Feb
21

Loving My Dentist: SOLT

Yesterday morning, honoring my  pj Monday,  I came back to my blog and shared my post on my other online spaces and I got responses immediately.  But I knew I would be leaving for a trip to the dentist and returning with half of my mouth numb just before I’d be welcoming my guitar teacher  after a few weeks of inactivity.

By 11:30  I was out, in cool sunshine, on my  to the treatment.  I arrived on time with a short greeting at the check-in desk and I  took my usual seat in the empty waiting room. Twenty-five years of waiting in this room and I wondered why it looked so sad, so unwelcoming. No pictures on the wall. Did it always look like this?

It’s no secret that I love my dentist. He makes that unpleasant dental experience almost pleasant.  I’ve never minded the torture with him and even though he no longer owns his practice he still shows up 3 days a week and for a long time I refused to see anyone but him.  I experimented with a string of their dental hygienists but I was miserable and Dr. P. kept taking me back.  That was until last September when the last vestiges of his power ran out. He had to give me up along with a large number of Dr. P lovers. Sure he does stop in a check on me and if I needed for serious work, I’d be back in his chair, but I’m not longer a regular with him.

Jackie is not Dr. P but  she’s the best alternative and yesterday, in her chair, I did learn more about the world of dentistry than I needed to know.  Dr P.’s partner. who bought him out does not own the practice outright.  He’s got silent partners, a company owns a large piece of his operation and it’s now more about profits than patient.

I honestly don’t remember what the waiting room looked like in Dr. P’s hands but the atmosphere of care is disappearing. Good-bye to another mom-and-pop operation

 

 

Feb
20

Monday, Starting Again :)

I walked back in time yesterday with Tuvia at my side.  The Jacob Burns Film Center was running a Jeanne Moreau film weekend and featuring The Bride Wore Black, and I had to see it again.  After all, it was my first foreign film experience, along with Shoot the Piano Player: a Truffaut double-bill.

I was ripe for the picking!  Moving away from the usual Hollywood faire I fell in love that Friday night in 1968 with the sound of French and the stripped-down approach of foreign movie-making.   Immediate submersion in the world of each film.

But… the walk we took yesterday was filled with trepidation.  Returning to a film after more than 40 years and sitting with Tuvia, it was a very different experience.  Not so romantic this time around. Tuvia was puzzled,  but my memories still held firm.

I was a college freshman with my brand new group of college friends and together we experienced the thrill of an art house just  a block away from our college.  For $5.00 we watched two movies… and gobbled down a jumbo popcorn.  It was the first of many Friday nights to come over my four years at Hofstra.

 

Feb
07

Loving the Image: #SOLT # POT Week 13

Thanks to the start of semester 2 at Pedagogy First (Program for Online Teaching) for inspiring my weekly Tuesday Slice of Life!

    For years, I didn’t realize how much I loved images.  I loved the movies and the theater but I never realized that the common denominator was the simple, gorgeous image.

I  just couldn’t see myself behind the lens of a camera until the digital world made it possible for me to click without thinking twice about what each shot would cost to develop.  I can’t tell you how many rolls of developed film came back to me with terrible images after all the time to bring the rolls to the drug store, return to pick them up, pay and open the packet to disappointment.

UNTIL…

SD cards came onto the scene and my life changed!

I spent most of my teaching career in the classroom and on the stages of my schools in the service of the words of playwrights with the kids who joined me on challenging adventures. In the last years of that phase of my life I did begin to transition with the help of my first Apple laptop to digital storytelling and the power of the digital image and Flickr was the site where I deposited 4,653 photos from 2006- 2010.

I just spent the last 20 minutes figuring out my Flickr email/password combination and then walking back in time through the images I have collected all still there just waiting for me. Imagine!  Of course I have a shelf of old school albums but they are yellowing…online, the images are still alive and flourishing for me and the world I’ve invited in for a look.

Wow!

And what happened since January 2010?  I gave up Flickr?

Along came Facebook…

We are fickle in this digital world, moving from one tool and site to the next but what a great adventure we are on!

