Kids are our future.

Guys, could you imagine that the school principal looks like Bruce Willis and that he is able to hold attention of the more than 400 small children? I also couldn’t. Until we paid a visit to Jefferson elementary school. The principal Chad Lund devoted to us 2 hours of his time and showed us around the school, brought us to the lessons and answered all our questions.

We started our journey from the morning awards ceremony which takes place every month. 

This encourages pupils to develop the best parts of the personality. During this ceremony pupils got certificates for being reflective. (Could you think of getting such certificate in Russia? I can’t as we are concentrated more on marks and behavior).

As we were explained that the school follows th IB program. Read more on official web page of IB program or in wikipedia

The point is that the education is transdisciplinary, teaches kids how to think and find solutions, what seems extremely useful as life is about it. Also the education is really connected to real life.

After this award ceremony we joined a yoga class (can you imagine that?) and the principal explained to us that usually they start their day with doing some short morning exercise. It activates your brain.

Then we visited a reading lesson of a second grade. We spoke with one girl in Russian and interacted with kids. After that we visited the fifth grade.

Children were very open, answered our questions, asked their questions, showed their books, works, shared their dreams (“I want to be a professional yo-yo or basketball player” said one guy. At this moment I remembered this TED talk ;)). We even were interviewed by kids for the school radio. Kids have smartphones and laptops, but to my question if they like to be online – facebook, games etc – they said that they prefer playing outdoors and communicated with each other in the real life.

We have the stereotype that in general Americans are not very smart. (the stereotype itself is not very smart) But so far I have the opposite opinion. Both adults and kids show high level of intelligence and great thinking abilities.

And what I really like there are a lot of motivation posters all aroung schools.

That’s all for today. I need to go jogging. Ocean is waiting for me ;)

A day-off

Thursday was a day-off, so we used this chance and visited a great place called CORNADO ISLAND. Gold sand, amazing ocean and nice people ;-)

Some photos below

The schools to remember. part2

Our second school was El Camino High School in Oceanside. To say that I was impressed again equals to say nothing. We visited Sharon Strong's drama lesson. During the visit we learnt a lot about her way of teaching, shared our projects and what is the most important we had an opportunity to talk to teens. They asked us a lot of questions, we disccussed the stereotypes. Teend seemed to be interested in communicating. I can't say that they knew a lot about Russia, but they were really eager to learn more, they weren't humble and asked a lot of questions. After we had a short tour around and watched student's pitches. was fun ;) 

And of course great thanks to our host Yvonne and Nancy Held Lucas for organising these visits. 

btw, here is the link to the article about our visit to Carlsbad High School video production studio. 

The schools to remember

We visited two public schools. And to be honest I was really impressed. First of all, the building of the school. It is really huge campus. You feel the spirit of freedom walking there.
We took part in the Student TV show. (Can you imagine that? They have their own TV studio). You can even watch that TV show (yap, i know, i have to learn a lot how to perform in front of the camera ;) ) They get some money by making movies. And this is great as it gives students an opportunity to try themselves in being TV hosts, operators, sound producers etc. And these guys are really passionate of what they do. Their eyes shine and they look really interested and really motivated.

The school system is different comparing to Russia. Here students can choose which subjects to learn. But of course, if you want to enter certain University you need to take certain course.

Also, school provides a lot of facilities and additional classes - different sports, languages (even American sign language). And the amazing thing is that pupils are really excited of what they do. Outside we saw how students of American sign language were rehearsing for the performance. And if you have extra two minutes, watch this little mermaid song.

As for sport - it is available for all the students, because the system of payment is donation and it is 70-400 dollars pro year, but it is up to the students. If they have possibility, they pay. If no, they don't have to.

And of course, we couldn't miss the opportunity to be TV hosts ;)

Bye-bye, guys ;) See you in the next school!

An early bird catches a worm

he is searching for some coins, rings or smth like this.

 view is amazing  

What can be a better start of the day then jogging along the ocean?

 to leave the footprint in the history

San Diego. Day2.

We visited  San Diego County Office of Education

Enrique has organized for us an amazing meeting with the representatives of different departments and organizations and has conducted a great tour around the building. 

We’ve met different people responsible for different things in educational sector in San Diego. (Don’t want to bore you with names and positions as anyway we gonna meet them again but have a deeper talk and see how they work )  

We’ve seen a studio, where different programs are recorded, we’ve seen the place from which they  are broadcasted, we’ve seen different departments.

Then we ate in a nice restaurant – three cheeses quesadilia.

 And the waiter was so nice, so he wrote the list of places to visit in San Diego ;) Gonna follow this list when we have some free time ;)

What is interesting – people are extremely polite here and they really smile a lot.

And every (!really EVERY!) bartender will ask your ID in order to be sure that you are allowed to drink beer or wine etc

Also, the car-pooling encouragement – when you have 3 and more people in your car you can drive on the last left lane. Have never seen such things in Russia.

and one more thing ;) People here ask: "How are you doing" meaning "hi!" ;) 

And it really looks like paradise...

Washington. Part2.

Due to  weather conditions we couldn’t leave Washington for 2 days.

follow me ;) i will show you Washington.

Nice opportunity to explore the city, visit some museums and even find popular FBI building ;) But Malder and Scully wasn’t there ;((

we were usual tourists... just like it ;)

It was so snowy, so I decided to walk to San Diego. (My GPS says it will take just 35 days ;)) )

Follow me to San Diego, guys! ;)

Washington, DC

Gathering together people from all working groups was a great idea. We managed to get to know each other, to share our knowledge and ideas and to have better understanding about upcoming fellownship.

Here we met our amazing host Yvonne. 

She is the boss of the organisationGlobalSchoolNet

Our fellowship will be mostly in San Diego ;) Looking forward to getting to sunny California ;)

Hey-hey! Nice to meet you!

Hey!
I'm Olga.
I work with youth and I teach English. And do some other things ;)
I love my job and I love my life.
This year I got a great chance to be a fellow in this awesome program. I gonna spend 6 weeks in the States, see how the educational system works here, how the youth work is organised, get to know some people and do some other things ;)

I will share what I see, do, hear and experience in this blog.