cook read dream write teach

new blog, updated more frequently, teacher focus.

2011-01-02T21:54:00.001-06:00

In case anyone is checking in over here, I just wanted to let you know of a new blog on which I've been working:

Why I Teach

It's teaching stories, quickly written, most days. Feel free to visit (and comment!) over there.

Writing Marathon

2010-07-28T20:22:00.000-05:00

This afternoon my friend Donna and I did a writing marathon, which was introduced to me in my Level 1 Iowa Writing Project class, and I just read about in Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, which I highly recommend for folks who need to get their writing habit back off the ground. She's a big proponent of writing practice--daily or near-daily writing that sort of cleans your insides out so you can begin writing coherence. Thinking in this way has opened doors for me this summer to just write for understanding and memory-keeping. It's been great.

The idea of a writing marathon is that you write with others, and after set amounts of time, you share what you've written without commenting. Then you write some more. In my class, we also moved between sessions to see if new locations would lend new inspiration. Donna and I noticed that our pieces were a little cyclical. Though my second piece didn't answer questions she presented in her first, there were definite connections. This meant that we had a few themes in our writing: teaching, mothers, death. I highly recommend this activity for getting some words on the page and pushing your thinking.

I thought I'd share a line or two from each location. These were all pretty stream-of-consciousness, not focused on craft, journal-like entries (I did revise a bit before posting), but I appreciated some of the thinking that came up.

Stop 1: Cedar Falls Public Library.
"I so wholeheartedly believe in the institution of public school as the purveyor of upward mobility and the cornerstone of democracy that it saddens me to be worrying about the unintended curriculum that kills curiosity so much of the time."

Stop 2: Hillside Cemetery, sitting on the bluff of the Cedar River.
Comparisons between teaching and farming: "Seeing the potential is necessary. The seeds will grow into something stronger, and you have to maintain faith that it will happen in order to continue putting resources into it."

Stop 3: The Hearst Center
Here I was playing around with verbs and titles of works. I ended up working on a fiction sketch from the choices in my list:
"I saw the other monks whisper as I refused dinner again. There is nothing to say, which is why I remain silent except for chanting in the evening as prayer.

There is no solace from thinking about the way they treated Brother Thomas. None. He was fourteen, taken in as an orphan. He was confused. His elders should have reached out to him in love."

Stop 4: Cup of Joe
Here we ate treats and talked, so we did less writing, but we did finish with about ten minutes. The exciting thing about this stop was that I got to start a new notebook. I filled up one notebook between April and now, which is the most I've written in a while. There are some good seeds there, and it gives me some motivation to finish this next one.
"Equations are freeing as problems with minimal consequences if we can only value the wonder of a solution and the human brain. Kids always look at me like I'm crazy when I impart how joyful learning is--how exciting that they get to come all day and learn for free!"

So there are some snippets from our afternoon of writing. I think this could work with any creative outlet--drawing, painting, photography, and it's a great way to set aside time to do it. Any other fun suggestions to keep creative juices flowing?

Summer has arrived.

2010-07-12T13:30:00.000-05:00

This is why I love summer:

I have time in the morning to make steel-cut oats, even if I didn't pre-soak them, and I have a stocked refrigerator and pantry so I can throw blueberries in and top them with walnuts and yogurt.

The relaxed mode of summer is ideal for reflection, but I've found over the past several summers that I can easily whittle away at my free time and feel like I didn't accomplish anything. Now that the wedding is over, my scheduled class meetings are over, and I'm home for five weeks without scheduled activity, it's time to think through how I want to spend my days. One problem I have had in the past is that I let myself do things I just want to do (like watch the Sopranos) that don't have any impact on me meeting my long-term goals. I wanted to articulate some of my goals for the summer here so that I set out to work toward them. I also considered the best way to meet my goals and thought about scheduling time each day on separate components, but I don't think that's the best way to go for me. What I'd like to do instead is schedule each week on Monday that includes time for specific components. I also know that one key thing for me is to included unashamed free time so that I don't feel like I'm scheduling my summer away.

These are the general goals I articulated earlier in my notebook, by category:

Cook:

*Bake our bread all summer. There's no reason to buy when I have so much time on my hands.

*Preserve something from our CSA bounty--spaghetti sauce, pickles, corn... I'm not sure what, but I want to freeze or can something to use at a later time.

Read:

*Continue generating a list of "to-reads."

*Compose annotated bibliography for new master's research and start working through it.

*Read Canterbury Tales and Frankenstein in preparation for my M.A. Comps in February.

House:

*Deep Clean the whole place. This includes our disgusting windows that no one has bothered to clean in years.

*Make the living room, master bedroom, and porch desirable places to hang out. (They sort of feel like we just moved in.)

*Re-paint the upstairs bathroom. (Much needed as 100 years of paint is currently peeling off the walls. I believe I will tackle this next week.)

*Hang art and photos.

Write:

*I'd like to figure out a writer's notebook routine that works. I think this will involve research of different ways to work on it and seek which I like the best.

*Write a few pieces about teaching and unions that I've been thinking about.

*Polish and submit at least 3 pieces for publication somewhere. I had a student pressure me about publication this year--"It's so easy to submit," she said. "You have no excuse." She is right. I can only be rejected if I actually try to submit something.

Teach:

*Writing for Publication syllabus/plan

*Block Standards into quarters and figure out my portfolio grading system

*Work on revamping first month of lessons

*Read as much YA Literature as possible to prep for new year.

Other:

*Run a 5K sometime in September (I need to look at possibilities and sign up for a race.)

Goals for the Week:

1. Finish cleaning and putting away wedding gifts, recycle all packaging, and finish thank you notes.

2. Try writing by hand on a daily basis with sketches.

3. Go to library to pick up copies of books for comps and books about student reflection; complete as many requirements as possible for summer class.

4. Pick out paint chips for upstairs bath and research steps I will need to take to properly repair, clean, and prime surfaces.

