John Miller and "The Tent" -- South Pole, Antarctica

These absolutley remarkable photos come to us directly from South Pole, Antarctica from our school's pen pal John Miller, USAP. One of the US Antarctic Program team took these photos of John himself at his now famous tent.

This is the exact replica of the Amundsen-Scott tent -- this is the basis for our SVDP-ALC school writing contest. (See blog posts below.) Amundsen was the first human being to reach the South Pole; Scott and his crew came next.

Two photos are of John by the tent which he stayed in overnight and re-created history, re-enacting the expeditions of Amundsen and Scott. The other stunning photo is of John actually on the ice in Antarctica trying to navigate the field of Ice with an ice tool. (I'm not sure what it is called; I'll have to ask John later.)

Well, what can I say? These photos are absolutely stunning !!! Thanks , John, for the fantastic photos and the great educational experience you provided for our school !!!

John wrote to us some wonderful words in his last email which I will quote here as he prepares to leave The Ice and return home soon:

"I have seven more days and a wake up until my flight, given the weather holds out...
I know I will never forget this place and the 59 people I lived with for the past nine months. Along the way I had the distinct privilege of corresponding with students from my home in Nevada and students in New Orleans, Louisiana, with the AmeriCorps literacy project. I hope that my time here has inspired others to push the edge of the envelope and take chances in life by expanding their horizons to include the world as a whole...

Still, great sacrifice usually will accompany great accomplishment. All who travel these paths have to weigh one against the other, make their decision, and follow it through to the end. You just never know what lies beyond that fork in the road; as the poet, Robert Frost wrote, “two roads diverged in the middle of a wood, I took the one less traveled by”
Take care to choose your path carefully but don’t be afraid to take that road less traveled by."

Wow, what can I add to that! Beautifully said. Thanks again, John, for inspiring us at our St. Vincent de Paul-ALC school and our whole Literacy*AmeriCorps team here in New Orleans. GREAT WORK !!!

You have a standing invitation to visit us here in New Orleans anytime. Take care.

-- Adrian

And the Winner is... Antarctica Writing Contest Winners

Today we had an awards ceremony
for the winners in our first ever SVDP-ALC writing contest. The topic was "life in a tent in Antarctica" based the real life re-enactment by John Miller of the USAP of the events of the famous Antarctic expeditions of Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. John Miller stayed overnight outside at the South Pole, Antarctica in an exact replica of the famous tent (see the photo of the replica John Miller sent). Our students were asked to write about what it would be like to stay in the tent at Antarctica. Student Aaron Hawthorne wrote a nice essay about this and won an award for his excellent participation. Well done, Aaron! (See his photo standing next to our SVDP-ALC volunteer teacher, Dr. Kathleen Dunlap -- known as Kathy at our school.) Three other students who were not present today also will receive certificates for participating. Also, our blog's first guest writer, librarian and teacher Patti Muggivan, will receive a certificate for participating. (Patti wrote an essay but could not technically compete since she is not a student. However, we will post her essay on the blog soon, and the students will read it and learn from it as a literacy tool in our small group classes.) We will be posting some of the student essays on this blog too.

The winner for "best essay writer" went to Jennie Gorden. (See her photo with Sr. Kathleen Bahlinger.) Well done, Jennie!

John Miller plans to send a special award for the winner, and we will tell you more about this in a later post. We will also post some of John's comments and photos about his "tent experiment" soon too. Much more on this story later, stay tuned.

--Adrian

SVDP Writing Contest Update

Our first ever student writing contest at SVDP-ALC has concluded, and we will be selecting and awarding the winners this Thursday. We had several student entries plus one from a former guest writer to our blog, Patti Muggivan, who was so inspired by the contest that she wrote an essay too. Although Patti will not be competing --since she is a former teacher and librarian -- we will publish her essay on this blog soon as a guest-writer article.

Again, we wish to thank John Miller of the US Antarctic Program for his daring Amundsen-Scott "tent experiment" and inspiring us to hold this contest. John sent us some great artwork of the Raold Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott expeditions which we are posting here. We will let you know the winners on Thursday and post some of the best student writings.

-- Adrian

"City of Refuge" Update: Tom Piazza and Our Blog

We received a very nice email the other day from Tom Piazza, the author of the powerful new book City of Refuge. This is a novel about the terrible days of Hurricane Katrina and the struggles of families in New Orleans during the storm. (Tom also wrote one of my favorite books of all time called Why New Orleans Matters which is a non-fiction account of Hurricane Katrina.)

