Theatre Review - Curtains

Over the weekend my wife and I went to see our local high school put on their spring musical. They were presenting the relatively new show "Curtains." I had heard a couple of songs from the play before and knew the very high level premise but didn't know a whole lot about it.

The basic idea is that we're watching the backstage goings on of a musical being produced in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Our play starts during the finale of the opening night in Boston. After the final number, the cast takes their bows…and the leading lady drops to the floor in a heap. A scene or two later, a detective appears on the scene and lets the entire cast and crew know that they are all suspects in a homicide investigation. The detective lets them know that nobody is allowed to leave the theatre until the mystery is solved. He also lets them know that "the show must go on" and he doesn't want to interfere with rehearsals or preparations. In fact quite the contrary, he reveals himself to be an avid lover of musical theatre and wants to help them with the show in any way he can.

The play is a witty comedy filled with lots of excellent writing and situational comedy. There are multiple love triangles or secret romances throughout the cast. Eventually things turn darker as blackmail is uncovered and more murders occur. A lot of the humor comes in the strange balancing act of getting the murder mystery solved while also trying to revise the show to make it a success. Especially funny is the way the detective alternates between his desire to solve the crime and his stronger desire to improve on the show and be a part of show business.

This High School production was well cast, well directed, well choreographed and well produced. The show was directed by Jim Christian the theatre professor from a local university. Jim has written and directed shows all over the country and he does a fabulous job. The local High School directors, producers, choreographers and other adult talent also did an excellent job as shown in the overall quality of the show.

Happy Pi Day

That's right. Today is Pi Day. Go have a slice of your favorite pie in celebration.

Review - The Scarlet Pimpernel (musical)

It's High School Musical Theatre season and so Lynette and I took advantage of the opportunity to go see The Scarlet Pimpernel at Viewmont High School. We've enjoyed the story (and the movie) for years. When it was turned into a musical in the 90s, I picked up the soundtracks and we've really enjoyed listening to it. There are some great songs in there. Last year we went to see it performed at Hale Centre Theatre and absolutely loved it. So when we heard that Viewmont was putting it on this spring, we decided we must see it again.

Viewmont always does a great job with their musicals. Their choir teacher has a great overarching vision for what she wants to accomplish and she works hard to ensure that vision comes out to meet everyone's expectations.

As we walked into the front of the school, we were greated by a cool display with antique desks, maps, documents, a miniature guillotine and more. Inside the front hall was a larger than life marquee of sorts...a huge sculpted (?) pimpernel below the play's title. The lobby looked great.

We settled into our seats and began reading the playbill to discover that this is the final year for Ms Maguire, the choir director. She certainly made sure she ended her musical career on a high note.

Pimpernel is a fabulously fun musical with plenty of great male and female roles as well as ambitious design needs for costumes and sets. The music is stirring and the acting ranges from comic to somber to romantic to action-filled.

I was very impressed with the scale and nature of the sets and the costumes as the first few scenes were revealed. The quality of the work was exquisite and vibrantly engaging to the eye.

The actors were all well cast. The leads had great voices and great stage presence and all appeared very comfortable on stage and working with each other. The secondary roles were also good as were the members of the ensemble/additional characters.
The choreography and general stage direction was well done and kept the pace and the fun of the show running smooth throughout. There were a lot of very subtle jokes and bits of humor that required good coordination between the cast and these were all well done.

The music presented was great and very well performed. I was a little bummed to see that there was (what appeared to be) professionally hired players rather than solely using the talent the school had to offer. I'm not entirely sure of the situation and I could be misreading what is presented in the playbill but for a high school production, it seems wrong to outsource some of the talent rather than letting the students have every opportunity to contribute. Perhaps all of the players were students but just categorized differently?

My only complaint with the entire presentation is a very minimal complaint and one which I'm sure was a conscious decision on the part of the production team...that of the 'nature' of the voices. Being set during the French Revolution and with French and English characters, most of the cast were attempting to affect some kind of accent or other. The French characters each spoke with distinctive French sounds and the English characters all spoke with rounder sounds. My problem wasn't with the accents per se, but with the way the voices changed as a result...it seemed that as part of speaking with these accents, the characters also tried to speak deeper, bolder, more pronounced...which sounded slightly awkward to me.
 
