Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Readers Theaters with Love and Mouses

 The only problem I can really solve is English illiteracy, but even then, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Take, for example, the readers’ theater review I was asked to do at a middle school in Taiping. I planned to not say anything negative with a few weeks left before the contest but the lead EFL teacher there rubbed me wrong. My pedagogical competence took over.  I have to learned not to go where I'm not wanted. 
     The assignment at the middle school in Taiping was simple; watch the troupe perform the skit I had been sent a few days earlier. It was only a few weeks before the contest so I promised myself I would only comment on pronunciation and intonation abnormalities. It was easy to have that policy in Yun-lin a few weeks ago as the skit the children did was one I had heavily edited and returned three months ago; they had done their homework, saw "The Wizard of Oz" movie, and had been practicing it all but the intonation and pronunciation. 
     My job was simple and to the point, but, I was to discover,  the script sent for the day's assignment had terminal problems, namely, the passive  theme of a teacher correcting her students' grammar in the course of finding the 'thief' that stole one's lunch was misguided. Why?  Because though  'count' and 'no-count' nouns was the stated premise, the examples used for humorous interludes were 'singular' and 'plural' irregular forms.I sat and listened to the troupe do their skit, making marks on my copy about pronunciation and intonation abnormalities. 
     Amazingly, the discrepancy in the script's 'instructional objective' didn't become apparent to me at first until one on their staff took exception to a question I had concerning one snippet of musical chorus someone had added, "We will we will rock you," directed at the mouse or mice that nibbled at a student's lunch. My concern was detoured to the 'teachable moment'; "Mouses" which was corrected to "mice" unnecessarily because only one was the culprit. I understood the concern of the black-masked EFL teacher, and by intuition knew it was she that had written the script in the first place, and understood her intention. That's was when it dawned on me the erroneous inside joke. 
     The teachers, actual and characterized, were incorrect. 'Mice' is not a count or no count noun; it's the plural from of 'mouse.' A regular count noun can have an 's' or 'es' added to make it plural while a non-count must have a measure word put before it to count; for example, 'a glass of water'. The plural of 'glass' is 'glasses' but 'water' has no plural because it is a non-count noun. In the same way, 'mice' is the plural form and needs no measure word to make it countable. Most of the ten teachers present at the audition, of the teachers sat stunned, others insulted that I corrected them. I explained that, correct grammar wasn't the issue to the judges, anyway, because of their own deficiency in English as a Foreign Language; there would be no native-language English teachers on the judging panel and their error wouldn't be noticed, I said, but that only drove the foot into my mouth deeper. 

      











The next day, participating in the assembly at the school in Tong-Feng Middle School in Nan-tun went off without a hitch or incident; nothing to write a blog about. I listened to a troupe's meaningless regurgitation of what love is with the choruses of "I Will Follow Him" and "Go On" from Titanic sung; not worth analysis. I then heard four classes do the Little Peggy March song chorus with varying degrees of primitive choreography. The kids looked happy. Their eyes widened when I was asked to sing it and I did so including the verses and the coda. I looked happy. The teacher in charge asked me to say something about NYC, a place she visited in '07. I compared it to Taichung, the latter always better with regard to newness, cleanliness, and quietness, and students' interest in learning EFL. I wasn't exaggerating. 


     
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

Li-Ming MS Wins 3rd Place Readers Theater


      “That’s more like it,” is what I could say after visiting the “Lace Up Against Bullying” troupe at Li-Ming Middle School, Dali, Taiwan on October 24, 2019. Sunny, who I've worked with on Readers' Theaters the past few years, was there to met us at the gate. She brought us up to the rehearsal room where two  colleagues producing this year’s skit, were busy rehearsing with the troupe of seven girls and a boy. They asked me for and I offered them pizzazz for their production. My mind was racing even as we rode up the elevator, but I held back and didn’t offer suggestions until they asked me. After Tuesday’s foot in the mouth by saying too much about another school’s script, I was being conservative, though I knew Sunny’s team had open minds and were not afraid of criticism.
     We had gone back to Dali for two hours at Sunny's school reviewing their readers theater on the heady topic of bullying; thankfully, Sunny's colleagues picked up the mantle of meaningful readers theater scripting. They had covered child labor and cell phone addiction in the past. 

