More Pictures Of My Students

8th grade girls lining up for the 100 meter dash on Field Day.

"The Gangsters" as they call themselves: Tuesy, Dale, and Roben trying to cut class in my room...

My 9th graders Leleen and Masumi in the MES computer lab.

Kosraen Speech Contest

Last April, the Department of Education put on an island wide Speech Contest for 7th grade students throughout the island. It was organized by one of my Peace Corps coworkers in the village of Tafunsak. Each school had to select 2 students to participate in the final competition held at the Governors office. They both had to prepare a speech 5 to 10 minutes in length on the topic, "How to Make Kosrae A Better Place." The speeches could be presented in either English or Kosraen. I worked with selecting the students to go to the competition and then helped them on their speeches and presentations, along with their 7th grade English teacher Genie. It was a very good feeling to have both students win awards at the competition. While I was very happy for Rina who came in 1st place for her English speech, I was even more pleased that Sepe came in 3rd for Kosraen. Genie is Pohnpein and has about the same fluency of Kosraen as my self. Without any other help I worked tirelessly with Sepe on her Kosraen speech and was very satisfied that she was able to place. It was an amazing experience. The FSM Telecom taped the contest and I can still watch reruns on the local Kosraen channell...

7th Grade Teacher Genie Jonas, Rina Rabauw (1st place-English), and Sepe (3rd place-Kosraen)

School Base and Field Day

Two events that my school hosted before Graduation was School Base and a Field Day. The field day pictured directly below was a variety of sports activites (relay races, basketball, baseball) that's the kids and parents participated in. Each teacher had a role to play. I was "flag man" No. 2. The first, second, and third place finishers always recieved a prize...money. It became quite a competitive event and since I was the one to determine who was the first runner up in each case I slightly felt the pressure. 1st place was given a dollar, 2nd 75 cents and third 50 cents. At the end of the day the school spent $500. I was all for giving them books but this is the culture...

The school base was a day for all the clubs at the school to showcase what they had done over the school year. I had two students from my music club perform Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Amazing grace on piano.

3rd grade 100 meter relay.

Renee Ann "crunching" her way through Twinkle.

Coteachers

Here are 3 of my fellow teachers at Malem Elementary School that I work with the most. There are a total of 23 teachers and staff members at Malem Elementary School.

Arlene Jonas teaches 9th grade and is also a tutor for the Upward Bound program for high school students. I tutor with her.

Arthur Talley teaches 8th grade Social Studies (US History) and Mathematics.

Rusty Anton teaches 8th grade Science, and Health. He is my official coteacher so I work with him the most. He is the most experienced teacher at our school and has been teaching for over 30 years.

My Names...

So one thing that I seem to have accumulated over the past 7 months in Kosrae is a lot of names to go by. There are maybe 5 people on the island who knew my name BEFORE I was bestowed with my Kosraen names. (3 Peace Corps Volunteers,Peace Corps Boss, and my host father Remos Leviae)Here is what everyone else calls me:

Likiak Phillip

Aaron Phillip

Ari

Arlan Lakau

Likiak Kurr

Peace Corps

Appa

Walunga Man

Papa Bamboo

Papa KunKun

(KunKun means to pinch in Kosraen...a relative named likiak use to pinch people)

Mexico

Richardson

White Kosraen

The Ice Cream Buyer

These are the names that I can think of. However I am sure I have forgotten a couple...

Some Students during their Graduation

Kathy Phillip is "related" to me. She always always quiet in class but worked really hard.

Angelo "DN The Commander Talley". I have been on many daring missions with him. He always is an adventurer. His fathers nickname for me is "Richardson" because he followed the 2008 Presidential Race and remembers Richardson was from New Mexico. He's probably the only person on the island who knows I'm from the United States and not Mexico...his son was one of my hardest working and most enjoyable students this year.

Nena Mackweang

Nena was not one of my most dedicated students and he was not very interested in school. His parents have both passed away and he is living with his grandfather. He was one of the first kids to befriend me when I arrived in Kosrae. Outside of school he continues to be a great friend. Being in Peace Corps is not always about wether you can measure success. I was more excited for Nena on graduation day than anyone of my students.

The Future...

Last Friday was our 8th and 9th grade Graduation Ceremony at Malem Elementary School. I was on the set-up and break down committee responsible with preparing everything. It was a crazy 3 days of setting things up, participating in the ceremonies, and then breaking everything down. Right before the ceremony I had maybe a dozen of my boy students come to me and asked them to help make their ties. They had never worn one before and no one in their family knew how to wear them either...they all knew the American would know. It's funny because I really only learned how maybe 3 years ago. I remember my 8th grade graduation having a fellow graduate (Ryan Houpt) help me out.

Recent reading list...

Here are some more books that have kept me buisy over the last several months:

The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong

The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan

Black Box by Amos Oz

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

John Adams by David McCullough

Andrew Jackson by John Meecham

Team of Rivals by Dorris Kearns Goodwin

Fools Rush In by Bill Carter

The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell

Blink by Malcom Gladwell

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Lies my Teacher Told Me by James Loewen

Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Mythology by Edith Hamilton

A Short History of Mexico by J. Patrick McHenry

Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

More coming soon...

I know it has been many months since I have updated this blog but I plan to provide many updates shortly. Lots has happaned over the past months that I will bring everyone up to speed with. We just had our school graduation on Friday and I am just in the process of finishing grades while preparing to teach summer school which starts in 2 weeks. Please stay tuned...