Staff Bonding

I feel like a real part of Trinity’s staff now: I bought the new U2 cd this weekend, No Line on the Horizon.

I think I like it.
every sweet tooth needs just a little hit…

The Horrors of Indecision

My computer is slowly dying. Slowly is the key word here, because it seems that every day it gets just a little bit slower and it functions a little bit less well. I suppose for a laptop to last 6 years (I’ve only had to replace the hard drive once) is fairly impressive.

It just takes a lot of patience to do anything on the slow machine. I press the power button to turn it on and I might as well go do some other short task while it boots up…. Then I come back and double-click the firefox shortcut, and it will be another few minutes for my computer to decide to pull up my email. So I return and enter my password, and glance away for another minute…you get the idea. Checking my email is a time investment. And then a 3 1/2 minute youtube video is about all the video card can take before getting choppy and impossible to watch.

So I think it’s about time to retire the Dell dinosaur and get something a bit newer (don’t worry, I’ve backed up my files just in case I should be visited by the blue screen of death).

But what should I get? A desktop? I’m not in school anymore, so it isn’t as crucial to have a laptop, but it’s so nice to have the mobility a laptop brings. Then there’s the question of what kind of capabilities I want my computer to have. And I live in Charlottesville, where it’s trendy to have Apple computers (which makes me not really want to get one because of that very fact). But I must admit they are prety sleek. Also, am I cool enough for an Apple? I feel like the computer might out-cool me, and who wants that?

Laptop? Desktop? Windows? Apple? Specs? Options?How much money do I want to spend?

So for the time being, I am trapped in indecision, dreaming of a computer with which checking my email isn’t a 15-minute time commitment (and I’m not even counting the time it takes to actually read and respond to email, this is strictly time getting to my gmail screen and being able to open up the first message).

Life Skills 101

Things I wish elementary school aged kids were taught:

• How to identify local trees
• How to identify local birds
• How to identify local wildflowers
  (basically, observe the world around you and become familiar with it)
• Stories –more stories

Things I wish middle schools/ high school kids were taught:

• How to do taxes
• How to make (and stick to) a budget; responsible money management
• Basic auto maintenance
• General household maintenance
• How to write a resume
• Grocery shopping/ simple cooking
• Introduction to Economics
  (…and other practical life skills)

While I think that it is important for children to be taught many of the subjects they are currently taught in schools, I think there is a large practical portion missing from our education. Parents are probably the best people to teach these skills, but not all parents do, so maybe they could be picked up by schools (especially things like budgets and economics).

You may think that there isn’t enough time to teach students to do things like checking the oil in their cars when they have so many other classes to attend, but when schools have time to teach teenagers how to put condoms on bananas, I think they could probably spare a few minutes to teach them some practical life skills.

Spring is Almost Here

I love springtime. Something about it makes me go a little crazy. After months of the world looking grey and dead (or at least in hibernation), new life appears.

The crocuses are almost finished, and the daffodils are out, with their bright smiling faces. The bradford pears are white, and the wild cherry trees are starting to be pink and white, contrasting with the rest of the trees that have not yet decided that spring is quite here.

There is a beautiful tulip tree on my drive to work that almost causes wrecks because it is showing off, and a few of the small shrubs outside my basement window are starting to turn pale green around the edges.

It’s so exciting! The weather gets a little warmer (but it is fickle — you never know what the next day will bring), and the sun seems warmer and brighter, somehow. Maybe that’s just because we had 5 days of rain in a row…I’m not sure.

Spring is so close; I know it happens every year, but it never ceases to amaze me that the world can explode with life again. Take 10 minutes, go outside on the next warm-ish day, and just look around you.
What do you see?
Look again. Now what do you see?

Save Your Pennies, Take a Trip

I’ve always wanted to go backpacking around Europe. There are several reasons for this:

1. It sounds cool. :) People always have great stories when they come back.
2. I think I would learn a lot.
3. I’ve done the large-group-of-tourists thing, and I’m over it (even though the places are still awesome, a large group doesn’t allow too much freedom).
4. Different places are fascinating, and I want to see more of the world (in a literal sense).
5. It seems about time for an adventure or two… and I suppose I am officially an ‘adult,’ so what am I waiting for?

So…summer of 2010 anyone?

Quoting from Others

“Once upon a time we were a new nation that allowed ordinary citizens to learn how to read well and encouraged them to read anything they thought would be useful. Close reading of tough-minded writing is still the best, cheapest, and quickest method known for learning to think for yourself. This invitation to commoners extended by America was the most revolutionary pedagogy of all.

