Are you wearing green to avoid getting pinched today?
I’ve got bright green tights on along with my par-for-the-course teacher shift dress. The students look adorable today; my classroom is a swirl of shamrocks, shades of green, and middle school leprechauns.
Here are some stylish Chicago folks doing their part to spread St. Patrick’s day cheer. Sending you the luck of the Irish! lv, molly
I hope it’s a good weekend for you!
Today was the best teaching day I’ve had in a while, and I’m elated. Kids learned (which is, you know, the point). And they had fun. I couldn’t ask for more. We talked about outlines, drafts, the structure of a paragraph, and some bigger questions: how do people enact change? how were women treated throughout much of western history? how can we fight against the status quo if we disagree with it?
Any fun weekend plans for you? I’m making quiche with my man friend, watching Indiana Jones, going to a party tomorrow, and running. Maybe baking something and reading because that’s pretty standard for me on weekends.
And before I head off, here are a few a links for the weekend, a basic quiche recipe from Julia Child, and a good song that I heard on the radio on my drive home… lv, molly
* “Here Comes The Sun” in honor of George Harrison’s bday
* Sohei Nishino’s magical photographic maps
* 6 ingredients for a good weekend
* Countess LuAnn on “Law and Order: SVU” {hilarious}
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat eggs, cream, and seasonings. Add veg or cheese. If using a vegetable with a high water content (e.g. spinach), saute beforehand. Pour mixture into pastry shell, and distribute the butter pieces on top (this will create a nice brown top). Bake for 25-30 minutes or until quiche has puffed and browned.
As kids researched for a project today, I played The Beatles’ Abbey Road album, and the kids have rarely worked harder or concentrated more. A revelation!
Starting next week, it’ll be a “musical democracy,” and we’ll occasionally have work time accompanied by music that we’ve voted on. (Also, all the tables are different “countries,” so I’m totally running with this cheesy, mildly contrived democracy theme.)
Is it any surprise that they loved “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”? (Should I be concerned that at one point Maxwell hits a teacher with a hammer?)
One kid said, “This is better than Lil Wayne.” Yes. Thank you.
lv, molly
Sony sucks and prevents embedded videos from playing. Still, click below to go to youtube. This song is awesome.
I can’t believe this week is almost over! It’s flown by, and I’m excited for a weekend full of birthday celebrations, baking, and running. Any exciting plans for you?
Things are going well at my new school, I’m happy to report. Today I taught a variety of strategies for determining the meaning of words students don’t know, and students practiced the strategies in groups, reading articles they chose. I provided a variety of articles, the topics ranging from arranged marriages in Afghanistan to the discovery of new planets to cyber bullying and Oscar nominees. It’s exciting to see kids understanding and engaging with texts and ideas they might not have understood previously.
Today is confirmation that students want to learn, and providing them choice in their reading materials is one of the best ways to keep them engaged. Yes! An exciting success after some mediocre, less successful lessons earlier in the week.
I’m still learning to teach; I make missteps daily. But it’s days like today that help me see evidence of my growth as an educator.
lv, molly
So nervous! Micro-teaching presentation today… I’m using Billy Collins’ “On Turning Ten” and Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis to teach visualization, a reading comprehension strategy. The texts are wildly different, but they have great imagery and concern transformation and change, the greater theme in my made-up unit plan. Here’s the Collins poem. Kafka’s piece is fantastic too, and if you haven’t read the story in its entirety, hop to! lv, molly
P.S. Sorry for the lack of recipes as of late. Because the end of the quarter is coming up, I’ve been swamped and not cooking as much as I’d like to.
The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I’m coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light–
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.
Image via here.
For the next two weeks I’m embarking on a terrifying little journey entitled “13 Hour Days.” These days will be composed of things I find meaningful and satisfying: observing middle school classes and helping students one-on-one, grad school classes, homework, tutoring, and pretending it’s okay to replace exercise with chocolate and little sleep.
When I returned home tonight, I fell onto my rocking chair and resembled a lump of exhaustion in teacher’s clothing. I’m not even sure what that means. If a student used that analogy, I may encourage him or her to think more deeply about it. But that’s all I’m capable of delivering currently; I’m sorry.
The point is, I’m tired. And I won’t be posting much, but I’ll leave you with this poem for now. It was given to us during a reflective session at the university last week, and I think the sentiment will carry me through the more tiring times. I hope this finds you well and happy and resembling something far more attractive than a lump of exhaustion. xo, m
PS- Did I mention I’m loving it so far? Children are amazing.
A grand piano wrapped in quilted pads by movers,
tied up with canvas straps – like classical music’s
birthday gift to the insane -
is gently nudged without its legs
out an eighth-floor window on 62nd street.
It dangles in April air from the neck of the movers’ crane,
Chopin-shiny black lacquer squares
and dirty white crisscross patterns hanging like the second-to-last
note of a concerto played on the edge of the seat,
the edge of tears, the edge of eight stories up going over, and
I’m trying to teach math in the building across the street.
Who can teach when there are such lessons to be learned?
All the greatest common factors are delivered by
long-necked cranes and flatbed trucks
or come through everything, even air.
Like snow.
See, snow falls for the first time every year, and every year
my students rush to the window
as if snow were more interesting than math,
which, of course, it is.
So please.
Let me teach like a Steinway,
spinning slowly in April air,
so almost-falling, so hinderingly
dangling from the neck of the movers’ crane.
So on the edge of losing everything.
Let me teach like the first snow, falling.
An interesting discussion on The New York Times “Room for Debate” blog about teachers and qualifications. Read here. Here’s an excerpt. Hope you’ve all had a nice weekend! xo, m
PS- My favorite song of the day was “Ceremony” by New Order. This surprises/ amuses me.
“Teaching is an incredibly complex and difficult enterprise. Little about the job comes to people naturally. Prospective teachers need to learn such mundane but crucial skills as how to keep their classrooms orderly and centered on the topics at hand. Most important, at the same time, they have to learn how to make the subject matter of their content area accessible and worth knowing for their students, no easy task given the increasingly diverse backgrounds of these students. When ed schools are doing their job these are the kinds of things prospective teachers learn so can they start their careers better able to handle the intense and unrelenting demands of teaching.”
Jeffrey Mirel is the David L. Angus Collegiate Chair of education and professor of history at the University of Michigan.
