Pet Sitter

Hooray! We have a pet sitter for winter break :)

John's justice's judicial assistant, Sonja, needed a place for her family whose coming in town over break. They'd made arrangements with a friend, but the arrangements fell through. So, it's perfect, they're going to stay at our place and take care of the critters. What a relief to have this figured out! Good job John and Sonja :)

1 BELOW

One degree below zero! That's my new "first" coldest temperature... we write it on my classroom whiteboard even. It's very cool! --he he

Even if You Don't Give a Moose a Muffin...

...it still might come in your yard.

Yesterday I saw some weird tracks in our yard ...imagine a potato stamp getting dragged through ink. I suspected a moose, but the culprit was not to be found.

But, tonight when we came home, there were moose crossing the street.

The answer to the age-old question-- Why did the moose cross the road? is in fact, To eat your neighbors' trees.

I took a few pictures initially. They're not great... as they're in the dark and from a distance. These pictures are on the left.

I was fiddling around with the pictures-- trying to brighten them up--and Hayden needed to go out. John took her outside. She was finished and heading back in when she let out a loud bark... very unusual for her. Hayden came across a moose in our backyard! We didn't even give out muffins ;) John called me out and I took some pictures. These are at right and literally taken from a foot outside our front (back) door.

I came back in and John told me there was a baby outside. Both of us had totally missed it! They're just kind of giant brown lumps in front of dark bushes--so a "bit" hard to see. Out I went again to take pictures of the baby moose... this picture is at the bottom.

As you may have noticed, there was a lot of taking on and off of my jacket, which was worth it. Even if the pictures aren't great, it was cool to see them from so close.

A Snowy Start

We arrived back to Anchorage safely... and to a LOT of snow. This picture is of our car this morning. Cleaning off the car took us about 15 minutes. Returning to work went relatively well today, though I think it's going to be a long week.

Winglets

John and I were scheduled to return to Anchorage via Salt Lake City on a red eye Sunday night/Monday morning. BUT, our flight to Salt Lake was delayed enough that we'd miss the connection to Anchorage. AND, there is only 1 flight to Anchorage a day on Delta from Salt Lake. SO, we ended up being booked on the next day's flight out to Anchorage. The plus is definitely that we didn't get stuck in Salt Lake, but were able to spend more time with family. The bad part is that we both had to miss a whole day of work. :( This means, between the flight delays and the snow days, I haven't been to school in 9 days. I told my principal I'd be back tomorrow even if I had to use a dog sled.

We didn't need to take a dog sled--fortunately. We were, however, booked on a Delta 737-800... and, on our itinerary, it said winglets in parentheses next to the plane type. I'm sorry-- WINGLETS!!! --that does NOT sound good... I want like mega-wings or something, not baby wings. I promptly researched and discovered that this is the name for (as best as I can tell) a supplementary wing feature (I think where the wings turn up at the ends) that added stability and fuel economy. Phew-- not baby wings after all!

Now we're in mid-air or, according to Flight Aware, 32,000 feet on our way back to Anchorage. It was difficult to leave home (this is the first time I've lived far enough away to "return home" for any holidays). It really helps, though, that we'll be back in just 3 weeks!! On the Anchorage end of things, we'll be happy to be back to our critters and to work--which just goes to show how much both of us must like our jobs :) We're so thankful to Tammy and Steve for taking care of Hayden and Nelson and to Joe for picking us up at 1 in the morning... we're so fortunate to have wonderful people in both of our cities.

Super Fun

Sorry I haven't written for a while... John and I had a super fun time in Arizona. It was also super busy though--hence the not writing thing. It was wonderful to enjoy the time with our family and friends, as well as those clear Arizona days and the warm sun. Thank you to all those who made our visit special. We're looking forward to seeing more people and spending more time with others at our longer visit in December.

Antlers

Hayden loves to chew. Mom got her a "Super Kong", which holds up well... but she decimates just about everything else.

Kyle had recommended trying antlers. We get them through Amazon... they're pricey, but are the only thing that lasts more than a few minutes.

Today the doorbell rang and Hayden barked (that's her new thing). She went running to the door, but started to turn around once she saw no one was there. Then, I picked up the package and she must have caught a whiff. I couldn't smell anything; she obviously could. She promptly sat as if waiting for a treat... as I walked into the family room, she took off to stay in front of me... she followed me in a jumping sit all around until I finally got the box open. It was pretty darn cute.

Now she's happily chomping away.

My Second "Snow" Day

I just got the call... no school tomorrow either. How crazy!

My First "Snow" Day

School got canceled tomorrow...

"All Anchorage School District schools will be CLOSED on Tuesday, November 23, due to icy road conditions. ASD administrative facilities, including the Education Center, will be open. Employees are encouraged to report to work only as road conditions allow them to safely do so.

"Superintendent Carol Comeau and ASD staff have been consulting with municipal street maintenance personnel and checking weather reports. Although major roads may be in acceptable driving condition tomorrow, there is great concern about the condition of side streets and the safety of students walking and waiting at bus stops.

