Alma Flor Ada

Naomi Shihab Nye beautiful message

The Read­ing the World Con­fer­ence at the Uni­ver­sity of San Fran­cisco this past week­end was as always an extra­or­di­nary expe­ri­ence.
While I enjoyed every speaker, I would like to com­ment on a moment that was very sig­nif­i­cantly to me per­son­ally.
The great poet Naomi Shi­hab Nye as usual did not read a speak, but wove her talk around sto­ries and poems, by her and other poets. Every word was mean­ing­ful, but what I want to share with you is a par­tic­u­lar story.
Naomi told how when as a young woman she moved to San Anto­nio and was get­ting to know the city she was intrigued by a news­pa­per arti­cle which men­tioned that a par­tic­u­lar fam­ily had donated their man­sion, filled with art, to become a museum.
She invited a friend to go visit the museum, and was delighted when upon arriv­ing to the street she rec­og­nized the house she had seen in the news­pa­per. So, she parked the car in their park­ing lot, entered the house and began admir­ing each paint­ing. The friend decided to go upstairs while Naomi enjoyed the liv­ing room, think­ing of how pleas­ant it was to see these paint­ings in situ, with­out even a label inter­rupt­ing the decor.
After a moment there was a gen­tle­man next to her ask­ing her what was she doing. She was sur­prised by the ques­tion and said she was enjoy­ing the museum. The gen­tle­man pointed out to her that the museum was two blocks down the street. So, when she asked what then was this place, he answered with a smile: We thought it was our home.
She called her friend from upstairs, and left filled with embar­rass­ment, while a num­ber of peo­ple sit­ting in the par­lor looked at them.
She never told any­one of such blun­der.
Years later, after a poetry read­ing a young woman approached her and asked her if indeed she was the per­son who once had entered a pri­vate home think­ing it was a museum. All her feel­ings of inad­e­quacy returned, but then the woman sur­prised her by say­ing: “I have wanted to thank you all my life. I was the teenager on that par­lor. And up to then I had never appre­ci­ated the place I lived in, but when you mis­took it by a museum, I real­ized that my par­ents indeed had good taste and hand made an effort to cre­ate this beau­ti­ful home, and my rela­tion­ship towards them changed… because of you.
Naomi’s mes­sage with this story was how extra­or­di­nary it is that life will give us the oppor­tu­nity to free our­selves of some­thing from the past that had both­ered us.
For me the mes­sage took even a higher mean­ing. It made me think again of the movie Atone­ment that I men­tioned on an ear­lier post­ing. And I felt the invi­ta­tion to not wait for life to come with a mag­i­cal gift but to begin to cre­ate the actions that could some­how con­tribute to make up for past errors.
All my best wishes to any­one who reads this.

Films not to miss Across the Universe

Unfor­tu­nately I do not have as much time to post mes­sages as I would like, but I want to rec­om­mend Across the Uni­verse.
The musi­cal has been cre­ated start­ing from many of the Beat­tles songs and allow­ing the songs to sug­gest the story and the char­ac­ter devel­op­ment.
There are very whim­si­cal scenes, great act­ing, good pho­tog­ra­phy, and I par­tic­u­larly enjoyed the addi­tional mate­r­ial ( I rented the two disks edi­tion, with a disk fully devoted to the film devel­op­ment) . The direc­tor has made this film, not merely for the enjoy­ment of the music, but to remind the view­ers that there was a time when peo­ple believe that change could be brought about if we demand it and stood up for our con­vic­tions. As a film direc­tor she is amaz­ing: able to act out the dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters, to inspire in a set­ting filled with joy and fun, and to allow the cre­ativ­ity of the moment and all those involved to evolve.
A true exam­ple of what in spir­i­tual terms is called “being in the present” –full of the aware­ness of the present moment in order that it can expand.

