Reading Update

Book #27 for 2007 was The Landscape of Love, by Sally Beauman. It was absorbing, if somewhat odd.

I stayed up until 2:30 this morning finishing book #28, The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. I loved her book of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, but the novel is even better. It is my favorite kind of book - about immigrants, people relating across cultures, identity. It is filled with perfectly chosen details that make every character, every setting, and even every meal come to life. Here's a little taste: "Though no longer pregnant, she continues, at times, to mix Rice Krispies and peanuts and onions in a bowl. For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy - a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect."

I'm 85 pages into War and Peace. There are lots of characters, and since many of their names are similar, especially to a non-Russian speaker like myself, it's not such a quick read. I'm enjoying it, though.

Here's a scene from a party: "The count peeped from behind the crystal of the decanters and fruit-dishes at his wife and her high cap with blue ribbons, and zealously poured out wine for his neighbors, not overlooking himself. The countess, too, while mindful of her duties as hostess, cast significant glances from behind the pineapples at her husband, whose face and bald head struck her as looking particularly red against his grey hair. At the ladies' end there was a rhythmic murmur of talk, but at the other end of the table the men's voices grew louder and louder, especially the voice of the colonel of hussars, who, getting more and more flushed, ate and drank so much that the count held him up as a pattern to the rest. Berg with a tender smile was telling Vera that love was an emotion not of earth but of heaven. Boris was telling his new friend Pierre the names of the guests, while he exchanged glances with Natasha sitting opposite him. Pierre said little, looked about at the new faces, and ate a great deal."

I kind of wish I had Boris to help me with the names of all these guests, and I know it's uncultured, but the names Boris and Natasha have different associations for me.

Later in the same party: "The German tutor was trying to learn by heart a list of all the kinds of dishes, desserts, and wines, in order to write a detailed description of them to the folks at home in Germany, and was greatly mortified that the butler with the bottle in the napkin had passed him over. The German knitted his brows, and tried to look as though he would not have cared to take that wine, but he was mortified because no one would understand that he had not wanted the wine to quench his thirst, or through greed, but from a conscientious desire for knowledge."

It's all in the details, isn't it? I'm always going to remember Ashima, mixing up her imitation Indian snack in her new home in the United States, musing about the similarities of pregnancy and being a foreigner, and I think I'll always remember that German tutor, too, trying to commit the menu to memory so that he could write home about it.

Education Carnival #113

Another Carnival, folks! This week's is hosted by Getting Green.

National Poetry Month

This year I'm receiving a poem a day from two different lists to celebrate National Poetry Month. One is from Knopf Poetry (you can subscribe here) and the other from Poets.org (you can subscribe to this one here). Here's some more information on National Poetry Month from Poets.org.

Charles Bernstein doesn't support National Poetry month. I think he makes a good point.

I read poetry all year round, and share a poem with my students each day, but I do enjoy being introduced to new poets every April. And if some more poetry books get sold, I'm all for that too.

Mail

I hope you got a chance to look at some of the entries for today's Theme Day (see the post below). I particularly enjoyed this one - there's nothing like getting a letter. Email is great, but a letter on paper...

Speaking of which, have you heard about Gmail's new Gmail Paper?

DP Theme Day - Mailbox

On the first of every month, the City Daily Photo blogs do a Theme Day. April's DP Theme is a mailbox. Here's the entry from Sharon, CT, along with links to all the other DP blogs participating.

Saturday Review of Books

Here it is again!

Overheard

Two seventh-grade boys talking to one another.

"What's that on your face? A pimple?"

"Yeah."

"It's big."



Oh, I'm so glad I'm not thirteen any more.

Shoelaces

I found out from Lois Lowry's blog that there's a bit of a controversy going on regarding the Holocaust and shoelaces.

Here Lois posted about a teacher who is having students collect shoelaces - six million centimeters of them - to help them understand the magnitude of six million as a number and as a death toll of the Holocaust. The teacher was inspired by the documentary Paper Clips, which I saw last summer and thought was wonderful.

A couple of days later, Lois posted this, and included the address of Roger Sutton's blog, where many commenters have said what they think about this shoelace project, for and against. (I just checked out this link, and it takes you to the Horn Book home page. Roger Sutton is the editor of the Horn Book. If you click on "Blog" and then go to the post from Sunday, March 25th, called "Six Million What?", you'll see what I'm talking about.)

While I do think the giant pair of shoes is a bit much, if this project has a fraction of the impact of the Paper Clips project, it will have achieved something amazing. Go and read the comments, though, on Roger Sutton's blog. I guarantee that you'll find them thought-provoking.

Another Carnival!

Where did that week go? It's already time for the Carnival again!

Here it is, hosted again this week by The Education Wonks.

Saturday Again

My grades are due on Tuesday, so why am I fooling around on the computer?

I don't have time to post, so read the Saturday Review of Books instead.

Carnival - Better Late than Never

I missed the Education Carnival again this week, but here it is, hosted by The Education Wonks again.

Fun Day

I took a personal day today (we get two per year) and went out in the country with a friend to visit another friend, one I hadn't actually met before today but just knew through her blog. There was also a woman who is here adopting, whom I hadn't met before either. We had a nice day, eating brunch and just talking. It was so relaxing for me to do something different other than go to work, come home, go to work, come home. It was also nice to be in a place that is quiet and peaceful, away from the racket of the city.

I left my own students with a highly competent sub, so no worries about whether they would run wild. And sure enough, everything went well, and I came back to a stack of work to grade.

The Mission Song

I have enjoyed some of the books I've read by John le Carré, but not all of them. I tried a couple of his earlier books and found them impossible to follow; all those men in grey suits blurred together. I liked The Little Drummer Girl and The Constant Gardener (the African setting of the latter helped), but I didn't like The Tailor of Panama - again, I found it difficult to follow. (All of these books are violent and full of profanity, just so you know.)

This latest novel, The Mission Song, is one that I liked. I enjoyed the perspective of Bruno Salvador, the top interpreter, though I could hardly believe someone with his experiences would really be so naive. People are out for their own interests instead of truth and justice? I'm shocked, shocked! Come on, Bruno.

My favorite passages all had to do with languages. Bruno grew up in Eastern Congo, the son of an Irish priest and the daughter of a village headman. He tells us that as a child he spent much of his time with the mission servants. "It was there...that my ever-growing love of the Eastern Congo's many languages and dialects took root. Hoarding them as my dear late father's precious legacy, I covertly polished and refined them, storing them in my head as protection from I knew not what perils, pestering native and missionary alike for a nugget of vernacular or turn of phrase. In the privacy of my tiny cell I composed my own childish dictionaries by candlelight. Soon, these magic puzzle-pieces became my identity and refuge, the private sphere that nobody could take away from me and only the few enter." And later: "every language was precious to me, not only the heavyweights but the little ones that were condemned to die for want of written form;...the missionary's son needed to run after these erring sheep and lead them back to the fold;...I heard legend, history, fable and poetry in them and the voice of my imagined mother regaling me with spirit-tales." There's lots more wonderful writing like this.

Ultimately, Bruno becomes another le Carré hero who tries to do the right thing and ends up in a mess because of it. But nevertheless I found his story well worth reading. I hope le Carré keeps writing about Africa.

