January 28, 2012
To my RCWP friends,
I’m posting this updated flipbook from Glitterfy so that when you see me you don’t try to pull off my beard thinking it’s fake.
Glitterfy.com - Photo Flipbooks
Right now, I plan to keep it right through Feb-beardhairy and until the first robin returns.
January 16, 2012
Things are hard to understand lately.
I am a public school teacher.
And
I supported President Obama in the last election.
Just between those two facts, one could probably understand a bit of my bewilderment at the world.
First of all, I keep trying to believe that my President is working for me and for us all. Despite that hope, he keeps giving me reason to doubt. So, his “Yes, We Did” bumper sticker gets defaced by my own son on his car; apparently, I’m not the only one who has noticed, but it seems like President Obama doesn’t get it.
Thus —
Dude! (see the P.S. at the end)
One recent reason for bewilderment…Obama signed the New National Defense Authorization Act. He signed it, despite not believing in all of it. That’s what he said. Really. “The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it.” Then, why did you sign it?
Dude!
Disappointing.
Why would you sign a vague law that, partially, pertains to the indefinite detaining of U.S. citizens? People are protesting in D.C. and I should be with them. Though I saw a little about this on the news, it seems to have faded.
It still bothers me.
The craziness extends to my job, also. Teaching feels different this year. I was going to say that the actual act of teaching hasn’t changed, but that’s not entirely true. As part of the changes in our evaluation process, we are being observed — for a few minutes — about a million times, instead of a formal observation. At this half-way point in the school year, I think my principal has been in my room well over a dozen times…albeit for just 10 minutes or so. She usually gives me a quick note of feedback, but not always.
After talking with other staff members, I realized she doing this sort of thing with most all the teachers…which begs the question, “How is it that she has so much time in her day to do this now, when last year she didn’t?” I’m sure she is being told from above that she needs to do this.
It’s not that I don’t want her there. I’m not hiding anything. It’s just that her presence changes the kids. They (and to some extent, I) watch what they (I) say. Dialogue is politically correct and stunted somehow.
It’s a small example of what I like to call “the craziness.” Some might call it accountability. Others call it distrust. I get more and more piled on my desk (literally and figuratively) and there’s no end in sight. Thank goodness the students are still mostly sane and fun to be around.
In general, though, the face of teaching (if there was one) could be slapped with a Dude! sticker. In that same exasperated vain. You’d have to be there to fully understand, but it just feels like we are asked to do a multitude of extra things each year. As I overheard at a recent staff meeting, “this job used to be a lot of work…and lately, it’s completely out of control.” But…when you hire a businessman nerd as a governor and he goes ballistic on teachers what do you expect…?
Things that give me hope:
* Rachel and her friends singing
* the hair still grows
Glitterfy.com - Photo Flipbooks
My “Janu-hairy” face, Jan. 1-15
* Armen, my rock star brother at the North American International Auto Show.
* somehow, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial happened
* some still understand the value of teachers
P.S. I wonder sometimes if “Dude!” (as in, you just don’t get it, Dude) really comes from a reaction to The Big Lebowski. He was the original Dude. Nowadays, when we say “Dude!” it’s as if we are saying, “You need to chill. The Dude abides and you can, too.”
December 23, 2011
Judy and I write a Christmas newsletter most years. It’s a somewhat collaborative effort, though she usually does most of the addressing. This year, she sent out a bunch, but I decided to post it here to share our news with a wider audience. The photo, left, is meant to accompany the newsletter. Here’s the link to our newsletter.
Just in case you received all of this via snail mail, here’s some bonus news: A big part of my life is teaching (no big surprise). One of the joys for me from this school year is called the Marble Buddy project. We match an 8th grader with a Kindergarten student from Marble Elementary, which happens to be across the street from our school. My 8th graders interview their buddies and write a personalized book for their buddies. Then, they read the book to their buddies and gift the books as gifts. I give them quite a bit of leeway regarding how they put their books together and the creativity and variety of their final products were impressive. Here’s a link to photos from the day we read/gave our books.
December 14, 2011
I like to play with technology. Some people worry that they’ll break whatever technology they’re using. I’m more from the learn-from-your-mistakes camp; I also try to use as much technology as possible that has “undo” buttons and “revision histories” that magically fix my mistakes (wikis, google docs, Word, etc.). Even though I grew up with typewriters and with room-size computers needing punch cards, I now feel comfortable experimenting with as much new technology as I can make time for.
