How to stay YOUNG

How to stay YOUNG?

Sometimes I think I am to old for this, but it all just too much fun! Kids seem to keep me young. They bring out the silliness and child's play in my being. I love seeing the library full of active elementary kids being kids and being noisy. Sometimes I think the PEL Library sounds like Grand Central Station at rush hour. I just sit back and enjoy all the activity and soak in the youth.
Like this super hero librarian say, "Do the DEED, READ!

Dear Parents

NEWS FROM THE PEL LIBRARY:

Dear Parents,

Welcome back to another exciting year in the PEL Library! We have loads of new books and items for your family’s’ reading pleasure.

New books for parents are listed below.

A message to all JIS parents: Please remember that the JIS Library Catalog is available to you all on the Parentnet. On the catalog you can access books from all the JIS Libraries (PEL, PIE, Middle School and High School). Make JIS Libraries your family’s resource for books and information. If you are interested in getting a book from one of the other JIS Libraries, please let me know (email: rpolonsky@jisedu.or.id ) and we can have it delivered to PEL. If you need any help finding this information, please stop in the library.

You are all patron of the JIS Library system and may use your parent id as your library card. Father’s too!! Please stop by the PEL Library and model reading and library usage for your children.

Thanks,

Rhona Polonsky,

PEL Teacher Librarian

New Books for Parents:

HOMEWORK WITHOUT TEARS: This is a parent’s guide for motivating children to do homework and to succeed in school.

REVIVING OPHELIA: Saving the selves of adolescent girls: What is happening to the selves of adolescent girls? Why had these lovely and promising human beings fallen prey to depression, eating disorder, and crushingly low self-esteem? The answer hit a nerve with therapist, Mary Pipher. Crashing and burning in a “developmental Bermuda Triangle,” they were coming of age in a media-saturated culture preoccupied with unrealistic ideals of beauty, a culture rife with addictions. This book is told in the brave, fearless, and honest voices of girls themselves who are emerging from the chaos of adolescence.

SOLVE YOU CHILD’S SLEEP PROBLEMS: Incorporating new research, Dr. Ferber provides important basic information that all parents should know regarding the nature of sleep and the development of normal sleep and body rhythms throughout childhood. He discusses the cause of most sleep problems from birth to adolescence and recommends an array of proven solutions for each so that parents can choose the strategy that works best for them.

WHAT’S INSIDE YOUR TUMMY, MOMMY? This the only book you’ll need to explain exactly what goes on inside a pregnant mommy’s tummy. Month by month, spread by spread, the stages of pregnancy develop. Mothers-to-be can hold up the pages and use the life-size illustrations to show how the baby grows.

Many more books and topics are available to parents.

We also carry these magazines for your reading pleasures: Find them on a book shelf behind our couches.

Parenting Early Years

Additude: For People with Attention Deficit

Readers Digest

Mother Earth News: The Original Guide to Living Wisely

Jakarta Now

ENJOY!

TEACHER AND LEARNER

Dear JIS Community,
Yes, the better to see you with my dear...
You can now all follow along in my circuitous journey to teacher librarian-hood. I will use the PEL Library Blog as my learning log and my reflections in a course called Teacher Librarians as Leaders.
Leadership is about what Peter Senge calls, "learning organizations". What that must boil down to in education is that anyone who is creating more learning for students is a leader. The idea that this week JIS is implementing, Professional Learning Communities (PLC) is a move towards a learning organization where the focus in on learning and not on teaching. Within these PLC's, teachers emerge as leaders. The big picture has to include inquiry, collaboration, and reflective practice. We are over 100 teachers in the PLC workshop out of a total teaching faculty of 250. That is what I call distributed leadership. It is all very exciting. Here is a quote from the workshop today: Collective Commitments of Administrator: "IF we are to be a school with widely dispersed leadership, THEN we must create structures to promote multiple leadership opportunities and define our job, in part, as developing the leadership potential of OTHERS at our school. If you want to know more about PLC's have a look at this website:
http://www.allthingsplc.info/

