Standards Based Education

My alarm interrupted what seems like a great dream, but who remembers those?
I showered and got ready in record time today. This is thanks to me for pre-planning another knockout wardrobe. Turquoise maxi-skirt, 3/4 sleeve turquoise and black striped collarless button up. Hammered silver coin necklace. My classic teacher pompadour, created in the faculty bathroom once my hair dried on the drive East.

I brought another armload of teacher loot in today. Each of my tote bags was medium-laden with books. Cookbooks mostly, surprised? The banker's box had my crucial files of info on writing lessons, using questions, breaking ice, and other educator staples. And I brought my nesting baskets - the one full of highlighters is my favorite. Duh.

The morning session was held at an early childhood school a few blocks away from the high. More on the drive over in my Worst of the Day section. We newbies filled up a pretty big room over there. The topic was really inspiring. This is educational philosophy with students placed first, and my favorite thing to do is differentiate instruction for exceptional students. We rapped about how to access outliers at both ends of the spectrum. I was overwhelmed, frenzied, and impressed. It will probably take me a few months to learn how to blog about this in the appropriate teacher language, so for now I will say that a few key things about the district really hit me with a smile. One, don't surprise your students with a test or quiz. Don't use assessment as a way to expose what your students don't know or are not prepared to demonstrate. Instead, make it possible for every student to be taught and tested in a way that suits their aptitude, learning style, and career/educational/life goals.

Lunch was delicious pizza and salad. I enjoyed chatting with the new German and Spanish teachers. At the tail end of lunch we went through the employee handbook like greased lightning. And there was also a thick manila envelope (save this for intra-district mailing on the pony express line! manila = gold in schools) full of all the materials and instructions for homeroom.

Westside teachers have a homeroom that meets every morning (except Wednesday) for 15 minutes. It's generally a mix of 4 kids from each grade, and you stick with your homeroom group until they graduate  - adding new freshmen along the way. It's a time to develop relationships, advise, and give announcements about the whole school as well as paperwork for service learning (required).

Oh the day isn't over yet. It's only 1pm folks.
My fellow new FCS teacher and I went to our office and worked through the first 20ish pages of the handbook. Our discussion and notetaking focused on a common goal of developing procedures, rules, and a united front for the foods classes. We made excellent progress and will continue to chat over the weekend as time permits.

Best of the Day: meeting the SPED teacher from Rockbrook elementary and discussing how to differentiate assessment

Worst of the Day: the traffic light for the one northbound lane of 90th street at the intersection of W Dodge was red ALL DAY. I sat through three light cycles behind a car before we even figured it out. Boo construction, but I hope somebody knew who to call to get it fixed.

New Certified Staff Orientation

This morning I woke up six minutes before my 5:30am alarm. It's the first day. That's all I could think. And, so, I didn't hit snooze. Instead, I showered and put on my most dazzling Mrs. Frizzle ensemble. A wildly patterned skirt, hot pink tank, and similarly patterned cardigan. The only relief  was a horizontal black and white striped panel on the back of my sweater. Think prison uniform.
The drive to Omaha was smooth, and PandoraOne had some good tunes for me. I leave it on a Phoenix station 80% of the time. Other top stations for me are Katy Perry and Charles Bradley. Today it was Phoenix. I watched the red hot sun rise above I-80, and I shimmied my shoulders like a good car-aoke singer, keeping the beat with each song.
My day was like a whirlwind. But I started it right. Cheese & crackers on the way to Westside HS. Hauled in one load of collected "stuff" to the office. Unpacked and brought my empty banker box (and two shoulder bags) back to the trunk of my new car for a refill.
From there I drove to the Career & Conference Center (thanks to google maps) for breakfast. I chose the blueberry scone. The best part of the warm welcome was an inspirational TED video. Relationships. Be good at them. Got it.
New computers, thinner than a DVD box. Traveling cases for the light-as-air MacBook ... as big as a cereal box. Go figure. Oh, and we got a hefty lecture on not crossing the personal/professional email streams - complete with a clip from Ghostbusters. Bill Murray is a constant in my life.
The Nebraska State Education Association (union) bought us a BBQ lunch at McKenna's, just down Pacific from my school. And I signed up because my friend's mom told me to, and I'm a good listener. And my cooperating teacher told me to, and I listened.
I met with my mentor and found an old friend from my lunch lady days - he teaches math at Westside. I got to sit with the other new teacher in my department. Also, a long time friend of my sisters' is a newbie too. I'm among enough friends to make me the confident person I always wanted to be.

Best of the Day: the French teacher has amazing art supplies on wire racks with labels... her room is an inspiration for me

Worst of the Day: stopped in Waverly to get gas, because my car was yelling at me (the dash flashes FILL FUEL eternally - so annoying, I totally had 18 more miles to go) and then I missed the ramp for I-80 West so I had to drive on Hwy 6 and all the way through Lincoln (extra 30 minutes of driving on a 45 minute commute = lame)

A Week Without Baking (Almost)

In the way that everything happens at once, my house is being transformed from many angles. I've been busy with school and watching things get cut down, so not much activity in the kitchen. Take a look.

before

There used to be a forest in the yard, but some of the trees were dying. We decided to cut them down in order to save the two white pine trees where our hammock hangs.

Weston watched the action from a makeshift cage while Matt and I took some photos. The arborists used rope & saddle to climb up the trees instead of ladders or boom trucks. It was so cool to watch! Weston enjoyed learning the words 'bobcat' and 'chainsaw'.

This is the new view of the back yard. There's so much open land and sky. I think we need a basketball hoop and a fire pit. Yeah, that would be nice.

What to do in the open space?

 

Ye Olde Antenna

Before the trees were all cut down, our roofing team arrived and set to work.
First thing, they had to take down the crazy old antenna. It hit the roof with a thud and a crash when whoopsie! it came through the dining room window.
That first day seemed to take forever as the guys were getting acclimated to the new project. Of course, being slowed down by having to fix windows didn't help any.

Eventually they got down to filling up the dumpster.

And climbing up and down the ladder with stuff.

This is what the old worn out shingles looked like.
And then they were gone, to be replaced by 'felt' or tar paper. It's been slower than normal I think, but they have to pull off six or seven layers of asphalt shingles (which is too many, shame on whomever has been roofing this way!) plus the original wood shingles are still down there too!

We had to cut down the Wisteria vines that once shaded the West end of our porch because they were growing over the top of the roof and winding themselves around the gutters. And then suddenly... Ryan wanted to cut down the evergreen bushes in front of the porch too. It's so open I just don't know what to do!

All this activity began on September 7th and as I said before I haven't been able to make much food at home in the interim. However, last night a couple ladies came over and we made Dark Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread. I got zero pictures and misplaced the recipe. In my next post, I will put up the recipe and some photos of a new batch.

Courgette Carbonara

Last month, in the thick of squash season, I easily got my hands on a pile of luscious zucchini courgettes. Naturally, I wanted to find a way to pair them with bacon, so out came the penne noodles and inspiration took hold.

cream

penne rigate

eggs

The process of making carbonara sauce goes really quickly. You have to be able to create an egg & cream emulsion rather than allowing the eggs to become scrambled bits in your sauce.

zucchini

bacon