So when my friend, Obi Wan, and all-around techie mentor, Troy Hicks, showed me his Multiplicity photo, below, I was intrigued. I had to try it. How do you show up several times in one photo?
{Multiplicity n. The quality of being multiple, manifold, or various; a state of being many; a multitude; as, a multiplicity of thoughts or objects.}
I watched a tutorial on the topic and it looked reasonably doable. I went to the website that Troy suggested in his blog post, Pixir, and played for awhile. I tested out various things I thought I had learned from the tutorial (which by the way, uses Photo Shop) and I wasn’t getting very far. Then, I found a Pixir tutorial on adding layers which was a better fit for me. Keeping the tutorial open, I went back to Pixir and played/experimented/problem solved a bit more…going back and forth from tutorial to Pixir several times. It’s just how I learn best. Sure, it would have been nice to have a knowledgeable person next to me to ask all my questions, but that just doesn’t happen very often in the real world. I can’t say I’m completely pleased with my final product, but it’s pretty cool. If you follow the link, below (for some weird reason, I couldn’t get it to load on my blog), you’ll see that I appear three times in this one photo. You’ll also see, if you look closely, that some parts of the backgrounds are seeping through parts of my body. You’ll have that on a first try. But the initial affect is quite shocking and fun.
And then there’s learning about myself. A prolific author friend of mine, Ann Nichols, suggested a website that creates personality profiles based on a person’s choices of several photos. It’s called Visual DNA Personality Test. I found my results to be fairly telling and accurate. They labeled me a Seeker. I like the connotations of the word. My normal mode is to be curious. Always has been. I want to know. I love Jeopardy, Quiz Bowl, reading just about everything, watching TED talks, traveling, taking classes, meeting people, and generally…seeking knowledge. And I connect with like-minded people — especially students who are curious and open. Another day of feeling like I’m in the right profession.
I try to learn something new each day; some days, what I learn helps me clarify who I am and why I’m here. Other days, I just have fun with the process and see where it leads.
December 3, 2011
the entrance to MacDonald Middle School in East Lansing, MI
Just about every time I walk into “work” (also called MacDonald Middle School, see photo on left), I remind myself how lucky I am. Seriously. Whether it’s 7:15 am and mostly dark or it’s the weekend or evening and mostly deserted, I scan the front of the building and, essentially, give thanks.
Sometimes I focus on the construction of the building: a group of people decided this building should be built and found the funds to make it happen; someone designed the building; and other people laid the foundation, framed each space, laid each brick and tile, and made this place exist. More recently, still others renovated our school to reconfigure the lay out, added a state-of-the-art auditorium and air-conditioning, and landscaped it to be very inviting. I’m quite thankful to all of those people, many of whom are long gone.
I’m grateful, also, to have a job that I enjoy and that provides a decent income. As I walk into the building, I often remember how long it took for me to find a profession, get a job in the field, earn another degree (Special Education) that brought me some security and satisfaction as a teacher, re-locate to get another teaching job, and, over time, find a home in a middle school that’s within walking/biking distance to my actual home.
If I’m moving especially slowly into the building, I may also think about all the family, friends, mentors, colleagues, and professors that helped me get to this place in my teaching career. Once in awhile, I even think back to my Armenian ancestors who traveled half way across the world to save themselves, and their descendants, from religious and political persecution — it was an immense undertaking, a monumental ordeal, and an important, though quite mysterious, journey.
All of this is knocking around in my head as I walk into work (and that doesn’t even count what I’m planning to teach that day).
In addition, in these hard economic times, I work in a district that was able to help me afford to attend a conference in order to learn how to improve my teaching ability. I recently attended the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Conference in Chicago, Illinois. I paid for my transportation, housing, food, and expenses; my district paid for my conference registration and for my substitute teacher (over $300 total for the registration and sub) with the stipulation that I share with my staff what I learned. I would not have gone to the conference if they were unable to help with the costs and I fully realize that not every teacher that wants to attend a conference gets permission. I deeply appreciate the opportunity to have been at the conference and soak it all in.