Rainy Day Ramblings

Rainy Day Ramblings: JAKARTA

April 6th, the heavens have opened and chaos prevails. You would think that it was the first rain people here have ever experienced in this tropical rainforest. There is static electricity in the air. Gate B at Pattimura is flooded and closed. We need web feet to walk to our cars and I remove my shoes. I left school at 2:45, let’s see how long this trip takes and what we see on the way.
As I drive home, I begin reading an article in Ed. Leadership, but can hardly ignore the frantic mobile masses trying to inch forward. The torrential down pour has calmed and with that the streets are filled with vendors selling snacks to those who fear they may not reach home for dinner or maybe breakfast?? Buses continue to stop in the middle of the crowded streets to drop off patrons as they try to disperse through the carnage of mobiles held at a standstill in most cases. Motorcycles return from their hiding space under bridges causing one lane traffic in the busiest sections of roadways. As the rain lessens the motorbikes return in masses as if a swarm of mosquitos have hatched suddenly but expected. Umbrellas are colliding into each other on sidewalks that are uneven and difficult to maneuver in the best weather. Heads covered with plastic bags are in fashion along with rolled up pant legs. I have moved maybe 10 meters in the last 30 minutes and my driver is planning the best route in his mind. We have turned off the main road and will begin our circuitous weave home. I fear there is no best route. Students in white uniforms are braving the steady drops but most people have found shelter in even the smallest aperture of their toko or warung. We have settled in for the long arduous trip ahead, glad that I remembered to visit the ladies rooms before leaving the security of school. I go back to the movie, BLADE RUNNER, where the setting was a constant drizzle combined with fluorescent lights and a mix of old and new. I must watch that movie again sometime. I begin to envy those that are at home sipping tea and watching the rain outside their window and long to be there. How patiently my driver dances with the other drivers to create a ballet of slow delicate movements always making sure contact is avoided. Wondering how long my computer battery will last and dimming my screen to save energy. It is 4pm now and I am on Jl. Tirtayasa, not far from school and still far from home. I always tell new arrivals to Jakarta that the traffic will teach them patients and to create a home away from home in your car. Have pillows, blankets, water, books, suduko, crosswords and rarely do you need to look where you are going. Sending joking messages to my husband that I may never get home tonight. Intersections become gridlock and you wonder if you will ever move again. Motorcycle drivers and passengers with no shoes weave by. No ones listens to a man trying to direct the chaos and you wonder why he is even trying. Huge puddles continue to form and you know that there is no place for all this wetness to escape to. I do love the sound of rain and in a car I am reminder of the tin roof in our Vermont farmhouse during rainy evening in our loft. I have cancelled my tai chi lesson and Pak Dyon is grateful that he doesn’t have to be a part of the rain scene. I have helped keep one motorcycle off the road. Unbelievably the sun is trying to shine down on us and it seems to want to clear, but I fear it is to late and there clear skies will not help. Traffic police wave franticly to try and clear a route, but there is no clearings in sight just bumper to bumper. I love that we create our own lane and are lost in no where land. If I was at the wheel, I would feel like covering my eyes, clicking my ruby red slippers and repeating, “I want to go home, I want to go home”. I think we are close to the penis trees a landmark that I am familiar with just before the road to Kemang by the building with the clock tower. We have made progress and it is only 4:23 p.m. How much more you notice as you maneuver slowly and you see the red cross building you never saw before with a sign outside that reads in big red letters, “I can save a life”. Three lanes merging into two is always tricky and slow. Back to my Ed. Leadership, as I settle in for the uneventful trip down artery with what feels like half the population of Jakarta. HOME: 4:52 not bad and the sun is shining and the skies are clearing.

GIVE A BOOK TO INDONESIA: Pages to Grow

Indonesia Week 2009 has come and gone. It was another wonderful experience for both teachers and students. We were able to experience dance, music, art, food, and crafts of this diverse archipelago. Thank you Lanny Jizhar!
This Indonesia Week was especially busy in the PEL Library. On Thursday and Friday the children were able to buy books in Bahasa Indonesian for a kampung in Bintaro. They have set up a small library and have been in desperate need of books . Our 6th graders have been working in conjunction with the WatSan, a yayasan that works with disadvantage Indonesian communities to improve water and sanitation conditions through educational activities. Watsan was working under the guidance of Yayasan Emmanuel, but has grown to establish an independent organization in Indonesia. One of the requests from this community was to set up a public library. The library is up and working, but the book collection is very limited. This was another wonderful opportunity for our students to learn about being responsible world citizens by giving to their host country. The response was overwhelming. Students, teachers and the PEL community contributed more than Rp14.8 million worth of books in two days. Each student was able to sign their book and stamp it with a Pattimura Library stamp.
Pages To Grow is a Blog that was created by my Grade 11 son, Jared Smith, who is working on his IB service project. He is working with four Grade 8 students Isabella, Mansi, .... , .... on acquiring books for distribution in Indonesia. A blog has been created for others in the global community to help with this cause. You can visit his site at: http://pagestogrow.blogspot.com/search?q=pagestogrow

BUYING A MAC

HOW IS BUYING A MAC LIKE BUYING A BANJO?

I think it must have been in the 1980, but I am not good with remembering dates. I decided that I would learn how to play the banjo, Now...you have to realize that I am not musical at all. I can't sing, I can't read notes and I had traumatic experiences in school with music teachers. I love the banjo, so I walked into a music store and brought a 5 string banjo. No problem there, the problem came when I left the store with the banjo. How can a non-musical person walk around with a banjo. I felt like an impersonator and as I walked it was difficult to actually hold this instrument close to me. This is the same feeling I had today when I brought my mac. I've never had a mac and don't know how to use them, who did I think I was. Once again there was that feeling of being an impersonator, and holding the box in a detached way.
BUT...writing my blog on my new mac on flock is lovely and wonderful and much easier than learning the banjo...so far!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Ms. Polonsky's Favorites

Here is that FAVS favorites list:

THE HUNDRED DRESSES (F EST)

SHAKESPEARE'S SECRET (F BRO)

THE LIGHTNING THIEF (F RIO)

DRAGONKEEPER (F WIL)

HATCHET (F PAU)

BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA (F PAT)

SHILOH (F NAY)

ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHIN (F ODE)

NUMBER THE STARS (F LOW)

IQBAL: A NOVEL (F DAD)

DEAR MR. HENSHAW (F CLE)

STRIDER

INDIGO BLUE

CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY (F CUS)

THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH (F JUS)

THE CITY OF EMBER (F DUP)

STAR GIRL (F SPI)

THE GOLDEN COMPASS (F PUL)

PENDERWICKS (F bIR)

PLATFORM 13 (F ISS)

CRISPIN (F AVI)

A SINGLE SHARD

TORNADO (F BYR)

BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE (F DIC)

ESPERANZA RISING (F RYA)

HOOT (F HIA)

SKELLIG

MIDWIFE APPRENTICE (F CUS)

BUD, NOT BUDDY (F CUR)

WALK TWO MOONS (F CRE)

THE TIGER RISING (F DIC)

THE LION BOY (F COR)

ELLA ENCHANTED

SILVERWING

THE WANDER (F CRE)

THE ARTHUR SERIES

REDWALL

ROLL OF THUNDER, HEAR MY CRY

DRAGONWINGS (F YEP)

MOLLY MOON (F BYN)

SPIDERWICK

MAGYK/FYTE/PHYSIK

DOG SENSE

FRINDLE

THE INVENTION OF HUGO GABRAI