Wish granted

Yes, Doctor.

(Photo by Tumblr user inhoami)

self-sufficiency

This blog has been so neglected. (I guess because I generally use Facebook for quick bits and pieces instead of real posts.) Ah, well.

So today I am in grading jail. I have 70 essays to grade, more or less. The kids and I are off school for Columbus Day (very politically incorrect, but I can use the catch-up time–wouldn’t you think they could at least change the name to “October Holiday” or some such thing, like some schools do?).

I have notified the kids that they are on their own, entertainment-wise, because I have work to do. “You can play all day and do anything you want, as long as it’s safe,” I told them. “But if I hear any arguing–ANY–I’m separating you and putting you both to work cleaning in different rooms. Got it?”

They got it.

So, at the moment, they’re playing a game of their own devising: Dinosaurs vs. Fairies in the Land of Origami Fish.

Happy birthday, Two!

the *Doctor Who* effect

So, in writing this book about Doctor Who, I have exposed the kids to tons and tons of the show. They now know more about Doctor Who than any 5- and 7-year-olds should, probably. Indeed, this morning Wesley reflected that there are “at least four stories with Davros–two Fourth Doctor ones, a Fifth Doctor one, and a Tenth Doctor one that’s in two parts. And the crazy part is, Sarah Jane is in TWO of those stories! And there may be other ones but those are the ones I know about.” ha.

My favorite thing about this is how much they like the show’s conventions and tropes–the things that appear over and over again. They love the Daleks: the egg-beater guns, the Dalek voice, the fact that they always think they’re going to get the better of the Doctor. They love all of the slow-moving doors that get stuck halfway open because the early series is so low-budget. Mary loves Clara (no accounting for taste) and Wesley loves Jamie. (Wesley’s taken to referring to airplanes as “flying beasties,” just like Jamie does.)

Anyway, on the way home tonight, we were listening to the audio recording of “The Power of the Daleks,” one of the Patrick Troughton serials that has been lost. As the scientist Lesterson talked to another of the characters about the Daleks, he mused, “Can you imagine what kind of positronic brain this robot has, Janley? Think of the store of knowledge that it must carry!”

Mary shouted at the radio, “Lesterson! Get with the program! They’re not robots and they are NOT YOUR SERVANTS!” Then she sighed deeply and said, “All of these villains, it’s like they never even watch TV.”

pumpkin picking!

We got our pumpkins this past weekend–the kids love picking out pumpkins.

The patch we visited had a bunch of cool stuff, including this straw sculpture:

…and a pumpkin house.

Mary picked out her pumpkin in about six seconds. She is very decisive.

Wesley, on the other hand, seemed overwhelmed by all of the choices…

Mary provided helpful advice. Lots and lots of helpful advice.

Eventually the pumpkins were all chosen. (Not pictured: my traditional Cinderella pumpkin–I don’t like carving pumpkins so I always get one of those pretty ones that isn’t good for carving.)

One of these, I mean:

We saw this happy little bee in the market:

Now we’re ready for Halloween, Wesley told me. Except for that bit about finishing their costumes.

home improvement

There is a reason–a good one–that I don’t usually tackle projects that require any handiness or know-how. Actually, there are two reasons.

Reason 1: I know nothing. Seriously, I have zero ability to do even simple repairs, etc. I can read (obviously), so sometimes I read a whole bunch of instructions and then take on some kind of project. I usually regret it, though, even if I don’t damage anything. (And I never, ever have the correct hardware/tools/parts.)

Reason 2: I’m generally working around the kids. Which means–well, you know what it means. Whatever the opposite of “help” is, that’s what you get.

Over the weekend, the flush handle on the toilet in our downstairs bathroom broke. We were busy and didn’t fix it on Sunday, and Conor made the offhand remark, “Looks like the toilet fairies still didn’t come.”

In case you don’t know any 5- or 6-year-olds, I should inform you that toilet fairies are the funniest thing in the world.

So, after teaching today, we decided that we should fix it. I stopped at the hardware store on the way home, got the part we needed, and headed home.

After making lunch, I started working on it. And this is how things went.

2:14: I take the lid off the toilet tank.

2:15-2:20: The kids stand around, looking in and marveling at the contents of the tank (“That’s where the water comes from! There’s a CHAIN in here! MOM! Did you know there’s a chain in here?”).

2:21: I read the instructions on the replacement part. I realize that I bought the wrong thing.

2:23: I fetch the kids back from the corners of the house (into which they fled when there was some prospect that I would want them to get in the car instead of pestering me). We drive back to the store and exchange our part.

2:45: We return home. (I am exhausted and haven’t even started the job yet.)

2:46: I pick up the new package and read the instructions.

2:47: Wesley says, “I’m hungry.” I fix him a snack. Mary does not want a snack.

2:50: I read the instructions again.

2:51: Mary says, “I’m hungry now.” I make her fix her own snack, but it takes longer than fixing it myself.

3:00: I read the instructions again. I turn off the water source to the toilet. The kids run into the bathroom to look at it. (“What did you do? Did you fix it?”)

3:05: I remove the toilet tank. Wesley stares at it and says, “I thought you were fixing it, not breaking it!”

…and so on. And so on. And so on.

I’m pleased to report that the problem is now fixed (at least, it seems fixed). It’s 7 p.m.

 

On the other hand…

…here is Mary’s picture of “the toylet fairy,” from the bottom of the note the fairy left for Conor:

There’s no app for that.

The hybrid writing course I’ve been teaching ended last week. “Hybrid,” for those not in academia these days, means that half of the class time is face-to-face–in a physical classroom–and half of it is online, using discussion boards and other tools.