Before I try to convey some of my conference experiences, here’s a poem I wrote about my relationship with the location of the conference, Chicago —
Chicago is the older sister
I never had.
At arms length,
both close and distant;
she’s familiar and mysterious,
wise and curious.
I rush to see her
and savor each moment
of our subway exchanges —
relish my wanderings among
her bustling streets of experience.
Hearing her stories,
jealousy clouds
the love I want to feel.
And only after I am home
Do I regret
our time apart.
——
This year, I’ve been grappling with both how to engage my students more in their learning and with the role of social justice issues in that pursuit. So, not coincidentally, I chose sessions at the conference that dealt with those topics.
Engaging students through Social Justice
It is one of my deepest desires is to engage my students in their learning. I can’t say that I always reach that goal, but it’s right there in the front of my mind at all times. I employ a variety of techniques to achieve that goal: humor, juggling, singing, hands-on learning (projects, computers, etc.), asking challenging questions, asking them to employ reading strategies, presenting thought-provoking texts and videos, using a class wiki to increase the audience of students’ final products, and others. And yet, I still have to confiscate cell phones from students who are texting and ask a few students to not lay on the floor during a lesson, which I see as less than the level of engagement I’m shooting for.
I was struck by the ways that several presenters engaged their students.
I found Namir Yedid’s presentation to be dynamic and exciting. He led us through his thinking process for the formulation, execution, and reflection of a 10 week project called “What’s for Dinner?” Yedid is a middle school teacher from California; though his teaching situation is different from mine (his school is tuition-based, involves an application process, and has an average class size of 15), I found many gems that I could borrow for my classes. The project gets students thinking about the issue of hunger locally and globally. Students do research, write letters to the editors of newspapers, and in many ways reverse the notion of school “happening to” them into one where they feel power and voice; Yedid paralleled his talk with how teachers can feel empowered and engaged, also, as they help their students share their vision and voice with the world. He incorporated persuasive writing with critique with annotated citations, all the while providing a high level of autonomy (as Daniel Pink emphasizes) and excellence.
The I-Search Research project we do in the 8th grade is a mini-version of this, but we fall a bit short. While we do employ some student choice (which increases engagement), Yedid takes it to the next level with his requirement that students pursue social issues relevant to their lives and then take some action on the issue. It’s not just about increasing audience; it’s more about helping students begin being active participants in a vibrant democracy. Nurturing an informed, involved public should be higher on our list of goals in education, instead of worrying so much about MEAP scores and AYP (Annual Yearly Progress). An Utne article I read on the train, from Maggie Johnson’s book, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, spoke to this issue; she challenges us to “create a renaissance of attention, recover the ability to pause, focus, connect, judge, and enter deeply into relationships and ideas…(lest we) slip into numb days of diffusion and detachment.” We need to get our students minds actively involved in their daily lives now — make school relevant to them in personal ways — so that they may continue that behavior as adult citizens.
At the end of the project, Yedid gathered a large body of feedback/data from his students regarding their thoughts and feelings about the project. The wordle on this page (below) is one example of this feedback and is the type of thing I need to do more often.
Students answering "What was the most valuable skill you learned in this project?"
Another teacher/presenter that spoke to engagement was Diana Novak, a 10th grade World Literature teacher from California. She, and Yedid, used Adria Steinberg’s Six A’s of Project Based Learning as a guide for making students’ learning relevant to their lives. The goal is to make projects authentic, contain academic rigor and applied learning, and include active exploration while providing connections with adult mentors and including an assessment component. She also reminded me to “start with the end in mind,” which I know is best practice, but don’t do often enough.
Engaging students through interactions with published authors
Many of my students have a favorite author. I must have met two dozen authors at the conference. One thing I did was use my flip camera to take a quick video of those authors and compile them as part of my digital story of my experience (it will be posted or linked on my blog when I finish it). One of those authors, Cris Crutcher, has used Skype to communicate with classes; how cool would it be to read an author’s story and then Skype with him or her. We could ask questions, get insights into the author’s writing process, and connect with the author in a way that would have been Science Fiction when I was in middle school. I’m incredibly grateful that those authors at the conference took the time away from writing to be with teachers (I’m aware of the fact that they were also there to sell their books).