"Unless otherwise announced, ASD schools will reopen on Wednesday, November 24. 'We will continue to review road and walking conditions and will make a decision about Wednesday's classes at a later time,' said Superintendent Comeau."

I guess, then, it's really an "Ice Day" -- but it's my first of either. Perfect then... I can clean and prepare for our trip! :)

Homer Spit and Alaska Humor

Here is a picture that Steve and Tammy posted of the clerk trip to Homer Spit. John, Steve, and Rebecca all went down to Homer and then to Voz for the inauguration of their youth court.

Tammy and Steve have posted these funny questions that are often asked about Alaska--Dumb Humor--and some odd Alaska laws too-- well worth checking out.

These are my favorites of the stupid questions:

1. What currency do you use?
2. Do you live in an igloo?
3. How old does a caribou have to be before it becomes a moose?
4. Will we see whales on the river rafting adventure?
5. Does the boat go under water?
6. What time do the Northern Lights come on?
7. Which of the animals do we get to pet?
8. Will the Glacier still be there in the summer?
9. At the Talkeetna moose dropping festival someone asked, How high do they drop the moose from anyway?
10. Do the barrels of oil going through pipeline make a lot of noise?
11. (On a Whale Watching tour) Where do we see the hunchbacks?
12. Is there electricity in Alaska?
13. Why don't you clean the glacier?
14. What sort of dye is used to give those glaciers that blue color?
15. How long have you been a Native?
16. (While in Denali National Park) Where do they take the animals when the Park closes for winter?
17. Fossilized ivory from woolly mammoths are sold in a local gift shop a customer comes in and get upset and asks, why was the woolly mammoth killed for the ivory?
18. What building do you keep the glaciers in?

Skiing Photos

While I was falling, Michael was taking pictures... hey, he had to do something while I was busy popping out of my bindings ;) The pics include photos of John from along his ski route (I wasn't ready to go to the top yet)... so, I waited at the bottom. I'm looking forward to trying again, despite my initial failings. At least John did well!

Icy, but Fine

There's a lot of ice and some pretty serious ice/freezing rain warnings here. Just wanted you to know that John dropped me off and I got here safely. He's on his way to work. So, so far we're both doing fine and will continue to be careful on the roads :)

Down the Hill and On My Rear

Today John and I went downhill skiing. Well, kinda.

Michael, one of John's fellow clerks, is a certified ski instructor. He doesn't work as an instructor, but he does help us. So today we rented skis and got lift tickets. Michael had wanted to work with a small group, which meant it was just us 3. We'd hoped to go with Tammy and Steve; but, after today, I understand the need for small numbers. I was terrible!!!

Michael was a very good instructor... and John was a very good student. I was an appreciative student, but spent most of the time on my rear. I have a long, long way to go as a student!! I'm hoping, at some point, to actually go down the hill standing up!

Teaching-- NY Times Article

Here is a fascinating New York Times Article that Uncle John passed along... (with my own opinions italicized at the start)

I find the teaching academy mentioned in the article to be of particular interest. One of the major issues, as I see it, is our failure to invest in education as an investment in our economy. How do you get a top college graduate to choose to be a teacher and not an attorney or business leader when at one you can make $34,000 and at the others you can start at $60,000? How do you keep a teacher invested in teaching?

For me, one of the hardest parts of my jobs is the time commitment to do it well. Essentially, to do it well, you have the 7 hour commitment while students are there and then you have all the time required to prepare for another lesson. I mean, imagine preparing a 7 hour presentation in 40 minutes of prep time. The during-the-day prep time is NOT enough for teachers to actively incorporate best practices and meet the needs of struggling learners. With rare exceptions, I almost always work the 7 hours with the students plus AT LEAST another 2-3 hours per day... so, including work on weekends... I work at least 50 hours a week and could do a MUCH better job if I worked 60 hours a week. Yet, when someone chooses teaching or when you start dating a teacher, you don't think... oh, this person's going to be working 60 hour weeks. A lawyer, doctor, candlestick maker-- sure, you anticipate those late nights. But, our very conception of teachers is that they get lots of vacations.

I think another major issue in schools is discipline. Schools' hands are often tied relative to what consequence can be issued. I'm NOT suggesting we start implementing corporal punishment... but I'm saying that discipline is a major part of the problem. One class of 35 can achieve much more than a class of 20 if the dynamic is right. Students with disciplinary issues can easily monopolize a teacher's time-- in the classroom and outside (for meetings and documentation and interventions). The majority of exemplar schools have found means of sidestepping this. For instance, charter schools, particularly the KIPP schools, are routinely recognized for their miraculous academic gains. However, almost all charter schools can suspend or expel students with significantly shortened due process than is incumbent on public schools. The solution? I wish I knew... My best suggestion at this point is setting up some type of highly structured alternative schools to which repeat disciplinary offenders can be sent with relatively limited delays. Or, perhaps parents could be required to sit with or provide an aide for repeatedly disruptive students... okay, maybe not. This would obviously be aimed at deterring behaviors and raising accountability... not an actual practice. However, we absolutely cannot make the gains we need with disruptive behavior. I'm interested to see the changes that come in the years to come, because there aren't easy answers.