Efficiency

On Thursday, the phone company called and said that if we didn't pay our bill immediately, they would cut us off on Saturday. When I got home, I received this message. How much, I asked. Nobody knew.

Really, the fact that we have a working landline is so unusual that it seems foolish to complain. But I will, nonetheless.

On Friday, we sent someone down to the phone company with a wad of cash, hoping to hit the right amount (not as easy as it sounds, since we get a bill about once every six months and we just paid a random amount last month, too).

Today, we found our phone bill stuck in our gate.

Reading Update

Books #24, 25 and 26 for 2007 are The Boleyn Inheritance, Devices and Desires, and The Mission Song.

Teaching Middle School

Great article on teaching middle school from yesterday's New York Times.

Thanks to Se Hace Camino Al Andar.

A Saturday Tradition

Saturday Review of Books and working in my classroom.

Journal Entry

I was journaling with my students this week in response to the prompt: "What do you like and not like about where you live?"


I love the good weather, flowers, friendly neighbors, the way we can eat outside all year round. I love the lizards, the fresh fruit, the palm trees.

I don't like the electricity problems or the smells of burning rubber and plastic and charcoal. I don't like the gunshots I hear sometimes at night. I hate the bugs and the rats. I don't like the dust, covering everything a few minutes after the room has been cleaned.

Three Little...Puppies?

Political correctness rises to new heights.

Highlight of the Week

One of my eighth grade students came into class one day this week brandishing a poem he had written. He told everyone how much his family had liked it. He described the process of writing it, the way he sat down with kind of an ordinary idea, and then thought of something else, and soon was in full creative mode. He explained every image to us and where it had come from, and about the last lines he said that they were so good that he could hardly believe he had written them himself - he thought maybe they had come from a poem I'd read to them, and actually checked that poem to make sure he hadn't taken any words from it!

The other kids read his work and several said they thought he must have found it on the internet. He insisted that he hadn't - I could look on every site and I would never find it, he said, because he had written it!

It was wonderful to see him get so excited about something he wrote, and about the process of it, and the reaction of others to it.

Something to Be Thankful For

We don't have an intercom at our school.

Another Wednesday, Another Carnival

Life is just one big celebration, isn't it? Every week there's a brand new Carnival of Education! Take a look the 110th Carnival at The Education Wonks.

Book Meme

I got this one from A Shrewdness of Apes.

*Look at the list of books below.
*Bold the ones you’ve read.
*Italicize the ones you want to read.
*Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) Tried it, didn't like it.
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) Tried it. Didn't like it.
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables. (Hugo) I've tried it a couple of times. I need to try it again.
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
101. Jurassic Park
102. Learn Me Good

She Said It, I Didn't

Here's what Mrs. Bluebird has to say about seventh graders.

Why Teenagers Have Mood Swings

While at first you might say "duh" to the headline - "Biological Basis for Teenage Mood Swings Found" - this is a very interesting article. I was a little horrified by this phrase, though - "the study opens a door to drug development to help counteract the more severe mood swings." Though the article goes on to say that the main focus is helping adults understand why this typical adolescent behavior occurs, it scares me to think that we may take a normal human process and treat it with drugs. Any kind of discomfort or negative emotion will soon be able to be dealt with medicinally. Does this worry anybody else? While it may start with the "more severe" cases, these things seem to trickle down quickly to the point where anybody feeling a little grumpy gets a prescription.

Not Quite a Meme

Sometimes we who live here in Tecwil indulge in a kind of gallows humor. When things are unacceptably difficult, one way to deal with them is to laugh. In fact, it's one of the only ways I've found that works. A year or so ago, at a time when the kidnappings in the country were becoming more and more common, I was visiting the subscription library to which I belong. It's open one evening a week for everyone to come change their books and enjoy some social time too. For a few weeks, all the conversation had been about kidnappings we knew about and people we knew who had had this happen to them. Some of the stories were tragic. All were upsetting. That day, one of the members, an expat who's been here for many years, commented that he thought it would be a good idea if all of us checked out a few extra books, just in case we were kidnapped. He said he'd taken to carrying reading material in his car.

He was kidding (though perhaps not completely), and we all laughed. But I've thought of his remark several times since then. And I've wondered what would be good books to have with you if you were kidnapped.

Understand, I'm not expecting to be kidnapped. But it has happened to people I know.

I realize this doesn't have the right kind of universal application to make a good meme, but if you, too, are prone to reflect on this kind of thing, please post what you would like to have for reading material if you were kidnapped. Think of it as Desert Island Discs, with a twist. In that BBC radio show, the premise is that you're a castaway on a desert island and you have to say what eight pieces of music and one book - excluding the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, which of course any self-respecting desert island has already - you would like to have with you. You are also allowed one luxury item with no survival value. In the kidnapping scenario, there's an added feature - you're scared, and the outcome of this is out of your hands completely. On the desert island, I assume you'd be scared too, but you could keep busy doing things like finding water, building shelter, talking to a volleyball - you know, stuff like that. But as a kidnap victim, you'd need to keep yourself as calm as possible and there would be very little for you to do, beyond praying that the people negotiating your release would have success. So you'd want things to read that would keep you calm, absorb your attention, and occupy your time. You can pick as many books as you want, but remember that the combined weight of the books should make it realistic that you'd have them in your schoolbag or briefcase or whatever you normally carry around.

So what books would I like to have in case of kidnapping? Well, I'd really like to have my Bible with me and my beloved Book of Common Prayer. Both of those are actually possible because I own pocket versions and often one or the other is in my bag anyway. I think I'd be likely to want something to read that was familiar. In times of crisis I always find myself rereading books by C.S. Lewis, so perhaps a couple of the Chronicles of Narnia or The Screwtape Letters. I think it would be good, too, to have something that I hadn't read before, or had just started, and that had lots of characters and took place in a totally different time and place. Something that would be long enough to keep me absorbed for many hours. What else? War and Peace would be the perfect choice.

And you? Or am I the only person insane enough to think this way? (Please understand, I do understand the seriousness of this crime, and I hope my flippancy doesn't offend anybody.)

I wrote about kidnapping before here.

School Visit

On Wednesday I went out in the country with a team from our school. Half of us went to one school and half to another. We were working with some professors from a university in the United States who have been coming here to do professional development for the teachers at these two rural schools. Since the professors can only be here three times a year, they wanted to have some of us who live here do some visits in between. Most of the staff at these schools have had very little educational opportunity and they don't have access to things like conferences or professional books.

The school I visited had 260 students. The sixth grade meets in the afternoon, so I didn't see them, but the students I saw were crammed into eight classrooms, sitting four to a small, rather uncomfortable bench with attached desk. They were in uniforms, though here and there you'd see a student in other clothes. The director said that many of them have just one uniform, and by Wednesday it's dirty.