Their accents were great, but the way their voices maneuvered while speaking made the conversation feel unnatural. What was interesting was that in some cases they tried to carry this accent over into their singing...and in some cases, the affected voice disappeared during a song to enable me to hear what their natural speaking voice was like. Honestly, I would have prefered the more natural sounding voice as it would have made the conversations feel more natural. It wasn't awful and generally it wasn't too distracting. There were a couple of songs where the accent/voice changed partway through, but overall it was alright.

In general, this is a fabulous play and well worth seeing if you get the chance. The story is tons of fun and the transition to musical stage is great.

In specific, Viewmont did a wonderful job with this production. They have so much talent and passion at that school both from the students and the faculty...not to mention the contributions that I'm sure happened from parents and other members of the community.

While this production has now ended, I can definitely recommend that you go see Pimpernel if you have the chance...and if you happen to have the chance to see Viewmont put on a musical, it's an experience well worth seeking out.


4.5 out of 5 stars

NOTE: Photos above are from the VHS Pimpernel Facebook page. I claim no personal ownership.


********
Today's Quote from Quoting Quotes:

********

Star Trekkin - the high school edition

As part of my father's day present this year, I am now officially set up to "digitize" some of the old home videos that are kicking around. Right now we're watching/encoding birthday parties, Christmases, and other family gatherings from years gone by...while we work through those, I figured I'd share this shorter one with the world.

Over Spring Break of 1992, about 100 students from Viewmont High School took a trip down to California. We had a bunch of fun at the beach and theme parks in the areas. While we were at Universal Studios, a large chunk of Viewmont Vikings were lucky enough to be chosen to take part in the Star Trek Experience!!!

Without further ado, here's the lovely video that came as a result.  Enjoy.

Graduation 2010 - I finally made it!!!

Huzzah!

It's official. I have (finally) finished up my Bachelor's degree from the University of Utah. It was a lengthy, but also a fun and informative adventure. There are a few things I might have done a little differently if I had it to do all over again, but since I don't have it to do over again, there's no sense dwelling on that.

Instead, I just want to shout out a huge thanks to all those who supported me and stood by me. Thanks especially to my family for their patience with me through the many years of sporadic homework requirements, occasional late nights and stressful moments of cramming for tests or pushing out papers.

Thanks also to Lynette for putting together a fabulous "graduation party" to celebrate. I was surprised at how many family and friends came over to celebrate with us. It was a fun filled barbecuing time. I'm glad the weather held out so we could party down out back.

So…future plans? For the immediate future anyway, nothing is changing. I've got a great job working with a wonderful team of people. I eventually want to transition into teaching a secondary ed English class. But with millions and millions of dollars being cut from every district around me, now does not seem like a terribly stable time to jump into the teaching profession. Not that there's every a 100% stable time, but for now, I'll take advantage of working in the software industry to pay down bills, take some cool vacations, and otherwise prepare for the financial transition to teaching. Who knows, I may even start down the track to a Master's Degree. :)

Anyway, thanks again to everybody who supported me. I'm so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful family and friends.

Enjoy the slideshow below for a little collage of some of the celebration.

T-minus 3 weeks - Recap of the 13 year road to graduation

Wow...so about 13 years ago, I was admitted to the University of Utah. I attended my first classes in Spring Term of 1997 and was excited to be in school. I had a number of transfer credits and AP Test credits...so, as far as hours were concerned, I officially started school as a Sophomore.

And now, 13 years later, I am finally about to graduate with my Bachelor's Degree in English. In looking over my transcript, there were a number of calendar years where I took no classes at all and there were many semesters with only 1 class. Part of me is depressed that it took me so long to finally get through with a ~4 year degree.

Even though it took a while, I'm actually very happy with the way things turned out.  True, it took me more than a decade to get a Bachelor's degree...but let's look at what's happened during those 13 years.

When I started school, I was a newlywed (~3 months married). I was bouncing between jobs (spent time packing/stuffing/shipping vitamins, selling board games at the mall, flipping burgers at McDs, selling music/games/videos at Hastings, and working as a substitute teacher).

