Category: School Days

Lodos

Posted in Architecture, Arts in Turkey, Culture, Exploring Turkey, Istanbul, School Days, Turkey6 Comments

Happy New Year, everyone. Winter has arrived, with January bringing us rain and much cooler temperatures here in Turkey. We’ve had snow flurries here and there but nothing has stuck quite yet. Winter in Turkey really runs from January through March and the lead up can bring some pretty intense winds. These winds are known as lodos.

View of the Bosphorus from the terrace of the Istanbul Modern Museum of Art

The lodos are strong winds originating in the Aegean Sea to the south of Istanbul. These winds are strong enough to redirect currents and can wreck havoc on shipping in the Bosphorus, with winds at the level of a strong gale or 50 knots (a 9-10 on the Beaufort scale, so I read).

A field trip to the Istanbul Modern with my IB Visual Art students

Lodos winds step beyond the realm of a natural phenomenon, arriving replete with their own folklore in Turkish culture. When the lodos blow, headaches, sleeplessness, and overly emotional thinking may all occur.

In the spirit of the new year, I’m choosing to view lodos as winds of change. As the Scorpians sang (or the CIA wrote?), “The future is in the air, I can feel it everywhere”. They may have been referring to the approaching end to the Cold War, but, for me, these lines refer to potential changes in latitude in 2024.

Portrait from Tbilisi, Georgia

Back in late October I had to grapple with the choice of continuing my time here in Turkey or setting my sights elsewhere, to another international post. As those of you who have been reading this blog are likely aware, my time in Turkey brought incredible opportunities my way – from fantastic new friends to unique travel destinations such as Georgia and Romania. The international school timeline means a teacher could go months between deciding to turn down a contract to securing a new position, and that’s if you’re lucky enough to receive an offer. It’s quite a cliff to dive off – not one I take lightly.

Selections from talented contemporary Turkish artists

In the end, I have decided to bring my time in Turkey to a close. Moloko and I will depart Istanbul in June 2024, having enjoyed a dynamic two years in this exciting ancient city.

I’m excited to share that I have taken a position at the American School in Switzerland (TASIS), my alma mater of sorts from my camp counselor days. The school is nestled in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, on a small mountain called Montagnola. As a twenty-something, I spent four summers at TASIS, becoming acquainted with international life. I met friends and campers from all over the world, soaked in the gorgeous views of Lake Lugano, and took trains into the mountains on my days off.

My parents’ visit to Lugano, Summer 2007

I am very excited to return to TASIS, this time as a faculty member of the Visual Arts Department. I will continue teaching IB Visual Arts, and also have the chance to teach drawing, painting, and the like. This new chapter in Lugano will begin in August 2024. Visitors are most definitely welcome!

Mom and I on Montagnola, overlooking Lake Lugano

A new year brings the promise of change. It is never easy to depart from a place where meaningful relationships run deep. However, I do believe that there is a beauty in the time and place where our lives cross with others. I will take the next few months to relish these relationships amidst the backdrop of Istanbul. I have a few visitors from home headed my way and I remain a devoted tourist in this land of surprises. The next stop on my tour of Turkey… Cappadocia!

Exhibition

Posted in Arts in Turkey, School Days4 Comments

Spring is rapidly approaching and with it comes the annual Grade 12 Art Exhibition. Most of my Grade 12 students are aiming for an International Baccalaureate diploma, the Visual Arts component of which includes curating and presenting artwork from two years of focused study.

Exhibition text, curatorial rationales (artist statements), and 8-12 polished artworks are all requirements of the IB Exhibition. I also request that they create their own flier and invitations. Months of planning and preparation goes into the show. Last week we had the chance to see the fruits of that labor.

Students study printmaking, photography, and ceramics over the course of Year 1 in Visual Arts. In Year 2, they choose the media and the subject of the art they create.

With eight students showing, the exhibition took up two levels including the school foyer and the upper hallway. We expanded the event into a week-long showcase, allowing more of our PreK – Grade 12 student body to attend.

On Tuesday, we held an opening at lunchtime. Parents, teachers, and students were in attendance. My students chose representatives amongst themselves to give remarks and I said a few words celebrating their efforts. I was very pleased with the parent turnout, particularly as our school is so far out of town.

Events like this aren’t possible without the support of the school facilities team and our administrators, one of whom even stayed late on a Sunday to oversee the installation of the large boards. I am very lucky to have that kind of support.

All in all, the IB Exhibition was a great success. The students put in a lot of hard work and brought their visions to life. Only two more weeks left with this group! Lots to do before then but this was definitely a feather in their cap 🙂

Showcase

Posted in School Days8 Comments

This past week, my Grade 7 and 8 students mounted a showcase of their artwork from the past semester. The theme of their art was nightmares and daydreams with each student creating a 2D work (paintings, drawings) and a 3D form (sculpture).

