Southbank in Surrey - the season approaches

Southbank 2016 at Surrey City Centre Library

Today the information session for Southbank 2017 took place on campus at SFU Surrey. Now entering its sixth year, this Creative Writing summer intensive is a great place for writers to meet, work and create community. Along with colleagues Claire de Boer and Renee Sarojini Saklikar, Surrey's first Poet Laureate, I'm proud and grateful to have been a Southbank writing mentor from the beginning. Looking forward to a great summer of writing.

Coinage: unprofly

Image from thumbs.dreamtime

My daughter, a linguist, just finished a course in cognitive psychology. After the final, she began telling me about her instructor. Having signed up for his section based on what prior students said on Rate My Professor, she wasn't disappointed. This prof's unorthodox methods worked well.

He created an atmosphere of closeness in the class, and exposed his own vulnerability in surprising ways. Telling the students about his episode of depression, he said working with them had helped him overcome his gloom. Yasemin enjoyed his teaching and learned a lot.

"He was very unprofly," she said. This was an instant coinage, but I knew exactly what she meant. Which left me with the feeling that, either consciously or unconsciously, profs follow a set of unwritten rules about how to behave in class.

Exit: whirlwind trip to Ireland, bracketed by luncheons

Life is change, and we never know what's around the next corner. Even a month before I did it, I had no idea I would soon retire from a job I loved and worked at for over thirty years. My work place was not immune from alteration. Recent drastic cuts were beyond the control of the college itself.  They were driven by decisions made by federal and provincial governments. But that was only part of the reason I decided it was time I left the academic prep ESL program where I worked, grew, learned and developed over a period of years.

I know I'll miss working with  my wonderful students, mature professional adults. I learned many valuable lessons from them as they brushed up their English skills to pursue post-secondary courses and work in Canada. At the same time, over the last several years, it has become increasingly clear that the relentless forward movement of technology is fundamentally altering how we think, learn and communicate.

Whether or not the baby boom generation of teachers is willing to face this reality, such change necessitates radical rethinking about educational methodology, and I believe the necessary alterations need to be made by educators younger than us. Also, for each of us leaving voluntarily, an instructor at the bottom of the seniority list escapes a layoff.

Though I did not consciously plan it that way, the timing of my exit was perfect. It happened when I was on vacation, so I didn't know my last class for what it was until it was over. Then a friend invited me to visit her in Ireland. Just before I headed to the airport, I attended a farewell lunch put on by my college. On my return, in a final act of rebellion against my former long commute to work, I hosted the departmental retirement lunch for three other colleagues and myself.

It's an exciting time as a whole new world opens up before me. Today, my summer job at SFU Southbank began. The new crop of writers is varied and interesting, and I know we are going to have a great time together.

As I enjoy the freedom and flexibility of not having to commute daily to work, or to be constantly on the alert to find interesting material to use in class, I look forward to the thrill of new pursuits and unexpected discoveries. I feel I'm at the cusp of something wonderful.

My continuing education

As another term winds down, with all but the final paperwork done, I am left thinking once again about how my work as an educator provides such an education for me.

This term, from the research reports alone, I was treated to new insights about lots of things -- from Galapagos turtles to the undersea earthquake that triggered the 1970 snow and mudslide that buried the Peruvian village of Ancash, to the history that led up to Iran's nationalizing the country's oil resources.

Factual information is by no means all I learn. From my students with their rich variation of languages and cultures, I am constantly faced with other thought patterns, other ways of looking at the world.

My classroom is a microcosm of contemporary multicultural society, and I notice, term by term, how culture evolves. Right now I'm observing in real time how people develop ever more facility in using digital devices, especially smartphones. It has to be said that many of the younger students are becoming overly dependent on them.

Technologies come and go, but it remains a real privilege to work with students from around the world, to talk with them and coach them and learn from them, both directly and indirectly, about a myriad of things.

Now another class has ended; people who spent nearly four months sitting cheek by jowl are now scattering to go their separate ways. Many, of course, will move to another class at the college, but the classmates will change next term.

Though I'm still not using a smartphone myself, when the next class convenes in the New Year, we'll be working in an upgraded "smart classroom." I hope the students and I don't get too carried away with delegating our smarts to machines.

As an educator, I am of the view that we should define ourselves not by what we own, but what we know, how well we think and what we can do to serve the world we share.

