Yukon Chatter Bug

A high-fiver from a colleague on Friday afternoon felt good. “To surviving your first week of teaching,” he exclaimed with a smile on his face.

“Yes, I survived,” I sighed.

“No, I didn’t survive my first week, I lived it. I prefer to to say I lived it,” smiled another newish teacher.

When you understand the colour of the French language, it gets even more interesting. In French, the past tense survived is rendered SURVÉCU, and lived (or experienced) is VÉCU. Therefore, she said: “Pour moi, le l’ai vécu plutôt que survécu.” I liked that. Add three little letters at the beginning of the word, and the whole perspective changes.

I walked away reflecting on the short encounter. I honestly felt like I survived my first week. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING prepares you for teaching. I had four years of educational psychology, child psychology, pedagogy, practicums practica in the classroom, and the list goes on. By the third day, I felt so overwhelmed with information coming at me a mile a minute, I just couldn’t get my brain to stop rolling.

I have about three long lists of things to do, ideas, and resources, and a couple of pads worth of sticky notes glued to every available surface. I have paper, books, and stuff scattered on my desk I don’t know what to do with. I have kids whose names I need to learn, let alone wanting to build a rapport with. I keep running downtown with lists of things I need to buy in order to help the classroom run more smoothly. I have curriculum I need to cover, and 45-minute periods fly by so fast, I barely get down to business*. As a result, stress got the better of me, which meant my emotions were hard to hide. In 24 hours, I think I must’ve shed tears as many times.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t just sit there and cry all day; I was fine in the classroom. But the slightest questions from colleagues as to how things were going brought on anything from watery eyes to downright sobbing. So, it was time to reach out.

I approached superman a super-organized teacher for ideas/suggestions.
I met with a high school teacher for help with planning.
I met with a primary teacher for suggestions with my fourth graders.
I talked with the school “counsellor” and simply unloaded…super-nice, understanding guy, by the way.
I even talked with my principal who is so there for everyone. I like his style, but that’s for another post.

And my husband, oh, my husband. He has been the most caring, understanding, and loving person in the whole world. He has taken care of breakfast, lunch, and dinner all week. The house was kept tidy with my whirlwind comings and goings. He held me when I sobbed at 3am. He gave me practical advice about dealing with the bursts of information hitting me like pop-up windows on a cheesy site.

Now, I feel ready to start my second week. Yes, while other people are going on their last camping trip of the summer, hiking the Chilkoot before winter sets in, or closing down their summer cabins, I’ll be organizing. Prioritizing. Planning. Working.

Most importantly, I’ll be living from now on. Yes, living my first year of teaching. Experiencing it. Learning from it. Tasting it. And hopefully, loving it.

______________________

*Kids in grades 3-6 come to my room for their English class in the mornings. Afternoons, I go to the secondary wing for grades 7-10.

My Mosaic Quilt

A recent post by English Mum gave me the idea of trying this in the classroom with high school students next week. We’re always looking for ways to break the ice and get to know everyone. I will/did change some of the questions like, “What school did you go to,” for obvious reasons.

So, within the first week of class, this is one of the assignments I’ll give to students in Grades 9/10:

First you take a list of questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favourite food?
3. What school did you go to? [I'll have to change this one]
4. Where was your mother born (town/city)? [Used this and #10, as most were born here]
   
5. What is your favourite thing to do?
   
6. What is your favourite drink? [How I got the old man when entering "red wine" is a mystery]
   
7. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?
8. What is your favourite dessert?
9. What do you want to do when you grow up?
10. Who/ what do you love most in life?
11. Choose one word that describes you?
12. Where was your father born (town/city) [Again, adapted to the kids]
    

Next, type your answer to the questions into a flickr search, then using only the first page, click on an image. Copy and paste each of the urls into the Mosaic Maker.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Why I haven’t blogged lately (if you care):

• We went camping at Liard Hotsprings for three nights.
• We went from a family of two to a family of seven with my brother’s recent visit.
• Even though kids haven’t started school yet, I had four days of school-related workshops, meetings, and conferences last week, one of which was from 9am to 8pm.
• I’ve been spending time in the classroom getting cleaning, getting organized, and pulling my hair out, which meant more cleaning.
• I’ve been doing some school planning to get started in my first year of teaching.