Within that first year, I was hired on at a video game development house on the tech support staff and worked up into the Testing department...which turned out to be one of those "major breaks" you hear about, because it set me on a career path (different from my goal of being a High School Teacher, but we'll get back there). The company I worked for was bought out by Microsoft which brought significant financial changes as well as some new opportunities. The work schedule was hectic and made it difficult to balance school, but it provided some great training and helped hone some skills it would have been hard to learn elsewhere.

My wife and I took many fun filled road trips around the Western U.S. and even a couple back east. We went to a bunch of plays and concerts and other fun filled events. Had I been going to school full time and pinching pennies, there's no way we could have done all we did. We had tons of fun.

About 3 years into school, we had our first child and things changed yet again. Because I was working for Microsoft in the heyday of the Technological Upswing, we had fabulous medical insurance...we didn't have to pay a dime when Jason was born, and Microsoft even sent gifts of congratulations when he was born. A few months later, we decided our small one-bedroom apartment was going to be tough to raise a kid in and so we went house shopping and purchased a wonderful home in a great neighborhood. The following year, our second child was born. We continued to take family vacations, a little trickier with very young children, but still a lot of fun.

At this time, I tried to dive into school with a little more regularity. For a couple of years, I don't think I missed a semester and I pushed my hours up into the 'mid-Junior' range. Things started shaking up a bit in the technology world. The dot-com bubble burst. There were some big layoffs at work and eventually Microsoft sold our division. Still, things were going well for myself and my family. We managed to avoid the layoff and kept a moderately stable job with good salary and decent health benefits. Our third and final child was born (a girl this time) and we decided that our family was complete. We kept taking great family vacations...showed the kids what Yellowstone, Disneyland and the Grand Canyon were like. Our oldest started school and the others followed shortly after.

The tech world got bumpier, particularly in our arena ('sports video game development' - Amped Snowboarding, Links Golf and Top Spin Tennis) and I went to work one day to find a couple of bouncers sitting next to the door with a note taped on it indicating that our studio was closed. Through some old connections, I found a job relatively quickly. I actually transitioned through a couple of jobs and eventually landed at FranklinCovey where I've been for the last ~3 years. The career shakeup made it feel more important to finish school, if for no other reasons than to have the diploma in hand and to not have classes hanging over my head any more (not to mention the fact that some of my original credit hours were nearing their "expiration" and new requirements were being added). So I started going every semester again. I modified my major since I couldn't imagine working 'Student Teaching' around a full time job.

And now, 13 years after I started, I'm counting down the days to graduation. Looking back, I don't know that I would have changed a thing. There were so many great opportunities found and memories created that wouldn't have been there if I'd just done the full-time school thing and pushed through in ~4 years. There are tons of great friends that I would never have met. Things would have been very different. I plan on attending the graduation ceremony...I've taken a few "graduation surveys" for the school, and a lot of the questions/comments don't really apply to me since I've already got a family/home/career/etc...but I still figured that this was an accomplishment I should make the most of.

So, in 3 weeks, I'll be sitting through a couple of hours of lectures from school and department heads, telling us about how to use what we've learned to plan for the future and what we can expect and do in the 'real world.' Lynette has offered to throw a party for me...I think that'd be fun, but I'm not really sure what to plan. A barbeque would be fun but with the way the weather's been lately, I'd be nervous about it. Still, we'll probably do something.

In any case...here's to a great 13 years of school. Thanks to the teachers and students at the U for providing me a wealth of knowledge and experiences. And thanks to everybody I've met and known over the past years. I wouldn't change a thing. Most of all, thanks to Lynette for continuing to support my slow progress through school. I truly couldn't have done this without your support. Thanks so much.

Students of the 21st Century

Thanks to Education Stimulation for pointing me at this thought provoking video about students, learning, and teaching in the 21st century.

I'm a little torn on what to do with this information. Having been attending the University now for ~12+ years (yikes, I know), I have definitely seen a paradigm shift even in that short span (short in terms of the world...not in terms of how long it's taken me to get my Bachelor's). Extend that duration to the hundred plus years that our general academic system has been in place, and it becomes readily apparent that there's a disconnect.

Many areas of studies can still be conducted in the same "tried and true" methods of a teacher at the front of the room leading a lecture or class discussion while assigning students to read textbooks and complete essays and other busywork to prove they grasp the concept being taught.

