The Great God Bird

In the delta sun, down in Arkansas,
It's the great god bird with its altar call,
And the sewing machine, the industrial god,
On the great bayou where they saw it fall.

It's the great god bird, down in Arkansas,
And the hunters beware, or the fishers fall,
And paradise might close from it's safe flight flawed,
It's the great god bird through it all.

And the watchers beware, lest they see it fall,
And paradise might laugh when at last it falls,
And the sewing machine, the industrial god,
It's the great god bird with it's altar call.

Yes, it's the great god bird with its altar call,
Yes, it's the great god bird through it all!

Sinestesia

A ver como te lo digo,
Es como ver el mundo por los oídos,
Saborear lo que se esta cocinando con los ojos,
Palpar las texturas de las sinfonías de Stravinsky,
Oir la melodía de cada cuadro en exhibición,
Y oler las salidas y puestas del sol.

Es una curiosa condición,
Pero al ver las cosas diferente que a los demás
Resulta ser una gran bendición.

Maracuyá

Las noches en Costa Rica
Empiezan a saber a maracuyá.
Fruta fresca,
Dulce delicia,
Sabor a paz y lluvia fuerte.
Quien diría,
Como me sorprenderías
Costa Rica. 

Legalism and other thoughts

The Legalist way is not the way to life.

The Legalist way is not a way of life.

So my late 20s has been a time of considerable reflection in my life and faith. A lot has happened ever since I've been around Christian institutions and seeing the realities of our times. A lot of questions have been raised when I see what is happening around and the dubious behaviour of individuals in these institutions.

-Maybe it was the time when the leader of the church asked me for money when I got sick from Africa. And asking me to delete that email afterwards so that the congregation would not find out.

-Maybe it was the Salvadorean Pastor who appeared in the newspapers headlines after being caught in a motel having an affair with one of the churchgoers.

-And many more 'hypocrisy revealing acts' that I have witnessed throughout my life.

Yes, yes. I get it. It's human nature. We are all prone to sin. Yes, Yes. No one is perfect. Yadda...yadda...

But what truly irks me is that these individuals or institutions shame other individuals with their legalistic preaching and self-righteous ways. Thou shalt not wear nail polish or make up. But they have all the right to talk behind people's back and backstab them. Thou shalt not commit adultery or have sex before marriage, yet they are the ones committing those sins behind closed doors and begging forgiveness and compassion when their actions are brought into light.

These individuals preach legality, encourage legality and live by legality. Yet there is no ethos. No actions to back up their words. There is little to no love for those who have sinned and are wounded by life's blows. 

And this leads to this thought: Legality does not bring life or love to anyone. Legality only brings scorn, shame, fear and separation. It only brings people to constantly measure themselves and others for nothing but some empty approval.

An approval that means nothing. Absolutely nothing.

No wonder did Jesus warn us about the Saducees and Pharisees in the Gospels. No wonder his ministry was so focused in revealing their hypocrisy and their hearts...because there are so many of them nowadays. 

Anyways, enough of my ramblings. It is late and there is much to do in the morrow...

Year End Reflections

I asked my students to write year-end reflections today. Looking back, this school year has been filled of mixed moments - moments of genuine joy when I see students learn about themselves and moments of frustration when I struggled with some of the student's indifferent attitude. This year's experience has significantly shaped me as an educator and as a person. I am determined to become an educator that will empower students with useful skills for life and create meaningful experiences and connections for them.

Below are some blog entries from my students:

1. It’s the end of the school year, something amazingly surprising. It almost seems like it was yesterday when we were picking lockers and meeting all the teachers, when we were all following each other because we didn’t know what class or hall was each and were very lost. I still remember that day, and when I look back at everything that happened this year I get shocked and can’t believe that this year is already going to close. And although I don’t have a very interesting social or drama life, for me, this year still contained many experiences and memories that I will remember. Some of these experiences I know shaped me and will determine my future, and others that are more personal will remain as precious memories but still affected the person that I am today.

I think that the experiences that I said will shape me and my future all start with Ms. Chang. Since the beginning of the year she has been an amazing teacher and my thoughts on her definitely never changed. The MUN that she organized for the class made me discover my passion for human rights and debating and later made me enter the real MUN, and so far I’m completely loving it and getting unimaginable success when I thought I wasn’t going to do good. I think being in MUN is the greatest academic achievement and experience of this year that will definitely define eight grade for me, so in the future whenever I think of eight grade or the year of 2016-2017, I’m going to think of my first time being in MUN. Honestly, I don’t think that MUN is going to be a temporal thing in my life, especially with all the success and fun that I’m getting out of it, recently I’ve been thinking of becoming a delegate or ambassador but I still haven’t decided that for sure because I have other dreams and aspirations. My biggest achievement of this year also had to do with MUN, so far I have only gone to three conferences and I have already won two awards, a verbal mention and a best delegate, which was honestly one of the happiest moments of my life that I thought I was never going to have.