Educational readiness and sitting in the dumb row

As a child I lived on a farm. I had to go to Grade 1 on the school bus with strange girls and big tough kicking boys.

I liked my first teacher and Mrs. Brown liked me. I skipped Grade 2 for a strange reason. The school buildings in our tiny town were of different sizes, because they had been pulled in from smaller towns. The Grade 2 building was too small.

Seven of us had to go straight to Grade 3, and I was one of them. I was happy because that meant I was in Mrs. Brown's class again. It was also suitable age-wise, because due to my December birthday, I'd been nearly seven when I started Grade 1.

My mother did send me to school the September before my sixth birthday, but I developed a strange neck pain. As soon as Mom and the teacher deemed it too late to start school that year, I recovered.

Between Grades 3 and 4, we moved from Alberta to BC. Once again I was young for grades. Whereas Mrs. Brown had treated us kids with love and encouragement, my Grade 4 teacher was different.

She seated us according to achievement. When I failed to memorize my times tables on schedule, I had to move to the dumb row.

I'd expected arithmetic facts to stick in my head automatically, like reading and spelling. When they didn't, there were consequences.

That mortifying experience was useful. It caused me to decide then that if I ever became a teacher, I would be encouraging and kind.

A motley collection of mementoes

Over my years of teaching ESL to adults, I have received a lot of little gifts. Some sit on the my office window sill and book shelves. The Polish doll came from a long-ago student who was upset after he spent a lot of time on his essay and didn't get the result he hoped for. When I asked him if he thought I'd been unfair, and offered to reread the work, he calmed down. We had a heartfelt conversation about the situation, then chatted and laughed about other things. At the end of the term, he thanked me for my teaching and gave me the doll.

Why have I kept it there so long? Perhaps it serves as a reminder to speak from the heart, even when that feels challenging. In my work, the words I must say are not always what others want to hear.

The felt camel came from a friend who was teaching in Quetta, Pakistan. She bought it at a camel market. It reminds me of the words she said to me early in my teaching career when I was feeling insecure. Was I doing it right? Were my teaching methods correct? Judi's frank green eyes looked into mine. "It's all right," she said. "You are enough."

The ceramic figure is a South American musical instrument, an ocarina, and the Afghani doll I bought with my daughter at the annual Hycroft Christmas fair. We liked her eyebrows.

Poinsettia and a last white rose

My potted Christmas poinsettia lives on, but today I threw out the last creamy rose from a bouquet I received from my students in early December. This flower was on the kitchen window sill in a tall black bottle, along with a bit of the baby's breath from the original bouquet.

Granted, it was sere and a bit wrinkled. It seemed to have simply dried up, rather than losing all its petals, as roses usually do. In fact, roses tend to fade very quickly once they're cut.

For some reason, these were very long-lasting. When I had to throw out most of them, I made the pleasure and memory last longer by keeping some in a smaller vases. After I pulled off a few outer petals and trimmed the stems, these final roses still looked like new.

After seeing one another almost daily for nearly four months, the students who gave me those roses have now dispersed. Their gift of flowers left pleasant memories of the time we spent together.

The McGurk Effect is a marvel of the human brain

The McGurk effect is an astonishing demonstration of how the brain "creates" so much of what we consider reality, and how it fills in the gaps to make the flow of sensory input appear seamless.

It's a simple matter to observe the extraordinary powers of the brain to make us believe what we are seeing. To experience how the effect works, all that is necessary is to observe a certain video, first with eyes open and then with eyes closed, and notice the astonishing difference that visual cues have on what is heard.

I believe this is valuable information for language learners. People who make an effort to look like they are speaking English are much better understood than those who don't.

As I never tire of telling my adult English language learners, making improvements in the stress timing and intonation of their sentences automatically makes their English more intelligible, even if the pronunciation of individual words remains the same.

I take the McGurk effect to be evidence of this view.

Good intonation helps to promote understanding

The classroom door opens, and two women step into the hall. "See you later!" The intonation is nearly perfect, the pronunciation good too.

The wave looks Canadian -- a gesture delivered casually, as the speaker looks back over her shoulder. Passing the doorway, I hear the teacher respond with the same words.

At VCC, my workplace, I walk behind the two ELSA students. One takes the other's arm and they walk energetically down the hall. As I follow, I'm not eavesdropping but listening, as an ESL teacher often does.