5. Wash five windows in the house. I have to start somewhere.

Ideas for Next Year

2010-05-04T05:09:00.005-05:00

It seems that every year around this time I start waking up in the night with ideas for things I want to change about next year. I guess the time is here because this is the second time in two weeks that I’ve woken up with an urge to “Go write this down so you don’t forget it by the morning!” This is good because it helps keep my teaching fresh all the way to the end of the year because I’m flooded with new ideas. This is bad because it impacts my sleep.

I’m thinking about one major change in my English 8 class, and this is primarily in the way I assess my students. I have never felt like the regular “each assignment is worth X points” and “you lose X percentage if assignments are late” is the best way to assess, even if the assignments are designed to assess skills. That way of measuring student growth puts so much in the hands of the teacher and so little in the hands of the student. What happens when a kid doesn’t learn the intended skill of the assignment, or (gasp!) the child learns that skill through an experience in another class or through an unintended experience in mine? Shouldn’t they have the opportunity to make the connection that they have learned something important? Reflection and self-evaluation are key for kids to make sense of their own learning, but they are sometimes left on the back burner. I do a good job of asking students to reflect on their writing process, but I don’t do enough daily and weekly reflection.

I haven’t had enough experience in teaching to really consider assessment and shaking up the entire process until now. Coincidentally, we are interviewing principal candidates right now, and the one who we spoke with yesterday mentioned that he thinks teachers start really developing in terms of assessment during years 5-7, which is where I am.

What I’d like to do next year is really move toward portfolio-based assessment in a way I never have before. This is my basic idea for a grade breakdown:

70% (or so) of their grade comes from their portfolio. This is how I would structure portfolios (on paper or online):

As the year begins, I’ll share all the objectives I have for them throughout the year. I plan to use the Iowa Core standards next year as a test run to see how it works in the classroom as I serve on our district literacy committee for implementation. (Our curriculum in English is so inconsistent in my district I don’t think this will be a problem.) I think I’ll divide the goals into quarters as well so they are manageable both for students and me.
I will share the intended skill objectives for each assignment, and assignments will have due dates like they always have.
For each skill in the curriculum (which will correspond with separate grades in the grade book), I imagine that kids can demonstrate “competency” or “excellent” or something like that. I think that competency would earn them 8.5/10 points or similar to “B” range, and excellent would earn them 10/10. I’m not sure I like the idea of offering different levels of “meeting the skill” but I can picture work in my head right now that meets the lowest skill objective and work that surpasses it. I think there should be a difference though I still want the emphasis to be on mastery and learning.
Every 2-3 weeks, students will look at the work they’ve completed and write reflections justifying how the assignments in their portfolio justify that they’ve met the goals.
Students can demonstrate that they’re meeting the skill objectives at any point throughout the quarter. Then the question becomes—what do kids do when/if they show mastery of all the skills early? But that is something to hash out another time.

The remaining 30% of the grade would come from “Responsible/Desirable Student Behaviors” or some similarly phrased term. This is where I can communicate with students and parents how the kids are demonstrating responsibility and good work habits. I envision the grade book to have between 5 and 10 categories each quarter, the largest of which comes from turning in work on time. This category would start out with full points (so every kid actually starts with an “A”) and is a bank from which I deduct points for late and missing assignments. There would be some formula for this that I will determine at a later date. Other categories I’ve been thinking about are collaborating in groups, organizing materials, taking notes at opportune times, and taking risks that value learning over grades. I’d like to look at research this summer that helps me figure out what the most important things in this category are, and by second quarter, I’d like to have students defining a couple of these categories for themselves based on what they know they need to work on. It would be awesome to reward growth in these categories rather than have all work in this area be punitive and tacked on to other skill-based work.

Some real strengths I see in this system are the information it gives kids and parents about their learning and the way it puts some of the “behind the scenes” parts of teaching out on the table. I think having to share with kids why they are doing what they’re doing on a daily basis will help me make sure I’m using time wisely and connecting all of our work back to the overarching goals.

I see problems in the system as well, and the largest is time. This system will take time to implement and time for kids to reflect on their learning and how what they’ve done demonstrates that they’ve learned something. I believe it will be time well-spent, but I know there will be times in the school year that I don’t want to give the time necessary.

Teacher friends/parents/interested parties—what do you think? What would you have liked/disliked about this type of assessment as a student?

A Few Rough Ideas...

2010-04-12T06:52:00.001-05:00

This is the draft of a piece I've been working through to articulate some of the ideas I've been thinking about regarding teachers unions and administration.

I try to instill the power of words in my students every single day. Whether we’re reading and discussing a character’s motivations and what we can learn from them or working to articulate our own ideas, the gift of communication and what it can do for human beings is front and center in our classroom.

As a young teacher, I’ve been in this business for only five years, and in each of those years the politics prevalent in public education overwhelm, invigorate, and flabbergast me. I can’t get too close to these politics, because they make me feel sick and they take away from my work in the classroom. I’m also drawn to the politics because so much of it impacts my daily work with children. At any rate, the more I learn, the less I understand about why teacher’s unions and the administrative side can’t better communicate.

We are in bad budget times as I write this, which certainly heightens the tension. Our district is looking to cover about $500,000 they are short to fully fund next year’s budget (they have about $4,000,000 in cash reserves, but that’s a topic to delve more deeply into at another time). The good news is that there are few teacher reductions. Unfortunately, cuts have been handed off to others: associates for general education classrooms and school nurses. Our district is looking at outsourcing our school nurses to public health to save $60,000-$70,000 a year. That’s the salary and benefits of one long-term teacher. In the long run, this doesn’t seem worth it.

What makes less sense is that if our union and our administration can’t agree on a settlement by Wednesday, the bargaining will go to arbitration. I don’t really understand what that means, but I know that lawyers get involved, and according to our chief negotiator, it will cost the district $60,000-$80,000 a year.

Um, what?? Common sense tells me that if the two sides don’t go to arbitration, we could save our nurses. Our chief negotiator said that if the district will give us 4%, this won’t be necessary. I said, “What if you go to 3%?”

