The Secret Life of Recipes

Back in November, The Chocolate Lady http://inmolaraan.blogspot.com/2008/11/jacob-topers-yeast-cake.html, posted a fascinating photo accompaning her blog. The photo was of a double tombstone in a cemetery on a kibbutz in Israel. The names Jacob Toper and Mina Toper are inscribed, along with their date of birth and death on the headstones. Nothing out of the ordinary there you say, but if you look at the bottom of the photo, something very out of the ordinary is present. There, inscribed in stone is a recipe for yeast buns. What, I began to wonder, was so important about those buns that these people would want the recipe inscribed on a tombstone? And what was so special about that recipe in the first place? Did it so define the Topers that it could only be shared upon their death? Indeed, is a recipe powerful enough to define a person? And if so, should a person be defined by the food he or she prepares?

I grew up in a town where the women in my mother's circle prided themselves on their baking. Each one of them had a cake that 'belonged' to them. The cakes, the flavours and textures were associated with these women. The recipes were coveted and never shared, lest two of the same cake were to, Heaven forbid, show up at the same party. It didn't take too long for me to know which cake was the mastery of which woman. To be fair, each was a work of art and a delight to the taste buds.

Alas, there was always intrigue surrounding the recipes. My mother tells the story of how one woman tried to weasel a recipe out of another. The conversation went thusly: I use 3/4 of a cup of such and such in my cake. Do you use that amount in yours? Or the dreaded, I leave my oven door open when I bake the cheese cake. Do you do that with yours? It may have taken years to acquire a secret recipe, but when it was done, it was as if someone had found the holy grail.

The whole thing always appeared quite childish to me, until I began thinking about the way my children talk about their mom's chicken soup. To them, my chicken soup is better than anyone else's. And although I know it to be correct, I also am cognizant that every child thinks his or her mother's or father's something or another is the best in the world.

I'm also reminded at how my dad used to tell my mother that by all means, she could try other chicken recipes, but he couldn't understand why she simply didn't make anything other than her Southern Fried (baked) chicken for dinner every Friday night. And I admit that I had to chuckle when my daughter said those exact words to me last Friday night as she noshed on the chicken crumbs. I think it would be neat if, one hundred years from now, my descendants might still be enjoying the recipes that had made their grandparents happy.

With all that said, I'm not quite sure that even famous chefs would want their entire life to be defined merely by one recipe a la the Topers. But food creates powerful emotions, and Mr. and Mrs. Toper must have known that. They kept that recipe theirs until their dying day. And they were smart enough not to take it with them. Now thanks to thee internet, they have kept their legacy alive for generations to come.

And speaking of yeast, stay tuned for my next posting, where I face my demons.....

Jamie Oliver, The Talent Code and me

Jamie Oliver is a real cool guy. Never mind that he's young and brilliant,
but he can make a meal in only 30 minutes (Meals in Minutes). But if
you want to know the truth…So can I.
My daughter and I have been having a lively debate ever since she
studied Daniel Coyle's book, The Talent Code in her psychology class.
Coyle claims that much of talent comes from practice...10,000 hours,
to be precise. Although I still have fundamental issues with the whole
concept, when it comes to making meals in 30 minutes, I must admit,
Coyle wins. A complete meal from scratch cannot be made in 30
minutes by a novice. One must have years of experience to pull it off.
First of all, 30 minutes is not really 30 minutes. In order to be able to
make a meal in 30 minutes, one must spend an hour at the grocery
store, purchasing everything needed for the meal. Sixty minutes, by
the way, is a very conservative estimate. And I am not even factoring
in meeting people we know in the vegetable aisle and having the
meaningful, let's-catch-up-after-15 years- of-not-seeing-each-other,
conversation.
Next, one must spend another 15 minutes at a grocery store (same or
different one, not counting commuting time), because inevitably, some
things were forgotten on the first run.
Let's not forget the time used for shlepping the food in to the house
and unpacking it, along with all of the other stuff we realized we
needed when shopping. Like toilet paper. Or chocolate covered...
well...anything.
Then comes the prepping. Even before cooking, everything has to be
ready. Like the gun in the cowboy's holster, everything needs to be
at your fingertips so that it can be grabbed effortlessly and practically
without thinking. When you're in that zen of cooking quickly, the dance
must be fluid and graceful. There's no time alotted for searching for the
proper utensil. Preparation is the key.
When all the steps above have been completed, and when you've put
in years of practice, making a meal in 30 minutes...and a good one at
that...is a snap. It's a real kick, too. Like those chefs on Chopped, I feel
a lot of pride when that food is completed and served up in no time flat,
even though it’s lapped up in less time than it took to make it.
So a meal in 30 minutes? Well, technically...but not really. And I've
heard rumours that Restaurant Makeover isn't really done in 5 days,
either.......................

