Home Thoughts From Abroad

While we feel very blessed by the opportunities given to us as a result of the lifestyle we live, there is also a price to be paid. The biggest price has been in the family times we have lost and the celebrations we miss so much.

This year we were doubly blessed by not only having family with us to celebrate Christmas but also being able to celebrate the eleventh birthday of this amazing boy who introduced us to the joy of being grandparents. It has been a wonder to watch him grow into such a sweet, curious and creative young  man who makes us and his parents so proud. Happy Birthday Ben. We love you!

We have ‘celebrated’ Christmas overseas by ourselves since 2007. That is a long time to be without family at Christmas. Last year – the first since we left Canada – we went home. It was bitterly cold last year, and we are no longer used to the Canadian winter, but we loved it just the same. No amount of cold could chill hearts that were warmed by being with our children and grandchildren and our extended families. We even got to see the New Year in with our grandchildren in Cleveland.

This year was even better, for this year Jon and his family came to Cayman and celebrated Christmas with us here. During winters in Cayman the almost unbearable heat of the summer gives way to more moderate temperatures and the cooling Caribbean breezes gently blow the sea air across the island. Sunrises are long, and the sunsets linger for hours.

Our days were filled with the happy sounds of children at play on the sand and surf. When our time at the beach was done, the kids would happily return to the pool at our condo and play the rest of the day, practicing their dives and checking out their snorkeling equipment.

Friends of ours, Tom and Jana Hartley, went home to Florida for Christmas, leaving us the keys to their condo where Jon and Nic could stay. They left food in the fridge and freezer, and even bought them a welcoming bottle of wine and some snacks. Their place, like ours, has a pool so the two of them were able to have some quiet time.

The grandkids stayed with us in the spare bedroom, Eli just barely able to fit the small bed we bought for Russ on his visit. Typically, Jon and Nic would show up just after breakfast and leave when the kids went to bed.

Having been here once before was a blessing as none of us felt the need to do the things you are supposed to do when visiting another country. We went for walks, barbequed some meals and hung out on the beach. In the evening we watched some shows on Netflix that at our place is hooked to Jon’s account, so the kids could just pick up on what they usually watched. It was low key, low maintenance and highly enjoyable.

On Christmas Day Pam and I got to play Nice and Naughty Santa to hand out the presents. I will let you figure out who was who. We had enjoyed shopping in the limited retail market of George Town for weeks, and likely took more delight in seeing each gift unwrapped than the kids did.

The most fun gift – for me anyway – was the kite we took to Seven Mile Beach on a blustery day with Ben and I falling over each other trying to get this thing in the air. However, Ben would likely say it was the toy helicopters with their LED lights that they could fire off our balcony into the driveway below. Or perhaps it was the ukulele, and the opportunity to play a duet with Grandpa on his guitar with some chords that I hastily taught him.

It was a wonderful visit, the more so as it was so rare. Of all the things we miss about this itinerant life, it is not seeing the kids at Christmas that tugs at our hearts the most. The blessing is that now we are in the Caribbean we are only four hours from Toronto and see our kids and grandkids more easily and more often than we did in Malaysia. We really need to do Christmas together more often!

The decorations are up, supplies laid in and school is winding down. Despite the complete lack of snow, or even a hint of cooler weather, we are ready to celebrate Christmas.

The students, families and staff at CIS are all into the Christmas spirit as well. The Giving Tree was decorated this year by the Grade 5 classes. It is placed in the reception area and each of the hand made “decorations”  have the name and age as well as the Christmas wish of a less privileged child in Cayman.

The CIS community is incredibly generous and by the time the Christmas wishes of all the children were filled there was barely room to get to our offices. Families tried to choose children the same age as their own child and went above and beyond the requests, adding their own touch to the gifts. Every child who requested a bike also got a helmet to ensure their safety.

The annual “12 Pubs of Christmas” crawl was much less sedate but great fun. We started out in Camana Bay at King’s Head and partied around the block. I think we made it to the tenth pub, which happens to be at the end of our street. It seemed like a good idea to walk on home at that point..

