presents and presence

Look what my roommate Eva brought me from Portland!

She's a good egg.

Reader survey: memorable teaching

Today I tried something different with my students - a seemingly risky simulation of Shay's Rebellion. At the outset, I felt markedly more nervous than on a typical lesson day, because there were so many details, so many moving parts, and so many ways that organically evolving student cognition could shift the activity into waters I could not anticipate. And really, all of those things sort of happened, but no moment of it spun out of control. And Marionye, an awkwardly cautious and softspoken sophomore who rarely picks things up the first time round, told me, "I'm glad we did this activity. I understand now what the people suffered."

So I suppose I'm glad I gambled.

It makes me wonder, when you scan your memories of school (both primary and secondary), are there any lessons that particularly stuck with you? I wonder if any patterns emerge.

To be perfectly frank, the first lesson series that springs to my mind is a series of stations, largely focused on different artforms in Jamestown, my class explored during... second grade maybe? Perhaps I remember this because so much of me thrills at the opportunity to be creative.

Which sorts of activities have left a lasting imprint on you? Why do you think that is?

#15 - canoe or kayak on the Charles River

One goal down.

My back aches... as if dozens of sharp-nosed insects were dragging their little snouts along the edges of my shoulder blades, grabbing small bits of flesh and dragging as they climb along my bones with their scratchy little feet.

And my shins glow with an angry pink... a shade that never did look at home on me. Apparently the nozzle of my spray sunscreen does not work properly when inverted. Good to know now.

And my eyes are glazed over, staring at the lesson plans I've outlined but not yet completed, minutes from midnight and tedious hours from the end.

But for the ache, there is Tiger Balm. For the shins, there is minty aloe gel. And for the work, there is coffee.

For the imprint left from this, though, there is no cure. Except, perhaps, more of the same.

thirty things to do before i'm thirty

I love the waiting: the night before Christmas, the last day of school, the interminable hours before a long-awaited date. These days before seem a celebration unto themselves, as important as the Main Event because they lay down a floor of silence upon which the new thing may gingerly step forth.

So perhaps it is natural that I have begun to think of myself as hovering on the edge of thirty, though I'm not yet even twenty-nine. I know I am edging closer and closer to a year that is defined by what it precedes. I want this to be a year of joy and life and creation.





And to that end, I've made a list of thirty things I'd like to do before I turn thirty, thirty things that represent the person that is being revealed in me, more warm and welcome to me than she was at twenty, though she is even now a stranger to me:

1. Take an art class.

2. Knit something I like enough to wear.

3. Publish something I’ve written.

4. See fall in Maine.

5. Apply to three graduate programs I like.

6. Take a road trip somewhere I’ve never been.

7. Find and make a great granola recipe.

8. Create art in a public space.

9. Read five books on the list of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die.

10. Act in a play.

11. Hold a dinner party in our backyard with candles in the trees.

12. Model nude for an art class.

13. Record a song.

14. Go on a picnic.

15. Kayak or canoe on the Charles River.

16. See the Northern Lights in Iceland.

17. Travel around Europe.

18. Sell two of my photographs.

19. Learn to reupholster chairs.

20. Leave encouraging messages in public places.

21. Paint a mural.

22. Kiss someone worth kissing.

23. Attend a writing conference.

24. Go camping.

25. Tattoo myself with a message I need to hear.

26. Write on my blog every day for a month.

27. Write real letters to seven friends.

28. Plant a garden.

29. Memorize two poems I would like to whisper in someone’s ear.

30. Do something that surprises even me.

.

diagnostic tests are my favorite

Class: Sophomore US History

Question:

• What do you already know about each of the following topics?
  

Answers:

• Northern pre-Civil War economy - came from clothes, and tea napkins
  
• World War I - Germans
  
• World War II - Germans
  
• Reconstruction - process US used to re-use Confederate States in the Union
  
• Civil Rights Movement - the stuff that dealt with the blacks
  
• World War II - Vietnam, bombed somewhere in the Bahamas
  

Question:

• How is the American government structured? Who is in charge of what functions? Explain in words or using a diagram.
  

Answer (exactly as written):

• The American government system is a demorancy. We Have Presdients, vice Presdinents, legislatives and sectorys. The Presdient is in charge of everything and the vice Presdient is incharge of everything that the Presdient is in charge of getting. the legislatives deal with the laws and taxets and other things. lastly the secterys help everyone keep track of there scedudle.
  

Clearly, there is work to be done here.