Songs to lift the Spirt

Inspired by Alan Kohler’s reference to Strauss’ Last Four Songs Eureka Report – here are a few from You Tube to lift the spirts, including Jessie Norman’s version of “Beim Schlafengehen” (Going to sleep).

Ava Maria, irrespective if you are religious or not, is just the most amazing melody, in my humble option that is. Jessie Norman has the most beautiful voice and here it is done justice. Summertime is sung by Leontyne Price, an encore at the White House during Carters time in office, apparently. Billy Holiday is my favourite and here she sings Strange Fruit – if you have not heard this song listen carefully, it was performed first in 1936. If you think back to that time, this was truely a beautiful and brave performance.

Enjoy! Oh, and there is a ring in at the end.

Ava Maria

Beyonce has a beautiful version also.

 

Strauss’ last four songs

 

Jessie Norman

Summertime – Leontyne Price

Strange Fruit – Billy Holiday

Based on a poem by Abel Meeropol in 1936, one of the first racial

protest songs.

I am in Jordan, so here is one I found.
swing

Father-Daughter time in Jordan

Nicola arrived safely and we enjoyed a great time travelling around some of Jordan and sampling some of what Amman has to offer.

Her flight from Heathrow was delayed nearly two hours, but she was out so quickly at the Amman airport I nearly missed her. On Tuesday she was woken in the morning by 2 hours of call to prayer to mark the Eid holiday celebration.

We ventured up to Jerash and enjoyed the sites and had lunch which was very nice. It was lovely weather and not too crowded. Jerash is just fantastic and now that I can get in for 1JD with my residency card I will go back often. The North West of Jordan is full of interesting places: Jearsh, Pella, Ajloun, Umm Qais to name a few.

After an early night we left for Petra at 6.30 and made it down by 9.30 – the highway, especially after the turn-off passes through some of the most inhospitable terrain. The weather again was kind and although Niki was not too impressed with the treatment of the horses and one amazing scene with a donkey, she thoughly enjoyed chalking up number 4 on the list of the Worlds Wonder she has seen.

The incident with the donkey deserves mention. The boy rider was trying to get the donkey to move, it would not, so he got off and grabbed a small boulder about 1foot in diameter, jumped back on and banged it onto the donkeys head. Well I let the boy, his two adult minders and who else cared to listen that this was just not on! It occurred to me latter that this was obviously learned behaviour and that probably the animals were not as well treated as we might hope.

Petra was left behind and off we headed to the Movenpick resort on the Dead Sea – we were upgraded to private suits with a private pool and patio area, which you got to via double opening doors. This was a highlight in Nicola’s eyes, and mine I have to say.

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

The trip back to Amman was over the mountain range to Madaba and then onto Amman, this, like all trips down or up the range to or from the Dead Sea provides spectacular vistas of the West Bank and other occupied areas, as well of the geographic landscapes in general.

Thursday night was a trip to books@cafe for dinner and an early night – Niki is getting tied these days and needs her rest.

In the middle of this fun we got the news that my younger daughter was ill with of all things Glandular Fever! Flowers and a teddy bear were dispatched to cheer her up.

The Friday was a quiet rest day, but thanks to my good friend Niki (can be confusing as they have the same first name) who took us to the old town at night, Nicola was able to sample the delights of the famous Hashem eatery and to have a look around the souks and markets – thanks Niki for taking us.

Arising at 5.30am for the trip to the airport, Nicola has flown back to London.

A great experience for both father and daughter – possibly our last holiday together on our own.

By the way, on Friday morning I received the news that I had been awarded my Doctorate from the University of Melbourne – well done me!

Pella

A trip to Pella from Amman is best done via Jerash, if you go up to Irbid it is bit longer and the signage is easy to miss! Take the turn-off to Jerash, then via Aljon Castle and little further on you reach Pella, if you continue on past the Pella turn-off you will make it to the Jordan valley.

