Fathers in Education @ Madie Ives Elementary

Yesterday, I had a wonderful day with the children at Madie Ives Community Elementary School. I and a group of fathers were invited to be a part of Fathers in Education Day in which fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers and male role models and mentors are invited to come in to local schools to read, tell stories, share a hobby, talk about their job and other activities.

Before I read from Grandpa Sydney’s Anancy Stories, I talked about the origins of Anancy stories, bullying, and what the students should do if they ever became the victim of a bully. For homework, they signed a pledge.

I want to thank Ms. Brinson, the principal of Madie Ives Community Elementary School; Ms. Fernandez, the counselor, and, of course, Mrs. Ferro-Philp and her students for inviting me to be  a part of such an uplifting day.

Support Education @Donors Choose

My wife works at Madie Ives Elementary, a Title 1 school. She has signed up for Donors Choose, a site that helps teachers fund materials/projects for their classroom by allowing donors to choose what they'd like to fund, and then the materials get shipped DIRECTLY to the school.

This year, she is teaching the EFL program, which is second language instruction, and the technology in her classroom sums up to this: she has three working computers, an overhead projector and a 24" inch tube TV that works some days, doesn't the rest of the week, for all of her 18 kids.

The school was built in 1954 and has never had any sort of technology overhaul. The dream is that we'll be able to get around to funding a Mimeo Board for her classroom one day, and level the playing field for her kids with the other schools in the area that DO have Smart Boards in ALL their classrooms. But for now, we are just really hoping that we can make this project a success and get her projector fully funded!

I know that times are rough for everyone, and I also hope that you know that I wouldn't be asking this if I didn't believe in it, but even if you can't donate, do you think you could post this to your Facebook/Social Media feeds, to see if anyone out there would like to?

$1, $5, $10... every little bit counts, and up to December 14, 2013, Disney will be matching donor contributions, dollar per dollar (up to the first $100) by donors using the code DISNEY at checkout.

http://www.donorschoose.org/project/help-us-explore-our-world/1141161/?rf=link_dccontent_2013_12_teacherid_2126111&challengeid=343858

Give to her classroom by December 14 and your donation will be doubled thanks to Disney. Just enter the code DISNEY on the payment page and you'll be matched dollar for dollar!

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Grandpa Sydney's Anancy Stories @ Madie Ives Elementary

Over the next few days, I’ll be visiting Madie Ives Elementary to read from Grandpa Sydney’s Anancy Stories. I hope the children will fall in love with Jimmy, Grandpa Sydney, and Anancy as much as I have.

The Language Arts/Reading/ESOL teachers have chosen The Trickster Tricked (Creek/MusocqeeTribe) retold by S.E. Schlosser; Tops & Bottoms by Janet Stevens, and Grandpa Sydney’s Anancy stories to meet the Common Core State Standards Initiative within Miami Dade County Public Schools:

RL.2.1 – Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why and how, to demonstrated understanding of key details in a text.
RL.2.2 – Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, or moral.
RL.2.3 – Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
RL.2.4 – Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song.
RL.2.5- Describe the overall structure of the story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.
RL.2.6 – Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.
RL.2.7 – Use information gained from the illustration and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
RL.2.10-By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories and poetry, in the grades 2-3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

My presentation, Trickster Tales from the Caribbean, will cover literal, inferential, and analytical readings of Grandpa Sydney’s Anancy Stories, and Question Answer Relationships (QARs) within the text.

In addition, we’ll discuss the origins of Anancy stories and the counterparts in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and the American South.

We’ll also examine the following elements of a Trickster tale and their relationship to “Anancy, Snake, and Tiger’:

A clever animal or person who plays a trick on other characters.
One of the characters has a problem to solve.
The trickster has one or two main characteristics such as greediness or boastfulness.
There is a moral or lesson to learn.

Of course, Grandpa Sydney’s Anancy Stories is a story within a story, so the children will also have another level of complexity when they compare Jimmy's serious need--to outsmart a bully-- and Anancy's in the story, “Anancy, Snake, and Tiger.” They’ll also compare the methods that Jimmy and Anancy used to achieve their goals and the lessons to be learned from their actions.

I think it’s going to be a lot of fun!