The native language of the woman who wished her teacher a cheery farewell is Chinese, I decide, and the other woman's native tongue is likely an Indian language. She is quieter than her friend. Though I love the game of guessing native languages, I can't be sure of hers.

They look at each other and smile, "To Metrotown?" Again, the rising question intonation is near perfect.

"To Metrotown," responds her friend, her tone dropping at the end of the word like that of a native speaker. Their language learning strategies are excellent. They are using English to interact with classmates whose native tongues are different, fearlessly imitating the talk of polite native speakers.

Successful language learners understand that in order to be understood, they have to sound like others. Good intonation is often more important than good pronunciation of individual words.

A passing parade of technologies II

When I began to teach downtown in the early eighties, I joined the NFB film library. My friend and I used to walk over to Georgia Street to browse for films our students would like. The films consisted of reels stored in cans. Some films were on one reel and some on two. I carried my selections back to work at the YMCA in my satchel.

Teachers had to learn the complex set of steps involved in threading film onto the projector, as well as how to troubleshoot when things went awry. After the showing, we had to reverse the reels and fast forward the films back onto their original reels before returning them.

NFB films were highly respected; one I remember showing was Dr. Helen Caldicott’s documentary film If you Love this Planet, a sobering caution against the use of nuclear devices. That film generated a lot of conversation. One student who had served in his nation's army said he'd been trained to use field nuclear weapons.

I had been taping people so they could hear their English speech and I could comment on how to improve oral grammar and pronunciation. This man stayed after class and asked me to give him the cassette tape to destroy. "I revealed something I shouldn't have," he said, "and I want to feel easy in my mind that nobody can find out."

Last week I heard another news story about Dr. Helen Caldicott, who was in Canada talking about nuclear issues in Port Hope, Ontario. She recommended moving the entire town because of radioactive contamination, a legacy of nuclear industry in the area.

Teachable moment -- for readers and authors too

In class, we were discussing Roald Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter." The young wife wants to do everything for her husband, who is tired from a day at work. When he rises from his chair to pour himself a drink, the narrator tells us, his wife springs from hers and volunteers to get it for him.

"But why is she crying?" my student asked.

I was mystified. "She's not crying. What gives you that idea?"

When she pointed to the words "Mary cried," directly following the quotation, realization dawned.

"Oh," I said, "That's just a manner of speaking. It means "said." Sometimes writers use "cried" instead of "said." Lame explanation, I said silently to myself, but at the same time, I was relieved to note that the doubt and confusion had evaporated from my student's face.

At the same time, I remembered a piece of advice I have heard from many writers. Using said instead of fancier variations is a painless way of cleaning up prose. Not to mention making it more accessible to the legions of souls who grapple with English as a second or third language. After all, literature is universal. There is no reason why ESL learners should not be interested in tackling any writer's tales.

When we discuss literature in class, I tell my students that fiction has themes, not morals. But perhaps this little anecdote does have a moral: "said" says is a clearer dialogue than "cried" or "exclaimed." And in written communication, clarity is essential.

The Thatched Mother

As a newly trained young ESL teacher, I was quite ready to believe the gospels of the experts, and adopt their magical methodologies for teaching English. The cloze passage was such a method. It was supposed to reveal a student's level of reading skill.

This is how it worked. The teacher took any reading passage and replaced every seventh word with a blank. Then the student filled in the blanks. When marking clozes, teachers were told it was important to accept only the original word as a correct answer.

I began to see the limitations of this assessment tool when I used a passage containing a sentence from a British text book, the title of which I cannot remember: "Tom lived _________ a small house with a thatched _____________."

The student was able to supply the preposition, but for the noun he used the word "mother." I didn't feel right counting this answer wrong, especially when, as far as I knew, neither in this country nor the country where the student grew up were there any thatched roofs.

At the same time, I recognized that he had missed the significance of the indefinite article. One does not establish family life with "a" mother, just any mother, no matter what kind of house one lives in.

Methodology comes and goes, but the very basic need for communication between the teacher and student remains, and how that plays out depends on personalities and circumstances. There is no textbook method that works every time.

Thus teaching is always a creative activity.

