August 22, 2009

*looking forward to our future*

We finally had our church wedding! We were so blessed to have family and friends from all over the world join us as we renewed our vows in a "wedding" ceremony. Unfortunately, not all family was there (Julian's dad was denied a visa), but we know they were all there in spirit.

Here are a few pictures from our day:

*with parents and grandparents*

*laughing with my funny husband*

*with our wedding party*

*at the spot where Julian asked me to be his girlfriend, and later, his wife*

I love AppleTree

I am really blessed to be working at AppleTree Institute. It's amazing to be working with people who know and love what they're doing, and to really feel like we're able to make a difference in the lives of children. Research in the early childhood years shows some pretty powerful things. First, before the age of 4, the brain will have the largest amount of synaptogenesis (the process of making new connections in the brain) for language. So, the period from 2-4 is the period of the largest language growth that will ever happen in a human. Unfortunately, research also shows that the amount of language growth that occurs depends largely on the amount of exposure a child has to different experiences and to language itself. Sadly, the amount of language a child hears differs vastly across socio-economic status. The chart below shows the number of words heard per hour across 3 socio-economic classes. So, by the age of three, professional class children heard more than 3x the amount of words as public assistance children. 

This directly impacts the amount of words a child will use. The next chart shows the amount of words used by children at the age of three, again divided by socio-economic status. You can note that in comparing the two charts, by age three, the professional class children are using more words than the public assistance class adults.

This is all to say that by age 3, we can predict with depressing accuracy if a child will pass their 4th grade reading tests, and even if they'll graduate from high school. (These data are from Hart & Riley, 1995).

This is why early intervention is so important. We're in the process of collecting our end of the year assessments for all of our students, but the general trend that we see so far is that the children at risk for reading failure are able to learn, and to learn more quickly than those not at risk, over the course of our high quality preschool program.

The Obama administration has quoted the fact that for every $1 invested in early childhood education, we'll save $7-10 dollars. Some people may wonder where these amounts come from. Basically, 3 very large studies consisted of thousands of at-risk students have been carried out across many years (some have followed students from the womb to age 30). For students who are at risk and receive high quality early interventions, such as a high quality preschool education, they can continue on in school with few problems. However, those who don't receive any interventions are often places in special education for reading and behavioral problems. The amount of money we can save by putting in place high quality preschool programs versus failing our kids (mainly African American and English Language Learners) and sending them to special education saves about 7-10 dollars for every 1 dollar spent.

Although I knew very little about the importance of early childhood education, I am a convert and feel very passionate about what we're able to do. Frankly, it's amazing to see a child (at age 3!!) write his/her name, talk about rhyming words, identify all of the letters and the sounds that they make, all while having fun and playing. I love my job :)

This is the website of my organization. http://www.appletreeinstitute.org/

I work for the DCPEL (DC Partnership for Early Literacy). :)

Nationals Game!

*at the stadium, with our new Nationals baseball cap bowl*

A few weeks ago some friends from church offered us their tickets to a Nationals Game-- they have season tickets and couldn't go, and didn't want the tickets to go to waste. We snatched them up and took off!! The seats were amazing-- super close at the 3rd base line. Unfortunately, the Nationals lost, but we had a fun time.

*Julian and the stadium*

*the presidents racing*

*Zimmerman, the famous pitcher*

*Cherry Blossoms*

Every spring the cherry blossom festival brings hundreds of thousands of tourists to DC-- one week DC is pretty empty, and the next week even the sidewalks have traffic jams. Julian and I went out one beautiful Sunday afternoon after church to see the blossoms. The weather was gorgeous and there were performances for the festival, so we had a nice lazy afternoon under the sakura trees!

*pretty blossoms*

*washington monument through the blossoms*

*by the yellow flowering bushes*

*by the tidal basin, on the way to the jefferson memorial*

*julian at the jefferson memorial*

*at the jefferson memorial*

*nuzzling at the tidal basin :) *

Conferences

My job has allowed me some great professional development opportunities-- every month we have many professional development sessions locally, and we also travel to various conferences to stay up to date on the latest research. In the last month I went to two-- the ERF conference in Seattle, Washington and the SRCD conference in Denver, Colorado.

The ERF (Early Reading First) Grant conference was for all schools/groups that had received this grant from the government. The new grantees come and learn from the top speakers in early literacy and from various schools/groups who had the grant previously. We were lucky to have had the grant before-- therefore we were there presenting as well as learning for our new grant. I got to present along with a few others from AppleTree, and it was a great overall experience to learn about the grant, the politics, and to see how well AppleTree is doing. It's not really overstating it to say that we're one of the top preschool programs in the country!