The teachers were (mostly) enthusiastic and doing the very best they could with what they had. The educational system here involves mostly rote memory, and the students recite what they have memorized in unison. The classrooms did not have full walls, just a piece of particleboard that stopped about two feet from the floor and perhaps six feet from the rafters. This meant that in one classroom, you could hear recitations going on all around. The teachers were forced to yell to be heard, and the noise was terrific. Many of the noises I have in my classroom (generator, air conditioner, fans) were not present, because there is no electricity at all in the village. The director told me that he has a tiny generator at his house that runs a small TV and a radio, but there's no national power and no other generators. The classrooms each had a particleboard chalkboard, and most of the kids seemed to have copies of the textbooks, which are more like booklets than real books.

In the morning we observed some lessons taught by one of the visiting professors and then walked around watching what was going on the classrooms. We had lunch together, and in the afternoon we attended a professional development session. The focus was on reflecting after a lesson about what went well and what could go better. Several of the teachers shared about lessons they had taught. Then some shared stories they had written. There is not much children's literature available in the local language, so the professors had suggested that they try writing some stories of their own. These were enjoyable to listen to, as they told them with a great deal of drama.

As they reflected on their lessons, I reflected on mine, too. I wonder how I would be able to teach without any way to make handouts, without a classroom library, without any kind of soundproofing, without windows (the dust billowed in through the half-walls, so that I had to wipe it off my notebook every few minutes), without an overhead or a decent white board, without my library of teacher books, without the internet, without - and this is the biggest one of all - my expensive education. In many ways, our school is basic compared with what is available in the United States, but compared with the school we visited, ours is palatial and ultramodern.

The families who send their kids to this school do not pay any tuition, because an American Christian organization is providing sponsorships. The organization also dug the well in the school's courtyard, helped build the school, and helps pay the teachers' salaries. The parents are asked only for a small contribution to pay for chalk and the lady who sweeps the classrooms. I wish I had asked how much this was, but I didn't. The director told me that even this small amount is well out of reach for many of the families in the community.

When we go back to visit, one of the things we've been asked to do is to help the teachers learn how to use the supplies that have been donated for them. Things like construction paper, crayons, small white boards similar to slates, and math manipulatives. They have also been given some books in the local language, including some big books. They were taught a lesson on how to read aloud to a class, as many of them have never done this (not having any books to read aloud).

I hope that we will be able to provide some useful help and not be seen just as people coming from outside to tell them what to do. Their situation is very different from ours and we have as much to learn from them as they do from us.

Book Reviews

Here's the Saturday Review of Books for this week.

New Carnival

Yesterday while I was out visiting the rural school (more about that later), I missed a new Education Carnival that was posted at What It's Like on the Inside.

Telling Teachers How to Do their Jobs

I've been reading this post and these comments over at From The Trenches of Public Ed. - fascinating stuff. I agree with the original post in many ways; teaching is a job that everyone thinks is easy. You get those long summers! You only work until three o'clock every day! Those who can't do, teach! I've seen quite a few friends change their tune a little bit about teaching when they got into the classroom and saw it's not quite as easy as it looks.

The comments were interesting, too, and I found myself agreeing with some of what was said on both "sides" of the argument. I think it's much too simplistic to say, as one commenter does, that "It wasn't the poverty or lack of utilities that caused the under-achievement, it was the under-achievement of all the educators who under-taught and under-served those students before they entered Jane's classroom." (Someone identifying himself as TMAO is responding to Jane, who commented on the difficult home situations her students have. She said that some of them don't have electricity at home, hence the reference to utilities.)

I've been reflecting a lot on the relationship between the home backgrounds kids have and their ability to succeed in school. I know my situation is quite different from that of most of the teachers commenting, because not only do I not teach in a public school, but I don't even teach in the United States. However, tomorrow I'm going to be visiting a local "Tecwilian" school. The students there won't come from homes with electricity, or homes that own books, or even, in some cases, homes with literate parents. The teachers are expected to have completed the grade above the one they are teaching. And there aren't political bodies overseeing what's being done in this school - in some schools in this country, there aren't even enough pencils to go around.

Of course kids' background matters. Of course their home life matters. Of course it's not all the fault of the teacher they had last year if a child can't learn easily. And I don't believe there is a one-size-fits-all solution to any of these problems, either in the United States or in this country.

Maybe I'll have some reflections to post after tomorrow's visit.

Saturday Review of Books

Check it out.

War and Peace Arrives!

Back in January, I was whining about not being able to find a copy of War and Peace. Matsu very generously offered to send me a copy. It arrived today! It spent a little time in Customs - perhaps being read by the officials - who knows?

My reading has slowed down lately due to all the grading I've had, and also, I confess, our newfound addiction to 24 (we've been watching the DVDs of the first and then second seasons). There's nothing like a good dose of improbability at the end of the day. Right now I am in the middle of The Boleyn Inheritance. But as soon as I finish it, probably this weekend, I am planning to embark on War and Peace. Hooray!

Probably there aren't too many blog posts out there which mention both 24 and War and Peace.

Thanks, Matsu!

DP Theme Day: Men at Work

Go here to see the Sharon, CT entry for this month's theme, "Men at work." You'll also find links to the other DP blogs that are participating.

108th Carnival of Education

Check out this week's Carnival, hosted by Dr. Homeslice.

Helping Kids Learn Discussion Etiquette

I'm finding it challenging to help my seventh graders learn to discuss in their Lit Circle groups. We have the same problem with whole-class discussions: everyone starts talking at once - as a friend put it so well recently about a conversation on an email group: "Everyone wants to be heard but nobody wants to listen." One thing that has helped there has been having students write down their ideas before a whole-class discussion. When it comes to Lit Circles, the kids have prepared the selection and each has had a specific role, so that they are theoretically showing up with something to say, and not just inventing something on the spot. Of course, several came unprepared, so that didn't help.

I'm still working on this and I'm open to helpful hints. Here are some links I found:

Teaching Kids to Discuss.

Making Discussions Work.

Discussion Skills. (For older students, but some good ideas.)

Sad Teacher Story

Ms. Cornelius shares this terrible story about a teacher who confiscated an iPod and ended up with a broken neck. And the teacher's response to the incident is the most amazing part.

The Thirteenth Tale

Book #23 of the year is The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield.

Here's Kelly's review from A Spacious Place. Here's the review from At a Hen's Pace. And here's the one from Mental Multivitamin.

Everyone appears to love this book. I enjoyed it too, but don't have the time tonight to write a full review.

Fixed!

Our electricity is fixed! I am so happy! The electrician came over this afternoon and climbed up on our pole to fiddle around with things. We didn't know if he had been successful until the power came on around 7:00 and ours came on too!

The electrician mentioned to me that he hasn't had city power in his house for five years. A transformer blew out and the company didn't have any more. They still send a bill every month, though. The electrician was fortunately able to hook into a neighbor's supply. The neighbor had bought his own private transformer and charged a hefty fee to let others share it.

Saturday

No power at home, but the generator's on at school and I'm working in my classroom. Semicolon is taking a hiatus from blogging for Lent, but still posting the Saturday Review of Books. Amy is also taking a break for Lent, and Alana considered it. All these people are making me feel guilty. It occurs to me that I ought to be taking my temporary trials in the same spirit, as in, I guess I've inadvertently given up electricity for Lent. How nice. No doubt this will reap all kinds of inner growth. Well, I'm trying. I really am.

