Tag Archives: teachers live at school

Meanwhile, back at the Caucuses

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It was Monday night. Not dark and stormy, although there was a snowstorm waiting in the wings. Here in Wisconsin, we watched one school district after another declare their schools closed in advance.

Meanwhile, in our neighboring state of Iowa, the presidential primary season has officially begun. It’s the night of the famed Iowa Caucuses. There, in the heart of the Midwest, real results – not estimates or polls! – will emerge.

So while I’m relaxing in front of a series of Tiny House Nation episodes, I’m also prepping for the incoming storm. My laptop is plugged in and charging. My fitbit (with its vibrating alarm) is plugged into the laptop and charging. My phone will go on its turbo charger later. The storm promises to move in midday tomorrow, so I’m not too worried about overnight power outages.

Meanwhile, back in Iowa, a correspondent for The Broad Side has been posting updates and pictures. I watch the numbers change in her posts. Hillary – 54; Bernie – 29; O’Malley – 3; Undecided – 5. They caucus some more. Hillary – 57; Bernie – 34. Based on those numbers, the location I’m following assigns Hillary 8 delegates for the Democratic Convention and Bernie 5 delegates. 

A friend posts on Facebook “Schools are closed tomorrow!” We know it’s official when we see it on at least three news channel crawls and on the district’s official web site. Conversations on social media range from “6 inches? We’re shutting down for 6 inches?” to “Thank goodness, the administration is erring on the side of safety and caution.”

Meanwhile, back in Iowa, someone posts a picture of this.

This would go well with my Obama mug, wouldn't it?

This would go well with my Obama mug, wouldn’t it?

As for schools closing, the major factor isn’t always how much snow falls. It’s more about when the snow falls and whether the plows can clear the parking lots, sidewalks, and nearby streets. An overnight snow can mean a two hour delay while the maintenance crews plow and shovel and blow snow. If a storm drops 5-6 inches starting at 3 AM, it’s not so easy. Tuesday’s storm may drop 6-12 inches, all starting around noon. Folks, in reality, starting a normal school day and then having to send kids home early is a nightmare. Chaos. Confusion. 6 inches in itself may not seem like a catastrophic snowfall, but the timing is everything.

Meanwhile, back at the caucuses – no clear results yet. Since I don’t have school tomorrow, maybe I’ll stay up late and watch the news shows. Or maybe, since I don’t have school tomorrow, I’ll spend my day watching the pundits announce and interpret the results.

And meanwhile, I’ll watch the snow fall from the safety of my home.

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Ah, the Trivial Life

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I took pictures. Most turned out blurry. Sorry. But we had a great time, as usual, playing in the annual Midwestern Trivia Contest at my Alma Mater. Amigo has grown up around this contest. We simply call it Trivia – as if there were not others. None others equal ours, if I do say so myself.

Amigo again loaned an old, yellowed fire truck (with fresh batteries) to the Trivia Masters. This truck is one option for the Internet radio based leaders to signal that a question is closed; no more answers will be taken. Honk! Honk! Ooh-ee-ohh-ee (siren)! Ding-ding-ding-ding! Ding-ding-ding-ding! Amigo is known to Trivia participants as Fire Truck Amigo, courtesy of the truck.

We usually spend a few hours each day contributing as phone answering crew. I read the answer off the white board so Amigo knows what’s coming. He answers the phone and takes the answer, and if the team is lucky enough to be correct, the team name and number. I take dictation (since the Trivia Masters don’t read Braille) and write down the names and numbers. We have a good time interacting with the other participants – some his age, some mine, and every age in between.

Blurry or not, here he is.

Blurry or not, here he is.

In the background, right to left: My old friend and maid of honor at my wedding along with her son and girlfriend.

In the background, right to left: My old friend and maid of honor at my wedding along with her son and girlfriend.

University President stopped in to enjoy the experience.

University President stopped in to enjoy the experience.

It’s one weekend a year, and we let ourselves devote time for this mindless escapism. Until next year, Trivia buffs. We’ll be back.

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Season of Slow Cooking Continues

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Last week Monday: 1 quart crock, a bargain picked up for almost nothing second hand, the crock with a lid that doesn’t match because I picked it up for almost nothing…I already said that. Anyway, Monday’s crock pot task was to thaw and heat a soup from the freezer. This worked famously. This small crock is like a Little Dipper, just twice the size. It has two settings: on or off. Plug it in, it’s on. Unplug it, the crock’s off. Bean soup just sounded like a perfect addition to a new flavor from the local meat market: bacon bratwurst.

Last week Wednesday: Eating the Opponent, Arizona! We normally do this on the weekend, but we may be traveling as the weekend arrives. I modified a recipe from Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and let the flavors simmer in the crock pot all day. My Packers didn’t win, but they really invested a phenomenal effort in a dramatic and close game.