He said, “I won’t.” This, to me, also doesn’t make sense.

Ever since I was a kid, I have been able to see the gray in nearly everything. I can never make a decision because I can see too many sides and too many perspectives. I feel that way now. I see Sam’s point of view that if the union settles too low, we’ll lose the ability to attract quality teachers to our area. If we drop all family insurance coverage for our teachers who are the single earners in their family, we’ll lose good people too. There’s a union mentality that if you give a little one year, you’ll never get it back and you’ll always settle for less. I also wonder what the district would be able to do, and what they would do, if we settled a little lower. Would we save nurses? Would we buy more computers for our kids? Or would administrators earn big raises? The trust is so broken between teachers unions and administrators that no one knows and no one will believe the other side is acting in the best interest of the students.

Because I’m young and naïve and the teacher in me has always wanted to see the best in people, I believe both sides are acting in what they believe is in the best interest of the students. I have to believe this, because I can’t physically work in an environment where I believe the leadership is greedy and manipulative.

Teachers unions are getting a lot of bad press these days, and some of it is deserved. Some of it isn’t. I’d really like to write about the complexities of all this in a way that brings folks together and helps them understand the other side’s point of view.

Sam wants to step down as chief negotiator after this year, and I thought maybe I would be a good negotiator—I can see all the sides of problems. That’s what ACTUAL negotiation is. But I would be terrible in that role—I’d give in to a pay cut assuming my kids would have a consistent nurse in the building, my members would be pissed, the administration would spend the money on something else because you can’t actually bargain to save jobs, and kids would end up worse off because their teachers wouldn’t feel valued. Epic fail as chief negotiator would be my legacy. That’s the little scenario that plays out in my mind.

So, how can I negotiate? How can I contribute? With the power of words that I teach every day. I’m throwing this piece (it’s rough, I haven’t fully developed ideas or thoroughly revised) to the small world of people I care about on my blog because I want to make it a public goal that I write about this. I have these ideas floating around for chapters in a book, how I can make it fit together, what research I need to do, and while I’m not sure what the timeframe will be or what roadblocks there might be, I need to articulate this goal and share these ideas while they’re so fresh and I’m so fired up.

I would appreciate any feedback or points of interest or questions you have that would fuel the fire.

Silly Goals...

2010-04-09T09:32:00.000-05:00

I always have to laugh at myself when I say things like, "I plan to write a post five days a week," and then I don't even maintain that for the first week.

I know that I still need to put up pictures of the dining room. I will, promise.

I'm coming up from the craziness that is parent-teacher conference week and feeling really good and really inspired by teaching and life in general. (Oh yeah, my job is safe for next year.)

Last night over drinks I discussed some aspects of education with some wise teachers who have been at this for a while, and I have some interesting ideas for some new pieces to write, which will question the adversary between teachers and administration, how it got that way, and how it continues to impact kids negatively while neither side will budge. I'm very curious about this and interested in exploring it. I'll try to share along the way.

How clearly you see everything...

2010-03-11T22:24:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking along these lines, from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, one of my favorite books:

"The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way. Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn't held it tighter when you had it every day. What had Gramma Mary Rommely said? "To look at everything always as though you were seeing it for the first or last time: Thus is your time on Earth filled with glory."

There are more significant clues this week that my job might change or be eliminated for next year. Sad. It's quite interesting how knowing time is/might be limited can make any circumstance more beautiful, including eighth graders right before Spring Break. Lessons to learn from Gramma Mary Rommely.

"Helix" by Banana Yoshimoto

2010-03-09T21:09:00.000-06:00

We were assigned this story for class this week.

This story is about a writer with a hangover who seems ambivalent and disconnected from his life, primarily his girlfriend, until she tells him she's considering going to a seminar with a friend that promises to clean out your bad memories. This seems to wake him up and make him think about the possibility that he could be erased from her life, despite the fact that she reassures him otherwise: "I promise that I'll be able to recover all my memories of you...Even when I have crushes on other men, I always see you in the curve of their eyebrows" (654, Art of the Story, Edited by Halpern).

Oh, literature. I've always said that I love teaching reading and writing because they are ways to get at the bigger picture of life, and this story is yet another example of the way a great text can provide a little life lesson. Reading this story reminded me a lot of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. When I saw that movie for the first time, I bawled through the entire thing because it made me think about all the things I was taking for granted in my various relationships. This story is a nice wake up call for that same reason. Also, some gems of language, as listed above. I'll be happy to lend out my copy of the anthology at the end of the semester.

Seasonal Meal Plans

2010-03-08T20:12:00.000-06:00

I read about this idea somewhere (probably a blog, if it's you, I'd love to give you credit) and thought it was basically ingenius:

The idea is that you lay out basically a month's worth of meals that you know your family likes, create shopping list for each week, and then you can just print off (or create in a cool iPod app) that week's list when it's time to go shopping. It eases weekly shopping and planning. We just switched from our winter plan to our spring plan, and it was an exciting change.

Because we only ate each meal in the grid once a month, I didn't really get sick of them. I did notice, though, which ones weren't actually my favorites. I made a note on them to sub them out for something different next year. I also modified this grid by adding more room for trying new recipes, and left space at the bottom to log recipes we wanted to try and the locations of those recipes, so they'd be easy to find when it was time to make that week's list.

I have been really pleased with this system and how much it has automated an area of my life where I used to spend quite a bit of time on a weekly basis. I know that once we have a year's worth of meals and we are just tweaking and adding new recipes, it will work even better. Now, if I could only make myself follow this same sort of plan for cleaning...

Coming out of Hibernation

2010-03-07T09:12:00.000-06:00

I feel rejuvenated by the semblance of spring that's made it our way this week. I stop wearing my coat in March whether or not it makes sense (this means that sometimes I am a walking marshmallow from all of my layers), but this week it actually felt right. The sun was out for most of the week. Temperatures were in the 30s and 40s during the day. Birds are coming back.

