This week flew by just like the rest but was aided a little more with unexpected visitors, our Stranmillis friends up in Missouri who stayed with us from Thursday till Sunday. We really enjoyed their visit and all the things we got to do with them when they were here, I think we all loved hanging out with people from home again!
Following our test we began work on Behaviourism in our Special Education Class on Monday morning. Dr Blackbourn began by looking at Thorndike and the 'law of effect' which states: 'Any behaviour that is followed by a positive consequence will tend to be repeated, any behaviour followed by a negative or neutral consequence will tend to fall out of use.' It was interesting to learn about the different behavioural repetoires that we can build up and how we can shape behaviour by reinforcers.
Dr Chessin was out of town this week and so we began a week of independent work in her class. We have been given the assignment of creating a presentation on a certain instructional strategy and these will begin to be presented next week. Our group looked at 'Co-operative Learning' which we defined as 'a successful teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member is responsible for their learning along with their teammates thus creating an atmosphere of achievement.' We divided the work for the presentation up and so I created the visual, the powerpoint presentation which looks at definiton, the co-operative learning model, stages of the model, strengths and weaknesses of the model and a conclusion. We also had to write a 'skit' to give an example of our strategy and an informational handout. We had a great team to work with and so I enjoyed doing this.
We had the dental team with us on Tuesday morning in Willie Price, teaching about the importance of looking after your teeth and the tooth fairy was giving advice about what kind of snacks we can have that will not damage our teeth as much. The children played 'tooth, tooth, cavity' a version of 'duck, duck, goose' with obvious thematic purposes! We were given an assignment to work on on Tuesday based around observation of the teacher and her techniques in both indirect and direct guidance to the children. This was an interesting assignment and allowed me to play closer attention to this detail and pick up ideas for later.
In our night class on Tuesday we focused on avoiding power struggles in the classroom and what techniques we can use to resolve this and how to enpower students to resolve conflict. We also looked at the effects of bullying and strategies we can use to eliminate bullying from the classroom. We were put into groups and asked to give presentations on different scenarios, we had to identify the problem in the situation, solve it and then present our results to the class. I enjoyed this problem-solving learning and feel I am getting a lot from this class.
After class on Tuesday we headed out with our friend to chill out and went to eat at the famous 'Chick Fill-A'...apparently the best fast-food place in America, better even than McDonalds say the Southerners...it was good...but I'd love to let them experience our local 'chippie' and then say it was still the best!!
We received our tests back on Wednesday morning and I was pleased to receive an 85% in my test, not bad for our first results here in the States! We continued to work on our group presentations in Dr Chessin's class and spent time rehearsing our skit that we would have to perform along with our presentation. We are going to listen to Emma, who will play the teacher, read the story 'Listen Buddy' all about a rabbit who doesn't listen, she will then pose the question, 'Why is it important to Listen?' We will then follow out the 'Think-Pair-Share' strategy, thinking about the answer ourselves, then talking to a partner about it and finally sharing as a group what we think.
On Wednesday evening we headed to Leapfrog again and spent time playing with the kids and building up relationships there, I spent most of the time trying to get boys out from under a bush but failed miserably because they refused to even try and understand my accent....! On Wednesday night we met a guy Connor, another long lost Irish native who dreams of being back on the Emerald Isle, he was fascinated with Ruth and I and knew more about Irish history than we did! His favourite movie is 'The Quiet Man' which made me smile because it is our family's favourite film, coming from my Dad's collection and paints a pretty picture of Galway with the obvious American influence from John Wayne, we even visited the place where it was set on a family holiday much to Connor's delight!
After Leapfrog we headed over to g
et dinner from First Baptist and meet some friends, I helped out the road service by putting in a road block and we went for a walk down to the square! After spending time in our favourite book store (Square Books) we went to get some photographs taken for our friend Steve's birthday which involved lots of messing around with a lot of Americans in front of a camera!