Pictures from Seattle:

*by the poster announcing our presentation*

*space needle!*

*at the top of the space needle*

*view of seattle from the space needle*

The SRCD (Society for Research in Child Development) was a completely different experience. It's overwhelming, with hundreds of thousands of 

people attending and about 40 presentations going on every 2 hours. You have to pick and choose what you want to hear, with topics ranging across all areas of child development from birth to adolescence. It was interesting to see the different types of research-- some very controlled and not applicable to real life, and some highly applicable research that is "messy." Some researchers were a little snotty about their work and I felt the difference between academia and what I'm doing now. I have to say that I'm very happy to be working in a place where we back things with research and theory, but we're very much living in the real world. My coworkers aren't fighting to see who can publish the most or who has the best credentials. (Not that all academics are like this, but there were a lot at the conference). I left the conference early to come celebrate our first wedding anniversary :)

Pictures from Denver:

*bear peeking into the conference center*

*view of mountains from my hotel room*

Theodore Roosevelt Island

A few weeks ago Julian and I wanted to get out of the apartment and walk somewhere (although it was really cold out..) and so we went to the Theodore Roosevelt Island, situated between DC and Virginia in the middle of the Potomac River. Because it was freezing, the island had very few visitors and so we got to enjoy the peace and quiet until our faces were too frozen and we had to head inside.

*julian and teddy*

*julian in front of the island*

*in the other direction, julian in front of rosslyn, va*

*by the river*

*julian on the rocks*

*sweet*

Chinese New Year!

A few weeks ago Julian and I went to the Chinese New Year celebration in Chinatown. It was packed there, with tons of people excited to see dragon dances, chinese drumming and 5 story fireworks! Unfortunately, the fireworks weren't set off because the fire department detected a gas leak-- the crowd was very disappointed because you had to wait 1.5 hours after the parade had ended before they were supposed to go off. But, the parade was entertaining and it was fun to see everyone dressed up and celebrating!

First Day of Work!

I've now been working for 1 month! I'm getting used to the schedule, and feel more confident about everything that goes on at work. We have a ton of professional development, which is great because the atmosphere is one of constant learning and growth for everyone. I still don't have a desk yet, due to a few communication mishaps, but it should come this week so I'm very excited to finally get organized. I've been using a kiddie table to work at, which is ok but a desk for an adult will be much better :)

I took the following pictures of myself on my first day. I also got hives that day from the sweater I was wearing, which has 10% wool in it. Wool usually bothers me, but never that much, especially for a wool blend.... I haven't been able to wear it since :(

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had a terrific celebration for our first married Valentine's Day!

First we saw Peruvian Scissor Dancers and an exhibition on the power of chocolate in the afternoon. I didn't realize that the dancers would actually be holding a pair of scissors-- they use them as percussion instruments, kind of like playing spoons.

*Scissor dancer-- you can see the scissors in his right hand (photo by Jeff Malet)*

*video 1*



*video 2*

*scissor dancers*

*My lovely Valentine*

Later, we had dinner at my favorite restaurant (Sweetwater) and then went dancing! It was a great day!

*at the balloon-filled restaurant*

*happy valentine's day!*

*We are one*

*the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial (pic from the NYTimes)-- we were to the left, past the trees*

To celebrate inauguration, Julian and I went to the We are One concert at the Lincoln Memorial, where we got to see President-elect Obama and his family, as well as the Bidens. The crowd went crazy when Obama walked down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with Michelle, since it was a surprise appearance. Obama and Biden both gave speeches on the hard work ahead, and the need for unity in the country. Tons of celebrities were there to celebrate America, and to promote unity among the country. Actors read tributes to America and celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. and various presidents, and singers sang patriotic tunes. Altogether it was crowded (75,000+), cold and really fun!

*Julian and me with Obama in the background!!*

We were standing pretty close to one of the jumbotrons, so we got to see the action in detail, but the Memorial was pretty far away. We could see tiny figures moving around through the trees, but that was it. Some of the most memorable parts were Elmo getting the crowd to chant "we are one," after which the number one came out angrily, declaring that he was one. Garth Brooks got the crowd jumping and warmed us up with the song Shout, which was good since most of us were freezing!

*the main stage, the Lincoln Memorial*

*We're standing about 1/3 of the crowd away from the Lincoln Memorial-- there were a LOT of people there*

*Julian and Tom Hanks*


*me and Queen Latifah-- notice my Hope pin (Julian found it for me on the ground haha)*

*Shakira, Usher and Stevie Wonder performing at the We Are One concert*

*me and Beyonce, the last artist to perform*


*there were tons of police out for inauguration weekend, with these fancy motorcycles*


*on our way back to the metro, we passed a statue of Simon Bolivar, the South American revolutionary who led the revolts to free Colombia (and other countries)*


*stuck at the intersection by the White House-- we jumped up on a lampost to survey the situation-- the road was blocked off and we were trapped there with a HUGE crowd of people... we made it to the metro after shoving our way through the crowd!*