Monthly Archives: January 2010

>Trivia! It keeps me warm.

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>Long ago, when I was a teenager, and great woolly mammoths roamed the high school campus, I listened to a radio trivia contest one weekend a year. I enjoyed the crazy music that ranged from bad to worse, the mock advertisements for ridiculous and irreverent products, and of course, the trivial questions. (Who were the fairies in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty? Flora, Fauna, and Meriweather. Come on, ask me a hard one.)

Then I joined a Trivia team. This was still in the prehistoric times; rotary dial phones! We’d use the tip of a pen to dial the numbers so that our fingers wouldn’t get blistered. Really. Books, encyclopedias, and almanacs were our main sources for information that we didn’t already possess in our ever-evolving brains. (The hotel in Psycho? Bates Motel, of course. And Janet Leigh hid the money in a folded up newspaper.)

I played for this team until I transferred schools and began attending classes on the very campus that hosted the contest. By then the phones were push-button types, and the woolly mammoths had moved to less populated areas Up North, but our main information sources were still print books. (Winnie the Pooh lived in the Hundred Acre Wood under what name? Sanders.)

Fast forward several years, through contributions to a few more trivia teams, a marriage, and two kids. We now hosted a team in our home. It was a smaller team, not a top three finisher, but we held our own. Proudly, we invited people to share our home with the bunnies and the books and the new technology: cordless phones and Internet access. We still used a radio boom box, a white board for keeping track of team scores, and a spiral notebook for writing down questions. The woolly mammoths had retreated toward Canada in search of glaciers. (In the movie The Blue Brothers, what is the license plate number of the Bluesmobile? BDR529)

Telephones and radio have changed, but the Trivia contest continues. The radio has gone Internet only, which has actually expanded the contest to people in faraway locations that might still have woolly mammoths. Chuck and I no longer compete for the worthless prizes (the prizes have to be as trivial as the questions), but Amigo plays on his own. He listens to the Internet broadcast, searches for answers online, calls them in on the cordless phone or borrows my cell when the cordless’ batteries go dead. He and Chuck take a shift at the radio station answering phones to take people’s answers — each team that plays finds a way to make a contribution like this to keep the contest running smoothly. (What was the original name of the Popsicle? The Epperson Ice Pop, or the Epsicle)

Trivia (it needs no other qualifying details; all other contests pale in comparison) is a crazy and fun weekend with no equal. Some people take off for warmer climates in January; we’ve always stocked up on knowledge, coffee, hot cocoa, and phones. It keeps us warm. (When Frank Zappa was in ninth grade, he won a Fire Prevention poster contest. What did his poster say? “No picnic. Why? No woods. Prevent forest fires.”)

I still kind of miss the mammoths.

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>Laughter is the best medicine

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>I was teaching text features that signal importance, and I noticed one student took the concept of bulleted lists and ran with it. I saw her to-do list for the weekend sitting on her desk.

  • Get mom to take me to Walgreens.
  • Ask mom for money.

I think she’s mastered the concept.

More robo-calls arrived earlier in the week. The first one: “Your child has been marked absent from one or more classes.” I called the school, talked to Amigo, and tracked down the error. It was an office error, of course. However, they couldn’t fix it; the secretary who handles the first half of the alphabet had left at 3:00. The secretary on the line told me she was certain everything would be fine in the morning.
Well, it wasn’t fine at night. An hour later we got another robo-call from the school with the same recorded script: “Your child has been marked absent from one or more classes….”
I have to laugh or I’d beat my head on the wall. Laughing feels a lot less painful.

Got milk? Read this. It’s a laugh out loud, snort milk out the nose kind of story.

Have a wonderful and laughter-filled weekend.

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The State of the Union in my State of Mind

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“Freedom is a notion sweeping the nation, freedom is a state – – of mind.” — song lyric
“Yes, I’m wise, but it’s wisdom born of pain.” –another song lyric

It was a tough first year for President Obama, one I might call baptism by fire. He inherited a nation in turmoil, an economic collapse, a massive deficit and national debt, and a hurting minority party that wanted nothing less than to see him fail.

President Obama articulately expressed these challenges Wednesday night. He addressed the need for jobs, for employment for all. He talked about health care, despite the controversy attached to the pending bills. He discussed Afghanistan and Iraq and more.

You can read the entire speech here. I don’t need to repeat it verbatim. It was long, but listening to an articulate and personable president made the length more than bearable – it kept my attention. I missed my local OFA State of the Union party in favor of a live chat with the Momocrats as the speech was on.

I found that the Barack Obama we elected, the feisty, energetic, hopeful president, came through best at the end.