I met author and speaker, Mawi Asgedom (below), at an NCTE conference years ago. I spoke with him for awhile and bought his book, Of Beetles and Angels (which I highly recommend).
Since then, he has been on Oprah, written a couple other books, spoken to thousands of students, and he keeps up an interesting blog. He also spoke at this NCTE conference (at the Conference on English Leadership luncheon) and I knew it would be memorable…so I taped the 30 minute talk, which I hope to show to my teaching colleagues. He told his story, but also challenged us as educators to be the leader in situations that call for it in our buildings (not to wait for someone else to come along). Mawi was born in Ethiopia and, as a young person, lived in a refugee camp in Sudan. His story (chronicled in the book, above) is riveting: coming to the US, getting a scholarship to Harvard, and giving the commencement address at Harvard. I know of several English as a Second Language students who look up to him as a role model. I would very much like to find some money to buy his book for every student in our building and have him come to speak next year. He has a presence that is the essence of genuine engagement.
Engaging students and our communities with our stories
It’s interesting that our NCTE President, Yvonne Siu-Runyan, is from Hawaii like our US President, Barack Obama. While both are inspirational, the similarities really stop there. Yvonne (I can call her this since I’ve met her) is practical in a way I haven’t seen enough of from Obama; she gets things done, does what she says she’s going to do, and she doesn’t seem to care at all if she’s re-elected (so refreshing). (Note disappointment in President I voted for…realizing, of course, that it’s not all his fault)
Yvonne spoke at the General Session on Sunday morning. There were hundreds of teachers in the audience. Her talk was about how we, as teachers, need to share our stories if we want to affect change in our students and community. It was a powerful, heartfelt poem/song/outpouring of her soul and spirit. She is truly an amazing person. I wish you could have been there.
She weaved together many teacher stories with her own stories (personal and professional) into an argument that helped fuel this blog post and reminded me why I do what I do (including why I decidedly recently to be more involved in my union). If you are a teacher and are wondering what stories you have to tell, here are the ones Yvonne thinks we should be sharing:
“1. How we teachers must orchestrate an ever-changing classroom environment and at the same time meet the needs of our students, each with their unique personalities, interests, and abilities.
2. How high stakes testing affects how students view themselves and whether or not they like going to school and learning.
3. How we work with parents and family members counseling them about how they can support their children’s learning.
4. How books change the way our students see the world and what they learn from reading.
5. Why stories are important and how stories make isolated facts understandable and real.”
She shared a shorter version of her talk on part of the NCTE website (with a video clip) if you are interested.
I try to tell some of my stories here on this blog, but my audience is pretty limited. I need to find more ways to share what’s on my mind as it relates to teaching. My colleague, Jack Johnson, recently had his second letter printed in our local newspaper. I admire the way he speaks his mind on issues that touch each Michigan teacher: collective bargaining rights, respect, salaries, benefits, evaluation processes, tenure, autonomy, and what’s best for students. Recently, my union representative helped me work through a tough time with my district. His presence and know-how were invaluable. Part of my story, these days, is that teachers need a strong union. We need to stand together and speak up for the value of representation. Each of Yvonne’s points rings true for me, but the notion of speaking out, even when it’s not popular or even prudent, makes sense to me. Yes, I am grateful to my district; no, I’m not the slave of my district. I’m a professional teacher. An employee…and also a citizen of the local and world community.
Resources from the conference (and other things I’m thankful for):
My prayer…
May I feel, think, and behave as your disciple, Lord.
Help me to feel, think, and behave as your disciple.
Thank you for this new day.
Help me live this day with peace, faith, love, and hope,
Spreading your joy.
October 23, 2011
My brother, Armen, and I are the same age for 11 days every October. It’s like having a twin for a week and a half. This year, we decided to spend some time together to celebrate our birthdays. We drove up to Grand Rapids and attended/experienced the ArtPrize competition.
It was nice to talk with him (and we had some yummy, Black Forest ice cream from Culvers). And even though people are the most important thing in my life (and he’s near the top of the list), the ArtPrize phenomenon (it’s the best world for it) was unforgettable. Check out my video, below, and then make plans to attend it next year.
One of the exhibits I feature in my video almost looks like I did some special “flashlight” effect. Actually, it is Filippo Tagliati’s River Project (see an excerpt on vimeo).