Unfortunately, as is alluded to in the video, the culture today has changed. Students don't want to pour for hours over a hundred pages in a textbook when they can skim the vital information from wikipedia, you tube or some site found with a quick google search. (Granted, this gets into the problem of verifying information found on the Web, but that's a different discussion).

Students may participate in an open discussion in class, but they might get just as much (or more) out of an online discussion held on a message board, blog or even over twitter. (And for another discussion, there have been studies that are showing that the "youth of today" is more comfortable communicating via virtual/online methods as opposed to face-to-face such as in a classroom)

Many/most of the degrees having to do with science or technology are found in an especially difficult position. The world of science and technology is changing so quickly that it's difficult to decide what to teach, let alone how to teach it. As a result, many curriculums are just sticking with the "standards" and then letting a few "capstone" classes focus on whatever's most relevant at the time Seniors prepare to graduate. Unfortunately, this means these students may spend 3/4 of their college life learning things that won't matter or will only matter peripherally to the careers they are seeking.


As I mentioned earlier, I'm a bit torn as to what to do with the knowledge that our education system is antiquated and less than relevant in many/most cases. I fully acknowledge that there's a disconnect. This disconnect results in students who are disengaged and less passionate about their studies. These same students may be VERY passionate about the topic they're studying...they just don't have a good way to funnel that passion and access the information that will help them succeed. In the end, that seems to be the heart of the problem...how do we present relevant information in a way that will be engaging to modern students and help them prepare for careers in a world that is changing faster and faster?

Thoughts?

Choose what you read in school?

This New York Times article from last weekend describes a "radical new approach" found in some English classes where the teacher lets the students decide what they want to read.

From a high level, this approach didn't sound that radical to me.

Throughout school, teachers always encouraged reading "what we wanted" and provided individual reading time during class to read books of our choosing and writing in a reading journal about them. I distinctly remember devouring contemporary fantasy and fiction novels during my 8th grade English class. The freedom waned a little bit in High School where reading was more standardized, especially as we prepared to take the AP English test and needed to know the content and themes of the classics.

In elementary school, I don't recall a lot of assigned reading per se. I do remember trips to the library to check out fun books we found on our own or as recommended by teachers and librarians. Currently in my kids school, they have what's called the "AR Program", where the kids set a reading goal for the term/year. They read whatever books they want and then they hop on a computer in-class and take a test about that book to make sure they've retained some of the information/characters/plot/etc. Some books are worth more points than others, but it's a nice way to encourage kids to read what they want and apply their own books to class credit.

As an English major with plenty of assigned reading and in-depth discussions about specific books, I worry that basing an entire Junior High or High School English class around "read what you want" could become problematic for kids as they progress to college.

I love the idea of cultivating their love of reading by letting them choose what to read and then for them to analyze and report on that reading, from which the teacher can guide them. However, I also see huge value in having the entire class read a particular book and have group discussions about the book. I think there should be some balance between self-guided reading and group-reading.

I would also recommend that the group/class reading doesn't necessarily have to be "classics" from hundreds of years ago. True, there's some great stuff in Shakespeare, Dickens, Twain and others. But there's also a lot of great contemporary writing.

I would love to see an English syllabus that alternates between "classics" and "contemporary" (maybe even pulp fiction) class discussions while still encouraging self-guided/selected reading options. This way students get to explore their own tastes, while being exposed to "classics" as well as great contemporary literature. They will have the opportunity for individual analysis as well as group discussions to help them see how to unpack a novel.

What are your thoughts? What were/are the English curricula like in your school?

Back to School

Wow...this summer has flown by. Sadly I didn't accomplish a lot of what I had hoped I would, but that's the way life goes.

I'm not terribly excited for another semester of school. After ~13+ years of college, I am sooo ready to be done. You'd think I'd have a doctorate by now, but alas, I'm still plodding along towards my Bachelors.

I have one class this fall (an advanced study into American literature focusing on Jazz Age America) and then I need one more class in the spring and I can finally get that English Degree to hang on my wall.

