Program Rendezvous Point: Paris

April 14—​Bonjour! The whole Fulbright Morocco teacher cohort made it to Paris this morning without a single delay - coming from LA, NYC, and many places in between.  We compared notes on layover experiences and how much sleep everyone got (not much.) I met a colleague who brought a puppet (think the Muppet Show).  The puppet will accompany her to elementary classrooms and help teach Moroccan students English and learn Moroccan Arabic.  I’ve never met anyone who has gone to a ventriloquist conference before! You can see the puppet in the far left in the above group photo.  At the rendezvous point, Terminal 2E, we took a moment to pose for a group photo in front of a giant sleeping cat sculpture.  The sculpture is entitled “In Paris, there’s always time to dream.”  Sure enough, we all feel like we are living the dream - with the professional development experience of our lives underway!  Speaking of living the dream…I even had a minute during boarding to talk books with two program members.  The classic “what are you reading” question never fails to be a great icebreaker! Marc from NYC is reading Gary Snyder's poetry book No Nature, Whitney from Oregon is reading In the Distance by Hernan Diaz, and I shared that I am reading Septology by Jon Fosse.  

As boarding continued, I even had a minute in the jetbridge to chat with Whitney, who teaches 6th grade math in Oregon.  We talked about math teaching strategies and the art and science of explaining how to solve a math problem.  I was fascinated to learn he’s thought about this a lot, especially as a literature major in college turned middle school math instructor. Mental note: Get tips from him so I can up my game in PASS class and not leave Packard on his own to do all of the math tutoring.  Almost time to take off…  Next stop, Casablanca.   Au Revoir, Paris!