A List: My Current Podcasts

Inspired by another blogger (Little Mrs. Married) who is regularly posting lists to write more consistently, I'll share the podcasts I subscribe to:

• Freakonomics Radio
• Radiolab
• StoryCorps
• This I Believe: Podcast
• Happier with Gretchen Rubin
• TED Radio Hour
• PostBourgie
• Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

And a new favorite reserved for the gym: 

• Serial, Season 1

The ones at the top are what I listen to in the car, and sometimes while cleaning or cooking as well. Though I heard a lot of buzz about Serial last year I never picked it up until a couple weeks ago, and was immediately hooked. I like having something specific to look forward to during my treadmill sessions, as they are sooo booooring otherwise. I'm only halfway through the first season, so no spoilers please!

What do you listen to? Any suggestions I should add to my list?

What Do You Ban From Your Classroom? My 2 1/2 Deal Breakers

All of us have our pet peeves that find their way into our classroom rules and procedures, and it varies from person to person. For example, I once worked with a math teacher who had an explicit "No Singing" rule. Apparently year after year she's had trouble with students spontaneously breaking out into song in the middle of class, and she reached her limit. I'm not sure if I haven't experienced it at the level that she has, or that it doesn't bother me, or that I just don't notice it, but I've never felt the impulse to impose an absolute ban (there have of course been isolated incidents wherein I discouraged it, like the Fergie/Jesus episode or in the wake of the release of Frozen).

However, there are 2 1/2 physical items that I have imposed an absolute ban on.

1: GLITTER
It is the herpes of decoration. It never goes away. You think it's all cleared up and then BAM another outbreak.

2: CANDY CANES
I HATE them. They are delicious and festive, but they always always break when students have them and they always always shatter into a bazillion sticky pieces and the students always always step on or smash them even further and they never never clean them up. They're like glitter that attracts bugs and vermin. Fun story: sometime in mid-April one year a senior walked into my room to deliver something from the office while eating a candy cane. I hollered: "Freeze! Back up to the door! You cannot have that in here!" He looked at me and the rest of the class in complete bewilderment. Several students backed me up and told him "Yeah, she's not kidding, you can't be in here with that." I love it when students vehemently defend your arbitrary rules.

2.5: MICROWAVE POPCORN
Only allowed after school, never before or during (students aren't the problem with this one, it's teachers. They really don't like being turned away. There is a teacher's lounge, people!). The aroma of popcorn smells heavenly the first ten minutes. As it continues to hang in there air, however, it quickly degrades into a weird funk that inspires every. single. student. that walks through the door for the rest of the day to loudly announce "It smells nasty in here!"

Those are my absolute bans. What are yours?

Leftover Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce

It's pretty rare that I've run a lab that requires chipotle peppers in adobo sauce that actually used the entire can; at home it never happens (for me that is, maybe you can't get enough!). Here's how I deal with the leftovers.

Plop each pepper onto a baking sheet lined parchment paper, careful to include a healthy amount of sauce with each but keep them separated. Then throw that puppy into the freezer for an hour or two, won't take long to freeze:

Once frozen, they pull off the paper nice and easy, sauce and all:

You can then toss them into a freezer bag, and they'll be easy to pull out one at a time whenever you need them.

Now that you know the trick, you can apply it to so many more foods than just peppers. This is also how I freeze berries and chopped veggies - freeze them separate and flat, then when they go into the bag they don't freeze into a ginormous clump that's impossible to break up without a hammer or defrosting.

Happy freezing!

Pediatricians Say Absolutely NO DRINKING WHILE PREGNANT - it's about time!!!

Finally, finally, FINALLY, pediatricians are saying point blank NO DRINKING WHILE PREGNANT!

Why did this take so bloody long? Why, for years, have they allowed doctors, researchers, hairdressers to advise women that a little bit won't hurt? Unfathomable, completely unfathomable, given the irreparable harm that we know prenatal exposure to alcohol can have!

In my Child Development classes I told my students point blank, I don't care what you read in the news or see on TV or even hear from your doctor, NO AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL IS SAFE DURING PREGNANCY.

And then I showed them video after video of the results of fetal alcohol syndrome. Some years we read articles written by families affected by and children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder themselves. One year I was even able to convince a small group of girls to read "The Broken Cord" and use it for a book talk there were supposed to give in their English classes. All of this uphill against a media constantly blaring "Oh, a couple of drinks here and there won't hurt."

And let's not even get into how people don't understand what really constitutes "a couple of drinks." In towns that I've taught in there were massive amounts of people who thought a couple of drinks = passed out before midnight.

Thank you, pediatricians, for finally getting your act together!

NPR Article "Pediatricians Say Absolutely No Drinking While Pregnant"

Full text of clinical study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics

Infographic from Edmonton and area Fetal Alcohol Network Society

Meal Prep Monday - A New Link-Up from Miss, Hey Miss!

I stumbled upon this new link-up from Miss, Hey Miss!, and thought it would be a great one for all teachers but especially FACS teachers!

The idea is to share ideas for lunches that you can prep ahead of time for the week, helping all of us to expand our repertoire! 

One of my all-time favorite kitchen appliances is my rice cooker - how did I live without one all of these years? Perfect rice every time without having to watch it.

So here's this week's lunch. I started off preparing a big batch of brown basmati rice in the rice cooker. After it's finished, I toss in a bit of chopped cilantro, lime juice, and salt - mmm, better than Chipotle rice! Being unprocessed, this rice contains all eight essential amino acids, but is a bit low in lysine. What has lysine and goes perfectly with rice? Beans, of course! I divvied up the rice into containers, added a bit of seasoned black beans to each, then packed up smaller containers of cheese, guacamole, salsa and lettuce, that I'll be able to just grab each day as I pack my lunch bag. I can heat up the rice and beans, then add in the cold ingredients. Yum! Hearty, filling, and a pretty quick prep.

So excited about chowing down on this that I forgot to take a photo of it altogether, but I think you get the idea. This was the first time I've tried one of those Wholly Guacamole minis - it was great!

Also included in the linky are four different graphics you can choose from to create a Meal Prep Tip! Here's mine:

The three-cup Glad rectangle (pictured above) is my go-to, fits perfectly in my lunch bag. 

BY THE WAY, I will be posting about finishing my first marathon this week, check back!

Lab Notes

After every cooking lab I have always thought to myself "Next time I need to remember/change/etc." Usually I even jotted reminders down. When next time came around, it was kind of a crapshoot whether I would remember those thoughts or come across those notes, which resulted in many a palm-forehead experience. Then I started keeping the notes with the recipes, but that meant that I only reviewed them as I was beginning to prepare for that lab, and some reminders I needed further in advance. Finally I got around to doing the obvious and keeping all of my lab notes in one place, which turned out to be immensely helpful. For each lab I jotted down what I wanted to remember for next time, such as

• things that worked well that I want to remember to do again
• changes I want to make next time
• steps/procedures to review or emphasize the day of the lab, based on mistakes or misunderstandings that happened in the kitchens
• other helpful reminders/hints to myself

Sidenote: It's funny now to see the recurring themes, such as "do not accidentally turn off oven." When the oven timers would go off students would hit the "Cancel" button thinking they were turning off the timer, when in fact they were turning off the oven. This was a big problem when that timer was just for the first check!

It's a simple thing, but very helpful. Having the notes for several recipes on the same page also helps because I wind up reviewing them more often, rather than just before using a specific one. And of course, it makes it easier to identify patterns over time.

What do you do to make sure you remember your wishes for "next time"?

Remember

9:03am EDT. Second tower. Everything changed. Hug your loved ones.

Tech is Not the Enemy - Lack of Common Sense is

Hardly a day goes by when an education-related news article doesn't get me steamed, but this one I couldn't pass up:

In a nut shell, there was a freshman assembly, and during the assembly students were asked to use their cell phones to post anonymous questions that were immediately projected on the big screen for all to see.

And guess what happened?

My boss has often said that he wishes we could carry penalty flags like football referees, and throw them out when someone says or does something that is so alarming and revealing of their ignorance it's just simply unacceptable. There absolutely should have been a flag on this play as soon as someone suggested it. How could you not see this coming?

The three possible explanations I have come up with:

1. The people who planned this activity have never, ever been around high schoolers. Ever.
2. The people who planned this activity were high.
3. The people who planned this activity were suffering from traumatic brain injury.

The idea itself was a GREAT one - a fantastic way to keep students engaged in the seminar and to take away the fear of asking a question out loud in front of a crowd. Brilliant really.

BUT... no safeguards? Come on, it would have been ridiculously easy to set this up so that someone had to approve the questions before they were displayed. Appropriate question? Click, displayed. Inappropriate question or statement? Click, rejected. The end.

Tech is not the enemy, people. Lack of common sense is. If you don't have a firm grasp on the latter, don't use the former.

FACS Teachers are Cancer-Fighting Super Heroes!

Wow! Check out what we have been able to do!

Since I opened my FACS fundraiser, all of you have helped me to double my fundraising goal! 

Some quick stats on the donors:

• Total of 127 donations
• 120 cities
• 33 states
• 2 countries

See how amazing this looks on the map!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! It's really inspiring how many teachers have been willing to give to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; people really DO care.

I know there are still a lot of districts out there gearing up to start after Labor Day. If someone you know could use a bundle of FACS goodies in exchange for helping to fight blood cancer (and a charitable tax donation!), be sure to pass this on. Especially if your state isn't on the map yet, you don't want to be left out. It's win-win!

Hope everyone if off to a good start this year!

A Little Fun with Pop Quizzes

Sometimes you gotta check in to see what the kids are getting and what needs some work, which in fancy lingo is referred to as formative assessment. I do this in a variety of ways, but sometimes a pop quiz is the way to go. However, I don't want the kids to get so freaked out that test anxiety confounds the results and I don't know if they actually don't know what I want them to know, or if they couldn't produce what they know because of nerves and therefore look like they don't know what they know.

Did you have to read that twice?

Point being I try to make things like this as anxiety-free as I can. One thing that's fun to do is give a pop quiz in the form of a card. Below is an example of a vitamin pop quiz I gave. I made little quiz-cards, placed them in envelopes, sealed them with veggie stickers (unnecessary but added to the fun! Thank you Target dollar bins), then popped them into their folders with a "Do Not Open" note written on them.

Was it more work than just handing out a quiz the old-fashioned way? Yes. Was it a little cutesy? Yes. Did the kids like it? Yes. Were they freaked out about taking a quiz? No.

Would I have done this for multiple large classes? Heck no, unless I had student helpers - this would be a great thing for student helpers to do, by the way. But, for just a couple of classes, it was totally worth it, and made learning about vitamins just a touch more fun. 

p.s. Want more vitamin fun? Check out my completely ridiculous yet useful Vitamin Poem!