Cottage Industries

I spent some time tidying up this morning. My 10 x 10 work space had become pretty cluttered, and I was feeling overwhelmed. In addition to the two monitors, iPad, pens, pencils, notebooks and folders that comprise my school set up, there was a little rock-painting station, 4 pumpkins, 3 spaghetti squash, several butternut squash, and some ripening tomatoes over on the sideboard, a six-pack of home canned tomatoes and 2 jars of jam, a bag of mason jars and bottles, some murder boxes, a crate of teaching books from my classroom, another crate of airheads, envelopes, cards, and stamps, a shopping bag with some items I want to have framed, and the ring doorbell that I got for Christmas and couldn't decide if I wanted to install-- all this, in addition to things that were in this space before it became such a multi-purpose area. 

To be honest, there wasn't a lot I could do, but I started by organizing the pantry to find space for the canned goods. Then I painted a few rocks and cooked the spaghetti squash, which we will have for dinner. Next I went through the shelf of books next to my desk, finding a couple to drop in one of the little libraries around the neighborhood and another few to toss. Then I painted some details on my rocks, read some of the books I was undecided about,  and replaced the books I was getting rid of with my school books. After that I installed the doorbell and painted my rocks some more. 

Believe it or not, there actually seems to be a little more space in here, but it must be some of the most productive square footage in the county!

Freezin Friday

It seems like all of a sudden those warm days of late summer are long gone and winter is on its way. I shivered in my teaching chair all day long, bundled up in flannel and fleece but only warming up briefly with a hot cup of strong tea. 

I may have to move my one room schoolhouse operation closer to the fireplace!

Letting out all the Cold

The other thing I did with my homeroom yesterday was to take a NYTimes quiz. The premise of the challenge was to look at a series of photos of the inside of refrigerators and guess whether they belonged to Trump voters or Biden voters.  

Every few pictures you are asked to click on one item in the refrigerator that influenced your guess. At the bottom of the quiz there is data about the items that were most frequently associated with correct and incorrect guesses. 

The whole feature was fascinating to me and to several of my students. Beyond the voyeuristic curiosity of looking into a stranger's refrigerator, it was an interesting way to reframe our ideas about other voters with whom we broadly agree or disagree politically. 

I would never draw any but the most general conclusions from the pictures, but those refrigerators did remind me that I have some things in common with people I disagree with, and that is a slippery idea to hang on to in these polarized times. At the very least, we all have to eat.

Who is that Data Point?

One of the supports we are offering students during distance learning is a dedicated 35 minutes a day with a teacher adviser. Known as TA in our school, this contemporary version of homeroom, and pillar of the whole-child, middle school model, has undergone a lot of ups and downs in the 28 years I've been a teacher. For example, since it is not purely academic, advisory is often the first thing to be cut in the name of remediation and test prep. Even so, the simple truth that spending time with a small group of kids with the intention to forge a personal relationship is a positive and supportive equation has managed to shine through in the darkest of times. 

At our school, we are provided with a lot of guidance as to how to use the time we have. In addition to the conferences and IB orientation we do with our students, this year we have also been given some mindfulness routines and some current events activities, too. Not surprisingly, the current events piece has been very focused on the election. Such discussions are always unpredictable with 11-year-olds living inside the Beltway, many of whom are from other countries. 

Over the years I've learned a few strategies to approach that potential minefield. "How many of you guys have an opinion on the presidential election?" I asked today. "I don't want you to tell me who it is, I just want you to raise your hand if you support one candidate over the other." 10 out of 14 virtual hands flew up, but I felt like I had to check in with the other four. "So you're saying you don't care who wins the election?" I asked, keeping my voice neutral. They all confirmed that was the case.

Later, I considered who those kids were. In my homeroom I have six girls and eight boys. Three of the girls identify as Latina, one is Ethiopian, one is white, and one is from Nepal. Of the boys, three are white, one is of Eritrean descent, and the other four are Latino. It was the last four who did not have an opinion on the presidential election. If we had been in the classroom, there might have been some peer influence on answering my question, but one aspect of virtual teaching and learning with sixth graders is that the students don't really pay very much attention to what the other kids say, and I feel like my informal survey was pretty accurate.

I'm not really sure what the significance of the data is, though, because although advisory is meant to be a time to build relationships, the process can be slow, even in person, and I don't have a lot of context, other than the four of them are hardworking young men who want to do well in school.

But 100% in a demographic? That's got to mean something.

All Dressed Down

Yesterday, I actually wore pants for the first time in months. Like so many others working from home, my uniform has become athleisure wear, mostly tights and t-shirts. In the spring it was so I could work out without changing, but times have changed since we've been distance teaching. Now I just dress that way out of habit, and yes, comfort. My good old jeans slipped right on, and a turtleneck and flannel shirt completed a very familiar look, but I just wasn't feeling it. So today? It's back to the tights and tee, with a fun orange tie-dye sweatshirt and a Halloween buff around my neck. Is it temporary or is it evolution? Only time will tell. I haven't been more than a casual dresser in years, and who knows? I still might go for a run after lunch.

Gourd Heavening

I've had my eye on one of the little pumpkins that came from my garden. It is tall and slender and more of a golden orange than that traditional Halloween hue. When it was first growing, I thought perhaps it was a spaghetti squash, but I concluded otherwise. From the time it burgeons, a tiny fruit on the vine, spaghetti squash is the palest of lemon yellows, but this other fruit had the dark, mottled green of an immature pumpkin. 

And so a pumpkin it was!

Until today, when attention and opportunity collided: looking at that little orange gourd I wondered if there was such a thing as a squash hybrid, and I had the time to look it up. A bit of research revealed that pumpkins and spaghetti squash are crazy cross-pollinators. Plant two vines in a garden, and who knows what you'll get! Spumpkin? Pumghetti? 

I'm looking forward to cooking my hybrid squash in the near future, and if it's any good? I'm saving the seeds! A little squash surprise will only add to the the fun of the garden next summer.

SSDS

"I hate that pan! It's. always dirty!" Heidi growled in frustration from the sink.

"I'll wash it!" I said. "I know you hate it, but it's the best tool for the job." In this case the job was roasting vegetables and the sheet pan in question was non-stick with a circular raised pattern that did a great job caramelizing.

I should have stopped there, but I didn't. "It's not really dirty," I pointed out. "It's like a cast iron skillet, seas--"

"Dirty!" Heidi declared. "People say 'seasoned', but that just means that there's left over shit from other cooking and they're okay with it!" she scoffed.

Did I mention my wife was a bit of a clean freak?

"Seasoned and dirty are not the same thing!" I answered indignantly, searching my brain for a logical reason that I was right. "Dirty means that there's stuff on it that you don't want, and seasoned means that you do want it." I laughed, because it was a clarification I had never considered.

It might be the same shit," I shrugged, "but it's a different situation."