A few days ago on our blog, I posted a story about how our small group class will be studying City of Refuge and using the Study Guide for it which I co-authored with Rachel Nicolosi of the Literacy Alliance of Greater New Orleans and Shannan Cvitanovic of YES (YMCA Educational Services). By chance, Tom read our blog post (see Oct. 15) and sent us an email expressing his appreciation. I felt that our students and our blog readers would like reading about this; so, I asked Tom if I could reprint an excerpt from his email. He said yes; and so, here is some of what Tom wrote to us:

"Just wanted to wave at you from Chicago (still on tour) and say how meaningful it was to see that blog entry, with the photo, about the literacy program you're involved in. I really feel honored that my book has been selected as a vehicle for people to expand their experience of the world through reading. Hard to convey in an e-mail, but that meant a lot... "

Thanks again, Tom, for the very thoughtful email. City of Refuge was chosen to be the book for the One Book One New Orleans program this year. We will be seeing a lot more about the book and Tom on this blog later on, so stay tuned. I also hope to include in our class discussions some selected passages from Why New Orleans Matters for our SVDP-ALC students to analyze and learn from.
-- Adrian

Breaking News: John Miller, Amundsen--Scott Tent, South Pole Update

As promised, John Miller has stayed over night this past Friday in an exact replica of the famous tent of the Antarctic explorer Raold Amundsen of Norway. (John just emailed me the exciting news this weekend.) Amundsen left the tent plus a message as evidence that he and his crew were the first human beings to ever reach the South Pole, Antarctica. Robert Falcon Scott, an English explorer, and his crew actually stayed in the original tent; but they later died on The Ice from starvation and extreme cold. Amundsen and crew made it back home.

John Miller of the US Antarctic Program stayed in the tent's exact replica overnight to re-enact history. He will soon be sending us photos of the event. He said that the temperature was - 51 degrees. Although that sounds extremely cold to us, by South Pole standards, it could have been worse. Plus he reported there was little wind, so the wind chill factor was reduced. Our school is having a writing contest about John, the tent, and his incredible experiment to re-enact history. We will be posting some of the students' entries on this blog soon.

John sent us these two great pictures above. One is of the original tent photo with Amundsen and his crew nearby. The other is Norwegian artwork from 1971 commemorating the ill-fated Scott expedition of 1912.

Our thanks again to John Miller, USAP for providing our SVDP-ALC students with a first-hand understanding of this amazing piece of history from Antarctica.

John has also written an editorial for our related publication, AmeriWord, the official newsletter for Literacy*AmeriCorps New Orleans. It is all about his activities with the Antarctica-New Orleans Pen Pal Program and the major role he played helping to better educate our students from a continent away. It will be published soon, and I will also post excerpts from his editorial on this blog. So, stay tuned. John is our first ever guest editorialist for AmeriWord. So, incredibly enough, our first ever guest editorial for AmeriWord was sent to us in New Orleans via email from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica.

Thanks again, John, from all of us at St. Vincent de Paul-ALC in Gentilly, New Orleans.

-- Adrian

SVDP-ALC Writing Contest: The Amundsen--Scott Tent Exact Replica

We are having a writing contest at our school which will last one week from today until 10/21/08. Students will be asked to write about John Miller's plan to spend a night in an exact replica of the Amundsen--Scott tent. (See the grey photo above of the tent and the other photos of the rules and of John himself.) John Miller, our USAP pen pal, will re-enact history by staying in an exact replica of the tent that Amundsen left at the South Pole as evidence of being the first human being to reach the South Pole, and which Scott stayed in. (Scott and his team later died of starvation and extreme cold on the Ice, and the original tent is missing but believed to be somewhere near the Pole under the ice. So, BE careful, John!!) The students can write a story about what it would be like for them to stay in the tent, or what they think John will encounter; or they can write a poem or other short literary work. Our school staff will judge this contest and award a prize for the best writers. John will actually stay in the tent very soon and email us photos and a message about his activities. It should be extremely exciting!! We wish him all the best!

But it should be very cold there. So, we hope John takes care!! We will let our readers know more about this exciting story as it progresses.

-- Adrian

The SVDP-ALC Small Group: Studying "City of Refuge"

(Photo of the SVDP-ALC Small Group -- Jennie Gorden, Elizabeth Young, Sr. Silvia Rodriguez)

At SVDP-ALC we teach with individualized tutoring/teaching and also in small groups. In our small study group we usually deal with map reading and geography lessons. However, we also add other subjects such as history, current events, and literature. We have, for example, discussed the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn recently and read and analyzed a few of his short writings called "miniatures" or prose poems." (Solzhenitsn recently died in Moscow, and we discussed this as well.)

Now we are studying another work of literature. This one is about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina and is written by a local resident named Tom Piazza. "City of Refuge" tells the tale of Katrina and the lives of many New Orleanians. Although it is a work of fiction, it is based on the brutal reality of the storm, the worst disaster in American history.

