Quote of the Day...

A young boy slowly trudges into the house holding a bow with a busted string.

I say, "You can fix it."

He perks up. "I read in one book that women's hair makes very good bow strings."

Excellent books!!!!

Much of our vacation consisted of traveling...many, many, many miles. I read several books during the trip and highly recommend two of them...

Escape is the fascinating true story of one woman's experience in a polygamist family. It just boggles the mind.

But a must, must read for everyone is Last Child in the Woods; Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. I want to comment more on it later, but my copy is currently overdue at the library, so it may have to wait... ;)

Vacationing

We've been gone on a delightful vacation. Time to do a lot of updating. We saw 13 states, visited many relatives, Yellowstone, several "Little House" sites, the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, and more. ;)

What Are We Doing to Our Kids?

This is an article from the San Francisco Chronicle. Well worth reading...

Former math teacher's lesson of the day

It isn't absurd enough that we test high school students with a High School Exit Exam that is pretty much on a par with the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) required of teachers, but now we are all congratulating ourselves with a decision to test eighth graders for algebra. At least state schools chief Jack O'Connell has learned from his own past mistakes and opposed this decision. If only he had the guts to say he blew it on advocating for the exit exam, which is not only a complete waste of tens of millions of dollars, but sends more and more kids into the streets and trouble with the law when they fail to graduate because they do not test as well as others. (About 10 percent of high school students must "fail," otherwise it isn't a "test.")

I tutored algebra to younger students when I myself was in high school. Later I taught it in public high schools for nearly 20 years, concurrently with other math courses, including geometry, pre-algebra and seventh and eighth grade math. I taught in some of the highest achieving, and some of the lowest achieving middle and high schools in the state. So, maybe my perspective is broader than the average citizen's. Still, anyone who thinks it is a good idea to begin testing all eighth graders in algebra is simply delusional. It would be more PC to say uninformed, but I am at wit's end.

During the last two decades, decision makers playing fear cards (such as documents like "A Nation at Risk" and phrases like "competing in the global economy") have transformed school curricula. Now, everything is rushed and ratcheted up to the extent that we teach first grade in kindergarten, junior high in sixth grade, ninth grade in eighth grade, and junior college in high school.

We have added levels of complexity, breadth of standards and overall intensity at every level, and still delude ourselves that standardized tests can successfully evaluate our "successes" in "increasing rigor." Standardized tests reflect nothing more accurately than the socio-economic levels of the various testing populations. We are making our children sick and discouraged in record numbers. Skyrocketing increases in medications for school children (both for anxiety and for learning disorders) and in high school dropout rates prove this without question!

Sure, some children should take algebra in eighth grade, some even in seventh grade, but most should take it in high school when the typical kid is ready for it. Our children should also have an opportunity to take a pre-algebra course first, if needed, or take a problem solving class, or even a whole alternative math sequence. (Algebra is still offered in the community colleges, after all.) This is about readiness, not racism or lowered expectations. Some people excel in their right brains and truly struggle with complex linear patterns and abstract thinking. They deserve a high school opportunity too, as they have in the past. The U.S. economy is stumbling, but not for a lack of engineers or Ph.D.'s. What we lack most now is common sense!

Every kid that we push out of school that ends up on the streets is more likely to soon be in position to cost the state $40,000 annually to incarcerate...this is the same cost as one new classroom teacher. The governor and his fellow Republicans seem all too eager to keep cutting education while they continue to increase spending for prisons. This is as inappropriate as it is insane. Those who agree with the idea that "an algebra test for all 8th graders is good" are living in a wonderland, are clueless about motivation, are in the dark about the inter-relatedness of systems (socio-political-economic-educational), and probably own stock in testing companies, private schools or correctional facilities, or textbook publishing conglomerations. They are not friends of public education, or school children. The decision to force every eighth grader into algebra must be reconsidered.