I have always resisted online teaching, because I enjoy the classroom experience so much. I am not opposed to online education in general; it brings a lot of opportunities to students who otherwise might not have them. It’s not a great fit for me, personally, though. It’s only after teaching a few hybrid courses that I’ve been able to figure out what’s missing from the online classroom and why I feel so ambivalent about teaching online.

In the classroom–especially in a small class–I can read the students’ faces and the quality of their voices (or their silences). For example, I recently asked a question in the writing course, and one of my students responded with a textbook-perfect answer–exactly the critical idea that would correct a major problem in a sample essay that we were reading. Indeed, he phrased it almost exactly the way I would have phrased it myself, so clearly he understood what I was trying to say about the essay in question.

But he didn’t understand it.

Or, more accurately, he didn’t trust that he understood it. His tone of voice conflicted with the confident phrasing; he sounded like he was waiting for me to stop him and tell him why his answer was wrong. (For the record, I rarely do that; this was his insecurity about his answer speaking, not a fear of contradiction that my classroom had fostered.)

I said, “I absolutely agree. This is the exact problem with the argument. Why do you sound so uncertain about your answer?”

He said, “I don’t know–I guess I was thinking maybe I didn’t get it or I’d just missed something.”

One of the other students said, “I thought the same thing–I didn’t understand why the author wrote that, but I thought it was something I missed.”

I said, “But both of you are right. You’re reading carefully; you’ve both demonstrated that already in this conversation by pulling out specific details to support your overall evaluation of this piece. Be confident in your analysis; if you’ve missed something, after a careful reading, that means that it’s not clear enough.”

The last part of that statement clearly resonated with both of these students: even if you do misunderstand something occasionally, if you’re doing a good job of reading, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It usually means the author of the piece has failed. And being wrong, as I often tell them, is okay. It’s better to be wrong in a thoughtful way–because there’s a piece of information missing, or because you’ve misinterpreted a particular statement–than not to have any significant opinion at all.

This reflects the power of the face-to-face classroom for two reasons.

1) In an online discussion, his answer would look like a confident, assertive answer. I would have no reason to linger over this point at all; I would probably assume–for lack of any indication to the contrary–that this student not only understood the question and the point of the exercise, but also that he was comfortable with the rhetorical concepts that underlie this reading.

OR

2) He wouldn’t have written this answer, because when a student is forced to put something down on the page–or the screen–the bar seems to be higher for the quality of the answer. A student whose in-person answer might be a bit uncertain will often write down an answer that is much safer, but less useful. Instead of giving an analysis, the answer might be a summary, for example.

In a hybrid course, if I get to know the students, I can interpret their written answers more accurately (after the first couple of weeks), because I know what their speaking mannerisms are like and how they usually respond in a conversation. But in an entirely-online course, I don’t know how this is supposed to happen. I realize that some online classrooms use video chat (Skype, whatever), but so far, most of the students report that the technology is so unreliable that they spend a lot of their learning time trying to iron out tech problems.

So, while an online discussion or a written response to a reading can tell me what a student thinks, a physical discussion can tell me how the student thinks.

Face-to-face classes also let me gauge things like whether the group has understood something I’ve just said. I use humor a lot in the classroom; most of that humor falls flat on the screen. It’s also much easier, in person, for me to show–through warmth of voice, through body language that shows that I’m listening to their responses–that I appreciate their contributions to discussion. 

I think most teachers would agree with me that there is a difference, when you’re standing in front of thirty students and asking a question, in the silence that falls over a class when they are contemplating the question (examining it from different angles, preparing evidence for the answers they’re about to present) and the silence that falls over a classroom full of students who do not get it or do not care.

The whole demeanor of the room is different. The posture of the students in their chairs is different. Their willingness to make eye contact is different.

And reading those kinds of cues requires being in the same room. No matter what happens, I can’t imagine technology replacing that experience. There’s no way to duplicate it, because students don’t know they’re telegraphing those things. And they don’t know how much of their learning they’re taking from reading my own tone of voice, posture, or eye contact. It’s more than they think.

the good stuff

This week–well, this month and even next month–are crazy.

I’ve taken on some extra teaching obligations that will have me in the classroom every day; the kids have a dance recital and then a far-away-ish dance competition; our possessions seem to be staging a coup by breaking, one after the other (car, dishwasher, picnic table–picnic table! really?–upstairs plumbing). The schedule madness means that I’ll barely see Conor during the week.

But all the same, this is the last week of school for the kids, and they’re excited. And they get more interesting to be around every day. The weather is beautiful (after yesterday’s monsoon). And I’m excited about the book I’m working on and enjoying the class I’m teaching.

So–not that I’m not looking forward to the part of the summer when the classes I teach are over and I get a break and our schedule returns to a normal level of crazy–I keep thinking, this is the good part. This is what I’ll think about when I’m old and the house is empty.

informed criticism

Last night I made risotto for dinner.

Wesley asked, “What’s dinner?” and I said, “Risotto and fruit and sliced vegetables.”

He said, “I’m not eating that.”

I said, “Well, you’ll have to take a tasting bite if you want anything else, but that’s up to you.”

He stomped his feet furiously, stormed out to the porch, and jumped around angrily, repeating “I’m not eating that! I’m not eating that! I want dinner but I won’t eat that!”

This went on for about five minutes. Sometimes he came over to the door to stomp directly at me.

Then he wandered off.

About five minutes after that, he came up to the door again and said, “Mama?”

“Yes, Wesley?”

“What’s risotto?”

Take THAT, Darth Vader!

Wesley and Mary have been playing Star Wars in the yard. He pointed his finger and said, “I’ll get you, Darth Vader!”

Mary shouted, “I have TWO light sabers!” [Query for nonexistent editor: lightsaber? light saber?]

Wesley replied, “I have NINETY-NINE light sabers!” And then, after a moment’s thought, “And 100 hands, so that I can use them all and STILL point at you!”