October 14, 2011
from SOS Million Teacher March facebook site
The Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) is the way our state evaluates the job we do as teachers and as districts. For five days, we change our daily schedule, focus our students on the test, read all the words exactly as they are printed in the directions, and sit back and hope for the best. Here’s how it usually goes…
For one part of the Writing portion of the MEAP test, students are given 60 minutes to respond to a prompt; let’s say they are asked to write about a time in their lives that they felt challenged (or that shows someone being challenged).
There’s always a checklist of several questions we read to the students for revising their writing before they are completely done. We read it to them and it includes questions like “Did I develop my ideas with details and examples?” and “Did I write a story that is focused on the topic?”
Then, they write…in complete silence (they are given 60 minutes for this part).
After seven minutes, two students finish (out of my class of 25). After 20 minutes, half my class finishes.
Thirty minutes into the test, two future authors are nearing completion and one struggling writer is trying to get it just right. A few others have their heads down, most are reading, and a couple others are staring off into space (I like to think they are creating a world in their heads where there are no tests and school is one joyful, creative, challenging moment after another).
They are told to bring a book to read if they finish early. Most do. The ones that don’t have a book to read, get a National Geographic from me or sometimes a sudoku.
Usually the directions are incredibly detailed and accurate. We read the same set of directions on several parts and I wonder sometimes if students tune us out because they’ve heard it repeated so many times…
…and then there are often a few not-so accurate directions along the way. One vague element almost always relates to time. We may have 75 minutes to finish Part 2 and Part 3 of the Writing test for example. The test directions and the students’ booklets say to STOP after Part 2. So we do. But then how many minutes do they get to finish Part 3? The remaining part of the 75? And why are the parts lumped together in one time period when we have to stop inbetween?
I could probably get reprimanded for writing this, but I’ve been known to do the following on MEAP days: smile, keep the mood light as much as possible (which isn’t usually much), treat students like individuals by looking them in the eye and listening to their concerns.
I realize that a lot of people have worked hard constructing, printing, dissemenating, and otherwise organizing these tests so that they can be in my class. And I further realize that other people (probably retired teachers) correct the writing portion of the tests. These people care about producing an accurate measure of student progress at various grade levels.
Honestly, however, most teachers just survive the MEAP. Endure it. Many despise it because its importance is inflated and exaggerated. One test (no matter how well constructed) is not a fair measure of student, teacher, or district. There’s a locked-down mentality to testing: you can’t leave the room to get a drink or go bathroom; silence is the volume of choice; fun is evil. We have three MEAP days down and two to go; help me, Lord.
P.S. So just what are the Republicans thinking? (there is an assumption there, of course) They shot down Obama’s jobs bill as if they had some better idea of how to help the nation’s woes. But they don’t. No big surprise.
October 1, 2011
Maybe you always understand why you feel what you feel, but not me.
I was at the Riverwalk Theatre recently, watching one of my students star in “Annie.” I’ve seen the movie enough times to sing the songs, so the fact that the story got to me felt odd. Actually, I was humming the songs, occasionally, throughout the musical, feeling a few weird looks from the young girl next to me. And I was also tearing up from time to time. It’s not a sad story, as you may recall.
Being in the mood to try and figure myself out, here are my best guesses for my tears…
September 11, 2011
I saw it coming some time ago when it was suggested that we should stop dressing up for Halloween at our middle school. ”It’s a distraction from the learning process” was the excuse given. Translation: Promoting order is more important than developing community (fun).
Actually, six or seven years ago our middle school started fun-sucking: our district did away with teaming. We’ve had quasi-teams up until this year when they officially killed teams. Teaming costs more if you do it right, but the rewards far outweigh the costs.
This year, the school board cut funding for Schedule C (high school) positions; these positions are primarily the after-school activities that keep many students interested in staying in school and/or provide some fun or challenge or extra learning. Clubs and activities like Quiz Bowl, Anime Club, Debate Club, SEA (Students for Environmental Action), and Hispanic Dance Club are in jeopardy. Most advisors will not continue to run the club or activity without pay. It’s up to the parents and other East Lansing community members to step up and make a difference in the lives of students…to stem the tide of fun-suckitration, fun-suckingsnyderization.