The content of the show was driven by inquiry, a major aspect of the MYP Visual Arts curriculum. Prioritizing student voice and choice assists with this goal – from the media my students create with, to the shared responsibility for the upkeep of our studio space, to preparation efforts surrounding the art exhibition.

In this case, I asked the students to choose how they would contribute to the showcase. We had a facilities team, art handlers, curators, and exhibition designers. They took their roles very seriously and had the showcase installed in under 30 minutes! One student rain around with a clipboard and my layout diagram, noting every display table and translating our needs to the Turkish speaking facilities staff. Awesome to see a 14 year old step up like that.

When it came to the actual artmaking, my students’ choice of media (artmaking materials) and their personal interpretations of the theme (dreams/nightmares) made this exhibition truly unique. It’s dark, expressive, and full of energy. I can see their growth as artists and the beautiful artwork speaks for itself.

Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my first student showcase here in Istanbul. I will miss this crew but I’m already looking forward to meeting my next group for Semester 2 in a week.

Sh-sh-shaking

Posted in Istanbul, School Days6 Comments

It has been another eventful week here in Turkey. On Tuesday morning, just after 4am, I awoke to my bed shaking and my Thai chimes ringing in the living room. My chimes were slamming against the wall so it only took about two seconds to realize we were having an earthquake.

Thankfully I had been warned about earthquakes when I first arrived so I was prepared. I paid a carpenter to “earthquake-proof” my apartment, drilling into the concrete bedroom walls to prevent the heavy wardrobes from tipping over. I purchased a stockpile of water (enough for three days was the recommendation) to keep in my apartment, should I be stuck inside. I also packed a “go-bag”, a practice I had put into place during some of the more tense moments in Moscow, when I had to anticipate possibly leaving the country suddenly. The items below are part of the contents of my go-bag.

Thankfully, this earthquake was fairly benign. Centered 250 km due east in Duzce, it registered a 6.0 but was thankfully shallow. While that region experienced a number of aftershocks in the hours and days which followed, life went on as usual here. The chatter on my morning bus ride to school was more excited than usual. Most of my students seem to have slept through it, according to my informal classroom polls. Unlike the bombing the week prior, my school didn’t feel the need to issue any community statement. CNN didn’t even carry the story due to a lack of injuries (thankfully) compared to a fatal Indonesian earthquake only days before. And though my toaster has twice blown the electricity in my entire apartment, there were no further issues following this event. Here’s hoping that this is the last exciting event for a while. Pictured below, a slightly shell-shocked kitten in the early morning hours, not thrilled to have experienced her first earthquake.

On a lighter note, World Cup fever has gripped our community. With 60+ countries represented in our student body, the kids are passionate about watching the matches and talking constant smack in class. We’re streaming Iran vs. Wales in study hall and national jerseys are worn with pride daily. Football is life in Europe and Turkey is no exception. The last time I enjoyed the World Cup in Europe was at TASIS when we let the campers stay up to watch Spain beat the Netherlands in 2010. Waka waka.

Piggy-backing on all that national pride, my school celebrated International Day on Saturday. A flag parade was announced and a lot of delicious food was served. Students who don’t normally engage were happy to help their parents out at their national booths. The event, like the World Cup, spurred a lot of conversation entry points with my students, and I heard about family moves to Turkey from Ethiopia, Morocco, and Iran in recent days. The majority of my students are very privileged to have made this jump and be attending a private international school.

Capping off International Day, I watched a new film on Netflix called The Swimmers. Premiering just this weekend, the film details the harrowing journey of two sisters from Damascus, Syria, through Istanbul and onto mainland Europe (Greece) by boat. We hear about refugees arriving on Greek islands in the news, Ai Weiwei creates art installations from the hundreds of thousands of life preservers abandoned on the beaches, but to observe this film, based on the true story of Olympian Yusra Mardini (Rio 2016), is wild. The pics below are my own taken from Ai Weiwei’s installation in Copenhagen in 2017.

“It could never happen here”, a phrase uttered all too often in this tumultuous world should be a warning to us all. As a US citizen, with only two countries bordering my own and vast oceans protecting me from international invasions, I will admit to being very naive of my privilege. This movie breaks down those walls, painting a picture to how quickly people can be forced into refugee situations and in my own backyard here in Turkey.

Today I’m headed down to Fatih, the neighborhood which encompasses Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. It’s hard to believe but I’m on the hunt for Christmas presents, my flight home being less than three weeks away. Always fun to share the treats of a new place with those back home. As always, thanks for reading and I wish you all a safe and healthy start to December.