High school drinking fountain

Image from hawsco

Writing about water fountains yesterday got me thinking. Water is essential for brain and body function and we often get dehydrated. My Grades 8 and 9 ESL kids really needed their water breaks. Junior high is puberty time and as their bodies changed, many of my students found it hard to keep still. When they asked to go for drinks of water, I let them. Once day a kid named Archie went to the water fountain and didn't come back. At the end of the day, the office told me he had transferred out.

Sometimes the kids would skip class. When they returned, I would ask them where they had been. "At the library," said Manuel, with mendacious virtue. "Anyway, I'm thinking of transferring out."

Manuel's first language was Portuguese. His English conversation skills were good but he couldn't read or write very well yet. He was learning the ropes, but I also knew the transfer game. Kids with ESL backgrounds, as well as troubled or academically weak kids, would try to enter the transfer mill. Three or four schools later, when the year was nearly over, they would transfer back.

"No, Manuel," I said, looking him firmly in the eye. "You are not going anywhere. Starting tomorrow, you are going to be here every day for the rest of the semester." I guess he appreciated feeling wanted, because he didn't transfer and didn't miss another class.

By the end of the term, Manuel had improved his reading and writing skills tremendously. To help him concentrate, he relied on frequent breaks to go to the water fountain.

Teacher as Facilitator

Another term is over. Each term brings its own special moments, and this one was no exception. The last hour of the class was a teacher's dream time.

In Canada, ESL teachers who work with adults hold as their ideal a mental picture of themselves as facilitators. The students have the job of studying and learning; the teacher must provide them with a steady supply of relevant tasks that will help promote that learning.

Then, if things go right, the instructor steps back while the students step forward. They work with confidence, knowing their teacher is at their side and on their side, a living resource who can be called upon for a wide range of help and support.

For the last hour yesterday, my students didn't need me. It seemed the perfect culmination of the term. I had helped them build their confidence and encouraged them to forge the bonds that made it possible to work steadily, sometimes alone and sometimes together, in their common struggle to get control of the English language.

In that final hour, they were demonstrating their independence from my careful guidance, and their readiness to move on. It was deeply satisfying to be aware of the three groups as they focused on preparing for the speaking exam while I sat at my desk tackling some of the dizzying array of term end tasks that lay before me.

Sustained Silent Writing

It happens every four months. The class is over. A group of people who sat together four days a week for nearly four months has scattered. Some will return next term, and some will not.

For the entire term, we had a morning ritual: sustained, silent writing. I felt a little hesitant about starting it, as a previous class had a lukewarm reaction, and we ended up quitting halfway through the term.

I needn't have worried. This class loved it.

The rules for SSW are simple:

• Write about whatever you want.
• Keep writing until the ten minutes is over.
• Do not go back to reread or correct spelling or grammar.
• Don't show anyone else what you've written unless you want to.
  

Every day at the end of the ten minutes, I asked the students to count the words they had written. Then I came round with my chart and recorded the numbers.

That in itself was impressive. Some people who started out under a hundred words could consistently generate three hundred by term end.

Even more interesting, several students told me that SSW had helped their grammar and expression. It also built their confidence, making them play and have fun with writing while they built skills.

Term End Again

Today the sight of an electric kettle plugged in and boiling away on the floor of an inner hallway catapulted me several years back in time. When first I came to work here, my new department head and mentor boiled the kettle on the floor and made us a cup of tea.

Some things don't change. There are still too few electrical outlets.

Other things do change, slowly and imperceptibly. Then something raises the awareness of the one-way arrow of time passing.

After that first cup of tea, I worked with my mentor for several years. Then she died in an accident. Now she's been gone for an indeterminate time. Over fifteen years, I think.

As I gazed at the kettle and cogitated, a colleague came along to unplug it and make tea. I smiled as I watched her, now a middle-aged matron with two -- or is it three sons?

She was just a girl when we met. She started here as a part-time tutor, and took her teacher training a few years later. Now it's been a few years since she took the coordinator's job.

Term end again. How many terms has it been? I don't want to count them. But I'm still happy here -- still feel a sense of belonging, just as I did when I had that first cup of tea so many years ago from the kettle that boiled on the floor.

License to Teach

Teaching is like driving. You don't really learn how to do it until you have a license. This license also gives access to an inexhaustible supply of unforeseen learning opportunities.

When I started teaching, I planned to give it five years. But during those early years of high school ESL, the job grew on me. Each semester, students opened up new worlds.

The best part was when they worked around linguistic limitations to tell me their stories. "George" and "Grace" (their Canadian names) were among my first students.