The day was perfect, weather warm, sky blue and the start of a nine day break. I picked my friend Niki up at 9am and by lunch time we had found Pella, and it was reasonably warm so I think we were both relieved that we did not feel it necessary to walk in through the small gate marking the entrance to the site but could head straight to lunch.

The Rest restaurant is managed by the people who run the eatery in Omm Quais and the view is just as impressive, overlooking the Jordan Valley. The view can be seen in the slide show below at the start – along with a picture of a helpful cat, who managed to eat most of Niki’s chicken!

The menu is not as extensive as the one at Omm Qais,you are restricted to chicken and fish, we saw the fish whisked by and ordered chicken, salad and somehow managed to end up with a lime drink as well, all very reasonably priced.

The ruins can be easily seen from the table – no need for clambering over rocks just use the zoom! Anyway, they looked, well just like the other Romans ruins. Australia is very well known here as it is one of the countries whose Universities have been digging and exploring since the early 1970s.

After negotiating the tour bus blocking the exit we headed off to visit Aljon castle. This is an impressive place with vistas across much of North West Jordan, somehow we managed to attract a guide who actually turned out to be very helpful and informative.

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

Just a nice day and I didn’t get lost!

It is now Saturday, and I am so exciting – the hot water works. I got the diesel tank filled and had a visit from the school maintenance person who checked everything and seemed to give the boiler the thumbs up, alas, as is often the case here, not everything was just quite ready to fire. One final check tomorrow, but at least I had a nice HOT shower, and I reckon Nicola will be pleased when she visits next week.

Off to Books@Cafe to meet some people from school.

Just an update on the hot water – its off, problem with the boiler, it will be fixed but it is now the Eid holiday!

Niki my elder daughter has arrived safe and sound and is sleeping in, off to Jerash today.

A personal day in Amman

 Taking personal time, away from family, friends and cares is recommended – some might say that moving away from home endures that every day is personal time. Well it is not quite like that. Living away from home and on your own is something that takes adjusting too, in fact you are left to your own devices most of the time. If things are not going well in your job, for instance, you have plenty of time to mull things over in your head, which in my case is not the wisest course.

Amman is very quiet on a Friday, yesterday I forgot and turned up to the Mecca Mall at 9.30am only to find nothing open, this necessitated a trip back to my local, the Amman Mall and a visit to Donut King! As pointed out by my close friend Niki, ‘not the best breakfast, Andrew!’.

Today, that is Saturday, I was determined to do better. After pottering around at home (something I am excellent at) and having had a good nights sleep for a change and a good breakfast of 3 mugs of coffee (!!) a peanut butter roll and cheese toast (is that a healthy breakfast, seems OK to me compared to the donuts from the Donut Kind), I was ready for the day.

Had a good chat to Cathie back in Australia for 20minutes or so, something we are good at, and goodness only knows what we all did before Skype. A little lie down again, which was a mistake because I was now so relaxed I nearly convinced myself that I was due a good day in bed, again, if allowed to, something I am good at. I think nothing of propping myself in bed, playing my guitar, listening to the radio, reading the papers, scattering some books around and consuming whatever is to hand – all day, as I say, if allowed.

The thought occurred to me that some shopping and lunch at Mecca Mall was worth a try again. Shopping is actually something I like doing, love spending hours deciding over presents but often am hopeless at shopping for myself – stuff never fits, pants are always too long or tight, shirts look awful and as for shoes forget it. Instead of cheering yourself up, depression sets in and you become convinced that a Hessian bag is the go.

As anyone who knows me can testify, I hate suits, just can’t see the point of donning the black suit to look like everyone else, and as for shoes, give me a pair of sandles or thongs (for your feet) any day – I never actually wore shoes to school until I went into year 7. Fortunately there is a shop called Camel Active (www.camelactive.de) on the lower floor of the Mall, and it is just fantastic, with a range of clothes that fit somewhere between smart casual and what you can go to work in, at least what I think I can wear to work – chics get away with murder in this regard, basically anything goes, even in conservative Amman, but if you are a guy – stick on the black suit, white shirt and tedious tie is about as creative as you are allowed to be.

