Matching Tracksuits

fun in fours

Getting the Christmas Tree and Random Memories

We're still settling into a new routine with Babcia. K has gotten her old phone charged and running, but the closest Babcia has come to an iPhone is the old tablet we bought her years ago.

Nana struggled with smartphones as well. Papa made the switch fairly easily, and then when we brought him an iPhone to replace his Android phone, he made the shift without much complication. Nana just experienced frustration: a few tries, and she was done.

"I can't even answer Papa's phone!" she once declared. She just handed it to him. She wasn't having it.

I sometimes wondered if it wasn't a sort of willful helplessness: she'd never had any problem learning new things in the past. When Papa brought home a new computer in the early eighties, she learned how to use it. Each time he upgraded after that, she learned how to use it. New software, new user interfaces (i.e., the mouse). But for whatever reason, she just never had the motivation to learn how to use a smartphone.

Washington Return

D. C. Sightseeing

Washington Arrival

Eighth-Grade Meeting

Imagine

An imaginary email:

Thank you for attending the Q2 Student Progress Monitoring meeting with Bob Smith from the district office. As we prepare to engage in the Q3 Student Progress Monitoring process, please discuss and have one person from your collaborative team respond to this email no later than 4pm on Thursday. Please Cc: Bob Smith when you respond.

  • Question 1: What is the title of your current unit of study and what date do you anticipate finishing this unit?
  • Question 2: What is the title of your next unit of study and what date do you anticipate beginning this unit?

Let me know if you have any questions/concerns.

An imaginary response:

Thank you for your email thanking me for my attendance at the mandatory meeting. I appreciate the chance to sit with my colleagues and hear from someone at the district office how to do my job. Since I'm completely unfamiliar with monitoring student progress having taught only 24 years now, I appreciated the refresher of the basic ideas with which only the rawest of new teachers are unfamiliar. However, given the amount of time it took to fill out the forms your method required, I think I will have to politely decline further participation. I trust the district office will understand that my experience should suffice.

Games

Lights

Monday

Monday after a break is always an interesting experience. I seem to have planned it right with these kids, though: their first day of playing the Odyssey games they made.

Back home, Babcia and K work on acclimating Babcia to new technology, specifically how to use What's App to make phone calls.

Finally, just before heading to bed, it's time for Babcia's favorite pastime.

Backlog

Spent some time here and there over this long weekend adding old pictures from years ago to this site so it's less of a blog and more of a general chronicle.