George was one of the most amazing language learners I ever met. In words of one or two syllables, he painted images of his homeland that remain with me still. For instance, he was surprised by the presence of driftwood on Canadian beaches; in his country people routinely collected and used every stick.

Grace, his quiet, gentle sister, was unaware that she looked like a model. She loved to help her brother and her parents. While they worked long hours at low wages, she took care of the house, and with her limited English, even translated for them.

Then there was "Allen", a gentle poetic soul, and his constant companion and polar opposite, the tough and cynical "Sonny." When the school had an outing at the roller rink, these two refused to let me stay on the sidelines. They personally inspected the lacing of my skates and pulled me unsteadily around, all the while politely addressing me as "Miss."

Teaching ESL in high school was frustrating because of the bureaucracy. Working at a semestered school meant that twice a year I had to lobby hard to keep my ESL learners out of regular English, Social Studies and Science classes. "They've had ESL for five months, what more do they expect?" seemed to be the attitude. Meanwhile, as the weeping students came back to me saying they were completely lost, I had to advocate for them one by one, trying to get them moved into classes where there was some hope that they could learn.

After five years, I moved to the nearby Community College, thinking that adults would have fewer life problems and would thus be more able to focus on language. Not so, unfortunately. For my night school students, arranging jobs, apartments, and schooling for children were huge challenges. Naturally, the exhaustion and worry interfered with their own language learning.

In 1986 I moved to a department that teaches ESL academic preparation and immediately recognized it as my true niche. While using a changing array of my evolving choice of content to teach high level language skills, I have the freedom to allow students to do the same. In writing and oral skills classes, they learn from one another and I learn from them. Everybody wins.

A few times over the years, I have become tired and overwhelmed by the demands of the job. It is hard to be constantly emotionally available, and to work vigilantly, while seeming not to, at making a classroom full of people from very different societies and backgrounds a safe and friendly place of learning and exchange for all.

Evolving technology has put me on my mettle too. Oddly enough, I continue to use a blackboard and chalk, but not because I have an aversion to newer technology. I love my computer and it has revolutionized my prep. But regarding the blackboard, as one dear colleague, now retired, used to say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I totally agree.

This idea of using technologies appropriately is something I need to convey to students too. No matter how lovely the PowerPoint presentation, it does not replace the interaction between speaker and listener. Too many times I have watched presenters stare admiringly at the screen, back to the audience, entranced by their own cherished PowerPoint presentations. Recently I felt vindicated to learn that the brilliant teacher Ross Laird felt the same.

There have been times when I've been forced to take a break from teaching. But I keep coming back. There's a part of me that has an irresistible desire to interact with students. Over many years I have experimented and earned the confidence that I can do the job. I continue to get great satisfaction from honing my teaching craft.

As I get older and relax into myself, I find that teacher part stepping out to do and say things that wouldn't have got past the internal censor just a few short years ago. I allow myself to tell more of my own stories too. Stories are amazing tools for learning.

What keeps me in this job? I rarely see or hear about the results of my work, which would be hard to measure or prove in any case. After the end-of-term thank you cards and flowers, the students I've got to know so well in the four months take their leave and move on.

More dramatic feedback does come, but only occasionally. When it does, it leaves an indelible check mark. "I learned such a lot from you," said one former student, throwing her arms around me enthusiastically when we met by chance years later.

"Oh," I replied, "but you were quite a good writer already when you came to my class."

"Oh no," she said. "I don't mean about writing. I mean I learned so much from you as a person."

I was deeply touched, but also puzzled. What I remembered was profusely apologizing for spilling coffee on her essay. Oh -- and then there was the time she told me I had my blouse on inside out. (The Mexican hand embroidery was so neatly finished inside that it was hard to tell.)

"Oh dear," I said. "I'd better go and remedy that." And went into the washroom to turn it right side round.

So whatever it was that helped this woman, gave her courage, made a difference, was part of the mysterious unknown.

As we used to say in the sixties at UBC, it is important to have a job with redeeming social value. And you do, fellow teachers, so enjoy it. And have faith. You are enough.

Guest blog by Silvia Pandini: "Teachers and Mills"

Translated from the Portuguese by Silvia Pandini and Carol Tulpar

The chaff-coated millstones of my childhood were powered by wind, water and circling oxen. These stones created miracles: rice grains were cleaned, corn and wheat were transformed into flour, and the smoked leaves of yerba mate became a delicious tea.

