Christmas vacation

This week has given a whole new meaning to the phrase “Christmas vacation!”

Mike enjoying an after breakfast coffee poolside!

Big Cliff Climb

I climbed a mountain!

Map of mountain…

View Big Cliff in a larger map

Being – Quotes

And the day came when the risk [it took] to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. [Anais Nin]

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches. [Rainer Maria Rilke]

The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt. [Thomas Merton]

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do. [Eleanor Roosevelt 1884 – 1962]

High and wide is the gate which leads to self-deception and illusion but for those seeking truth, strait is the gate and narrow the way and brave is the man who can journey there. [Susan Howatch in “Glittering Images”]

Human existence cannot be silent, nor can it be nourished by false words, but only by true words, with which people transform the world. To exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it. Once named, the world in its turn reappears to the namers as a problem and requires of them a new naming. People are not built in silence, but in word, in work, in action-reflection. [Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1981, p.76]

The Lives We Live

In a recent facebook conversation, I recalled how Mike had learned – when he was working on getting his teaching degree for middle school – that THE #1 embarrassment for middle school children is having their parents sing in public. I found that fascinating – primarily because I’ve been around – and I’ve never seen parents of middle schoolers break out in song in public spaces.

Later that same day I had another recollection. Two summers ago – on Mackinac Island – our day trip included Mark and his gang, David and girls, Mike, me, Christopher and Holly. As is custom on Mackinac, we rented bikes to ride around the island. At one point along the way, somebody mentioned how they felt like the Von Trapp kids. If you’ve seen The Sound of Music, you’ll recall the scene when Maria has the children out riding bikes in their new playclothes – and of course, they are singing. So, our trip had the Van Faussien kids out riding bikes in our playclothes. The only thing missing was the singing – and it wasn’t missing for long. I don’t recall who started singing – it was one of the kids – but we sang nearly every Sound of Music song at the top of our lungs as we made that the eight mile ride around the island. People stopped to let us pass, stared, sang along, and smiled at us.What prompted this recollection was that we had kids of all ages – several in middle school – and not one of them was embarrassed to sing out loud or to be with their parents who were also singing out loud. We had the greatest fun – and so the embarrassment that children report is not for what they, or others, are doing. That embarrassment is about what others will think about what is going on. We were able to sing and have fun because we were far away from our homes and our lives at home – there wasn’t a soul there that we knew and we could just live the lives we wanted to live that day.

I40

On our way to Memphis. Apparently Brooks and Dunn are on the road. Three of these trucks leaving Nashville.

Leaving Nashville

Framework for Teaching

Description > The Framework for Teaching

The Framework for Teaching:  Components of Professional Practice

The Framework for Teaching is a research-based set of components of instruction, aligned to the INTASC standards, and grounded in a constructivist view of learning and teaching. In this framework, the complex activity of teaching is divided into 22 components (and 76 smaller elements) clustered into four domains of teaching responsibility: planning and preparation (Domain 1), classroom environment (Domain 2), instruction (Domain 3), and professional responsibilities (Domain 4). Each component defines a distinct aspect of a domain; two to five elements describe a specific feature of a component.  Levels of teaching performance (rubrics) describe each component and provide a roadmap for improvement of teaching.The Framework may be used for many purposes, but its full value is realized as the foundation for professional conversations among practitioners as they seek to enhance their skill in the complex task of teaching. The Framework may be used as the foundation of a school or district’s mentoring, coaching, professional development, and teacher evaluation processes, thus linking all those activities together and helping teachers become more thoughtful practitioners.

Domain 1: Planning and Preparation

Demonstrating Knowledge of Content
    and Pedagogy Demonstrating

Knowledge of Students

Setting Instructional Outcomes

Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources

Designing Coherent Instruction

Designing Student Assessments

 

Domain 2: The Classroom Environment

Demonstrating Knowledge of Content
    and Pedagogy Demonstrating

Knowledge of Students

Setting Instructional Outcomes

Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources

Designing Coherent Instruction

Designing Student Assessments

Creating an Environment of Respect and Rapport

Establishing a Culture for Learning

Managing Classroom Procedures

Managing Student Behavior

Organizing Physical Space

Domain 3: Instruction

Communicating with Students

Using Questioning and Discussion

Techniques

Engaging Students in Learning

Using Assessment in Instruction

Demonstrating Flexibility and Responsiveness

Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities

Reflecting on Teaching

Maintaining Accurate Records

Communicating with Families

Participating in a Professional

Community

Growing and Developing Professionally

Showing Professionalism

Communicating with Students

Using Questioning and Discussion

Techniques

Engaging Students in Learning

Using Assessment in Instruction

Demonstrating Flexibility and Responsiveness

Lexington Weekend

Visiting the daughter this weekend and we started with pottery yesterday!

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John working on his sports-themes coasters.

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Katie making a trivet.

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Karen and Katie waiting for paint to dry.

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This is my piece before firing – can’t wait to see what it looks like after it’s finished! I may have completely screwed up the lace treatment – stay tuned for the finished product!

Print Literacy

Two People Injured after Accident – WOWK-TV – WOWKTV.com

The headline read:

Two People Injured after Accident
Posted Saturday, January 17, 2009 ; 07:28 PM
Updated Saturday, January 17, 2009 ; 07:38 PM

The subtitle read:

No people were injured.

I love the headline and subtitle of this piece (see the text in red)!

A Reference

Voices (Genres) of the Discipline: Dimensions of DWAC

Digital Writing Across the Curriculum l Implications of Technology for the Shape of a College Education

In an increasing number of fields, students need to learn to write in the way or ways that professionals do, some of which are digital. So, for the student to learn to be conscious of the different ‘voices’ of writing in his or her field, digital writing has a role to play.

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Karen McComas, a faculty member in Communications Disorders in Marshall University in West Virginia, suggested this theme to me. She has developed an assignment to help students learn the differences among the various kinds of writing in her profession. McComas wants her students to develop skills and insight into the different oral and written communication requirements of their professional lives. So each student must pose a research question and then respond in a way that combines several of these types of communication. Students must each use seven different genres, that address multiple audiences, accomplish multiple purposes, and represent at least three different voices. One of those genres must be used in a way that unifies the other six.

I wanted to save this piece – it’s outdated (2005) and the assignment is on an old blog – but I wanted to keep the reference documented.

3.23.09
I’ve captured an image of that page…

Weekend With the Family

We’ve come to Lexington for the weekend – Christopher and Holly came up last night and stayed, Mike and I came up this afternoon.  Tonight, we had a girls night at the The Mad Potter.  Holly, Katie, and I headed to the Mad Hatter after dinner and picked out our projects.  I decided to work on a gift for someone (I can’t say who, in case they read this blog):

Here are the girls!
Ready for the kiln!  I used a pottery glaze so all of the color look strange and will look completely different once they are fired.
Holly’s snail for Baby Marley!
Ornaments for John’s niece and nephew!  The one by the phone is the sample; the ornaments on the butcher paper are the ones Katie made that are heading for the kiln.

Tomorrow, I plan to get up early as usual and get a bit of reading and writing finished before we emerge for the day.  Then, we’re watching movies, cooking dinner, and heading home in the late afternoon.