The
Adams School
P.O. Box 29
27 School Street
Castine,
Maine 04421
326-8608
www.adamsschool.com
ADAMS SCHOOL NEWSLETTER
SEPTEMBER 12, 2008
China, Maine
“Some guy
called for you from China,”
my son told me when I walked in the door last Friday evening. This doesn’t happen very often. It happens never. Jim Bishop—he was a stranger to
me, and is not Chinese—had left his e-mail address and a message that
he would
call back. A few minutes later, I was talking to Jim by phone. It was
already
Saturday morning in China.
“I’m using Skype,” he explained, sounding no farther away than next
door. We
were talking over the Internet.
As he
introduced himself and we talked, he even perused the Adams
School web site. “That photo
was
taken this morning, Jim,” I said, explaining the whole school sitting
on the
porch of our nature center with Monsieur du Jardin. I did not try and
explain
Monsieur.
On my end,
there was a huge comprehension “lag.” Here was a university English
teacher in Baoding, China
looking at an Adams School
photo taken 12 hours
earlier. Furthermore, Professor Bishop was calling because his
post-graduate
English class of 12 Chinese agriculture students was reading something
I’d
published, an essay about beachcombing with our kids during summers in
Castine.
Somehow it had been translated into Chinese, and his students had
questions! He
had sought out the author.
“You’re
easy to find,” he said. And so was he, once I Googled him. Bishop is a
retired
airline pilot who, with his wife, has been teaching in China
for seven years. To help get acquainted, he e-mailed me his Google
earth links
showing the Hebei Agricultural University campus, his residential
neighborhood,
and a nearby spot on the Great Wall that looks very different from the
views we
grew accustomed to seeing during network television coverage of the
2008
Olympics. The terrain is rugged, remote, and beautiful. Baoding
is 130 kilometers southeast of Beijing.
As he
interviewed me about writing, he pointed out that for the Chinese
“pronunciation is exquisitely important,” and yet in English we’re
fairly
casual about it. There are four tones in spoken Chinese each conveying
unique
meaning. A single word contains very different concepts depending on
pronunciation. I had to share my favorite Eric Sevareid quote: “One
good word
is worth a thousand pictures.” It seems like a particularly Chinese
concept.
On behalf
of his students, he asked about my use of the words “emblem,”
“provenance,” “Arcadia,”
and what motivated me to even write things down. “They will want to
know,” he
said, “why anyone would go to so much trouble to write twelve
paragraphs about anything. Is a writer writing for
himself, or for some reader? What’s your point? What do you want us to
carry
away from this?” he asked.
My point
was to find out what I was thinking and feeling, or to encapsulate a
summer
experience—what it was like to be here,
then. I was not writing for Chinese agricultural students 12 time
zones
away. What I was learning is that a piece of writing is never finished
and that
beachcombing might include the concept of writing washing up on foreign
shores.
It has unintended layers of experience and ripples of meaning that can
extend a
long way.
Though this
is the first time China
has called us, it is not the first contact between Adams
School and modern China.
Our students will remember the visits of Kevin (Cai Junxi) while he was an exchange student at MMA, and my friend Robert
Marquand visiting to talk about life as a journalist in Beijing,
both men giving us a lens through which to understand profoundly
different
cultures.
But this
bay goes back even farther in “the China
trade.” Searsport was a hub of U.S.
shipbuilding and marine command. The best design for a wooden ship that
would
make money was the Downeaster, the most successful wooden cargo ship to
engage
in global trade. Seventy-nine percent of
them were built in Maine,
where
the best materials and the best craftsmen accumulated. It was the
ultimate
square-rigged merchant vessel that enjoyed a heyday from 1875-1885, and
was
then made suddenly obsolete by cost-effective steam ships. Searsport
captains
returned from Asia with firecrackers, feathers,
matting,
tungsten ore, silk, tea, exotic art work, home furnishings . . . and
glimmers
of understanding of such profoundly different cultures.
But I had
entered the China
trade by plying the waters of the online world. Castine was exporting
stories
of barefoot Nelson children on the yacht club beach—the “collecting
beach”—and
strange concepts like collecting shards of China plates and cups with
flowers
on them, most likely washing ashore from the old town dump of Oakum
Bay. And
the exchange of same was measured in nano seconds not 18-month voyages
‘round
the Horn.
“Some of my
students might want to send you an e-mail. Would that be all right?”
asked
Bishop. Certainly. “And don’t be surprised if we come visit some day,”
said the
former airship captain-turned-English-professor. This morning I got an
e-mail
from Japan.
Professor Murai is coming to MMA in November, and his 6th
grade son,
Katsushige, will join Adams School
for a term.
—Todd
Emergency
Calling
list: Are you properly listed? Wish to add a cell number?
Soccer Game
Date
Change: We have switched our game versus Bay
School from October 15 to
September
22. It will be a home game.
Soccer Round
Robin….September
20, from 2-8:00pm, we will
host the
fifth annual peninsula soccer round robin at MMA’s football field. Come
watch
5-8th graders from all the peninsula towns play a series of
22
minute games-for-fun.
Homework
Club….Ooops!
It’s for everyone, grade 1-8.
Common
Ground Fair
Permission Slips…Please return ASAP. We go to the fair next Friday,
grades
1-8.
It’s Big
Brother, Big
Sister time again: Would your son or daughter like to have a visit
from an
MMA student, here at school, for lunch and recess, one day a week? Let
us know
and we’ll send home a permission slip.
Parent-Teacher
Conferences are next Thursday. Please call school to schedule if
you would
like to have a goal-setting meeting with teachers. Thursday is an
in-service
day dedicated to conferences—not a regular student day.
Readers
Theater
“Animal Stories:” Don’t miss the first readers theater performance of
the
year….September 30. Performances during the school day for students.
Fire Drill
in
October: It has become customary to practice a fire drill with the
Castine
Fire Department in October. We will not announce the date to kids,
however, so
that it be as realistic as possible. We usually hide several
people—kids and
teachers—so that the CFD can practice finding people in the building,
and we
can practice getting an accurate head count. We also have the drill
“toned out”
by Hancock County
emergency—as a drill. So when the trucks start heading for school,
don’t panic!
FYI: Our foul weather assembly point is the lower level at the
Historical
Society.
Penobscot
Junior
Choir…will start singing on Friday September 12th…is
looking for
choir members between 1st and 8th grades. No
auditions
are required—just come with an eagerness to sing. We meet every Friday
from 3:15 to 5:00
at the Congregational Church on Main Street
in Blue Hill. Questions: call director Tee Stanislaw at 374-2346.
MMA Film Festival
Keep your
hands to
yourself! FYI, we have adopted a “No Touching” rule for all Adams
School activities, including
the
playground (Yup, no more tag) and P.E. classes. We hope this will end
certain
kinds of conflicts and rough play and help kids learn about respecting
personal
space. In faculty meetings, we are discussing manners and school-wide
civility
training and rules. More to come.
Alumni Notes:
A.J. Snapp, senior at John Bapst
High School, Adams Class of
2005,
has been selected co-captain of the school football team. He plays
tight end.
Congratulations A.J!
****************************************************************************
ADAMS SCHOOL MENU Sept.
15th – 19th
Monday – Cheesy Rice,
Cinnamon Roll, Broccoli, Pears, Milk
Tuesday – Chicken Noodle
Soup, Biscuits, Crackers, Peaches,
Milk
Weds. – Pizza, Salad,
Graham Crackers, Apple Crisp, Milk
Thursday – NO SCHOOL
(Parent/Teacher Conferences)
Friday – Bag Lunch – Ham
& Cheese on a Bun, Chips,
Juice, Apple, Cookie, Milk
******************************************************************************
Pee-Wee
Soccer:
Lisa Burton will be coaching pee-wee soccer...at Fort George
on Thursdays from 2:20-4:00.
Students can take the bus up there. Interested students/parents
must sign
up with the town rec department. See Sue Macomber at town hall.
News from
the School
Nurse: The entire student body and
teachers have been screened for head lice and/or nits and none were
found. Periodic checks will be made
throughout the
year.
Cheering
Schedules…also on the school web site:
September Cheering Practices
Fri Sept 12 2:15-4:30pm
Sat Sept 13 2:00-4:30pm
Mon Sept 15 2:15-4:30pm (Soccer, HW club overlap)
Fri Sept 19 2:15-4:30pm
Sat Sept 20 2:00-4:30pm (Soccer overlap)
Mon Sept 22 2:15-4:30pm (Soccer, HW club overlap)
Fri Sept 26 2:15-4:30pm
Sat Sept 27 2:00-4:30pm
Mon Sept 29 2:15-4:30pm (Soccer, HW club overlap)
October Practices
Wed
Oct 1 School Physicals, Girls gr.
5-8
Thurs Oct
2
School Physicals, Boys gr. 5-8
Fri
Oct 3 2:15-4:30pm
Sat Oct 4 2:00-4:30pm
Mon Oct 6 2:15-4:30pm (Soccer, HW club overlap)
Fri
Oct 10 P/T conferences NO
practice
Sat Oct 11 2:00-4:30pm
Mon
Oct 13 Columbus Day NO practice
Fri
Oct 17 2:15-4:30pm
Sat Oct 18 2:00-4:30pm
Mon Oct 20 2:15-4:30pm (Soccer, HW club overlap)
Fri
Oct 24 2:15-4:30pm
Sat Oct 25 2:00-4:30pm
Mon Oct 27 2:15-4:30pm (HW club overlap)
Fri
Oct 31 NO practice