Making Shabbat last--Sunday breakfast

When the kids were young, Sunday morning wasn't a quiet time. It was about loads and loads of laundry. It was about shlepping the kids to dance. It was about grocery shopping. It was about getting lesson plans or report cards done. I remember those days well. They're gone now, which is good, because I don't think I could do it anymore.

These days, Sunday morning is a time to ease in to the work week. It's a time to do the crossword puzzle and catch up on cooking or baking. Yes, Sunday morning remains a time to do some grocery shopping. But Sunday morning is a now a time to enjoy something new. Sunday morning means that New Hubby is making breakfast for the two of us.

New Hubby knows his way around the kitchen. He can make eggs scrambled or sunny side up very well indeed, and sometimes, that's just what he does. Other times, pancakes might be on the menu. But one dish speaks to me more than the others. It's his Sunday best French Toast.

I'm not going to divulge his recipe, because I don't know it. It's more or less a standard french toast, but with a twist, not so much in its preparation, but in its presentation. New Hubby has taught me to top this goodness with a dollop of yogurt and some fresh fruit, before drizzling it with maple syrup (actually, he puts on the maple syrup first...and I don't ask questions even though it doesn't make any sense at all). It's quite yummy. But there's more.

One of the reasons that we have french toast on Sunday is so that we can use up the leftover challah from Shabbat. On the surface, it just makes sense. But on this day when we are forced to push ourselves into the new week, this little breakfast is there to make the memory of Shabbat last a bit longer. It's a bit of sweetness to start the new week.

Maybe that's what leftovers are all about....stretching the memories of the meal that was. I'll think about that as I eat my french toast! But first, I better get the challah in the oven!

Latkes, latkes, la la la

The calendar has turned to December, and with that comes latkes. Latkes in Yiddish, levivot in Hebrew or potato pancakes in English, latkes are the traditional Ashkenazi or Eastern European food served at Chanukah in many countries outside of Israel (Israeli's eat sufganiot, a type of jelly donut). We Jews do ourselves in at this time of year eating foods made with oil. It is most masochistic, and at the same time magnificently delectable.

Latkes are incredible, if executed correctly. At their best, they are fried to a magnificent golden brown; they are lacy and crunchy on the outside and 'meaty' on the inside. Latkes are a versatile food as well. They can be served for breakfast, lunch or dinner, and any type of snack in between. For the dairy meal, they can be topped with sour cream; for a meat meal, apple sauce is usually in order. I don't know why, but some people top them with sugar. To me, this is a bastardization of what I know to be traditional, but we live in a pluralistic society, so, hey, who am I to argue. Latkes can be 'kicked up a notch' as well. In times other than Chanukah, I have seen them served as an appetizer at parties, with a dollop of flavoured cream cheese and thin slice of lox on top. It is almost impossible to not sing the praises of what could never be considered a lowly potato pancake.

One of the things I like most about latkes is, they sit in your stomach for about eight days, coincidentally corresponding with the number of days as the holiday of Chanukah itself (this, by the way in case you don't know it, is the true meaning of the Miracle of the Oil). As well as the latkes themselves remaining, so too does the smell of the oil they were cooked in. The smell gets into your pores and into your walls. It's disgusting and beautiful at the same time. It's magnificent.

I've been making latkes for decades. In the beginning, I would make them by scratch, especially with my kiddies both at home at during the 22 years I spent teaching kindergarten, but one year I got lazy, and from there, birthed my ultimate latke recipe. It is the fusion of old school (pardon the pun) and new...and here it is.

First, you will need a box of latke mix (your choice). Prepare the mix according to the box. Next, you are going to add to the mixture your favourite latke recipe from scratch. Mine is the Easy Potato Pancakes recipe from the great Norene Gilletz' yellow bible, The Pleasures of Your Processor (pg. 166). They are, to quote Mel Brooks as the 2000 Year Old Man, 'simple, yet elokvent'. However I do make one change to her recipe....with deepest respect to my facebook friend, Norene.....I grate the potatoes (and onions) by hand. It makes all the difference in the world. For a few reasons.

For some reason, when you grate potatoes by hand, the texture is slightly different, and I like that. People scoff at me all the time when I tell them that I hand grate. They say that I'm crazy and that the processor does the same, if not better job. But they don't understand. It's not just about the end result. It's about...ok...another unintended pun....the process.

It's about tradition. Granted, in my life, I've broken traditions. I've created new ones, too. But I have memories of my grandmother grating potatoes. And I have years of wonderful memories making latkes with my children. Ann Landers once advised that if you want to have meaningful conversations with your children, get them to do the dishes with you. I think the same goes for latke making. I've watched many tiny fingers attempt to grate (haven't lost a finger yet!). I've helped little hands crack eggs (I have decided that little pieces of cracked eggshell in your latkes are a good source of calcium), and held my hands over smaller ones to stir the mixture. The process is as satisfying as the end result.

