November with Elizabeth

What an exciting month it’s been here in Deauville! As we enter the holiday season, we are surrounded by the beautiful lights and cheer of Christmas time. While we are thinking of our family back at home, we are all counting our blessings and feeling the holiday spirit in other ways.

In Mid-November, I celebrated my 23^rd birthday with a weekend in Paris. Upon my return to school, I received about 30 drawings from my students as a birthday gift. I kept each one of them, and they remind me how much joy the children bring to me with their loving hearts and genuine spirits. Later that week, we celebrated Thanksgiving with a Deauville native, Fanny Hubert-Salmon, who spends a lot of time working in Lexington. I also discovered that Fanny and I have a connection back at home as well, through my dad, and one of her best friends. It was a humbling reminder of how small the world really is.  At Fanny’s home, we shared a delicious meal, with all the American fixins’ we could find. Fanny brought back corn bread mix from the last time she visited Kentucky, we had some makeshift cranberry sauce made from dried cranberries, green beans, sweet potatoes, mac and cheese, homemade rolls and cinnamon butter, and a chocolate hazelnut pie. In lieu of a turkey, which can be hard to find in France, we had a foie gras stuffed chicken. It was delicious. It was so wonderful to connect with someone who knows and loves our hometown so much. We got to talk about Kentucky basketball, and other sports, something I didn’t realized I missed so much until we talked about it. We are all so grateful to Fanny for opening her home to us. It turned what could have been a sad, homesick day into a wonderful experience of love and friendship. I hope that we will be able to continue our friendship upon our return to Lexington.

This past weekend, we also got to share in the illumination celebration in the center plaza of Deauville. Four kilometers of lights in total were strung around the city, decorating the trees and the light posts and forming a beautiful tent of light over the main roundabout in the city. Our students sang a song for the town that they had been practicing for weeks, and then with the push of a big red button, the town was transformed into a beautiful winter wonderland. This next month is sure to bring even more holiday cheer as we celebrate the season with our new friends, and see the delight in our students’ eyes as the magic of Christmas draws nearer.Our day to day life here as a TA in Deauville has settled into a nice routine. There are early days, when we have to be at the school to greet the students before class starts, and there are later days, when we get to grab a few extra winks of sleep. I start my day usually at the nursey school, where the kids treat you as if you are a celebrity walking through their halls. Every time I walk into a room of my students I hear a chorus of, “Elizabet! Elizabet! Hellllllo! ‘Elllooo!” (The ‘th’ at the end of my name is impossible for most of them to pronounce, so we just go with Elizabet.) I start my days with songs usually. Songs that teach greetings, or how to say their name, or even just classic nursery rhymes. I think I sing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” about 20 times a week. And then, we learn English through games and stories. Since I teach in the nursey, it’s a lot of me talking, and them playing, but it is an important building block in their English education. On Fridays, they get stickers, usually with English phrases on them, as a reward for a week of hard work. The stickers are a huge hit. Every day, we eat lunch and spend recreation with the kids. I have formed some special bonds with a handful of the kids, and I have learned that seeing the world through their eyes is something that adults often overlook, and because of that, we miss out on a lot of joy and wonder that the world has to offer. After school, the students have after school activities. When we aren’t helping out in the bigger groups, we are each responsible for our own activity. I run the English club every Tuesday, and we play games, make crafts, and watch movies that expose them to some American culture and a little bit of English language. One of their favorite activities was creating Halloween masks, and playing Thanskgiving bingo. They loved it! At the end of our days, we are tired, but we feel fulfilled and satisfied in the role that we are playing in these kids’ language and cultural education.

Until next time! Happy Holidays from Deauville!

