Not Feeling Super
Posted by: LSM on: February 7, 2010
Dare I admit on the day that the nation devotes itself toward consuming large portions of snack foods and alcohol while watching large men propel a ball up and down a field that I don’t actually enjoy professional football?
Give me high school or college football any day of the year. It’s hard to beat the excitement of a big rivalry game played under the Friday night lights or roadtripping back to my university for game day with 80,000 other screaming fans. But, I’ve never understood the allure of the game at the professional level. It seems sterile in some way, lacking the emotion inspired by lower leagues.
That said, I’m having difficulty dredging up the inspiration to spend an evening devoted to tonight’s Super Bowl game. We’ve accepted an invitation to watch the game at the home of one of Soccer Boy’s friends, and the girls plan to go to the annual watch party our church youth group hosts. But, as of this morning, when I woke up for the third day in a row feeling less-than-spectacular, I decided to send Adventure Guy, Soccer Boy, and my favorite football appetizer*, to the party without me.
I’ll stay home, nurse my cold, and try to get some reading and writing done for one of the courses I’m taking this semester. Overall, I’m thinking that’ll make my evening a winner no matter how the game turns out.
*The only negative I see at this point to missing the party is not actually eating any of this tonight. It’s yummy and always a hit with the guys!
Numero Uno Bean Dip
1 15 oz. can refried beans
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 c. sour cream
1 bunch green onions, chopped
3/4 c. picante sauce
1 packet taco seasoning
4 oz. can chopped green chilis
1/2 tsp. oregano
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c. grated Monterey Jack cheese
Combine all ingredients except cheese. Spread in lightly greased 9 by 13 inch baking dish. Sprinkle cheese on top. Bake 1 hour at 300 degrees, covering top loosely with foil for first half hour. Serve with tortilla chips.
Ready or Not?
Posted by: LSM on: February 3, 2010
- In: Work
- 2 Comments
Word on the street–or maybe it would be more appropriate to say word in the halls–is that the Obama administration plans to ask Congress to revamp the No Child Left Behind law to focus less on the numerical calculations of test scores to determine AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) and more on how many students are on track to be “college and career ready” by the end of high school.
And, isn’t that in many ways what school should be all about? Rather than teaching kids how to bubble in little circles well or write canned five-paragraph essays, shouldn’t we be preparing them for success in later life? I love the New York Times opinion piece that Harriet over at AJ’s Clubhouse shared recently. The ideal classroom described reflects exactly the kind of learning environment we’ve worked hard to achieve at All-American Public Schools. We’re not living in education-Nirvana yet, but we’re a lot closer to it than we were even a few years ago.
Susan Engel, author of the NYT’s article, states
Our success depends on embracing a curriculum focused on essential skills like reading, writing, computation, pattern detection, conversation and collaboration — a curriculum designed to raise children, rather than test scores.
I love that. Love it. I’m going to totally steal it as my motto for the curriculum work I do in the district. Raising children, rather than test scores. Exactly.
That phrase and the idea of “college and career readiness” kept swirling around in my head during my drive home from work tonight. I’m the product of public schools. And, at the end of my career there, I found myself quite prepared for college, which in turn prepared me for my career. (And, since I can’t resist some editorializing of my own, let’s recall the public schools were supposedly, though not actually, failing then too.)
So what lessons did I learn back in the days of ribbon belts, leg warmers, and big hair that pushed me toward productive citizenship?
- I learned how to write a meaningful personal narrative and a well-researched paper from a senior English teacher who also tapped out iambic pentameter on her trashcan.
- I learned that Taoism was a dead religion (something the 20 million followers and the people who built the temple across from the high school where I eventually worked in Houston would be surprised to know) on my way to falling in love with studying history in my first AP class. Fortunately, I also learned that sometimes sources are wrong, so it’s good to check more than one.