On Thursday morning I was back in Willie Price, getting involved in the activities they were carrying out and helping as much as possible. Miss Alden was preparing the class for 'Fairytale day' the following day and so the children were making wands from the tubing they put around the bottom of coathangers and stars. They were also making leaves for a huge tree they were using as part of scenery for their production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Every child has the opportunity to dress up and be a fairytale character for the day. During free play time I enjoyed a ridiculous conversation with one little girl which reminded me that kids really do say the funniest things. I was getting stuck in, playing with snakes and other sea creatures and one little girl kept bringing me over pretend treats from the play house. Finally she came over and started to brush my hair with a strawberry, I asked 'Why are you brushing my hair with a strawberry?!!' She proceeded to tell me that it got your hair as straight as hers and that her family all did it when they came over on the big aeroplane! She then went on to tell me that her Mom and Brother were turtles, 'Your Mom and your Brother are turtles?!' I said, fascinated. 'Nooooo, they're human!' she said, looking at me as if I was stupid! It was very funny to be reminded of the things kids think about when they are 3 or 4 years old.
After another fire in Guess Halls (only minor, don't panic!!) Maury from Study Abroad arranged to take us out to Lafayette Elementary where we were going to meet our class and teachers we would be observing and teaching over the next few weeks. I was really excited walking in to the school because everywhere was just buzzing as a Primary School should be and I couldn't wait to meet Mrs Watkins and my class. Mrs Watkins came to meet me in the office and brought me down to my classroom and then outside where my class were just finishing recess. They were as excited to see me as I was to see them and couldn't wait to introduce themselves. I am working with a first grade class, there are 19 students and they are all between 6 and 7. I can't wait to get to know them better and spend more time in the classroom over the next few weeks as I feel this will be one of the most beneficial experiences here at Ole Miss. I am still fascinated by the Southern drawl when I hear the little kids introducing themselves or trying to mimic me. None of them had heard of Ireland and so I got all kinds of questions, 'Do they speak English in Ireland?' 'Do dragons live in Ireland?' I hope to spend some time informing them properly about my home country over the next few weeks. My teacher and class are really lovely too which helps so much!
After visiting class
we headed up to Memphis with some friends to pick up our visitors for the weekend. It was exciting to see Natalie and Rachel and have the opportunity to show them what is going on down here, it was cool hearing the accent again and comparing experiences so far. Our friend Braden took us to Rendezvous in Memphis for dinner on Thursday night, it is most famous of bbq and we really enjoyed the food and the atmosphere there. We then headed back to Oxford to pack four Strannies into our dorm room in Guess Halls!
On Friday morning the girls got to experience the Finer Things Club and our favourite, Bottletree Bakery. In our Special Education class we looked at fixed, variable, interval and ratio rates of reinforcement and how this can shape desired behaviour. It was a complex class but beneficial and touched on many areas I had not considered before. We also looked at Piaget and his beliefs to do with how children learn; he believes the way we develop and the stages we go through are species general and individual specific. It's in our genes , it's who we are at our most basic level. Dr Blackbourn met Piaget and was lectured by him at one stage which was interesting to hear about, being a hero in the world of child psychology. We continued to work on and complete our presentation during Dr Chessin's lesson.
Ruth and I became the tour guides for the afternoon as we took the girls down to the square and showed them all our favourite places we have discovered so far. We had some lunch in Proud Larrys, took them to Holli's sweet tooth and visited lots of the other little shops in that area. After we finished browsing we headed back to Ole Miss where we got some coffee and played some cards, just like home! On Friday night the four of us headed down to the Powerhouse to see the play Seven and we really enjoyed it. It follows the story of seven different women and their struggles through life having passions and dreams for the role of women to be changed and enhanced in their societies. We were happy that the girl we had vocal coached had made m
assive improvements from the first time we saw her and actually sounded Northern Irish this time!
On Saturday morning we walked back down to Bottletree with the girls and enjoyed breakfast together, they loved it so much they had to go back. We spent some time doing some more window shopping before our friend Harrison came and picked us up and we headed out to Taylor, a townland nearby, famous for being home to many artists. Having 3 main subject art students present (all, but me!) it was a great place to go and see. The weather was brilliant o
n Saturday and so everything looked a lot prettier with the sun shining. Taylor is definately somewhere I want to visit again, we had lunch at 'Emileigh's table' which was quirky and a mix of retro and modern. Next door is a quaint antique store with the most fantastic porch swing/bed which I want my parents to by me and then fed-ex home, oh and I need my Dad to build a porch too just for me...I fell in love with that bed! We visited a couple of art galleries which also included many beautiful little bits and pieces, I've also decided I want some white rocking chairs for that porch Dad is building!
