In the movies the viewer often sees a "family" business that is passed down through several generations. I have never seen one in real life though. Living in the four corners area i have driven past many trading posts but I have never stopped and walked into one. On Jaunary 28th I was introduced to both of these unknowns. Valley Trading Post, located in Waterflow New Mexico, is owned by the Bradshaw family and has currently been passed down through three generations. This trading post offers groceries, saddles and saddle saddle peices, leather and they are one of the few places that sharpens sheep shears. On top of all of that they pride themselves on being family oriented. The main house is part of the trading post itself, the only seprating factor being a mere hallway. Many of the stories we all heard were of children running back and forth between the house and store, playing in the isles of the store and being allowed to be kids in their parents workplace. It was very cool to see that a family business still exits and that this family plans on keeping their business around for years to come.
I lived in Kirtland for five years. I went to the high school for all four years and graduated from Kirtland High School. Until January 28th I had never seen the library located in the San Juan College West library. I was very impressed by the size of it; considering the size of Kirtland, and the selection. It was nice to know that if ever I'm back home and am in need of a specific book I can quickly sip up to the West College Campus.
When looking at the destination for the day I quite honestly had no idea what to expect. I had never heard of the Farmington Indian Center, I didn't know what they do or what part they play in Farmington. Needless to say our trip was an eye opening experience. This center not only existed but has been a part of Farmington for about fourty years. This center provides many services; sucha as: cheap dining, an array of social services and sponsers many activities for the area. The Farmington Indian Center is well known for their Ms. Indian Farmington contest, and the Mini pow-wow held in the spring. The Farmington Indian Center is a very cool place.
The San Juan College Library is a place I have frequently visited throughout my college career. I have been in the New Mexico room, broused through the journals, observed the book selection and have borrowed some educational dvd's from it. However, despite all of my time spent in this land of books I did not know they had a room of children's books. Here Frances presented her chapter presentation on Multiculturation Definitions. She began the session by using a video that demonstrated sterotypes and sociotyping. She followed this by having students look at a variety of articles at each table center and list the characteristics of Multiculturation. this was an engaging activity which cemented many different meanings to the terms used by applying them to real life circumstances.
Our community connection today was primarily held at a store which I believe may be close to heaven. This was my first time to ever walk into Teach the Children and I was left completely awestruck by the variety of books, activities and accesories for an educational classroom. I found at least twenty different things I would love to have in my future classroom and was very glad a little bird had told me to leave my credit card in the car-I would have left the store a pauper otherwise. After an opportunity to tour the store we then met as a group to listen to Charels Dobey, the owner of the store. Charels spent a great deal of time telling us of all the special services they offer teachers, such as cheap lamenating, and also surprised us all by informing us he knew most of the requirements for the various districts in this area. He will be an excellent source to seek out when in my future classroom. It seemed as if Charels was born for the world of education; his mother is a longterm educator in the Farmington School District and his wife is also an educator. He offeres special presentations in some classrooms and is overall a man for learning. I was very impressed by him and by this very monitarily dangerous store.
Enlace, a program I had never heard of nor noticed the many times I have traversed San Juan boulavard. Even more saddening is the fact that I have repeatedly visited the Mexican baker right next door to this building and still have never noticed Enlace. Upon entering I learned that Enlace is a state wide program that offers many services for the hispanic community of Farmington. Enlace is fairly new to this area and is branching out in an effort to reach more people. Mabel, one of the Enlace coordinators and one of our speakers, was very proud to announce their newest program at San Juan College. The road to Enlace has been a difficult one, namely for Carolyn, our second speaker and one of the program heads. Carolyn explained hwo her outreach began with a school room and parents that came to learn English and a variety of other life skills. This program was shut down after the funding was cut but was such and important outreach that Carolyn continued to provide services to these families for six months with no personal income. She, in my eyes, is a saint as few people would sacrifice their own income to help those around them. Her sacrifice was not made in vain, however, and after several long years Carolyn, Mabel and the other volenteers of Enlace reach hundreds of people through their programs. They offer classes on English, on GED preperation, dancing and computer abilities. They also provide child care during these activities and leave their computer lab open to the public. There is so much already going on and Mabel and Carolyn are extatic at the growth Enlace is experience. This is a wonderful program, one that will stand out in my mind from now on.