Thanks to the lads at the store, they are very helpful, can tell by a glance what size you are and basically make you feel relaxed so you can enjoy shopping – take note all the other shops assistants in the world, listen to your customer, if he says ‘piss-off’, piss-off, as you will not get a sale lurking around hiding in a clothes rack and randomly appearing with helpful suggestions like ‘this Mosses coloured robe would look good on you’!

So, I emerged with two pairs of pants, two great shirts (at least I and the lads think so) and a nice Italian Scarf! I also left instructions to find a nice blue jacket and to try and solve my shoe problem ie at least size 12, they only run to 10 – ‘don’t people in Amman have big feet’, I said. And of course the answer occurred to me, ‘Yes, but they have already shopped here’ (ha). Oh well the sandles will have to do for now, and maybe I could polish my one other pair of shoes, maybe Andrew, maybe!

The other couple of items, seeing as the shoes and jacket had to wait, were comfortable fitting trackie pants and a top – by comfortable I mean at least 2 sizes too big, in my case that means ……. I’m not going to say. Alas these are a bit down market for Camel Active!

I managed to find a large fitting pair of articles and am well satisfied, presently I am ensconced in front of the TV, dressed in said large fitting sloth garb and ‘Park has just SCORRRRRRED for MAN-U against Bolton – GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL’.

Before venturing home I wanted coffee, but am sick and tried of answering no to the question ‘do you want Americana?’, ‘what, no I do not want a vat of luke warm black crap’, well I found another gem – Cafe Vergnano (www.cafeeverganao.com) on the lower floor near one of the exits, good knows which one as I get lost every time I go to the Mall – sort of a pattern emerging, like with the hire car. Again, great service, and I had the healthy option – a Marccchino Speciale with ‘Yes please I’ll have cream, thank you so, so much for being concerned for my health’, according to the menu it is: espresso, latte, cioccolate in palvere and creama di cioccolate, which all sounds nice (translated as chocolate, milk and coffee) and healthy – look all you doubters you need the ‘stuff’ in milk and chocolate, I think, maybe not in these quantities, but it was of course delicious!

The taxi was another – I score goooal – one of the grey ones in Amman, driven by a nice and helpful guy called Ahmad, (still need to practice the back of throat pronunciation) who I am now going to use as my driver. Anyway, I decided I needed to visit a music shop as I wanted some new plectrums and a tunning instrument – ‘no problems mate’, and off we went to the Faza Music store in the AlGardens Street. I purchased what I wanted, tried to play an Oud, got some free instruction and am now booked in for lessons, such helpful people. Again, a lesson in how to treat customers- pretty simple really: listen and then meet their needs with a smile and further helpful advice.

For those that don’t know I spend a lot of time in sales and did a heap of sales training, it ain’t rocket science – here without being asked are some simple rules. Smile, be thoughtfully genuine, don’t try and bullshit the bullshitter, and give the customer what they ask for, provide advice, be really interested and for goodness sake don’t say ‘have nice f….ing day!’.

Well there you go, I had one of those rare nice personal days, I am even looking forward to meeting my truculent year 9 class, mind you my current relaxed frame of mind may evaporate quickly – more quickly than my Mt Nebo Cab Sav even – when that happens, but we live in hope – teaching is essentially selling with the exception that you don’t often get the chance to tell the customer to …… off, nor are the customers obliged nor necessarily inclined to see things your way – freewill lives, at least in my classrooms!

But one thing is for sure, in this day and age of technology, isolation and the itty-bitty Internet, the key to education is still love, kindness and concern for the individual to be able to do their best – it just is a very giving job and sometimes it takes a lot of giving before something is taken, but when it is taken it makes ya day.

 Love to all.

(PS: Park scores the winning Gooooooooooooooal!!) 2 : 1 against Wolves.

