One of my classes this semester is Exercise Science. It's a grade 12 University level course that has 14 of our top students. Many have their acceptances in-hand and some will be pursuing health related post-secondary studies in Canada or the US.
I've really enjoyed this class because it has taken me back, in a new-fashioned way, to my teaching-roots. Yes, it's true, some time ago I wanted to be a Physical Education teacher and I graduated with a degree in that very same field. (Many of you just said, "WHAT?")...Pause...Teaching computer science was my (very successful) back up plan.
It's been a long semester and this is a very heavy course with so much content that is new for my students. We've worked hard to learn about anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics. As you can imagine at this time of year, the students are tired and keeping them engaged in new material is tough!
Our current topic is "Human Growth and Development". Wednesday we were looking at Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development. I'd like to say they were absorbing this riveting material but by the fourth stage you might be yawning too: "Formal Operational Stage ... children demonstrate intelligence through their ability to solve increasingly complicated abstract problems using logic, and by understanding how to use symbols related to abstract concepts."
I had lost at least one to slumber and two more were looking ready to nod off. It was time to make this a little more real.
I didn't have to look to hard to find a real story that had "abstract problems", "logic" and "symbols" -- I teach math, after all.
I started to talk about the difference between real-life problems and math textbook problems. They gave the usual puzzled, "who is this guy?" look. Then I gave a problem from our grade 10 text -- "If the area of a tennis court is represented by the equation A = x2 + 9x + 8, what are the lengths of the two sides?"
Instantly, one my grade 12's blurted, "That's real basic, sir". Everyone in the room knew how to solve this problem -- but they missed the point (ah, the curse of knowledge...). Becoming slightly animated and narrowly focusing on "real-life problems" vs "abstract problems" I said, "Ok, three things: First, in real-life, you are never going to need to find the area of a tennis court. Second, in real-life, a quadratic equation will never be used to represent area and third, in real-life, you will never measure a rectangle's length with a binomial." This is why grade 10 students fit nicely into Piaget's stage 4 and why grade 12 students do not.
Saturday, 30 May 2015
Sunday, 24 May 2015
It All Happened So Quickly
It's Sunday and we embarked early for our routine of biking and skating on the closed Diego Martin highway. There was a kids triathlon event planned for 7am so we'd have to get our workout done by then.
We completed our usual 10 laps of the 2km stretch of road, said good morning to some friends whose kid was competing, got bananas at the fruit stand and headed for home on our bikes. A pretty normal routine for us.
On the 3km trip back there is a major intersection that is well controlled with traffic lights. It was just opened in August and can be dangerous because of visibility issues and speeds. We are always very cautious when we approach as we have to make a right hand turn (that's like a left for most of you).
We are well aware of the pattern of the change of lights as we pass through here on our route to work daily. The right turn arrow had just changed to red when we arrived, so we knew that we'd be waiting a full cycle of about 4 minutes until we could go. After the traffic from the west goes, the north and south traffic have greens for about 2 and a half minutes. During their green, one of the lanes heading north, towards us did not move as expected. A car was stopped at the front with a line up behind it.
This was very unusual. What is equally unusual is that there were only one or two honks. Trinis will usually honk within one second of a light turning green if you are not moving. I am not exaggerating at all. We've become used to it, it is so common.
To complicate things even further, there were two police men on motor cycles with their blue lights flashing at the intersection approaching from the west. Police will often drive with their lights flashing for no reason. Yep, not kidding. If there are sirens you have to move over, but you can ignore the lights. I think they just want to be more visible.
So, back to the main story. We are approaching from the north in the right turn lane. Police are to our right, the lane of traffic is not moving coming from the south on the other side. After some time, I noted to Gayle that it had been at least 45 seconds and the car was not moving. Cars from behind started to move into the other lane to go around, but no one seemed to pay any attention to the stopped vehicle.
Becoming increasingly concerned, Gayle said, "I wonder if they are all right?" We hadn't seen any movement from the driver so we said we'd better check on her (it looked like the driver might have been female). As soon as the light changed, we darted across to find a man slumped over behind the wheel. While still on my bike I approached the passenger window and tried to get a response from the driver with a loud yell, hoping he had just nodded off. Nothing...
I quickly parked my bike against the railing and ran around to the driver's side. On the way, I flagged the waiting police to come over. I reached the right side of the car and my first aid training kicked in -- "hey are you ok!." I yelled loudly and tapped the driver on the shoulder.
He looked up, rather dozily, and reached his hand up for a fist-bump. PHEW! He was ok. I was not going to have to use any CPR skills today! By the look of his eyes, he had either been awake for several days or had been imbibing rather heavily. It wasn't until then that I noticed he had a friend with him who was sleeping in the fully reclined passenger seat!
