Books on Your Back- Jungle Book

For some reason, I've been on a bit of tree kick for awhile. 

I've been on a bit of a book kick for 26-ish years. 

[Threadless; $20]

 

Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts

1. Whenever I'm on Yelp trying to find a new restaurant I check the "good for kids" question. If the answer is a "yes" I seriously rethink going. I know I should focus on whether or not the food is good, but as a currently childless twenty-nine year old on a Saturday night I don't want to see hear kids. What can I say? I like to eat at grown-up places.

[source]

2. While working with a group of students prepare for the high school exit exam yesterday I got an overwhelming urge to read Richard Russo. Something mentioned in one of the generic reading comprehension passage brought me back to Mohawk and I promptly started adding more of Russo's books to my wishlist as I walked back to my classroom twenty minutes later.

3. For the love of whoever, would someone kindly tell me how we're supposed to change the bulbs in our recessed lighting over the stairs? Is there something I can buy? Is there someone I can pay? 

4. I can't handle the schizophrenic weather in Southern California lately. Take today- it's in the low fifties, raining, and windy, but by Monday it's going to be 80. Make up your fucking mind, Mother Nature.

[We'll be bitching about 100+ degree temps soon]

5. My asshole iPhone dumped all of my contacts this weekend. Luckily most of the people I talk to I text, so I was able to go back through my conversations and pair up the numbers to the people. After that I promptly backed it up (for the first time ever) on my computer and finally upgraded the software (I'd been resisting for months since I wanted to keep the old map app). Sad lesson learned.

6. I guess BEA registration is happening. Good for you folks that can go. Unfortunately it falls at the end of the school year and there's no way I could get away. Maybe someday.

7. The spam on Blogger is out-of-freaking control. I'm having trouble comprehending how the hell a Google company can't fix this problem. It's infuriating and pisses me off to no end. I don't want to start a captcha to comment, but it might have to happen until Blogger can get it together. 

8. I made my TA make a paper chain counting down the days until the end of the school year. There is nothing better than walking in every morning and taking off a link (if I was nicer I'd probably let my students feel the satisfaction, but I'm not). And while I do so, I repeat in my head "You can do it, Christine. You're one day closer to waking up every morning at 8 am, going to yoga, and then reading by the pool for five hours." 

9. I'm not a purse whore like some people, but it was definitely time to get a new one. I'm a total Fossil fan and my current one has lasted me about five years (my work bag, also Fossil, is on it's seventh school year and still looks great). It wasn't even close to being as much as a Kate Spade or Coach bag, but I still have massive buyer's remorse. I'm sure when it comes I'll get over it.

10. I've let three students now borrow my own personal books. Who am I? I don't even let adults! I think the difference is that I have no problem telling a student that they need to replace it if they lose it, but would feel like a bitch if I did it to a friend. 

[I just tell them they have to replace it and I won't like them anymore]

 

Nathan Englander Reading

[4 freeways later]

I keep trying to figure out why I feel so off today (just slightly more so than any other day, though, to be honest), and then I remember probably because within an hour of getting home yesterday I left and drove to LA for the Nathan Englander reading, which lasted until after 8:30. It was a beautiful night in LA and the library is decorated for spring:

[I'm actually going to get a library card... so I can get my parking validated...]

Nathan Englander was there to promote the paperback edition of his short story collection, What I Talk About When I Talk About Ann Frank, which I read over a year ago. I appreciated his short stories, but my real reason for being a fan is his novel on the Argentinian Dirty War, The Ministry of Lost Cases. The ALOUD event was moderated by The Los Angeles Times critic David L. Ulin, which was a nice treat since I loved his The Lost Art of Reading. 

I just have to add this aside here, I apologize. First of all, Englander needs to update his Twitter profile picture- let's leave it at that. Second of all, his socks were great- pinkish multi-color argyle that clashed terrible with his flannel. I'm serious- I like this "I don't give a shit" attitude amongst the LA literati. Also, I was quite surprised at how old the crowd was- I was probably one of the youngest. The demographics at events like this always interest me- who's reading whom?

[source; warning: objects may appear younger than they really are]

Anyway, as predicted, it was a great event. Englader is animated, liberal, and well-informed. He read for less than ten minutes and the prose came alive with his sardonic wit and straight-up humor. His discussion on the critique that he only writes about Jewish people and the Holocaust was fascinating. He says he'll stop writing about the topic when it stops being relevant, and since it still informs so much of the worldly conscience and the politics in Europe he will continue. He also pointed out that the underlying topic might be the same but that there's a infinite amount of ways to weave it into stories. He spoke quickly and passionately about everything, and in several comments he alluded to a sort of charming self-doubt that we all can relate to.

