Past projects 2
Life Essentials: A Slice of Warm Toast for Cold Noses
Funded Dec 17, 2015Dear Ms. Laurel Buell & DonorsChoose:
Thank you for your generous donations to our classroom. My students are all ELD (English Language Development) students - which means that, for many of them, this is their first year in the United States. They come to here not in search of a better life, necessarily, but primarily to escape the unmitigated violence and corruption in their native countries. The road ahead is rocky and uncertain for them, because students who do not have legal status (regardless of whether the documentation is pending) have few options available to them after high school. Still, they are committed to both learning and contributing back in small ways to their community - and gifts like yours teach them that there are those in this new country that would treat them with kindness. It is a lesson that I hope they will carry through their lives and into the perspectives that they will form in the years to come.
When I first wheeled this oven into the room, there was silence. "What is that, mister?" the students asked. "It's an oven, I told them." DonorsChoose and a very nice lady named Laurel Buell bought it for us. The rest of the period was then spent translating "oven" into Spanish and Korean (horno and 오븐, incidentally) and discussing the cultural similarities across cultures when it comes to baking. And, of course, that led to a very animated discussion about what to bake the next day.
For the next two months, I baked breakfast breads every Tuesday. Along with the bread and tea, students learned etiquette, speaking & listening skills, and most importantly a chance to develop the kind of community that would be of paramount importance when tempers inevitably flared or I needed them to bravely try activities outside of their comfort zone.
The pictures you see here are from our last session before our big standardized test, the SBAC exam. For that morning, I made them chocolate chip cookies. The students had just finished their Google study guide on their chromebooks and putting them away. Some went up to the front to check their grades on my laptop.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Chow
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose.org Team and one other donor.46 ESL Students Need Just $48 to Build a Digital Fluency Lab
Funded Aug 26, 2015It's been only a day since I received your gift - but it's already changed the lives of not only my students, but mine, those of my teacher colleagues, and an exponentially growing number of students. Like fire, word is traveling through the halls - "Mr. Chow wrote a DonorsChoose and got funded! He's going to be able to turn those slow computers into ones just as good as the ones in Beverly Hills!" And you know what? It's not hyperbole. They really will be just as good.
We've already started the building process - installing the OS, picking out essential applications, optimizing configurations. Only one prototype is fully up, but already kids are picking up the mic I brought from home and recording passages from "Lewis & Clark". In time, those computers will be used in conjunction with Google Apps to create voice-added Google Presentations and videos made by students to help other students master the English language.
We expect all 25 drives to be fully utilized within two weeks. By them, with luck, we'll have gotten the rest of our materials from our currently posted DonorsChoose project - and not just my classroom, but our whole school, with have a fully fledged 21st century lab that can handle any subject and any educational need.
Thank you so very much. You've made a difference that will pay off in hundreds of lives for decades to come.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Chow