 

Jan
26

Another Great Day in Classrooms, But What About the TEST? #dlday#3

Today my car turned north, almost on its own as we headed out with my bags of 21 century equipment to spend time in Highland Falls Intermediate classrooms.

Just a dusting of snow and drizzle on the way but the 30 minute ride with a glimpse of the Bear Mountain Bridge on my right side that features the Hudson River from another vantage point, reminds me that Spring will force me to stop to grab new shots on my way to this district.

But I was running late and so I dangerously raced through the town’s 30 MPH speed limit. Safe again!

I had my list of classes: Special Ed with Cecilia, 6th grade with Lucas, 8th grade Social Studies with Jen…and planning stops along the way.

Since the very end of November, this challenging project of professional develop has become comfortable. THe rooms along this hallway on the second floor are filled with familiar faces. Most teachers are welcoming and there are wonderful things happening with their students. Will they receive accolades as a result of higher test scores this year? Probably not! Clearly the assessment tool needs to be revamped in a positive way but will it be?

What I see behind the lens of my camera takes my breath away. Most teachers (grades 3-8) have opened their doors to me, with pleasure and with some, the planning conversations are ongoing. Everyone is charged with a project that focuses on CCSS Anchor Writing Standard 1 and 8. My challenge is to support argumentative writing that moves beyond traditional nonfiction print resources and could include a digital project beyond the written piece.

In March( fingers crossed) all teachers will meet together with Hudson Valley Writing Project leaders and TCs to use protocols as they examine and reflect on student work and the digital pieces. FINGERS CROSSED!
There are many pressures playing on school administrators to prepare teachers for new accountability instruments and we may be upstaged.

I can’t say for sure that February 1st will be the official Digital Learning Day but I saw a lot of Digital Learning going on today.

Cecilia shared her student blogging comments with the whole class. Lucas had his students writing Haikus to images of their Hudson Valley area.

Jen has kids creating PSA’s on critical social issues. This is as new for her as it is for her students.

And there was more…

I left exhausted, but like my visit to Dover just a day ago, I left breathless and grateful to be a part of something exciting!

Jan
24

A Day At Dover: DLDay#2

Today I was back at the Dover School District to work with the IC2 8th grade teacher team led by Jack Zangerle and Matt Pool and then head over to the high school wing to join HVWP TC Ann Murray and her class of 15 tech boys! Funny, that I never expect the experience will be as wonderful as it always turns out to be and again, this day took my breath away.

I arrived comfortably on time even with a slow start on the Tappan Zee Bridge and with Jack’s students’ engaged with their writing, I had time to do a first read of his Gates Unit: a unit that he will use with the IC that will include the creation of PSAs that will include reading and writing strategies, so much of the work inspired by our work with IC I last year, and his Hudson Valley Writing Project experiences and ultimately, the National Writing Project. Of course his Dover collaborator, Matt, on the other side of the wall, is his day-to-day team and I’m honored to be welcomed in both classrooms.

Our teacher team was small today but mighty. Last time I shared a writing project workshop with them focused on using the strategy of found poetry to make sense of non-fiction texts. The group worked through the workshop and took the techniques to their IC groups earlier this morning. It didn’t work perfectly and together we talked through the issues. No one was willing to toss it away.

Jack took the student tech team today to feel me up to work with Ann’s tech class. It was hard to leave this very scrappy group of 8th grade techies who are preparing to present their work to their IC groups next time. They have early pieces of 5 photo stories inspired by Wesley Fryer on Flickr. It was a great way to create something and then talk about it with the group. Their second piece, still with just images focused more specifically on their IC group topics. Last year we allowed the kids to stay unfocused for too long. This year assignments have anchored them.

I wanted to stay but we all race with the clock and off I went to find Ann in the high school wing. Finally!
A group of boys- 15 high school boys. Lots of testosterone!

Ann is teaching this tech class for the first time and while she is very comfortable with technology, she was hoping for support and with a bit of moving periods around, she was very pleased to have me join her today and I was very happy to be there. Teaching a group of high school boys, what a pleasure!