The East Lansing High School Clubs/Activities webpage still says the following: “The importance of participation in these activities means a great deal to the social, emotional and physical development of all students.” I believe that and it concerns me that we are messing with it.
Lately, I get the sense that if “it’s” not on some list of practicality, then it’s seen as extra, superfluous, wasteful, even. Things like Marble Buddies (8th graders working with kindergarteners on literacy projects)…like using the school’s swimming pool…like hiring a Librarian that’s a teacher…And I know some places have put the Arts on that list. That scares and saddens me.
And the Arts actually are practical according to a Scientific American article from a couple months ago titled “The Best Brain Training: Practice That Violin.”
but
on a national level, the true fun-suckers were the terrorists who took the twin towers and all of those lives and so much more.
(admittedly, a terrible comparison, but I wanted to talk about 9/11…sorry)
I needed to see the towers in a different way, so we watched Man on Wire (2008). It’s the story of the man who tight-rope walked between the towers in 1974, soon after they were built. It’s partly about the building of the towers,
following your dream
in all of the fun places: Notre Dame in Paris, over a bridge in Sydney, Australia….
It’s about the pride of the builders, the majesty of the views, back to the moment when the Towers had something magical, magnificent, mysterious, beautiful, and profound happen…that once in a lifetime moment when he walked across the span between the towers, eight crossings to be exact…
I started thinking about all of this when I read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, the One Book, One Community book by Jonathan Foer. The book was a glimpse into the mind of a child coping with the loss of his father from the 9/11 tragedy. Foer’s character was innocent and imaginative, deeply depressed and needy, and intelligent and hopeful — I hope to hear Foer speak about the book on Sept. 25 at Wharton. And yet, I find myself gravitating more toward films like Man on Wire that show a simpler time and current documentaries like The Discovery Channel show, “Rebuilding Ground Zero” that offer hope and look to the future.
I guess that there will always be fun-suckers, large and small. We can’t be defeated by them though. I, and we, need to look past them and move on. Tomorrow, I will try to share a bit about the 9/11 tragedy with my 7th and 8th grade students. Let’s see, what’s my learning objective: my hope is that each of them will know more about what happened on 9/11/2001, why Americans feel connected to that day, and how that day changed America; I also hope each of my students will feel some connection of their own to some part of the tragedy (the day, the aftermath, the strength people found afterwards, the rebirth of the space…) and be able to share their connection in writing. My learning objective is that studying this horrific day will, in some way, bring hope to my students.
Ironic
and
necessary.
August 28, 2011
This trip was filled with many first time experiences and quite a few challenges. And that made it all the more sweet. The challenges turned out to be the highlights for me.
We knew we would be in Seattle for a week. Yes, we could have just stayed at a hotel. (boring) Instead we used two websites with varying levels of success. Sublet.com introduced me to the range of places (monetarily and type) to stay in Seattle. A contact from that website led me to Vacation Rentals By Owner. Within a couple days, Judy and I found just the place for us. The owners had renovated their basement into an apartment and the photos looked fantastic. True, it was at the high end of our price range, but like many things, you get what you pay for; the apartment was called the University Garden Suite (check out this link to see why we were excited) and it was in an excellent location and looked very comfortable and spacious.
The challenge (for me) was sending a good deal of money across the country for something so important without having actually seen it and without knowing the people. To get around those obstacles, we emailed, then called the owners. Victoria was very professional and pleasant — and I think the fact that she used Paypal made me feel more secure also — and we reserved the apartment. The space turned out to be even better than we had hoped: the garden was a bonus, the dogs were fun, the refrigerator and washing machine helped us out, and the decor of the place was stylish and inviting. We felt lucky to have found it.
Another lodging challenge was that we decided to take U.S. 2 instead of the interstates as much as possible; furthermore, we were not sure how far down the road we would get every day. All of that made it hard to figure out which nights we would need lodging at Glacier National Park, in northwest Montana. When we finally decided on specific dates, I was pretty sure that there would not be any rooms left in any of the hotels, cabins, or lodges at the park; most of those are reserved around 6 months in advance. However, I still called the Apgar Village Lodge on the south end of Lake McDonald, which is where we wanted to be. To my surprise, they had one room left on the nights we wanted, so I booked it (and this was just less than a month beforehand). We had lucked out again: great location at the park, near food, enough room for all of us, spectacular views (the view of Lake McDonald, below, was taken only about 50 yards from our room), not terribly expensive…wow.