/Claudia Ayers is a retired public school math teacher and former intergovernmental program analyst (1975-1978) in Gov. Jerry Brown's administration./

‘LilDude, Love & Logic

Today, ‘LilDude (age 5) went to visit his best friend, “T.” T’s mom happens to be one of the most awesome moms I know…and the queen of Love and Logic. If you are a Love and Logic parent, you’ll appreciate the events that transpired…

‘LilDude and T are playing with T’s two older siblings, B & K. First, B has a little rock throwing incident. Not too long after, B & K have an argument. Mom comes over to deal with the situation. ‘LilDude looks at her, grimaces, puts his hands over his ears and says, “They are DRAINING MY ENERGY!”

Edited to add...

The teacher in me was thinking... Some kids come to school swearing and the teacher figures they learned it at home. 'LilDude goes to kindergarten in the fall. Wonder what his teacher is going to think????

Wisdom from an Elder

One of the reasons I most enjoy Sunday School? An older gentleman, probably close to 80, who tells amusing stories and has fascinating reflections on life.

Here's a recent quote...

There's nothing wrong with thinking folks are idiots as long as you recognize your own idiocy.

Thanks, Calvin!

Save $ With Seeds + Weather VENT!

Just heard that one dime spend on seeds equals one dollar spent on produce. I'm excited about our garden this year...both for the savings and for the attempt to go organic. I've got tiny little celery plants coming up...a first for me. Cabbage, broccoli, green beans, corn, carrots, lettuce, peas, dill and spinach are all slowly coming up. The tomatoes and peppers are hanging in there, trying to survive the cold.

Now if it would just get sunny enough for all the seeds to germinate. I'm pretty sure that the squash and cucumber seeds I planted about 2-3 weeks ago DROWNED. We also put in a few cucumber plants, about half of which succumbed to root rot.

Today I put on my heavy winter coat and stopped at the farm store to get cucumber and squash PLANTS. (It seems pretty late to be reseeding, although I'm going to do that as well.) I was talking with the cashier, asking if she thought I dared to put them in the ground since today's high was in the 50s. She half scolded me saying that Old Timers say that you shouldn't plant til after Memorial Day.

BUT IT'S AFTER MEMORIAL DAY!!!!! CAN I SAFELY PLANT NOW?????

It's the 5th of June and one of the best things sprouting in my garden is winter kale. When can I plant my summer vegetables?????

My mother-in-law asked if I could bring strawberries to a family gathering this weekend. Strawberries? You mean those hard little green balls in my raised beds?

So she asks me to buy bananas. I have lots of guilt about buying bananas, but I did it. Then I watch Jennifer's link.

Sigh.

Spring Quiche Trio

Here's a favorite seasonal recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, Simply in Season. In the cookbook there are several crusts and fillings to choose from, but I'll just list what I did when I made these...



Spring Quick Trio

3 eggs
1 c. evaporated milk (since 'LilDude is dairy intolerant, I modified and used some thickened rice milk)
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper

Beat together and set aside.

Prepare a crust. I chose the potato crust:

3 c. uncooked potatoes, coarsely grated
3 T. oil
Mix together. Press into bottom and sides of a 9" pie pan. Bake in preheated oven at 425 until just starting to brown, about 15 mins. Add filling and bake as directed.

Prepare selected filling (below) and pour into crust and top with egg/milk mixture, ending with sprinkling of cheese. Bake in preheated oven at 425 for 15 mins. Reduce heat to 350 and bake until browned on top and set in the middle, another 25-30 mins. Allow to cool for 10-15 mins. before cutting and serving.


Asparagus filling (I modified the recipe in SIS...here's what I did...)
1 - 1 1/2 c. asparagus, cooked and chopped
1 c. cheese (they call for Swiss, I used mozzarella...and make a separate little pie with no cheese for ds)
1/2 c. bacon (fried, crumbled) or cooked ham (diced)
1 T. fresh rosemary, chopped

Mix together, adding herbs to egg-milk mixture

I made a second filling (I doubled the recipe) with broccoli, ham, and cheese.

Black Bean Chicken Chili - Crockpot

Here's a longtime family-favorite recipe from a longtime favorite friend...

I've made it in the crockpot and on the stovetop...both work great.