Read about Li-Ming in last year's "Rush of Rehearsals" 

 I signaled my intention immediately upon meeting the students and staff and being seated with strong black coffee and cake; I wanted to know why they had chosen shoe laces as the motif against bullying and why the laces were purple and orange, but then, I sat back and asked to watch the troupe perform so I could hear their pronunciation and intonation and see their body language.  After a few minor suggestions, I asked the director man what he would like. He said the script was too plain and had no power at the end. I played for him the song I was singing on my way up the elevator: “Free Your Mind” by En Vogue, the 1992 hip-hop rock hit. The song is about prejudice, the heart of bullying. It is a fight-back anthem, and perfect to make their theme more poignant. I injected, at three junctures in the script, a character or narrator singing, “Why oh why must it be this way?” and ended the script with the troupe singing: “Before you can read me you have to learn how to see me, I said, free your mind and the rest will follow, be color-blind, don’t be so shallow, free your mind-mind-mind-mind mind-mind thump.” 

I wondered why they used laces for solidarity with the victim (she was bullied because of wearing one purple and one shoe lace; not very realistic) as symbols against bullying when it was too small to be seen and didn’t make a statement. Wear long rainbow socks, I said, and make a stand against the major cause of bullying; one’s sexual orientation. The socks could be rolled down by all except the victim through the performance and then rolled up and exposed to show solidarity and confront the bully. The director thought that was a good idea. The title should be “Dressing Up Against Bullies” or “Socking It to Bullies” if they get the idiom. What is left to do is add pantomime and body language; they must express what they say physically. I was gladdened when I was invited back this Thursday to see how much progress they had made and to give more advice. Not much has to be changed in the script but some children are cast incorrectly. For example, the shortest meek girl, who has very few lines to begin with, should be the victim of bullying instead of the tall more assertive girl. Also, they can’t have the bus driver playing two opposite roles. With the topical theme, good pronunciation, intonation, and musical interlude and finale, they could win after all, but they have a ways to go; they should have contacted me sooner.

After my my revisions to their script, Li-Ming won third place in their division in Taichung!  I had  lost two opportunities to be instrumental in readers’ theater outcomes; my baby, “The Wizard of Oz”, wasn’t put into my hands sooner, either, but the school didn't request any more assistance from me, unlike Li-Ming.  The third troupe Id' seen, burdened with arrogant direction and oblivious to my concerns, had no spirit from within and lost, as did the silly “What is Love”, but they didn't expect to win, anyway; it is the English experience that matters most. 

Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Going Bananas at Da-Yung Elementary School



Day-O Banana Song

相關圖片

     The morning of November 15, 2019 at the elementary school couldn't have been better. The children were amazing, the staff and principal were cordial, Leona helped me set up, and Simone, Samantha, and Ted had a great time. Samantha was so cute sitting down on the auditorium floor in front of the classes brought in for the assembly program I conducted about "Bananas".  Ted took some fabulous photos of his daughter schmoozing with the students. Samantha was happy and the children loved seeing the
 

yang-wa-wa with me. The program went over without a hitch. The children sang their three-part "Day-O" pretty well and had a ball. The first group of perhaps five hundred first to third graders randomly had seventeen go onto the stage with white boards to answer questions about bananas; a correct single word answer earned them a candy. The second group of three hundred forth to sixth graders sang "Day-O", too and participated in a panel of experts’ two seventeen-student groups but had to write complete sentence answers to my questions. The second group also heard my "Jack and the Banana Stalk" story ad libbed with a twist in the plot that surprised me, too; the giant banana that grew from the plant Jack traded for with his cow harvested slices of banana that were gold coins. At the close of the assembly, the principal awarded me with a certificate and a gift bag. We took group photos and everyone was happy. Simone and Ted got an excellent example of what I do for the publisher on outreach assignments. 