I wanted to ask him to tell us about Jonathan Safran Foe, since they worked on a translation project, but I thought it might be tacky. 

Remember to check out my reading tab for past events! 

Let's Talk about Food (Baby)

In case you thought the title was implying I had a food baby, or just a baby, let me refresh your memory:

I don't feel like writing about books tonight (my mind is too caught up in Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann to function), so let's talk about food. I always try to follow the whole "eat to live" adage, but when push comes to shove it's a load of shit. I like good food, and lately since I've jumped back on the calorie counting wagon after almost nine months off, I'm definitely working to make sure what I put in my mouth counts. Quality in terms of nutrition and taste are important- I'm not going to waste my daily allowances on crap (at least not always).

I think in lists (seriously):

- I believe in putting in some effort and making a delicious dinner Sunday nights that's either a little bit complicated or features a new recipe. It's the perfect day for it- I grocery shop Sunday morning and I'm usually caught up with everything else. Tonight was Mac and Cheese from scratch with Gruyere, Blue Cheese, and Fontina, topped with bread crumbs and parsley. 

- While we're on the topic, I'm a bit of a Mac and Cheese connoisseur. Unfortunately, most of the ones I've tried fall far short of my expectations- they're too dry, too oily, to mushy, or are obviously from a box (ahem, Panera). It has to be homemade- it just has to be. And it's so easy! Make a roux out of 2 Tbsp butter and 2 Tbsp flour and then slowly dump in 2 cups of milk. Throw in the cheeses and spices of your choice, add noodles, pop in the oven for a half an hour and there you go. Far better than anything else (and worth the 600 calories...). 

[upper right was a husband-less yoga night]

- Thanks to my mother, I'm a firm believer in cleaning up as much as possible before you sit down to eat so that the happy feeling you get from a home-cooked meal doesn't completely go to shit as a result of loading the dishwasher and wiping up counters. 

- I don't care what the experts say, I think unless you are 100% sure that you take in all the necessary vitamins and minerals you should pop a few pills at some point in the day. Personally, I take a prenatal multi-vitamin (no, I'm not pregnant...), a B-complex, C, and Omega-3s. I make sure to pay a few extra bucks for the "non-fishy burps" Omegas.

- I've been eating quinoa and tabbouleh for lunch everyday (plus an apple) and if I could I'd eat it for every meal I would. 

- Actually, I take that back- these days I can't live without my peanut butter/apple butter sandwiches on English muffins for breakfast. At only 30 calories a serving, where has apple butter been all my life?

- I think if you're going to splurge you should go big and find something worth it. This is definitely a philosophy that's evolving- I've stopped buying almost all sugary, fattening treats (with the exception of Trader Joe's Hold the Cones- one tiny little ice cream after dinner and then the kitchen is closed) and look forward to the occasional cupcake or frozen yogurt.

[Diddy Reise, best cookie recipe ever, poser Hostess cupcake in Phoenix]

- Caffeine is evil. Sometimes it's a necessary evil, but for almost nine months I've gone from 3 Diet Cokes and 2 cups of coffee per day to maybe 4 Diet Cokes a week. I'm far more rested and am better hydrated.

- I am so incredibly tired of chain restaurants. We try to avoid them, but unfortunately, there aren't a lot of independent, upper-ish scale places out where we live, which means driving at least a half hour. We only eat out twice a week- something super quick on Friday and than an actual sit-down place on Saturdays. We're back to trying one new place a month, which I'm excited about. 

- I hate it when people use the excuse of "it had too many ingredients" as a reason to shy away from a new recipe. Fine, if the ingredients include lobster, caviar, and truffle oil I can see where you're coming from. But chances are you already have a lot of it in your kitchen or can make substitutions. 

- I can't make the same meal two weeks in a row. Or usually even two weeks apart. Variety is the spice of life.

- I have a really complicated relationship with being vegetarian right now. I'm not sure if my body is appreciating the lack of meat and getting enough protein without relying too much on dairy is just plain hard. It's a really, really tough issue that I spend a lot of time thinking stressing out about. I've talked to my doctor and she's supportive either way, which frankly isn't helpful. 

And now back to Colum McCann. I hope this book lasts forever...

When Helping Hurts

Very few people acknowledge the fact they like to struggle. Struggling makes us anxious, frustrated, and insecure. Life is so much easier when there's a quick solution, or at least answers from Google. 