She prepared them. They would be writing. She had pens and paper and enough connection with them that they were open to the experience. I dipped into my work with Kevin Hodgson and had them writing H is for… etc…

Now their course has been moving in an opposite direction. They have been working with video and I moved them back a bit…I left them with three loops of writing. They have story starts and Ann is challenged to keep them going. Of course Ann and I are FB buds and the conversations will continue, probably some Skpying into her classroom as well.

I returned to Jack’s room and watched him work with his students. His students working together is small clusters with their small laptops engaging in interesting conversations. Good thing my camera batteries were charged. I caught some of his students and then raced with Matt to grab something from his work.

Collaboration!

I left Dover on a cloud!

Jan
23

Digital Learning Day Is On Its Way and Where Will I Be?

Greetings Everyone,

So far I haven’t jumped into the this upcoming NWP event even though I’ve been getting wonderful invitations from Christine and Kate and I’ve been lurking in the twitter world, reading #DLDay tweets and some wonderful posts shared by Jack Zangerle on the Digital Is site..

So finally, on this foggy Monday, it feels like it right time for me to join in the fun.

Even though I don’t have my very own group of kids to get digital with, I have great invitations from teachers in two of our HVWP school districts.

Off to Jack and Dover tomorrow… and next week I will be playing in the Highland Falls Digital World.

More details to come…

Jan
23

Mom’s Back Home

It’s been a tough week for my mom and family.  It’ s just not easy to be 93 with complications.  There hasn’t been much hospital time in her  adult life but the older you get, the harder it is to avoid and we all held our breath for that week away that she would come back home with herself intact.  It seems that even though she needs a lot of sleep she is happy to be home with her dog and her husband. But her home has changed.

The rest of us have used this golden opportunity for a gentle intervention to renovate our family home to make it more user friendly for both of our parents.  My dad has been on board with chair lifts, furniture changes, tubs transformed into showers, but it’s breaking our hearts to what my dad fume over an invasion by helpers.  We have a staff of cleaning people a nurses now welcomed in to clean daily, take over the washing and drying of clothes, making meals and my dad is furious.

  I am resolved to honor my dad and respect his frustrations. Of course it’s easy for me.  I don’t live across the street.  I can make my daily calls and offer support and some humor and then hang up.  I can visit once or twice a week but it’s my brother and sister-in-law with the daily routines that are constantly broken.  Dad, I’m thinking about you and about me.

Jan
21

This is What Love Looks Like! A Community Piece

35 Contributors from around the world shared images of LOVE with me and I’m sharing them with you!  I didn’t create this piece this week but it was an exciting collaboration.

Cris C.  joined in the fun and it’s perfect timing to share it this upcoming week,

Jan
17

I’m Living in a Nightmare but Reading Fantasy: SOLT

I’m reading Finnish Lessons and saving my pennies for a trip to the fantasy world of Pasi Sahlberg, its author.

Today Andrew Cuomo, running for President in 4 years, as he raises his voice when he speaks about holding “bad” teachers to the fire.

Seems like I’ve been writing and thinking about this dichotomy for months now, maybe longer and we just seem to be moving farther and farther away from supporting the good and great teachers.

Am I wrong?

Just last week, as I was making my way from classroom to classroom at HF I stopped for a conversation with a fantastic Special Ed teacher who loves her students and stands tall, a giant of a teacher. She is excited that her students in a self-contained classroom, are getting very excited about the project we have been working on. Excited that her students want to know more about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and Ghandi…

And how will that be measured?

Her students are excused from the high stakes tests, BUT SHE’s NOT! Whether they take the test or not they will be scored with a 1. She will be scored with their 1.

And how will the community judge her?

And I crazy or what?

Jan
01

Happy New Year 2012 at Lincoln Center

So happy to be in NYC at Lincoln Center with Tuvia at my arm and with my iPhone. Inside we lived Gershwin and Bernstein and I was living my New Year’s Eve fantasy.

A night to remember and we weren’t racing back to the car with weather from October…

Here’s more of our night to remember…

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