Black Bean Chicken Chili

2 lbs chicken breasts (I just use a handful of leftover, chopped chicken that I freeze after we eat chicken dinner)

2-3 cans black beans

1 can diced mild chilies (optional, esp. since $$$, but YUMMERS!)

2-3 cans chopped tomatoes (I use a quart of frozen tomatoes)

some chopped jalapeno, optional (I freeze this in the summer and use
a spoonful at a time)

chili seasoning to taste

If you use raw chicken, you may want to saute it briefly before adding to crockpot. I always use leftover, cooked chicken. I dump it all together in the crockpot at the "low" setting if it's all day and "high" setting if it's half a day. Or I dump it all in a large pan and heat it up on the stovetop.

This freezes well. I'm making a double batch tonight so we have extra to take on a camping trip.

Goat's Milk

If you're a local friend of mine and want fresh-from-the-farm, organic goat's milk, let me know. We buy from a local source that's wonderful...and overflowing in milk right now.

China Earthquake

A couple years ago, a Chinese woman lived with a family from our church and volunteered at our local school through an exchange program. She lives in the Sichuan province where the earthquake struck. Although they are some distance from the epicenter, her husband has been hiking in on foot to a very remote region to bring medicine, food, tents and other supplies to survivors. Here are two photos he took. The shelter in the picture was made by local people with whatever they could find after the earthquake.

Although I don't have a way to easily connect you to this particular village, Mennonite Central Committee is collecting donations to assist with earthquake relief.

Join the Cool Foods Campaign!

Global food crisis: What you can do

Consider what you eat

Today, the average item of food in the U.S. and Canada travels more than 1,000 miles before it lands on our tables. Through stories and simple "whole foods" recipes, Simply in Season, a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) cookbook from Herald Press, explores how the food we put on our tables affects our local and global neighbors. The cookbook shows the importance of eating local, seasonal food and invites readers to make choices that offer security and health for our communities, land, bodies and spirit.

Increasing meat consumption has helped drive up demand for grain, and with it the price. MCC just signed on to a campaign called the Cool Foods Pledge. Amongst other consumer actions, this campaign is calling for lower meat consumption.

The Cool Foods Campaign "educates the public about how food choices can affect global warming and empowers them with the resources to reduce this impact. Join [the] “Cool Foods” Campaign and help take a bite out of global warming by changing the way you eat."

According to the Cool Foods site, the top five things you can do to take a bite out of global warming:

1. Eat Organic

I'm working on this. I'm focusing on the dirty dozen (see earlier post) and filling in anywhere else I can. It's a slow process, but do-able.

2. Reduce meat and dairy consumption.

We've never been huge meat/dairy eaters. Often as not, we have a small amount of meat distributed in a larger recipe...like vegetable/rice stirfry with a small amount of chicken or taco soup with a pound of hamburger (that feeds all of us with leftovers.) We greatly reduced our dairy consumption when we learned that Lil Dude was dairy intolerant. The toughest one is breakfast. I have a family of cereal addicts. The cereal is highly processed and dh isn't big on the double expense of buying organic milk. This is the worst meal of the day for us.

3. Avoid processed foods.

Except the cereal, we do pretty well. Again, the gluten/casein free diet that LilDude is on has helped us immensely. But the cereal is our downfall.

4. Buy locally grown foods.

I'm trying. But it's hard. It's been terribly cold and wet here. I can't even find local lettuce yet. I've been buying local spinach (but it's not organic and it's on the dirty dozen, so I hate that) and asparagus, but not much else. Yet. I'm eagerly waiting for garden produce. I have been slowly harvesting lettuce from our raised beds. We've happily eating taco salad several times over the last few weeks (with our locally grown, grass fed beef). All year we have chicken, beef and vegies thanks to canning and/or our freezers. But fresh? It's rough this year.

5. Say no to packaging.

That's automatically easier when we aren't buying much processed food. The biggest habit I lack is using my grocery bags. I've repeatedly had to send one of my big kids back out to the car to get them before we go to checkout. Do they say 40 times make a habit? Working on it...

Movie: Martian Child

If you want to see a touching movie, pick up the new DVD release of Martian Child.