Part of my Bible reading the other night (I'm following the Lectionary from the Book of Common Prayer) was from Habbakuk. Here's a bit of it: "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior." (Habbakuk 3:17-18)

Yeah, I know, I'm pathetic. I haven't even missed a meal and there are plenty of sheep in the pen and cattle in the stalls, metaphorically speaking. (Thankfully I have no actual livestock to deal with.) I have plenty to be joyful about. Sometimes my rejoicing is a little forced, though.

Electricity, Yet Again

Anybody who's reading this is probably tired of this topic, but once again we have no electricity. Today makes a week. Until last night, there were several other houses affected. We could see the streetlight across the street, but we weren't the only house with no city power. Last night, though, when the power came on, the neighbors had it and we didn't.

For some reason, I find this very difficult, even though we still have power in the batteries, so we have lights and fans and even computer, and the generator is working. I just can't stand the fact that we're the only ones with no city power. Misery loves company, and all that.

Every night I call the company, and every night they promise they will come and fix it. I've called "our" electrician, too, but there's only so much he can tell when the power is off everywhere, as it mostly is until the middle of the night, when nobody wants to be out on the street.

I get very tired of this. No, it's not life-threatening, but it sure is annoying.

Professional Development

I can't say or think the words "professional development" any more without thinking of this post from Graycie at Today's Homework. However, unlike theirs, our sessions today were helpful - at least I thought so. We'll see if I feel the same after tomorrow's sessions are finished. Our kids have the whole week off for Carnival.

Reading

I finished Auden's For the Time Being last night, and enjoyed it. Here are some bits I liked:

Gabriel, during the Annunciation:

"Since Adam, being free to choose,
Chose to imagine he was free
To choose his own necessity,
Lost in his freedom, Man pursues
The shadow of his images:
Today the Unknown seeks the known;
What I am willed to ask, your own
Will has to answer; child, it lies
Within your power of choosing to
Conceive the Child who chooses you."

Simeon, after Jesus has been presented at the Temple:

"The tragic conflict of Virtue with Necessity is no longer confined to the Exceptional Hero; for disaster is not the impact of a curse upon a few great families, but issues continually from the hubris of every tainted will. Every invalid is Roland defending the narrow pass against hopeless odds, every stenographer Brunnhilde refusing to renounce her lover's ring which came into existence through the renunciation of love.

Nor is the Ridiculous a species any longer of the Ugly; for since of themselves all men are without merit, all are ironically assisted to their comic bewilderment by the Grace of God. Every Cabinet Minister is the woodcutter's simple-minded son to whom the fishes and the crows are always whispering the whereabouts of the Dancing Water or the Singing Branch, every heiress the washerwoman's butter-fingered daughter on whose pillow the fairy keeps laying the herb that could cure the Prince's mysterious illness.

Nor is there any situation which is essentially more or less interesting than another. Every tea-table is a battlefield littered with old catastrophes and haunted by the vague ghosts of vast issues, every martyrdom an occasion for flip cracks and sententious oratory.

Because in Him all passions find a logical In-Order-That, by Him is the perpetual recurrence of Art assured."

Herod, bemoaning the difficulty of turning his people from superstitious religious people into civilized people of Reason:

"Legislation is helpless against the wild prayer of longing that rises, day in, day out, from all these households under my protection: 'O God, put away justice and truth for we cannot understand them and do not want them. Eternity would bore us dreadfully. Leave Thy heavens and come down to our earth of waterclocks and hedges. Become our uncle. Look after Baby, amuse Grandfather, escort Madam to the Opera, help Willy with his home-work, introduce Muriel to a handsome naval officer. Be interesting and weak like us, and we will love you as we love ourselves.'"

I love the combination of whimsy with serious ideas. This is very much worth reading. "The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all," says the Narrator, and we all know that's true.

Other things I've been reading are books #21 and #22 of 2007: The Arraignment, by Steve Martini (OK, but not really my kind of book), and Rise and Shine, by Anna Quindlen. Rise and Shine was excellent; I was drawn into lives which are very different from mine and came to care about the characters. I found the book satisfying and I will look for more by Quindlen.

It's a Carnival after Carnival!

This week's Carnival is hosted by History is Elementary. Many interesting links to be had here.

It's Ash Wednesday. Where I live, Carnival is a lot bigger than Ash Wednesday - maybe that's true everywhere. Most people concentrate a lot more on the sinning than on the repenting. In any case, things are very quiet on the streets this morning. I'm spending the morning in my classroom, grading - an appropriately somber activity.

When I called to complain, yet again, about our electrical problems last night, the guy taking calls sounded much more cheerful than usual. I could hear music in the background - either he was partying or watching partying on TV. He assured me that the power would be on in a couple of minutes. When I remarked that I had been calling every night since Saturday and that happy result had not yet been achieved, he said that he was sure in a few hours we'd have electricity. We didn't, but it was a nice thought.

Auden

I've been reading Auden's For The Time Being. I haven't gone all the way through it yet, but in reading around I found this quote which I liked. Mary and Joseph are about to flee to Egypt:

"Safe in Egypt we shall sigh
For lost insecurity;
Only when her terrors come
Does our flesh feel quite at home."

This seems appropriate for living in Tecwil. Although sometimes I would like to live in a place where things work and life is more predictable, there's something to be said for unpredictability as well.

I really like Auden, though I often feel I'm missing some of the background knowledge necessary to understand everything. I don't have an edition with good notes, just this book that I found somewhere or other.

I like this one. And lots of others.

Sunday Night Blues

I don't want to write about the rat that built a nest behind our giant, heavy bookcase and used portions of my children's toys, socks, paper, and other unidentifiable objects to do so. I don't want to describe the mess, the smell, and the work involved in ridding the house of the remains of this nightmare. I don't even want to get started on my complaining about things that aren't working, and the fact that it's Carnival time and everybody is going to be too busy with debauchery to come fix anything. At least the internet is up, and there is enough power in the batteries to fuel my surfing.

Here are some things I've enjoyed reading this evening:

Semicolon linked to this funny article on how to talk about books you haven't read - and there's even a book about it!

Here are two new-to-me blogs that I'll be visiting again: Bluebird's Classroom, Chicken Spaghetti.

What books do you hate? Cindy, over at Dominion Family, courageously posted about the books she hated that everybody else seemed to love. Apparently this struck a nerve, as there are 60 comments at last count.

Can I just say how glad I am that when I get a haircut, it's not international news? The worst I have to deal with is having one of my students say, "Oh, you got your hair cut. Why?"

Here are some DP blogs that made me smile today: Budapest, Cambridge, Istanbul, Seattle, and, of course, as always, Sharon, CT.

Well, I'm feeling more cheerful than when I started this post. I think I'll go to bed!

It's Saturday again...

Check out the Saturday Review of Books.

Brrr

This is why I'm thankful to live in the tropics!

Valentine's Day

I'm so tired I can hardly see straight. Today my seventh graders had a bake sale, and I was running back and forth dealing with that, there were various Valentine's Day festivities, such as a high school student entering my room repeatedly to deliver roses, my kids had all eaten way too much sugar and were distracted by the unusual goings-on, and it's Teacher Appreciation Week and we're being appreciated into a stupor. I didn't get much actual teaching done today, but it was exhausting anyway. But fun.