So I continue to grate my potatoes by hand...and cry while I grate the onions, too. It's all about tradition.....and the oil that lasted for eight days...in my hair, my skin, and happily, in my tummy. May my kitchen produce latkes for many years to come!

Tandacookie by any other name

At the dawn of the internet, as I created my first email account, I had to think up a name for myself. Now, in those days, we didn't have to think too hard. It was an usual thing to get a message saying, 'username taken', so anything was possible. I didn't give a minute's thought before deciding upon my moniker, Tandacookie.

Over the years, all sorts of people have asked me about it. The lady at Air Canada bookings cared to hear the explanation. Clerks at stores who ask for my email address so that they can send me junk mail wanna know. Who is Tanda Cookie?

The answer is...nobody. Tanda Cookie doesn't exist. I'm not Tanda anything. Tandacookie is really T and a Cookie...T being short for tea, making my name 'tea and a cookie'. I was simply too lazy to write tea-and-a-cookie every time I wanted to enter an email address. Okay you say, so why 'tea and a cookie'?

My pat answer to explain to anyone who asks that in university, everyone knew that they could always come to my dorm room for tea and a cookie (I was always well stocked). Once the name stuck, friends would ask if I ever invited people up for tea and maybe a cookie. That euphemism stuck, too, by the way. The other day as I realized that Tandacookie is writing about food, I wondered if there could be a deeper reason why I chose the name. I think there is and I believe I've figured it out.

Unlike today's busy world where too many families eat on different schedules, my family sat down and broke bread together every night at precisely 6:00 p.m. My father would sit at the head of the table, and go around asking me and my siblings what we had done at school that day. From there, lively conversation abounded between my parents and my grandmother, who lived with us. Dinner was always simple but tasty. And then came dessert.

My mother and grandmother shared the baking duties, so we were never short on dessert. I think those two women shared some religious belief that one must have three dessert options every night. And we did. There was always some type of fruit pie along with my grandmother's strudel and one of two types of cookies.... chocolate chip cookies, or my grandmother's sugar cookies....everything homemade. And of course, there was tea. That's right; tea and a cookie every night. No wonder I've decided to write about food!

So why do I call myself Tandacookie? The more I think about it, the more I realize that for me, tea and a cookie means that full, happy, sleepy feeling after a great meal. It means comfort and deep satisfaction. Tea and a cookie describes what is most important to me...my family.

Tandcookie means home.

Taste testing, testing, one, two, three

So it's been a while since my last posting. As some of you may know, my life has taken a dramatic and fantastic turn since I signed off  in April. I have a new portfolio at work, which is exciting. I've taken the plunge and have re-married. Extremely exciting. I have moved homes. Exhausting but very exciting. All of these are life altering events, to be sure. But in the midst of it all, my dirty, secret passion has been rekindled....I've fallen deeply, madly in love with the Food Channel.

It began quite innocently. When new hubby and I renovated the house, we opened up an existing kitchen wall so that the kitchen and family room would essentially become a 'great' room. By doing this, we felt we could entertain guests better. The open concept ensured that conversations could carry on and flow between rooms. Continuing with the idea of the two rooms becoming one, we placed the TV in the family room over the fireplace so that we could easily watch our shows from the kitchen if desired.

Now as you may already know from older postings, other than Seinfeld reruns, I'm not much of a TV watcher, so I paid no never mind as to where the TV would hang, or which angle would be best to gain the ideal view from the kitchen. It was virtually meaningless to me...until that fateful day. That day back in September when I was cooking multi meals for the then upcoming High Holy Days and decided I wanted to have a little company. I flicked on the TV and instinctively clicked to Channel 52,  the beloved Food Channel. Glory, Glory Halleluyah! I was home.

Immediately, I felt a rush of adrenaline hit me. Here were 'my' chefs, doing their thing so expertly, so exquisitely, and without much mess. I welcomed each of them in, one magnificent half hour after another. Together, we created that first batch of meals. It was completely and utterly satisfying. And even though we were creating different dishes, we were in it as a team. And even better, they did it there, in TV land, where they couldn't bump into me or get their mess mixed in with mine. It was a beautiful thing. It was a turn on. It was the start of a beautiful and meaningful relationship.

I'm not a foodie. I don't profess to be one. I don't even aspire to be one. I'm not the best cook in the world.... I'm not so bad, either, so I've been told. But I've realized lately that I'm very happy being in the kitchen, and I don't think it's simply because of the Food Channel. I'm not sure how regularly I'll be writing this blog, but I seem to think that for this next little while, my thoughts will eminate from what's cooking on my stove or in my oven.

So pull up a chair. I welcome you into my kitchen, my sanctum sanctorum, my place of frenzy, my place of peace. Make yourself at home.