Our staff party was held at the “Great House” on an open air patio by the sea. It was a beautiful but blustery evening and the sea was wild, with waves crashing over the seawall.

This fall I started my third year in IB Literature at Cayman International School in the Cayman Islands. CIS was pretty decent about hiring me for the IB Lit program when I had never taught IB before. They were gambling that with my experience in both internationals schools and English that I would be able to make the transition. They were right, but it has not been easy.

The first thing I needed to do was a survey of the assessments used in IB. I know it is a dreadful commentary on education in the 21st century that this is where you need to begin, but that is the reality and you just have to face it. Assessments don’t just determine where the kids get to go in the fall: Harvard, or Happy Valley College of Advanced Basketweaving. Success in assessments is also a means of assessing your success in teaching the program.

IB assessments are pretty much all external, so as a teacher you need to find out quickly what the program is looking for and how you can deliver on those assessment criteria. In IB Literature nearly 50 percent of that mark comes from two exams at the end of the two year program. Hit those targets and the rest will fall in to place. Miss that target and whatever you did that was valuable will be looked at with a jaundiced eye. One of those exams, what IB calls a ‘Paper 2,’ is based on just four texts. IB doesn’t care if those four texts are plays, poetry, or novels, so long as all four are in the same genre.

I am going to reveal some real literary prejudice here by saying that I would be hard pressed to name four plays – outside of Shakespeare – that I would consider worth studying. And finding thematic similarities would be even more daunting. The same holds true for collections of poetry. Given the constraints of IB Lit, it would mean looking at four poets and 48 to 60 poems. Not for this guy. So novels then. Alright. Now choose four novels that are 100 to 200 pages in length, of enduring literary value, that cover the time from Dickens to DeLillo, that reveal a range of narrative voices, that are on the IB Proscribed List of Authors, that have enough thematic similarity that they will serve for a comparative essay on a Paper 2 exam, and that 17 year-olds would find interesting. I’ll give you a minute.

It took me a month in the first year. I choose Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. It was well worth the time it took to be careful for all four have been instrumental in facilitating comparative essays on the Paper 2. The other exam, the ‘Paper 1,’ is a literary analysis of a sight passage in either prose or poetry. That is something that takes two years of practice in critical literary analysis to get ready for, and text here really doesn’t matter as long as there is a good variety. I try to cover Aristotle, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dickens, Anouilh, and Schlink, and as wide a variety of poets as I can squeeze in. I am pretty happy with those choices as well.

All of this has to be housed somewhere, and these days that somewhere is Google. For the first two years I used folders in Google Drive to house student work, and Google Sites to post lessons, articles, and study guides. This year I am moving it all to the revamped Google Classroom, which automatically links to Google Calendar and the email addresses of both students and parents. So far the transition has been seamless, and a vast improvement over Sites, which had to be cobbled together with Drive, Calendar, and Google mail in convoluted ways.

So, how am I doing? Well the first year was basically survival. In the final exams my students all scored either an IB Level 4 or Level 5, with the balance slightly in favour of Level 5. But I had inherited these kids from the previous IB teacher and didn’t have enough time in just one year to change them. I was grateful that no one scored a 3 and disappointed that no one scored a 6. By the end of the second year this had improved dramatically. Nearly 80 percent scored a Level 5 or higher in Lit, and no one scored lower than a four. It was the highest percentage of any of the IB subjects at the school.

This is year three. Now I have all of my ducks in a row and things are falling into place the way they should. The kids know what they have to do and so do I. I have moved my novel study up to give the students plenty of time to review for the final exams and have study protocols in place to keep them on task. From an unknown quantity two years ago, I am now regarded as an experienced veteran whose opinion is sought on matters of curriculum development in other grades of English. Student confidence is up, and student writing has improved. I haven’t had an incident of plagiarism in over a year as these protocols are so well established and well-known that the kids don’t even try.

In short, I am a happy camper. The marking load will never decrease, but the preparation load has been reduced to near zero. I have more time to read, to walk to work, to swim at the beach, or even to blog, which I have solely missed. I am writing this now in some of that free time. Next year will be even better, and at the end of that, who knows. Maybe I will ready to finally retire!

