Library Ties

Day 5 we were in Shanghai for most of the day. We started out as typical with breakfast in the hotel. Luckily, there have been some western things like toast and fruit that I can eat! Today’s adventure was a little different. We went and visited a Chinese Health Clinic. Daniel shared there were two different types of health clinics. The one that focuses on western medicine and one that focuses on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). We went to one of the TCM clinics. Here they did a demo of acupuncture and cupping. Very interesting to watch, but I didn’t volunteer to experience it.

From there we headed to the Shanghai Museum. This was full of ancient artifacts. Built in 1996, it was very modern looking. We went looking through the various galleries. Lots of artwork, calligraphy, statues, and other ancient stuff!

I admit we all went through the museum pretty quickly because we needed more shopping time. One of the people in our group, Ann, has a brother that lives in Shanghai. So he took a group of us off to shopping. We spent another 90 minutes haggling and bargaining. I think I was called “cheap” “stingy” and “mean” all in the course of a few minutes. But, I think I got some decent deals. I bought a new suitcase to help bring stuff home in (my first one was packed REALLY tight!), some new ties (shocking, I know), and some gifts for family. It was kind of fun to offer them a price and see how low you could get it.

We actually spent a little too much time shopping and the bus got lost picking us up, so we got off late to Hangzhou. This town is about 3 hours from Shanghai. We stopped at a rest stop halfway to town. Some interesting snacks, but I stuck with the Lays potatoes chips and a cold Coke (I can’t tell you how excited I get for a cold Coke! Nothing here is cold to drink…even the bottle water!). I think (ok, I know) I dozed part of the time we were driving. When we got to town, we checked in and had 20 minutes to change clothes and head to the welcoming banquet at another hotel. We were already running late.

We had dinner with Mr. Liu and some teachers from the school. They kept bringing food and more food. I’m not sure as I was quite as adventures as I have been, but I did eat enough to be full. I remember eat some cucumbers and some chicken something or another. Here is a picture of our meal with the Chinese teacher from the school and a former student who was translating for us.

Ann in our group was celebrating her birthday, so they had a really beautiful cake. The candle was really cool because you lit it and then it opened like a flower.

When we finally got back to the hotel, we were all exhausted! But, we also were excited to be in a hotel with wifi. So, we headed to the lounge for beverages and to check email. I managed to get the first few days posted from the visit. After that, I headed to bed. Although this bed feels like sleeping on a board. I’ll be really happy to be in my own bed in a few days, although I can’t believe how fast this trip is going. Everything we go or do we come away saying it is a life changing experience. It has just been amazing!

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The access to wifi has not been very good, so I haven’t had the access to post these each day. So it is possible that they may all get posted when I get home instead. But, they said maybe in our next city (tomorrow) there would be wifi, so we’ll see how that goes.

Today we were up and out of the hotel by 6. We headed to the airport and flew to Shanghai. Daniel had it all arranged to take care of luggage and get us through the airport with no problem. We boarded the plane and in 2 hours we landed in Shanghai. We had to wait a while on the bus, but it finally arrived and we headed into the city. Our hotel rooms wouldn’t be ready til later so we headed straight to Yu Yuan Garden. While in the center is a lovely little garden that we toured, the highlight for most of us was the shopping.

A quick lunch in a fast food place, a tour of the garden, and then we headed out. What is a little harder is the haggling over the prices. This is most common and they expect it. You can get some good deals, but you have to be willing to negotiate. I found some new neckties (shocking, I know), some toys for Matthew and Hannah, and a gift for Mom. We have another chance to shop later I think, so who knows what else I might come home with. I did find a beautiful painting at the Summer Palace on Saturday, so that will look nice in my kitchen. I also got a set of chops in the Year of the Dragon (1976) with a stamp with my name in English and Chinese. But, I guess I forgot to mention those things from a few days ago. Anyway, it was kind of fun to watch the people and the shopping. Certainly a different experience then heading to the mall.

I think I’m at about 700-750 pictures. Very hard to pick from all those to put on the blog. Thank goodness for digital cameras and the iPad. I can dump them all on there and figure I can sort them later.