Recent films

As a film lover I would like to rec­om­mend two worth­while films.
LA VIE EN ROSE is the very beau­ti­ful ren­di­tion of Edith Piaf’ life. Her dra­mat­i­cally tragic life has been ren­dered with art and com­pas­sion and a superb per­for­mance!
ATONEMENT was for me all I can ask in a film. Mag­nif­i­cent pho­tog­ra­phy that speaks with­out the needs of words, show­ing in sub­tle but unequiv­o­cal ways the feel­ings and emo­tions of the char­ac­ters. I love films that offer mem­o­rable scenes. In this film the moment in which he touches the water of the foun­tain when she steps out of it, becomes a per­fect state­ment of his feel­ings. The sequence when both of the main char­ac­ters are prepar­ing to encounter each other is a series of mag­nif­i­cent pho­tographs, slowly telling a story in images.
The cast­ing is extra­or­di­nary, to find three actresses that could so con­vinc­ingly por­tray the same char­ac­ter in three peri­ods of her life, is a feat in itself.
And, last but not least, the plot is not only sound but thought pro­vok­ing. It invites reflec­tion on all the wrong we may have done in our lives, whether in full aware­ness or not and wak­ens up that strong desire to undo any wrong doing and make right that which should always have been. A very ful­fill­ing expe­ri­ence.
All best wishes to all readers.

Hopes for a more responsible year

Once again we are ready to meet at a NABE (National Asso­ci­a­tion for Bilin­gual Edu­ca­tion) Con­fer­ence, this time in Tampa Florida.
We look for­ward to the hope and inspi­ra­tion that is always pro­vided by meet­ing with edu­ca­tors will­ing to be cre­ative beyond all man­dated restric­tions because they believe in stu­dents’ abil­i­ties to learn.
I know that I will feel sup­ported and under­stood, respected and appre­ci­ated, dur­ing this meet­ing, but above all I know my hope will be renewed.
It is won­der­ful that NABE does not only pro­vide the oppor­tu­nity to meet good friends, but in my case also meet­ing with sev­eral fam­ily mem­bers, since I have rel­a­tives in Florida.
A great joy all in all!
After the con­fer­ence I will be shar­ing some of my thoughts.
My grat­i­tude to all who have remained stead­fast through the years in the strug­gle to sup­port all children’s lin­guis­tic rights and to those who have been join­ing in this effort each new year.
To all my best wishes, Alma Flor

A visit to Micronesia

Isabel Cam­poy and Alma Flor Ada in Guam, Microne­sia pre­sent­ing at an Inter­na­tional TESOL [Teach­ers of Eng­lish to Speak­ers of Other Lan­guages] Conference.

We were spon­sored by Har­court School Pub­lish­ers with whom we have pub­lished many edu­ca­tional materials.

We were wel­come very warmly, with the char­ac­ter­is­tic Microne­sian hospitality.

It was Isabel’s first time in Microne­sia. For me it was a return, after many years, since I in the sev­en­ties I had the oppor­tu­nity to teach a sum­mer course at the Uni­ver­sity of Guam.

We were able to visit Palau and had unfor­getable expe­ri­ences swim­ming among schools of fish that allowed us to become one with them in the water. Palau is one of the most beau­ti­ful places we have ever vis­ited, with the hun­dreds of mush­room shape islands sur­fac­ing from crys­tal clear waters.

If you like to scuba dive, to snorkel, or merely to swim, give your­self the treat of a life time and visit Palau, and on the way stop in Guam and enjoy the rich­ness of the Chamorro cul­ture and its won­der­ful people.

Welcome to dialogue

Wel­come every­one!
One of the many clas­si­fi­ca­tions of peo­ple today is whether we are “native” or “immi­grants” to the tech­no­log­i­cal world.
Unques­tion­ably I’m an immi­grant!
Hav­ing being an immi­grant in a cou­ple of other cir­cum­stances, I hope those pevi­ous expe­ri­ences will help me nave­g­ate between these two hori­zons –the nat­ural to me, of paper and pen, and the incred­i­bly sur­pris­ing and promis­ing world of tech­nol­ogy. For­tu­nately they both share that most impor­tant ele­ment of my being: WORDS!
Hop­ing to hear from you and look­ing for­ward our dialogue.