Sweet Inspiration

 The citrusy smell of a peeled clementine always makes me think of the winter holidays. It doesn't seem that long ago that the season for these tiny tangerines was limited to the months right before and after Christmas, but these days you can get the mini-mandarins almost year-round, now that they are grown in California, as well as imported from not only Spain, but also Morocco and Chile.

When my oldest nephew was five, he was at my house when he enjoyed the first clementine of the new season. After eight months of deprivation, the intense flavor of it rocked him to the core. He devoured three more and then asked for paper and pencil. "How do you spell cwementine?" he asked, and once I told him, he wrote this ode:

clementine oh clementine 
all the world of clementines
clementine oh clementine
all the sea of clementines
clementine oh clementine
all the universe of clementines

Twelve years had passed when he borrowed my iPhone one evening last December at the holiday table, and launching the same app that artist Jorge Columbo has used to create several covers for The New Yorker, he painted this:

All the world of clementines...

In the Name of Accountability

A big word in education these days is accountability. I heard outgoing chancellor of NYC schools Joel Klein use it at least 10 times in a five and a half minute interview tonight. To me, the problem with accountability-- like the statistics that are its handmaidens-- is that more often than not, it is in the eye of the beholder, even while pretending to be otherwise. Ironically, Klein spent the largest part of the interview re-interpreting this summer's negative test numbers in an effort to convince us that he has earned an A during his tenure. Maybe he's right; his boss likes the job he did, even if many parents and teachers do not. Is that accountability?

In my district, our superintendent, now in his sophomore year, has also placed accountability at the forefront, unfortunately without specifically defining it. Along with Excellence, Integrity, Diversity, and Collaboration, Accountability is one of our proposed "Core Values," as in we take responsibility for our progress and are transparent in evaluating student success and our use of the community’s resources. Okay. I can be accountable by that definition. I think.

Not surprisingly, this vague notion of accountability is filtering down and being bandied about in all sorts of settings. For example, today I was in a meeting where another teacher insisted that she wanted the units she was required to submit to come back with comments, even after acknowledging that she wouldn't necessarily find the comments valuable, all in the name of accountability. Where's the accountability? she asked, over and over. She wanted evidence that somebody was doing something even if it wasn't necessarily of value. Hmmm. Accountability for accountability's sake is not a very responsible use of our community's resources.

Of Two Minds

Just last Wednesday I posted about the relatively minor importance of most spelling and grammar errors when it comes to communication. My question was simple: If the message is clear, then why do conventions matter? I do enjoy tipping the sacred cows.

Today at school we were doing some standardized testing. During such times, each teacher receives a bin of materials that we we are required to sign for. It contains test booklets, answer documents, pencils, and forms. It also usually has a sign to tape to the door so that nobody interrupts the class in the middle of the test, but those were missing today. When the testing coordinator came around to check on the session, I asked her if she had one, especially since my group had already been bothered once for an errant lunch box. No problem, she assured me, and a little while later she slipped a green sheet under the door. Testing in Progress, it read, Due Not Disturb.  As an English teacher, I could not, in good conscience, hang that sign on my door, despite the clarity of meaning.

I know our language is evolving, and maybe, as I wrote last week, such an error will be irrelevant in a hundred years. On the flip side of this issue, I heard a piece on the radio on my way home tonight about a website dedicated to words that have been dropped from the dictionary because of their lack of usage. Savethewords.org gives people the chance to adopt one or more of these words and pledge to use them in speech and writing in an attempt to revive them so that they will not be lost forever.

I want to do that! Despite my volgivagrant inclinations, it would misqueme me greatly were our language to languish. That would be an erratum teterrimous. Consider this paragraph my attempt to resarciate. Forgive me, English.

Then Again...

This morning I had just settled at my desk and turned on the computer when there was a sound at the door to my classroom. "Will you come to my room for a minute?" one of the teachers on my team asked. There was a note of anxiety in her voice that made me uneasy as I headed next door. "Do you smell anything?" she asked as I stepped into the hall.

