There's nothing like a visit to the car doctor to make me realize how vulnerable and insignificant my meager savings and I are... and to remind me just how much the objects in my life can cost me.
It was not welcome news last week when Frank informed me that my recently-developed rattles and shakes would add up to at least a $1200 fix. Thinking sadly that $1200 might make a nice down payment on a new and improved transportation device instead, I started searching local dealerships and craigslist ads. My search eventually led me to a visit with Dan at Academy Motors. I figured they must be nice and trustworthy folks because they have a cross and Jesus-fish on their sign out front.
When I told Dan what kind of budget I was shooting for (let me just hint: It turns out Bank of America doesn't even give loans THAT small), he scoffed. I've always wondered what it looks like to be scoffed at, but now I know. "Huh. WELL," he grunted, as he stuck his hands on his hips and rolled his eyes... "THAT doesn't give me anything to work with." I told him we could pretend that I had money anyway, and that I just wanted to see a few of the options available, but I let him get back to the air conditioning without wasting too much more of his time.
Imagine my relief when I took my sick Saturn to Jim in Topeka for a second opinion. He sighed but managed to turn the $900 spectre into $100 and pronounced the car more-than-roadworthy.
Now that my little red darling has a new lease on life, I'm on a campaign to fix the long list of aches and pains that have been plaguing her for years. Tuesday I will pay a junkyard $45 to give my E-brake a functioning button (no longer will I have to teach other drivers the "special trick" to parking my car). Next on the list are the clutch pedal that squeaks a blue streak in hot weather, and the flooding problem that requires me to keep a cup for bailing water under my seat...
Anyway, while Jim was fixing up my car in Topeka, I biked across town and settled in for a long day of work in my classroom--my first full day back since the end of May. It recently occurred to me that, now that I have my own room (HOOOOOORAAAAYYYYY!!! All but one of my classes in one place!!!), I can do whatever I want to improve upon the aesthetics and educational potential of my teaching space. With that end in mind, I dragged the two bedraggled and mismatched bookshelves out of the building and began slathering them with black paint.
I think there is a special kind of therapy in painting--in watching dilapidation disappear behind a new fresh start, in letting yourself just get messy and splattered with paint, and getting lost in the rhythm of the motions... But I wax poetic. At any rate, the world (and more importantly, my classroom) now has one less hospital-green shelf, and that in and of itself is a beautiful thing.
Before the end of the day I had not only improved on my shelving situation, but also rearranged and hung posters, swapped the desk and the front and the table in the back, unpacked books for lesson planning, reassembled my computer, and... somehow agreed to sew a purple velour Santa suit for the school's mentoring program. Hm. Well, five steps forward and one step back isn't bad progress, right? So I'll call that an auspicious outlook for the school year, and leave you with the rest of the equation (and a nod to whoever came up with this oh-so-quotable advertising scheme):
New engine mount bolts: $100
New tires and alignment for my car: $440
Can of black paint and paintbrush: $11
Driving to and from work with peace of mind.... and no car payments.........
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Pondering History
At the beginning of the summer I promised myself that I would spend July mentally switching back into teaching thoughts. Well, it's July...
I seem to focus better when I'm in a public place like a coffee shop (maybe I think other people are watching, so I feel compelled to look busy, and thereby trick myself into actually accomplishing something?), so I spent most of this morning with an iced chai and my laptop, cruising the internet for inspiration and wisdom for my coming year of teaching.
It's not that I'm specifically planning any lessons, just attempting to organize some thoughts into a coherent philosophy and overview for the coming school year. What habits do I want to adopt? What pattern will my 90-minute class periods take on? What theories of education do I want to incorporate?
I stumbled across a collection of interviews with accomplished and experienced history teachers, and found so much wisdom there, I felt compelled to start a list of "notes to self" for next school year. Then my list ended up as a collection of quotes, because I couldn't put the ideas any better than these teachers...