We headed to dinner along the waterfront and then we took a river board cruise. It gave us a beautiful view of the skyline in Shanghai. We ended the evening with a group photo and some of the locals decided to jump in the shot.

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Today we headed out a little bit earlier. We left the hotel about 8am and headed towards The Great Wall. As always we started out day with a brief little bit of professional development. Jim talked about how locations can really tie learning together. By making a connection between a topic/object and a location, we can help our kids to better learn. He used a great example about the revolutionary war and the reasons why by connecting them to various people/places on the bus. A great strategy for our kids (and adults!)

After you entered, you could choose whether to go right or left. Daniel said the right side was the most popular side, but that the left was very good (although a bit steep starting out!). We opted for the path less traveled and headed left. It was steep….very steep. I’m not sure what Daniel meant by once it leveled out because I don’t think it really did. We spent about 2 hours walking maybe 1 miles or so of the wall. We were pretty tired, but we stopped to take pictures and found lots of nice friends who would take some group shots for us, too. This truly has to be one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Just to think all those centuries ago how difficult it must have been to built it. It was so massive. It was so beautiful. It is probably beyond words to describe it. While all 27 of us didn’t go together, we did have a nice size group and we spent a lot of time soaking it all in, chatting, sharing, and snapping photos. We decided we could teach a whole years worth of Lifelines right from the Wall – curiosity, initiative, problem-solving, perseverance, etc. This list could go on and on. The last one that came to mind was empathy because could all look at each other and completely understand the excitement as was as the exhaustion from our climb.

The pictures don’t quite do it justice. It was just so amazing. Walking back was quite an adventure, too. The picture below shows some of the steps and inclines. Note that the steps are not nice equal distance steps, but scattered, so you really had to be paying attention. Daniel made sure to remind us before we got started to make sure we did not try to walk and take pictures at the same time as it wasn’t a safe idea!!!

We met up in front of a local hotel (that had a cold Coke! Whew! I needed that!). From there we headed to the Jade Factory for lunch and shopping. We started with lunch. I had a little rice, a little pork, and some sort of shredded cooked lettuce. So continuing to be a little adventurous there. We did have a nice Sprit to drink and it was cold! Yeah! From there, we headed back downstairs for a tour of the Jade Factory. We had a wonderful presentation who talked about the hardness of the Jade, what makes Jade, how to try and tell it apart from fake Jade, and then offered us a discount on anything we purchased. Nothing caught my fancy (or fit into my price range), so I just walked around looking. After a while I visited the Chinese bar and had my first local beer – not bad!

We got back on the bus and then headed to some of the building built for the Olympics. The first was a waters building where there is no straight pieces. It looks like it was made from bubbles. The second building was the big stadium. Both are very unique and different designs. We stopped at an overpass to take pictures. I’d like to add more pictures, but the connection doesn’t seem to like it. So, I will post more pictures here when I get home!

From there we headed to the zoo to see the Giant Panda’s. I not not sure what kind of pictures I got because the glass was dirty and hard to focus past it. The zoo opened in 1906.

As we drove along, Daniel would give us ideas about Chinese life. He talked to use about some of the symbols. He talked to use about the 4 major inventions in China (Papermaking, gun powdered, compass, and printing type press).

The last stop of the day was Hutong. We rode these little carts pulled by a man on a bicycle. They took us through the old part of Beijing. We heard that they were tearing down a lot of the old buildings to make way for modern high-rises for people to live in. At one time there were over 3,000 complexes of building. But, now they are down to 1/10 of that amount left. We visited a house that had been built over 200 years ago. The head of the house was 93 years old. His youngest daughter shared their story. Then I’m not sure who he was, but another guy came in and started to tell us about his crickets – which were HUGE!!! They were raised for a fighting match. He was quite an annotated man.

The next tour we took was of the old part of Beijing. We had two people on a bicycle buggy thing called rickshaw (spelling might be questionable). We had to do that because the streets were too small for a bus. The Hutong tour took us through some interesting parts of China. We stopped at a “home” which was a garden and a place for several families that was about 400 years old. These old areas are being torn down as Beijing makes way for the high-rises.