And if that isn't enough, here's a Carnival!

And...

I finished my two readalouds so I guess they count as #19 and #20 for 2007.

The Third Secret

Book #18 of the year was The Third Secret, a book with such a ludicrous plot that it made The Da Vinci Code look like the kind of thing that just happens to most people every day. In fact, the dust jacket had a Dan Brown blurb on it, not for this book, but for another by Steve Berry. Maybe they are buddies. They definitely have a similar way of looking at the world, as one big conspiracy.

I did find the papal election interesting. Berry has apparently done extensive research on the history of choosing popes and the procedure used today. But what kept me reading this book was the desire to find out what exactly the third secret would be; the novel's premise is that the third secret of Fatima was never fully revealed. But now it will be. And oh boy, is it a doozy. Heaven has all new stuff to say about women in the priesthood, abortion, celibacy, and, well, you name the controversial issue facing the church. Unfortunately the only appropriate response to Steve Berry's version of what Heaven has to say is, "Yeah, right."

Water Again

It has finally started raining after months of drought. Dry, dry, dry, and dusty. Everything in the house was covered with dust a few minutes after being mopped.

We have a large cistern, but it was way down. For the first time since we've lived in this house, we had to buy water trucks. We ended up buying three before the rain started last week. Each truck contains 3,000 gallons of water, and costs about $40 US. That seems expensive, but most of the people who live in this city don't have a cistern to store water in and have to buy theirs by the bucket. In this interesting article, I read the following: "Sometimes, the poor have to pay 10 or 20 times more than their well-off neighbours for safe water, according to UNDP statistics: those on-tap normally pay far less than those buying from street tanks and by the bucket." We're not exactly "on-tap." We are connected to city water, but it only comes a couple of times a week, and then we have to store it. But the fact that we can buy a whole truck at a time means that we get a much better deal.

Here's an article on water in Lagos, Nigeria.

Here's one on water in Haiti.

Here's a link to the BBC's series "Water Walks."

I posted about water before here.

Working Six Days a Week

Am I the only one?

I spend almost every Saturday morning in my classroom working. If we're going away somewhere for the weekend or are going to be otherwise occupied, I practically kill myself getting caught up during the week before, and still, I generally feel behind all the next week.

Today I spent five hours working, from 9 AM to 2 PM. Admittedly, two and a half of those hours were spent writing progress reports, which were supposed to be done already, but last week was our Read-a-thon and I spent all my extra time entering everybody's minutes spent reading into an Excel file. Most weeks, I just work until noon or so.

I'm sure some teachers in the US work on weeknights to finish work in their classrooms, but our generator goes off at 4 PM and I usually head home shortly after that. On Saturdays, the generator is run between 8 and 12, so today I worked a couple of hours without lights or fans.

I don't work on Sundays. I have to have at least one day off.

Before somebody asks, no, this isn't my first year of teaching, or my second, or even my tenth. It is only my second year teaching this particular subject, and I did change the way I do lots of things this year. Even so, I can't imagine getting everything done during the week. On Saturdays I have time to clean up the accumulation of the week's junk, put back all the classroom library books that didn't get reshelved, catch up on grading of late work, do my lesson plans for the coming week, take inventory of the supplies I need, get my copies done. When could I do all of that otherwise?

So, teachers who are reading this - do you work in your classroom on weekends?

It's Saturday...

...and that means sleeping in until seven, working in my classroom to catch up on everything I haven't had time to do all week, and The Saturday Review of Books.

The Constant Princess

Book #17 of this year is The Constant Princess, by Philippa Gregory.

I've read lots of novels about the Tudors, and Katherine of Aragon is a familiar figure to me. However, this book put her in a whole new light. That's what I've enjoyed most about these Philippa Gregory books - she takes a story you thought you knew all about, and then shows you something you never considered before.

For example, of course everyone knows Katherine of Aragon was from Spain. I've read before about the intrigue with her ambassadors, the messages smuggled out of England, the upright Catholicism which guided her every action. But I'd never really thought about what some of the influences on her must have been. Gregory calls her "Catalina" - see, doesn't that make a difference already in the way you see her? She tells about her childhood growing up as the daughter of the warrior queen, Isabella of Spain, and her husband Ferdinand. She even brings in the Moorish influence which must have been part of her childhood, since she was quite young when her parents conquered the legendary stronghold of Islam, Granada. In Gregory's version, the Moors themselves are thrown out of Spain, but the royal family benefits from many of their inventions, such as running water (and, thus, frequent bathing). There's even a scene where Catalina sings a Moorish song she learned from a servant. I don't know if this ever happened, of course (and to some it may smack of political correctness), but I find the thought absolutely delicious.

In most versions of Katherine's story, her marriage to Arthur, Henry VIII's older brother, is glossed over quickly. After all, Arthur died just a couple of months after the wedding, and Henry is the husband that history remembers. But Gregory turns Catalina and Arthur's marriage into a love story, giving a fascinating interpretation to the historical controversy that follows - was the young couple truly married? Whether they were or not was important because of getting a dispensation for Henry to marry his brother's wife, and again became very important when Henry wanted to divorce his first wife to marry Anne Boleyn.

I'm tempted to go on and on, but I don't want to spoil the story for anyone who hasn't read it yet. I enjoyed this book the most of the three Philippa Gregory books I've read so far.

Here's some of what Gregory has to say about the background of this novel.

Great Readalouds

I'm finishing up two readalouds at the end of this week, both of which have been an enormous success.

With my seventh graders, I've been reading The Book of Three, and with my eighth graders, I've been reading Al Capone Does My Shirts.

The Book of Three is wonderful for its character development. It's fun when the students start picking up on the quirks of all the different characters, to the point that they can recognize who's talking before the name is mentioned. You can talk about how the author makes the characters come alive. One of the kids said the other day, "You know, every time Eilonwy talks, she always...you know, compares things." Similes, anyone? And I like to tell the kids, as they go to break, "Enjoy your crunchings and munchings!" There are lots of other things to discuss, too. I love the way the characters have expectations of each other, most of which turn out to be wrong. Taran's ideas of heroism, before and after he goes on his own adventures, are an example of this. Another is everyone's concept of what exactly an Assistant Pig-Keeper is like.

Al Capone Does My Shirts is popular with my eighth graders in spite of the historical setting, which they usually don't appreciate much. It's not the distant past - just the 30's - but that might as well be the middle ages as far as they are concerned. But they like the quirky setting (Alcatraz) and the autistic sister, Natalie. Most of them beg for more when I quit reading each day (with some notable exceptions, I have to confess - not all of them are quite that impressed).

Does anybody else have some readalouds that kids of this age have especially enjoyed?

Carnival Time Again

Somehow a week has gone by, and it's time for another Carnival. Check it out here.

Super Bowl Roundup

OK, I know the Super Bowl is already over. Somebody told me who won but I don't remember. And frankly, I care very little.

But some other people posted some good stuff about the Super Bowl, so I'm going to link you to it.

Troy didn't get to watch it. (Notice that his focus is in the right place, though - on the snacks.)

