sk sk sk and i oop

"Are you a visco girl?" one of the students in my small intervention group asked the other day.

"What's that?" I asked. "How do you spell it?"

"V-S-C-O." She laughed. "It's from TikTok-- You have a Hydro Flask, you wear Vans, you have an Apple watch, an iPhone, you like Starbucks and you have a reusable straw... That's VSCO girl. You just need a big t-shirt, some friendship bracelets, a scrunchie, and some lip balm."

"And want to save the turtles," her friend added.

"Wow!" I said, "that totally could be me! But I think I'm probably more of a VSCO Lady."

Too Cool for School

The poster at the craft fair of Dick and Jane running with scissors and captioned, We do bad things because we are bad children. And we like it! made us giggle, so much so, that Heidi purchased the small, hand-sized magnet version of it.

As she paid, the artist chatted her up a bit. "I'm so glad you like it," she said.

"Oh my god!" Heidi replied. "It's hilarious!"

"Thanks," the artist shrugged.

"In fact," Heidi continued, "I'm a teacher, and I just might put this in my classroom."

"Oh," said the artist, wide-eyed, "well." She handed the bag to Heidi. "Just don't get fired!"

Can We Agree on This, at Least?

The times they are divisive! It seems like no one can understand how the people they disagree with could possibly be motivated by anything other than self-interest and fear. Personally, I find not only the current political events stressful, but even the conversation is draining. So much so that I have had to turn off the radio on more than one occasion this week. 

And once I realized that there are actually people who think that what the president did is defensible, I have also avoided reading most of the op-eds out there. Most, but not all. I thoroughly enjoyed the director of the Harvard Writing Center, Jane Rosenzweig's piece in the NY Times called The Whistle-Blower Knows How to Write, especially the two penultimate paragraphs:

Every semester, I encounter students who tell me variously that they hate writing, that they’d rather not write, that for the careers they aspire to they won’t need to write. I explain that no matter what careers they choose, they will have to write — reports, strategic plans, proposals and, if nothing else, many, many emails. 

But I also tell them that learning to write matters because some day they may have something to say that really matters to them and possibly to the world — and they will want to convey it when the moment arrives in writing that’s clear and concise.

Amen! 

Feedback Loop

On the eve of spending part of my weekend grading the first big assignment of the year, my fellow-teacher Mary and I spent a little time looking at the feedback we had received on a unit submitted (not by our choice) to a prestigious international educational organization.

Of the three ratings in each category-- beginning, using, and sharing-- we had gotten an even split between the lowest and the middle. In other words, according to someone somewhere, our unit needed some work. Whoever had evaluated it had written well over 1000 words of advice and suggestions, but to us? Rather than a road map to revision, the prose was convoluted and confusing. Plus, we have no real interest in fixing whatever they think is broke, maybe because the planner is a shadow of what we actually do in the classroom, written during time when we think we have more student-related things to do.

All of this is to say that extensive comments are a waste of time unless the writer values first, the task, and second, the reviewer, a truth I'll keep in mind as I offer my own thoughts to my students this weekend.

Interval Training

I like my work week structured like my workout:

Instead of five steady days this week, I worked one marathon day, took off a day, worked an easy day from home, and then worked two days at a brisk pace, before taking two more days off.

I think such an approach could not only build strength and stamina, but also improve performance.

Just sayin'

You Smell Familiar

Since Heidi was indisposed yesterday afternoon it fell to me to walk Lucy on my own. We headed down the hill and over to the dog park where I hoped she would find some friendly pups to run with. As we made our way along the path from the western gate to the eastern, Lucy did engage a bit with some other dogs, but she was more interested in sniffing than frolicking.

It's a phenomena we have noticed with her lately-- she's a little standoffish with dogs outside her core group, but if the pack is present, she plays with everyone. I guess even with dogs, or perhaps especially with dogs, there is security in numbers.

At any rate, we were about halfway through the park when a blonde doodle and a berniedoodle puppy ran over not to Lucy, but to me. They were both jumping on me like I had a bag of treats, which I did not. Their owner sat on a bench engrossed in her phone the whole time, even as I sternly told them "off!" and "off!" again.

Eventually, they got to Lucy, and they greeted her enthusiastically, too. She played a little with them, but not as strenuously as I wished. A couple minutes later, we moved on down the park. There was something about those dogs that stuck with me though, and when I got home I asked Heidi if she knew them. It wasn't until today that my brain itch was finally scratched. When our dog walker came to get Lucy, she told us there was a doodle fest at her house: Harper and Gatsby were over.

Harper and Gatsby! A blonde doodle and a berniedoodle puppy I have met many times when we've gone to pick up Lucy from the dog walker. They were right-- they did know me! I just didn't recognize them out of context. But who knows what Lucy was thinking?

Shetland

"Is your peerie lad givin' you trouble?" Detective Inspecter Jimmy Perez asked the wife of a person of interest.

I hit pause. "What does peerie even mean?" I asked Heidi. We were watching the 2nd episode in the latest season of Shetland, a BBC One series based on the classically British crime novels of Ann Cleeves. We stumbled upon the show whilst channel surfing early in the summer, and we have been hooked ever since by the rugged isolated beauty of the land which is mirrored in the rugged isolated integrity of the main character and his team.

So much so, that we have begun planning our some day trip there, with stops in Scotland and Norway, since the islands lie in the North Sea right between the two. But before we go, we have to master the language a wee bit more, do we nae? Peerie? Means small, like the peerie ponies and sheep dogs that bear the name of the islands, and is a synonym for wee, but I'm sure there are some subtle differences that we'll learn when we're there.