Glacier National Park was even more impressive than we had heard. From the Garden Wall of flowers to magnificent mountain views to many, beautiful, blue lakes to glimpses of glaciers, we did our best to take it all in…despite being there only two days. The Hi-Line trail from Logan Pass (just below the Continental Divide) was one of several hikes on this trip that took our breath away (from beauty and from being exhausted). We hiked three miles one way and had amazing vistas to look at with every step. We saw Grinnell Glacier at the half way point of the hike and, while impressive, its shrinking size was a very real reminder of the effects of global warming on the park’s glaciers. One hundred years ago there were 150 glaciers at the park and now only 25 ice masses are massive enough to be called glaciers. It’s not some freak of nature, if you ask me…it’s us.
An aside: We played the game Top Five while traveling around the Seattle area. Rachel’s boyfriend, Robbie, came up with very personalized top five lists for us to answer, which made the trip fun. Aaron shared his top five hikes (Three Season Yellowstone hike, Death Valley Canyon hikes, Crystal Lake at Mt. Rainer, Fenner Deer Path hike in Lansing, Black Elk Wilderness hikes) and top five favorite documentaries. Judy listed the top five gardens she’s visited (Versailles, Luxembourg, Sunken Garden in London (Kensington garden), Chelsea Physic Garden in London, and the MSU gardens). And I came up with my favorite five concerts I have attended (Paul McCartney and Wings at the Palace of Auburn Hills, James Taylor, George Benson, Bob Seger, (all at Pine Knob), B-52s at the Fox Theater in Detroit) and my five favorite Woody Allen movies (Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall, Mighty Aphrodite, and Midnight in Paris — which we saw in Seattle).
Robbie’s skill at choosing topics reminded me of how important it is to get to know my students — how knowing the right questions to ask can help students learn things, about each other and even about themselves, that they didn’t know before. I was also reminded of the importance of personalizing learning; I know that I am more motivated to learn when it’s a topic that relates to my life (similar to the Top 5 list being personalized for me). I hope to incorporate that notion into the Research Papers my students write and I plan to play Top 5 with my classes early in the year. Thanks, Robbie.
One challenge for me, in a subtle way, was that Rachel and Robbie have switched to a raw food diet. From what I understand, that means they do not eat food that has been cooked or contains cooked ingredients. I must admit it’s a bit hard to fathom doing it myself. I have cut back on my red meat intake and I occasionally don’t eat meat at all for a day or two; living with a vegetarian (my son, Aaron) and a near vegetarian (Judy), makes it easier to still get enough protein.
While we were in Seattle, I noticed Rachel and Robbie drinking smoothies and eating a lot of salads and fruits. They both seem more healthy and happy (at peace) than I’ve seen them in a long time. We went to the (mostly) raw food restaurant, Thrive, while we were visiting. Being organic and all, it was just a tad pricey, but not that bad really. I had the stuffed peppers, which were stuffed with a sunflower seed pate and topped with Jalapeno nacho dip and nutritional yeast. It was served with mixed greens. The small size was plenty for me and it was $9. I also had some of the appetizer we ordered: organic (dried) crackers with veggies and dips (like Garlic Cilantro God Sauce, Mighty Thai Sauce, and regular guacamole). I have to admit that the food was delicious and the portions were generous. While I don’t plan to switch (how could one give up shish-kebab?), I was able to see how the raw food diet works for them and how one could survive — and even eat well — on it.
Here are a few other random thoughts about the trip:
As we go through our days, life throws many a curve our way. For me, on this trip, the curves were mostly in my head. Once I got out of my head and just had fun and trusted, things fell into place. I came home with a tremendous feeling of gratitude — for a safe return, for the chance to visit family and hike God’s majesty, but mostly for the chance to move outside my comfort zone and walk that extra mile, trust that things will work out, and try the the stuffed peppers, even when it feels strange.
Keep on traveling, keep on truckin’ (in hybrids), and keep on hoping, people.
Way Out (Wonderful) West (see the video, below)
Traveling Amongst Flora & Fauna (video I made about some of the flowers and animals we saw; I made it with PhotoPeach)
Feel free to check out about a million photos on my Picasa account.
