Freshly Remembered

I got to spend some fun quality time today with my niece and nephews. Our conversations were typically wide-ranging and at one point involved watching the trailer for Iron Man 3 with my older nephews. One Marvel thing led to another, and as we were discussing Thor, I remembered that it had been directed by Kenneth Branaugh.

"That's Gilderoy Lockhart to you," I said, but then I thought back to when Branaugh was kind of a sensation after directing Henry V. "You might like that movie," I told my nephew Treat. "It was great. Hey! Let's watch the trailer."

I pulled it up on YouTube without any trouble, and then the voice over started. You know the one.

It was a time of courtier and kings...
It was the turning point for the English throne...
It was one of history's greatest adventures...

And so it went on. For a moment, I was sure it was a really funny parody, and I giggled, but as it turned out, it was just a cheesy trailer from 1989.

Not at all what I remembered, which is ironic given the pivotal speech of both play and movie.

This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered

Or not.

Assignments With Friends

I have a colleague who, to me, has always seemed a little obsessed with preventing kids from cheating on tests. She teaches math, though, and so I realize it's a much larger issue for her class-- it would be silly, and a little obvious, for my students to copy each other's writing. I guess I just assumed that their integrity extended beyond the walls and purview of English class.

Today, though, my lesson plan included a few puzzles and other fun activities for them to exercise their thinking and creativity on the day before Thanksgiving break. I have to admit that I was a little appalled at how many kids were peeking at their neighbors' work to get a little help in solving the challenges. It almost seemed like a time-honored strategy, but where's the fun in that?.

Here's a version of one of the puzzles I offered:

Directions: Add two squares to the drawing so that every turkey has its own pen.

(Thanks to this site for the image-- mine was in a word doc and just would not cooperate with this format.)

Up and Coming

One day, several years ago probably, I crossed the line from teacher to old teacher. Although I didn't even notice it, clearly the boundary has been breached. Oh, I remember how it was when I first started, building relationships with the veterans, asking for guidance, hoping for approval, but secretly looking at them kind of critically, too. What could they possibly know that I didn't? One thing they weren't? Friends.

But now, the tables have turned, the shoe's on the other foot, insert your own proverb here, and younger, less experienced teachers are everywhere. It's just another part of the job to negotiate a professional relationship with them, never mind a personal one.

This year, as a result of our expanding enrollment, we have gone from 2 teams to three, and so now we Dolphins share our space with the Sting Rays. Some of that team were on our team last year, but of course there are new folks, too, and one of them is the science teacher. She is young and brash, and the introvert in me has taken some time to warm to her.

Last weekend, on our trip to the beach, we found some fossilized ray teeth, and when word got back to my friends on the Ray team, they were curious about it. After a grade level meeting, I quickly filled them in, and as one thing led to another, we exchanged a little fun trash talk, something about dolphins this and rays that. I was laughing as I turned to leave, when the new girl gave me an ironic salute.

"Peace out, Flipper."

I kind of liked that.

Dukkas and Don'tkas

There are basically three reasons to make some things from scratch: 1) it's cheaper, 2) you can't readily buy it, or 3) the way you can buy it isn't the way you like it.

This Sunday finds me tearing up the kitchen-- in addition to the sauerkraut I started a couple of weeks ago, I have a little kim chee going, some vegan pumpkin-chocolate chip muffins, and I'm also toasting the spices to make some dukka to go with our roasted cauliflower soup.

What's dukka, you ask? It's a delicious nut and spice mix from Egypt. You take a hunk of bread, dip it in olive oil, and then in the dukka. We love it around here, and here is the only place we can get it.

Dukka

1/2 cup hazelnuts
6 tablespoons coriander seeds
3 tablespoons whole cumin seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1/2 cup salted roasted pistachios
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 350°. Spread the hazelnuts in a pie plate and toast for 12 minutes, until fragrant and the skins blister. Transfer the hazelnuts to a kitchen towel and let cool. Rub the nuts together to remove the skins and transfer to a food processor.

In a medium skillet, toast the coriander and cumin seeds over moderate heat, shaking the pan, until golden and fragrant, about 3 minutes. Spread the spices out on a plate and let cool completely, then finely grind in a spice grinder. In the same skillet, toast the sesame seeds over moderate heat until golden, 2 to 3 minutes.

Transfer the sesame seeds to the plate to cool. Add the coriander, cumin, sesame seeds and thyme to the food processor along with the pistachios, cayenne and 1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper and pulse until finely ground. Transfer the dukka to a bowl.

Some Habits Die Hard

This morning I was facetiming with my mother. She's coming to town tomorrow for the holidays, so I wanted to get her flight info and wish her safe travels.  I was sitting in an easy chair by the window during the call, and rather than allow my face to be darkened by backlighting, I turned sideways so that my folded legs were against one arm and my back rested against the other. It wasn't the most comfortable of positions, so I was wiggling a bit to find a sweet spot as we chatted.

"Do you have to go to the bathroom?" my mother asked me.

(Full confession: As a kid, I was notorious for getting caught up in something and rather than pausing, I would just do a little dance until the moment was more convenient to visit the restroom. My family might say that I never outgrew that particular quirk. Whatever...)

"No!" I answered, and started to explain, but then I stopped and said, "Mom! I think now that I'm fifty you can stop asking me that question."

"No I can't," she replied. "You'll always be my little girl."

Bless My Heart

Tonight the way the November light drains slowly from the sky pleases me. The black, black silhouettes of phone poles, power lines, and lately bare trees against the yellow-washed horizon and the silver nail of the moon in the indigo dark above is almost too good.

Not So Super

My classes have been competing in "Super Sentence" tournaments the last couple days. The premise of the activity involves finding sentences we love, breaking down their components, and then composing our own sentences that somehow rise above the norm.

The competition itself is head to head brackets where the winner goes through to the next round. The judges are the other students in the class, with a reminder every round to vote for the sentence not the person, along with random debriefs where kids have to justify their votes based on our agreed upon menu of criteria. I never vote, unless it's a tie.

It's a fun and engaging activity for most. I do my best to keep the stakes low and to pad the disappointment of defeat by praising each sentence myself. Still, there are always bruised feelings, which I also try to turn into teachable moments about writing and audience.

Even so, today, I totally screwed up. In the last round of my last class, I mentioned that should the male student win, he would be the only boy champion of the tournament; all the other class winners were girls.

Was it any surprise then, when all the boys voted for him and all the girls voted for his rival? Of course it was a tie.

And since it was up to me? It remained so.