A single man (played by John Cusack) decides he's ready to become a father. The social worker decides that a 7-year-old who thinks he's from Mars would be a perfect match; after all, the adoptive father-to-be is a science fiction writer. But not everyone is so sure. When his sister, a mother herself, learns about the match, her response is, "A kid who sits in a box all day is a GIANT RED FLAG."

Yet despite worries and frustrations that he might not be the best parent for this child, the father says,

"I don't want to bring another kid into this world...but how do you argue against loving one who's already here?"

If you watch the movie, don't miss the interview with the real father & son upon whom the movie is based. The love between the two is palpable.

Warning: if you haven't adopted already, this movie might just make you want to consider it.

Here's a link to the movie trailer.

Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife

No, I'm not a polygamist's wife and I don't have shattered dreams. But I just read a book by that title and highly recommend it. I finished it in three days because I couldn't put it down.

With all the current news about the polygamist sect in Texas, it was fascinating to read one woman's account of what the lifestyle is like from the inside. 1 man + 10 wives + 56 children = abject poverty, constant moving, a life of instability and unhappiness. Without question, the women are miserable. And given the circumstances, I can't imagine that the man's life would have been much better. He is rarely home, forced to travel to find work. Yet sacrifices are made again and again with the idea of earning spots in Heaven. Despite living hell on earth.

Fascinating read.

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

On a friend's recommendation, I read Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. The principle behind the book is very simple, but the book jacket sums it up nicely:

...everyone has one of two basic mindsets. If you have the fixed mindset, you believe that your talents and abilities are set in stone--either you have them or you don't. You must prove yourself over and over, trying to look smart and talented at all costs. This is the path of stagnation. If you have a growth mindset, however, you know that talents can be developed and that great abilities are build over time. This is the path of opportunity--and success.

The author, Carol Dweck, is a PhD researcher in psychology from Stanford. While I agree with the Amazon reviewers who said that the book could have been summarized in a small pamphlet (because the premise is so simple), I read the whole book because I found the examples so fascinating...and because I had a hard time figuring out which mindset I have.

In many ways, I have the fixed mindset. I look at myself and think I have X amount of smarts. Therefore, I will work at X level. I won't work harder than level X because it wouldn't do any good. And I make excuses... If s/he is doing better than I am, it's only because she's smarter than I am. In other words, her success is directly related to her brains. It's so easy to take effort out of the equation.

But then I stop to think about it. If I worked harder, could I achieve more? Yes, I probably could. I've had quite a bit of success in the work world without (to me) a lot of effort. So it makes it feel like I got where I am on smarts, not on effort. But then I look at an author I admire and think, "Man, she got all the breaks..." when in reality, she probably just worked harder. I remember listening to one author speak. She said, "I figured that if I was going to be a doctor, it would take ten years of hard work, learning what I needed to know to do my craft. I was willing to put that ten years in, learning what I needed to be a skilled writer. If after ten years I still hadn't arrived, I figured I could reconsider then."

But the principle applies in so many areas of life. According to Dweck, those with a fixed mindset are quick to write off those who see things differently. So, for example, if I post my opinion on a public forum and people disagree with me, I'll say things to myself like, "Well, they just aren't as smart or as knowledgeable as I am," or "They're just jealous," or "They don't know what they're talking about." In contrast, someone in a growth mindset is able to consider the opinions of others, reflect, and use the information for further growth...all without taking it personally.

The principle also applies to parenting and education. Fixed mindset parents tell their kids, "You're smart." If a child is told "you're smart" too often, they develop the fixed mindset...believing that they have X amount of smarts and should never let anyone see their weaknesses. Therefore, they do exactly what they need to do to show X amount...and not an ounce more. It reminds me of all my years in school. I'd do what it took to get an "A." But not an ounce more.

In contrast, growth mindset parents say, "Wow, you worked really hard on that project." Children learn that people who succeed are people who put in the effort.

I see areas of both fixed and growth mindset in my life. The good news is that Dweck says people can change their fixed mindset. I'm working on it. ;)