Andrew

Blogs and Wikis and things

Somebody asked me the difference between a blog and wiki.

The idea of the wiki is credited to Ward Cunningham, who in 1994 released the WikiWikiWeb (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wikis) and blogs evolved from online diaries. Not much of a digital history. But what is the difference?

A wiki is a piece of paper that is written in pencil, you pass it round and people write on it, they can rub out what you or others have written, or edit it or just add a comment, they can if they wish write their name so everyone can see what they did. I guess someone could rub out the entire contents of the piece of paper – play a trick, not really in the spirit of collaboration, and I wonder if they’d leave their name!

A blog is another piece of paper, you write your message in INK, it is permanent, not to be tampered with, and then you pass the paper around, people can then write messages one after the other on what they think about your message – some complementary others no so! But they can’t change your message. Bloggers have something to say, or at least a desire to say it!

Both are public by nature or at least not fully private.

A single word processed file stored in solitary confinement on your USB stick, which you edit occasionally (your long awaited novel) is a very private wiki, and if you write a diary and never show anyone, it is a very private blog but with no comments.

I am always fascinated by claims that certain things are going to revolutionise the way we learn!

To use a wiki you need a desire to collaborate and help each other and actually contribute in a public space – that can’t be bad.

A blog again promotes a desire to explore and communicate ideas, your ideas – you tell the world, is this a bad thing? Getting other peoples opinions and seeing what people think are a great way to engage your brain.

Both are public so you are asking for comment, one in a collaborative sense to make something better and the other to engage in conversation.

Education is about deeply personal conversations: the first is with yourself, then there are conversations with your teacher and others with your peers. A key part of a conversation is that it is reflective and you have to listen, acknowledge the other. Blogs and Wikis are part of this conversation, they are personal – no bad thing I reckon.

Must you engage in outward conversations in class, why does someone have to answer a question – plenty of kids sit in class hating it when teachers ask them a question, not because they don’t know the answer, but because for some reason they don’t wish to answer in a public place. So, be careful, if someone does not want to engage the old fashioned way possibly they won’t want to in the digital era either. It is possible of course that the opposite could happen. I reckon tread softly and encourage exploration of your voice, we want to hear you and really it does not matter how we hear you!

Omm Qias

Travelled up by car via Irbid. Trip is simple and takes about 1.5 hours. Irbid is a ‘working’ town, plenty of activity, even though it was a Friday. Umm Qias is to the West and is the site of an Roman city destroyed in 747AD by earthquakes, a fate that befall many similar places across the Roman Empire at various times. It is similar in layout to Jerash and also Ephesus. When you arrive it is a little unclear where to go to get into the main entrance, drive a little past the first entrance which is populated by touts and look for the tourist buses. The ticket entrance is up on the right. The site is very easy to walk around and you will be struck by the Basalt columns and sandstone columns – I am told the first indicates volcanic activity, hence fertile soil, and the latter, indicates that the sea once covered the area! Looking out to the west you see the Yarmouk River and the Sea of Galliee, which is called Lake Tiberias these days! It is quite a drop down and the area below is obviously fertile with many farms and green olive groves and the like.

According to the Bible this was were Jesus caste the demons from two men into nearby pigs, thus curing them – what from I don’t know, nor is why he picked on the poor pigs, surely rocks would have been better! From the slides below you get a good idea of the ruins and the land forms, the Sea of Galliee can be seen in the distance in one.

The picture of the dryed thistle head is my favorite – there are over 50 species in Jordan and the baking sun dries their flow heads perfectly.

The drive back to Amman is via the Jordan Valley; the otherwise dry environment is provided water from the Jordan River by irrigation channels – water rights is a geo-political issue, which is a fancy way of saying, like many things, people in the area don’t share limited resources very well, not at all really if they can help it!