We also had the opportunity to test our new Study Guide for the book which our students enjoyed learning from. We will be hearing much more about our Study Guide and "City of Refuge" and its author Tom Piazza at this blog. ("City of Refuge" was chosen to be this year's selection for One Book One New Orleans.) So, stay tuned...

-- Adrian

Remember Katrina: A Student Essay by Joey Robertson

(Below is a short student essay about "the Storm." Photos of Joey Robertson at work at the SVDP-ALC school.

--Adrian)

Hurricane Katrina

By Joey Robertson

Hurricane Katrina was the worst hurricane that ever hit New Orleans. It was three years ago, and New Orleans is still not up and running. It is not how it used to be. Some families are still hurting because of what Katrina did to homes. And there are the dead among many families and friends.

Remember Katrina: The 17th Street Canal Floods Lakeview in New Orleans

This is a file photo in public domain from the U.S. Coast Guard taken later in the Day of Katrina, August 29, 2005 from a USCG helicopter. The flooded street is Ponchartrain Blvd. To its left is the 17th Street Canal whose levee breached near the lake (at top of the photo). The flood waters, driven by Katrina which was now headed northeast into Mississippi, poured into the city of New Orleans and into the small neighborhood where I lived (and still live) called Lakeview and its subset called Lakeshore.

Lake Ponchatrain (at the top of the photo) is really not a lake but a brackish (mix of salt and fresh water) bay which has water entering it from the Gulf of Mexico via two narrow passes to the east called the Rigolets and Chef Pass. Katrina drove the gulf waters through those passes into the lake, then into the canals through the breached levee walls, and into the city itself.

Normally, outfall canals take the rain water that gathers in the city and, with the aid of giant pumps -- some say the largest in the world -- dump the rain water into the lake. In Katrina, the water surged backwards, not out of the city but into the city. There are three main outfall canals in New Orleans -- the London Canal, the Orleans Canal, and the 17th Street Canal. In the storm the levees at the London and the 17th Street Canals breached while the levee at the Orleans Canal was overtopped; all this resulted in massive flooding in the city together with water pouring in from the east from the Industrial Canal breach and MRGO (the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet) and from Lake Borgne where Chalmette and St Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward were flooded.

Lakeview, with thousands of homes, was almost completely destroyed in Hurricane Katrina and, many people drowned to death. But while this tragedy was happeneing in Lakeview, throughout the rest of New Orleans -- in Broadmoor, Carrollton, MidCity, New Orleans East, the 9th Ward, and in St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes and elsewhere -- thousands upon thousands of other homes and businesses were being wiped out and hundreds of people would soon die from drowning, heart attack, stress, and other causes. It was already extremely hot and humid, and now the city was filled with filty, poisonous water and suffering from massive wind damage.

New Orleans had become Hell on Earth.

In all, about 1600 people died in Louisiana and about 200 more in other neighboring states in Hurricane Katrina. But people continue to die from Katrina, three years later, due to extreme stress and life disruptions from the storm. There have also been many suicides.

Some people say that we should forget Hurricane Katrina, now that three years have passed; but I say that it can never be forgotten.

-- Adrian

AmeriWord at www.literacygno.org

The monthly newsletter for Literacy*AmeriCorps New Orleans is now online. It can be found at the website http://www.literacygno.org/ which is also the site for the Lindy Boggs National Center for Community Literacy and the Literacy Alliance of Greater New Orleans. Just go to the link, then click on Literacy*AmeriCorps publications to find back issues of the newsletter.

It's a great newsletter with lots of interesting stories about literacy education in New Orleans. Some of our SVDP-ALC students have articles in AmeriWord in the student writing section. Take a look and "read all about it."
-- Adrian

Students and Volunteer Tutor, Dr. Kathy Dunlap

Here are some nice photos of a few of our students at SVDP-ALC and our volunteer tutor, Dr. Kathleen "Kathy"Dunlap, MD. Kathy, who volunteers her time at least twice per week, has been helping our school now for about a year. She is a retired medical doctor who has been a great help to our students. Next to her is Aaron Hawthorne, one of her students, who is with Louisiana Green Corps and ARC of Greater New Orleans (affiliated with AmeriCorps). Aaron has just completed a term of service with Green Corps, and he received a certificate for his fine accomplishments. In the other photo are student Jor'dan Watson who is pursuing his GED and Sr. Silvia Rodriguez who is a Catholic nun from Mexico. Sr. Silvia is with an order of nuns who are nurses. She is improving her English language skills while helping the sick and needy in New Orleans with the Sisters of the Servants of Mary.

-- Adrian