It's recess

Dear Readers,
I have always had great respect for writers, but lately my admiration has grown exponentially. In the last little while, I realized that I was beginning to either run out of ideas or repeating the themes I had previously written. I don't know how columnists and writers continue to come up with brilliant pieces week after week (some day after day), but I confess, I am not of their ilk.

Since I don't care to bore, I'm going to take a recess to explore different blog writing possibilities. I hope to write again, and will post a message when I do.

In the meantime, if you have suggestions, please send them to me.

I have to thank those of you who read my musings regularly. It never dawned on me that people would actually read what I wrote. It's an awesome feeling!

Until the bell rings,
Barbara A.

Flex-ing my muscles

I'm going to tell you this upfront: this posting has nothing to do with school. This has to do with....facial cleanser.

I admit it; a few years ago, I began listening to those TV experts when they said that the very soap that was good enough for every generation since the beginning of time is in fact ruining my skin. None of my friends used soap (YUCH), so I joined the bandwagon and succumbed to the lure of advertisement. I can now say that I have become a Dove girl. I use Dove soap because it's 1/4 cleansing cream (or at least, that's what they tell me). I use Dove shampoo and conditioner, and sometimes their moisturizer (is this too much information?). I also use Dove's foaming facial cleanser. Why? No particular reason. I just do....but perhaps not for too much longer. Warning: this is a sad story.

A few days ago, I made a trip to the pharmacy to buy some facial cleanser. It was going to be a quick trip-go in, buy one thing and leave. I innocently, and dare I say cavalierly made my way to the appropriate shelf to grab my prize. I looked quickly.  It wasn't there. I looked again.Yep, I decided, I better make that eye appointment when I get home. I looked again, this time a bit harder. And then again. Nothing. No Dove foaming facial cleanser. I must have made a mistake, I decided. It must be here. I'm just not looking hard enough.

Thirty nervous seconds later,  I began to scour the shelves. No luck. Like a crack addict I began pacing up and down the aisles wondering if I had missed something. Was I all of a sudden in the wrong aisle? Perhaps facial cleansers have now been stocked next to baby wipes. Well, why not? The store could have a very good reason for doing that. It's not my business to ask! I went over and checked. No, not there either. All of a sudden, panic began to set in as visions of Elaine Benes searching for the Today sponge to no avail danced in my head.

Two more stores and still, no sign of the elusive cleanser. To be fair, I had an idea as to where I could get it, but that's not the point. The fact was that what I wanted was not going to be readily available anymore, and that was completely disheartening. A very unsettling feeling set in as I began to get flashbacks from the catastrophic Flex shampoo incident of the 1980's.

Let me explain. Flex was my shampoo of choice in my teens. Little did I know then, but I later found out that a friend of mine actually associated the scent of Flex with me. Flex was my teenage signature scent. I happily used gallons of it until....oh, this is difficult for me....until it disappeared. It was devastating. I was lost without my shampoo. After all, who was I without it?

Now here's a little secret that I haven't told a soul. Years and years later, I accidentally came across a hotel shampoo sample of Flex. I stuck it in my drawer and clung to it for the longest time. One day I decided to take a whiff. Wouldn't you know it, it didn't smell anything like the familiar perfume of Flex. Someone tried to pull a fast one. And don't go telling me this happened because the darned thing was sitting for years!

So off I go to start investigating new, more readily available facial cleansers. I don't have time for this. I have other things to do. Yes, I know...change is the only thing that is constant in the world. BAHHH!!! First Flex, and now Dove foaming facial cleanser. Life isn't fair.

Everything Old is New Again---Except Me

For the past number of months, I've converted from listening to the Easy Listening radio station to the Jazz one. Must say, it's been a pleasant change. I'm a sucker for those old love songs, and I love the way different artists play with the notes. I'm good with the music where I can follow the melody, but I must admit to and apologize for not understanding atonal music at all. To me, it all sounds like a traffic jam. When instrumentals go far off the basic melody line, I get lost and a bit frustrated. Luckily, the bulk of the music played on the station is more or less at my level for music appreciation, and many of the artists played are local, which is really neat.

Both Jazz and the Blues hit me in a few spots. For one, the old 'standards' are beautifully written, and frankly, in contrast to Rock, I can follow the lyrics. For another, the music takes me back to my childhood piano that sat in our living room, where my dad used to play and sing the evening away to the very songs I'm listening to today. It's familiar and sentimental, let alone stunning to listen to.

One of the days when #3 was home for Reading Week, we were in the car together, driving to visit my mother who lives about an hour away. We were listening to the jazz station (he loves the music as well) when an atonal piece was being played. Neither of us had the patience to listen, so he decided to flip to the Classic Rock station. The music was fabulous, perfect for a long drive; Queen, the Stones, even Little Stevie Wonder. But along with the 'classic' stuff,  there was also new music played. But here's the strange thing about the new music--a lot of it was simply music from the '70's and '80's revisited. So, between listening to the remaking of Jazz standards on one station as well as listening to the reworking of classics in Rock, I started to wonder if there was anything new under the sun.

