Foreign Correspondance: Clip of the Week
As all my Upper
School students know, it took me the previous summer and every Sunday
morning of the school year, to find an appropriate and timely “Clip of
the Week” to include with every weekly MOODLE assignment. From Le
Tour De France results and Kissing “La Bise” goodbye in
September, to the seven video clips (cute little animals and the likes,)
connecting to our lesson on reflexive verbs, I have tried to make them
humorous (“Ah, bibliothèque” baguette commercial,) and educational
(Earth Day: “La Terre Est Si Grande”). Each clip has had a direct
connection to our grammar lesson of the week, and hopefully, has
enhanced each lesson so as to make the point memorable. Read more
about the "Clip of the Week" here.
In the beginning of my Harbor years, I taught first through
eighth grade French. In second grade, the French film “The Red Balloon”
was a favorite part of the curriculum. Upper School students still
remember this film about “true friendship.” Plot spoiler warning: At the
end of the film when all the balloons of Paris come to the rescue of
the little bullied boy, they gather around the adorable “friend” of the
recently-destroyed red balloon, and lift him, airborne, above Parisian
skies. Of course, the Lower School children, (for the most part, with
tears in their eyes,) always ask me: “Is it possible for a bunch of
balloons to make you fly in the sky like that?” Consistently, my
response was: “Almost anything is possible, if you put your mind to it.”
How
fitting it is then, that at the end of my time here at Harbor, a
daredevil attempt is made by a man from North Carolina (my birthplace
and the birth of “first flight” thanks to the Wright brothers,) to be
lifted by a bunch of helium ballons, and to fly over the English
Channel, from England to France. This is also reminiscent of my fourth
grade Reading Festival book: “The Glorious Flight: The Story of Louis
Blériot,” yet another French connection.
So here it is. My last
"Clip of the Week." I’d like to share it with you all with the message I
have for all my students:
Please watch the video posted here.
My
message to you is the same as Jonathan Trappe's:
"It's not really
about flying balloons. It's about dreams and inspiration and
accomplishing what we set out to do, whatever that may be--so that's
what I am happy about."
MY words to YOU are: "The sky's the
limit!" I know you all well enough to know that YOU CAN accomplish
whatever it is you want to achieve in your life. So, just in case you
were a bit hesitant to go after it, just know that I offer you my
complete support. I BELIEVE IN YOU!
I am so grateful for having
known each and every one of you. I will miss you, but you will always be
in my heart.
Merci mille fois!
And, as Harbor
students have known me to utter, from time to time, I offer the next
phrase: “BUT WAIT---THERE’S MORE!”
Still not convinced you can do
anything you set your mind to? Check out this video too by clicking here.
Alas,
Memorial Day weekend was quite a memorable one for many different
reasons.
Thanks to all of you, students, parents, faculty and
staff, for helping me achieve some of my life’s goals, here at Harbor, a
place that “cherishes childhood, cultivates wonder, and inspires
confident learners and leaders,” a place where we all can “soar.”
For
the last time,
Madame Jo Ann Chiet