Now I think I need to go back to Liard Hotsprings for a week, but I know that can’t happen. So, with the school year starting this coming week and my lack of experience, I probably won’t be blogging as furiously as I have been this summer. Things will really slow down (just a warning). I’ll still be around and checking it once in a while, and I’ll definitely still be reading your blogs.

So, off to a new start!

I have this new blog address that ditches the “wordpress” which was part of a birthday gift from my techie hunny. So, over the next little while, I’ll be changing the theme, cleaning it up, and fixing little bugs. So, if you notice anything glaring, please let me know.

My first job will be to add my links back to my blogroll.

For a scrumptilicious fantasmagorical warm beet salad, get fresh ingredients from your local market (I can’t say enough about the Fireweed Community Market), and toss ‘em all together. You never know what you’ll end up with. In my case, I ended up with this wonderful spur of the moment recipe.

1. Boil red and white beets
2. Boil (or steam) carrots
3. Meanwhile, melt butter in pan.
4. Sauté:
   • green onions
   • dill weed
   • sliced mushrooms
   • sliced collard greens
   • sliced beet greens
5. Add to mix:
   • sunflower seeds
   • dried cranberries
   • 2 tsp. lemon juice mixed with zest
6. When carrots and beets are cooked, slice and add to salad mix
7. Toss salad with salt and pepper to taste

I had never tried collard greens before, and I didn’t know you could eat beet greens. Apparently turnip greens are also edible. Who knew!

Oh, and I purchased a beautiful original painting ink work from Stace Pshyk.

After reading Croque-Camille’s post about Chicken Pot Pie, the light went on. Literally. There’s nothing more frustrating than reading a new recipe and encountering all kinds of food-related terminology that baffles you. It’s a sure way for the cookbook to collect dust on my shelf. At least CC explains them: CLEARLY.

A while back, I was looking at a Marchand de vin sauce and was baffled by the term mirepoix. I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but later found out that it’s the same thing my grandma, my mom, and I always did to prepare a stock, soup, or stew. It’s your basic aromatics of celery, onion, & carrot used for a base, except that’s what WE always called it: la base. The same goes with a lot of specialized food terms used by chefs. Many of the terms, I’ve realized, refer to methods that my grandma always used in the kitchen and with which I am familiar.

There are many other food-related terms, that over time I learned was terminology used by professional chefs or wanna-bes. But I also find it amusing how, when people want to sound sophisticated, they really, really like French words. And then, even I have a hard time pronouncing French terms the English way (like hors d’oeuvres), but that’s for another post.

Now I think I’ll go and prepare brochettes au saumon as an hors d’oeuvres before serving Duck à l’orange for dinner. I thinkCrème brûlée would be perfect for dessert.

Boy, do I need a good pastis as an apéritif before I get started.

For the last week, I’ve been trying to find creative ways to get rid of foodstuff before it’s too late. “Never buy groceries on an empty stomach, my mother always warned me. I usually try to heed her advice, but for my last trip to the store, I must of had a brain fart, so I ended up with almost every fruit and vegetable under the sun.

Trying to get rid of way too many kiwifruit resulted in a tasty sauce that’s delicious over vanilla ice cream. Something has to balance out all those fruits and vegetables! Here’s what I did:

• peel the kiwifruit – use a teaspoon and scoop the fruit out (I had about 10)
• put in a food processor
• add 1 cup white sugar
• add 2 teaspoons of lemon or lime juice mixed with zest (adds a nice tang to the syrup/sauce)
• simmer for about an hour

I poured the sauce into an empty bottle and keep it in the refrigerator. Deeee-lish!

Living in the Yukon, long distance calls can get expensive regardless of which end of the phone you’re on. Even when using calling cards or special long-distance plans through the telephone company, the costs still add up.

Before I moved to the Yukon, I lived in southern Ontario and was subscribed to Sprint. For a low monthly flat-rate fee, this plan allowed for unlimited long-distance calling ANYWHERE in Canada (so they said in all their advertising campaigns). Eventually, they capped the number of minutes you could use, and then would charge 10¢/min. for additional minutes. It was still reasonable and perfect for calling home in northern Ontario.

