Week 2 in Gothenburg

Feb. 10

Today's musing:

Have a look at the picture above. Some of you may see a child, others may even wonder if it is a human being at all. If I have done an adequate job of depicting him, you may recognize him as Spot, the boy from the movie "The Good Dinosaur." For those of you who have not seen the movie, Spot is a young boy who has yet to learn how to behave as a civilized human being, as you may notice from his dog-like stance.

I could not help but think of Spot as I observed one of my students. This particular student reminds me of Spot not only with his appearance, but with his behavior as well (for instance, this student found it necessary and amusing to crawl around on all fours during recess today). This child can be wild and difficult at times, but I have also seen that he can be very lovable as well...it's just a matter of cultivating the lovable side and doing away with...well...everything else...yeah, that sounds good.

Feb. 11

Today's musing:

Yesterday my colleague and I had the privilege of presenting to a group of students at the University of Gothenburg about the U.S. school system and TCU. The building you see behind us is the college of education called Pedagogin. It was a most enjoyable experience to present and the students were all very engaged.
As I interacted with a few of them, I recognized that some of them had similar personalities of my friends back home (sarcastic, shy and reserved, outgoing etc.). Ah yes. This reminded me of my dear campus in a lot of ways.

I am constantly reminded that many things, such as personalities, are universal. It is fascinating to see how we are all quite the same, even if we grow up in divergent cultures. Yes we all have differences, but at the heart of the matter, we are all quite similar in some regards. This comforting notion helps me feel at home here.

Feb. 12

Today's musing:

This week I taught the maths lessons for my cooperating teacher (yes, I know I said maths). The concept for the week was patterns, so I taught the students all about number, sound, color, and shape patterns. As a final assessment I had them create their own patterns the fur of a spotless giraffe printout. What they created was impressive and fairly amusing as well.

As I'm sure you can tell, all this talk of patterns inspired me to sketch a giraffe of my own, however, you will notice that this rendering is devoid of several details other than the intricately organized pattern on the fur. This is because I wanted the pattern to stand out most. It's funny how we tend to overlook such beauties in nayure, but hopefully I have taught at least my students to start appreciating the patterns we find in everyday life.

...and here are some of the students' creations. Some of them are pretty funny.