“Reading, and rigorous discussion of that reading in a way that obliges you to formulate a position and support it against objections, is an operational definition of education in its most fundamental civilized sense….

“Once you trust yourself to go mind-to-mind with great intellects, artists, scientists, warriors, and philosophers, you are finally free.”

[J.T. Gatto, The Underground History of American Education, p. 56]

 ”For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.”

[Dorothy Sayers, The Lost Tools of Learning]

Do we still think of education this way? Is this the goal of schooling, to make people free?
Sometimes I think that these fundamentals, reading and communicating well, are left by the wayside in our attempts to create well-schooled children….

Cooking Adventures, Again

Be careful what you put in your microwave. Microwaves are not built to handle very much, though they do a decent job at warming things up if used correctly.

Yesterday, however, was a lesson on watching food. I put a mug with instant oatmeal and some water in the microwave for a minute. All was well. I took it out and stirred it, noticing that it was still quite soupy and not cooked. I had added too much water, so I thought I should put the oatmeal in for another minute.

I knew I should be watching the oatmeal as it cooked, and I did watch for the first few seconds, but then I got distracted by something else and looked away for about 25 seconds. That was all the time my oatmeal needed. When I looked back at the microwave, I saw with horror that the oatmeal had exploded all over the microwave!

It had completely overflowed the mug and almost all of it was now covering the turntable of the microwave. The next few minutes were spent cleaning out the microwave and wiping off the outside of the mug, which seemed to have more oatmeal than the inside.

Alas, my breakfast was gone.
And I hadn’t even had coffee yet. Now that I think about it, both my recent cooking snafus have taken place prior to the consumption of coffee. Perhaps I should learn something from this. Actually, in this case, I learned two important things:

1. Watch your microwave oatmeal like a hawk.
2. Drink coffee first (though perhaps this tip should come first…).

Why School?

What is the purpose and goal of American education, especially public education? This question may seem silly, but I really want to know.

Why do we do what we do?
What philosophy of education lies behind and underneath our individual schools?
What benefits does our system produce, especially when compared with other educational systems?
How seriously do we take the responsibility of shaping young, impressionable minds?

I suppose my questions make it clear that I am a little suspicious of American public education. I will admit that I have my doubts, but I would actually be happy to be proved wrong.

To that end, comments, suggestions, and ideas are welcomed [but I am looking for civil discourse, and not just ad hominem attacks or defenses of the system]. Also, if you know of any good resources for further research, I will be appreciative.

Hazards of the Road

A few days ago as I drove home for my lunch break I noticed that there were a few places where wires or small cables of some sort had been taped to the road. The wires ran from the street all the way to a small box located in the median.

Why were there two sets of wires and small boxes on my commute? Dozens of cars would run over them in the course of a day. What if I were the 299th car to run over the wires and the boxes were rigged to explode at the 299th car?!

Someone told me that the wires and boxes are supposed to count the number of cars that drive down the road for upkeep purposes. But how easy would it be for someone to rig the little boxes?

Adventures in Baking

Baking powder and baking soda are not the same thing. Neither can they always be substituted for each other.

I discovered these important cooking facts this morning when I tried to make pancakes for breakfast. I zipped through the recipe, adding ingredients to my glass bowl and stirring them together. 2 cups of milk, 2 eggs, 2 cups of flour, baking something-or-other, salt, vanilla extract, etc.

The batter seemed a little more soupy than usual, so I added a little flour to compensate, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. That is, until I took a few bites of my pancakes.

At first everything seemed normal. The pancakes tasted pancake-y, but I noticed a strange almost metallic aftertaste. I tried to ignore it and kept shoveling down bites of syrupy goodness, but eventually it became impossible to ignore: my pancakes tasted slightly like tinfoil. I sipped my coffee to wash down the flavor, and tried to figure out what happened to make the pancakes such a disaster, and finally realized something important:

I had added 2 tablespoons of baking soda to the recipe, instead of baking powder.

Mmmmm. No wonder my breakfast had that slight Arm & Hammer Toothpaste flavor. Clearly, baking powder and baking soda should not be substituted for one another. As I sadly threw out the rest of my batter, unwilling to subject anyone else to this particular batch of pancakes, I thought that perhaps it is best to begin cooking after having a few sips of morning coffee, not before. And perhaps double checking the recipe before blithely throwing in ingredients would help too. Or at least thinking about the crucial differences between powder and soda.