- I learned that hard work, dedication, and perseverance pay off and that sometime that payoff involves even more hard work. This lesson came almost entirely from marching up and down a vast expanse of black asphalt, sweating it out in the middle of a series of Texas summers. That sweat (along with some hazing that would be strictly verboten in this day and age) earned me every moment of time I spent sparkling in my majorette uniform under the glow of the Friday night lights.
- I learned that having two parents who excel in the liberal arts does not earn you any science fair prizes nor serve as any help in completing advanced math or chemistry homework. This lesson inspired me to do better for my own children by seeking out a partner with an engineering degree. Unfortunately, it also led to my having to endure things like watching my dryer being disassembled without benefit of a repairman. We all make compromises.
In looking over my list, I know it wasn’t the details, the facts, the things I memorized that made me college and career ready. It was the process, the thinking, the stretching to achieve things maybe I didn’t even think I could achieve until I did. That’s what I hope we can capture in my district and across the country.
What lessons did you take away from school? What lessons do you hope your children will take with them into the world?
Knocking Opportunity
Posted by: LSM on: February 1, 2010
More than once I’ve told my mother, a speech language pathologist, that some day I’ll have people calling me up and offering me jobs the way she often does. Until last week, it never actually happened.
And then, it did. A recruiter contacted me regarding a position that immediately intrigued me. Our initial conversation led to another with the hiring manager. Who shared that I had exactly the qualifications she was looking for–looking for in New York City.
My first reaction went something like this…
Then I did a little research. Thanks to some advice from a friend regarding New York-area suburbs and my mad realtor.com skills, I was able to make some good cost-of-living comparisons between our current location and potential relocation areas. I talked things over with Adventure Guy, and we set a salary range that spanned from “take it immediately” to “think about it” to “better luck next time.”
And this morning, I opted for answer number three. The great thing about not looking for a job is the ability to make sure you really want the one that’s offered. And, I still think the job is a great opportunity, especially for someone who already lives in the New York area, and I’d definitely consider an offer from the company if it involved working in this region of the country.
But stepping outside of my own interest in the work involved, I had to factor in what my taking such a position would mean for the other four people I live with, not to mention the respective extended families. And although if the offer had come in along the category one range, I’ll admit I might have prioritized financial security over some of the other considerations, I can’t say I regret that the decision came easy for me. Because there are some things that can’t be quantified in terms of salaries and benefits. Benefits such as having the opportunity to spend one’s entire school career in one place and then come home from college to that same place, of going into high school with the same best friend you made in preschool, of sledding, playing soccer, and building forts with the boys you’ve known forever. It’s those benefits I’m giving my kids this week and for the foreseeable future.
And that seems to add up to just the right number for now.
Protected: Party Time
Posted by: LSM on: January 31, 2010
- In: Life in General
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The Snow Day That Was
Posted by: LSM on: January 29, 2010
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.~Robert Frost
According to the weather forecasters, the end was at hand, coming via Frost’s second choice in one of my favorite poems, Fire and Ice. Since Wednesday, the newscasters focused on breaking weather updates, whipping everyone into a frenzy of grocery shopping and generator buying.
Personally, I remain sans generator. But I do have milk, eggs, bacon, and Coke Zero in sufficient supplies to last us several days. Oh, and a manual can opener since I realized belatedly during the last power outages we experienced that I’d loaned mine to a neighbor who moved without returning it. It’s helpful to have a gas cooktop when the electricity goes out but not so helpful if you find yourself unable to open soup and other canned goods to cook on said stove.
I spent yesterday with around 100 teachers while they worked with our literacy consultant. Most spent the day wondering if we’d make it without releasing students early when the big storm hit. We checked radar reports and watched the skies. Then, we released students on time into nothing more than a bit of rain.
By the time I left work at around 5:30 p.m., I did have to scrape my windshield–not an uncommon experience at this time of year. Thanks to a spate of surrounding districts calling school off and the continuing reports of impending doom from the national weather service, we made the decision to cancel school for today right before I left. Typically we wait longer, until the transportation director drives the roads around 4:00 a.m. or at least until the time we can announce closures on the ten o’clock news. I advocated for waiting, but I lost. We all realized, once our district stood as the last holdout in the area, that waiting simply postponed the inevitable.
