April...many special days, including ARBOR DAY!

Si amigos, not only was April another good month for this PCV, filled with muchos dias buenos, but it also has been replete with several "official" special days. Once Easter was history, the calendar brought other things to celebrate:

-April 7, World Health Day
-April 14, Day of the Americas
-April 19, Day of the American Indian
-April 22, date of the original ARBOR DAY, and now well-known as EARTH DAY
-April 23, International Day of the Book (UNESCO)
-April 30, National Arbor Day in the States (last Friday in April)
-April 30, Day of the Teacher in Paraguay

An integral part of the Paraguayan school day is "la entrada," the few moments that start each day with all of the children assembled outside in front of the school's flagpole, lined up by grade. At a bare minimum, the ritual includes greetings by the Director, and/or the teacher who is in charge of the entrada for the week, and the singing of the national anthem as the flag is raised.

At my school, the teachers are very good about using this time as a daily "assembly" and cultural exchange, especially since there is no indoor space in which everyone would fit for such a gathering. So, on most of the dates listed above there was a presentation on the history and significance of the date. This presentation typically includes various recitations by the students, e.g. poetry, sharing a new song, etc. This month I especially enjoyed the tribute given on April 14, the Day of the Americas. I have to confess I didn't know about this day prior to this year, and was embarrassed to admit it when the teachers asked me if I'd celebrated this day in the States. Students from various grades had made homemade flags of all the 30-plus American nations, including a nice likeness of our good ol' Stars and Stripes (even if it didn't display all 50 stars!), and waved them in sync during the singing of a song in which all the countries are mentioned in rhyme.

The national Ministry of Education and Cultura (MEC) does a fine job of mentioning all the special days of each month on its web site. Scanning the month of April made me aware of many other celebrations that took place during these 30 days:

Special days of the month = Fechas especiales del mes

http://www.mec.gov.py/cmsmec/?page_id=899


I couldn't be present on April 23, the International Day of the Book, but my colleague Antonia, the school's librarian, was well prepared to give everyone an overview of the special day, declared by UNESCO in 1995. The date selected to celebrate the book is the date on which both Cervantes and Shakespeare died. I wasn't at school because I was in Asuncion. I had back-to-back presentations on April 22 and 23, to two different groups of Peace Corps folks. The first was to a group of Municipal Development Volunteers, and their community contacts, on working with libraries in Paraguay. The April 23 talk was to Peace Corps trainees, (during one of their last days in training before swearing-in today at the US Embassy), to talk about libraries. Libraries oftentimes become a secondary project for Volunteers, regardless of their assigned technical sector. So, as the only librarian amongst the current PCV Paraguay ranks, I'm being called upon to share the little I know about one of my favorite institutions. It's a lot of fun for me, and the most satisfying part is when someone who perhaps wasn't too enthused with the idea of listening to a talk about libraries, is jazzed about the idea of working on one in Paraguay by the time the session is over. On the Day of the Book, I was able to conclude the day with a quick showing of the "Gotta Keep Reading" video made last year by a middle-school in Florida. The catchy Black Eyed Peas tune is very popular here in Paraguay, and is used by various products in TV commericals, so it was fun to share it with this new twist:
(now to try and make a version with Spanish lyrics, which some of my students in Villarrica want to try!)

http://www.schooltube.com/v/e9bd79d29b4d0e6a2345

(and am compelled to cut and paste this whole article too):

Student video ‘Gotta Keep Reading’ inspires nation

Posted By mstansbury On March 18, 2010 @ 2:13 pm

In a powerful example of how online social networking, youth exuberance, and digital media can combine to affect a nation, students at Florida’s Ocoee Middle School created a video called “Gotta Keep Reading,” an infectious message that has “gone viral” and inspired other schools and big-name TV stars to endorse reading as a path to success.

