I am at a scholars’ retreat in Denver, for a solid seven days, to focus on writing a book I’ve been thinking about and after the first coaching meeting with the co-directors, I am sold. On the idea of a retreat, and on how quickly they saw what I was really saying, along with all the things I wasn’t. What I know, and what I intuit, and how I can move between those in writing something new, possible, based on what I’ve lived. I know I’m being vague, but I need to put more specific words down in a new place, a new blank document to start figuring out the parameters….
Writing good is writing messy, and it’s about the heart as much as the mind.
In case it hasn’t been apparent already, the end of the semester has come and gone — and with it, graduations galore. I need a couple of days inside my shell, hidden at the end of the world, with piles of books and seltzer water and warm kitties on my feet. See you sometime next week!
Get a dog. More specifically, adopt a lab puppy — preferably one described on her paperwork (which you don’t get until *after* you sign to take her home, hmmmm) as “hyper” and “mouthy”. Bonus points if you adopt her even though she climbs on to and stands on the table as you are signing the forms. Make sure she is a lab — with a chewing quotient that is off the charts and more potential for damage than a three-assed toad. Bring her home, where you both do much of your work. Have to keep buying crates because she grows out of them. Add two cats, lots of deadlines, little sleep, financial pressures, furniture and stir.
If your relationship lasts six months after the day you brought her home, it’s as good as eloping. You now have a family.
I am sitting here, in sweats and my “Little Miss Bossy” t-shirt, in day who knows what of the end of the semester grade-a-thon. I also have two things due (writing deadlines) on May 15th. Genius, that’s what that decision was. The house looks (again) like hell, I look like hell, and the sun is shining outside. Need to take Willa the Dancing Dog out for a walk and get my head straight — enough coffee and sunshine can set anything right.
I just sent my first letter to the NYTimes op-ed page, which I guess is a kinda cool thing. First, it makes me feel like I stood up for something and second, what if they printed it? That would be really cool…. It was about an article on laptops in schools, which was the usual soundbites from superintendents but this time that they were going to take the laptops out because the kids were IMing and cheating. Duh. We have to teach *how* to use the technology effectively, and put classes and programs in place that engage students rather than giving them the opportunity to cheat and screw around. As cliched as it sounds, they are just cheating themselves out of opportunities to learn and participate that they might not get again. Too much of technology use in schools is still Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing software, the bane of every substitute teacher who ever stood in for a computer teacher. Trust me, I know from experience….
The Office is easily the best thing on television right now (30 Rock is runner-up and Dexter for drama) and Steve Carell is a genius. You MUST check it out. Nothing is as brave or funny out there right now…
As an occupational hazard, I find myself thinking a lot about what good learning and teaching look like, and often I come across examples in the most unexpected places. Nearly every Wednesday I read the Dining section in the Times (online, of course : ) because I love food and love even more reading about places I will probably never be able to visit. Which reminds me, Chris and I should start saving up again for a really great meal…. some places are just worth the money.
In that section today was a great article, a follow up to a piece done about a culinary high school in the city. It seems that the journalist had made some assumptions about how the high school students, mostly low-income, would not probably be able to eat at a four-star restaurant but might work there some day. Two of the students mentioned got pretty mad — and rightfully so — that the journalist didn’t assume they might own the restaurant. In a sense, she made the classical mistake many of us in education make by assuming urban schools and students have only a couple of options open to them, and that patterns of family income and education don’t change when of course they do. The journalist, whose name escapes me as I write this, was admirably open to the girls’ critique and made up to them by taking them to Le Bernadin, a restaurant quite out of my league as a four-star mecca for French Cuisine.
To sum up this story, the girls loved the meal and made excellent and interesting observations throughout, connecting the food and service to their own experiences and learning in the culinary high school. They tried foods they had never had before, and asked questions of the waiter, sommelier, and chef. Clearly both girls learned an enormous amount, took notes as they ate, and demonstrated deep thinking and understanding. That is good education, of the kind sorely lacking in most American high schools — the opportunity to apply knowledge to real situations, to think deeply about connections, to ask questions of experts. It’s also the kind of education we should be shooting for.
Interested in reading more? Here’s the link to the article, and warning: it will make you hungry.
Just for fun, here’s a video Chris appeared in 20 (!) years ago — a karaoke vid set to “The Rose.” Apparently he was working on the set when the director decided she wanted to replace the male lead with him. He’s the guy in the suit in the middle and at the end — the one with the rose. It’s hard to see, but he’s so damned cute!