But, it seems, what was not inevitable was that whole ice storm thing. I awoke this morning to Adventure Guy asking, “Why is it you called off school? Things look fine.” And, indeed they did. We had a little ice on the trees, but the roads were only slippery on the overpasses. We’ve gone to school in much worse conditions.
I began second-guessing the decision to call school off as well as my own decision to take advantage of the situation and take a vacation day rather than going in to the office (yes, those who make the decision to call school off don’t actually get to stay home on snow days unless we take vacation time). But, just as I was wondering if I’d be better off heading in to the office, the snow started.
Lovely, constant, heavy snowfall began at around 9:00 a.m. and has continued since then. We’re supposed to get five to eight inches, which is a lot for us. The kids are hoping they can sled since the snow over Christmas proved so powdery that it provided little zip for the sledding hill. And, I’m enjoying sitting wrapped in a cozy blanket while I watch the show outside my window.
The only question now is whether or not I’ll be spending my Saturday in a graduate class as planned, or if the university will cancel classes as they did last night and today. At least it’s good to know that we were not alone in our reaction to the anticipated apocalypse. That and the fact that this snow day does indeed involve snow.
My favorite tree
Sweet Sixteen
Posted by: LSM on: January 27, 2010
It only took a few hours for me to experience my first, “Oh my God, there’s an ambulance. Is it DD1?” moment. Yes, as of 8:30 a.m., our efforts of last summer paid off, and my oldest joined the ranks of licensed drivers. I lasted until around 5:00 p.m. before that first irrational moment of panic which occurred as I drove home from work.
For some reason, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around having a sixteen-year-old. And it’s not the driving thing (which, really, is kind of fabulous in a reduced-carpooling way). What I can’t get a grip on is the fact that I remember—so clearly—being sixteen. And even more so, I remember being twenty-five and holding a newborn baby in my arms. How is it possible sixteen years have passed since then?
But, let’s not dwell on all of that (which may or may not be related to the current state of my hormones and my crow’s feet). What I’m so happy about is the wonderful person my oldest has become. Her tendency toward pulling together diverse groups of people that I noted as early as first grade has continued right on into high school. I love the diversity of her friends and their wide interests. I love her acceptance of others and her kindness toward them.
DD1 works hard in school and enjoys her extracurricular activities…playing the cello, running cross country and track, and participating in several school clubs and service organizations. It’s fun to have her around. Which, when it comes right down to it, makes me understand what I don’t like about this sixteenth birthday. It brings us another year closer to the time she’ll be spreading those wings even further and leaving home.
So, I think I’ll just think about that tomorrow. Or even next year. For now, I’ve got a birthday to celebrate!
Time’s A Wasting
Posted by: LSM on: January 26, 2010
I shouldn’t have a lot of free time. In fact, I’m writing this as an extremely effective avoidance technique. Eventually, I’ll have to read the rest of the article for the graduate class I begin Thursday night. I managed to take care of the other pre-class assignment this afternoon. The task? Create a metaphor for the All-American Public Schools community complete with depiction of internal and external forces that affect it. Except the professor used some really fancy words for “internal and external” that I won’t go into here. Suffice it to say I had to google the terms to figure them out.
Besides blogging, my chosen method of procrastination involves reading novels. I’ve been on a roll lately, storing up for the time I knew was coming. The time when I’d turn to textbooks rather than pulp fiction. And, I try waste that time wisely. Which is why I was so disappointed with my latest read, Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant. I really enjoyed her earlier novel, The Birth of Venus, so I popped Sacred Hearts into my library queue when I spotted it as a recommendation from Amazon.
Yes, I’m trying to cut down on Amazon use, but it’s still one of the best sources for textbooks I’ve found. So, I visit, and occasionally I still buy. I can’t tell you how thankful I am to have not wasted any money on this particular read. Against my usual practice, I skimmed at least the last third of the book. I kept telling myself that I should just quit reading it, but I wanted to know what happened in the end. Then I got to the end, and what happened was exactly what I’d predicted about a quarter in to the book.
