9 Feb

The Sound of Music (and snow)

Posted by jackie in all about me, family life, media mentions.

We’ve been snowed in since Saturday– not literally, I guess, since we finally got the cars dug out today and my husband made it to the grocery store. But we’ve got 2.5 feet of snow on the ground and another 10-20 inches coming tomorrow, so I think psychologically, we’re certainly feeling snowed in.

We’ve been lucky in that my girls have a playmate on the block now, which was a huge help during the December snowstorm and has served us well this time too. And all thanks to all that’s holy, my husband is home this time, as opposed to stranded in New York City with Rockettes and room service while I struggled along shoveling out the sidewalk alone. So we’ve actually been doing pretty well. We had a good amount of groceries on hand and now are fully stocked for the next storm, however big that might be. No school Friday, Monday or today, and with new snowfall and a three-day holiday weekend looming ahead, I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t go back till next week.

Truth be told, we’ve been having a cozy little cocooning time here. With the craziness of the school years, two jobs and evening law school, we don’t get to spend this much sustained time with each other much lately. We’ve been cuddling, cooking, watching movies together, throwing snowballs and shoveling–lots of shoveling. And it’s been nice, truly.

We’ve watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (eight thumbs way up, clever and funny and poignant) and UP, which we were more ambivalent–I found it surprisingly and incredibly moving, Husband thought it was way too sad, Sophie thought the happy ending redeemed it and Lucy refused to ever watch it again because it was too sad. I watched Whip It, which I liked, and was happy to see it didn’t turn into a boy-meets-girl story, but stayed true to the “be your own hero” tagline.

Last night, we finally watched The Sound of Music, which we had been delaying (and had DVRed during the wonderful Super Bowl–geaux Saints!). I knew the girls (especially Sophie) would love the music, but I also knew they would ask a lot of questions (especially Sophie) about the Nazi subplot. Plus, I have a lot of affection for the movie, just like I did for Star Wars, so I wanted to handle it well. Luckily, they loved it, and once again, I found myself falling in love with the music all over again. Now I’m determined to get a DVD copy, so we can watch it without commercials, again and again and again.

8 Feb

Children and Money

Posted by jackie in all about me, conversations, family life.

Recently, after much discussion and years of deliberating, we decided to start giving the girls an allowance. My kids are getting piggy banks for Valentine’s Day, along with a printed copy of this coloring book, and each Saturday, if their rooms are reasonably clean (floor is clear, beds are made, laundry is put away or in the dirty clothes bin, playroom is tidy), they will each earn five dollars.

I got the idea for the banks from Trent at TSD, who has blogged before about his family choices when it comes to allowances. We tried a chores-for-rewards system for awhile, and it did help my girls become more helpful and responsible for tasks like clearing their plates, setting the table, or doing their homework, but it didn’t teach them as much about money as I had hoped it would, and stocking the Chore Store got a little burdensome. Now that our girls are in second grade, more and more of their friends are getting allowances, so the discussion resurfaced. We both believe strongly in the idea of letting kids make mistakes with moneybefore they are out from under our roof, and we both believe in having our kids do chores. We don’t have a housecleaner–we don’t even have a dishwasher–and we think our kids should take an appropriate role in helping keep the household machine working smoothly.

I think most people would agree on some variation of both of these ideas, but should they be tied together? Should the allowance be premised on the completion of chores?

Like I said, we’ve gone back and forth for years. The idea of handing out money, no strings or conditions attached, has never made much sense to me. How is that comparable to real-world situations? Many experts argue that taking part in household tasks should be part of every family member’s role, not connected to money. Others say that you weaken the system by adding money, because a child can refuse to take out the trash if the money doesn’t prove to be a big enough incentive. I think we are getting around that in some ways, because if the girls don’t clean their rooms, they are the ones most affected, whereas trash or pet care are chores that affect us all. Like I said earlier, my kids already clear their plates and hang up their coats and small tasks like that, so cleaning their room is a bigger task that should be worth the money, but really only affects them.

