairieland and we had a fantastic ride in a wagon over the prairie to see the sun go down. A magnificent show of colours was displayed by nature, and we took a lot of picture. After a dinner prepared by the hosts, and a talk about the cowboys and the way they lived, we went on the wagon again and had a look at the nearly full moon and all the starts. It was a bit hazy, so there was a big circle around the moon, but the stars had difficulty to shine through the haze. Later, when I went to see the outdoors during the night, there were no clouds, so I saw a vast array of stars, because there was no artificial light for miles to pollute the night sky. It was could, though, freezing even, so I did not stand there for too long. In bed again, I heard coyotes and other wild life roam around the cabins, which was very different to what I am used to! The morning woke us with lovely sunshine and frozen fields, long shadows and the horses that were taken for a ride by American tourists: they had a trailer to bring their horses and would come to places like this to make nice trips on horse backs. We had our breakfast in the sun, warming our backs. It was so lovely, we stayed there longer than planned. Eventually we went into the car again and visited local places of interest: an old bridge, a court house, memorial statues reminding everybody of the Santa Fé trail and small, typical American towns (one very broad main street, shops lining the streets and a school plus post office).
Another museum for the Flint Hills, which is in Manhattan, KS, also called the Little Apple, was visited and we found out that our host on this trip, Faral, is of a well-regarded family that is very busy keeping the history of the Flint Hills alive. Her dad had given us the speech and songs about the Flint Hills, her brother hosted us at the farm cum B&B and she took us to all these places. Part of her job has to do with preservation of Flint Hills history as well. We were in good hands! As everything comes to an end, so did this and we took the three hour trip back to Kansas City to be welcomed by our hosts. Diane had prepared dinner, and after that we went to the ice cream parlour to have a lovely dessert!
Another day
out! We went to see a Roastery, a place where they roast, blend and taste coffee,
to be shipped anywhere across the world. We had a tour around the fairly small
factory. They roast their coffee beans using hot air, which makes it a more
even and more gradual roasting, resulting in a very nice taste of the coffee.
Because this process cannot be done in large amounts, it is difficult for big
companies to do this, so the smaller companies have can do this more easily.
That way, they can cater to small amounts of specially ordered coffee too.
Another thing that needs to be done for Americans, is to add flavour to your
coffee. For the best results, this should be done immediately after roasting,
and they do this by spraying the flavour on the still warm beansm, the pores
are still open then and the flavour is infused into the beans. Of course, other
people just like their coffee roasted. We could not picture the actual process
of roasting and blending due to the secrecy of the process, but we certainly
tried the coffee after the tour. It was indeed lovely coffee, and they taught
us the difference between filtering coffee and pressing it through a sieve. The
airplane at the top of the building is a symbol of the hot air roasting, but
also of the fast delivery of the coffee: roasted today, put on transport the
same day, reaching destination not later than 24 hours later.
Then, to
make things nice for us, we went to eat at a Mexican restaurant and had lovely quessadillas,
enchilladas and so on. Everything served five minutes after ordering, which
is amazing. Everything here is in Haloween mood, so here there were some
frightening witches too.
Another
treat is to go to the chocolate factory, where the handmade bonbons are on
display, some as shiny as a car that is polished extremely well. For the
Haloween occasion there were scary bonbons and for the Royals there were
white and blue ones. The price was abominable, though: 2 dollars per piece.
Luckily you could try the ones that had gone wrong, which actually were fine
but didnt look too nice. Taste was fine, though, so no problem there!
And then:
the brewery! We had a tour around the brewery, were a lot of beer is made with
very diferent tastes and strongness. Regarded as a small brewery, they had to
join a bigger company and did not like to join the very big ones, so to our
surprise we discovered that they were taken over by the Belgium brewery Duvel
(pronounced as doevél). There are actually Belgian employees working their, to
get the American Duvel to taste exactly like the Belgian one. After the tour we
were taken to the balcony, where we had a lovely view of Downtown Kansas City.
The best part was the tasting of the beers: we were with four people and could
sample 8 beers, and so we did! Luckily the glasses were made to size, so we did
not get drunk!
We went to
see the only WW1 museum in the States, which was impressive. We didnt go in,
so I have to go there another time. After this, it was back to business because
we sat in at a training for teachers that are already teaching. They had a
training to make them aware of the differences in culture between American kids
and immigrant-, regugee- and migrant children. They were also made aware of the
tests these kids have to take, how they are placed in the English Learner
Program and the problems that kids can have just doing their homework. Very
impressive to see how Diane and her colleague Sarah had put up the information
and had planned the whole three hours.
After that,
it was more than enough and we went home, had a spagetthi squash evening meal
and went to get some deserved rest.