This is what I deal with on a daily basis, at work- over 100 teenagers that hate to struggle. They panic when things get too hard or when they're not spoon-fed every ounce of information. I work with advanced students, so I'd say maybe 10 percent give up, 65 percent pester me to walk them through each step, and maybe 25 percent take initiative and power through whatever challenge they're facing. For example, over winter break I told them to read The Catcher in the Rye and write a creative and thought-provoking response that had to be long enough to get across their point. They were strictly told to not write a typical analytical essay.

"Yeah, but how many words does it need to be?"

"I'm confused- should I just pick a theme?"

"I don't get it. What do you mean by creative?"

And so on and so forth.

It was purposefully vague and open-ended, and I gave them a few general suggestions to help get the wheels spinning. And some went with it (the 25 percent) and wrote interviews with Holden's psychologist, sequels, prequels, and diary entries. I even had one student who turned the entire novel into limericks, chapter by chapter. I had several that did your typical literary analysis, and many who opted to get a zero in the grade book. It was simple: there were kids who were willing to struggle with the assignment and those who were not.

So why aren't they willing to put in the effort and initiative to solve problems on their own? Sure, part of it is maturity; they are teenagers after all. These crazy kids are still learning to prioritize and many don't understand the long term value in a lot of what they're asked to do. I guess we could blame it on some of their parents too, perhaps they're not expected to do enough at home or never told "no." Hell, we can put the ball in society's court- all this technology and whatnot makes it too easy on kids. And while to some degree all of those reasons are absolutely factors, I have to accept some of the fault on behalf of the system for which I work. The school system is making it too easy for students.

Before I go any further, let me stop and say there are hundreds and thousands of exceptions. Many of my colleagues, and I hope myself, push their kids day in and day out, as well as the students that are happy for the motivation. But there are many, many teachers out there that are more than willing to walk their students through everything, step-by-step in order to help them be successful on the first or second try. They reteach things excessively, refusing to move the class forward until everyone "has it." Teachers who refuse to assign research projects because the kids don't know how to tell a good source from a bad source. Teachers that won't have students write essays because the kids are poor writers. Sometimes helping is actually hurting.

But let's back up. Is it all the teachers' faults? Yes, we need to teach our students how to be independent thinkers, but are we allowed? Here's where it gets dicey. So many teachers feel this overwhelming sense of pressure to be doing the right thing at the right time so when an administrator walks in they won't get in trouble. We feel like we're solely evaluated by our test scores, rather than the true knowledge we impart on our students. We're told that we can't move on to the next topic until "80 percent" of our class is proficient in whatever skill we're trying to teach, and yet we're still expected to adhere to a pacing guide. If a principal or assistant principal walks into our classroom and sees kids "not getting it" it makes us as educators look bad. No on takes into account that students need to struggle- they need to understand what it means to really labor at something, whether it's the analysis of a poem or a complicated physics problem. With Common Core coming down the pipe students need to learn a new way to approach learning and problem solving. By not allowing our students to do this we are doing them such a terrible disservice- they will soon be adults, out in the real world, and unable to problem solve on their own because the very system that was supposed to teach them how to do so failed them.

Let's move up the chain some more. Can we even blame the administrators? Is it their faults that they want test scores to be high and students to show understanding? Of course not. They want to see learning in classrooms, and students failing to understand doesn't necessarily show this (although it may, ten minutes or two days later). Administrators are subjected to just as much pressure as we are as teachers, but by "district people." And the district feels the intensity put forth on them by the county and state. It's a horrible system that results in our students being coddled year after year all for the sake of the adults.

So what's the answer? Hopefully it's Common Core, but if the pressure for test scores still remains it may not be. The real answer is that we, as teachers, have to stand up for our students. We have to compromise with site administrators and prove to them that they can trust our judgement. Personally, I try to incorporate the strategies we're supposed to use while at the same time implementing at least some projects, assignments, and lessons that foster deep-thinking. I don't give them answers, I try to help them arrive at them as a class or as individuals. My students struggle. Sometimes they panic. They even cry on occasion. And sometimes I relent and walk them through things and sometimes I don't. I'm lucky this year in the sense that I teach the course I teach, but even if I taught the "regular" classes I'd work this way too. 

It's time to push the baby birds out and see if they can fly. Sure, we'll teach them how to do it, but at some point they need the big heave-ho. We need to give them a chance to prove to us that they can handle it.

And because this post was so serious, here's quote that shows us what not to do: