The Garden Returns

Since the temperatures have begun to drop into the 80s and even sometimes the 70s during the day, our garden has had a bit of a resurgence.  The zucchini has slowed down, but it is still producing a few a day.  The cucumbers have started blooming again and putting out fruit, but it is still very bitter -- I'm not sure how to stop that.  We have a ton of green tomatoes on the vine, and I am pinching blossoms to encourage the existing tomatoes to ripen, which they are doing a little at a time. 

 

In addition to the new produce being put out by the plants, it is finally time to start harvesting the melons and squash I've been keeping an eye on all summer long.  That yellow splotch on top of the honeydew melon is the sign that this fruit is ripe, and it was ripened on the vine.  We cut into it last night, and it was one of the best melons I've ever had -- sweet and succulent.  You could smell the fragrance throughout the kitchen.  I have a smaller melon that I'm letting go just a little bit longer before we harvest it.  And the Hubbards are rock-hard, which is apparently the sign that they are ripe.  I have some on the vine that are just starting right now -- I don't know how they are going to ripen in a few short weeks when these babies sat on the vine all summer, but we'll see how it goes.  We did have some very small heads on the one broccoli plant that didn't get infested with aphids, but they were really bitter too, so I finally pulled it.

 

I think that I'll be baking another mock apple crisp with the zucchini I have right now.  The last one went over really well at work.  This is the recipe I used before, which calls for 8 cups of chopped zucchini and a 9x11 inch pan.  I used some really large zucchini that I had harvested late, thinking that the extra-firm flesh would work well in an apple recipe, and it did.  I'm going to try it again in an 8x8 inch pan, halving the recipe, and with some smaller squash, but I think it should work pretty well.

 

We also got collard greens in our Bountiful Basket this week.  I know the traditional southern version involves stewing them with a ham hock, but I don't have one of those.  Instead, I'm going to try this recipe for pasta with collards and tomato sauce that I have all the ingredients for.  There's still a lot of bacon involved, so I think we'll be in good shape.  *smile*

Good Teachers

I know I'm a little late on my weekend post, but I slacked all day on Saturday (much needed) and then needed to make up for it on Sunday.

Since the Chicago teacher's strike has been in the news, and people have been talking about teaching, I thought I would add my two cents, from the point of view of a teacher at a for-profit professional college.

It seems as though people are looking for an easy way to say, "This student is learning," or "This teacher isn't doing a good job."  They hope that a standardized test can answer those questions clearly and objectively.  If a student does better on a test, then she is learning; if a teacher's students consistently score low on those tests, then he should be dismissed.  But I just don't think it can realistically work that way.

There are many ways to test students, and each student will respond differently to different testing methods.  Some overthink their way through multiple choice, others panic and can't recall information they know when faced with a short answer or essay.  Some students express themselves easily in writing, and others struggle to put their thoughts into words.  So no single, "objective" test that only uses a small set of testing methods can capture all the knowledge that a child, or adult, has understood and absorbed. 

On the other hand, I don't think a single metric can objectively decide whether a teacher is effective.  Could you take a test that would determine whether or not you were a good parent?  Sure, some behaviors like abuse clearly fall into the "bad" category.  But what single behavior guarantees that you are "good"?

I have always taught in a college environment, not in primary schools, so the evaluation methods have been pretty standard.  Look at students' grades to see if a reasonable number are passing, sit in on classes in order to evaluate a teacher's methods in class, and ask students for feedback.  While these three measures can give you an feel for the situation, if you rely on any single measurement by itself, the information you get could misrepresent the instructor's abilities. 

First, if students have not been adequately prepared in prerequisite classes, then failure rates might not be an accurate representation of the teacher's skills.  On the other hand, if the instructor lowers his or her standards, students may pass easily without learning much.

Class evaluations can be inaccurate as well, especially if you are sampling only a portion of a class period.  A teacher may have touched on all the necessary elements of a class, but the observer misses some by only seeing a small window.  Or, conversely, knowing that the observer is present may cause the teacher to change her accustomed methods in order to make a better impression during observation.

Asking students for feedback is, I think, fairly effective over a large sample.  But in any given class, the sample is too small.  Students who are better prepared coming in, who are more interested in the subject, who are more motivated, and therefore who are likely getting the best grades, are most likely to give positive feedback.  Students on the other end of these scales, who do not take personal responsibility for their actions, and therefore are likely getting low grades, are much more likely to be negative.  I know that reading my student feedback as a TA felt like I was facing someone with rapid-cycling bipolar disorder; the messages would often literally alternate, "She sucked!" "She was always really helpful." "She had no idea what she was doing," "I wouldn't have passed the class without her!"

In my particular niche of the educational world, the above three assessment tools are used on instructors, but one trumps them all: the attrition rate.  Teachers who lose a certain percentage of students in a given time period are in big trouble when it comes to holding on to their jobs.  And it doesn't matter if the student dropped only one teacher's class, or dropped out of school completely.  It doesn't matter why they say they dropped.  It doesn't matter if they dropped week 3 or week 10; all that matters is that they are gone.

Yes, I am dealing with a high attrition rate right now at my school.  I have been counselled by my supervisors, and have had to come up with a plan to address these rates.  My supervisors think that I am a good teacher, and always give me positive feedback on my classroom assessments.  I get positive feedback from the students in my classes, and the majority of my students pass.  But in the eyes of the corporate office, I am a problem instructor.

Sometimes there is absolutely nothing I can do to convince a student to stay in my class.  I have had students without health insurance who lose access to the medications that maintain their mental health.  I have had students who struggle with homelessness and drug abuse.  Students who are told they must choose between school and their jobs.  Students who can't afford childcare.  Students who need to leave school to care for an ailing spouse or relative.  Students who change programs mid-term and no longer need to take my class.  My teaching skills have absolutely no effect on those decisions.

Students tell me again and again that they want to take a second class from me, that they in fact specifically ask to be in my class again because they like my teaching style.  Even students who have failed or dropped my class will ask to take it from me again!  This has happened to me multiple times.  To me, that is a better measure of my abilities as a teacher than my attrition rate.  But I guess I shouldn't encourage it, because if the same problem, or even a new one, gets in the way of that student continuing in my class the next time around, then she counts against me twice.  I am put in a position where it is in my best interest to either talk students out of being in my class during the drop period, or trying to convince them to stay, even when they clearly have personal problems that will prevent them from learning the material and passing the class.  That feels more like a "bad teacher" than the alternative.

So here is the bottom line: no one measurement is going to tell you whether or not a teacher is doing a good job, or if a student is learning.  That's why there are so many ways to assess students' and teachers' skills.  If we use a number of them with care over time, eventually we should be able to figure it out.  But just like anything else in school, you are going to need to work hard to make sure you understand what is really going on.

Getting the Wedding on the Wall

T and I have been married a little over two and a half years, and I just finally got our wedding portrait.  It was one of those things that felt like a luxury, that we didn't really NEED, and so I just hadn't gotten around to ordering it.  I finally did order it a few weeks ago, and I managed to find 10 minutes to put it on the wall this weekend.

As a surprise for our first anniversary, my mother also had all of our wedding vows printed on the same paper that we used for our invitations.  That took up several pages, but the last page had our names and wedding date and an Apache wedding blessing that was part of our ceremony, so I framed that page to put under the portrait.

AN APACHE WEDDING BLESSING

 

Now you will feel no rain,

for each of you will be shelter for the other.

Now you will feel no cold,

for each of you will be warmth for the other.

Now you are two persons,

but there is only one life before you.

Go now to your dwelling place,

to enter into the days of your life together,

and may your days be good and long upon the earth.

 

The portrait I picked was in black and white, and the printer had a metallic paper that really adds a nice dimension to the photo.  It also fits with the blessing, since our wedding colors were silver and white.

So here's how it looks on the wall, next to our pictures of family and friends:

The photo is from our first dance. Somehow, I think the pose complements the meaning of the poem.

Maybe in another couple of years I will finally get around to getting my wedding dress cleaned and preserved!

Hunger, Peaches and Leeks

This weekend we rented the movie The Hunger Games.  I thought T would sleep through it; he didn't pay close attention, but he did watch.  I think the movie was just fine -- not awful, but not spectacular.  Since so much of the book is driven by Katniss's internal thoughts, I knew it was going to be difficult to get much of the drama across.  I'm not even sure how clear it was to viewers that she is initially playing along with the lovebird storyline for the sake of survival, then begins to actually feel something for Peeta, and finally comes home unsure of her feelings for both Peeta and Gale. They also tamed down quite a bit of the horror of the Games, making the psychological impacts of the experience much less obvious.  I mean, in Hollywood, people kill each other all the time, so why should this girl be scarred for life?  The horrific tracker-jacker hallucinations about Glimmer are gone, I never got the impression that either Kat or Peeta were truly close to death, the creepiness of the Mutts mirroring the personalities of the other contestants is left out -- I don't think they even come off as that scary -- and, finally, Cato's torture is cut mercifully short.  I understand this was probably done for the sake of getting a larger audience of kids, and I don't typically complain that my movies aren't violent enough, but those experiences are the ones that continue to haunt Katniss through the remaining books, so it seems as though you need to get those ideas across somehow.

The actual casting was pretty good, in my opinion.  Rue wasn't much of an actress, but she was so young and was given such a small part, that is forgiveable.  Haymitch should have been a lot heavier than Woody Harrelson, but he does a good job in the role.  I feel like Katniss was cast well, since she is supposed to be a girl with a short temper who doesn't emote well, but Peeta should have been more classically tall, blonde and handsome -- they got the nice guy part right, but not the gorgeous-and-he-doesn't-know-it part.  All in all, however, it was a decent movie adaptation of a decent book.  MUCH better than the Twilight series attempts.

That night, I made my first ever peach cobbler.  We got a case of peaches along with our basket last week, and since I'm not a big fan of the fuzzy little guys, T has been having a hard time keeping up with them.  I found Paula Dean's recipe which was quick and easy.  The hardest part was blanching, peeling, and slicing the buggers, and that wasn't even that hard.  You melt butter in a big baking dish, pour in a very simple batter (I looked up online how to turn all-purpose flour into self-rising, by adding the right amounts of baking soda and salt), then you put the peaches on top and bake.  I pulled it out of the oven just before bed, and we had it for breakfast.  It was a little too sweet for my tastes, and a bit gooey, but T said he liked it, and that's what really counts.

The other high point of the weekend was a batch of potato leek soup, made by yours truly this afternoon, another first for me.  We got a pair of fat and lovely leeks in our Bountiful Basket this week, along with some gorgeous white potatoes, so it was a natural choice.  I got the recipe out of our trusty Joy of Cooking, and it was also quite simple.  I only had 2 leeks, so I tried to halve the recipe, but then I sliced too many potatoes, so I guessed on the volumes for everything.  I sweated the sliced leeks in butter for about 20 min, then added the thin-sliced potatoes, 4 cups of water (enough to cover the potatoes), and the appropriate amount of Better Than Bouillon chicken stock base.  That should have simmered for about 30 min., although in my case it was longer, because it took me a while to realize the "low" setting on my electric stove didn't sustain an actual simmer.  Then I added some salt and black pepper, and threw it in the blender to puree (just like a Top Chef!,  I was thinking to myself,  If only I had an immersion blender...).  The stroke of genius was topping it with bacon crumbles -- not in the recipe, but it definitely put it over the top!  It was good enough for T to have 2 bowls, and it disappeared too quickly for pics.  I may actually have to buy some leeks if they don't show up in our basket again.

We had a party!

This weekend, to celebrate Memorial Day, we had a barbecue at our house.  We invited four couples and their kids -- a first grader, three toddlers, a one year old, and two infants.  We managed to score a patio set on clearance, and stocked up on food and drinks.  Unfortunately, we still didn't have any toys for the kids to play with, but we did have two very cute dogs, and they would have to do.

Cara was fascinated by the babies -- she sniffed them when they arrived, followed them around as they scooted along the patio, and ran over to give them kisses when they fell down and cried.  Diezel was generally happy to be petted and hugged, and he spent a lot of time chasing shadows and flashies.

For the spread, we had chips and salsa, and a warm artichoke spinach dip in a bread bowl to start.  Then I grilled chicken marinated in Italian dressing, and marinated steak.  I also grilled asparagus and corn on the cob, and made macaroni salad.  Our guests brought roasted potatoes, a great Greek salad, and three different, delicious pies.  It was really delicious!

I forgot to take pictures,
so here are some strangers playing cornhole

It was our first time having people over to the house since we moved in, and we had a really good time.  It was nice getting to know some of the people T works with now a little more, and it was also great getting to catch up with old friends that he used to work with.  The kids managed to stay entertained by running races, coloring, and playing games that were brought from home.  One of the guests brought a beanbag toss game called cornhole -- no, I'm not kidding -- to keep the guys amused too.

Now we have a lot of leftover food, and even more leftover beer.  We also have a box of Capri Sun juice boxes and some fruit rollups.  I remember them being better when I was a kid, but oh well.  It was so much fun, I think we're going to need to have another barbecue sometime soon!