As I moved out from the small farm of my childhood, I discovered larger mills and greater miracles. When Ney Matogrosso sang about how the north wind does not drive the mill, I began to wonder which of our efforts are pointless, which are necessary and productive, and which can bring us varied and unpredictable results. All are generated by the energy of the same wind.

The most evocative mills are those of the imagination, and Cervantes is their most brilliant creator. Like Don Quixote tilting at the windmill giant, we see what we are willing, able and eager to see.

The artist Rembrandt also painted mills of moving and unforgettable beauty that have remained forever engraved on my mind.

In Brazil, we have a special day to celebrate teachers. Yet why should we need a special day to celebrate the daily joys of learning and discovery?

Here’s to those who plough the land, simultaneously teachers, mills, and giants. May they enjoy long and fruitful lives.

Professores, Moinhos e Gigantes

Moinhos podem ser os da minha infância, movidos a água, feitos de pedras, encobertos de pó e restos. Eram máquinas de operar milagres e transformar grãos em farinha, folhas em erva-mate, grãos brutos em grãos descascados.

Em outras plagas aprendi sobre os Moinhos de vento, grandiloqüentes e velozes.
Ney Matogrosso canta lindamente “Os ventos Norte não movem moinhos”, pondo-me a pensar quais esforços merecem ser feitos, quais resultam em fins inesperados e quantas podem ser as variáveis de um mesmo vento.

Rendeu em meu eito a mirabolante imaginação de Cervantes. Os moinhos que Dom Quixote vê são para mim os mais belos, porque inventados.

Conversando com a obra de Cervantes, António Gedeão escreve o poema “Impressão Digital” e parafraseando digo: se quisermos ver gigantes serão gigantes, se quisermos ver moinhos, serão moinhos. Porque a vida também depende de nossa imaginação.

Para completar o repertório de estesias, como esquecer os Moinhos saídos de Rembrandt?
Comemorou-se ontem o dia do Professor no Brasil. Como acredito que certas belezas estão aí para serem celebradas todos os dias quero desejar que todos nós, professores, possamos ensinar nossos alunos e parceiros aprendizes a enxergar moinhos e gigantes.

E longa vida aos que aram nessa seara e são, simultaneamente, professores, moinhos e gigantes.

http://moinhosetulhas.blogspot.com

Our Group Disperses Once Again

It's finished. For over three months, this group of people has sat in the same room for several hours a day, four days a week, and often been in touch by e-mail on weekends. After tomorrow, we will not meet again.

The members of our little temporary family range in age from early twenties to early sixties, and we hail from every continent except Australia and Antarctica. For these weeks we have read the same materials, discussed and written about a wide variety of different views about topics that have been astonishingly varied: law, physics, obedience, vaccination, global warming, the purpose of literature.

We have shared and learned from each other, have heard presentations on new and ancient knowledge, on Nobel Prize winners, and on favourite books, fiction and non-fiction, old and new.

For me, this cycle of groups that form and disperse has been repeating for over thirty years. During all that time, it has remained endlessly interesting, surprising, new.

For I am an ESL teacher: my students are educated adults, many with advanced degrees and/or professional experience. Over the course of my career, I have helped to hone the English language skills of students from more than eighty countries. I began my ESL career when our profession was brand new, and teaching my students has been like having a front-row seat from which to watch our planetary culture evolving.

How fortunate I am in my work. What a privilege it is to have the opportunity to share ideas with these ever-changing, ever-evolving groups of people from all over the world. And how much I have learned over the years from these intrepid adventurers who have chosen Canada as a new or second home.

Each term end brings the same feelings: the poignancy of losing this particular group, and at the same time, the pleasure of seeing them move forward toward their goals, the delight at seeing how much more English they have acquired in the time we've spent together.

From this term, there is one particular table that will linger long in my memory. The five students who sat there were from five countries and three continents. All term, they studied together, planned leisure activities together and even regularly cooked for each other.

This seems to me to represent a level of conscious friendship, learning and cooperation I have never seen in an ESL class before, and it inspires me, gives me hope for our planet's future. For if there is one lesson we must learn in the 21st century, it is that we are one.

As long ago my Girl Guides used to say at the end of our meetings, "Go well and safely," all my students from English 098.