In Education, teachers who have been around as long as I have know that ideas are cyclical. We go to Professional Development days and hear about new methods of teaching children effectively. These experts have programmes with slick names and glossy brochures. The old timers like me listen to the presentations and then turn to each other and ask, Isn't this the exact same thing as...? And it is.

When I was a little girl in elementary school, we had Reading Groups. They had cute little names like the Duckies, the Kitties and the Puppies. The teacher would call up each group separately in a round robin fashion. The Duckies would read while the Kitties and Puppies did their work. When the Duckies finished, they would do work and the next group would come up and so forth. Each group had a different reader, or minimally, were working on different stories. Of course, even though every group had seemingly innocuous names, we kids all instinctively knew that the groups were levelled. We could tell by who was in each group. We knew the academic pecking order, even in Grade One. We simply played into the teacher's little fantasy of thinking she was pulling one over on all of us. We didn't want to make her feel bad.

Today, that little trick has a fancy name. It's called differentiation. It works exactly the same as it did 45 or 50 years ago. Okay, maybe all those years ago, it was only done in Reading, and today we do it in every subject, but the concept is the same. The assignment is geared to the child's level of capability. Old concept, different name. Nothing new under the sun.

Okay, yes, you're right. There are plenty of new things in this world. The computer on which I'm writing this drivel, for one. But when all is said and done, most new things are there to enable one to do the old things in a slightly different way. The old is still there, and it's not too bad.

Our world is moving very quickly. Life is stressful. We need some familiarity to remind us that although the world is changing, it's not changing as much and as quickly as we think. So what do we do? We dust off old standards and sing or play them differently, but not so different so as not to recognize them. We take the Rock music we were raised with and hip hop it a bit. We retool ideas that we once shelved, clean them up and call them new. For the young'n's, the music, the standards, the ideas...they ARE new. For the oldtimers, they are reminders that we have never been off the mark.

Old, reliable. New and improved. They are one and the same.
And I find that reassuring!

Hats off to you!

I've never been a 'material girl'. I don't have a particular attachment to too many 'things'. I could list on one hand some mementos of certain events or times in my life that would be on the list of those things-I-would-grab-if-I-had-to-leave-my-house-in-a-hurry. None of them are worth a lot of money, they simply are objects attached to very fond memories. There is, however, one item that doesn't fit on that list. It's one of those 'things' that I deem vital for my survival. It's not my potato peeler, which I must admit I love dearly. It's not even my crank by hand musher that produces great egg and tuna salad, as well as making avocado the perfect consistency for making guacamole. No, this the object that rises above them all. It is, of course, my yard duty hat.

When I bought my Elmer Fudd hat a number of years ago, everyone laughed at me. I was an oddity on the playground. Here I was with what is essentially a deer hunting hat (ironically, made of deer skin) while everyone else had their toques. My colleagues teased....until I invited them to try it on. Let's just say that the laughing stopped. My hat is warm and cozy and keeps the wind from attacking me.

But my hat does even more than that. My hat buffers the noise of all the little children playing on the yard. When I'm wearing my beloved hat, all of the yells and whoops and chants of the kids sound like one big mush, kind of like my avocado after it has been mushed by my other beloved inanimate object. It's fabulous! Or is it?

Today, the Jewish world celebrates the festival of Purim. One of our duties is to read the Megillah, the Scroll of Esther. Every time the villain Haman's name is mentioned, we are to make a lot of noise, so as to drown his name out. Over and over again through the reading, there is this blast of noise. Strangely, after a few times, the sound becomes tolerable. I start to get used to it. The kids who have waited an entire year for the chance to make a lot of noise become less and less excited, to the point of boredom. It all begins to sound like white noise.

I became accustomed to the white noise of chatting children when I taught kindergarten. There is a constant buzz in a kindergarten class, more so than in the grades. Over time I learned to tune out a lot of things. In many ways, tuning out was a blessing. Sometimes back then, knowing that I could tune out bothered me. It bothers me now, too.

We all 'tune out' many times during the day. We daydream. We focus on a TV show, or the newspaper, or the crossword or whatever we're tinkering with while someone else is talking and don't hear them. Sometimes for our own sanity we have to tune out, but we can only imagine what we're missing when we're not tuning in.

We all know the phrase, Don't go into the light! I think we have to start reminding ourselves not to go into the white noise. The trick is to pay attention, and swim through the white noise in order to listen to the voices that need to be heard. It isn't easy, but something tells me that it's worth the exercise.

Today I will drown out the sound of Haman. Tomorrow, I will try to break the white noise sound barrier!

Kvetch and the World Kvetches With You

Two dire needs of students baffle me during the school day; (a) snack time and (b) the necessity to put ice on the most minor of injuries. Granted, either or both aren't earth shattering, but I suppose it's the sense of impending doom that occurs when each is needed that throws me.