I know that I'm a person affected by weather (slightly), but I think I try to ignore it in the dead of winter. It seems counter-intuitive to me that I wouldn't want to work on "inside" projects when it's awful outside, so I make lofty goals for myself about what I'll write and read, etc. The truth is that I rarely want to accomplish much of anything. I think this is the first time I've been able to fully acknowledge this about myself. Hopefully next year I can set some different, more relaxing, fun goals to coincide with this time.

I was looking at my New Year's goals post and reflecting this morning. I've done well on a couple goals I set out to try in January: sending birthday cards and thank you notes promptly, though I have missed my nephew Logan's 5th birthday and need to remedy this soon. My novel's first draft is nearly complete (I actually hope to finish it today so it is no longer hanging over my head), and we are taking steps to make our house more home-like. I'm feeling better about my teaching than I was in January. So baby steps have been made.

We were having a conversation the other night with friends about how easy it is to get in an "adult rut" of going to work, watching TV, going to bed, and doing it all over again. J. and I naturally combat this by not having a TV hooked up to cable (though we did move it into a different room so we could watch the Olympics). I find that I can spend just as much time mindlessly wasting time on the Internet, though, so I'm not sure my habits are all that different than that pattern on my worst days. J. is really good at pushing himself to do more with his time, and that is one of the best things he does for me as a partner--he pushes me to do the same.

I'm excited for what the spring has in store. As I look back over my 2010 goals and think about which ones I'd like to focus on in March, writing still takes the forefront. I feel like my birthday card habit is up and running, and my teaching is back in a better place. I haven't done anything with goal #3, automating my money more and giving more to charity. But I also know that March will be a big month for home improvement, as we tackle our first wall-painting project.

My new plan of action/goal on this blog/in life is to set aside time to consider these ideas and write five posts per week--one on each of the categories reflected in the title of the blog. I have a whole slew of ideas, so we'll see if I can follow through this time.

Is spring doing anything to shift your mental perspective?

I'm loving this story.

2010-02-23T20:50:00.001-06:00

I'm writing a paper about this story, Adam Haslett's "City Visit."

I might be sharing it because I need a little break from writing my paper. But I think it's worth a read, so I thought I'd share in case you need a distraction too.

Greek Yogurt is Yummy.

2010-02-02T18:20:00.001-06:00

Confession: I didn't make it a whole month.

J.'s family Christmas celebration was January 24th and 25th, and the cheesy potatoes and sugar cookies did me in. I did have smaller portions (only 1 cookie, if you can believe that!) because I was concerned about how my body would react to the dairy fat after so long without. After that weekend, I started using butter and cheese in recipes again. I also imbibed in some adult beverages last weekend, though again, very moderately.

I have to say that the detox was a good experience overall, even though the main benefit was different than the one I anticipated. I anticipated that I would feel better and feel good about readjusting to better habits than I had in January. That certainly happened.

I didn't anticipate how delicious everything would be once I started consuming it again. It had only been 3 weeks, people! Cheese is so rich and salty. Wine is so fragrant and warming and complex. Because I had deprived myself of the things I love, I genuinely appreciated them so much. I feel like I still have that attitude today, even though I've settled into my pre-December eating habits. I don't think I'll need to experience such a formal deprivation period again for a long time, but it was a great experiment for mindful eating and gratitude for food that I love.

Speaking of which... my new obsession:

This obsession just started yesterday. I'd only had Greek yogurt in small spoonfuls on sample day at the grocery store, but I must be reading about it on blogs or something, because I decided to splurge on some in celebration of dairy being back in my life full force. I bought honey-flavored because they were out of plain, and some frozen berries because fresh were too expensive, and my oh my. So delicious. Thank you, cows.

Vegan Baking and Other Musings

2010-01-18T14:21:00.001-06:00

This is a picture of a delicious cookie I made yesterday. Please excuse the poor photo--J. is a much better photographer than I am, and he often takes the pictures of food that end up looking really great.

One thing that this vegan experiment has done is pulled me away from random treats. I actually would suggest eating vegan as a way to curb most mindless snacking--without feeling like you're counting calories, blah blah blah, because SO MANY treats have animal products in them. Eggs in desserts, cheese products in chips, etc. I have found that I don't really miss the random sugar cookie that someone brings in to work, but I do miss sweets. So I've baked two types of vegan cookies. Both involved chocolate. Here is the recipe for the cookie I made yesterday.

Not eating random treats has been good for my body, I think, but it has made me think about food and connections to other humans. Over the weekend, I was offered pizza after judging an awesome lego robot tournament. In that moment, I was prepared to pick off the cheese and call it good. I was also able to make light of my eating choices, attributing it to a "crazy vegan-for-a-month experiment," which didn't require too much explanation or defense. It made me think about what I would have done if actually was a vegan. It made me think about how personal our food choices are, and how we balance our eating principles with our connections with others.

I believe that sharing food is a way to connect with others. I know that people can connect without eating, but man I love to eat. And try new food. And compliment people on food they make. And cook with people. And learn about people's cultures through food. The list goes on and on. To me, some of those connections can be made difficult or impossible if I make stiff rules about what I will and won't eat. So I generally make loose rules that I break for a variety of reasons. In my mind, I can justify all the rule-breaking by thinking that my principles are still met by using loose guidelines. But these two weeks (and two weeks to go) have made me think about this a little more, and it makes me wonder if I'm actually compromising my principles with such loose guidelines.

These are the two main principles I use to make decisions about what I eat:
1. It is best for my body to eat very little meat. I've known this for a while. My digestive system works better and I have more energy when I don't eat meat. This may not be true for others, but it's true for me.
2. Much of the meat produced in our country is bad for the environment. I like this article as a resource to explain some of the issues involved, even though it's now a couple years old. I know there are other foods that are produced that are harmful for the environment as well, but this seems like a conscious step I can take that doesn't require much thinking.
3. I have concerns about the way meat is industrially produced in our country--hormones, antibiotics, etc. I don't want to be putting these things in my body on a daily basis.