“if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town — a supermajority — then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions. So let’s show the American people that we can do it together.”

Together. He put the challenge straight to the opposite side of the Congressional aisle. He challenged his naysayers not to beat him, but to join him. By stating clearly that real progress must be bipartisan, President Obama made his agenda clear: No more finger-pointing! Cooperate, cooperate, cooperate.
In parent-teacher talk, it might be “We both want the same thing; we want your child to be successful. Let’s work together.”

And together, we don’t quit. We won’t quit. If the leader of the free world can work with his opposition, the rest of us can learn to work together, too.

Now where did I stash the emails of my senators and congressional rep? Here goes the letter-writing campaign!

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>All in a day’s reading

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>Morning reading:

  • staff meeting agenda
  • email
  • planning book
  • math manual
  • electronic gradebook.

Mid-day reading:

  • attendance records
  • more emails
  • and again the math manual
  • science guide to set up lab activity correctly
  • data to follow up from staff meeting

Afternoon reading:

  • newspaper (several hours out of date, but why not? The comics are still current.)
  • professional book Strategies that Work to guide reading lesson planning
  • spice bottles to add to supper
  • another professional book: The Next Step in Guided Reading, for study group at school.

On the table by my side in the den:

  • The Crimson Rooms — just finished, soon to be a review. Look for it; this one held my attention.
  • the last two Time magazines; I get behind when I’m busy at school. Progress reports, anyone?
  • two Braille books of Amigo’s: a book on card games (he found out there are Braille poker chips available somewhere) and a volume of A Flash in the Pan, a cookbook of one-pan meals.

On my bedside table:

  • Cold Mountain — So far, fascinating. I’m taking my time.

All right, bloggy friends, what are you reading? I’m sure I missed something in my stack.

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>Not bad, for a (insert day of week here)

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>Not bad, for a Tuesday.

Tuesdays are my Yucky Days with a capital YD. My schedule has no breaks in it, I often have meetings with other teachers before school, and it’s just an exhausting day. If it weren’t for recess, I wouldn’t even make it to the bathroom.

But there are ways of seeking relief. There is a bright side to Tuesday – sometimes.

My colleague takes advantage of a strategically scheduled prep time to pick up Starbucks.
Starbucks mixed up my order. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t the Pike Place Blend I usually get. The note on the cup said BU. Bland Usual? Boston University? Boring Underwear? How did they know? It smelled like good strong coffee, so I sipped it anyway.
Whoa, Nelly, that stuff was STRONG. I wiped the sweat from my brow, blinked a few times, thanked the 6th grader who’d delivered, and growled “Get back to work!” at my class. If I start growing hair on my chest, I’ll blame the B.U. coffee.

Let’s summarize the day so far: awards assembly, three of my students honored, parents attended, kids behaved well in the audience. Plus.
Ordered coffee. Plus.
Coffee was wrong. Minus.

So on we go —
That Student (every teacher has one) had major attitude problems after recess and during reading class. Another student is bouncing off this one and causing troubles. Reteach behavior, reteach, reteach. Tomorrow, these two shape up or else; they’ve had their second chances. Minus.
Somehow, I managed to teach reading strategies to a few groups; that’s a plus.
Then a few trustworthy students told me they were supposed to get out early for lunch. What?! I had no information, no communication, so I said no. Oh, my goodness, you would have thought I was the Worst Evil Teacher in the world. Minus for the confusion.
A good number of my kiddos attended the Service Club meeting and signed up to help with a school fundraiser. Plus.

Later on, sixth grade students made an announcement for a special fundraiser. A group of children found out about Water for Africa and decided it was a cause worth supporting. They did their homework, put together a plan, and got it going. Major plus.
Someone or several someones are giving them grief because they should be raising money for Haiti. Epic minus.
I remembered a post on the Art of Non-Conformity regarding seeing the changes in safe water supply on a visit to Liberia. To encourage the students, I found a way to connect them with this post. Plus for the post, plus for the kids, plus for all.

Well, fellow working minions, what is your bad day of the week? And what do you do to make it better? I splurge on (usually) good coffee. How about you?

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>Spicy Chicken with a hint of sweet

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>The original came in a cookbook I got for Christmas: Taste of Home’s Fast Fixes with Mixes. It’s aimed at using basic mixes in the pantry to create decent meals. I struggled with this at first; I’ve been moving toward cooking more from scratch, more whole ingredients and fewer pre-processed foods. But on further review, this quick-start philosophy can work for us. Here’s one, with the changes from my own experience.