Alana shares how nerds watch football. I would feel right at home at that Super Bowl party.

And Ms. Cornelius passes on this fascinating story about Super Bowl parties and how they may actually be illegal under certain circumstances. I'm a strict constructionist when it comes to copyright. I'm always arguing with people who say, "But Tecwil didn't sign the international copyright agreement." My response: "So? It's a moral issue not to steal people's livelihood by making illegal copies of their books and movies and music." But even I don't understand how watching something that is broadcast on network television could be construed as violating copyright.

And that's all about the Super Bowl. Now we don't have to think about it again until next year. Isn't that great?

Daily Photos

I like to go to the Daily City Photo Blog site, where you can see thumbnails of the latest photos posted on the DP blogs. I click on the ones that catch my eye. Here are some that you can see there right now:

Yesterday's photo from Anderson, South Carolina.

Today's from Port Vila, Vanuatu. (There are lots of gorgeous photos here - Here's my favorite.)

Today's from Mumbai.

And, of course, here's today's from Sharon, CT.

Reading Update

Book #14 of the year: The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. I enjoyed it but I recommend it a bit more hesitantly than The Virgin's Lover because it is considerably more bawdy. (Surprisingly, given the titles of the two books.) The Other Boleyn Girl is about Mary Boleyn, who was Henry VIII's mistress before her sister, Anne Boleyn, who became Henry's second wife. Today I started The Constant Princess, about Katherine of Aragon, which I'm enjoying hugely. I'll post about it when I'm finished. And yes, I'm reading them in reverse chronological order. That wasn't planned that way!

Book #15: Specials. I'm planning a post about the whole trilogy, so for now I'll just say I liked this one the least of the three.

To see what others are reading and reviewing, take a look at today's Saturday Review of Books.

Guest Speaker

My eighth graders are writing informational articles right now, and I invited a journalist to come to speak to them. I've been wanting to have a professional writer visit class for a while, and particularly a male one. Most of the teachers at our school are female, as is fairly typical, I believe, and I wanted my kids to see that you can make a living writing and that real men sometimes do so.

This visit went so well that I will repeat it every year if my guest will agree to come back. My students listened politely at first but got more and more interested as he went on. When he was finished they were full of questions. Not only did he say some of the same things about writing that I've been saying to them, but he did a wonderful job of conveying what it's like to be a journalist here in Tecwil. Read: extremely dangerous but just about the most exciting thing you can imagine.

Hooray for my guest speaker!

Annoying Cities

The first of every month is Theme Day on the DP Blogs. Tomorrow, February 1st, the theme is "Something that really annoys you in your city." Eric at Paris DP has already posted what really annoys him about Paris. Yeah, it is pretty annoying. He also has links to the other 51 blogs that are participating. Some of the posts will already be up, but others won't, depending on time zone.

If I had to post what annoys me most about the city where I live, hmmm....there are just so many things to choose from. For a start, the things on the ground here make Eric's photo look positively pleasing. :-)

104th Carnival

This week's Carnival of Education is up at The Median Sib. Go take a look!

An American Rhapsody

We watched An American Rhapsody last night on DVD. The children watched it, too - there was one brief violent scene where we covered some eyes.

A family is escaping from 1950s Communist Hungary. It's too dangerous to take their baby, Suzanne, over the border because she might make noise and give them away, so they make a plan to have her brought afterwards. The plan falls through and the baby is taken to the countryside to be raised by a childless peasant couple. Then, finally, the parents, settled in Los Angeles, manage to arrange for Suzanne, now six, to join them. They all try to take up where they left off, but of course, it doesn't quite work out that way. Eventually, Suzanne's feeling that she doesn't fit in in the United States or with her birth family takes her back to Hungary to see the couple that took care of her as a young child.

All of this is based on a true story, and the DVD includes some commentary by the woman whose story it is. The movie is terribly sad - I cried through most of it - but there are some funny moments. For example, the older sister "helps" Suzanne learn English by teaching her a crude expression which, of course, comes out of the little girl's mouth at the most inopportune moment. (OK, admit it, my MK friends - you've all done this, haven't you?)

The teenage Suzanne is played by Scarlett Johansson, who gives an amazing performance. Tony Goldwyn and Natassja Kinski are also very good as her parents. But the star is the little girl who plays 6-year-old Suzanne, Kelly Endresz-Banlaki.

I highly recommend this movie, especially to people like me who have lived in several different cultures. I always like stories about how people pass from one culture to another - what they keep and what they lose. It's fascinating to watch how the family interacts once reunited. You can feel the mother's misery as she tries to connect with this little girl that she has missed so desperately. The ending is satisfying as Suzanne has the experience all parents wish their kids would have - she comes to understand a little bit about what her parents have gone through, and therefore to forgive them for the mistakes they have made. "We've all made mistakes out of love," says a character in the movie. How wonderful if we can acknowledge that, and forgive, and move forward.

Bye Bye, Purgatorio?

Marc hasn't actually said that Purgatorio is no more. He's calling it a hiatus, but his hiatus sounds pretty permanent to me. It's those fatal words: "I'll leave the blog up for a time."

So anyway, go check out Purgatorio while you still have the chance. It's billed as "a panoply of evangelical eccentricities, un-orthodox oddities & christian cultural curiosities." I often find the comments offensive, but just as often I laugh until I cry.

Here's my favorite post of all time.

103rd Education Carnival

Once again, lots of great stuff to read at The Education Carnival. It's hosted this week by The Education Wonks.

Where Do I Get All the Books?

My brother asked me how I manage to find so many books, living as I do in a place where English books are not readily available in every store?

When we first moved here, this was a big preoccupation of mine - finding stuff to read. When we would go over to someone's house, I would greedily scan the bookshelves and beg to borrow books. When we traveled, I would bring back as many books as I could. I read books from our school library, too, of course.

A big breakthrough was finding the subscription library I belong to. A group of Americans started it back in the 20s and it is still going strong. Now, even though I still borrow books from everyone who will loan them (and in return, I loan my books out freely), I don't panic as much about what I'm going to read next.

Lately, I've finished the following books: Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech, and The Seville Communion, by Arturo Perez-Reverte. (Those are Books #12 and #13 of 2007.)

Anonymity

A few weeks ago one of my students walked in to my class and said, "Oh, I've been reading your blog! It's funny!"

Many of the teacher bloggers I read would immediately gasp with horror, but I thought about it for a minute and realized it was OK. I don't write for my students, but I also am careful not to write anything that would embarrass them. (Unlike someone I know who posted the complete text of a love note a kid passed in class, but don't worry, I won't name you!)

This student is the daughter of friends of mine, so that's how she came to see my blog. I don't think any of my other students are reading. But if they are, hi there!

Kidnap

Each day I get an email from Merriam-Webster. Actually, I get two, since I've subscribed to two Word-of-the-Day lists. One is a daily word, complete with etymology, and the other is especially for English language learners. The second doesn't have etymology but it does have a link you can click on to hear the word pronounced and it includes some information on how to use it. (You can find information on these lists here.)

One day last week the word from the second list was "kidnap." But really, that's not a word I need to teach my students, even those for whom English is a second, or third, language. They all know what it means. Not because I taught it to them, but because life taught it to them.