Typically, I try to tie my reviews into my own experiences, to place the book in the context of my life. The story of a 16th-century nun, placed in a convent against her will, though, just didn’t do anything for me. The plot lacked the intrigue often found in historical fiction, and I guess I enjoy the conniving and twisting storylines more than I knew.
So, I can’t recommend this particular novel. But, never fear, I have figured out a way to tie it in to my own life. Yes, it’s an update on the church skit saga. Which, fortunately, has turned out to be very low on the drama scale.
Early Monday, I received a response to the email I sent on Sunday night. The youth minister wrote that, while she hadn’t seen the presentation in the same light I did while they were working on the script and the performance preparation, she did see it in retrospect once I pointed out my concerns. She thanked me for contacting her directly and said she’d be more aware of the messages sent regarding women’s roles in the future.
I feel good both about taking time to share my concerns rather than dwelling on them and about the sincerity of the reply. The willingness to hear my point of view and discuss our varying perceptions of the performance reinforces what I’ve always liked about my church–the nonjudgmental nature and open-mindedness. And, it let me take a deep breath and move on. I’m looking forward to next Sunday, and I’m awfully glad that, unlike the protagonist in Sacred Hearts, I am in absolute control of where I worship.
1950, Anyone?
Posted by: LSM on: January 24, 2010
I’m wondering if God is speaking to me by erasing an email from my “sent” folder. Because, see, when I returned home from church today, I fired off said email to the youth minister and cc’d the pastor. And, now, when I got ready to copy and paste some of it right here on this very blog, I discovered it’s gone. G. O. N. E. And, I distinctly remember hitting “send” right after I read my carefully constructed words to Adventure Guy. And, no, it’s not in the “drafts” folder either.
I am left with no option but to wait and see if I get a response to the ghost email. Writing it again would only guarantee that the original did get sent, making me look like an idiot. I’d rather rely on venting here rather than risk being accused of double ranting.
After all, who wants to be a double ranter? Not me. I want to be that rational person who found herself offended by the youth group’s skit during services today and responded by writing a well-thought-out email to the staff. We’ll just leave out the part when I held my Sunday school class hostage while I told them all about it.
So, what was so bad about the skit? The message? No. I’m all for remembering that there are more important things in life than making money and career success. The costumes? Nope. They were totally church-appropriate. Oh, yes. It was the completely stereotypical depiction of both moms who choose to stay home with their children and moms who choose to work outside the home.
The skit involved the “Game of Life” and began with the kids choosing whether or not to go to college. One of the girls said she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and was promptly swept off to a wedding ceremony and handed a baby–no college detour required. Two of the other girls said they planned to go to college–one to become a doctor and the other to become a writer/professor. All was well until later when the doctor was depicted telling her child she couldn’t make it to a dance recital, and the writer reported that she’d made it big but at a price that included losing a husband who couldn’t take her focus on work. But, never fear, the girl who decided to forego college to become a musician hit the big time.
And where were the boys in all of this? Who knows. One made a brief appearance during the wedding scene, another as the doctor who stepped in to cover rounds while the first doctor made it to that dance recital, and a third skipped college for a career in sales. But not one had any lines that indicated their choices impacted their families or their marriages. Because, evidently, it’s only women who have to give up their opportunity for an education to become good parents and spouses.
I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing at the time it was happening. Even worse was the realization that the kids had written this script. It’s 2010. Do 7th graders really believe it’s a waste of time to go to college if you think you’d eventually like to stay home with your kids? Do they really think that women can’t be good mothers and wives and still have a career? If they do, why didn’t those who work with them at church point out the fallacies involved in that thinking? Or is it that they believe all that too?