"I always tell my students that I don’t care if they remember everything, but they had to know how to locate information, know how to think, and had to be organized. I feel that as long as they know how to get information, it doesn’t really matter whether they memorize a lot of stuff. I want to give students the ability to become informed decision makers and problem solvers." Maurice Butler
"I believe we have more respect for the potential of our students; we understand that each student is a potentially powerful learner." Michele Forman
"The first thing I keep in mind is the Hippocratic oath: Do no harm. It works for teachers too. Most of the history classes I had in school were awful. They were filled with lectures and textbooks and little else. I don’t want to be that kind of teacher. ...History is not a series of dead facts. It’s made up of choices made by real people in real circumstances... It’s about making explanations for the way things are today. It’s also about drawing inspiration from the past, recognizing that anything we appreciate today, anything about this country that is decent, got that way because people worked together to create it." Bill Bigelow
"One of the things I need to say here is that I don’t try to “cover” all of U.S. History...To attempt it is to guarantee that the curriculum will be a mile wide and an inch deep... A teacher has to choose: either I’m going to explore some aspects of history, explore some time periods, in real depth, and in a way that can excite students—or I’m going to make sure that my students get through that entire 1,000 page textbook." Bill Bigelow
"Another important aim of my history teaching is to puncture the myth that a country is like a family. Too often, when textbooks talk about the United States they are filled with “we” did this, and “we” did that. But who really is the “we” that is being talked about? There is a coercive element to the language that is used in a history class—and in the media more generally, for that matter—that demands that students identify with the policies of the U.S. government and of U.S. elites... However, U.S. society has always been stratified based on race, class, nationality, language, gender—and it’s bad history, bad sociology to assume a common past. ... I want students to understand that U.S. society has always been experienced very differently depending on a variety of factors—and it still is." Bill Bigelow
"...He thought my biggest problem was that I was confusing the students by discussing how different historians thought differently about issues. “This is the only history course that most of these students will ever take,” he told me, "and they need to know the facts." I disagreed. If this is the only history course students ever take, it was all the more important that they know that historians disagree over what the facts are as well as over interpretations." Orville Vernon Burton
I seem to focus better when I'm in a public place like a coffee shop (maybe I think other people are watching, so I feel compelled to look busy, and thereby trick myself into actually accomplishing something?), so I spent most of this morning with an iced chai and my laptop, cruising the internet for inspiration and wisdom for my coming year of teaching.
It's not that I'm specifically planning any lessons, just attempting to organize some thoughts into a coherent philosophy and overview for the coming school year. What habits do I want to adopt? What pattern will my 90-minute class periods take on? What theories of education do I want to incorporate?
I stumbled across a collection of interviews with accomplished and experienced history teachers, and found so much wisdom there, I felt compelled to start a list of "notes to self" for next school year. Then my list ended up as a collection of quotes, because I couldn't put the ideas any better than these teachers...
"I always tell my students that I don’t care if they remember everything, but they had to know how to locate information, know how to think, and had to be organized. I feel that as long as they know how to get information, it doesn’t really matter whether they memorize a lot of stuff. I want to give students the ability to become informed decision makers and problem solvers." Maurice Butler
"I believe we have more respect for the potential of our students; we understand that each student is a potentially powerful learner." Michele Forman
"The first thing I keep in mind is the Hippocratic oath: Do no harm. It works for teachers too. Most of the history classes I had in school were awful. They were filled with lectures and textbooks and little else. I don’t want to be that kind of teacher. ...History is not a series of dead facts. It’s made up of choices made by real people in real circumstances... It’s about making explanations for the way things are today. It’s also about drawing inspiration from the past, recognizing that anything we appreciate today, anything about this country that is decent, got that way because people worked together to create it." Bill Bigelow
"One of the things I need to say here is that I don’t try to “cover” all of U.S. History...To attempt it is to guarantee that the curriculum will be a mile wide and an inch deep... A teacher has to choose: either I’m going to explore some aspects of history, explore some time periods, in real depth, and in a way that can excite students—or I’m going to make sure that my students get through that entire 1,000 page textbook." Bill Bigelow
"Another important aim of my history teaching is to puncture the myth that a country is like a family. Too often, when textbooks talk about the United States they are filled with “we” did this, and “we” did that. But who really is the “we” that is being talked about? There is a coercive element to the language that is used in a history class—and in the media more generally, for that matter—that demands that students identify with the policies of the U.S. government and of U.S. elites... However, U.S. society has always been stratified based on race, class, nationality, language, gender—and it’s bad history, bad sociology to assume a common past. ... I want students to understand that U.S. society has always been experienced very differently depending on a variety of factors—and it still is." Bill Bigelow
"...He thought my biggest problem was that I was confusing the students by discussing how different historians thought differently about issues. “This is the only history course that most of these students will ever take,” he told me, "and they need to know the facts." I disagreed. If this is the only history course students ever take, it was all the more important that they know that historians disagree over what the facts are as well as over interpretations." Orville Vernon Burton
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)