In the Middle Ages when I was a child, snack time didn't exist after kindergarten. One was expected to go all the way from breakfast to lunch, and from lunch to home time before eating. Now, I'm not denouncing the benefits of small, healthy noshes. I read the magazines. But just to let you know, I did survive the horrors of no snacking...and come to think of it, it's sort of like a cellphone...if you never have one, you don't know that you're missing it. I didn't have snacktime at school, and didn't know that I was supposed to be noshing. Miracles of miracles, I survived.

I simply cannot believe the horror on the faces of the kids if snack is, for whatever reason, late or cancelled. Class trips are always contentious, because the children know that it's possible that they won't get snack due to time constraints. Following the announcement that there will most likely be no time for snack, the kids, in lightening speed, travel through all five stages of grief: denial (Sure there'll be time for snack), anger (What do you mean, there'll be no time for snack!), bargaining (Can't we just take our lunchboxes on the bus?), depression (Really? No Snack? Ahhhhhwwww.) and finally, acceptance (Okay, let's go line up). It's a scary sight.

Not only did we not have snack all those years ago, but apparantly we didn't have ice, either. To my recollection, if we hurt ourselves, we got up, dusted ourselves off and went on. But those were uncivilized times, and now we have ice. In these modern times, the minute a child finds that a leaf has landed on him, he runs in horror, and complains wincing eyed to the teacher on duty, begging for a pass so that he can go to the office (along with an accomplice, two if it's cold outside, who will help the poor, pain riddled child) to get ice to treat the gaping wound. I admit, I can only handle this behaviour to a certain extent. When little Sarah Bernhardt or mini Rudolph Valentino approach me with their Oscar nominated kvetching, I ask them one simple question; If you were in your backyard now, or playing on your street, and the same thing happened to you, would you run inside your house to ask your mother or father for a piece of ice? The child then looks at me, smiles, turns around and runs off to play.

The absurdity of all of this begs the question; are we encouraging our children to feed into an already over-litigious society by teaching them to make mountains out of molehills? And furthermore, are we teaching them to be wusses by allowing them to complain about every boo-boo?

Perhaps. I don't remember if it was an article I read or if I had heared an expert on parenting discussing why a parent should not spank his child. Whichever it was, the person said that hitting is a result of the parent's frustration at himself. When a person feels internally stuck, there is a tendency to lash out at the person who is causing the frustration. The lesson to be learned is to deal with one's own frustration and not take it out on the child. Why am I going off on this tangent you ask? Because I'm wondering if there is a parallel. I'm wondering if our little ones complain about the little things because they are frustrated by the miniscule amount of free time we grownups have to spend with then and are vying for our attention. And I'm wondering if we grownups realize this subconsciously or otherwise and play into it as a way of giving our children the attention they deserve.

Ok, I hear you. You are saying that I am way off base and that this has nothing to do with a plea to spend time with them. Teaching one's child to get ice for a hangnail is instructing them to become proactive, self-sufficient and self-reliant. Children learn to self-advocate. It is part of the self-actualizing process, whereby children learn to respect themselves, and begin to confidently express their needs to others. You are, of course, correct. By the way, have you read, The Boy Who Cried Wolf  lately?

As with almost everything, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Our free time to spend with our children is becoming tragically limited. It is difficult to find time and ways to constructively show our affection and concern for our darlings. By reacting over the small stuff, children can quickly see that we care. Unfortunately, our good intentions tend to backfire, as children learn to model our behaviour and begin to sweat the small stuff too, hence the crying over melted ice on a potential blister. And at the same time, those same children are learning how to self-advocate. They know how to form a posse and rescue one in distress by lassoing them and hauling them off to the office for a bandaid. And that is pretty admirable.

In the end, the children will find their way. And wherever that place may be, you can be rest assured that they'll have ice.

Pfffffftttttt

For a time, I thought that Velcro was going to get the better of me.

Do you remember when laces on children's running shoes began to be replaced with Velcro? I sure do. Circle time in Kindergarten became a nightmare. Sure, parents were thrilled. Their little darlings could now be more independent beings. They could put on their own shoes and close them up without anyone helping them. Theoretically, I was all for it, because I'm all for children feeling the pride of accomplishment when they learn to master a skill. But who would have thought of the ramifications!

Picture twenty five little five year olds sitting cross legged on a carpet, most of them wearing shoes with Velcro. There I am doing my thing, when all of a sudden I hear pfffffttt. I look toward the sound and see a child with a shoe undone. A second or two later, the shoe is closed up again and all is well...until, pfffffttt, someone else starts in. Before you know it, a virtual Velcro symphony is playing in the background of my lesson. It's positively unnerving.