When my boyfriend at the time moved to the Yukon a few of months before I did, I thought, “Perfect! It won’t cost me an arm and a leg to call him.” I even called their customer service line to ask whether their plan covered calls to the Yukon.

“Anywhere in Canada” replied the clerk without a second’s hesitation.

The first statement I received after started my long-distance calls to the Yukon looked normal. Two months later, however, I was out a few hundred dollars. Okay, I’ll just call them up and set things straight.

ME: “Doesn’t your plan cover long-distance calls anywhere in Canada?”

THEM [Again, without hesitation]: ” Unlimited calls anywhere in Canada Ma’am.”

ME: “Then can you explain why I’m being charged for calls made to the Yukon? Last time I checked, it was still in Canada”

THEM [After a few minutes detailling account information and putting me on hold to check]: “Oh, because of extra costs involved, Sprint now charges an extra fee for calls to the Yukon, NWT, and Nunavut.”

ME: “Hhhmm, you didn’t charge me on my last statement, so it’s obviously very new. Can you tell me how Sprint informed its customers of this change? There was nothing indicated on my last bill — I even read the fine print — and there were no leaflets in the envelope. I didn’t see anything informing me that your rates have changed.”

THEM: “Our rates haven’t changed Ma’am. It’s still only $xx to call anywhere, uh, I mean, almost anywhere in Canada.”

RING!!!!! WAKE UP LADY!!!! You’re charging an extra fee and claim that your rates haven’t changed?

In the end, after a bit of haggling and a few phone calls later, the company finally agreed to remove the extra charges on my telephone bill, and told me that any calls to the Yukon from that day forward would incur the extra fees. You can imagine how irritated I felt the next time I saw their TV commercial advertising, “Call anywhere in Canada…[blah blah blah].” I have very little tolerance for false advertising. I think they eventually changed the wording.

Fast forward to calling FROM the Yukon.

The ridiculously high long-distance calling rates here prompted me to purchase a calling card. I researched price per minutes, connection fees, everything, and finally settled on a plan through VOX. I won’t bore you with the details, but about the same thing happened: initially, fees are straight up; suddenly out of nowhere, I learn that my minutes are being sucked into a dark, mysterious, black hole; a call to customer service confirms a new surcharge for callers in the Yukon, NWT, and Nunavut.

Damn these long-distance telephone companies!

Today, I found a new option for long-distance calling that’s affordable. SKYPE. For about $30/year, I can make unlimited – well, up to 10 000 minutes according to the fine print — long-distance calls anywhere in Canada and U.S. using the Internet. I just plug in my headset to my laptop, and dial-up any land line or cell number.

I doubt very much that I’ll ever use up the 10 000 minute limit, unless I plan on being on long-distance calls for 5½ hours a day. Even my mom would get sick of me.

When I tried making my first phone call this morning, it was like when the sun rises, and the colours dance in the sky and warm you. It was like being right there, next to my mom, talking to her. It was divine.

Now I’ll just have to keep a close eye on my credit card bill. Hopefully, this time the hype will last.

Do you like to read? If you’re a teacher and/or a parent, do you want your kids to understand what they read? Of course you do, but what some people fail to recognize is that there’s a huge difference between reading fluency and reading comprehension. They’re both important, but sometimes we tend to emphasize the former over the latter.

Here’s a wonderful resource that was recommended to me by a local teacher:

Reading Power: Teaching Students to Think While They Read – (you can see the book online by clicking on the link)

Written by Adrienne Gear (from Vancouver)

The book is only 144 pages (means you can get through it in no time) and breaks down five strategies (or “powers”) to help with teaching reading comprehension:

1. Connecting
2. Questioning
3. Visualizing
4. Inferring
5. Transforming (Synthesizing)

There are sample lesson plans to help teach each strategy with the use of picture books, and this with primary and intermediate levels. By using picture books, the stories are short, and students focus on the strategy more than the story. Once students learn and practice using each strategy, they apply them to other readings (i.e. novel studies, literature circles, etc…).

The bonus here, is that if you plan on buying picture books for your classroom or your personal library, you can buy with a goal in mind. Included are lists of books that are ideal for each reading power (strategy) for primary and intermediate. Many of the books recommended are already in our elementary school libraries – I checked!

Reading Power is based on and adapted from another longer work called Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goodvis.

Check it out! This book is a real gem.