Our Presentation at the Fulbright conference
Dear Future Fulbrighters (yes, that's all of you),
What an experience and honor it was to present your work. We made our presentation on Saturday morning to an audience of about 120 people, who came to this conference from all around the world, from countries like Pakistan, Finland, China, India, France, Thailand, England, Belgium, and Nigeria, just to name a few! Can you find all those countries on the map and label them?
In our presentation we talked about our book Malindi's Journey, and the Dolphin class at Young Achievers' study of East Africa two years ago. We showed lots of pictures of the class busy at work, including the visit to the Roxbury Mosque, building mosques back in the classroom, building the mtepe, the big map of the east coast of Africa and the east coast of the United States, Ms. Leslie teaching and helping students label the parts of the mtepe, and much more. The whole presentation including the paper and the powerpoint should be posted on the Fulbright conference website in the next day or so. The website is http://www.fulbright.org/conference/2006/schedule.htm
Nothing is posted yet, but check back in a day or so!
We are pleased to say that people loved our presentation, and were very impressed with the Dolphin class work! They couldn't believe that young children could learn and do so much! College professors and university students, other Fulbright recipients and others were in the audience and told us afterwards how much they learned from us - about the giraffe that went to China, and about how smart students in Boston are. People who were not in the audience heard about it from others who were there, and approached us on Saturday and Sunday to tell us that we were the hit of the conference. The US Ambassador to Morocco, Thomas Riley, introduced himself to Alicia at dinner on Sunday night and told her that he'd heard that the children's work was brilliant and amazing; He said that the research we have done is very scholarly, especially as classroom teachers, and wondered where we find the time to do it; He said that global education for students in the US is essential, and our work is a model for how to do this. Way to go Dolphin class! You have made quite an impression around the world!
An interesting connection happened on Saturday evening, too. As we were going into a conference dinner, several people told us that on CNN news that day, they saw that representatives (ambassadors) from 48 different African countries were meeting in Beijing to develop trade and business relationships. The room where they met was decoated with giraffes models, and the African ambassadors presented the Chinese officials with a large giraffe model. Many people at the Fulbright dinner had seen that news story, and told us that they were excited because, after hearing our presentation they know the significance of the giraffe as a symbol of friendship between African countries and China. We think that this also shows how a story that took place in 1414 is still relevant and important to know in 2006.
Many people want to buy our book Malindi's Journey, but we had to tell them it's not finished yet. This is our homework!
Love,
Lucy and Alicia
What an experience and honor it was to present your work. We made our presentation on Saturday morning to an audience of about 120 people, who came to this conference from all around the world, from countries like Pakistan, Finland, China, India, France, Thailand, England, Belgium, and Nigeria, just to name a few! Can you find all those countries on the map and label them?
In our presentation we talked about our book Malindi's Journey, and the Dolphin class at Young Achievers' study of East Africa two years ago. We showed lots of pictures of the class busy at work, including the visit to the Roxbury Mosque, building mosques back in the classroom, building the mtepe, the big map of the east coast of Africa and the east coast of the United States, Ms. Leslie teaching and helping students label the parts of the mtepe, and much more. The whole presentation including the paper and the powerpoint should be posted on the Fulbright conference website in the next day or so. The website is http://www.fulbright.org/conference/2006/schedule.htm
Nothing is posted yet, but check back in a day or so!
We are pleased to say that people loved our presentation, and were very impressed with the Dolphin class work! They couldn't believe that young children could learn and do so much! College professors and university students, other Fulbright recipients and others were in the audience and told us afterwards how much they learned from us - about the giraffe that went to China, and about how smart students in Boston are. People who were not in the audience heard about it from others who were there, and approached us on Saturday and Sunday to tell us that we were the hit of the conference. The US Ambassador to Morocco, Thomas Riley, introduced himself to Alicia at dinner on Sunday night and told her that he'd heard that the children's work was brilliant and amazing; He said that the research we have done is very scholarly, especially as classroom teachers, and wondered where we find the time to do it; He said that global education for students in the US is essential, and our work is a model for how to do this. Way to go Dolphin class! You have made quite an impression around the world!
An interesting connection happened on Saturday evening, too. As we were going into a conference dinner, several people told us that on CNN news that day, they saw that representatives (ambassadors) from 48 different African countries were meeting in Beijing to develop trade and business relationships. The room where they met was decoated with giraffes models, and the African ambassadors presented the Chinese officials with a large giraffe model. Many people at the Fulbright dinner had seen that news story, and told us that they were excited because, after hearing our presentation they know the significance of the giraffe as a symbol of friendship between African countries and China. We think that this also shows how a story that took place in 1414 is still relevant and important to know in 2006.
Many people want to buy our book Malindi's Journey, but we had to tell them it's not finished yet. This is our homework!
Love,
Lucy and Alicia
posted by Alicia Carroll and Lucy Montgomery | 3:54 AM
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