Sweet and Spicy Chicken (adapted from Fast Fixes with Mixes)


1 pound boneless chicken breasts, cut in one inch cubes
1 package taco seasoning
1-2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chunky salsa
1/2 cup orange marmalade
hot cooked rice

Place chicken in a zipper plastic bag with taco seasoning and toss to coat. In a skillet, heat oil and brown chicken. Combine salsa and marmalade; stir into skillet. Bring to a boil; cover and simmer for 2-3 minutes or until meat juices run clear.

Serve over rice. Serves 4.

Now, the backstory.

The original recipe calls for peach preserves: I couldn’t find these in my regular grocery or in the neighborhood corner market. I settled for orange marmalade; it provided the fruity sweetness and the right consistency.
The original also called for an entire 11 oz. jar of salsa. Holy tomato, Batman, that’s a lot of salsa! I couldn’t believe the dish needed that much salsa, so I cut it approximately in half.

I wrecked the rice. Believe it or not, I wrecked the rice. I overcooked the long grain white rice into mush while trying to fully cook the wild rice. Oops. I’ve successfully combined long grain brown rice with wild rice, but I forgot that white cooks faster. Much faster. The taste was okay, but the texture? Well, we won’t discuss texture. (I salvaged the rice by making fried rice later in the week; it worked well with Tex-Mex scrambled eggs)

Meanwhile, remember the case of oranges in the basement (choir fundraiser, December)? I’m eating at least one a day, but there are still too many left. The marmalade hasn’t thickened, but I’ve decided not to remake it. It’ll make a good cooking sauce, and we usually buy it for that purpose rather than to spread on toast. Fresh orange juice for a few days might help use up the oranges. Chuck got creative with grapefruit tonight: mixed it with marascino cherries for a fruit salad style side dish.

This is not a sponsored post. The cookbook was a Christmas gift. Thanks, MIL!

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>Doing more with less and teaching, too

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>Teacher, after staff meeting to discuss budget cuts: “I just take what they give me and supplement it with my own money.”

Student’s Mom at Open House: “Don’t you get an aide when the class gets this big?”
Teachers: “No.”

We know; there’s less money available. We know; benefits are getting more and more expensive. We also know; public perception is often inaccurate.

Right now our local taxpayers are calling for teachers to make contract concessions. Concessions? We make concessions each and every day. Every time I use my own paperbackswap credits to get books for my classroom, it’s a personal concession. Every time I print papers at home using my own paper and ink, it’s a concession. Every time I go in to work at my desk on a weekend, it’s a concession. We pay for our own continuing education, including required credits to renew our licenses and program credits toward advanced degrees. We consider this a fact of life, but in truth, it’s a concession, too.

Those are concessions that affect students indirectly by affecting teachers. Let’s look at concessions that directly hit the students.

Students have to provide their own tissues; schools no longer buy them. I buy my own box so the parents of my students don’t have to provide for me. Administration recommended we get hand sanitizer and anti-bacterial wipes for the classrooms to help prevent H1N1, but no money was provided. This comes out of our own pockets or out of parent donations. If no one donates, then what?

Specialty programs such as reading teachers and teachers for the gifted and talented do not get substitutes. The students do not get services when their teachers are ill.

Repair and replacement projects get put off for years because they don’t fit in the budget. The windows in my classroom, for example, are 60-some years old. The room is drafty and cold in the winter. In fall and spring, it’s too hot. Out of five windows that still have screens, only three open and only two can easily close.

As new research clarifies effective teaching methodology, students need materials. Books. Dry-erase boards and markers. SmartBoards. Math manipulatives. Maps. Computers with up-to-date software and access. Budgets, however, shrink rather than grow.

We look for donors. Grants, foundations, businesses, parents, fundraisers, any sources possible.

Most of all, we look for a better funding formula in our state and federal budgets: a funding formula that recognizes that educating our public, young and old, is not optional. It’s essential.

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>Plant a tree in a Ponzi scheme?

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>It’s really more of a pyramid. A pyramid process, that is; it’s still trees. Bloggers recruit more people to click on tree buttons, therefore planting more trees, and credit goes to the blogger for gathering more clicks for trees.

Does it make sense? Not yet? Okay, here’s the whole story.

Ruba.com is a new travel site that features travel guides and tour reviews. Ruba staff are also very environmentally conscious; they want the natural world to stay lovely for future travelers. To offset some of the negative effects of travel, Ruba is sponsoring a Ponzi Tree Scheme. For each badge planted on a blog, they’ll plant a tree. For each click on a blog’s tree button, another tree gets planted and the blogger gets credited with the tree. No cash changes hands, no swindles take place. Disappointed? I hope not. Ruba is working with Trees for the Future to make a positive impact on our world. By spreading the word through the blogosphere, they can raise the number of interested people and plant even more trees – up to a limit of 100,000. Ruba’s Ponzi Tree-Planting Scheme will run until Earth Day’s 40th Anniversary on April 22, 2010.