Other benefits of the system we are going to try is that it builds in savings and charitable donations, which my partner and I build into our own budget, but the girls don’t see much evidence of that. I’m going to suggest Heifer International and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library for their first donations, because I think those are concrete enough to seize their imaginations. One potential drawback will be that we will have to establish a checklist, probably posted on the wall of their bedroom, that clearly delineates when “cleaning the room” means. I don’t want this to turn into an eternal round of negotiations and arguing about what constitutes “clean enough” for the allowance. I say “we” because I do think it’s fair to have all four of us involved in writing this checklist, so the girls feel they have a voice in the decision too.

I could have sworn I had blogged about this before, but couldn’t find anything in my archives. What about your family? How do you handle chores and allowances?

7 Feb

FaceBlizzard

Posted by jackie in all about me.

Once again, Facebook changes my experience of major events. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has heard of a major event first on Facebook– I’m thinking of famous deaths like Howard Zinn and Ted Kennedy especially–but now that we are snowed in, it’s making me feel less isolated. Every time I check in on Facebook, another friend has a story to tell about a snow day menu of chili and homemade cookies or heroic shoveling feats, friends snowed in at the hospitals where they work, faraway friends jealous of the snow and wondering how we’re doing. We’re trading predictions and forecasts and offering sympathy and commiseration.

Unfortunately, there are some ways of connection the Internet still can’t quite manage. My mother-in-law is in the hospital today having surgery, and while she’s only 45 miles or so away, the snow is keeping us from seeing her. Keep her in your thoughts, won’t you please?

6 Feb

Snosaycanyousee

Posted by jackie in all about me.

The last time we had snowfall this legendary, the girls were about 9 months old. We were living in a rented house we would leave within the next six months, I had just started an adjunct contract for one semester, and my husband was working at an organization he would leave in a year. That house was tiny and old with an enormous ghetto palm in the backyard, and the neighbors were raising pitbulls, possibly for fighting, and an old rusted traintrack ran through the scrubby woods at the end of our block. My car windows were smashed in one morning when I went out to drive to the grocery store, and I had read The Corner twice already and wondered why I had agreed to move here. Things were definitely feeling sketchy around the edges, and we had no idea what would come next, and I only have vague memories of that record-breaking snowstorm. My whole first year of motherhood is kind of a blur, characterized by patches and streaks of panic, fear and unbelievable love. I had no idea how we were going to survive, and rarely looked more than a week ahead.

Now, the snow has come again in near-epic amounts, and we are here, in a house we will stay in for the foreseeable future. The girls are mighty second-graders who just left for a playdate with the neighbor girl, and we are a cozy and respectable (slightly boring) family, with jobs and obligations and a mortgage. We’ve got two cats, two cars, and neighbors who came out to shovel and offered whiskey and coffee once we were finished. I love my job, and my family, and this city.

The stretch of our lives book-ended by these two snowstorms is one of uncertainty, delight, and periodic upheaval. I’m here typing, listening to the clangs and hisses of the radiators, so thankful we made it through, and to see the light shining steadfast through the clouds.

5 Feb

Snow Day

Posted by jackie in all about me.

We’ve got milk and toilet paper. We’ve got pot roast, sugar, flour and chocolate chips. We’ve even got brownie mix and eggs. We’ve got OnDemand for movies, we’re all home together, and we’ve got snow shovels. Tomorrow’s plans, sadly, have already been canceled, and I even brought home the papers that need to be graded. I’ve already emailed my students on how to turn in the digital presentations that were due today, and have plenty of lesson-planning work that can be done from home.

Bring on the snowpocalypse!

4 Feb

Lifelong Lovers of Reading

Posted by jackie in conversations, education, teaching.

There’s an interesting conversation on the EC Ning right now about whether we as English teachers are responsible for creating a lifelong love of reading in our students.