We were out of town over the weekend, so the crocks sat unused. Heck, the whole kitchen sat unused. But now, back in the bitter cold realm we call home, the slow cooker again fills the house with its flavor-filled aromas. Oh, did that sound too contrived? Sorry. 

On our way home from Illinois, we stopped at one of our favorite specialty stores near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We stocked up with the best pot pies on the market and a number of soup mixes. I’m making the lentil and Italian sausage mix today. We had Italian sausage in the freezer (a frequent stock-up item from the Nearby Meat Market), and I knew I’d be home working on progress reports all day. A soup that cooks slowly is the perfect menu item.

To summarize: Today, Monday, there’s a soup in the biggest crock pot. Lentils, Italian sausage, homemade beef stock, and a tiny package of dried veggies are simmering together. By supper, I expect this will be exactly what we need.

So, readers, do you have any favorite soups for cold winter weather? I’d love to hear suggestions.

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The To-Do Pile

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To do is to be. -Socrates

To be is to do. -Jean-Paul Sartre

Do-be-do-be-do. –Frank Sinatra

Here is my regular view at work. Course tree, student curriculum, and a lot more on screen. The computer and cubicle await my return after break, on Monday.

My students call me Mrs. O.K. The mug is awesome.

My students call me Mrs. O.K. The mug is awesome.

If I turn my head, I’ll see what replaces a to-do list in my cubicle: the To-Do Pile. Textbook teacher’s manual, student work waiting to be graded, file folder and sticky note instructions, and more.

The Dreaded To-Do Pile

The Dreaded To-Do Pile

Later in the day, I turned to reach for something in the pile, only to find out it had grown while I wasn’t looking!

Where di this second textbook come from?

Where did this second textbook come from?

In case you’re thinking “That’s not very big, Daisy” let me remind you that the majority of work I grade comes in online. This is only a tiny fraction of my workload. Some of my students worked during their break, too, so I know there will be tests, quizzes, and essays awaiting my virtual pen.

I think I like the first view better. At least that view includes coffee. Happy New Year to all, and may your to-do lists and piles be reasonable.

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As Seen On TV

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I had to read this three times before I really believed it was on the air, in the crawl at the base of the screen on a local shall-remain-nameless evening news show.

The Wisconsin state assembly passed a bill doubling the limit on campaign contributions and allowing candidates to coordinate with shadowy special interest groups without debate.

I’m not sure which is worse: the obvious bias or the split-all-to-heck descriptor. No, I take that back. The worst part of this sentence is that it’s true. The state assembly passed, without debate, a bill raising the ceiling on campaign contributions, among other changes. Meanwhile, voters are still waiting for a response to Russ Feingold’s proposal, The Badger Pledge.

I guess I’ll just keep going to work, grading essays, teaching students how to coin a phrase better than our local news folk.

Grammar Police

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‘Tis the Season for the Tunes

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Subtitle: The Tunes and the Stories – The Christmas music CDs and the stories they bring to mind.

I did some sorting today. Here’s the result – or most of the result. I think a few are missing. I have La Petite’s She and HIm. Maybe she has my Michael Buble. And where’s the Josh Groban?

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas!

It’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas!

I sorted through our Christmas music collection and organized it – as best I could. This brought conversations like the following.

John Denver goes after the Ray Charles, or maybe I should file this under M for Muppets. Does Charlie Brown Christmas belong under C for Charlie, B for Brown, or G  – for Vince Guaraldi? Mannheim Steamroller almost needs its own section.

Pentatonix, the Blenders, Rockapella – and then a random compilation of a capella performers. Sting, Taylor Swift, the Swingle Singers, Take 6. Oh, and after Mannheim Steamroller come the Nylons and Olivia Newton-John. Wait a minute. Newton-John comes before  Nylons.

Amigo enjoyed reminiscing, too. I ran into a Malt Shop Memories CD – lots of oldies, lots of fun. He remembered that Jan and Dean had a great Frosty the Snowman on that collection.

Chanticleer, Charlie Brown (for now), Burl Ives, Al Jarreau, Spike Jones. That one must be Amigo’s. It goes well with his Dr. Demento collection, which includes the adorable ear worm “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.” You’re welcome.

Chuck sorted through the collection many years ago looking for background music for something he was doing at work. In the process of sorting, he realized we had 10 covers of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Just for fun, we decided to burn a CD of all Rudolph. Before we could do that, we needed Burl Ives. We found him (he’s filed next to Al Jarreau, see above) and then found out we really needed Gene Autry. We found Gene Autry in an odd place for music – an office supply store. Years after creating the CD I call the Rudolph Compendium, we’ve found a few more. The Temptations? Really? Cool.

Ella Fitzgerald and Michael Franks fit in after Gloria Estefan – one of my favorites. Just think – Gloria came to the United States as a young refugee from Cuba.. She and her family were safe from persecution here, and she found her way into a career that brings joy to many. In fact, I think I’ll bring her “Christmas through your eyes” CD to school with me tomorrow.