I have been an on/off vegetarian for the last 8 or 9 years, with varying degrees of strictness. The last time I started up again (it's been about 2 and a half years), I decided that I would approach my eating with more flexibility, in an effort to sustain my diet and not feel deprived. Thus, I would say 98% of my diet is vegetarian. However, I:
1. maintain a don't ask, don't tell policy with broths and other flavoring agents when eating out or in the homes of others.
2. sometimes buy beef or other meat from our local dairy, which supplies meat from other small local farms, for special occasions or if I am really craving it (I sometimes think my body is lacking something it needs when I have very strong cravings for meat).
3. try food if I want to, even if I know it has meat in it and I don't know where that meat came from. For example, we went to our neighbors' house for a cocktail party and they had a delicious appetizer with prosciutto and pears and cheese and I had one.
4. eat seafood once in a while (probably less than once a month) and try to pay attention to the seafood sustainability list.

These four exceptions/policies have made me feel that I am never deprived of things I want to eat or try which makes my diet really easy to maintain. If I look at reasons 2 and 3 above, this will be much better for the environment and my health in the long run than if I go back and forth every couple of years. In terms of how I feel, well, the quantities of meat I eat are usually so small now that I don't feel affected. This is how I justify keeping loose principles about my eating choices. I feel able to meet my major principles while still connecting with others over food.

Sometimes, though (and this month, especially, while I use more restriction), I wonder about my little justifications. I think I could probably have very similar connections with people even if I made stricter rules for myself. I might not feel deprived if I changed my mindset. I guess what I am trying to say, in this long-winded post, is that this weekend, and this month in general, has made me think about the balance between principles with eating and human connections--if I should really feel okay about justifying as much as I do with my eating. I don't feel I've articulated my thinking very well today, even though I've revised and written two drafts, so this may be something to come back and explore more.

I miss cheese.

2010-01-11T21:17:00.000-06:00

Actually, the detox plan is overall going well. I am feeling healthy and strong and sleeping well, which was the whole point.

I am realizing how rich cheese is, though, and how much I love it. Last Thursday I made a pizza and put cheese on J's half. Some sneaked onto my half. I probably had, in all, one bite of cheese, and it was heavenly. I think a side effect of the month of detox could be a decrease in the quantity of cheese consumption after January is over.

And... while popcorn with butter is delicious, popcorn with olive oil is also delicious.

Today I ate:
Breakfast: coffee, cereal with blueberries and soy milk
Lunch: veggie chili mac (my veggie chili, "tofutti" (a soy cream cheese substitute), and elbow macaroni... I made the chili too spicy over the weekend, and sour cream and cheese can really help out with that. I had to find an alternative so we could finish the pot. It's actually pretty good.
Afternoon snack: almonds and green tea
Dinner: Spaghetti squash saute (with chickpeas, tomatoes, and herbs) and a chocolate raspberry vegan cookie I baked over the weekend. Water.

Next goal for the week, more water. My skin is super dry, and while the cold weather isn't going away anytime soon, the least I can do is combat it from the inside out.

A Month of Vegan

2010-01-04T20:57:00.001-06:00

I mentioned in my never-ending posts of yesterday (that were really just my personal journal--sorry!) that I had a health goal in mind as the year began, but I don''t really count it in my New Year's thinking because it's more of a post-December detox than a planned lifestyle change.

I eat vegetarian most of the time, and I would say that over 50% of the meals I eat are vegan or are made with very little dairy. I also generally eat pretty healthfully, and I usually feel like I'm on the right track for sustainable healthy eating.

December took a toll on me, however. I was eating cookies non-stop and drinking more than usual. I was also mostly eating high-fat dairy like butter and cheese. For the first time in my life, I developed consistent heartburn for almost a week straight.

When I became a (mostly) vegetarian the last time, I decided to be less strict with my eating habits so that I could sustain it long term. I don't generally think that being restrictive is helpful to my health because my self-imposed restrictions just make me want what I can't have. But the way my body was feeling at the end of December was a catalyst for a drastic shift, at least for a few weeks.

So, I'm going vegan to see how my body feels. I'm also not drinking for the rest of January. I'm on my first day of veganing and my second day of teetotaling. I ordered my favorite herbal tea from Gong Fu Tea so I would not feel like I was missing my liquid treat. I'm trying to be more routine about taking my vitamin as back-up, and I found this article really helpful to examine the different amino acids I'll be getting.

Here's what I ate today:
Breakfast:
Cereal (did include honey, but it was on sale!) with blackberries and soy milk
Coffee

Lunch:
Leftover french lentil soup recipe from Veganomicon
Homemade wheat bread
Apple

Afternoon Snack:
Green tea
Almonds

While preparing dinner:
A pear (usually I am drinking wine and/or eating crackers and cheese)

Dinner:
Curry Noodles with Tofu and Veggies

After-Dinner Treat:
Herbal tea (I was really looking forward to it--I love this stuff!)

So far I feel great. It's early on so I'm not yet missing some of the things I know I eventually will. I'm definitely going to have to try some vegan baking to satisfy the sweet tooth I know will arrive. I'm looking forward to seeing how I feel. I was even considering (gasp!) weaning myself off coffee and toward green tea for the month to see how my body is impacted. I suppose there's no time like now if I'm going to deprive myself of other things I love. Maybe next week...

Making Time to Think about Teaching

2010-01-03T19:14:00.001-06:00

In an earlier post today, I wrote about how I'm waking up in the night about teaching. It seemed to be the first thing I should tackle for self-improvement in 2010. (Yes, I did get my thank-you and birthday cards written, and I'll write about my health improvement plan tomorrow, so there's more than just this, but still.)

I've been making lots of excuses to myself about why I'm not teaching to the best of my ability. Yes, I'm busy. I have other exciting things to work on (wedding) along with sometimes not so exciting things (13-15 page literary analysis). The truth is, though, that I'm not working very smartly when I'm at school. I'm wasting lots of my planning time and study hall supervision work time because my mind is moving in too many directions of things I need to complete (do you see a pattern here?), and then I avoid. In early December, I decided that what I needed to do was to schedule my time for all of these "open" time periods in my day, so I would make it a priority to do some of the things I wasn't doing. This afternoon, I made a list of all the tasks in an average day/week, and then I placed them in a chart of when I was most likely to be successful accomplishing each of them. Some of them are daily tasks, or ones that will be best done a couple times a week.