Lyrics: 

Day o! Day o!
Daylight come and me wanna go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day o
Daylight come and me wanna go home

Work all night on a drink a rum
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Stack banana till the morning come
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Come mister tally man tally me banana
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Come mister tally man tally me banana
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Day, me say day o
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

A beautiful bunch of ripe banana
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Hide the deadly black tarantula
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)


Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Day, me say day o
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Come mister tally man tally me banana
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Come mister tally man tally me banana
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Day! Day o!
(Daylight come and me wanna go home)
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day, me say day o

(Daylight come and me wanna go home)

Sing Along

Group 1
Day-O, Day-O

Group 2

Daylight comes and we want to go home

Group 3

six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch


1. Bananas are harvested by hand. When the fruit is ripe the stems are cut down and wet sponges are placed in between the bananas to protect them.
2. The bananas are then covered in blue bags to keep insects away. 
3. Then they are carried by cable across the fields to be washed and packed.
4. The banana is a perennial plant that replaces itself. Bananas do not grow from a seed but from a bulb or rhizome.
5. It takes 9 to 12 months from sowing a banana bulb to harvesting the fruit. ... The plants need rich, dark and fertile soils with steady moisture in the air and ground and good drainage.
6. Home growers will harvest the fruit 7-14 days prior to ripening on the plant. Once they know that it is time for banana tree harvesting, they use a sharp knife and cut the “hands” off.
7. Exposure to light after harvest makes banana skin brown. Therefore, the fruit should be protected from light.
8. Harvesting bananas at night would be the best way to limit their exposure to light.

Jack and the Banana Stalk

There was a boy named Jack. Jack's mother had no money. She gave Jack a cow and told him to sell it at the market. He sold the cow for a banana stalk. He brought it home and put it in the ground. The next day, the banana stalk grew up to the sky. Jack climbed the stalk and found an eight-foot bunch of bananas at the top. He took one home and cut it into slices. Each slice was a gold coin. 
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

Saturday, October 19, 2019

The School that Laid An Egg

o

     I got one more essay to add to my book of  Winning Essays yesterday as I edited a recitation for a young man named Oscar from a middle school in Hu-Wei, Taiwan. Someone adapted the Crocodile and Hen folktale, relatives because they both lay eggs, and how the hen saves her life by reminding her predator to this fact of nature; they are brother and sister. The story was solid but it didn't flow or rhyme until I started editing it. There are only a few weeks left before the contest but if Oscar listens to the story as i read and recorded and mimics me, it is only his diction and body language that would get in the way of his winning. 
「The Crocodile and the Hen」的圖片搜尋結果     Why, in the name of English gnomes, don't teachers realize that, no matter how well they did in Taiwan universities, it is imperative to have a native speaker review a work before committing it to a student to memorize? Here I am, at their service, free of charge whether or not they buy textbooks from the publishing agent that contacts me, but they wait until it is too late to do anything about it. They sabotage their students' chances of doing well, perhaps even winning a contest? 
     So, here it is, for anyone who wishes to share it with their charge, my edited version of "The Alligator and the Hen":


            Good morning dear judges and fellow students. The story I will share with you is “Why a crocodile does not eat a Hen.” A long time ago, a hen went down to the bank of a river to look for food. A nearby crocodile noticed her. The crocodile decided to hunt the hen. Off he went in the river singing a song to himself. It went something like this:
“Chu-chun-chun-chun-chun
Chu chun-chun-chun-chun
I’m going on a hen hunt
I’m gonna catch a big one
What a beautiful day
I’m not afraid to say.”
            He stuck his big head out of the water and opened his mouth wide to eat the hen, but the hen saw him and cried out, “Brother, please don’t eat me!”
            The crocodile was so surprised that – SNAP! – he closed his big jaws shut. He was confused. He wondered to himself, “Why did the hen call me ‘brother’? She is not in my family. I am a crocodile and she is a hen.” As the hen waddled away, he promised himself, “Tomorrow I will be back to eat her.”
            The next day the crocodile set off singing the song to himself:
“Chu-chun-chun-chun-chun
Chu chun-chun-chun-chun
I’m going on a hen hunt
I’m gonna catch a big one
On this beautiful day
I won’t be fooled this way.”
            He stuck his big head out of the water looking for the hen. He saw her and said, “Hey hen, today I’m going to swallow you down in one gulp!” He opened his mouth wide but the hen spoke up again.
            “Brother, please don’t eat me,” and waddled away. Once again – SNAP – the crocodile closed his big mouth. He was mad at himself. “Why did I let the hen go? She cannot be a member of my family! I’m going to find her right now and eat her up once and for all!”
            The crocodile got out of the river looking for the hen. On the way, he met his friend, the lizard, who asked, “Crocodile, is something bothering you?”
            “Listen, lizard. I have a problem. Every day a fat little hen comes down the riverbank for food. She looks sooooo delicious that my mouth starts to water but just when I open my mouth to gobble her up, she says, ‘Brother, don’t eat me!’ Why do you think she keeps calling me ‘brother’?”
            “Oh, that’s easy,” said the lizard. “Ducks lay eggs. Turtles lay eggs. I lay eggs. You lay eggs. Hens lay eggs.” So in this way, we are all brothers and sisters.
            “Hmmm, I didn’t realize that. Aw shucks!” He started to go back home but with a different song that went like this:
“Chu-chun-chun-chun-chun
Chu chun-chun-chun-chun
I’m not going on a hen hunt
I’m not gonna catch one
What a day!
I’m not glad today.”
            To this day, even though the hen looks very delicious, when she comes down to the riverbank, the crocodile does not eat her.