The video began when the school’s reading coach, Janet Bergh, thought it might be fun to do something like The Oprah Winfrey Show’s “flash mob” video in Chicago last year. Winfrey and her producers elected to kick off the 2009 season with a live open-air version of the show in Chicago, featuring the Black-Eyed Peas and other performers. The Black-Eyed Peas rewrote the words to their single “I Gotta Feelin” as a Winfrey tribute dubbed “Oprah Feelin,” and hours before the show began the approximately 21,000 audience members were taught choreographed steps to the piece to create a flash mob dance.

As to why she chose to create a flash mob video about reading, Bergh said on Oprah recently that “students have a lot of other interests. Oftentimes reading takes a back seat to that. …It’s not always real cool to be seen with a book.”

“The initial inspiration for the flash mob was the idea of involving every student and adult on our campus in an event that was a fun, exciting, team building activity with a great message,” explained Sharyn C. Gabriel, principal of Ocoee Middle School, in an interview with eSchool News. “We wanted to promote reading—as we always do—in a way that was motivational, meaningful, and engaging to our middle school students. The idea of any publicity was not a part of the plan. However, it has been a welcome, super fun, and exciting addition to the project!”

Gabriel continued: “Our goal was to inspire all readers, especially teenage readers. They love music, they love videos, so why not a music video about reading? We thought this was a win-win situation.”

After the idea took hold in the school, the administration next had to secure rights to the song, “I Gotta Feelin.”

“We worked through [the Black-Eyed Peas’] publishers to get permission to use the song. While we did not speak directly to the artists, submitting our lyrics about reading was part of the approval process,” said Gabriel. “We are hoping they are thrilled that they motivated and inspired us, and we do know that they support our message.”

After the school secured copyright permission, music and drama teachers began to write the lyrics to the group’s song and to choreograph the dance moves.

Students practiced for the flash mob video during their gym classes.

The “Gotta Keep Reading” music video features nearly all of the school’s 1,700 students dancing and singing while holding books in the school’s courtyard. It was recorded with the help of the school’s partner, Full Sail University, in December.

“Full Sail University [staff] very generously donated their time, their equipment, and their talent to this project,” Gabriel said. “They support our school in a variety of ways, including curriculum development and professional training for our teachers.”
Lyrics were changed to make reading the center of the song, and to include the refrain “This book’s going to be a good, good book.”

The video was posted to the school’s web site in late January. It also was posted on YouTube, where it went viral and captured the attention of Oprah show producers.

This month, The Oprah Winfrey Show highlighted Ocoee Middle School and its video by filming a segment on the school’s campus. Winfrey announced that she and Target would pay for the school library’s makeover, including new furniture, new computers, and 2,000 books.

“They managed to get almost 1,700 kids pumped up about something you know I love,” Winfrey said during the broadcast.

(Singers are the school’s band director, Nicole Nasrallah, and its former chorus director, Jamie Perez. Principal Sharyn Gabriel is the solitary dancer at the front of the group when the video begins.)

Winfrey asked the students questions via satellite link, and the entire school gathered in the courtyard, just like in the video. Eighth-grade students Alexis Fox and Danny Mora were on stage with Gabriel and answered some of Winfrey’s questions.

Gabriel said the announcement about the library’s renovations is a great surprise, especially because the library was built to accommodate 600 fewer students than now attend the school.

“We are very fortunate to have been given this very generous and meaningful gift that will touch our entire community,” she said. “The plans for the renovation are top secret, but we do expect the renovation to be complete [by] the end of this school year.”

Since Ocoee Middle School recorded the video, Gabriel said, school data suggest that students are ahead of where they were last year at this time in the number of books read and Reading Counts! quizzes passed.

“There were many lessons learned throughout this entire process, but perhaps the most important is the value of an entire school community coming together to work on a great project with a crucial message,” said Gabriel. “The other lesson we hope to share with others is to think big. Our students can go farther and do more than we think they can. They can be rock stars if we believe in them and if we don’t hold them back.”

Gabriel said Ocoee has received messages from schools all over the country and even from other parts of the world—many sending their congratulations for a job well done and asking for information on how they, too, can do a similar project.