Is it our job to convert our students to become lifelong lovers of reading? I think it is a concept that is popularly heard, but for me, I don’t necessarily see that as part as of my job. I do believe it is part of my job to create strong or skilled readers and writers, because that is a skill they will need for the rest of their lives, as they create technical reports, read mortgage papers or tax code, or want to write a love letter to win a certain heart. I am certainly thrilled when a student tells me that they’ve enjoyed a book for the first time, or that they have finished a book for the first time in years (although I heard this recently from a junior of mine and had to remind her that she was my student as a freshman as well!), because the love of reading has been such a big part of my own life. I hope my love for reading comes across in my classroom, and I think it makes me a better teacher of reading.

Reading can be an escape from a life we wish was different, and it can show us the alternatives. Reading can make us laugh or cry or change how we think, and reading can keep you company when you’re feeling the worst kind of lonely. I want my students to have all of those available to them whenever they need it, and I think reading can bring some of life’s richest gifts. But I would need a strong pair of rose-colored glasses to think that I can make that magic happen for every student, or that if it doesn’t happen, I’ve failed them somehow. I can make them stronger readers and writers (I hope), but I can’t force them to love anything, even if it’s something I love so dearly.

3 Feb

Self-Imposed Deadlines

Posted by jackie in calls for submissions, personal goals, poetry, writing.

One of the lessons I have learned about myself is that I need deadlines– my tendency to procrastinate combined with my propensity to say “YES!” to way too many projects and impulses sometimes adds up to many half-finished projects, all with lots of potential, but too many withering on the vine. Over the years, I’ve really been working on how to approach this tendency, so that I still get to tackle so many different projects, but also commit to a level of energy and dedication that will result in success.

One of my coping strategies has become deadlines, either seeking out projects that have them or trying to impose them on myself (much trickier). Teaching lends itself to deadlines, especially the kind of teaching I’m doing these days where I don’t determine the schedule and am on a quarterly grading system. As a writer, I did well with nonfiction deadlines and revision because I had an editor holding me accountable, but as I’ve blogged before, I’ve had to struggle more with that in my poetry. So I’ve tried to give myself deadlines and structure whenever I can.

Current case in point: last year around this time, I remember reading about Menu-poems, a project of Alimentum’s for National Poetry Month for the past few years. The food-related poems will be printed as broadsides and distributed free to restaurants, who will then distribute them to diners, free with their menus. Alimentum is a journal I’ve long wanted to be published in, and I have more than one poem-in-progress about food, but couldn’t make one work last year.

This year, though, I’m determined to at least try, so as soon as the announcement email dropped into my mailbox, I sent my friend Marnie a Facebook message, asking her if she was interested. Marnie and I met in my first BMA poetry workshop and have kept in touch since, attending a few readings and workshops together and sending each other poems and messages, and I had a hunch she might be game. She wrote me back quickly, leaping on board and setting a Valentine’s Day deadline, since the poems are only being accepted in the month of February. I accepted with glee, even though my colleague and I had set a similar deadline for some of our article drafting.

So the next few weeks will be crunch time, but I’m thrilled about both projects, and I think that fire will keep me going. Renewing my poetic practice is a very important goal to me, and motivation-wise, I’m at a good point since I managed to complete NaBloPoMo in January. Why not keep it going, right? Wish me luck!

2 Feb

Embarrassment of Riches

Posted by jackie in conversations, teaching.

I don’t know what kind of teacher I would be if I didn’t have access to the Internet, not just to plan tech-integrated lessons, but to be able to access the treasure trove of materials and resources available to English teachers these days. If you look through my pages on teaching, you’ll be able to see part of how I’ve benefited, and even that is only a fraction. I’ve gotten so much information and inspiration, and I am excited every time I get to contribute to that ongoing development.

However, in planning for the spring semester, I have definitely experienced the other side of that coin. At this point, I have so many great lessons and resources stockpiled that I can’t possibly use all of them, especially in a smaller unit like the one I am currently planning on sonnets. I’ve got interactive charts, RWT lesson plans, anecdotes from teachers on the EC Ning (including my own thoughts), Folger lessons, illuminated videos and much more.

But I only have four days available to teach sonnets. On the one hand, four 70-minute periods is a fair amount of time, but on the other hand, there’s no way I can squeeze all the resources I have into those four classes.