Within seconds the police arrived, parked their motorcycles and were at the car. The driver, instinctively reached for his seat belt as he saw the officers. "...PUT DE CAR IN PARK..." I suddenly realized that this fellow was probably going to get into some serious trouble and didn't waste any time moving back to the other side of the car to collect my bike and Gayle. "Let's get out of here....hopefully he won't recognize us..." As we rode away, I confirmed that we both had kept our sunglasses on during the transaction.
We completed our usual 10 laps of the 2km stretch of road, said good morning to some friends whose kid was competing, got bananas at the fruit stand and headed for home on our bikes. A pretty normal routine for us.
On the 3km trip back there is a major intersection that is well controlled with traffic lights. It was just opened in August and can be dangerous because of visibility issues and speeds. We are always very cautious when we approach as we have to make a right hand turn (that's like a left for most of you).
We are well aware of the pattern of the change of lights as we pass through here on our route to work daily. The right turn arrow had just changed to red when we arrived, so we knew that we'd be waiting a full cycle of about 4 minutes until we could go. After the traffic from the west goes, the north and south traffic have greens for about 2 and a half minutes. During their green, one of the lanes heading north, towards us did not move as expected. A car was stopped at the front with a line up behind it.
This was very unusual. What is equally unusual is that there were only one or two honks. Trinis will usually honk within one second of a light turning green if you are not moving. I am not exaggerating at all. We've become used to it, it is so common.
To complicate things even further, there were two police men on motor cycles with their blue lights flashing at the intersection approaching from the west. Police will often drive with their lights flashing for no reason. Yep, not kidding. If there are sirens you have to move over, but you can ignore the lights. I think they just want to be more visible.
So, back to the main story. We are approaching from the north in the right turn lane. Police are to our right, the lane of traffic is not moving coming from the south on the other side. After some time, I noted to Gayle that it had been at least 45 seconds and the car was not moving. Cars from behind started to move into the other lane to go around, but no one seemed to pay any attention to the stopped vehicle.
Becoming increasingly concerned, Gayle said, "I wonder if they are all right?" We hadn't seen any movement from the driver so we said we'd better check on her (it looked like the driver might have been female). As soon as the light changed, we darted across to find a man slumped over behind the wheel. While still on my bike I approached the passenger window and tried to get a response from the driver with a loud yell, hoping he had just nodded off. Nothing...
I quickly parked my bike against the railing and ran around to the driver's side. On the way, I flagged the waiting police to come over. I reached the right side of the car and my first aid training kicked in -- "hey are you ok!." I yelled loudly and tapped the driver on the shoulder.
He looked up, rather dozily, and reached his hand up for a fist-bump. PHEW! He was ok. I was not going to have to use any CPR skills today! By the look of his eyes, he had either been awake for several days or had been imbibing rather heavily. It wasn't until then that I noticed he had a friend with him who was sleeping in the fully reclined passenger seat!
Within seconds the police arrived, parked their motorcycles and were at the car. The driver, instinctively reached for his seat belt as he saw the officers. "...PUT DE CAR IN PARK..." I suddenly realized that this fellow was probably going to get into some serious trouble and didn't waste any time moving back to the other side of the car to collect my bike and Gayle. "Let's get out of here....hopefully he won't recognize us..." As we rode away, I confirmed that we both had kept our sunglasses on during the transaction.
Sunday, 17 May 2015
Three Corners of the Country
It's official. We have now visited three corners of Trinidad. Our latest triumph occurred yesterday as we joined yet another "Emile hike" and ventured to the south western most tip of the country. This journey entailed a 2.5 hour maxi ride, a 4.5 hour hike, and of course...wet shoes. It wouldn't be a hike in Trinidad without wet shoes.
We were fortunate to stop off at a mud volcano, something we had both been hoping to see during our time here. Rather than being a hot, sulfur spewing, mud laden site, the mud volcano we saw was a "cold" one. We believe that the fine silty mud bubbles from the Earth due to underground water springs. They say the mud from these sites rejuvenates skin so let me know how much you want and I'll ship it to you.
During our 4.5 hour hike, we walked through the most beautiful coconut plantation. Stretching some 20 kilometers along the coast, thousands of trees are still producing the ever so versatile coconut. Did you know that a coconut, when green, is harvested for coconut water. When brown, the coconut is harvested for the white coconut we use in baking. And once a coconut begins to grow a new plant, the inside can be harvested and coconut "bread" can be eaten. (It was quite yummy!) Also, coconut husk is used as a fuel and in plant baskets.
Check out the photos and the interactive map from our Saturday adventure.
We were fortunate to stop off at a mud volcano, something we had both been hoping to see during our time here. Rather than being a hot, sulfur spewing, mud laden site, the mud volcano we saw was a "cold" one. We believe that the fine silty mud bubbles from the Earth due to underground water springs. They say the mud from these sites rejuvenates skin so let me know how much you want and I'll ship it to you.