It was such an experience to see such an old house and party of the daily life. This area many places don’t even have their own plumbing and have to use community bathrooms. From there, we headed back to the hotel on the bus. We were all pretty tired. We had a 15 minutes break and then dinner. Ended the evening with a few drinks with some of my new friends. What an amazing way to spend a day! Can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds. But, I’m not sure how you top the Great Wall!

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So Day #2 kind of overlapped Day #1 since we didn’t really get to bed until 2 or 3am this morning. I am certain I slept some, but by 6am I gave up and got up. The beds in our hotel room are probably the hardest I have ever slept on. Apparently the Chinese believe this is good for your back. I’m not sure I agree yet, but we’ll see. Besides the rather hard bed, I think the other interesting thing is you use your hotel key to not only get in the room, but then you slip it in a slot the minute you get in to turn on the power. So it takes a few minutes for it to cool off.

The hotel offered a buffet breakfast and I had some scrambled eggs, toast, and a little fruit. I also had several cups of coffee which I think helped to keep me going through the day.

At 8:30 we met in the lobby to begin our day of sightseeing in Beijing. Jim McMillian from C.L.A.S.S. kicked off the day with some information about mirror neurons. This is the social part of learning. Part of how we learn from people is by their expression and emotions they show us. Our mirror neurons let us internalize those emotions and connect our learning to them. We’re all working on learning each other names…I think I’m getting close, but I’m not sure I can remember everyone’s yet. Our tour guide, Daniel, has already gotten all the names memorized and our room numbers in the hotel. He has an amazing memory!!!

From the hotel we took off for Tinanamen’s Square. This is the largest public square in the world. It can hold up to a million people and covers 440,000 square meters. As we arrived, the corner we started with had the gates of Beijing.

Then from there you could see Chairman Mao’s tomb which opened in 1977. Mao is in a glass coffin and there were long lines of people to visit him. Because it could take all day and we were told people were ushered through so fast, it was not on our itinerary for the day. It was amazing all the people in the lines. So, we continued to explore the square. The National Museum of China is on one side and the opposite side is the National Congress.

In the middle of the square was a tall monument called the People’s Hero Monument. There were also two big video screens on either side that were put up for the 60th celebration of the 1949 revolution in 2009. We had a group picture taken in from of the entrance to The Forbidden City. Chairman Mao’s picture is prominent on the outside of the building. The vendors took our picture and delivered us a 8×10 copy that night in our hotel along with a book about the square. The square also had a large area roped off for the Chinese Flag which is raised and lowered daily. Daniel said the red is a color of good luck, but on the flag it represented the blood sacrificed. The big star represents the Communist party and the four little stars represent the four major classes of people.

From the square we crossed the street and began to enter The Forbidden City. So called because only the emperor ever saw the inside of the complex until 1925. It was started in the 4th year of Yongle’s reign during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and completed in 1420. It was the imperial palace for the Ming and Qing dynasties and is about 168 acres. I think if I heard Daniel correct 24 emperors lived in the palace. At this point 42% of it is open to the public and in 1987 it was listed on the “World Heritage List” as it is the largest and best-preserved ancient palaces complexes in the world.. They are in the midst of a major renovation spending something like 400 billion dollars between now and 2020 so that the complex is restored in time to celebrate the 600th anniversary of its existence. The place was full of beautiful buildings and amazing to think it has stood the test of time. You could easily tell where the restoration has already happened vs. where it still needed to be done.

From there, we headed to lunch. I think we were all getting a little tired and hungry. Daniel drop us to a little area where we had some choices that looked similar to home – McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and a Noodle shop of some sort. I headed to McD.