            Thanks you for listening. I hope you liked the story. Have a good day.
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.


Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Workplaces & Occupations



Green Sings:
 Zum zum zum zum
zum zum zum

Red Sings: 
Working working working working

Orange Sings:
Zum gali-gali-gali, zum gali-gali 
Zum gali-gali-gali, zum gali-gali 

Blue Sings:
We are working working along
We are singing, singing a song




Question: Where does a pharmacist work?
Answer: She works in a drug store.

Question: Who works in a drug store?
Answer: A pharmacist works in a drug store.

Question: Where is a drug store?
Answer: A drug store is next to a gas station
(next to **, between*+* , across from =)




Friday, August 16, 2019

Teachers Fighting for Public Schools Were Key to the Uprising in Puerto Rico

Teachers Fighting for Public Schools Were Key to the Uprising in Puerto Rico

Teachers laid the groundwork for the uprising with their battles against the dictatorial Fiscal Oversight and Management Board. They stopped charter schools and fought off a pension attack. Photo: Armando Diaz (CC BY NC-NO 2.0)
In the two months leading up to the uprising which ousted Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Roselló, educators celebrated hard-fought victories against the privatization of their education system. Struggles by teachers and families against school closures and charter schools helped pave the way for July’s unprecedented outpouring of protest (see box).
By the end of the school year in June, it became clear that the struggle to stop charterization had largely won. There is only one actively functional charter school on the island.

Popular Uprising Topples Governor

Puerto Rico has seen repeated demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people since July 13, when then-Governor Ricardo Rosseló’s ugly chats with his inner circle were revealed. The mass street protests toppled his government in just two weeks.
Demonstrators shut down a highway and called a general strike demanding the governor’s resignation.
Besides hatred for women, homophobia, and contempt for those killed by Hurricane Maria, the chats revealed the elite’s sharing of confidential government information with lobbyists.
And earlier that week, the island’s former Secretaries of Education and the Health Insurance Administration were arrested by the FBI on charges of corruption and fraud.
On July 24 Rosselló announced his resignation. Two more governors were successively sworn in within a week—the first forced out by the unconstitutionality of his appointment and more protests.
But the people’s anger was not just about the chats, the corruption, or the government’s incredibly inadequate response to Hurricane Maria.
The U.S. Congress in 2016 handed dictatorial powers in Puerto Rico to an unelected Fiscal Oversight and Management Board in the name of debt restructuring. This board has pushed massive cuts to public education and to the University of Puerto Rico, cuts to pensions, and a drive to privatize public services, including the electric utility.
One chant this summer went: “Ricky, renuncia! Y llévate la Junta!” (“Ricky, resign—and take the Board with you!”)
So the demand for the governors to resign came from unions, feminist groups, students, members of all political parties, businesspeople—even a police association. Everyone agrees that the outpouring of organizing and protest is not over yet.
—Jane Slaughter
Then in July, teachers and families who had fought pitched battles against the closing of 442 public schools by ex-Secretary of Education Julia Keleher were vindicated when Keleher was arrested on corruption charges.
As the new school year starts in August, educators are still fighting to fully fund and staff the schools, reopen those shuttered under Keleher, and keep the charters out. In the weeks and months to come, expect educators to keep playing a critical role in the struggle for democracy, against austerity, and for the dignity of the working class in Puerto Rico.