I feel like I’ve been talking about MUN for a long time now so now I’m going to move on, but to resume this, thank you Ms. Chang for being a great teacher, my favorite, and doing all of the projects that made me learn something amazing about myself, I will sure miss you, you taught me a lot of great things that I’ll need and use in the future. The final thing that I’m going to be talking about is three things that I learned this year, it was quite a lot of things but I’ll pick three of the main ones. This year I learned a lot about acceptance and self-identity, about friendship and that you always need to look at the bright side, have hope and always give your best. This was a school year that I will definitely remember. 

2. My reflection this year is to live your life like you want to live it. You should never regret anything in life. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience. Something that I will remember forever is the happy and sad moments that I have been going through with my friends and classmates. Something that we did this year that I will remember for the rest of my life is when we went to the amusement park with all middle school and high school. In general, in life I have accomplish so many things that I am proud of, but this is the main one: I work so hard to pass eight grade with good grades.

Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. The most challenging part of this year for me was the debates we did with Ms. Chang, because I am a very shy person and I’m a nervous person when it comes to talking in front of a crowd. If I could change one thing that happened this year, would be my language. Something that was hard for me at the start of the year but is easy now is my writing, now I can express myself easier in my writing. In an area that I feel I made my biggest improvements was in English because Ms. Chang help me to better my English. A person at our school that has made the biggest impact in my life were my friends and Ms. Chang because they help me to better myself in a good way. Something that the teacher could have done to make this year better was to go to more field trips. My advice that I could give students next year is to work harder. Don’t allow someone to make you feel like you’re not good enough. 
3. 

Ms Chang's Top Teaching Moments

The school year is finally coming to an end. And as much as I love my students and teaching, there were certainly moments of crazy frustration. But nevertheless, this has been one of my most rewarding years teaching Language Arts and Social Studies. Here are my top teaching moments in Costa Rica so far:

Entrepreneurship Project:
Ever since the inception of the project, students got so excited and competitive. I didn't fully realize the extent of the impact of this project until I read some of my students' blog entry. This proves that education is effective when meaningful experiences and connections are made. This unit helped me realize the importance of creating meaningful experiences that would 'awaken' students' strengths and talents. Below is an excerpt of a students' blog entry.

"Since I was a kid, I’ve always had talents within me that I’m starting to realize now. For example, I never knew that I could handle a business the way that I did in the entrepreneurship project. I never thought that I could finance projects and get two times the profit. I never knew that I could be a leader and enjoy making new projects and ideas. I guess I’m innovative, creative, open minded, hardworking, tough, and most importantly, I set goals to myself. Aside from these talents, I know that I need to develop new talents so that I can become an engineer or a business man. I can develop new talents that I will learn during my years of study and dedication. I think that these two careers are the ones for me, I like building and creating stuff, I like managing my own businesses, I like numbers, and many other things."  
 
An Inspector Calls:
There is nothing more rewarding for a Language Arts teacher walking into a room full of teenagers begging to read. Literally Begging. "Ms Chang, can we PLEASEEE read today." There is something magical about connecting literature to the mundane and to real-life drama, and seeing students taking pleasure in it. 

A Passion for Debate and Public Speaking:
I introduced my students to Model United Nations and the Classic Debate earlier on during the school year. Students spent weeks doing research and learning how to structure arguements and counter arguments. Some students went on to participate Model United Nations in other schools. My proudest moment was when I learned that one of my students won Top Delegate in one of the Model United Nations at one of the best schools. And one of my other proudest moment was when students asked me to practice their debating skills in my classroom during lunch time. Seeing them voluntarily discuss about Women's rights, Domestic Violence, Religion during their free time made me literally cry internal tears of joy.

All in all, I have really come to see education as a way to empower and to equip students for the future. They need to be challenged to grow, nurture skills for real-life situations and to step out of their comfort zone.

Milk and Honey

I have been lately obsessed with Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey -honest, minimalistic poetry that takes you to so many places of the heart. 

Those teaching moments

That moment when your students gather in a circle, under a tree to practice their MUN debate voluntarily while you are doing duty. "Roll Call". "Moderated caucus". "China you have the floor." "5 seconds." There is nothing more rewarding than to see their growth, enthusiasm and skills flourish so beautifully. Nothing more rewarding than to see them happy and growing.