It was good to get a cheeseburger and the coke was even better. The Chinese don’t drink much that is cold, so bottled water and stuff is even warm. I really needed that cold beverage. After lunch, back on the bus and we headed to the Summer Palace. This was built by one of emperors as a retreat for his mother and many of the Qing Dynasty spent their summer there because it was cooler. It is on a man made lake and the ground from the lake was then use to build the mountain and area around where the palace is built. When we arrived Daniel gave us a little bit of information about the Dragon Lady. While she was never an Empress, she used her influence to become the Emperor’s favorite concubine and then bore him his only son who succeed him at a very young age. She used her influence to run the country through her son and nephews that succeeded him until her death in 1908, so she choose who would become the last Emperor of China. We saw the area of the Summer Palace that was her bedroom.

I was just sure someone was looking down on us today because we took a boat ride from the entrance of the palace to the long corridor. Daniel said this was an extra that not everyone always did, but boy am I glad we took the boat. It rained….no, it poured…the whole way over on the lake. There was some thunder and lightening, but the boat was covered so other than a few gusty winds that blew the raindrops inside, we mostly stayed dry. By the time we made it over to the marble boat and dock area, it had mostly stopped. We all stayed pretty dry. It was kind of amazing. That was our only rain the entire time yesterday!! We walked along the long corridor of the Summer Palace back out to the gates where the bus was waiting on us.

We headed back to the hotel where we kind of rested, but by then we were really dragging. While our bodies were convinced we should be sleeping, we kept going and headed to dinner at the Peking Duck. Ok, so at this point those that know we well, know that I’m a REALLY picky eater. To be honest, I can’t even tell you everything that was on it. But, I did eat a little of the duck, some rice, a fried bread, and some watermelon. So, it was more that I could/would eat that I pictured and I tried some things. (I still had some of my snacks once I got back to the room, but I had envisioned heading back completely starved, so this was a pleasant surprise!). One of our groups members Nancy, celebrated her birthday yesterday. So Daniel arranged to get a cake and taught us how to sing Happy Birthday in Chinese. So, we all had a little sweet treat to end the dinner.

Lastly, we finally got back to the hotel for our “beauty sleep” as Daniel was calling it. We picked up our books with the group photo from the morning, too. While I was dragging, I knew I needed to check in at home. Our hotel doesn’t have any wifi, so Daniel directed us down the street to another hotel with access in their lobby. A group of us grabbed our iPads and iTouches and walked over. Nancy was able to connect with her family via Skype and I got an email off to home and one of these blog posted up to the web. I’m hoping to maybe make it back over tonight to post this one. I guess if you are reading this you’ll know if I’m successful or not. Tomorrow we head to the Great Wall and then Daniel had some other options for us in the afternoon. So, I’m sure the adventure will continue.

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Well, let’s say the adventure has started right from the start. We were on two different flights to Chicago from Indianapolis. 17 on one flight and 10 on another flight. I was in the second group and we were doing just fine until our flight was delayed and they projected us landing in Chicago at 9:11pm and our flight from Chicago was scheduled to leave at 9:05pm. The flight to China got delayed until 9:20, but it was still going to be cutting it really close. We landed at Chicago at 9:10, waited 10 minutes to get the gate to the door, and then we all bolted. I was getting text from our C.L.A.S.S. leaders Jim to RUN….(and make sure no one was loosing their Joy!)…but RUN. We barely made it, but all 10 of us got on board for the flight to China.

The flight to China was long….really long! I know I slept some, I read some, I watched part of a movie, and I talked to some of the people on our tour some. We landed, went through customs, and then met our tour guide Daniel. He is a stitch. I think we’re going to learn a lot from him. Like Beijing has 5 million cars and 20 million people that live there. He said they cleared the streets for us. Of course at 1:00am, traffic isn’t bad!

So, we’re all checked into the hotel. We’re suppose to be resting because at 7am we’re getting a wake-up call. I, of course, and wide awake. I had thought I could setup a little wireless network in my room so I could post these from my iPad, but that doesn’t seem to be working right. We did find some Wifi tonight (Day 2), so these may be sporadic until we get to our next hotel in Shanghi on Monday (I think it has wireless!). Tomorrow we visit the Tiananmen Square and the Summer Palace! Daniel says we’re in for lots of walking!

Beijing Airport

Daniel – our tour guide!