November 20, 2010
Teaching for America
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

When I came to Washington in 1988, the cold war was ending and the hot beat was national
security and the State Department. If I were a cub reporter today, I’d still want to be
covering the epicenter of national security — but that would be the Education Department.
President Obama got this one exactly right when he said that whoever “out-educates us
today is going to out-compete us tomorrow.” The bad news is that for years now we’ve been
getting out-educated. The good news is that cities, states and the federal government are all
fighting back. But have no illusions. We’re in a hole.

Here are few data points that the secretary of education, Arne Duncan, offered in a Nov. 4
speech: “One-quarter of U.S. high school students drop out or fail to graduate on time.
Almost one million students leave our schools for the streets each year. ... One of the more
unusual and sobering press conferences I participated in last year was the release of a report
by a group of top retired generals and admirals. Here was the stunning conclusion of their
report: 75 percent of young Americans, between the ages of 17 to 24, are unable to enlist in
the military today because they have failed to graduate from high school, have a criminal
record, or are physically unfit.” America’s youth are now tied for ninth in the world in
college attainment.

“Other folks have passed us by, and we’re paying a huge price for that economically,” added
Duncan in an interview. “Incremental change isn’t going to get us where we need to go.
We’ve got to be much more ambitious. We’ve got to be disruptive. You can’t keep doing the
same stuff and expect different results.”

Duncan, with bipartisan support, has begun several initiatives to energize reform —
particularly his Race to the Top competition with federal dollars going to states with the
most innovative reforms to achieve the highest standards. Maybe his biggest push, though,
is to raise the status of the teaching profession. Why?

Tony Wagner, the Harvard-based education expert and author of “The Global Achievement Gap,” explains it this way. There are three basic skills that students need if they want to
thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the
ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate.

If you look at the countries leading the pack in the tests that measure these skills (like
Finland and Denmark), one thing stands out: they insist that their teachers come from the
top one-third of their college graduating classes. As Wagner put it, “They took teaching from
an assembly-line job to a knowledge-worker’s job. They have invested massively in how they
recruit, train and support teachers, to attract and retain the best.”

Duncan disputes the notion that teachers’ unions will always resist such changes. He points
to the new “breakthrough” contracts in Washington, D.C., New Haven and Hillsborough
County, Fla., where teachers have embraced higher performance standards in return for
higher pay for the best performers.

“We have to reward excellence,” he said. “We’ve been scared in education to talk about
excellence. We treated everyone like interchangeable widgets. Just throw a kid in a class and
throw a teacher in a class.” This ignored the variation between teachers who were changing
students’ lives, and those who were not. “If you’re doing a great job with students,” he said,
“we can’t pay you enough.”

That is why Duncan is starting a “national teacher campaign” to recruit new talent. “We
have to systemically create the environment and the incentives where people want to come
into the profession. Three countries that outperform us — Singapore, South Korea, Finland
— don’t let anyone teach who doesn’t come from the top third of their graduating class. And
in South Korea, they refer to their teachers as ‘nation builders.’ ”

Duncan’s view is that challenging teachers to rise to new levels — by using student
achievement data in calculating salaries, by increasing competition through innovation and
charters — is not anti-teacher. It’s taking the profession much more seriously and elevating
it to where it should be. There are 3.2 million active teachers in America today. In the next
decade, half (the baby boomers) will retire. How we recruit, train, support, evaluate and
compensate their successors “is going to shape public education for the next 30 years,” said
Duncan. We have to get this right.

Wagner thinks we should create a West Point for teachers: “We need a new National
Education Academy, modeled after our military academies, to raise the status of the
profession and to support the R.& D. that is essential for reinventing teaching, learning and
assessment in the 21st century.”

All good ideas, but if we want better teachers we also need better parents — parents who
turn off the TV and video games, make sure homework is completed, encourage reading and
elevate learning as the most important life skill. The more we demand from teachers the
more we have to demand from students and parents. That’s the Contract for America that
will truly ensure our national security.

Metronome Goodness

My students try really hard. Many of them have made significant gains in their reading. Several of them have moved from being non-readers to being readers... but they still read at non-reader rates... "The fat cat dep... de... depended on the food."

AHHHH! One day I found myself snapping out a pace-- "COME ON," I was thinking. "Pick it up!"

After snapping (mostly literally), I thought... this is it... I'll get out a metronome and have them start picking up the pace.

I did a long lesson on fluency and rate, which used the metronome. Then we practiced quite a bit.

When the kids retested today, several of them had made HUGE gains. They've been able to read most of the words for awhile now, but they were plodding along, as opposed to briskly reading all the words except for the tricky ones. The practice with the metronome made a gigantic difference! One student moved from 75 words read correctly per minute (wpm) to 100 wpm. Another went from 134 to 173 wpm. Another kid made a 36 wpm gain... the others were mostly 8's and 10's... but 2 wpm per week is normally the expectation for growth.

So YAY! It was a great teaching moment.