To Paris and Back in an Hour

I took a brief trip to Paris to go shopping this afternoon. It only took an hour. That's pretty amazing, because usually it's a 5-hour flight each way, plus the time on the ground!

OK, I didn't really go to Paris, but I might as well have. Some friends introduced me to a new, enclosed mini-mall that is a slightly smaller version of one I shopped at in France when I went there for language training in 2006. Several glass-fronted, upscale boutiques line one side of a tiled promenade. Across from the boutiques, with no wall or windows to separate it from the mall, is a huge, sparklingly clean grocery store filled with imported items (mostly from France, some from the Mideast, and a few from the US), and lighted up brighter than a Hollywood premier.

It was actually a little disorienting, walking aisles laid out exactly as they were at that store in France, overflowing with neatly stacked rows of brightly colored packages containing virtually every item a large American grocery/drug store would have, and even some other customers speaking (heavily accented) English. I had to keep telling myself I was in Dakar, not Paris.

This is just one more sign of the sea-change taking place here. Last spring, a new, modern, air-conditioned(!) Departures Terminal opened at the airport. This fall, an efficient highway system leading into and around the city was completed. Under construction now is a series of hotels and parks, and a large Visitors Center with a fabulous ocean view, along a 2-mile stretch of shoreline on the peninsula's western coast.

Next thing you know, the power and water will work consistently! Well, that still appears to be wishful thinking. "But," as the old song goes, "I Can Dream, Can't I?"

Green Red Cards

To "get" this post, read the first couple of paragraphs of my previous post first.

I've been using Red Cards with my students for several months now. A few days ago, while teaching my Kindergarteners, I happened to pull out the stack of identical cards in other colors, to use in a game. When the kids saw them, their reaction was immediate: "Look, he has green red cards." "There's a blue red card!" "Cool, there's a black red card."

***

This seems to me to illustrate something about human nature. Once we have a particular perspective, we look at other things with the same perspective, even if they are quite different. For example I find that I perceive peers I've known for years quite differently from peers I've met recently. The middle-aged friends I've known for 20 or 30 years almost all look younger to me than newer friends of the same age. I see the old friends through a mental filter of what they were like when we were young. And not just their physical appearance, but their personalities and characters, too.

I went to my 30th high school reunion a few years ago. While in town, I dropped by a local grocery store, and passed a number of older adults in the aisles as I shopped. Suddenly, I realized these weren't older adults, they were my peers. I might see any one of them at the reunion the next day. I'd never adjusted my perception of middle-aged people as "older" than I--as my parents' peers, not mine--to the reality that I was now middle-aged.

But some experiences show this tendency to perceive the new through an old filter, as sometimes a good thing, even as accurate. If I know someone well, and know him to be honest, kind, and trustworthy, I will perceive an isolated episode of rudeness or failure as an anomaly, not as an indication of a change in their character. It's like saying "Look, a rude good person." If, on the other hand, I know someone as a rude, crude jerk, I see even good behavior through that lens--perhaps doubting the reality or sincerity of the new behavior. "Look, there's a kind and thoughtful jerk." Of course, we all know examples of children who get blamed for something they didn't do because so often they have been the one at fault.

How many green red cards are in your life?

Red Cards and Baby Harmonicas

RED CARDS: I've finally hit on a simple, effective discipline system for my elementary music classes. It came to me in a flash at the beginning of a 2nd grade session last year. They were a bright group, but considerably lacking in self control.

One day, I had pulled out a stack of square, laminated cards that I'd made from construction paper in different colors, for use in various games. That day, I picked the red cards out of the pack and handed one to any student who misbehaved. I explained that they were like penalty flags in sports--you get one when you've done something you shouldn't have, and there is a punishment that goes with it.

Now I use Red Cards with all my elementary classes. When the teachers pick up their children, they check to see if any of their students received a red card (or more than one) and incorporate that as a negative "mark" in whatever discipline system they use (5 minutes off recess for each mark, or whatever).

This has revolutionized discipline in my classes. I don't have to run back to the board to put a student's name up. I don't have to remember the offense until the end of class. I just keep a card or two in my shirt pocket, and hand it to the student immediately after the infraction.

BABY HARMONICAS. For a couple of years, I've been using a desk bell to get my students' attentions whenever they get too noisy, or when I need to interrupt what they're doing to give new instructions. This has worked well--it's a penetrating but attractive sound--but it has a major drawback. The bell is never where I am when I need it. If I'm playing the piano, it's on my desk. If I've moved it to the piano, I'm writing on the board. I always have to search for it, and then go get it.

I mused for weeks on how to solve the problem. "I need an instrument I can carry with me at all times," I thought one day. But what? The answer? A harmonica!

Last summer, I bought a one-inch harmonica (really!), just to see if I could learn how to play. (It's not a toy, it's an honest-to-goodness Hoehner harmonica.) For only $10, it was a low-risk investment.

A few weeks ago, I took it to school to show to my students. To keep from losing it, I put it on a lanyard around my neck. In the middle of a class, realizing my bell was on the other side of the room, it came to me. I can use the harmonica! Now I wear it every day, and give it a little toot whenever I need the students' attentions. Once I learn to play better, maybe I can have different signals for different circumstances, like Baron Von Trapp in The Sound of Music...

Red cards and baby harmonicas--they only took 5 years to come up with. And that's just more evidence that a professor's caution was on the mark: don't judge yourself as a teacher until you've been teaching at least 5 years.

Power Plays

Power outages are a common topic around here, because they are such a common--and frustrating--occurrence, especially between July and November.

Outages are unannounced, so there's no way to plan work or other needs around them. As a result, they (along with constant, damaging power fluctuations) wreak havoc on work, food (going bad in non-operating fridges and freezers), sleep on still, sultry nights, applicances, and much more.

Frustration has boiled over into demonstrations (read: riots) in Dakar over the past couple of weeks. One crowd piled a bunch of ruined appliances in the street and set them on fire. Others destroyed Senelec business offices in a couple of quatiers (neighborhoods), smashing windows, computers, desks, etc.

In response, Senelec has switched from cutting the power once or twice a day for 4 hours or more (11 hours on one day a few weeks ago) to cutting it 4 or 5 times a day for an hour or two each.

I'm thinking of writing a letter to the editor of some Dakar newspaper asking why Senegal does this to it's own people. It's bad enough having outages, but not letting the public know when they will be so that individuals and businesses can plan around them is, in my mind, inexplicable.

It's hard not to get frustrated. It's hard not to complain. (I probably write about it too often in this blog and in emails.)

The good news is, we've had no outages on campus for the past 3 days, giving hope that the break in the heat has decreased usage to such an extent that the demand can be met.