Last year we gathered as a middle school to pray together for three separate kidnappings. This is not to say that these were the only kidnappings that happened to people our kids were close to - these were just the closest ones. One was a parent of one of my students.

When I first thought about writing a post on kidnappings I thought that would give away where I live, but when I did a quick search of Google News for stories about the topic, Tecwil didn't even come up in the pages I looked at. Probably that's because of all the stories about kidnapping in the United States over the past few days. But the stories weren't just about the United States - lots of other countries have this problem to varying degrees.

Right now we are waiting for news of a young child who has been kidnapped. I don't want to say any more about the situation here, just that it's such a horrible crime. Here it's all about money. All about terrifying people and destroying their peace of mind in return for money.

And part of you always thinks, a bit guiltily because it seems so self-absorbed, that could be me. And much, much worse, that could be...I can't even type it. I try not to think it.

This is a vocabulary word I wish none of my students knew. Oh, Lord, don't let us have to meet as a middle school again this year, praying for someone's release.

The Virgin's Lover

Book #11 of the year is The Virgin's Lover, by Philippa Gregory. It's the story of Elizabeth I of England and Robert Dudley.

The challenge of a book like this is to make suspenseful something that is part of historical record. I've read several versions of the story - it's really irresistible to a novelist, since the characters are so vivid and the plot twists more exciting than anything you can make up - so I know exactly how it's going to turn out.

Yet this book held my interest right until the last page. Yes, it still happened the way history tells us it did, but Gregory is fabulous at showing us all the quirks and mixed-up motivations of the three-dimensional people she writes about, so that you feel for every single one. Elizabeth and Dudley are stars, of course, but Amy (Robert's neglected wife) is unbearably poignant as well. Gregory has her own version of the mystery - what happened to Amy - and explains in an afterword that she did research in contemporary sources to come to her conclusion.

I'm looking forward to reading more of Philippa Gregory.

Hint on Dealing with Difficult People

Don't tell the New York Times all about them. Evil HR Lady explains why.

Saturday

I had big plans for today but am not feeling well so they are all cancelled and I'm going to stay home and rest.

Take a look at today's Saturday Review of Books to see what others are reading and reviewing.

A couple of days ago I finished book #10 of the year; it was Waiting, by Ha Jin. It was a fascinating read because of the insights into the way people live in China.

Reading Update

In recent days, I've finished the following books (#7, #8, and #9):

My Brother Sam is Dead
Uglies
Pretties

I hope to post reviews at some point.

I'm Back...

We've been having computer problems, both at school and at home. The problems at school persist - the connection is so slow that it's barely there at all. Here at home, we threw money at the problem and a new modem is in place.

I tried posting at school once this week, but I ended up double-posting and then couldn't get on to fix it, so I finally gave up in frustration. It's nice to be able to be back in time to link you to this week's Education Carnival.

If this is Thursday, we must be in Nepal. I mean, Peru.

Apparently nobody noticed that the Royal Nepal Airlines had a picture of Peru on one of their advertising posters until a Peruvian mountaineer pointed it out.

I guess all those little mountainous countries look alike?

Read about it here.

101st Education Carnival

I was so immersed in the carnival that is my life that I didn't even go and look at the Education Carnival yesterday. I plan to remedy that today. Here it is at I Thought A Think.

Iraqi Refugees

The BBC interviews some Iraqi refugees.

More Books

So far this year, I've posted a review for every book I've finished. I know I can't keep up that pace once I start back to school, so I have to lower expectations, my own and other people's.

So here goes: A Complicated Kindness, by Miriam Toews, was book #5 of 2007 (I didn't like it) and A Breath of Fresh Air, by Amulya Malladi, was book #6 (I liked it).

What I Did Over My Christmas Break

I have to go back to work on Monday! I can't remember when I've had such a relaxing, enjoyable time off school. And yet, I haven't done much that was exciting. I've just stayed home and:

*eaten good food.
*slept.
*played with my kids.
*watched six puppies be born.
*read.
*blogged (this is the 38th post since I wrote about the last day of school!).

I also went to a couple of parties to celebrate Christmas and New Year's. And we went out for lunch once and for ice cream once.

The weather has been perfect - cool and breezy. It hasn't rained in a few weeks and the dust is getting bad, but there's no humidity.

The best part, really, was that I got all my school work done at the beginning of the break. We had a few extra days off due to the deteriorating security situation in this country, and I used those days to plan units and lessons, clean up my classroom, grade and enter grades, all that good stuff. So I could really relax, knowing that stuff was done. I hardly went in to school after that, until today, when I went and spent a couple of hours making sure that everything is really ready for Monday.

And of course, when you're a teacher, you're always thinking about teaching with part of your mind. At least I am. So I did some planning at home here and there.

One thing I meant to get to and didn't was working on photo albums. And I still have the rest of the weekend, so maybe I'll even get some of that done!

Saturday Review of Books

This week's Saturday Review of Books is up. Go and see what people are reading!

Freedom Writers

I won't see this movie until it comes out on DVD (as is the case with practically all movies), but I was curious enough to click on this review.

Here's the sentence that I found interesting: "Teachers, I know, need all the inspiring Hollywood can give them."

Really, folks, is that what we need? Inspiration from Hollywood? Maybe you're going to go see this movie for the teaching tips?

I don't know about you, but I don't get my inspiration for teaching from movies. I get it from other teachers, and from reading teacher books and teacher blogs. And from my students, even on the days when they are trying hardest not to learn anything.

Has anybody seen the movie? What did you think?

Ten Things

I've been assigned the letter S by Semicolon. I'm supposed to tell you ten things I love that begin with that letter.

S-people. This is cheating, I guess, but there are several people in my family whose names start with S. I love them, but I don't want to write their names here. They know who they are!

Siblings. I have two. They are great. There's nobody else in the world who shares exactly the same memories, so even though now the three of us live in three separate countries, I still feel very close to them.

Saints. I use that term in the Protestant sense - that is, not just people who have been through a process to be named saints, but all believers. They are role-models, and intercessors, and encouragers. They are the "great cloud of witnesses," both those still living and those who have died.

Smiles. There's nothing like a friendly smile to make you feel at ease. I'm not one of those teachers that doesn't smile until November. I think kids need to know you're on their side. OK, so I don't have a reputation of ferocity, and sometimes I'd like to, but in all I prefer things the way I do them!

Stories. I was looking for a way to include "books" and my daughter suggested this. I can't imagine life without reading. I also love listening to my friends' stories and sharing mine with them.

Seashells. I love going to the beach and I love living in a tropical country where that can happen all year round! We usually bring back seashells as souvenirs, and we have baskets of them here and there.

School. Most of my life has been organized by the academic year, as I've either been a student or a teacher - or both. I love learning and I hope never to stop.

Safaris. I love to travel and to learn about other cultures and ways of living. I also love to study new languages. "Safari" is the Swahili word for "journey."

Singing. I love music. I love to sing silly songs, lullabies to my children, praise to God.

