The region’s Vietnamese community comes together at Seattle Center Festal: Tet Festival to usher in the Year of the Tiger, Feb. 6 – 7, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., at Center House.

The annual Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration, in its 14th year at Seattle Center, embraces Vietnam’s most popular holiday, welcomes the return of spring and chases out evil spirits with the traditional roaring lion dance and the crackle of firecrackers.

The 2010 Tet Festival showcases Vietnam’s rich and colorful heritage with the special theme “Splendor of Regions of Vietnam.” The two-day, free event features professional performers as well as talented local artists. Festival attendees will have a chance to explore and immerse in Vietnamese culture through unique dances, martial arts, workshops, children’s stories and hand-on activities as well as a crawfish eating contest, Vietnamese cooking demonstrations and the Regions of Vietnam Fashion Show.

The 22 Festal cultural celebrations underscore the unique contributions of ethnic communities in the Pacific Northwest, while highlighting their similarities sown together through comparable artistic expressions, food preparations, creative inspirations and approaches to their own communities and the world at-large. Our 2010 Did you knows will explore some of these commonalities and differences, festival by festival.

Did you know? Colors of the Vietnamese culture: gold and red both for royalty and the color of skin and blood. Most popular foods: applying the principle of yin and yang throughout – Pho noodle soup, spring/shrimp rolls, rice cakes and Vietnamese shrimp pancakes. Greatest source of cultural pride: the four thousand year history of the Vietnamese culture. Livelihood: throughout a thousand years of hardships and war, the Vietnamese culture embodied compassion and a desire for new learning and community spirit. Today, the livelihood is made through food processing, garments, machine building, mining, glass, tires, oil, coal, steel and paper.

Seattle Center Festal: Tet Festival is produced by Seattle Center in partnership with Tet in Seattle. For a full event schedule, visit www.tetinseattle.org and for more information on this cultural series and other Seattle Center programming, click on www.seattlecenter.com.

About Seattle Center Festal

Seattle Center Festal, a series of 22 world festivals presented at Seattle Center on weekends throughout 2010, highlights the distinct cultures and common threads of ethnic communities in our region through traditional and contemporary art, music, foods, youth activities, workshops and more. This collection of cultural events is produced with the generous support of Wells Fargo, Verizon Wireless, KUOW 94.9 Public Radio and Western Washington Toyota Dealers. Additional support is provided by Seattle Center Foundation and the City of Seattle.

At the Regional Justice Center in Kent, Judge John Erlick delivered his ruling. The decision supports the claims of a group of parents, teachers and school districts that Washington State fails to fund basic education.

“This court is left with no doubt, that under the state’s current financing system, the state is failing in its constitutional duty to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within the borders of this state.”

“The state has made progress towards this constitutional obligation, but remains out of compliance.”

“I hope it changes really quickly while my children are in school, because this was huge to go through this, and I just hope my children get a chance to benefit from this experience.”

I am interested in science and like to explain it to others, and for that I would like to teacher science.  This assignment provides me an opportunity to learn more about teaching career.  I did not have to go far to learn more about teaching.  I went to Google and search for science teacher.  I found many science teachers associations on Google.  I decide to send out emails to three teachers from Texas.  Why Texas, because I am thinking about teaching in Texas in the future.  The purposes of this interview are to find out more about career in science teaching and ask for advice for new teachers.  To organize the interview, I group the interview questions into personal, professional, and advice categories.

First it is about personal category.  How long have you been an educator?  Joe has 14 years, and Jane has 34 years.  What have your most enjoyed about teaching?  Share with students about my knowledge and I find it is so rewarding to teach and help students with problem they might be having, said Joe.  For Jane, she said working with students who can be every creative and challenging.  What has frustrated you in your work?  For Joe, there is an awful lot of work to do all the time and all of it is important. Sometimes he wants to spend more time with struggled students, but he just doesn’t have time.  For Jane it is also about a lot of paper work.  In retrospect, is there anything about your career that you wish you had done differently?  I wish to stay longer at a school that I like even if it was lower pay.  For Jane she does not have any thing that she wants to start over again.

Second group of questions were about professional category for science teacher.  How do you decide what is important to teach in science?   In Texas, we teach our state objectives called TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills).  This answer was from both Joe and Jane.  What theories or methods do you think are important in teaching science?  For Joe it is about helping students experience science in varied, interesting, and enjoyable ways.  For Jane it is about hands-on activities.  What metaphor describes you as a science teacher? For Joe it is a dolphin because Dolphin is always wise to the hazards that may approach, but excited and enjoying life along the way. Teachers ride the waves of the classroom, with all their ups and downs. No matter how out of control it gets I always go back for more in search of that perfect ride.  Jane did not answer this question.  What are the key attributes of a good teacher?  For Jane it is about organized, calm, good listener, and versatile.  For Joe is turn ears into eyes by good store telling.  A good teacher makes the ordinary extraordinary and the extraordinary ordinary.  By that Joe mean good teachers are able to make the mundane, boring stuff which we have to teach so interesting that students are hooked and able to make difficult concepts easy for students to comprehend.  A good teacher does not teach but draws out.

Finally, what advice would you give a new teacher today? Joe said don’t be discourage, most common challenge is not to get discouraged. New teachers try too hard to be “perfect”, afraid of losing their jobs; afraid of disappointing an administrator. They must learn that teaching in and of itself is a learning process, and that it takes at least three years before they REALLY “get the hang of it.” The challenge then is not to get discouraged early and stress out or worse, quit.  For Jane it is all about be prepared, be organized, don’t panic if something does not work – try something different.

To conclude, the interview provide me ask experienced science teachers personal, professional, and advice questions, and I have learned that there’s more than meets the eye. From challenging eager learners to encouraging those who think they can’t do science, high school science teachers Joe and Jane said there’s nothing like seeing the lights go on in students’ minds. To them, the best part of teaching is to bring students to a true understanding of science.