SAVING TEACHER PENSIONS

One of the least known but most critical struggles to keep an eye on in coming months is the fight to save educators’ pensions.
Public workers are under tremendous pressure to tighten their belts in order to ensure repayment of $74 billion in illegitimate debt that the government owes to bondholders.
The debt crisis was created by an economic slump that has lasted since 2006, causing the government to take out loans to operate. These loans were bought up by hedge-fund vultures whose goals are to make huge profits while forcing the government to cut back services to the working people of Puerto Rico.
But as Hurricane Maria and this summer’s uprising have revealed to the world, Puerto Rican workers simply can’t stand to suffer for the rich anymore.
In June, rank-and-file educators in Puerto Rico came together in an incredible movement of solidarity and self-organization to defeat a proposal that would have gutted the retirements of thousands of educators.
The last week of May, the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (AMPR), an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), unveiled a sweetheart deal negotiated directly with the Fiscal Oversight and Management Board. This federally imposed board, known locally as la Junta, acts like a dictatorship as it oversees the process of making workers pay for Puerto Rico’s odious debt.
The AFT spent $3 million in a year-long, closed-door negotiation that went over the heads of the elected government and behind the backs of the teachers. Its proposal would have canceled the pensions of thousands of current educators and replaced them with 401(k) retirement plans, reduced the pensions of current retirees by 8.5 percent, and raised the retirement age from 55 to 63. The deal also eliminated Christmas bonuses and would have required teachers to work on nationally recognized holidays.
But the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (FMPR), a rival teachers union with a long history of class struggle, along with allies in the fight to save public education, waged a successful Vote No campaign that rejected the deal and unexpectedly stopped the Junta and the AMPR/AFT in their tracks.
The Vote No campaign was an uphill battle. AMPR/AFT spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on deceitful TV and radio campaign ads, portraying the agreement as a necessary compromise which would preserve pensions. Instead of putting polling places in schools or any other public space, the union rented private venues so it could allow its staff and their literature inside and keep out the opposition. AMPR/AFT even called the police in order to prevent neutral observers from entering the polling stations.
Despite these repressive measures, the FMPR mobilized crews to have a presence outside 96 percent of the polling places. With exit polls in hand, the Vote No campaigners helped ensure that the vote was proper and that the election couldn’t be stolen.

POSSIBLE ISN’T ENOUGH

This has been a glorious summer, where hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans participated in the biggest general strike ever on the island. The strikes and demonstrations that brought down the Roselló regime were largely spontaneous and broadly democratic, but the seeds of the insurrection were planted by decades of struggle.
These struggles have been led by feminists who fought against gender violence and homophobia, muckraking journalists who uncovered the depths of government corruption, activists organizing for the debt to be dropped, community members building autonomous centers of self-organization, environmentalists who stopped a pipeline, students who went on strike to keep their universities public, artists who preserved and created culture, and unionists who refused to compromise away working people’s futures.
No one party, organization, or union called for the strike and demonstrations. Many groups contributed to their outbreak and political character.
If we can learn something from this victorious moment, it is that the road ahead lies in fighting back for the future and refusing to compromise.
In the labor movement, unions like the AMPR in Puerto Rico and the AFT in the U.S. have negotiated away our rights over and over, under the cover of accomplishing the possible and avoiding the greater evil. This approach allows our opponents to chip away little by little, until we find our public education in shambles, neighborhood schools closed, students’ lives turned upside down, and educators’ future sold out.
Our future depends on fighting for the “impossible,” against the whole logic of a system that will have workers pay with their lives.

WIND IN OUR SAILS

Today the fighters for the future of education in Puerto Rico have huge victories under our belts and the wind in our sails. We have brought down two corrupt governors and are working on our third. The protests, rallies, marches, art performances, and battles on the streets against police brutality complemented each other. It was a triumph for the Puerto Rican people.
While the government continues to flail in crisis, the people are organizing regional assemblies that are spreading and growing. We hope to see a new wave of demands emerge from these assemblies.
The FMPR will call for auditing the debt, reopening our schools, reversing anti-worker laws, revoking the privatization of public agencies, adding an anti-sexist curriculum in schools, and building the quality public education system that the people of Puerto Rico deserve.
The popular insurrection in Puerto Rico has proven once again that “when we fight, we can win.”
Mercedes Martinez is president of the FMPR. Monique Dols is an early childhood educator based in New York City.
A version of this article appeared in Labor Notes #486, September 2019. Don't miss an issue, subscribe today.