Waveplace Blog

Some days are bitter sweet. Days of parting after sharing unexpected closeness are like that. Everyone felt it today. Carolyn and Bill are departing.

The children's lesson began as usual. Carolyn led them through scripting. StartOver. A task. They listened and achieved.

Ruben moved his desk aside and worked on a story about his brother’s birthday party. Cakes with chocolate and vanilla. A piñata. Pigs, swing sets, trucks, and stars rotated, spun. Got named.

Still the real part of the day was the piquancy of parting. A singular hug started it. And then the freedom to hug took over.

In the teacher class it was the same. All thirty lessons were accomplished. At the end of the day everyone scripted siblings able to interact with an object of counter vectors. A school of fish, a convoy of trucks, a swath of ghosts could interact as a group.

Important matters happened in small things like thank you's. That great heartfelt question – "will we meet again?" The joy of sharing.

This morning I had the privilege of hearing Daniel from Chop Point speaking to his mother and father on the phone. He'll be seeing them again tomorrow. Skype was not working quite correctly but they were making assurances about how to find each other. "Maybe I’ll be asleep in the airport," "still I’ll make myself known to you,” said his father.

The stuff of love dawning again and always, each and every day. Have a great first day at school Chop Pointers. And learn from your mentors. Perhaps they have seen things you might not know or seen and vise versa. Share.

Safe travels all. Love to my family too. Let the hugs go round.

Jubilance captures the description of the day. At one pm we heard the far rumble of a bus making its way toward Campo Alegria. Moments later 19 of our students with siblings, mothers and grandmothers tore off the bus near the main hall where we were waiting to welcome them. We gathered outside and Bill made introductory remarks and introduced Carolyn and myself to the crowd. We then invited them inside where tables were arranged in a u-pattern for the children with chairs situated behind so that family members could look on as their “computer whiz’s” showed off their new...

Six am we made for the beach to try to meet the fishermen setting out on the lake in pursuit of their daily livelihood. Bill had hopes of filming them in their preparations and launching of their vessel. As I had suspected we were too late. Five am is the hour. Still we met Will, a Nicaraguan from up north, who was rather familiar with English as he left for Miami in 1979 after his brother was killed at the start of the war. He was happy to practice his English and engaged us in his tale of his experiences...

Today I taught my first lesson to the children with David as translator. We felt it was time to begin the transition from Carolyn delivering all the lessons in Spanish to a new format that will feature a collaborative teaching approach in the weeks ahead. Carolyn and Bill will be leaving Monday of next week and the new mentors will have completed all 30 training lessons. From then on the mentors will take on the primary responsibility of presenting the material with my support and facilitation. By the end of the pilot the goal is that all of the mentors...

Today began with an initial review of yesterdays lesson. Many of the children had some difficulty getting their sketch to advance and turn to reach a target located in a opposite position on the top or the bottom of the page -- perhaps a fish diving into a lake below. After the review they set about it once again. By experimenting with increasing in increments the amount of turn most were able to accomplish this task. As time began running out two of the children independently discovered an innovative approach to solve the problem -- simply move the target to...

Today began with an outdoor activity designed to give the children a physical experience of being a sketch on the page responding to commands to advance and turn. Outdoors in the school courtyard the children were supplied with a paper compass to refer to determine the correct angle to turn upon command. As commands were called out groups of children responded to them intersecting and navigating the courtyard parameters. Despite the hot sun the children happily participated in the exercise. They responded well to determining the angle of turn and proudly strutted out their paces. Once in the classroom, the...

Today marks the beginning of week 2 of our pilot sans Jonathan and Daniel our two volunteer mentors from Camp Alegria. They need to get back to their obligations at the camp and then will be headed back home to the US. We are all grateful for their capable, good humored and helpful presence. They were a tremendous asset the first week. To fill their absence Patrick, a Peace Corps volunteer, has come on board. I hope that his involvement will prove beneficial to the ongoing sustainability of the project, as he will be in Nicaragua for another 11 months....

There were no absences today even though it was Saturday. The children were gathered at the school dressed in their uniforms and eager to start another lesson. They were introduced to the halo tool and the children were pleased to learn how to further manipulate their sketches. They practiced resizing, by both retaining the scale and not, duplicating, rotating, repainting and discarding. We had decided to first present the children with each tool through demonstration and then to have them experiment with the new tools by creating a pond and a fish. They appreciated that it was easier to draw...

The morning wind was blowing steady as Carolyn, Bill and I struck out on our first horseback ride on the shore of Lake Nicaragua. It had been far too many years for Bill or I to comfortably mention since our last equestrian experiences, and just a few for Carolyn. Once astride we coax our horses to head down the beach. It was easily apparent that the horses were far more in charge then we were. Heading back towards the camp Bill and Carolyn’s horses found the road that led back to their pasture and headed home. I circled back and...

All of the children were anxiously waiting in the gated courtyard when we pulled up to the school. We greeted them and their exuberance for a few moments until Marcial arrived and unlocked the classroom. Once inside they quickly scrambled to their desks eager to claim their computer for the second time. Without prompting or need for instruction they powered up and were ready to begin etoys lesson 1. For a better view of Carolyn's screen they moved their desks to form semi-circles radiating out from her and dove into the lesson. Once again the number of mentors facilitated the...