Mai Pen Rai - ไม่เป็นไร

Ayutthaya

I am a language guy - you could say it is one of my shticks (aside from the fact that it is my job to be a language guy). I enjoy travel, culture, and the languages that people speak. When I go places, I like to learn some of the local language. People appreciate it when you make an attempt to speak their language, even if it is only a few words or phrases.

This summer I went to Thailand, mainly because of a great affinity that I have for Buddhism. In many ways, it fits nicely with my own philosophy as a teacher: accept everything that happens, and find a lesson in every challenge. I did my best to learn some survival phrases, and the Thai people had a good laugh as I struggled to negotiate prices for a tuk-tuk ride. My favorite phrase was ¨mai pen rai¨, which is like saying ¨it´s okay¨ or ¨don´t worry¨, but those translations do not really do it justice. Traffic? Mai pen rai. Almost run over by a motorbike? Mai pen rai. Poisonous centipede the size of my forearm lurking outside the door? Mai pen rai. It is carefree bordering on careless, but it was unbelievable to see how little the Thai stressed about daily inconveniences.

Buddha and me

Mai pen rai is exactly what I (and maybe you) need in the classroom. You don´t speak English? You are twenty and they put you in the ninth grade? You fled your country to avoid violence in search of a better life? Mai pen rai. This year in the classroom, it will be my reminder to accept every student, whatever their situation, and to not let the small things get to me. I hope to impart this lesson to my students, and I also hope to show them that they can clear any hurdle life puts in front of them.

Linguistic Studies - Don´t Get Salty Over It

Even though I am an ENL and Social Studies teacher, I foremost consider myself both a linguist and historian; perhaps it was my passion for these disciplines that inspired me to teach. I ate up all of the things I learned when I was studying to obtain my TESOL degree. With the encouragement of my professors, I continued to read and learn outside of the context of the classroom.

Dr. David Harrison

During my last year of obtaining my Master´s degree, I volunteered to help out at the annual LACUS conference, which that year was hosted by Molloy College. LACUS is the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, and every year it brings together some of the most prominent linguists in the Western Hemisphere. The conference was inspiring, and I even had the opportunity to meet one of my favorite linguists, Dr. David Harrison.

Anyway, my linguistics and grammar professor Dr. Nenchin asked me to help out with research that she was doing for the following year´s conference. The goal of our research was to analyze gamer slang. We wanted to look at gaming slang that emerged since the advent of online gaming and determine where this language was coming from. Were words and phrases created in online communities? Or did they come from elsewhere? If these words and phrases originated outside of gaming, how did they make their way into online gaming communities? We presented our initial research at the 2016 LACUS conference in Halifax, Canada - Don´t get salty over it: Gamer slang and its usage. The feedback from other professionals was encouraging, and I knew that I wanted to continue doing research in this field of study.

Why am I in Halifax?

Although I was personally unable to make it to the conference this year, Dr. Nenchin presented the research that we did this year. Our most recent work looked at the etymology of the words and phrases in our gaming slang glossary that we had initially created during the first year of research. As I reflect on my work with this project, I am excited about the opportunities that continuing to work in this field might provide me. The work has inspired me to continue learning and researching outside of the classroom. Ultimately, I hope to complete a PhD program in Linguistics. I am not sure exactly what I will want to research, but I know for sure that I want to continue growing as both a learner and educator.

The Twittersphere

This year I decided that I would take some graduate classes at Molloy while I was still working there. @dmammolito did our mandated PD this year, and I really enjoyed learning strategies that I was able to turn around and use immediately in my classroom. Because of this, I decided to take her graduate class on 21st century learning. We started class with some of the things I already knew, but in particular our discussion of Twitter led me to take a look at how I was using my professional Twitter.

The first people that I followed were some of my college professors, as well as some of the professionals in the field of history and language learning that I admired. I then began to follow authors and scientists that I admired: people such as Lama Surya Das and Neil Degrasse Tyson. As time has went on, I have followed and been followed by educators I have met at conferences, as well as educators that I have never met.

Neil Degrasse Tyson - Astrophysicist, Funny Man

My professional network is not large, but has thus far been reliable for reaching out and being available to others. Other teachers tag me in things they think would interest me, and I do the same when I find something cool - something worth sharing. By far my favorite part of Twitter has been my ability to reach out to professionals in the field. To me, these people are like rockstars, but Twitter offers a way to contact them and get feedback from them. Although I have not really used Twitter so much in my classroom, I look forward to continue using it develop my own professional learning network.