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

The Israel occupied Golan Heights can be seen in the distance – these were occupied during the 1967 war and rested from Syria, who want them back. One does not have to ponder long why accendency over the GH’s has been fought over often – as the French guide said to his group, who where hell bent on crowding around my table, which had the best view!!, all 20 of them: ‘domination and strategic…..’, say those words with a French accent.

Laptops in school

We tend to see things in terms of what we have experienced – I agree with Carr, it is something I have been aware of for some time. If this is true then it begs the obvious question – how can we see what we have not experienced without being shown it, or is it possible to either actively look for it, or stumble upon it and then how do we recognise it.

Consider the problem of people planning to use something, lets say X. They have no experience of X and how it fits what they have experienced. Even if they try X they fit it into their experiences and shape it to fit. How do they see new uses of X – possibly we might just dismiss difference or in fact, not even see the differences, let alone grasp their significance. Proponents of X’s tend to be sales oriented and/or self interested. I am not saying this is a bad thing, but where does the critical appraisal come from?

For example, take computer technology like a laptop + Internet in the hands of kids in the classroom. Clearly, this is an X.

Teachers have no prior experience, X was not around in their classrooms and not in most teacher training, even in the last 10 years, the people running the teacher training had no experience of X, and even if they positted on it they had no or little direct experience of X.

Gibson coined the term Cyberspace and more importantly said something along the lines that the street finds a use for things – I would add especially in the void of guidance. In the classroom over the last nearly 20 years we have let net enabled laptops into the classroom, in the absence of guidance the kids will find a use for it, but so what.

The brain can adapt but this does not mean that it is adapting in a thinking or evaluative way, bit of pardox really. The brain can adapt, but so what, it has no way of knowing if the adaption is worthwhile – this is the point that is Carr is making about moving from distraction to deep reading back to a distracting environment, the brain has handled each stage but again so what.

We need teachers to guide – but how do we deal with the X?

That is a serious question – how do we teach teachers about how to use and assess the worth of net enabled laptops in the classroom?

Where do the Gum trees come from?

Jordan is covered with Gum trees – EUCALYPTUS trees. This blog provides some info on how come they are here, clearly they like it here. There is one in the grounds of the River Jordan Foundation which is at least 80 years old.

One Internet source (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/A+tree+pilgrimage+in+Israel-a0159285784) indicates that in 1884 the Mikveh Yisrael Agricultural School planned some, which indeed came from Australia and this began the process of swap clearing, which did not fully become complete until the period 1951 to 1958. Hula Lake near the sea of Gallee was a source of malaria and the draining was used to help eradicate the disease. During the British manate era gum trees were planted in other areas to drain swamps – the period is unclear but maybe from as early as the mid 1800s to the early part of last century at least.

The mandate would have included the now area of Jordan. The house used for the River Jordan Fountation dates from about 1936 and was used by the British Army and then went through a series of owners and was used for various purposes – all this time I would surmise the gum tree kept it shaded!

Further north gums were planted to help restore the famous ruins of Aanjar, sometime after Lebanon gained independence in 1943.

Interestingly there is a more modern connection via bee keeping! Jordan and Australia maintain what seems to be a close collaboration and Eucalyptus tree provide viable alternate pollen sources. And, the trees are used for the same purpose in nearby Israel.

There is a lot more, but you’ll have to wait for the book: ‘History of Eucalyptus trees in Jordan and the bee’ – should be a fun read, and remember without bees we would be no place!

Silence in a classroom

Seems odd to me that quietness in a classroom is now something that just does not happen: ever. I don’t mean quietness brought about by draconian means, I mean quietness impossed by the student themselves becasue they see it as and important aspect to learning.  To me a modern classroom must be a nightmare for those students who want some quiet time!

I remember being kicked out of class in 6th grade and being told to go to the library – I loved it, there was no body there (probably a librarian hiding from me) but a pile of books, I did my project (yep we had them in those days as well) on bees – I can still see the bees eye and the diagram I drew. The next lession I asked if I could go to the library again – alas I made stay in a class of 35 kids.