In order to take that degree and go teach with it, I either need another ~year+ of classes (probably more like 2 years with my current schedule) plus student teaching...or I find a school/district that does an "alternative licensure program" wherein I get hired for the job and then take a few specific classes (as dictated by the school/district) to fulfill my license requirements in the first year or two after I'm hired. Right now the plan is to look for the second option since I'm not relishing the idea of another 2 years of child psych classes followed by a full year of quitting my day job to go student teach to finish the licensing that way.

Still, I'm excited to get back to school and read through the variety of books from the 20s-30s, many of which I've never read or even heard of and then having in-depth discussions about them and writing various papers dissecting them. Ah, the joys to come.

Wish me luck. :)

The Education system of America...maybe there's a glimmer of hope?

Talk about a crazy concept! As reported in the New York Times this week, a school in New York will be opening this fall with an experimental program where they actually pay teachers based on the value they provide...and the school actually looks at the value of teachers as a GREAT asset.

The school is called the Equity Project and will be paying its grade school teachers 6-figure incomes. The teachers will also be elibible for bonuses up to $25k. As a comparison, last I checked, the average starting salary for a teacher here in Utah is $28k...so in other words, their potential bonus is as much as my starting salary. As another interesting note...the administration in the school makes less than the teachers (something unheard of in the current system...which is part of the problem...far too many of the good teachers advance their way into administration so they can actually make ends meet).

The school is starting small with 8 teachers and 120 students, but plans to grow to 480 teachers and 28 teachers in coming years. The article describes the application/interview process as sort of like American Idol for teachers. They hired a dream team of teachers who are truly passionate about their subjects, about teaching, and about the kids.

What was very interesting (and sad) to me was a comment from one of the teachers about the interview process. He said "It's so refreshing that somebody comes to a teacher and says 'Show me what you know'...This is the first time in 30 years of teaching that anybody has been really interested in what I do.". To me, that statement is a HUGE reflection on what is truly wrong with our education system. Administration, government, and even parents to some extent, are far too concerned with test scores and attendance rates and other less important factors than being certain the person teaching the class actually knows and is passionate about what he/she is teaching and uses effective methods to ENGAGE students in the learning process.

I truly hope this idea pans out and shows promise. I know not every district can afford this kind of program currently, but if it has success, it could turn government officials on their ears and make them pay attention and finally see where the problem is. Who knows, in 5-10 years, the U.S. might have an education worth bragging about rather than hanging our heads in shame and foolishly asking ourselves why it is that we're seeing such an increase in crime, unemployment, bankruptcies, etc. I personally see the decline of our society as being able to be tracked to two main things...the disintegration of good family environments and a lack of effective and worthwhile education.

School update - after the first class

Day 1, Class 1, complete.

Well, the introductory class is done...complete with your general "scan the syllabus, explain the class objectives, take roll", etc.

I'm still a little unsure about all the scientific essays we'll be reading...There's a reason I signed on as an English major rather than a Science major (in spite of my AP science classes in High School). Fortunately, the prof is paring down the scientific readings such that we'll only be reading ~5 page sections of longer essays (with the exception of On the Origin of Species which we'll be reading most of). So even though the reading assignment for Wednesday is about 25 pages of scientific essays, it includes 6 different essays, so hopefully that will break up some of the monotony.

Going over the approach to the course, I was relived to find that we'll be focusing on the various texts as literary works first and as reaction to scientific impetus lower down on the influence level.

So even though Water Babies talks about a kid evolving his way from a small tadpole like creature back up to human child, we'll be looking at the language, narrative style, etc. rather than just looking at a scientific discussion of evolution.

Once we hit Tess, we'll be looking at her as a sort of "social" or "character" evolution and see how that plays out in the novel.

It should be an interesting course. Hopefully I can get into it...especially since the only real grading is based on 3 papers throughout the course.

Wish me luck. :)

Back to School

It's back to school time at the U of U.

I'm heading off in a few minutes to my English "Methods & Theories" course, "Intellectual Movements." I'm not super thrilled about this class yet, but hopefully it will prove more interesting than I'm suspecting. Here's the opening from the syllabus:
     "In honor of the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859), this course will examine the "Darwinian Revolution" in biology, literature, and culture. We will interrogate the specific concepts of Darwin's evolutionary theory and explore more broadly how science and literature approach questions about life, nature, and human specialness..."