It’s time to fill the cubicles with music.

Readers, do you have favorite songs around this time of year? Is there a story behind the song, or a story behind one special cover by one special performer? Please share.

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There is hope in our younger generation.

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An encore only because I’m no longer teaching fifth grade history. If I were, I’d have a whole new collection of student answers, and a whole new feeling of hope for the future.

My students were learning about the Articles of Confederation and the events and debates and compromises leading up to the writing and ratification of the United States Constitution. As I corrected their tests, a trend emerged in the essay questions – a rather thoughtful, insightful trend..

I can’t post the specific question, but I’ll just tell you that they were discussing the creation of the Constitution and interpreting George Washington’s warning against the destructive nature of political parties.

Actual student answers:
-“I think Washington wanted people to be happy and to work as a team.”
Can this student run for office some day? Please?
 
-“They would disagree on things because they would have different opinions and they would argue a lot.”
Run-on sentence aside, she was predicting the future with amazing accuracy.
 
-“It creates tensions and the good that could be done is lost in the arguments of each party’s plans.”
Another candidate for office someday – governor, perhaps.
“Washington knew that if the country split into political parties, then the country would be more split up and there would be too many disagreements.”
Politicians, stand warned. This student and others like him will be voting before you know it.
 
It’s time, it’s well past time, to start cooperating. Bipartisan collaboration would be a good start, but in all honesty, nonpartisan cooperation would be even better.
I’m sure George would agree.
Now back to the grade book to grade the maps of Ancient Egypt. My students know the real history of the pyramids. Maybe a certain candidate at tonight’s debate needs a little Common Core in his life.
But anyway, readers, feel free to step in. Today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders. How do you feel about that?

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Questions. I have questions.

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When the Coneheads cue the jingle and sing “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there,” does Barry Manilow get royalties?

What would life be without rhetorical questions?

Do Tarek and Christina El Moussa ever make anything simply stand out, or does everything have to “pop”?

Does the super El Nino mean we might not have a white Christmas?

Do I work in an office of chocolate hoarders?

The last one deserves explanation. Halloween was a rainy night, and many folks in our area had leftover candy. I brought leftovers to work and dumped them on a tray in the closet that functions as a teachers’ lounge. Less than an hour later, another staff member had doubled the size of the pile. By lunch, there were two flavors left: Whoppers malted milk balls and Dum Dum suckers. By the end of the school day, even the Whoppers were gone. The only piece of candy left on the tray was a Dum Dum succker – Mystery Flavor.

One solution is this: we’re teachers. We get enough surprises in a normal day. Mystery flavor? Like Bertie Botts Every Flavor beans, it might be ear wax or vomit. It might be bacon – or it might be chili pepper. I wonder how long the Mystery Flavor will sit in the closet-lounge before someone either takes it or throws it away? We could almost have an office pool on the topic. Heck, I’m losing the office football pool. Maybe I could win this one.

But in the meantime, I’ll wonder and ponder these oh-so unimportant questions.

What was I talking about, anyway?

Readers, what are the irrelevant questions in you lives at the moment?

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And still another key to comprehension: questioning

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I kept thinking of the George Carlin quote about reading and questioning, but it didn’t quite fit. I went with Jack Prelutsky instead.

Meanwhile, I shared this post with the online world.

“Don’t just teach your children to read…
Teach them to question what they read.
Teach them to question everything.” — George Carlin, comic genius

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Civics Test for High School Graduates

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It was a test – only a test, but a test that could have mattered. I’ve taught science for many years, perhaps to the detriment of my knowledge of social studies including geography, history, and you guessed it, civics. When we started a day of staff development and meeting with the New Required for Graduation Civics Test, I worried. What if I didn’t do well? What if my teacher self couldn’t handle a test we’ll administer to all high school freshmen starting this year?

I passed. Heck, I more than passed. Out of 100 multiple choice questions, I got 99 right. Maybe I haven’t taught a lot of United States history and government units, but I’m politically active and reasonably well informed. I read (and write for) The Broad Side. I contribute to, among others, Emily’s List.

I passed the test and discussed a few discrepancies with the teacher sitting next to me. We looked at the question asking us to identify the Speaker of the House, and asked “Isn’t the new guy (Wisconsin’s own Paul Ryan) getting sworn in today?” The question asking the students to identify their Representative in Congress will need to be open ended; our virtual school students live all over the state of Wisconsin. We also identified a few poorly worded questions that, while far from being par for the course, really needed updating.

What did I get wrong? I thought I could avoid answering that. Deep sigh. Oh, all right. I did not identify James Madison as an author of The Federalist Papers, a collection of essays that supported the ratification of the Constitution.

Readers (and voters), could you pass a 100 question civics test? What do you think?

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