I’ve made a unit I think will be fun and interesting and engaging for my students, but I didn’t get to include much of what I have stored up. I have to remind myself that this doesn’t mean that I’ve failed, or that second-guessing myself wouldn’t be productive either. After all, the more I have to choose from, the more I can tailor a unit to the students I’m teaching that year, or the more options I have if a lesson flops or I need a good lesson for a substitute. But sometimes it gets overwhelming, and sometimes I feel paralyzed by all the decisions I have to make and all that I won’t get to do.

It’s a good problem to have, as far as lesson-planning goes. But hopefully the more experienced I become, the easier these decisions get.

1 Feb

What Makes a Great Teacher (Part Three)

Posted by jackie in blogging, conversations, education, teaching.

I have really enjoyed writing this series, and have really enjoyed hearing what you have to say. Here are some of the comments I found to be the most interesting or thought-provoking:

Lauren says:

When the only education experience one has is as a student, it’s difficult to see the classroom from the viewpoint of a teacher. Schools that require and provide a lot of observation hours and give student teachers the chance to assist in real classrooms are providing the best experience

LSM says:

I think I would seem like a great teacher at an easy school like my husband’s but that still wouldn’t make me a teacher inside……He is an amazing teacher and is so passionate and into it – but I doubt he’d last a week at my school, even though he is truly a teacher in his soul.

Geekymom says:

I think that joy, that connection is also about really hearing your students, really accepting their contribution to the class, letting those contributions inform your practice in real ways that students can see……My enthusiasm waxes and wanes depending on the group of students

Becca says:

a good teacher is aware of everything that is going on in her classroom at every moment, from how engaged each student is, to how much of the content each student is grasping (and as you know, those are two different things), to how she needs to shift her teaching moment by moment to engage everyone and help everyone grasp the content. That is the weakness of my worst teachers: they are unable to see the big picture and balance the macro and micro at once

Tammy says:

I really think liking school is a definite pre-requisite to being a good teacher.

Maybe?

I feel like there are so many more posts that could be written in this vein: what do you think?

31 Jan

NaBloPoMo Wrap-Up

Posted by jackie in blogging, personal goals, writing.

Now that I have finished NaBloPoMo, how did it go?

First, why did I do it in the first place? What were my original goals?

Two blogging goals I’ve set for myself: more teacher-focused blogging, and more blogging regularly, without too many long or unscheduled hiatuses. Why teacher-focused blogging? Partly to add to the greater conversation, from which I have benefited greatly, and partly because I think reflecting about my teaching makes me a better teacher. I wanted to force myself to get back in the regular habit because any practice works best when it is regularly implemented.

I think some other goals, which I considered as part of my strategies included breathing more inspiration and energy into my blogging practices, and therefore into my writing life as a whole. For me, writing is like exercise or meditation is for others; I can tell a noticeable and unfavorable change in who I am in my daily life when I haven’t made time to write and reflect. It helps me stay in touch with myself.

As I looked back on the year’s posts, I saw some great ones, where I tackled an issue and presented my side, reviewed a book or movie that was important or interesting to me, or when I played around with some narrative structures that made for nice little vignettes. I am really proud of those entries, but the quality and frequency of my posts definitely dropped off in the fall, and so (not coincidentally) did my state of mind and quality of mental life.

So, did I write some great posts this month? I think so. Did I write teacher-focused ones? Definitely so, in a variety of ways. Did having the daily deadline force me to write more, force me to come up with new ways to fit in my writing time, force me to be more creative and resourceful? I think absolutely.

Some bloggers post every day as a matter of course, but many of those are professional blogs, or bloggers who make money from their blogs, and so that incentive is there. I’m not sure I could keep up that pace, since I am also focused on my poetry and since I still haven’t gotten used to the idea of the quick-hit entry, but I am definitely thinking of perhaps doing NaBloPoMo more often, as a way to keep me on my toes….

Any thoughts, my lovely readers? Did you enjoy my month of daily blogging?

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