Month: December 2007
Christmas Preparation
Clean, clean, clean — the first three steps in the Polish Christmas prep tradition. This year, we only did the second on those three steps: having a toddler running around makes cleaning a Sisyphusian challenge.
The next steps in preparing a traditional Polish Christmas: cook, bake, bake, cook, cook, bake, cook. Due again to the Girl, we have time for only half that. And we’re getting a late start at that. Last year we did the dumplings and “ears” weeks in advance and froze them.
Last night, I got started on the pierogi (dumplings) and uszki (“ear” — little dumplings, more like wontons).
First step: saute the mushrooms.
Second step: make a pulp out of the mushrooms.
Third step: squeeze every last bit of water out of the mushrooms.
This third step is critical, since the mushrooms will be the one of the main components of the pierogi and the sole component of the little wontons. Too much moisture in the filling and instead of nice little dumplings, you wind up with a doughy mess.
The next step after the mushrooms is simple: do the same thing with the sauerkraut.
It took me about ninety minutes last night to prepare the mushrooms and kraut, though most of that time was simply waiting for it to cook. But it’s frightening: ninety minutes for the filling of one of several dishes for Christmas Eve dinner.
But what is time when you’re cooking? The only regret is how long it takes to prepare all the food versus how quickly everyone eats it — the cook’s eternal curse.
Shopping
We went out shopping yesterday. So did most of the rest of the city, which was foreseeable. Dziadek had never seen a mall; I think after seeing one, he’ll be content never to see one again. More importantly, we needed gifts, gifts, gifts — none of which we bought at the mall, because there’s only clothes and jewelry in the mall. And people, but they’re not for sale.
In these cyber days, a hunter such as I am (I don’t shop; I hunt) has a tough time justifying spending time fighting crowds for things that could just as easily be bought with a click of the mouse and a sip of coffee. Of course, you can’t really have your picture taken with Santa when you’re shopping online. On second thought, I’m sure there’s a site out there that makes montages with existing pictures.
Talk in the Hallway
Our school has a fairly strict dress code, and part of that includes the prohibition of wearing jackets inside the building. If students are cold, they are to bring a sweater.
Yesterday, before the last period, a young man came sauntering down the hall, slightly dragging one foot behind him in that ever-so-fashionable gangster shuffle, his camouflage jacket on, and everything about him shouting, “I have low self-esteem.”
As he approached me, I found myself thinking, “Come on — take the jacket off now so I don’t have to say something.” It was the last day before Christmas break; I’d finished all my classes; I did not want to have a confrontation over something silly.
But he didn’t, and so I said something, and he started showing his full “gangster” plumage. He refused to look at me; he refused to acknowledge me; in short, he acted like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum.
I told him, “You’re making an issue of something that need not be an issue by showing me extreme disrespect. If we’re unable to work this out here, I’ll simply write a referral to the administration and let the vice principle work it out.” Nothing, for a moment. Finally, he looked at me. “That’s a start.”
As we talked, I eventually asked him, “How many times have you gotten in-school suspension.”
“Two.”
“Notice what I did?” I asked. “I didn’t even ask you ‘Have you ever gotten ISS?’ I knew. I don’t even know your name, yet I knew you’d had ISS. Want to know how I knew that?”
A begrudging, “How?”
“Your body language screams it,” I told him. “No one who hadn’t been to ISS would have acted as you’ve been acting over a stupid coat. Your slouching refusal to give me eye contact, your silly refusal to acknowledge anything I said, the way you smack your teeth as if to provide punctuation to every single sentence I utter — all these things said, ‘This is a kid who finds himself in trouble a lot.’ Did you want to tell me that?”
These kids have no idea how much they communicate without even opening their mouths, something I hope to start remedying next quarter when I teach my related arts class. More later — right now the syllabus is still in development…
The Party
Three hundred sixty-five days pass in a flash. Graduated development means that L seems to be walking almost as soon as she begins turning over. She’s gone from barely noticing attention to enjoying being the center of it — a perfect description of Sunday, L’s birthday.
K baked a cake and cooked some lunch (I helped with the latter); we bought some decorations; and we invited some friends over (mainly our friends — L is a bit short on friends right now).
L having finished her first year means that I have to stop dumping all our photos of her into the “LMS First Year” Flickr photo set. It means that, while we’ll continue measuring in months for some time, we can now begin talking about L’s age in years.
For L it simply meant a time of presents and cake. She enjoyed the former but didn’t get much of a taste of the latter.
For us, it was the first of many reminders of how fast time passes. It brought to mind Malvina Reynold’s “Turn Around”
Where are you going, my little one, little one
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you’re two, turn around and you’re four
Turn around and you’re a young girl going out of my doorTurn around, turn around
Turn around and you’re a young girl going out of my doorWhere are you going, my little one, little one
Little dirndls and petticoats, where have you gone?