On my way out of the sanctuary, I told DD1 and a group of her sophomore friends, “Girls, I just want to point out that you can go to college even if you want to stay home with your kids. And, also, you won’t be doomed to neglect your children or lose your husband if you decide to keep working.” Their response? “Oh, don’t worry. We’re planning to skip college and become rock stars instead.”
So, at least they get bonus points for humor.
Adventure Guy skipped church today to live up to his name by taking one of the dogs out to do some bird hunting. That left me to double check my reaction with my Sunday school class. Unfortunately, no one in attendance had seen the whole thing since a couple had just come to class rather than attending the service and others had been volunteering in other capacities.
I explained the general gist of the skit to them, and found myself a bit calmed by the fact that they found it equally disturbing. It was especially interesting to hear the reactions of two of the men in class, both of whom work reduced schedules from home in order to spend more time with their kids. After I finished talking it over with them and then taking the kids out to meet friends for lunch, Adventure Guy arrived home just in time for me to rehash it all again.
And he insisted I share my thoughts with the youth minister. I wavered a bit before I cc’d the pastor but decided he needed to know as well. And, now, I wait to find out whether some sort of divine intervention has stepped in to keep that from going through. But I hope not. Because I can’t wait to find out what they have to say.
Top 40
Posted by: LSM on: January 23, 2010
- In: Work
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When it came right down to it, I had no desire to get up off my cozy bed, abandon my laptop, and head down to All American Public Schools’ employee appreciation banquet tonight. Work life has been tough lately. I wasn’t feeling too appreciated or too appreciative. Plus, it’s raining. And cold.
But duty called, so I woke up a napping Adventure Guy, changed into an appropriate “business casual” look and made sure he did too, and out we went.
As soon as we entered the ballroom, and I spotted all the familiar faces, I knew I’d made the right decision–well, that and the fact that I was on the program, so it would be pretty hard to explain an absence. But looking around, I saw the custodian who cleaned my first classroom in the district, the daycare workers who staffed my kids’ afterschool program, the people receiving longevity awards that I remembered hiring what seems like only a few years ago, and the teachers who challenge my kids in the classroom each and every day.
All-American Schools finds itself blessed with dedicated, hardworking, brilliant staff members, including the teacher honored tonight for forty years of service to the district. Yes, she started working there when I was a year old. It’s hard for me to comprehend that kind of dedication. Yet, I’ve worked there for 13 years and know I’m still thought of as “new.” It’s that kind of place. A place where you show up and plan to stay a few years and turn around only to find out you’ve been there a lifetime.
A lifetime of making a difference in children’s lives. And, really, I can’t think of any better way to make a living.
The Little Things
Posted by: LSM on: January 20, 2010
Okay, so there some things at work don’t live up to the “all bad, all the time” vibe of my last post. One of the amenities I enjoy since I office on the same campus as the high school is access to the teacher’s cafeteria. Yes, that is a good thing. All-American Schools works hard to provide tasty, healthy meals, and it’s hard to beat plate lunch prices. Plus they offer a great salad, soup, and potato bar daily.
Really, I don’t take enough advantage of the offerings available just a few yards from my desk. But today, thanks to back-to-back meetings, I had just enough time to run over, rather than going out to pick something up.
I entered the cafeteria, stealthily glancing about the room to determine if needed to take a more circuitous route to avoid subjecting DD1 to the utter humiliation brought on by having one’s mother show up in the high school cafeteria. All looked good on that front, so I proceeded on into the teacher’s area, stopping just long enough to give a student who I caught mid pants lift a hard time about needing to play him the Pants on the Ground video.
And then I discovered a beautiful thing. Yes. It was steak finger day–complete with homemade rolls and mashed potatoes with cream gravy. Comfort food just in time to help during a week when I had a dire need for at least something to be comforting!
And it got even better tonight when I picked up DD1 from youth group.
DD1: “Hey, I saw you today, but you didn’t see me. Weren’t you talking to A?”
LSM: “Oh, ya. I was on my way to get lunch, and then I was so excited because…”
DD1 and DD2: “IT WAS STEAK FINGER DAY!”
My work here is done.
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