                                    -Elizabeth

TA Andrew Coburn's December in Deauville

The month of December flew by way too fast. Now that we were in the full swing of things with vacations and holiday events quickly approaching, we kept plenty busy! While Deauville may be a small town, they don't skimp on holiday decorations and festivities. The season kicked off with a lighting of the entire town, including hidden light shows in different parts of the city. There was a little confusion amongst the TAs as to why the kids all the sudden started singing a song called "Noël Jazz", but it ended up they had to sing it at the lighting ceremony in front of the citizens before pushing the big red button to light up the town (it's now a house favorite). The festivities didn't stop just in town but continued to the school. The children worked for WEEKS on small crafts that they eventually sold at a school Christmas market where they raised funds for their class trips. I also worked with three of my classes to send Christmas cards to two elementary schools in Georgetown, KY, and Tulsa, OK. The exchange went off without a hitch and it was great to see how both cultures handled the objective. One of the Georgetown schools even learned how to say 'Merry Christmas' for their paired class!
      The best part about December was our second two-week vacation. For this one, the girls and I separated again. My first day I finally got to go to Omaha Beach and see the D-Day Beach and walk through the American cemetery. It was quite the eye-opening experience. I again returned to Lyon to spend Christmas with my host family and get another Frenchmas (French Christmas) under my belt. From Lyon, I left for Poland to catch the tail end of Polish Christmas festivities with a local friend and her family. I celebrated New Years there with a beautiful fireworks show, then headed back to Deauville for several days of rest. The girls left the Saturday that break began and headed on a 13-day adventure to Spain (Barcelona, Valencia, and Madrid). There they got to tour many well-known museums, and spend time in some much-needed sunshine and warm weather.

        December was a hard month with spending Christmas away from our family, but we were all grateful to spend it with our newly made/established families. We're all back to work now and even more ready than before for whatever comes our way this next month! 

-Andrew

Warsaw, Poland with one of my best friends, Magda.

Christmas with my favorite "sisters"!

Omaha Beach Sculpture

Andrew Coburn's Deauville October Update

Using September as a month to settle in and really get going, we hit October full on. It took about a week or so to really get comfortable with being up in front of my kids and teaching them something that literally comes naturally to me. However, after some careful planning, I finally began to get the hang of it. In the first period of teaching I covered topics of introduction (asking names, favorite things, where they lived), and weather. Each day (except Wednesday) there are afterschool activities. Tuesdays there are two slots reserved for the Americans to take over, one cultural, and one hands-on. We took turns each week covering each. Elizabeth and I covered Kentucky one week with a reading of B is for Bluegrass and some derby coloring sheets, as well as making Halloween masks and watching kids Halloween films. In the hands-on, I taught the kids Dodgeball, Ninja, and how to make ice cream in a plastic bag. We will continue these until Christmas break where we will be covering topics that we choose over the course of the second half of the school year.

         It’s not October without Halloween! My kids were overjoyed when I turned on the projector to show a Halloween presentation complete with a picture of me in a clown costume from several years ago, and a French Halloween song my teachers used to teach Halloween vocabulary words in my high school French classes. I also took this moment as a way to plug in Transylvania University's 'Pumpkin Mania' which astounded the children. On the last two days leading up to our first vacation, we held Halloween parties in the two countryside schools and learned just how much we (and the kids) love Spooky Bowling, regular bowling, but with bottles decorated to look like ghosts. The night before vacation we participated in the Deauville Halloween party that was held in a WW2 German-occupied villa in town. The party included a pumpkin carving station (ran by the TAs), a haunted house, mystery boxes, and a haunted underground bunker.

Using September as a month to settle in and really get going, we hit October full on. It took about a week or so to really get comfortable with being up in front of my kids and teaching them something that literally comes naturally to me. However, after some careful planning, I finally began to get the hang of it. In the first period of teaching I covered topics of introduction (asking names, favorite things, where they lived), and weather. Each day (except Wednesday) there are afterschool activities. Tuesdays there are two slots reserved for the Americans to take over, one cultural, and one hands-on. We took turns each week covering each. Elizabeth and I covered Kentucky one week with a reading of B is for Bluegrass and some derby coloring sheets, as well as making Halloween masks and watching kids Halloween films. In the hands-on, I taught the kids Dodgeball, Ninja, and how to make ice cream in a plastic bag. We will continue these until Christmas break where we will be covering topics that we choose over the course of the second half of the school year.

My creations this year!

During this month I did a decent amount of traveling both with the girls and alone. I took a weekend to surprise a sister from my host family in Lyon and used my layovers in Paris to revisit some sites (since the last time I was in France was 2015 with Sister Cities). Afterward, a local friend gave me a tour of the neighboring cities of Honfleur and Le Havre (where I also spent 3 days during the first week of vacation). With the first big vacation coming up at the end of the month we all decided it was a good idea to get out of Deauville and see some close by cities and countries. The first weekend we all hopped on the train to Paris where the girls spent a weekend while I continued to Reims to see some old friends. I then continued on to Le Havre, and a teacher at the Deauville elementary school gave the girls a day tour of Honfleur. The second week the travel bug was really getting at us, so we booked tickets on Brittany Ferries, and sailed off to London where we spent 5 days discovering the city, eating lots of fish and chips, pies, and drinking lots of tea. While the two weeks of vacation have been nice, we are excited to be back home in Deauville and are already looking forward to our next adventures in Europe and in teaching.

-Andrew

Palais de Justice and Notre Dame Basilica in Lyon

 London!

London Bridge wasn't falling down that day!

Getting to know Deauville- 2018 TA Elizabeth Whitlock's thoughts on the first month in Deauville

The first month or so in Deauville have been filled with new experiences and adventures. From getting settled in to our new home, finding exactly which local boulangerie has the best tarte aux fraises, to meeting our new co-workers at each school, every day here in France has held new excitements.

We three Americans spent our first few days discovering the world around us. The city of Deauville was nice enough to give passes to the American Film Festival here, which we took advantage of and saw a few great films and even spotted a celebrity or two. We passed more time by digging our toes into the cool sand of the Deauville beach. Wrapping up on the beach in a sweater and jeans was definitely a new experience for me, but seeing dogs and babies playing in the sand and watching horses trot along the waters’ edge made the chilly breeze totally worth it.

When it comes to our experiences at the school, all three Americans were nervous to start. Myself in particular was incredibly nervous to meet the kids for the first time, but the children are completely excited to see you, meet you, hear a little English, and find out about the strange far-away land you’ve come from. The teachers and counselors we work side by side with are incredibly kind and helpful. They are excited for our journey as well. Being surrounded by friendly faces makes the transition of moving and working in a foreign country a bit easier.

Though Deauville is a small town, there are shops, restaurants, and cafés tucked away down a random street, so if you allow yourself to just get lost for an afternoon, you can find some real hidden treasures. It is surprising how there are many elements that remind me of Deauville’s sister city and my home, Lexington, particularly in the stables where the horses are boarded near the hippodrome. I feel right at home.

In the coming month, I am very excited to get further into teaching. As of this blog post, we have completed our first week of classes, and are still acclimating and getting all the butterflies out. The kids are so sweet, and are one of the most rewarding parts of this experience. 

Fundraiser to Benefit Lexington Sister Cities Student Scholarship Fund

On Wednesday, September 12, Lexington Sister Cities will be hosting its 16^th Annual Edward T. Houlihan Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day fundraiser. The event will be held at O’Neill’s Irish Pub located at 2051 Richmond Road. Starting at 5:30 PM, festivities will include Liam’s Fancy Irish Music, McTeggart Irish dancers, Irish dancers from the Bluegrass Ceili Academy, a silent auction, and Irish Stew and Brown Bread prepared by guest chef Mary Parlanti. All proceeds will benefit the Lexington Sister Cities student scholarship fund. Admission is $10.00.

We hope to see you there!

2018 Lexington Sister Cities Young Artist Competition

Winners of the 30th Annual Lexington Sister Cities Young Artist Competition Announced

Rose Linn, a students at Frederick Douglass High School, was selected as the 2018 winner of the 30^th Annual Lexington Sister Cities Young Artist Competition.  

Rose Linn, 1st place

The Sister Cities Young Artist Competition is sponsored by Central Bank and the John G. Irvin Galleries, as well as the Lexington Sister Cities Commission.  The contest was open to all Lexington students aged 13-18. 

The theme of the competition was “The Art of Diplomacy”.  Rose’s piece, “Diplomacy”, was done on sketch paper with colored pencil, pencil and sharpie.  Her inspiration comes from her thoughts that “hand-shaking was an international symbol of diplomacy and peace and, by putting the flags of the world on it in an artful way, I was representing the art of diplomacy”. 

Second place was awarded to Aurionne Beck of Frederick Douglass for her piece “One Love”.  Third place went to Anya Hartman of Lafayette for her work titled “Synched Up”.  Carmen Coleman from Bryan Station received honorable mention for her piece “Shine Your Eyes”.  Steve Kelly from Central Bank awarded first place $250; second place $150; and third place $100.  Councilmember and Sister Cities Chairman Bill Farmer awarded honorable mention a $50 prize. 

Aurionne Beck, 2nd place

Anya Hartman, 3rd place

Noelle McGill, teacher of the honorable mention recipient Carmen Coleman. 

The winning art teacher, Rebecca Banks of Frederick Douglass, received a $250 prize from Lexington Sister Cities to use for classroom supplies. 

Winning teacher Rebecca Banks. 

A reception was held on Friday, January 5th to announce the winners and open the gallery.  All entries will be on exhibit at the Central Bank Gallery through January 26^th, 2018. 

The 1^st place piece will be submitted to the worldwide Sister Cities International Competition at the annual conference in Aurora, CO from August 2-4, 2018.  

Steve Kelly from Central Bank, Rebecca Banks, CM Bill Farmer, Rose Linn, Aurionne Beck and Anya Hartman at the reception.  

There were 22 pieces from 5 different schools entered into the 2018 competition.  Thanks to all the artists and teachers who participated in the showcase this year!

Rose Linn, "Diplomacy"
Frederick Douglass,
Teacher: Rebecca Banks
1st Place

Aurionne Beck, "One Love"
Frederick Douglass
Teacher: Jason Sturgill
2nd Place

Anya Hartman, "Synched Up"
Lafayette
Teacher: David Page
3rd Place

Carmen Coleman, "Shine Your Eyes"
Bryan Station
Teacher: Noelle McGill
Honorable Mention

Alana Bloomfield, "Peace Achieved"
Sayre School
Teacher: Bill Berryman

Meeral Saeed, "Together"
Dunbar
Teacher: Deborah Eller

Jennifer Lee, "Fox and Man On a Bus"
Dunbar
Teacher: Deborah Eller

Chase Faulkner, "Man of Nations"
Dunbar
Teacher: Deborah Eller

Ryan Willard, "International Peace"
Dunbar
Teacher: Deborah Eller

Desiree Davis, untitled
Dunbar
Teacher: Deborah Eller

Nicole Wong, "ATGC"
Dunbar
Teacher: Deborah Eller

Lauren Kendall Stephens, "Save Mother Nature"
Frederick Douglass
Teacher: Jason Sturgill

Alyssa Gebhardt, "Peacemaker"
Frederick Douglass
Teacher: Jason Sturgill

Hope Turley, untitled
Frederick Douglass
Teacher: Jason Sturgill

Yolitzy Gorostieta, "City Hands"
Frederick Douglass
Teacher: Jason Sturgill

Autumn Jackson, "world transparency:
Frederick Douglass
Teacher: Jason Sturgill

Kayla Smith, "Diplomacy under the Leaves"
Frederick Douglass
Teacher: Jason Sturgill

Breanna G. Land, "Diverse Countries Come Together"
Frederick Douglass
Teacher: Jason Sturgill

Isaac Jackson, "work of art"
Bryan Station
Teacher: Allison Davis

Chelsea Wafford, "Let's Mingle"
Bryan Station
Teacher: Allison Davis

Cassandra Hacker, "Diplomatic Horses"
Bryan Station
Teacher: Allison Davis

Alyssa Gebhardt, untitled
Frederick Douglass
Teacher: Jason Sturgill

 

Youth Leadership Summit 2017

    Lauren Prather participated in the Shinhidaka, Japan student exchange in 2016. She also participated in the Sister Cities International Youth Leadership Summit in 2017.    

                                      
                                          My Experience at the Youth Leadership Summit
             
                       As a kid, I had always felt a magnetic pull to the globe and its vastness. Last summer I was lucky enough to visit Shinhidaka, Japan with the Lexington Sister Cities. A year later I sat on a plane taking a leap of faith once again to participate in the Youth Leadership Summit in Virginia Beach, Virginia. 

                The Summit focused on fish and wildlife sustainability in a global world. We learned that business and the environment are a constant balancing act. With none of us knowing the exact right way to work though the problem of sustainability we met different conservationists who helped us fully understand the issue and different ways of addressing it in a global society.

                Armed with our new-found knowledge we headed in to our State Department based negotiation, where we got placed into random groups. I ended up in the U.N more specifically The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which in my slightly biased mind was the best group. We worked together as a team to negotiate between the groups to come to a fair and rewarding conclusion for each of the parties involved.

                The whole event concluded with a lovely dinner and dance party; where I was able to meet the Sister Cities Kentucky delegation.  We danced late into the night, happily losing our voices. Together we watched how the different delegations participating had bonded, my roommate from the Bahamas and I dancing alongside our friend from Italy. 

                The Summit showed me that a Global mindset starts locally, and being involved in your local Sister Cities is a great way to effect real change in your community. I believe that my experiences with the Sister Cities have already changed me for the better, and I can’t wait to see how they will shape me in the future. 

Giving Tuesday begins tomorrow if you would like to donate to help students like Lauren participate in the student exchange program. 

Please visit our website to learn more and make a donation.

https://www.lexingtonky.gov/sistercities