Turn around and you’re tiny, turn around and you’re grown
Turn around and you’re a young wife with babes of your ownTurn around, turn around
Turn around and you’re a young wife with babes of your ownTurn around, turn around
Turn around and you’re the young girl going out of the doorWhere are you going, my little one, little one
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Nanci Griffith has a good version:
Happy Birthday!
The Girl is one year old today.
Such a change 365 days can make:
Almost triple what she weighed when she was born, and double the length. She’s walking, playing hide-and-seek with me, understanding “No” (imperfectly, but it’s a start), showing “zaba” and “kaczka” in her picture books when asked (“frog” and “duck” respectively), holding out her arms when being dressed — all within a year.
Enjoy the progress, L, because you’ll never grow — mentally and physically — so much in one year again.
Walk the Line
What is it that’s so difficult about walking in a line? Is there some genetic abnormality that appeared about the same time as public education that makes it all but impossible to walk in a single-file line 100 feet to the media center?
I have to preteach each and every class before heading down the hall to the library or to the computer lab, or anywhere for that matter, and of my four classes, only one manages to do it consistently well. Another manages most of the time. The other two are just disasters.
Time for Natural Consequences.
What is the natural consequence of people walking down the hallway disruptively? Kids in the classrooms they pass lose learning time. The cost is time; the consequence, then, should be time. And that’s why our sixth period spent some portion of the twenty minutes of pre-lunch outside time practicing walking in a straight line. But I really didn’t want to belabor the point, and as always, I didn’t want to make it seem vindictive. Time for classroom management technique number two: provide choices, not threats.
“So, folks, we have a choice before us: either we’re going to walk down the hall in a manner befitting mature eighth graders and then we’ll go outside, or we’ll continue to try it until we do get it right.”
Of course they nailed it the first time, which is for them both good and bad. It’s good because they got to go outside immediately; it’s “bad” because they’ve once again shown that they’re capable of it and that there’s no reason for them to do otherwise.
Backyard Self-Portrait
I took the trusty Nikon onto the back deck the other evening for some playing. I wanted to get a picture of our backyard at night.
That bright light in the neighbor’s yard will be of particular concern if we ever build a small patio and grill down there.
I also set the camera down for a self-portrait.
Georgia Aquarium
With the Girl down with a head cold all week (including last weekend), we didn’t have much of a chance to take Dziadek on many field trips. Rather, any field trips.
Sunday, with the Girl still sniffing, we decided that I’d take him to the Georgia Aquarium.
As impressed as he was with the inhabitants of the aquarium, he was just impressed with the engineering of the thing. “Can you imagine the pressure this pane must hold!?” he exclaimed several times.
No!
Power outlets, books, and CDs are the only things we really say “No!” to with the girl. Oh, and plants and hot things and climbing on the stairs and so on. And the cat, when we had a cat. (He ran away some weeks ago. Some say he’s supposed to come back any day now.)
Still, it’s the forbidden that’s attractive.
(I’m sure it didn’t help to send mixed messages by saying “No!” and taking the picture. But I just happened to have the camera and couldn’t resist.)
Fortunately, there are plenty of things in the house to hold her attention.
The Cough
The other day, in sixth period, a significant number of the boys decided it would be amusing if they started coughing when I turned my back. Not sick, tickle-in-the-throat type coughing, but that one single cough we’ve all given at one point or another to warn someone that some authority figure is coming.
Why? They’re eighth graders — there’s no logical answer to questions about eight graders’ motivation.
It was one of those moments that I stand there with a stern look to hide the fact (probably not too successfully) that I’m running through all the various classroom management tricks I can remember in an attempt find effective means of ending this nonsense. Running through my mind was something along these lines:
I’m not really sure who’s doing it. I don’t really think it’s a significant enough issue to devote a lot of time to it. I want to make sure it doesn’t come back. I want to keep those who are working from thinking it might be fun to join in. I don’t want to seem vindictive, because it’s really not a big deal — just disruptive.
And a phrase I’d read some time ago in a book about classroom management popped into my head: make the disruption part of the consequence.
Basically, I had them cough like that continuously for a few minutes. I told them, “You’re going to do this for the next five minutes because it’s so fun and I want you to have fun in my class,” but I had no intention of trying to force them to go the full five minutes. “Ninety seconds should do the trick,” I thought as I walked away from the boys. Sure enough, after a little while, one of the boys exclaimed, “Mr. S, this is stupid.”
“I agree. Maybe we can stop doing this stupidity and get back to work, huh?”
Not a single disruption from them for the rest of the period.