You cannot
go to Kansas and avoid having a look at the cows and the sheep and the
Homestead Farms, so we were happy that one of our hosts lives on a working
farm and she was willing to show this all to us (a working farm is in
opposition to a luxury farm, where people only live to enjoy the outdoors for
pleasure). Susan and her husband live on a farm and the house is partly
original from the time the first homesteads were built. This was a process
where you staked a claim on one of the 160 acre lots that were appointed, and
then you had to build a house of at least 3 by 4 meters. After you farmed this
lot and had the farm house for five years, you would own your lot. This all
happened in 1862, and there are still families living on these farms that were
started by their descendants. Although Susan and Greg bought their farm, they
are still very proud about it. The farmhouse is extended during the years, but
still is fairly modest in size and decoration; just like a normal family. The
cows are lovely, as are the sheep, who are just for fun. They showed us all the
nice partst of the farm, told us about the Homestead Act and clarified that
most would-be-farmers did not have to run to their property, contrary to the
many times that we seem to come across this one time event in the Netherlands.
John Brown
had a headquarter close to Osawatomie, a place where a battle took place
because he was against slavery (abolitionist) and others were in favour of it.
These rivals were trying to get the vote on being a Free State (no slavery
allowed) or being a Slave State towards their own point of view, no matter what
it took to get there. Things were violent and ugly at that time. In Osawatomie
a battle took place between both factions, and the town was ruined. This battlefield
is preserved and this headquarters is preserved within a new structure and can
be visited by the public. The tour guide was very knowledgeable and we would
have stayed there far longer, if the schedule had permitted this. But we went
to see Gregs other cows in another field and visited a cooperative farm store,
where we bought lots of stuff! Then we went to the Barn Sale, a place open on
Friday for lunch. Not for tourist, mainly, but for the farmers that are going
to sell cattle in todays auction. We had some lovely home-made food and went
in to see the auction, which to us was very interesting to see. It is indeed a
grave business to sell or buy cattle, because the sustainability of your farm
depends on it. Very characteristic faces to be seen! The Barn Sale was clearly
meant for people doing business, so we left them at it to do the fun stuff:
wine tasting! In a place like Kansas there was not too much wine growing, but
in the last ten years some people took up this challenge; they did a good job,
because the wines were tasty, heady, colourful, dry or sweet, but generally enjoyable
to taste. We had some cheese to go with it (American Gouda is very different to
the Dutch variety; say Goeda, btw) and we loved the experience. We drank 12
types of wine and had some cider as well, so you can imagine the effect they
had!
Back to the
JCCC, to be taken by our hosts to dinner. Except, Diane and I went to a very
small cinema to watch the movie Grandma. After this very enjoyable experience
we went to see the KC Royals, wo this time did a lot better, which made it
necessary to light fireworks! We had a nice slice of a pizza that was as large
as a wagon wheel; we saw no reason though to join other people celebrating the
win of the Royals, because we were tired and just went to bed!
I was brought to the local museum, the Nelson, to have lunch
with a staff member of JCCC International Education, Faral, and with my
fellow-traveller. We had a very nice lunch, with an arry of bright colours that
stimulated the palate very pleasingly and then went to see the exhibition of
Thomas Hart Bentons work, a painter who started painting backgrounds for the
silent Hollywood movies, but progressed to painting about and against social events
that happened. For instance I found the paintings done during the Second World
War very powerful and impressive. We werent allowed to take pictures, so here
is a picture of one of the paintings that hung amongst the regularly exhibited
pieces. After the 46 lynching sprees this was painted to show that life would
continue, even though it was made even harder because of the killings. We had a
very nice time in the museum, but it was way too short to see everything. We
chose to go to the Asian and Native-American part, which both held very nice
specimens of these peoples. I loved a cloth on which figures were drawn that
represented the arrest and killing of Sitting Bull, a name we all know in the
Netherlands. It was also very much in your face so to speak, because the way
the Native-Americans were treated is regarded as very unfair and unlawful.
People are really aware of this, although it is not easy to make amends, or to
change things for the Native-Americans of today. It was therefore a very
poignant piece of art too.
After that Faral dropped me at the JCCC school were Englis
lessons were to take place. Diane was getting ready to prepare the evening
lesson of the day: adult learners of English. Luckily I was able to help her
out with doing small jobs. I enjoyed this 3-hour lesson, partly because I was
able to participate as an assistant teacher and I saw good examples of working
together in the classroom to enhance the knowledge about the topic at hand. It
is very interesting to say the least, to see that Diane, my host, prepares her
lessons very well, but still is in the classroom two hours before the actual
lesson. She prepares the room meticulously and knows exactly where materials
should be placed and what she wants to achieve with the methods she uses. This
is awesome for me to witness, not only because the students are willing to
learn, but also because you as a teacher know your goal and you work towards it
(you might recognise the difference with the style that I sometimes use!)
Then, when it was time to go home, we went to watch a part
of the match between the Kansas City Royals and the Toronto V-Jays. To our
dismay, things went very wrong that evening, so we left the bar after having a
fried pickle and a beer. Time to sleep, then.
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). 