During our 4.5 hour hike, we walked through the most beautiful coconut plantation. Stretching some 20 kilometers along the coast, thousands of trees are still producing the ever so versatile coconut. Did you know that a coconut, when green, is harvested for coconut water. When brown, the coconut is harvested for the white coconut we use in baking. And once a coconut begins to grow a new plant, the inside can be harvested and coconut "bread" can be eaten. (It was quite yummy!) Also, coconut husk is used as a fuel and in plant baskets.
Check out the photos and the interactive map from our Saturday adventure.
Friday, 15 May 2015
I Can't See Clearly Now That The Rain Is Gone
Soon, I mean within hours, after our arrival we learned about the rainy season. Rain came every day, and lots of it. Our first hike was in Chaguaramas, and we got dumped on. For the first three months we were here it rained every single time we went out there. It is just a 15 minute drive away, two valleys over.
We didn't let the rain slow us down. The air is always warm, so we didn't need to get out of the rain (as is our normal Canadian response). Gayle wore a rain coat once. She sweated so much, she took it off. Being wet from the rain was a better plan.
Rain brought its challenges on the Frisbee pitch because the King George park doesn't drain well and grass cutting on the Savannah is a rare occurrence. I routinely dove for discs and made some spectacular catches and some impressive water and mud slides! Playing in foot tall grass on the Savannah was fun, too.
Trinidad has only two seasons, although, they are loosely defined depending on your information source. Generally everyone agrees that January - June are dry and July - December are wet. Or so... Depending on the year...
Our experience is not quite that simple. We had rain through March and even a little in April. Not nearly as much as October, and November produced much less rain that we'd anticipated. Now it's May and we are in the middle of the dry season. Any rain that does come is an event and even causes people to talk about the weather.
The early part of the dry season brings some loss of leaves and some beautiful flowers to the trees. Now we are seeing what were lush green mountainsides turn varying shades of brown. The forest trials look and sound like autumn because of the fallen leaves an branches.
Rivers are running well below capacity. Low water levels in the reservoirs has led officials to rotating water outages. We are down to 22 hours a day of water flowing in the mains. Most of us have water tanks (the school has 4, 1000 gallon beasts) so we don't notice any difference.
We do, however, notice the abundance of fires and the smoke that they cause. Fires are burning every day now. Some are full on forest fires, others are just grass or fallen leaves. Most are in the mountains, but we've seen a few burning ditches along the sides of the road. We even hashed our way through two recent burns last weekend. The smoke is so thick some days that it comes inside our apartment. Oh yes, and there is the obvious continuous haze over the city and my burning eyes.
Since moving here, we have observed that we, Canadians, are very in-tune with the weather and our environment. Trinis, however, rarely if ever talk about changes in weather. The rain, fires and smoke, while inconvenient are part of life and don't seem to upset anyone too much. Once in a while I hear or see a fire truck. That makes me feel a little better. I hope the water at the station was running before they left.
We didn't let the rain slow us down. The air is always warm, so we didn't need to get out of the rain (as is our normal Canadian response). Gayle wore a rain coat once. She sweated so much, she took it off. Being wet from the rain was a better plan.
Rain brought its challenges on the Frisbee pitch because the King George park doesn't drain well and grass cutting on the Savannah is a rare occurrence. I routinely dove for discs and made some spectacular catches and some impressive water and mud slides! Playing in foot tall grass on the Savannah was fun, too.
Trinidad has only two seasons, although, they are loosely defined depending on your information source. Generally everyone agrees that January - June are dry and July - December are wet. Or so... Depending on the year...
Our experience is not quite that simple. We had rain through March and even a little in April. Not nearly as much as October, and November produced much less rain that we'd anticipated. Now it's May and we are in the middle of the dry season. Any rain that does come is an event and even causes people to talk about the weather.
The early part of the dry season brings some loss of leaves and some beautiful flowers to the trees. Now we are seeing what were lush green mountainsides turn varying shades of brown. The forest trials look and sound like autumn because of the fallen leaves an branches.
Rivers are running well below capacity. Low water levels in the reservoirs has led officials to rotating water outages. We are down to 22 hours a day of water flowing in the mains. Most of us have water tanks (the school has 4, 1000 gallon beasts) so we don't notice any difference.
We do, however, notice the abundance of fires and the smoke that they cause. Fires are burning every day now. Some are full on forest fires, others are just grass or fallen leaves. Most are in the mountains, but we've seen a few burning ditches along the sides of the road. We even hashed our way through two recent burns last weekend. The smoke is so thick some days that it comes inside our apartment. Oh yes, and there is the obvious continuous haze over the city and my burning eyes.
Since moving here, we have observed that we, Canadians, are very in-tune with the weather and our environment. Trinis, however, rarely if ever talk about changes in weather. The rain, fires and smoke, while inconvenient are part of life and don't seem to upset anyone too much. Once in a while I hear or see a fire truck. That makes me feel a little better. I hope the water at the station was running before they left.
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