October 2017

Another school year for our American grandchildren is well underway. From the looks of things, they all look pretty eager to be going back.

Ben in Grade five has begun his last year of Elementary school. In addition to his continuing interest in things technological, he is beginning to learn to play the clarinet.

Abi is rocking the maturity of fourth grade and is a wonderful big sister to Eli.

Eli is more than ready for Grade 1.

Abi is a lovely little artist but less than thrilled about showing off her work,

Eli has no such reservations about her art. I must say I am partial to the little snowman.

They are all growing up so quickly and so sweetly. We miss not being closer, but are grateful to be able to visit on Skype and through Alexa.

Shortly after their marriage, Greg and Liz purchased the home in which that Greg was born and raised. He lived in that home until his mid-teens when his parents built a house in a newly developing area.It was a lovely, well-built, spacious family home into which Greg and Liz welcomed their own babies. However, it was also aging and badly needed repairs and expensive upgrading. With both of them in demanding jobs and two young kids, the work was overwhelming.

They decided to put it on market to see if they could find a buyer. Not only did one become available quickly but the buyers wanted immediate possession. Liz and Greg had two weeks, at the end of November, to find and purchase a new home, pack up and make the move. They found a lovely, smaller, brand new home that was ready for occupancy. Other than the fact that the landscaping will not be able to be completed until the spring, at the expense of the developer, it is a move right in, maintenance free home.

I was able to take a week off work for a quick visit to Calgary to help with the packing, moving and settling in. Quite uncharacteristically for November, it was a balmy, 11 degrees and a beautiful day for a move. It was a monumental task and the weather meant that Greg’s crew was all working so Greg, Liz, Greg’s Mom and I did the work ourselves. We were exhausted but so happy to see them settled in their new place by the time I returned to Cayman.

Russ and Layla are pretty resilient kids and just rolled with the punches. We even had some time to explore the new neighbourhood and just hangout in the new digs. Calvin and Hobbs even made the move in the form of a large, canvas print for his new bedroom wall.

The Children’s Heart Project arranges life-saving operations for hundreds of children in need of heart surgery, who live in countries where the required medical expertise and equipment are not available. In the Cayman Islands, the Have a Heart organization, in partnership with Health City Cayman Islands, has helped 104 children from all over the world receive free, life-saving heart surgeries.

Holly Thompson, one of our CIS students has established a ministry called Impact 345. She provides each child with a back pack filled with toys and gifts and maintains a “closet” that provides clothing and personal supplies for family members. Young people, organized by Holly, also visit and play with the children while they are hospitalized.

Samaritan’s Purse has partnered with this project by sponsoring children from countries in which they work and can provide on-going support for the children and their families. They have brought children from other Caribbean  countries, Bolivia, Uganda and Mongolia. The children are admitted directly to hospital on arrival, where they stay until they recover from surgery. After discharge they must stay on island until they are cleared to return home. Our church got on board about two years ago by hosting the children, their Mom’s and an interpreter for the 2- 6 weeks need for complete recovery.

Anjee, is a young Canadian scientist working here in Cayman who is a member of our Community Group. She felt the Lord had equipped her to reach out to these kids, so purchased a home with the express purpose of hosting these children. We, as a Community Group, have enjoyed the opportunity to help Anjee when she has visitors. In October, she hosted Enkhujin and Munkhbat, two little sweethearts from Mongolia along with their Moms and interpreter. What a blessing it was to have this little group join us on Thursday evenings in our home.

The Mom’s are both herders from rural Mongolia who have had no previous contacts with Christians. Their children were born with life-limiting heart defects and they had little hope that they would ever see their kids happy and healthy. They traveled halfway around the world with very sick children, experienced the love and care of complete strangers and headed back home with rambunctious, silly, normal kids. And we were all blessed by the opportunity to get to know them. They will have continued relationships with Samaritan’s Purse and we pray for the day their spiritual hearts will be healed.