“We are thrilled beyond belief that others want to spread this message,” she said. “We certainly hope other schools will think outside the box when it comes to inspiring and motivating their students to read and succeed. We collectively need to share this message with students all over the world.”


Article printed from eSchoolNews.com: http://www.eschoolnews.com

This final week of the month has been very special too! Monday, April 26, I ventured to the southwest region of my department (state), to attend a workshop on reading promotion offered in the town of Iturbe. Iturbe was home to one of Paraguay's most famous authors, the only one to receive the Cervantes literature prize awarded by the King of Spain. Agosto Roa Bastos died five years ago on April 26, and the town of Iturbe's recently established cultural center and library (donning his name), located in an abandoned train station, paid tribute to Señor Bastos with a celebration of reading. I'd been invited to attend by one of the "reading promoters" who works for the Secretary of Culture in Asuncion. We had become acquainted by phone during my work on the library manual revision. She told me the workshop would be at 9am on April 26. The earliest I could arrive to Iturbe via two buses was 9:30. I arrived, assuming I was late. Instead, I found two "guapa" (hard-working) señoras in the old train station, in clean-up mode. Turns out the workshop had been changed to 3pm. One of the women, a retired high school principal, "Reina" kindly invited me to her home for lunch and a nap. It was 4pm by the time the event began, and by then I KNEW I would not be able to make it back to Troche in the same day, at least not via public transportation. But I was "tranquilopa," knowing everything would work out...as it did! I spent the evening with Reina and her family, and departed the next morning on a 6am bus bound for Villarrica. I promised Reina I'd be back, to offer a one-day workshop for her and her colleagues on libraries.

The unexpected Tuesday morning in Villarrica brought a nice surprise, for I stumbled upon the inauguration of a "TELECENTRO" in the city's main museum when I stopped by to greet its librarian, Olga. Villarrica's mayor has been trying to establish the town as Paraguay's first digital urbe (outside of Asuncion, claro), and he was able to secure funding from a NGO to help begin this reality. The "Telecentro" is comprised of 10 computers housed in the municipal museum. There is an Internet connection, and classes will be offered, all at no cost to the citizens of Villarrica. I took advantage of my presence at the ribbon-cutting, logged on muy quickly, and sent a message to a RPCV (returned Peace Corps volunteer) who just returned to the States after serving in Villarrica for two years.

Finally, today, April 30! Officially the Day of the Teacher here, although the main celebration took place yesterday across the country. We went to school for about an hour in the morning, for a prolonged "entrada" ritual to hear the different grades pay homage to their "profes," after which each grade went briefly to its classroom to shower the teachers with gifts. By noon all of the teachers were gathered at a colleague's home for an all-afternoon lunch, complete with mucho dancing! (oh, and I forgot to mention that we first had to go to the local sugarcane processing factory for a Mass to commemorate the official launch of the new harvest season, a very big deal here since the factory is central to the area's economic survival. President Lugo and the Minister of Industry and Commerce coptered in for the event. The President sounded the factory's siren to herald the harvest's start.) Today there is no school all across the country, which is why the in-school celebrations took place yesterday. Quite a deal for the profes here in Paraguay, and for those of us who work with them!


Even tho I pen this from Paraguay, I would be remiss if I closed this entry without mention of one of the days nearest and dearest to my Nebraska native's heart, Arbor Day. The original date, April 22, was the birthday of the holiday's founder, J. Sterling Morton. I still remember the excitement I experienced on the 100th anniversary of the holiday's founding as we wore our Centennial Arbor Day shirts, climbed the huge "monkey tree" in the Arbor Lodge State Historical Park, and went to the parade in my hometown of Nebraska City, Home of Arbor Day. The celebration has come a long way since then, check it out at:

http://www.arborday.org/

In the words of its founder J. Sterling Morton,

"Other holidays repose upon the past; Arbor Day proposes for the future."

Now off to climb the mango tree in my backyard with Nico and Beta as I tell them about Arbor Day and my hometown!