Our community connection this week was arranged by my partner for our chapter presentation. Today we as a class visited the Farmington Special Preschool. Here we all went on a tour of the facilities,peeked in on different classroom set ups and spoke to some of the teachers. Everyone was friendly to our class. We all learned of the different art acitivies, of how the walls were carpeteed to cut down on the echoes that hampered the hearing impaired, of the swing system for those students who are physically handicapped and of how snacks are presented in a dinner table fashion. Teachers explained their roles in the school (speech pathologist, Navajo/Spanish/Deaf educators, or the general teachers) and how each person is part of a whole machine. No teacher is left completely alone at the Farmington Special Preschool, they all interact and bounce ideas off one another. Most importantly is that students are well cared for in this enviroment. There is always an assistant there to work with teachers so that the student to teacher ration is at most 4:1. Programs are evolved for each individual student based on their handicap and needs. It is an amazing school, one that I plan on assisting at next semester. What an awesome opportunity and experience that will be!
The trip to the Farmington Museum was one that was very exciting for me. I have lived in the Farmington area for over eight years now and I have never been to this attraction. I had no idea what to expect when going but was quite thouroughly impressed. For such a small building-in such a small town!- the Farmingtion Museum has quite a wealth of knowledge offered. The interactive portion of the museum specifically details the history of the oilfield industry due in great part to the contributions the oil field makes. The rest of the museum is filled with artifacts from the past; such as, old fashioned waffle irions, a music box donated by Audri Hepburn and even a replica of an old fashioned trading post. Despite the construction this was an amazing community stop.
As a "book worm" Farmington Library is an often frequented establishment in my daily life. It has become better known through my schooling when my classes called for books that I would not normally posess. As a result of my numerous visits to this amazing library many of the different sections shown to us during our visit were familiar stops. There were three things I did not know and learned on this visit. Firstly; i did not know how much work the automatic book drop off saved the library and as a result of this new knowledge I will be making it a habit TO drop off my books using the automatic stop. Secondly; I did not know of the teen zone and was quite surprised by the amount of manga this area holds. I plan on visiting this section in the future to find some new readings. Thirdly, and most important to my current path is the teaching section which contains a wide variety of teaching aids. Since I, as well as all of my fellow classmates, plan on being teachers this is a VERY beneficial area to know for my chosen profession.
The Sycamore Center is an establishment nestled into the west side of the Farmington area, one that I had no idea existed. This center provides an array of free services for children including ping pong and pool tables, a small library, a computer lab and a variety of physical activities such as basketball. They Sycamore Center possess a kitchen, a gym and several rooms all of which are open to the public and can be rented out for special occasions. It is a beautiful building that provides so many opportunities for the children of the Farmington area, most of which are free services. This was a very cool place to see.
I have heard of the E3 Children's Museum but, LIKE many of our stops, I have never been to this place. It was awesome to see all of the different activities that the Meuseum offers children, such as reflex timing, a fog machine and the shadown room. Better yet, E3 offers an abundant amout of books, activities and supplies for teachers to use in their classrooms. E3 is more then willing to host students and is even willing to take some activities to a classroom if a teacher is willing to arrange it. This mueseum was a very cool stop.
In any culture, any place art is an amazing thing to stop and look at. each different artist as their own style, their own flavour, which makes art that much more interesting. Emerson Gallary on Main Street is one small building that offers the opportunity to see one artist's master peices. Each painting was different but each had abundance of color and character. There were many different works, some of which belonged to otheres besides Emerson; such as his mother's clay figures or the masks on the back wall (my perosnal favorite). After delighting our visual senses we then made our way to Brodway and the Navajo resteraunt there. Here we tasted a new yet familiar dish- Navajo pizza. I have never had pizza on fried bread before, and it was a pleasent first expereince. Here we learned that the owner is struggling to keep old fashioned Navajo cuisine in the present day diet and is also attempting to offer a taste of Navajo life to any that are willing to come into the store. She and her son are hoping to open a second resteraunt in Albuqurque in the hopes of further spreading her Navajo traditions.