I'm not able to import my chart due to my lack of skill with Blogger (or perhaps Blogger's limitations--I'm not sure), but I feel pretty excited to try it out this week and see if it improves my productivity. If I find a way to display it, I will.

I'm also excited this week about introducing my students to a Book Pass they lead instead of writing essays this month about their independent reading books. I've been working with them on writing about their reading, in part to understand their own thinking better, and in part to share their reading with others. This will make the sharing the most important part, and I look forward to it. If you're not familiar with a Book Pass, you basically set out high-interest books in small groups of students. They pass the books on a scheduled timeframe (about 30 seconds) and make a list of the ones in which they are interested so they have an idea for what they'd like to read next. Asking the students to contribute their favorite books of the semester will ensure the inclusion of high-interest texts.

Finally, I feel prepared to re-visit The Diary of Anne Frank. I'm working with my students on developing questions more deeply. We worked on it the week before winter break but it didn't go very well at all, and I was ready to abandon my original idea for something that would go more smoothly. We had a couple professional development days before we went on break, though, and we read an article about what employers are looking for in our students today. One of them was the ability to ask questions so they could anticipate problems to solve. It reinforced the idea that I need to stick with the concepts and skills that I know kids need to learn, even when it isn't easy. If it was easy, they probably wouldn't need help with it.

I also found a new mantra for the school year, on thingsweforget.blogspot.com:

Sometimes I forget to build foundations for my kids to get to those castles I build in the air. Sometimes at this time of year, I'm tempted to relax my expectations, and this reminds me to just build better foundations.

2010 Goals

2010-01-03T15:17:00.004-06:00

I've always been a better list-maker than doer, especially when I'm working with things I don't really want to finish. As a kid, when I needed to clean my room, I was great at making a checklist of things I needed to do, categorized by area of the room. Unfortunately, I would only actually finish the first two items on my list and my room would still be a pit. I would spend just as much energy on the list as the task at hand.

I always feel tempted to do this with new year's goals as well. I start thinking of all the areas of my life that could be improved, and I make lots of lists and goals and end up so overwhelmed that I don't really accomplish any of them. I decided that this year, because I already feel like I'm moving in the right direction (no major overhaul needed), I might try to focus on one goal each month. As I write that, I'm tempted to list all the other things I want to accomplish in 2010, and assign months to focus on each. I will list. I won't assign.

1. Send prompt thank-you notes and birthday cards.
2. Continue developing writing habit, and finish novel first draft by Spring Break.
3. Further automate money and re-allocate funds so I am giving more to charity.
4. Push myself as a teacher by doing more reflecting and deeper planning. I feel like I'm connecting well with my kids and serving them well on a daily basis. I also think my best planning has gone by the wayside as I work on my master's degree, and I'd like to spend more time with this so I can really feel that I'm doing my best teaching for student learning.
5. Throw a meaningful ceremony and kick-ass party (with John!) at our wedding in June.
6. I ALWAYS want to stop biting my nails.
7. Continue making our house a home. I hope that by the end of 2010, our house reflects us much more than it does right now.

That's a pretty tall list. I also feel like I want to work on them all right now. I suppose that's a good sign that they are all important. Which should I work on first?

One of these, however, is keeping me up at night and waking me in the middle of the night: #4. I am concerned about my writing elective the most and apparently it haunts me. If I'm going to do #1, I feel that I need to start now. But that one seems easy... get the cards ready at the beginning of the month, and mail them out as the dates get close. #5 is a goal with a deadline, but so is #2. Yikes!! This is why I schedule and make checklists that are never completed.

(Note to anyone who might actually be reading this blog: I plan to continue thinking out load and incoherently as I figure out how to attain these goals.)

There is also a health goal that I will address in another post (looks like today will double the amount of posts I've written on this blog) but that seems totally separate to me as it's a short-term detox rather than a long-term change.

Here's the plan:
1. Send deposit checks and complete any necessary tasks for wedding (ones that need reservations) by next weekend, January 9th, so I can relax from wedding planning for a month.
2. Start #1 today. Then I will have something to show for my new goals.
3. I'll write another post about my plan for #4.

As I re-read my first paragraph, I'm chuckling at myself, because I've just made a big list and another big plan. Apparently it's in my nature and I might just need to embrace the fact that the big changes, the ones that will keep me up at night, will naturally come to forefront as the thing to work on next.

2009 Recap

2010-01-03T11:46:00.004-06:00

As this is the third day of 2010, I'm a little slow on the uptake for 2009 recap and goal-setting/resolution making. As a teacher, though, I always feel more impacted by school year deadlines than calendar year deadlines. Since we return to school tomorrow, I guess it's time for me to do my end of the year reflection. I prefer to think of it as a reflection rather than resolution making because I feel pretty satisfied with the direction my life is moving. I don't see any drastic changes that need to occur. As a teacher, I try to build on strengths my students already have, and in the past years, I've improved upon treating myself as well as I treat others. I think it's important to consider the strengths and accomplishments of 2009 as I move into the new year.

2008 into 2009 was a rough time for me. As I dig through my computer archives, I can't find any semblance of goal-setting/reflection during this time last year. I think I was so stuck in a rut of my own thinking that I didn't know what I wanted to accomplish. I had just moved to be with John in August and was feeling dissatisfied with the move and the connections I was making. In January, I'm pretty sure I was on a manic hunt of a location we could move to. One week it would be Denver, the next Portland. I was refusing to make connections and decisions about my professional life because I assumed we'd be leaving in a year.

