Facial Recognition Software

Several years ago our school started an alumni barbecue. Held one afternoon in June, all the high school kids who went through middle school here are invited back for hot dogs and lemonade. The food is welcome, but seeing their former classmates and teachers is the biggest draw, of course.

After 2 years away from that tradition, we reinstated it today, and 3 PM found a bunch of teachers gathered out back somewhat nervously-- Will I know anyone? Will I recognize them? Will they remember me? Then little by little in pairs and trios kids started arriving, and they, too, looked nervously around until they spotted a familiar face, which made their own light up.

They were supposed to wear name tags, but not everyone did, and they were a little shy, too. The faces were sort of recognizable, but not always. "Do you remember me?" asked one student. "I'm Zosia!" 

Her name was blown away by the breeze, and I couldn't place her, but her friend came to the rescue. "She used to be about this tall,"they said holding a hand by their waist.

"Zosia!" I said, and she smiled. Then I turned to the friend. "Thank you! That was very helpful!"

Finally, it got to the point where if I saw a face I knew I knew, I just went over to the kid and asked their name, because it was better than being put on the spot. Even so, that plan didn't always work. A colleague and I stood close together then, to help each other out, and when a student came up and engaged us in conversation, it gave me a little time to access this aging memory bank when my friend was talking.

"Sariah!" I said in one such situation, and she beamed

"You remember my name?" she asked with delight.

"I do!" I told her. "I do!"

Adaptations

Years ago my cousin gave me her recipe for date nut bread. It was a staple at our Thanksgiving get togethers, and since she passed away in 2000, I treasure the handwritten card as well as the recipe itself. The technique is one I have not seen in other quick breads: it involves pouring boiling water over dried dates, sugar, a stick of butter, and baking soda. When the butter is melted, 2 eggs are added, and then flour, a pinch of salt, and the chopped nuts. The resulting bread is dark and moist, sweet and buttery, delicious, really.

Just in the last year or so I have begun experimenting by using the method with other dried fruit. The results have been very good, especially the sour cherry pecan, studded with white chocolate chips. Today at the farmers market my eye was drawn to a bag of dried apple wedges and a bunch rhubarb. I purchased the duo, considering just how they might be combined. Sandy's recipe was the answer. Apples, rhubarb, and pecans, with a touch of apple pie spice and a little extra cinnamon, all baked up into an amazing loaf. Sweet, tart, nutty, dense and buttery, just a thin slice is a satisfying snack.

On Hand

Last Saturday I woke up determined to make ice cream, strawberry ice cream in fact, using a recipe my mother gave me a few years ago. I didn't have all the ingredients, but rather than let that stop me, I substituted a few things and ended up with an entirely different version. 

The almond strawberry swirl was delicious in its own way, but after enjoying a pint and a half this week, today I woke up determined to make strawberry almond tea bread with what was left. After melting the 2 cups in the microwave, I added a couple eggs, some lemon-lime syrup I had going, ginger, cinnamon, 2 cups of flour, and some leavening, and baked it off.

The result was very pleasant, moist and firm, with good strawberry flavor, along with subtle notes of almond, citrus and spice. Such a loaf may never exist again, so we will enjoy it while we have it.

Pride is Pride

One of the teacher for a day lessons will celebrate Pride Month by taking a look at all the sexual identity flags. The student teacher prepared a slide show to share with her classmates featuring an image of each flag along with an explanation. 

As I scanned through her slides, I had to stop at the one with a pride banner featuring gray, green, and white stripes. Aromatic it read. It took me a beat before I realized that auto-correct had struck again, transforming the word aromantic. Even as I type now, there is a menacing red squiggle under that word. 

I'll take care to leave it as I have written it, but I can't stop thinking about Aromatic Pride, and what that flag might look like.

50,000 Hours or So

Malcolm Gladwell famously posited that it takes 10,000 hours or more of practice to make someone an expert, and the way I figure it, I've done my time in teaching.

So, as we enter the last couple weeks of school and the teacher-for-a-day lesson ideas start to come in,  "Come talk to me!" I always tell the kids. "I've been doing this job a long time, and I've got some mad teaching skills. I'm ready to help!" 

"I want to teach the class to make a pillow fort for my lesson," a student told me today. 

"Hmmm," I responded, "what will you use for the hands-on part of the lesson?"

She gestured grandly to the four pillows I have over by the windows.

"That doesn't really seem like enough for everybody," I said.

Her face fell.

"What if..." I continued, thinking out loud. "What if we made little pillows so that they could create models of their forts?"

She looked skeptical. 

"Hand me a piece of paper," I said, grabbing some scissors. I folded the paper in half and then cut it in half. I stapled it closed on three sides. "Does this look about the right size?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Now we need some stuffing." I looked around the room and my eyes landed on a tissue box. I pulled a few out, wadded them loosely, and gently pushed them into the pouch. A couple more staples produced a pretty little paper pillow.

Now the student was smiling. "Do you think this will work?" I asked.

"I really do!" she replied. 

After we talked a bit about presentations and rubrics, she returned to her seat to finish her planning.

On the way out the door at the end of class, I saw her show the prototype to a classmate. "I'm doing pillow fights for my lesson," she said, "and these are the pillows we're going to make!"

"That's actually pretty genius," said her friend.

Genius? Perhaps, but I prefer to think of it as expertise.

The first kid looked at me, and I gave her a chin nod.

"Thanks," she told her friend.

Deep Roots

Today was the state math test for sixth graders and the luck of the draw had me proctoring a group of kids I did not know. At this point in the year, that situation could go either way. Either the students will be quiet, because they are unsure of me, or they will consider me a glorified substitute and challenge me. I can certainly handle either, but who wants to spend almost 5 hours locked in a room with a bunch of antagonistic tweens?

As I took attendance, I made note of a few of the last names. "Do you have a brother in 8th grade named Max?" I asked one student. "Do you have a sister in high school named Ava?" I asked another. "And your sister is out of college, right?" I said to a third.

By this time, the group was pretty impressed. Even if I didn't know them personally, I had some juice through my connections. That's when I got to the last kid. "Do you have an aunt named Tasha?" I asked him.

"She's my mom!" he said. There was a low suspiration of approbation from the crowd, and the testing continued without a hitch from there. 

Bible Belt

“Do you have a charger I can use?” One of my students asked in class today. 

I’m a pick your battles kind of a teacher, always with a ready supply of pencils and paper and you name it- whatever a student needs to do the job, I think we should provide it. But after all that, and an iPad, too, when a kid consistently can't manage to bring either a charged device or the equipment she needs to charge it? Well, that's just annoying. 

Spoiler alert: I gave her a charger. 

But before I did, I also gave her some grief. "What happened this time?" I asked, a little crossly. 

"Well I was reading in bed last night," she started.

I raised my eyebrows, because that would be very unusual for this child. 

She saw my reaction and continued anyway. "I was reading," she repeated, "I was reading the Bible!"

"No you weren't!" I said.

"I was, my dad made me!" she insisted.

"But your family is Muslim," I cried.

"True," she shook her head, momentarily at a loss. "But--"

"Here's a charger," I said. "Go do your work."