Saturday, October 29, 2011

Worst Blogger Ever

It has been a very fun, very busy fall. Here are a few photos. A good post is coming. I promise. Maybe in another month . . . . how about if you just keep your expectations really low? The best I can give you today is a little commentary.



Look at this pie. Honestly. It is pretty much perfect. Razzleberry. (Yes, the decoration looks like cherries or mistletoe, but it is pretty much the extent of my free hand dough art) It tasted even better than it looked. My best effort ever. Late August.




The Jedi on their first day of school. Padawan is now in school all day. He is the smallest first grader (maybe the smallest KID) on campus. It is kind of starting to sink into him also and he doesn't always take it all that well. Both of them are brilliant, of course, and I am at the school three days a week volunteering. It is a lot of fun and, for me anyway, less stressful than babies.  The day after Labor Day.


 

A late summer harvest. Isn't it gorgeous? I think so. Yellow peppers, onions, tri-colored carrots, multiple varieties and colors of tomatoes. We pulled out beets this week and I think we'll have shallots until they freeze in the ground. It was a great summer for harvesting.




Stealing from the strawberry patch. The only kind of stealing that is actively encouraged 'round these parts.



Plantboy had a few chances to go fishing in the early morning. He took some amazing sunrise pictures on the Umpqua River. This particular trip he only brought home photos, unfortunately. 



On a whim, we took off after school and work on a Friday afternoon and hit the Coast. It was a lovely, sunny day and cool and breezy as always on the coast. The surf was remarkable that day and we had to leave by eight o'clock to beat both the tide and the darkness. On the left side in this picture, out on the point, you'll see a lighthouse. Our favorite beach is the one just below the lighthouse. 



We did a campfire and foil dinners. By the time we left we were all huddled around it. Weather forecasts are very deceptive concerning the beach in the evening in late September. Still, it was completely awesome. We had the whole place to ourselves and we ran in the edge of the surf until we were properly exhausted.




The mist rolled in. It was both eerie and  beautiful. As night fell we could see the lighthouse beam cutting through the fog and dark, reminding me that sometimes old-fashioned things are the best things.



For our boys, "playing" at the beach always looks more like work. Building, tunneling, damming and digging.  




Some minor triumph no doubt. Though the Youngling looks poised to throw a mudball. His smile tells me that he is always up to something. 



 The last wistful look of summer out across the Pacific. Next time we do the beach in the early fall it is jackets and pants and more layers. But it was so awesome that there will definitely be a next time. And I mean awesome in the soul-stirring, wonderment sense of the word.



I helped can the pears, but Plantboy gets full credit for this amazing tomatoes. All organic and from the garden--multicolored tomatoes, basil, garlic and shallot. A pure delight. My favorite discovered recipe this fall is to take a jar of these, a couple of chicken breasts, and a crockpot. Stew it all together until the chicken falls apart, serve over noodles and voila! Delightful chicken cacciatore in a snap.



Okay, two tomato shots. They really are so pretty. I think they would make lovely gifts with a square of checked fabric, a bit of raffia and a card. Plantboy, however, isn't likely to willingly part with any of these lovelies. 




On the second trip he apparently paid less attention to sunrise and more to the fishing. Not so empty handed this time around. I guess we are eating salmon again this year. 


The two football games above were also a blast. The one on the right was Jedi Knight and Plantboy two weeks ago at BYU/OSU in Corvallis. They met LaVell Edwards in the will-call line. JK was featured on TV for about four seconds and the Cougs creamed the Beavs. It was a fun, big-boy thing for the almost-ten year old to get to do. His birthday was last Sunday and grandma paid us a surprise visit. I am sure it isn't possible that I have a ten year old, but that is what his birthday is telling me. 
The picture on the right is today's University of Oregon/Washington State Game. The Ducks won by nearly 20, but it is proof that I'm a Ducks follower that I was a bit disappointed that the guys in yellow didn't score above 50! In case you didn't notice, the game was a "yellow-out." Think blackout, but brighter. This is my sweet friend Devery who invited Jeff and I to share tickets with she and her husband today. Front row. Fifty yard line. Those kind of seats make paying the babysitter for all day totally worth it. We don't get a whole day to ourselves very often. Thanks Dev. 
Halloween, Thanksgiving and a bunch of other stuff still to come. How is your fall shaping up?