I’m a small-time blogger, but my readers are loyal and green. Please click on the Ruba.com tree-planting badge in the right sidebar. If you have a blog, please consider placing a badge in your sidebar, too. It’ll widen the network and increase the number of trees in our still-beautiful world.

This is not a sponsored post in any way. Ruba.com sent me the information and after browsing their site, I decided it was a valid program and a good cause. Earth Day began in Wisconsin, after all. I’m proud to contribute to it’s 40th anniversary.

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>Random Rummaging

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>Dearest Darling Husband, a.k.a. Chuck, suggested holding another rummage sale in June of this year. I responded, “What?! Already?! But…but…” So he explained his rationale.

1. Daughter will be coming home from college. Economic woes will probably mean she’ll live here for a while. We’ll sell of anything of hers that we can’t store, and we don’t have much room for storage.
2. We may be remodeling a bathroom and building a new and improved laundry room. This could lead to more “usable junk” hitting the rummage tables.
3. I’ve been cleaning the bookshelves and the basement with a quiet vengeance. If there’s a rummage sale looming in our future, I’ll save a few for sale rather than donate them to thrift stores.
4. We’ll have an extra twin size mattress and box spring. It’s a long story, including daughter moving home and in-laws downsizing to a condo and teen’s bedding still in decent shape – don’t ask.
5. In the cleaning process, I’ve emptied two file cabinets. They can go.
6. We’ve lived here for 14 years now: the longest we’ve ever been in one location. It’s time to seriously stop stashing (it’s not hoarding yet- I hope) and purge.

Meanwhile, I’m still cleaning the basement. It’s not the most efficient method, but it’s working. It has to do with laundry – a cliffhanger of a plot, not. Every time I’m starting a load of laundry, I take a minute or two while the washer is filling and the detergent is dissolving, and I empty a box from the storage shelves. The contents either go in the garbage, the thrift donation boxes, or the Save crates. So far, very little has needed saving. As each box moves off the shelf, I have storage space for: my spare crockpot, canning jars, shopping bags for the summer markets, and other newly and truly important things.

On the rummage list so far:
*a stack of Berenstain Bears books. My kiddos and my preschool students enjoyed them, but they’re of limited use now that my own children are 17 and 23 and my students are in fourth grade. Rather than post them all of Paperbackswap, I’ll set up a book box at the sale. If nothing else, it’ll keep young kids busy while their parents browse.
*various luggage pieces. I have several messenger bags that I no longer use. I can keep one for judging music festivals, and the others will hit the rummage tables.
*twin mattress and boxspring (see above)
*lunch bags and coolers: I have several that are still good and look good, but I no longer use them.

So far the list is fairly small and all cheap items. If this is all we have by June, we’ll donate to a thrift store rather than put the time and money into a sale. Chuck feels confident we’ll have more of the Big Stuff by then, especially with the daughter’s impending move. Okay, dear, I’m willing to wait.

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>More than voting; staying active

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>I was disappointed; I’d offered to take other teachers to a political event, but none were willing. I’ve gone to this meet-up with legislators several times. It’s easy, painless, absolutely non-intimidating. The answers kept coming back No, no, no, no, no.
Deep sigh. Believe it or not, teaching is highly dependent on political decisions. Decision made in Madison affect our curriculum; decisions made in Washington, D.C. affect our assessments. That’s only the beginning.
But no one would go.

Soon after this non-event, a former colleague called to invite me to a meeting of Organizing for America, I thought it over and said, “Count me in.” Not just because of my disappointment in my professional colleagues, not just because the meeting was taking place at a local coffeehouse, but because it felt right.

The evening’s discussions were basic, describing the group’s purpose and structure and opportunities. We adjourned before my parking meter ran out, so the trip only cost me a few quarters and the price of a white chocolate raspberry mocha.

My future with this group? Unknown at this time. Phoning isn’t my strength. Instead, I predict I’ll be a letter writer, pamphlet creator, and (perhaps) blogger.

If I can’t recruit teaching colleagues to meet with legislators, I can work with other volunteers to inspire voters. Yes, I can.

You can, too. Establish an account on Organizing for America’s website and look for events in your area. You can do as little or as much as you wish. Each and every action, large or small, will make a difference to keep our country on track for the kind of change in which we still believe.

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