shamash says...

The Joys of Being an English Teacher

It's Monday, and I took a personal day to correct this pile of high school English papers. You can tell I'm procrastinating because I'm blogging. The pile is not quite as tall as a pen standing on end, but taller than my coffee mug. There are many great things about being a teacher. Taking 12 hours on a personal day to correct papers is not one of them.

Bangkok EARCOS ETC 07

  Well, we’re all here at East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools EARCOS 2007 ETC:  the EARCOS teachers' conference where 1,700 of us in Bangkok, Thailand. Teachers at international schools from all over Asia have gathered to be inspired, share our ideas, and network. With keynote speakers such as Ian Jukes, Jean-Francois Rischard, and Dr. Mechai Viravaidya

I’ve truly been inspired!

(That’s me on stage, introducing one of the speakers.)

There are some great teacher blogs out there that are written by international teachers. Check out  Jeff Utecht's The Thinking Stick. He gave a fantastic presentation on how to get started with podcasts, which inspired me to get my kids to use podcasts for their upcoming poetry unit. Another one worth checking out is Doug Johnson's "The Blue Skunk Blog".

In Praise of the Bad Metaphor

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners.

Which one is YOUR favorite?

image via TechToons

Plagiarism: A Learned Behavior?

If you've been reading the news lately, you've probably seen the story of Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard sophomore who has admitted to plagiarizing portions of her book.  Terry has a post on it, as does Snarkaholic. I've also read with great interest Steven Sleigh's post about the role of the "book packager" in the publishing industry.

An article published earlier this month sheds light on the life of this teen. In it, she is quoted as saying,

"I was surrounded by the stereotype of high- pressure Asian and Indian families trying to get their children into Ivy League schools."

It is difficult for educators to teach the importance of honesty and integrity when the academic culture supports success at any cost.

How can teachers make a difference, when the All Mighty Grade is more important than originality? Should a teacher encourage the gifted artist to go to art school when the father will accept nothing but an MBA from MIT?

How do we teach our children that being true to themselves is more important than grades and that integrity is so much more important than laurels gathered under false pretenses?

Daiquiris with David Greenberg

One of David T. Greenberg’s published books has sold over a quarter of a million copies. His father, Jack Greenberg, was one of the attorneys who argued Brown v. Board of Education before the United States Supreme Court. 

Add a few papaya daiquiris, a dollop of green tea leaf salad, and a splash of good advice on writing from someone who’s “been there”, mix together in the Monsoon, and presto! You’ve got the recipe for deliciously inspiring evening, or at the very least to answer to the question What Ever Happened to Humpty Dumpty?

Gratitude for Connections

Remember the birthday? Remember the 6,000th hit? Well, sometime last night, Shamash Says got its 20,000th page view. But the numbers aren't so important anymore. The bloggers are. The connections are.

Over at Lifestylism, Jeremy discusses the balanced life.

Over at The Voices from the Mountain, I get to keep up-to-date with LamaMamaJama, who just started her permaculture-building-family blog this week. (Welcome, sister!:-) Then, Expat accepted a new teaching position over at Expat Nomad, And best of all? Over at think:lab I discover that the writing of my students inspires someone else (other than me!) 10,000 miles away. (That post brought tears to my eyes!) And then, as always, there is the consistant, delicious marriage of visual imagery and insightful content over at Moon River.

So here's to connections, and to so many of you out there whom I've never met. Your writing has influenced my life.

Living a Balanced Life

The ancients such as Socrates believed that there was great value in following the creed “everything in moderation, nothing in excess”.

When is it time to say “enough is enough” at the job and take time to feed our souls with the things that sustain us?

My Students Are....

Last week was tough. A recent cheating incident exposed that fact that some students at our school are cheating by digitally photographing final exams using cells phones and even breaking into classrooms afterhours. Needless  to say, many teachers (incuding me!) were quite disillusioned, and the morale at school the lowest I've seen in years.

Then, something shifted. As a journal assignment, in tandum with the setting of New Year's intentions, I asked students to make a list of 43 things they want to do before they die. And what did I find?

I found hope. Because, with a list like this, you have to think: If these kids are in charge of the world, it might not end up being such a bad place, afterall.

Note: This image found on "Google Images", and I can't recover the source. This isn't a photo of my students! (see comments)

On Twin Towers, Bird Flu, and Quarantine

quarantine: from Merriam-Webster

a : a restraint upon the activities or communication of persons or the transport of goods designed to prevent the spread of disease or pests

b : a state of enforced isolation 

Today, expat teachers at the international school where I work received contracts for the upcoming school year. We have six days to sign, indicating whether we will return for the next academic year. This time around, there’s a bit of a glitch, and it has to do with a word in our director’s cover letter: “quarantine.”

A Year in the Life of Shamash

This week, "Shamash Says" turned one year old. There was no candle on a cake, but instead a birth: to twins! Shamash stayed up till the wee hours of the morning creating two sister professional blogs, and they have all their fingers and toes.

"Shamash Says" began as an experiment to see if a non-tech-geek English teacher could maintain a personal blog. A year ago, Shamash barely knew what the word “blog” meant, yet alone how to act on one. So she entered the blogosphere a bit naïve, and completely unprepared for how blogging would revolutionize her life.

To this day, Shamash knows the names and faces of but two friends who blog. The rest: she met in the blogosphere.

Here’s what happened this past year.