Life's Not a Beach in Hawaii

September 2008

I am lucky to have Hawaii as part of my territory, and its true I do get to visit a couple of times a year. And its funny that nobody will ever believe me that the hardest I work all year is when I go to Hawaii. My last trip was 5 days- from Monday to Friday, and from the moment my plane landed the insanity began. Once again, it is my own fault for scheduling myself my first appointment 30 minutes after landing. Of course at the time it seemed feasible, until I remembered baggage claim, renting a car, traffic and worst of all- needing water! I barely had a moment to stop and buy some water before getting to the classroom.

My appointment at the schools were very interesting. Hawaii has the largest population of ESL students of any of the states I cover- over 13,000. As we learned during our stay, the teachers are working to create the ELD standards and they are far from being finished. Without the standards, you cant create the assessment, or vice versa, and cant have continuity among levels, movement etc...It is the same problem I have encountered over and over again. Teachers are really struggling to do something for their students, but they cannot. So lest you think the only thing that people working for publishers think is to SELL SELL SELL, we do not. What good will the best program be for a teacher if they have no foundation of skills and standards to base the instruction upon?

Of course, amid my sprints from classroom to classroom, dashing up stairs, running in and out offices leaving notes, and bags and my car, I occasionally caught a whiff of plumeria or the sound of the breeze rustling in the palm fronds. Most of all, the sun was ever so delicious after cold days in Seattle. Let me just repeat, how tough it actually is to work on the road- sleeping in hotels, trying to remember to bring the right things, finding parking, finding the right door, etc and all while being on time and meeting everyone possible in the short amount of time you have so you can really be productive. It is really hard work.