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So the adventure begins. We’ve checked through security and our group of 27 is ready to head to Chicago. We’re on two different flights to the Windy City, but then from there we’re all on the same flight from Chicago to Beijing. It’s a 13.5 hour flight going over the north pole. We’ll land at 11:30pm in Beijing on Friday night. (That should be 11:30am on Friday Indiana time. They are about 12 hours ahead of us!) The longest I’ve ever been on a flight is about 4 hours, so this will certainly top that! I’ve got my iPad loaded with books and movies to keep my entertained during the flight – hopefully.

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The lights are finally off and the library is ready to take a few months off while the students are off playing (and reading, too, I hope!).  We’ll see quite a few “new” things when we return in August as our library is under construction this summer and will be expanding!  Yeah!  But, that’s for another post.

One of the things I like best about summer is there is time to reflect a bit.  So, thinking back a bit, one of the things I’ve been thinking about are some of the online tools we have been purchasing.  We’ve have a subscription as a district to World Book Online (K-12) for as long as I’ve been there.  It has been our main database at the elementary level for a while.  We’ve also had TeachingBooks.net for several years as a resource for our teachers.  I’m excited that TeachingBooks.net moved into our state databases this year.  But, in the last couple of years we’ve really focused some of our dollars towards online databases geared toward elementary students.

• PebbleGo – Animal Database and Earth and Science Database is amazing for our little guys.  K-2 absolutely love it.  Simple text, easy to navigate, sound and video, etc.  We use it for literacy stations in the classroom as well as for research.  The database comes from Capstone’s Pebble books, so there is a great connection to the printed books as well.
• We just added a subscription for next year for Rosen’s PowerKids Life Science database.  This seems to be perfect fit for our 3rd & 4th graders.  The database focuses on science resources and is one that matched our State Standards well.  I think our upper grades will get a lot of use out of it.  Our subscription just got started, so haven’t had time yet to try it with kids.  However, we are looking forward to doing that in August!
• Grolier Online – We recently add Grolier Online for our building, too.  Grolier just redesigned their entire interface.  You can read more about the new features here.  The new interface divides the resources up by grade levels, lots of interactive videos, and they have several databases.  We’re pretty found of the Amazing Animals as we’ve used that in the print version for years.  Grolier also includes reading levels (Lexiles) of the articles in the results from a search.  As our teachers will be getting mounted projectors next year in the classrooms, I could see a lot of the resources in Grolier Online being helpful to them.

We’ve been adding some eBooks to our Destiny catalog, but we’re just now exploring what we can do there.  I’m sure we’ll be adding more next year.  We’ve also got two online tools to bring digital books to our kids, too.

• myOn Reader - It has over 1200 books available for students to read.  Students take a interest survey and a reading level assessment to establish a Lexile.  They help guide students towards books the might like to read online.  I wrote about myOn in a previous post here.
• BookFlix – We’ve had BookFlix from Scholastic for about 3 years now.  It has a variety of non-fiction and fiction books pared together.  A great combination for our students to compare and contrast the differences between non-fiction and fiction books.

There are a lot of great products out there for elementary kids.  I’m so excited to see the resources we have and know we’ll continue to rely on them more and more each year!

Tags:   BookFlix · Grolier Online · myOn · PebbleGo · PowerKids Life Science · TeachingBooks.net · World Book Online1 Comment

I’ve had the pleasure to write about my principal on multiple occasions over the last several years…in this blog, in School Library Monthly, and even once he and I headed to Colorado to present to their state school library conference.  It is amazing the way a school library program can grow and develop when you have an administrator who “gets it”.

One of the things I often comment about is that school librarians have that unique role where they have the global perspective.  They see everything that happens in the school and the way those dynamics all work — much like a principal does.  We really have more in common with a principal than a classroom teacher — maybe even a bit more than we’d like to admit.  I think when you find a librarian and a principal who both understand that, it can form a connection that leads to great things for the library program and for the entire school.