Even more unsettling though, is the thought that increasingly, children are not learning how to tie their shoes because, well, they don't have to! Velcro closes things that used to take a lot more small motor dexterity. Winter coats might have zippers, but there is often an over layer of material that can be closed with Velcro. Often, children forgo zipping up the jacket in favour of simply using the Velcro. Heck, even Barbie doll clothes are closed with Velcro, which makes the old clothes that I had with tiny snaps, zippers and hook and eye closings seem positively medieval.

Now, don't get me wrong. Velcro is surely a handy dandy thing. For children or adults who have any motor issues, Velcro closings are indeed brilliant, and serve a fabulous purpose. They afford people the independence and dignity they richly deserve. Velcro has many incredible uses. In the scheme of things, it's almost as invaluable as duct tape or Saran Wrap. To me though, the appearance of Velcro in my classroom was the harbinger of something even more significant; Velcro heralded the age of technology.

Yes, computers were invented a few years before Velcro, but Velcro came into the classroom first. Pfffffttt preceded, 'You've got mail'. Velcro showed up around the time that digital clocks--my other bone of contention, appeared. You see, as well as children not being able to tie their laces anymore, the lack of regular use of analogue clocks is making it difficult for children to learn how to tell time. Think about it, what does 9:13 mean to a person who isn't familiar with a clock with hands and a face? Should we be concerned that children are missing these skills?

As much as I've bemoaned the situation over the years, I'm beginning to think that I'm the one who is out of step with the times. Moving forward in anything means leaving some things on the back burner. Small motor skills are being acquired differently. People might not necessarily know exactly what  8:52 means, but they somehow manage to get where they're going on time.

I remember with fondness how my elementary school teachers used to ask us to feed the movies we would watch in school through the reel-to-reel. They had no idea what to do. The technology was beyond them. They let the next generation take over and lead them. This generation, however, is different. We're learning along with our children. We use technology every day to enhance our lives and those of our students. For better or for worse, we are taking our lessons from the past and embracing the future.

And to all those who disagree, I say, PFFFFFTTTTTT!

Learning to get it

I don't get it.

Those are the words of literate children as they read instructions on any given written assignment. It happens across the grades. And I don't get it.

This is how it goes: after a lesson, a worksheet is handed out. The instructions are given, an example is done, and there's time for questioning. Sometimes, the children work together in pairs first to discuss what they have to do. After the preamble, the children get started. All seems fine, until a child calls over the teacher. Yes?, asks the teacher. I don't get it, complains the child. What don't you get?, asks the teacher. I don't get what to do, the child insists. Have you reread the question?, asks the teacher. Yes, says the child. Let's read it again, says the teacher. And they do. And magically, without any further explanation, the child understands what to do.

This behaviour is repeated over and over again over the course of the day. It crosses all boundaries. I see this happening with so-called  'bright' children, 'weak' children and 'average' ones, too. It appears to me that for some reason, children learn to question their abilities and mistrust their gut. Increasingly, they rely on teacher verification in order to complete the simplest of tasks. If an assignment looks the least bit challenging, children second guess themselves. And for whatever ridiculous reason, we as teachers are reluctantly buying into the whole thing and consequently spoon feeding them. It's a vicious, frustrating cycle.

Over the years, parents have asked my advice on some tough questions. Often, I'm tempted to provide a response I think is best for their child, but I resist. Instead, I counsel the following: Trust your gut. Almost always, those words are followed by a parent smiling and nodding his or her head. These people know what feels right. I then have to ask myself, when these parents were children themselves, were they compelled to ask the teacher for clarification? Did they second guess themselves as my students do? I tend to think the answer is, yes, they did. So, how is it that we eventually learn to listen to our inner voice?

My favourite TV cop, Columbo, used a technique over and over again in his work. In this fabulous series, the audience knew from the beginning who was guilty. The viewer's fun was watching as Columbo brilliantly put the pieces together to solve the crime. When a conversation with a suspect was over, Columbo would walk away, stop, turn around, look quizzically and utter most nonchalantly, "Oh, one more thing", and then pose the one question he meant to ask all along. This little gesture was meant to trip up the suspect. It worked like a charm.

Whereas Columbo asked a question to confound, children ask to clarify. Columbo asked in order to confuse; children ask to verify. Columbo asked in order to shake the suspect up; children ask in order to be reassured that their gut instincts are correct.

Not so deep down, children know what to do. They've listened to the lesson. They understand the instructions. They may say that they don't get it, but they do. Children question in order to make sure that they're on the right track. This is essential rehearsing, aimed at teaching themselves to trust their gut. It's their version of 'Oh, one more thing'. Our job is to reassure them that they do know what to do. This will result in diminishing the need for children to constantly verify with an adult.

We train ourselves from childhood to trust the little voice inside our head that guides us throughout our lives. It's something that we must heed and never ignore. Still, before we act, we need to test out our thoughts on others. We need to question. We need to challenge. We need to verify. When we have clarity, we can act and act responsibly.