Sushi. I love all different kinds of foods, but sushi starts with S, so that's the one I'll pick! It is one of my favorites. I love all the different varieties of fish, I love how beautifully presented it is, and I love the way wasabi blows off the top of your head! (Just like Emily Dickinson said about poetry, which is another thing I love.)

If anybody wants to continue this, let me know and I'll assign you a letter!

Redeeming Love

Book #4 of 2007 is Redeeming Love. Someone loaned me this, telling me I just had to read it because it was the best book ever. On the back of the book, a blurb promises that the book is "the most powerful work of fiction you will ever read."

I can't stand these overblown promises for a book. I mean, really, what are the odds of this being the most powerful work of fiction I will ever read?

After reading it, I went and looked at the reviews on Amazon, and the vast majority of the reviewers would agree that this is, indeed, the best book they have ever read. This is true if they are "not big readers" and it is true if they "have read a lot." ("By many authors," one adds.)

This is a retelling of the Biblical story of Hosea, the prophet who married a prostitute because God told him to. Although his wife kept leaving him and going back to prostitution, Hosea remained faithful to her and in so doing, presented a beautiful picture of God's love for His people. Again and again Hosea went and found his wife and brought her back. In this version, it's Michael Hosea, and the story is set in gold-rush California. This Hosea, too, believes that God asks him to marry a prostitute. He does, and heartache ensues.

I applaud Francine Rivers' motives, and she has succeeded in giving many people a new picture of what God's love looks like, how faithful and unending and persistent it is. I hesitate to be critical of a book that achieves that goal. So I won't.

I'll just say that it isn't the most powerful work of fiction I've ever read.

War and Peace

I decided I was going to read War and Peace this year after looking at the lists of books in the Reading Profile quiz. So yesterday when my husband went over to school I asked him to check it out of the library for me. He came home with a suspiciously small-looking book. Under 600 pages long.

Grrr...it was abridged! I don't read abridged books - it's a matter of principle. So I'll have to keep looking for a copy.

Meanwhile, read this hilarious post about an eighth grader choosing War and Peace as an independent reading book.

CV Spelling Quiz

OK, now here's a quiz I can do well on. I got 6/7. My one mistake was a British/American one. In American English we write "practice" and in British they write "practise" when it's a verb.

I hesitated - after all, I was educated in the British system - but then picked the American spelling.

So now you should get that one right!

Try the quiz here.

100th Education Carnival

The 100th Education Carnival is up at Teaching in the Twenty-First Century. I haven't read it yet, but it looks like there's lots of great stuff.

Anacaona

Book #3 of 2007 was Anacaona: Golden Flower by Edwidge Danticat. This is part of The Royal Diaries series, all of which are stories of young princesses or queens.

The difficulty of writing Anacaona's diary is that the Taino people of which she was a part had no form of writing. Danticat has dealt with this problem by imagining that she kept a record of her thoughts using symbols; "even though the Tainos had no written language, they had petroglyphs - rock paintings and pictographs through which they kept records of their lives." I quickly suspended disbelief and accepted this idea. But this was the one flaw of the story, and it kept resurfacing - how much of this story had any basis in fact? I knew that when Columbus and his men arrived, the events were historically accurate, but the time beforehand, it seems to me, was mostly imagined. As with all the books of the series, there's some documentary material included at the end, but most of that is from the period after the Spaniards had arrived. Still, it was very interesting and entertaining to read of the idyllic world of Xaragua, located in present-day Haiti.

Whether or not the Anacaona created by Danticat is like the real Anacaona, there's no denying that her story is tragic in the extreme. I'm glad that this book was written about her.

YA Authors Blog

Thanks to wonderful author Jane Yolen for letting us read her journal. It includes some step-by-step portraits of revision.

I've also been enjoying reading about the process of the book Lois Lowry is working on.

Here's a link to websites of a whole bunch of YA authors. Some of them are publisher sites, some are fan sites, but an increasing number of these authors are letting us in on their lives and their craft by blogging.

The Art of Keeping Cool

Coincidentally, book #2 of 2007 (like the first one) is also about a time and place where people are fretting about a potential invasion that history tells us never happened. It makes me wonder which of the things we worry about now will end up being much ado about nothing (remember Y2K?) and, conversely, which things we should be paying attention to now that we're just not noticing.

In this one, The Art of Keeping Cool, the place is Rhode Island and the time is 1942. The United States has just come into World War Two, and there's a general fear of Germans, both of the ones that could come from the ocean, and the ones who live in the community, like Abel Hoffman, an artist who has fled Nazi policies about "degenerate" art.

This one is from my classroom library; it's firmly in the YA category, with a 13-year-old protagonist.

The Trumpet-Major

I have read lots of Thomas Hardy's books but somehow I had never read this one, The Trumpet-Major. While it isn't Hardy's best book (I can't decide on that, but it's between Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd), I enjoyed this one.

First published in 1880, this book is a historical novel set at the beginning of the 19th century. England is all a-flutter because everyone believes that Napoleon is about to invade. After all, "it was sometimes recollected that England was the only European country which had not succumbed to the mighty little man who was less than human in feeling, and more than human in will; that our spirit for resistance was greater than our strength; and that the Channel was often calm."

"'Can it be the French?' she said, arranging herself for the extremest form of consternation. 'Can that arch-enemy of mankind have landed at last?' It should be stated that at this time there were two arch-enemies of mankind - Satan as usual, and Buonaparte, who had sprung up and eclipsed his elder rival altogether. Mrs. Garland alluded, of course, to the junior gentleman."

That last little paragraph gives a good idea of the tone of the novel - it is much lighter than most of Hardy, and often funny. The back of the Penguin Classics edition uses the word "affectionate," and that's just right. Hardy really seems to love the people he's writing about. Historical notes tell us that the material for the novel came from family reminiscences.

In addition to the fear of Napoleon, the other emotion that has the countryside all riled up is love. Where there's war, or at least, potential war, there are soldiers, and there are wonderful descriptions of what the arrival of the soldiers does to the community. This reminded me a lot of the excitement over soldiers in Jane Austen novels, and as I reflected about it I realized that this is just when she was writing. Hardy tells us, "courtship began to be practised in Overcombe on rather a large scale, and the dispossessed young men who had been born in the place were left to take their walks alone, where, instead of studying the works of nature, they meditated gross outrages on the brave men who had been so good as to visit their village."

Like Bathsheba Everdene in Far From the Madding Crowd, Anne Garland has three suitors. One of them is an obnoxious oaf, one she's been in love with for years but he has been rather fickle, and the other one is in love with her. Guess which one she's going to end up with, after many reversals of fortune? Actually, the ending, after all the twists and turns, is the least satisfying part of the book - almost as though Hardy just wanted to wrap it up and be done with it.

This is my book #1 of 2007!

Non à 2007!

French marchers say "Non" to 2007.

New Year's Resolutions for Writers

New Year's Resolutions for Writers.

Happy New Year

Today, like the first of every month, is Daily Photo Blog Theme Day. Today's theme is "My best photograph from last year." Here you can see what Eric from Paris Daily Photo chose, and also find links to all the other DP blogs that are participating. I've been waiting with bated breath to see what Jenny of Sharon, CT, would choose, and here it is.

Happy New Year to everybody!