Over the last seven years, our library program has grown and flourished.  Our principal very quickly “got it”, and from that day forward has been our biggest fan.  He has made sure to help us work towards creating an amazing library program.  He might tell you he hasn’t done a thing, but in reality what I think he did which was so great for our library program (and our school) was he created a culture where we always wanted to improve.  We always were moving that bar and jumping just a little bit higher.  The status quo was never a word or phrase we used.  We would celebrate our success, evaluate our failures, and always be thinking about how to make them both better the next time around.

The Vision of our school is 100%!  We want 100% of our kids doing the right thing and treating people right.  We want 100% of our kids doing and turning in their homework.  We want 100% of our kids to be reading on grade level.  We want 100% of our kids to pass the state standardized test.  Back to that first staff meeting, as we were thinking about our vision we were trying to think of what percentage our goals might be.  We tossed our numbers of 85% / 95% percentages.  I mean 100% is going to really be tough.  So as we’re brainstorming out loud, he says ok let’s say we’re going to get 90% of our kids to pass.  He had us turn our paper over and said, “Now write down the 10% of the kids we’re not going to worry about!”  It quickly became clear that wasn’t going to work.  We have to worry about 100% of them and we want 100% of them to be successful.  We’re still working reaching that vision each and every day, but I think there is no doubt that he gave us all 100% of himself.

Today was pretty difficult last day of school as we had to say goodbye.  Our principal is headed to new adventures with a new school outside our district.  I wish him well and am excited for him as I know this change is a great opportunity for him and his family.   At our last staff meeting today he went around and personally told each one of us something about us that brought him joy.  I’ll be honest, I was like everyone else with my sunglasses on to try and kind of disguise the tears.  Next year will be different without him there.  But, I know the lessons he taught us as he guided our building will be there for many, many years to come!  I think that’s the joy he brought to us!

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Well the school year is almost to the end.  As is typical time has gotten away from me and my postings on the blog are a little farther between than I might have liked.

But, none the less I am excited about a new opportunity coming in August.  Last week I was asked the by the AASL 2011 Conference Committee to be part of a book discussion on Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. In “The Shallows,” Carr asks the question: “As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?” Carr then describes throughout the book how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind” — from the alphabet, to maps, to the printing press, the clock and the computer. Our brains, the historical and scientific evidence reveals, change in response to our experiences. The technologies we use to find, store and share information can reroute our neural pathways.  A preview of “The Shallows” is available via the AASL conference website.

As we wrap up the end of the school year, order a print copy, check one out from the library, or download the book to your favorite eReader.  Its a great read during the summer months!  Then, starting August 10th on the AASL Conference Ning we’ll begin a weekly discussion of the book. I was honored for the conference committee to ask me to help facilitate this discussion, and I am really looking forward to the conversations ahead!  We’ll finish our discussions right in time to head to Minneapolis!

Here’s the link to the official press release here.

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In the March/April 2011 issue of Knowledge Quest, the theme focused on Reversing Readicide.  In the magazine, I had the priviledge to interview Malbert B. Smith III, President of MetaMetrics and co-founder of the Lexile Framework for Reading.  The interview was an opportunity to understand a little more about the Framework and talk about the role a school library should and could play with the system.

Earlier this month, there was a post on the Lexile Blog highlighting two of the most important pieces from the article.  We’ve all heard the horror stories of school libraries that had to be organized by a leveling system or students who have been required to read only in their level no matter whether the content was interesting or appropriate.  But, what does the co-creator of Lexlie think about stories like that.

Malbert said, “We do not find it necessary to reorganize a library by Lexile range or level.  Today,  a number of computer catalog providers offer Lexile measures to help guide students to the right reading materials – without actually having to rearrange those materials by Lexile level.”

He also went on to say, “A student should be able to choose what he or she wants to read, regardless of whether that book or article is in his or her recommended Lexile range.”

You can read the entire article from KQ online. It was really a great experience to talk with Malbert and school libraries and Lexiles.  Hopefully this article dispels some of the misconception on how the two should work together!

Tags:   AASL · American Association of School Librarians · Knowledge Quest · Lexiles · Malbert Smith IIIComments Off