Residency in Quaker Ridge

1/5 - 1/16 2009. Quaker Ridge 3rd grade classrooms. The Quaker Ridge Team: Judy Shemtob, Sue Schwartz, Jennifer Hefner, Christie Johnson, Michelle Asch, Dace Aperans, Devon Hooper, Patricia Marwell, and Michael Pincus.

This was the first series of my elementary school residency. I found that students were enthusiastic in learning about Indonesian geography, family life, school life, children games,  government, economics, animals, plants, music, art, popular sport, and folk stories. My time was divided into two big sections: the first week I worked with the classroom teachers; and the second week I mainly worked with the special teachers. Students responded really well to the interactive activities I designed for them. I created the learning packets, taught them a happy song, an interactive game, showed videos, and as much as possible made connections between Indonesia and the US, and with things that are familiar to them. For instance, I used Barack Obama's story as a way to connect Indonesia and the US. 

Another example was when they learned the names of Indonesian islands, I pointed to them that they could find Indonesia in Scarsdale, because some of the coffee brands in Starbucks, such as Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, are in fact the names of Indonesian big islands. Another important tool to make the connection was the reflection paper after the end of each lesson. I asked them to respond to three areas: things that they found interesting from the lesson, things that were surprising, and things they were still curious about. I wrote back to each individual student after every lesson. I personally feel that this tool proved to be very effective for me to make a personal connection with the students despite a very limited interaction between me and them during the residency. In addition, it was also a very powerful learning and assessment tool. I was able to create opportunities to expand student learning, while at the same time checking what went well, and address any misunderstanding they might have after the lesson. 

In the second week, I collaborated with the special teachers. Students learned Indonesian music, folk stories, art form, and popular sport. They were happy to learn an Indonesian song, and together with the music teacher, Dace Aperans, they even composed their own song. The lyrics they created showed their main understandings of the lessons about Indonesia. There is one that stood out for me, "Indonesia is so far away. It's an archipelago of islands they say. But in many ways, it's like the USA." I was moved when I heard this, because that captured the essence of any multicultural program that we want learners to understand, that no matter where they are from, whatever color of their skin, hair, or eyes, whichever culture they grew up in, people have a lot more in common than we are different. Students also created a wonderful art work, which was colorfully decorated elephants. Finally, they learned that badminton is a very popular sport in Indonesia, and were excited to learn how to play it. Some of them were even more excited when they got the chance to play against me. It was a lot of fun! During my residency, I already heard some very positive feedback from the parents. Some I received personally; one of them was from Lisa Eisenstein, the PTA President at Quaker Ridge. I had a very special time here.