Our reading list includes:
* various essays (Malthus, Butler, Haeckel, de Beer, and others)
* A book filled with Darwin essays
* Tarzan of the Apes
* Erewhon
* Heart of Darkness
* Tess of the D'Urbervilles
* The Water-Babies
* The Island of Dr. Moreau

Sadly, I generally find "these types" of writing to be very dry and hard to get into. Even the novels sometimes get fairly dry (I distinctly remember falling asleep time and again while pushing through Heart of Darkness). Hopefully the discussions will be interesting and engaging.

In addition, I've got a filler course that I may or may not drop. It's a basic linguistics course taught online. The syllabus for that course isn't posted until tomorrow, at which point, I'll decide if it can be fit in between work, family, scouts, school and other goals.

Anyway, I'm off...wish me luck.

Taylor Mali - What Teachers Make

Muddle, muddle, toil and trouble

The past few weeks have been a blur. I've been rattling over and over in my brain potential paper topics for the two major term papers due in December.

Well...December is now officially here. After a (literally) somewhat painful brain crunch, I was able to push out a mediocre five page paper on Saturday night. I'm not happy with it. I've read through it a few times and I can find the semblance of some central themes and decent ideas, but they all tend to fall apart and disappear throughout the paper. It's a mess. But it's done. Which is good since it's due tomorrow.

My second major paper isn't due for a little over a week, but as part of the 'preparation' practice, he's having us turn in our initial page/paragraph/thesis tomorrow. Once again, I've been grasping at straws trying to get a concept to solidify in my muddled brain. I finally banged out some rudimentary B.S. and I'll hand it in. It's entirely insubstantial and spends 500 words saying nothing concrete except that there will be more paper to follow. I'll be interested to see what kind of feedback the prof gives on my initial stab as a way of molding me onto the final paper. ugh. Still, I've got a few days to try and figure something else out.

Amid all this, there's yet another writing assignment due tomorrow that I haven't even started yet along with a pile of reading to do that I had a hard time facing while my brain spun around papers.

I'm so glad this semester is almost over.

Don't get me wrong, I have ABSOLUTELY LOVED my classes this semester and had a ton of fun with the reading and with the discussions. My brain just needs a little down time.

Relaxing Thanksgiving Homework

Well...in preparation for the Thanksgiving break, my classes have been kind enough to provide me with some entertainment.

To be fair, I knew they were coming...I just had to get the details in place.

Still, I'm kind of bummed to be writing ~2.5 papers (one is just a first draft) over the long break. I'm hoping to be swept off with inspiration so the papers just type themselves.

So if anybody wants to throw inspiration my way about the Canterbury Tales, My Name is Asher Lev, or Push, feel free.

Happy Turkey Day!

Gooooo Utes!

The Utes are officially the Mountain West Conference Champs for 2008 with an undefeated season!

I was hoping for a closer game considering it was the rivalry game and BYU has had a great year this year as well. The first half was actually pretty intense. But Hall started to fall apart in the second half just melted down with turnover after turnover.

Still, it was a fun and exciting game to watch (at least as a U fan).

Read about it here.

Chaucer Midterm done

Well...I had my Chaucer midterm today. I was both nervous and confident going into it. The professor does a fabulous job explaining the texts as we go through them and he also explained the format of the midterm very well. So generally I was confident. My main worry came just in familiarity with the Middle English language and the critical analysis of the work.

I'm fairly certain I nailed a solid B at least (possibly higher, but a B for sure).

We had a page of "passage identification" where we named the Tale or Prologue from which a particular sentence or stanza was pulled. I found myself flip-flopping a lot on the passages from the Merchant's and Clerk's tales for some reason. I can't remember where I finally landed on those. So there's two passages I may have gotten wrong if I landed on the wrong inversion. I also made a stupid recollection and mistakenly attributed a passage from the Wife of Bath as having been part of the Clerk's tale. Both were marriage related, but it was obviously the Wife of Bath's tale and I kicked myself for the misattribution. I think I got the rest of the passage identification questions correct so I should be sitting pretty there.

The essay portion required analysis of the Squire's Tale and comparing it to any of the previous Tales in terms of style, form, or other notable features. I wrote a bit on the use of occupatio used by the Squire and the Knight and the evident disparity between the two. While it was far from a perfect essay, I felt it was likely a solid B (though I think I had some good "A"-worthy points in there).