While we visited one of the art shops I noticed more and more that bottletrees were a major theme of the art work here in Mississippi and so I asked the owner the significance of the bottletree, it relates back to a slave folk story where the bottles would be placed in a tree outside the house because it was thought that if an evil spirit was going to enter the house it would be captured and trapped inside the bottles before it could get inside.
On Saturday night our artist friends who we have been doing a bible study with on Monday afternoons were having an artshow at Honeybee Bakery so we went to support them. The art was phenomenal, even to someone who is quite art ignorant I would have bought so much of their work if I was loaded! It is cool to be surrounded by so many talented people and learn from them and see them display their talents.
On Sunday we took the girls to our friend's church, Clear Cedar Baptist church. It was really interesting to discover there is another baptist church right across the street from this one and it is known as the 'black church' while this one is the 'white church' again furthe
r evidence of the deep history here and how it still outplays in the society today. I enjoyed the service which followed a more traditional Southern style. It was our friend's birthday on Sunday and so we had a picnic at Lake Patsy on Sunday afternoon to celebrate, the weather was so nice we could even do some sunbathing and play some frisbee! On the way home I learned an important lesson, never try and tell a fireman that smoke is a cloud when he knows that it is smoke. We spent half an hour chasing what I thought was just a cloud but what my fireman friend thought was smoke to eventually discover it was infact smoke. We said goodbye to the girls on Sunday afternoon after visiting our friend's farm and seeing some horses and goats and then sent them on their way to SEMO. On Sunday night Ruth and I headed back to First Baptist for the woman's bible study which was a great way to end a great week and start week 7.
onate about Belfast... normally people get excited about the Giant's Causeway or the South but Dr Chessin loved the city...She asked us if you can buy wheaten shortbread on the internet!
d enjoyed the consistency of being in the classroom. The class are learning a lot about plants at the minute and so have planted sunflower seeds so they can make observations on these over the next few weeks. I continue to spend time chatting to the children and on Tuesday I had an interesting conversation with a couple of students around a children's encyclopedia, they were looking at a map of the USA and asked me to show them my country. I explained that we had to find a world map for me to be able to do that at which they told me, 'But Miss Lorna there is nothing else!' I still get surprised at how little these 7-8 year olds know of the world around them and how much is yet to discover when you live in the USA which I am finding incredibly insular.
s back to the classroom to share with their friends. I found it pretty amusing when two girls brought handfuls of green onions into the classroom and preceded to stink out the room over the course of the day! We also visited another class where they were studying sea life and something I really liked was the 48 feet whale they had made and was stuck up around their room, an idea I will steal for the future! On Thursday they did some Spring activities, they made flowers by dropping coloured water on kitchen roll and folding into a flower shape. They also made butterflies by crunching crepe paper and using pipe cleaners for the antenna.
Wednesday in Willie Price and together we made Easter nests. This lesson went really well and the children were very responsive to my instruction. I still find it funny when the children don't know how to react to some words I use, for example I said 'Brilliant' in praise of how well they were working and one little girl shouts out 'Brilliant- a fancy way of saying great!'
to visit the zoo there. This was a great day out being a lot bigger than our zoo in Belfast and having a lot more interactive areas. My favourite animals were definately the hippos, I had never seen those in real life before and we were really close to them which was exciting. They had a creepy night animal indoor exhibit which freaked me out, especially the huge aardvark which looked like it was right next to you as you rounded the corner in the dark! We got surprised by our friends in Missouri who joined us for the day out, was nice to catch up with them again! On Saturday night we headed to Buffalo wild wings, a sports restaurant which was underappreciated by a nominal sports fan like myself! I thought about how much my brother, Dad and other male friends would love it though!