I sure did. It was the unmistakable stench of death. We exchanged knowing grimaces-- there was a dead mouse somewhere in there. We walked around the room sniffing, and it wasn't long before we realized that the odor was strongest by the entry. She dropped to her knees and peered under a large rolling cabinet. "Oh God," she whined and stood up, unable to move. For whatever reason, my usually level-headed, no-nonsense, very competent colleague was totally undone by that rotten rodent this Monday morning. No matter-- I was not.

I asked someone to call maintenance while I opened the windows and borrowed a fan. We added her homeroom kids to mine for the morning, and I lent her the Zen air freshener that I keep at my desk for those random stinky moments that occur all too often in middle school. By first period the room was back in commission, no big deal.

"Wow," said the director of counseling who just so happened to witnessed the event. "What a great team leader!"

If only that was all it took.

Climb Every Mountain

The first real mountains I ever spent time in were the Alps, and I'm afraid no other mountains can compare to them for me: not the Blue Ridge, as pleasant as they are, not the Black Hills, also lovely, and certainly not the Rockies. Every time I visit another range I am slightly disappointed; they are not high enough, or not green enough, or not blue enough, or not jagged enough, or not white enough-- they just aren't the Alps.

Today we saw The Hereafter and I don't have much to say about the movie other than they did a remarkable job depicting the terror of a Tsunami and there was a gorgeous scene in the Alps. I want to go back to the Alps. (AND I'd like every day to have 25 hours.)

Following Directions

I've followed Top Chef since its inaugural season way back in ought six. As reality shows go, it's very entertaining, probably because it is within an area of interest for me. Not only do I enjoy cooking and eating, but I've also worked as a cook, so a hectic professional kitchen takes me back to those days. One thing that is remarkable about the show is that the contestants are never allowed to use recipes. Sometimes that aspect is lost in the competition, but it's key to the show's concept.

When you work as a cook for someone else, you're supposed to follow the recipes they give you. It's weird to cook stuff you don't even like, and it can be tedious, too, but if it's not good, it's not your fault, because it's not your job to be creative. That's the chef's responsibility.

I used to say one should always follow the recipe as written once before making changes, but I've been disappointed too many times for that to be my mantra any longer. These days, I myself rarely use recipes, except when baking. When I want to add new dishes to our favorites, I generally either make something up using whatever we have on hand, re-create something we liked eating out, or read a recipe for the basic concept and ingredients and then go off on my own.

That approach works out for me, perhaps a little too well. Lately I think I may have damaged my ability to follow a recipe. Twice in the last week, I have tried to cook from a recipe and each time I have left out a key ingredient. First it was the leavening in some pumpkin bread and tonight it was the lentils in a mushroom and lentil pot pie. Oops. Both times I lost my way in the recipe when I started to ad lib in the middle: a little rosemary here, a few raisins there, you know. I think the problem was commitment: maybe I should either go with the recipe or not. (Or maybe I'm just getting old.)

I'm happy to report that crisis was averted in both cases. The results were not only edible, but tasty, too. Even so, had I submitted them for the consideration of the judges on Top Chef, I just might have been told to pack my knives and go.

The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem

Sometimes I think I'm a good team leader and sometimes I don't. The job is an example of one of those kind of important things they often ask teachers to do without really providing any training or support. In addition to my already demanding full time job, twelve years ago I volunteered to manage a team of adults for a stipend. Oh, at first I really wanted the leadership role in our school, but for the last few years I've kept it mostly because nobody else will take it from me.

It's hard work to coordinate a team of eight adults, and the learning curve on this for me has been a downward arc-- I've gone from thinking I was doing a great job to questioning my effectiveness. This year, the teachers on my team seem over-worked, over-whelmed, and under-appreciated, and I'm wondering what my role is in both the problem and the solution. I always tell the kids that it's a good thing when you start to know what you don't know, and lately, I'm right there with them.