Somehow, in April of 2009, I was tired of running. John and I both had good jobs where we were. I was beginning to see my teaching improve and I knew that I couldn't continue making improvements if we took off again. I came home from class one night with a sense of clarity I hadn't had all year--that maybe we could stay for a while. When the time came for us to move, it should be because an opportunity was presenting itself to GO somewhere, not because we weren't making the most of our time where we were. To be fair, my mom did bring my attitude problem to my attention over spring break, and I was unable to see it.

When we made the decision to stick around, doors started opening all over the place. John found a home-brew club. I was asked to serve on a district committee to help with new Iowa curriculum. I started a writing group at school. We started seeing the pockets in our community that we had been closed off to before. This was a good thing.

Other big, good things happened in 2009, for which I am very thankful:
1. I finished a sprint triathlon in July 2009.
2. John and I became engaged in August.
3. We bought at house in September, which really allowed us to connect with our community. I was amazed by some of the people that came to the surface in our neighborhood once we held that elusive title of "homeowner."

I also made good baby steps in 2009--continuous goals that I want to keep working toward:
1. I'm beginning to feel more in control of my personal finances. As a teacher in a two-income household, there is plenty of money here that I just need to use more wisely. I began automating lots of financial stuff and feeling more balanced in this area of my life.
2. I started my master's degree which helps with the overall goal of teaching college someday, and fulfills a personal desire to be learning more. I read _Moby Dick_!
3. I am making more conscious choices about my impact on the environment. Our new home allows me to drive much less in daily life (when it's not dangerously cold to be outside), we've set up backyard compost and organized recycling. I'm continuing to think about how my eating choices impact the environment, too. Part of the challenge of the upcoming year will be in how to make our wedding as green as possible.
4. I'm improving with a writing habit. I don't write every day, but I write more frequently. My novel from November isn't finished, but it's coming.
5. I feel that I'm making more grown up choices. What grown-up means to me is less self-centered in my choices. We started buying Kleenexes. I'm trying to send more hand-written thank you notes and birthday cards (a goal for 2010!). This is an area that still needs improvement, but I feel like I'm headed in the right direction.

Whew. That was a long reflection about 2009 (and certainly more for me than an audience!). The best way for me to divide the old year with the new is to take a shower, eat lunch, and dive into goal setting for the new year then.

Indian-Inspired Potatoes, Kale, and Chickpeas

2009-08-28T02:44:00.003-05:00

So creative titles apparently aren't my strong suit...

This is a makeshift recipe with things we had in the house added to our fresh share of CSA veggies, which this week included: lettuce, kale, green beans, hot peppers, sweet peppers, potatoes, zucchini, summer squash, basil, and tomatoes.

We whipped this up for dinner and served it with some basmati rice. I think it would be even better with coconut milk in place of the cream, a more flavorful curry powder, and some fresh ginger thrown in the mix.

Yield: About 3 servings, with 1 scant cup uncooked basmati rice
Ingredients:
2 T. peanut oil
1 lb. potatoes, sliced thinly in bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup diced onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
1 small bunch kale, tough stems removed and sliced
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
2 T. curry powder
1 t. garam masala
1/4 c. heavy cream
1/2 c. water

Procedure:
1. Heat peanut oil in large skillet. Fry potatoes and onion in oil until they are almost soft. Add the garlic, salt, and pepper.

2. Add the kale and the garbanzo beans and cook for 3-4 more minutes.

3. Add the curry powder and garam masala, mix thoroughly, and cook for a minute or so. Then add the cream and the water, thoroughly mix, and cook over medium heat until mixture is thickened to taste and the potatoes and kale are tender to your preference. Before serving, taste for salt and add some if necessary. I garnished with fresh basil because it smelled so good in the car on the way home.

Classroom Set-Up

2009-08-26T21:54:00.004-05:00

Tonight is a short post, because I am tired from first day with kids (went great!) and first day of grad school class (I have to read 35 chapters of Moby-Dick by next Wednesday...). I thought a lot about my classroom environment this summer, and how I wanted to change things to make them flow smoothly. After reading some Nancie Atwell, I decided I wanted to make "conference corners" kids could go to for peer conferences, so the inner part of the classroom remained quiet for kids who need that. So... the tall shelf at the front of the room and the file cabinets at the back of the room are not for "naughty corners," even though they look like it. I actually love how organized and neat my room looks right now. It won't be that way for long, so I have to enjoy it.

The top image is taken from the front opposite corner, where you can see my (clean) teacher desk in one corner and the other makeshift conference area of file cabinets in the other. Our school is not the prettiest (we're beginning remodeling right now), but I look forward to having the kids help decorate.

The next image is taken from the back corner of the room by the door. I like to start students out in rows so the environment feels pretty structured at first. I'm a fourth-year teacher, so I think my youth means that I must start out friendly but strict, and I need the classroom structure to support that. You can see the conference corner at the front of the room. I am always interested in how a physical classroom environment plays a role in kids' attitudes toward learning, and I'm dying to know if these conference corners will really help with volume in my writer's workshop. Time will tell.

How Trying to Love a Pet Rabbit is Like Teaching a Struggling Writer

2009-08-24T20:44:00.004-05:00

This is the second draft of a piece I started this summer. I've been working to revise it to submit it to NCTE's National Gallery of Writing. I'm not sure I'm totally satisfied with it, but it includes good thoughts to think about at the beginning of a new school year.

Prey animals at heart, they are skittish. Bunnies have a natural instinct to run away, to escape the fox or hawk or human. As a group, they combat their weakness by reproducing rapidly, but as individuals, they are constantly afraid of what harm will befall them. Even in the safety of the basement, my rabbit, Clark, darts from cover to cover, quickly grabbing a treat between his teeth before hopping away to eat it in a safer location. I’ve been giving him daily food and water, along with auxiliary treats, for two years now, and he’s still afraid I might suddenly make him into a stew.

My classroom experiences with struggling writers have been the same way. I don’t think most teachers intend to prey on young writers, but experience with my bunny tells me that vulnerable beings may perceive a real danger even when it isn’t there. It may come sometimes from the wrong “helpful” comment on the wrong day, or several poor grades on essays they worked on intensely, but I think for my most reluctant students, it’s a feeling of failure that builds up over time. By the time my students come to me in eighth grade, writing has made them vulnerable so many times that they want to run or hide or not give a true attempt: if you don’t expose yourself, you remain safe.

