Hong Kong International School

I continue to play catch up with the blog.

After Sara and I presented at the literacy conference on Saturday and Sunday – we stayed over a couple days to work with the middle-schoolers who we had met back in September.

We test drove a couple of our lessons from our new resource coming out with Corwin this Fall and are happy to report they went down like  fresh Dim Sum. The teachers ate it up. plus we found some places where things could be tightened up and even a typo in one of the slides. (Nothing like a 7th grader as copy editor.)

The groups we worked with were fairly large – three classes at a time so we were not as nimble as we could have been. I explained it to the students as we being a cruise ship instead of a speed boat and that taking the twists and turns during the lesson we need to really concentrate or else we will lose precious time just moving about in the lesson.

Well the kids performed heroically and we got a whole bunch of work done – writing and practicing our public speaking skills. Sure every now and then we’d have a participant rowing in the wrong direction – but this was rare and easily corrected.

Kudos to the teachers and students at HKIS and special thanks to Clare – the 7th and 8th grade LA teacher who first suggested we visit to the powers that be.

Hope to see you guys and gals soon.

Hong Kong International School - good things come to those who wait.

An eighth grade class at HKIS

The hills of Hong Kong would give San Francisco a run for their money. The cab drive from the Cosmopolitan Hotel up to Hong Kong International School  should come with a disclaimer for those with heart conditions as the drivers careen through the curves like a video of a waterside ride being played in reverse.

The view from the faculty lounge - not too hard to get used to.

I met Clare P. (a 7 and 8 teacher at HKIS) a couple years back while Sara and I were presenting at the EARCOS conference and we have been corresponding for the last three years conspiring a way for Sara and me to visit HKIS. Well with our trip to Kuala Lumpur everything fell into place for a quick two day stay. This was Sara and my second trip to the city but our first to this school, a couple years back we worked at the Canadian School of Hong Kong which was great and we had heard nothing but good reports on HKIS so we were so happy to finally be connecting.

Well we couldn't be more satisfied with finally getting our ducks in a row. The teachers and students couldn't have been more receptive. All the great reviews we had received about the school were well founded. We managed to see the whole middle school plus wedge in a couple teacher workshops and the enthusiasm and appreciation we felt were unparallelled. It's fun to work hard when one gets such positive reinforcement. (the goodies and coffee in the teachers lounge didn't hurt either.)

Even a broken leg didn't stop this customer from writing.

The only regret we had for this drive by visit was that it seemed too short. Well to our happy surprise that just may be remedied as well. Before we even finished our second day we were working with the curriculum specialists on getting us back THIS school year. I don't want to jinx those machinations - but it's looking pretty good for a February encore - cross your fingers and fasten your seat belt we may be climbing those hills again sooner than expected!