I'm not worried about the grade, so it didn't ruin my week with studying and it won't ruin my weekend fretting over the final grade. But I am curious to see how it turned out so I can stress or relax as we move towards the final and the final paper.

Teaching starts Thursday

Well...Thursday marks the beginning of our next unit in my literature class (actually, it technically starts tomorrow during the last ~20 minutes of class).

With that begins my turn with the large group assignment for the semester...spending 2 weeks teaching a novel to the rest of the class. We'll be teaching My Name Is Asher Lev.

We get to teach the class about Jewish culture, religion, family, and tradition. After the crash course on Judaism, we get to give a crash course on art and then explore Christian art versus Jewish art. (We will break things up with a 'field trip' to the museum to study some art). After all that, we'll spend a couple of days with some close reading as we explore the themes of the book and see how Asher struggled with his own identity and his own gift and how those conflicted with the traditions and beliefs of his family and community. Should be an interesting couple of weeks.

I'm actually kind of intimidated going this late in the semester after we've already had 4 (or 5?) really great presentations with some fabulous teaching methods and some cool insights. I don't know that my group and I are ready to rise to the level that's been set by some of the previous groups.

I'm still a bit nervous, and yet I think the presentation will go very well. We've got some good preparation behind us and some good ideas for how to make the teaching memorable and how to make sure we keep the discussion moving.

Anyway, wish me luck...check back around Thanksgiving to see if I survived it. :)

School is in Session

Well, it's official. 75% of my family is in school this year. We just need to find a class for Lynette to take somewhere to get us to a full 100%.

Jason started up at a new school this year as part of the "spectrum" program. He was a bit nervous about going to a brand new school and not knowing anybody, but he's a friendly kid and we're sure he'll fit right in quickly. So far he says he likes it. He had fun telling me about the layout of the playground and some of the fun he had. I think Lynette and I are probably more nervous than he is about this coming year.

Andrew was sick yesterday, so today was his first day back. I haven't yet heard how it went for him. His biggest transition this year is the move from half-day to full-day as he becomes a big first grader. He was very excited to be going back. I'm sure he had a great day and I look forward to hearing about it tonight.

My first day back was also today. I've only got two classes this semester, "Adolescent Literature" and "Chaucer." Reading load isn't too bad (6 novels for the one and "Canterbury Tales" for the other). We have group assignments in Adolescent Lit to teach one of the 6 novels. My group gets to teach "My Name is Asher Lev" for 2 weeks. Should be entertaining. First assignments are to read "Catcher in the Rye" (as much as possible...done by next week) and the first 120 lines of "Parliament of Fowls." Should be a fun week. :)

Julia starts preschool on Thursday and she is SOOO excited. She's been asking all summer when she goes to school. Now that the rest of us have started, she's even more eager. She's going to be such a cute little preschooler. :)

So, that's the excitement for the past couple of days. Fortunately, things at work finally sort of worked themselves out last weekend or else this week would have been insane.

All in all, things are going well.

What do teachers make?

I got this in a "joke" newsletter. Not sure why it's considered a joke. I find it harshly true...I'll have to re-read this when I think about my decision to push for that teaching certificate.

---

***
Some dinner guests were discussing life. One man, a CEO, explained the problem with education: "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher? You know what they say about teachers: 'Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.' " He turned to a guest and said, "You're a teacher, Bonnie. Be honest. What do you make?" Bonnie replied, "You want to know what I make? I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor. I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can't make them sit for 5 minutes without an iPod, GameBoy or movie rental. I make kids wonder. I make them question. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them have respect. I make them take responsibility for their actions. I teach them to write and then I make them write. I make them read, read, read. I make them show their work in math. I make them use their brains. I make students from other countries learn everything they need to know in English while preserving their unique cultural identity. I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe. I make my students stand and place their hand over their heart when they say the Pledge of Allegiance. I make them understand that if they use their gifts, work hard, and follow their heart, they can succeed in life. And then, when people try to judge me by my salary, because I know money isn't everything, I hold my head up high and ignore their ignorance. So what do I make? I make a difference! And what do you make, Mr. CEO?" There was no response.