There remains joy in watching a bunny, just as there is sometimes immediate joy in teaching. Clark will dig an imaginary den in a pet carrier with an intensity that reminds me not to give up. When he gains speed and has a sudden burst of energy, he jumps and twists simultaneously, in a gleeful motion that makes me laugh every time. I experience this genuine joy in the classroom, too, when a kid asks a gutsy question that restores my hope in the future, or a student’s kindness toward another child gives me a new ideal to work toward. Reading student work often reminds me how challenging adolescence can be or trains me not to drink or eat while reading, because I’ll sometimes choke on a giggle.

But there are times when my enthusiasm for these two areas of my life goes terribly wrong. What humans see as affection, bunnies see as threatening. When I try to pick up Clark, he is afraid I am going to kill and eat him. He kicks his feet and tries to scratch me—anything to get away and thump his little foot to show his anger and fear and reinstate a boundary I didn’t have permission to cross. When a young, vulnerable writer hands me a piece, I feel the same hesitation in the air. Just as touch sends a warning signal to bunnies, feedback on writing is something that has many times burned struggling writers in their pasts. They are told to be honest, to take a risk, to care. And every time I read too quickly, fail to listen, and respond too strongly with my own intentions, the desire to shut down grows. In my struggling writers, I see a reluctance to accept even praise, because they simply don’t believe it. They have been offered this carrot in the past, just before the list of suggestions and errors comes out.

Progress is made. After several nights of sitting on the basement stairs with Clark, telling him stories about my day (without trying to touch him), he’ll warm up. He’ll hop over and let me softly pet the spot he likes in the center of his nose. But I will read too much into it, and let my excitement carry me away, and the next night when I spontaneously reach for him (even when I know better), he sprint-hops away and thumps in a cupboard. I was uninvited. When I think about Mark, a writer I worked with this year, I made the same mistakes. We would make a little headway: Mark would ask me a question or share a piece of writing, looking for feedback. Working from what seemed like a good place, I would push too much or say too much, in a language that was comfortable to me. Mark would return to his seat, distancing himself from his piece and from me, rebuilding his shell.

There are lessons to learn here, from Clark. I know he’s ready for a little human-type affection when he comes bumbling over to me (especially if I don’t have a carrot in my hand). I remain patient, and I am sensitive to the differences in the ways we show we care. When he runs away, I recognize his prey-animal tendencies. I don’t take it personally or assume he’s not trying his best. I take it a day at a time, and I take responsibility for forging and repairing the damage to our relationship, some for which I am not responsible and some in which I must recognize my role. I can strive for the same understandings with kids like Mark: waiting for them to make the first move, showing caution in my words, not becoming too eager. It’s easy to forget that even when two species speak the same language, they don’t always understand each other. I must do better if I want my reluctant writers to see me as something other than another predator.

Red Curry Rice Noodles with Veggies

2009-08-19T19:57:00.005-05:00

This was dinner tonight. We needed something quick, because I was working on my room at school until after six. I love curry anything, and we needed to use the veggies that were crowding the fridge (what a great problem to have!), so this seemed like a good solution.

Servings: 5
Time to Prepare: 20-30 minutes, depending on veggie chopping time

Ingredients:
about 4 cups fresh veggies (We used carrots, bell pepper, kohlrabi, zucchini, tomatoes and yellow squash from our CSA.)
1 1/2 T. red curry paste (I used Thai Kitchen.)
1 14 oz can coconut milk (I used regular, but I think light would work okay.)
4 T. soy sauce
1 1/2 T. brown sugar
7 oz. package thin rice noodles

Procedure:
1. Chop all the veggies into bite size pieces. We made the carrots, kohlrabi, and bell pepper a little smaller so we could throw in all the veggies at the same time.
2. Soak the rice noodles in hot water for ten minutes.
3. Simmer the coconut milk with the curry paste for about 5 minutes, so it will thicken a little.
4. Throw the veggies in the sauce with the soy sauce and brown sugar. I also added about 1/2 cup of water because the sauce was thickening too much.
5. Simmer for about 3 minutes, then add the noodles to the mixture. It turned out the noodles were really long, so you might want to cut them up a little before you add them to the pot.
6. Heat for 2-3 minutes more, or until the veggies are tender-crisp and the noodles are the texture you like.

The Beginning

2009-08-12T14:14:00.004-05:00

I've known all summer that I should be doing more with Blogger, as I intend to use it in the classroom this year. Here I am, exactly two weeks before I'll be spending my days in the classroom, and I'm just getting set up. I was thinking really hard about what a theme for my blog should be--what should I focus on? I got hung up on this, and I decided I don't really want to focus on anything. I should just, for now, make this a little extension of my life and see what happens. This summer my thoughts have been consumed with house-buying, cooking, teaching, and reading, and these are what I've primarily been writing and surfing the web about. So, here is my attempt at some kind of focus.

The "dream" part is the most exciting for me right now, though it's the least descriptive verb. It's the word I used to capture this new interest in the house we're about to purchase. I'm not going to lie: I'm a little obsessed. I never imagined myself as the kind of person who could spend hours looking at ideas for what to do about ugly vinyl siding. But here I am. I also thought (silly me!) that we would just keep all of our same old furniture, and the paint on the walls of our new house (because it's not offensive) without doing much with the decor. I've never thought of myself as someone who cared about all this stuff. But now I'm excited, and thinking of all kinds of things we could to do make our house a home. So, because we're not made of money, and because I suspect John will care much less about the decor than me, I imagine, at least at first, I'll do a lot more dreaming than doing. And that's okay.

I'm going to try to label the posts according to one of the five areas, but we'll see how that works out. I'm also going to try to include a photo each day of something--food, a book, something from the house. We'll see how that goes. Here's an easy one to start, from our vacation:
Oh, Wall Drug.