Friday, October 14, 2011

No Time to Post. Just Repost.

There has been a ton of this stuff going around the blogosphere/bloggernacle/facebook/email etc. this week. This is my favorite from the St. Petersburg Times. Funny. Touching. It is so interesting to see those who have rushed to our (meaning the LDS as a people) defense as Romney and Huntsman have been raked over the coals. Kathleen Parker's article was also wonderful. That wonderful post is still coming. Breakdown is lasting longer than expected. Getting there.


Thursday, October 13, 2011

Brain Exploding. NOT literally.

I had this super-fantastic essay all worked out in my head this morning. Politics. September 11th. Wall Street protesters. Movie Review. The Lost Decade . . . it was awesome.

But it will have to wait. I'm going to have a complete breakdown today instead.Okay, not complete, there is too much to do. But certainly a partial breakdown. Trust me, I'm entitled. And being a Democrat I'm all about laying around and feeling entitled.


Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Educational Ethics

If I needed further proof that I was in exactly the right major, it showed up this week in the form of the Utah State Magazine. The cover story is about how great it is that nine USU professors are working on grants from the National Science Foundations. Seven of them are in the hard sciences, but two of them are in Instructional Technology an Learning Science. They just happen to be the professors I have this term. One is studying the positive effects in math (statistics) learning when students take their own biometric data, the other is studying how science education is improved when students have to make logical arguments.

I've been thinking a lot about the reading I've done recently and wanted to discuss some questions with you all. I posted these same questions in a section of one of my classes today because I wanted to see what system "insiders" had to say. But I'm also very interested in the opinions of those outside the education establishment. Here is what I wrote:

In the Martinez book most of us have studied for Dr. Lee's class this semester, part of the working definition of learning in that book is that people's minds will be open to new ideas, to reconfigure schema as necessary. According to educational psychologists and learning scientists, therefore, to be educated means that you are willing to be open to new ideas. 

And yet, in every one of our classes, we work with children whose parents are terrified of this very thing. Years ago I knew a man who was asking me about his daughter's English class--why couldn't her  AP English teacher  just teach her writing and proper grammar? "Why," I'll never forget him saying, "do they have to read all these awful books and cram her head full of ideas?" He was a very religious man; his concern was that his daughter would reject his world view if she was too encouraged to seek her own. And yet, he was a successful accountant with a degree. No doubt he would consider himself to be very educated. 


I've taught both sex education and evolution in very conservative states.  (Utah and Texas.) Ethics questions are very real and complicated. . . and sometimes honesty as the best policy means the phone will ring off the hook after school. What might be common sense to one person might not be so common or make any sense at all to another. So now for my question(s): What do we do as teachers when what we are trying to teach our students puts us at odds with members of our school community? How do we encourage students to explore new ideas and possibilities without undermining parental authority or rights? What have been your experiences with teaching controversial subjects? How do we address this very fundamental disconnect between our most conservative communities and one of the stated goals of real learning (the opening of the mind)?

"And it is very real--people are leaving public schools in astonishing numbers to home school with no more credentials than seminary graduation and righteous indignation. Our current political climate is toxic to our schools and half of our families tune in every night for another tirade about the place down the street where you send your kids on the bus every day to become little comrades, or just as bad, liberals. What can be done?

Before anybody says anything, of course I know that this isn't the reason that all home school parents use. The argument was to make a point.

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Heaps to Say, But It Can Wait

You should check out this blog today instead:

http://deeperstory.com/on-choosing-to-listen/

That's all.