Episode 325: Experience of a Lifetime for JSD Employees in Mongolia Focused on Fostering Education

Описание: They traveled thousands of miles away on a mission to foster education and share knowledge with fellow educators in Mongolia.



On this episode of the Supercast, find out what inspired three amazing Jordan School District employees to spend much of their summer providing training to English teachers in Mongolia. We’ll hear about the incredible lessons they learned and the life-changing impact they discovered, learning about another beautiful and very different culture.



Audio Transcription
[MUSIC PLAYING]


Krista Mecham:

Chanar and I, we started talking and Chanar expressed her interest in having a collaboration between us as educators and Mongolian schools.



Chanar Conley:

And I had the opportunity to give back, especially in this important times of our lives.

[MUSIC PLAYING]


Anthony Godfrey:

Hello, and welcome to The Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They traveled thousands of miles away on a mission to foster education and share knowledge with fellow educators in Mongolia. On this episode of The Supercast, find out what inspired three amazing Jordan School District employees to spend much of their summer providing training to English teachers in Mongolia. We'll hear about the incredible lessons they learned and the life-changing impact they discovered, learning about another beautiful and very different culture.

[MUSIC PLAYING]


Anthony Godfrey:

We're talking now with three educators from Jordan School District who spent their summer in Mongolia and we want to find out more about that. So introduce yourselves and tell us about your role in Jordan before we get into learning more about your trip this summer.



Chanar Conley:

My name is Chanar Conley, and I'm a school counselor at Terra Linda Elementary School. This is my fourth year being an elementary school counselor and I am from Mongolia originally. I came to this country in 1996 when I was 20 years old. Learning English has been kind of hard, but still learning. So that's my background and I have been here almost 30 years.



Anthony Godfrey:

And how do you like being an elementary school counselor?



Chanar Conley:

Oh, I love it. I love all my Terra Linda Elementary kids. I love my staff and I love, love my administration. Love Yajaira Martinez. She is the best.



Anthony Godfrey:

It's been a role that's new in just the last few years in Jordan to be a counselor at the elementary level and now feels essential. Everywhere I go, people say we couldn't do it without our counselor.



Chanar Conley:

Oh, I love to hear that because it is so amazing. I think it's my passion. I think I found it. I'm just going to do my best to just help my little kids to feel needed and included and wanted. That's one of the things that I love about Jordan School District. Because when I talk to other people about other districts, they don't have elementary school counselors. We are so fortunate to have all of our elementary school counselors filled with school counselors that's essential.



Anthony Godfrey:

It's really important. It makes a huge impact.



Chanar Conley:

Yes.



Krista Mecham:

My name is Krista Mecham and I've been in Jordan since the 1900s. Now I'm working in Language and Culture Services as a teacher specialist at the elementary level.



Anthony Godfrey:

Talk to us about what that means for those who don't know what an elementary teacher specialist does.



Krista Mecham:

So we have close to 6,000 multilingual learners. They come from many different countries. They speak about 58 different languages. We want to support those students and they come with so many assets. So we want to support those assets, add to that, and teach them English and the content so that they can be as successful as their English speaking peers.



Anthony Godfrey:

You were recently announced as a WIDA fellow. Talk to us about that. I know it hasn't even started yet. But talk to us about what WIDA is and what it means to be a Jolly Good Fellow.



Krista Mecham:

WIDA is World Class Instructional Design and Assessments and it is the assessment that we use to test English proficiency. It's a philosophy. It's a background. It's strategies that we use to teach English as a second language.



Anthony Godfrey:And we've had more and more graduates that have been able to level up their English language skills and it's been really great to see that trend.



Krista Mecham:

Last year, we actually had over 500 students test proficient on WIDA. That's a lot of work to learn the curriculum in a second language and learn English at the same time.



Anthony Godfrey:

Yeah, it's about academic language, not just conversational language.



Krista Mecham:

Exactly.



Leah Davis:

My name is Dr. Leah Davis and I'm a culture and diversity specialist in Language and Culture Services. So Krista and I sometimes collaborate and work together. My role is to support all of our diverse students across our schools and support teachers and admi...