Ahh. Now I get it.

Happy Family Day

So tomorrow, three provinces in our great country will be celebrating something called Family Day. It's a new holiday, only three years old in Ontario. Although it is ostensibly billed as a day to be engaged with one's loved ones, Family Day was instituted as an excuse to have a stat day in February. For me, it means a blessed day off work, and yes, I'll be spending it with family.

I'm all for a day off work. Heck, I've already cashed in on the motherlode, the elusive Snow Day (I'm still coming down from that one!). But what perplexes me is why we needed to come up with Family Day in the first place. Couldn't we have built a holiday around an existing one, the ever so meaningful Groundhog Day? After all, Groundhog Day has everything. It has a mascot that can be used as a cute fellow for merchandising. There are nice little rituals that have been built around it, and the good thing is that by 8:00 a.m., it's all over, so we could have the rest of the day to play. It would be a cinch to design some cutesy greeting cards (Don't be afraid of your shadow, Let me be your sunshine...or.... Winter be damned! Put a Spring in your step). For the cinephiles, the definitive holiday movie already exists (and while I'm on this, I would like to mention that this was the second year in a row that Groundhog Day was not aired on TV this past Groundhog Day, and it really pissed me off), so that has been taken care of. Given all of the possibilities to tack on to an existing day, why do we need Family Day?

The strange thing is, I never question the other Days. Valentine's Day is cool. I like that one. St. Patrick's day is fun even though I'm neither Irish nor do I have a need to drink green beer. Mother's Day and Father's Day work for me as well. Labour Day, not so much, because all I do on Labour Day is think about work. But Family Day? Isn't the "Sabbath Day" (choose your day of observance depending upon your religion) meant to be a day to be with family? According to my calculations, that's supposed to be weekly! Are we now deciding that the importance of the family be acknowledged merely once a year, and in only some provinces?

Of course, the next question is, in this day and age, what is the definition of family? The nuclear family as I knew it growing up is quite rare nowadays. There are single families, blended families and who knows what other permutations (wow Hallmark, think of the possibilities!). When it comes to adults, there are parents, in-laws, step parents, grandparents, step grandparents and step in-laws--sometimes in multiples. How does one celebrate when there are so many people involved? One group for lunch and another for dinner?

At school, I am cognisant of the fact that my students don't necessarily fall under the children of two parent family category. Mother's Day and Father's Day is so stressful that for years, we decided not to celebrate them at school, because it was too upsetting for some. The more I think about it, maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe it is precisely because the nuclear family isn't necessarily the norm anymore that Family Day is not such a bad idea. Maybe it's a really good thing.

Family Day, therefore, is a period of 24 hours in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan, where no matter who the players are, no matter how strange or different or unorthodox or how magnificent the combination of people who live under one roof might be to others in the world, we are able to celebrate with our unique family unit. That's pretty cool.

Now all we need is a cute little mascot, some Hallmark cards and a holiday movie!
Whether or not tomorrow is a designated holiday where you live, take a moment to marvel at the uniqueness of your family. And then have a piece of cake.
Happy Family Day to all!

The school fountain of youth

This might have been my best day at school, hands down, EVER! Did I get a raise you ask? Hah, you're funny. Did I deliver a brilliant lesson? Nope. Did our staff room lotto pool win big, meaning that I can retire tomorrow? Wrong again. No, this little moment in time arrived as a gift the other day while on our Grade 5 visit to our Middle School.

Our school is very large and has a few campuses, so because of its size and the enormity of the shock of the impending amalgamation of students  into Grade 6, it is customary to introduce the Grade 5's to the spooky world of middle school early on in the year and gradually. On this, their first visit, the children are treated to an impressive guided tour given by the grown up Grade 8's who have been expertly rehearsed. They gawk at the lockers, peek into the library and science labs, and marvel at all that is foreign to elementary students. And then, when it's all over, they get a snack. All in all, a great day.

So what made all this so special for me you ask? It was one of our tour guides. She was a former kindergarten student of mine. I hadn't seen her in years, because she was at one campus, and I had moved to teach at the other. At the beginning of the tour I went over to her and asked, "Do you remember me?" She looked at me with the sweet, angelic eyes I remembered so well and then blurted out the words I'll cherish until my dying day.....

"YES! I do! You're Ms. A's daughter!"

True enough, my daughter had visited the class a few times that year, so my little protégeée must have done the math enough to realize that my #1 would be grown up by now. And yes, I've been told I look younger than my age, but that's mostly due to the fact that I'm vertically challenged; but this was off the chart cool, even if it did come from the mouth of a twelve year old.

As long as I'm digressing, I realized years ago that a young child makes a direct correlation between age and height. Basically, according to a pre-schooler, the shorter the person, the younger he is. I once experimented on this theory in my kindergarten class with my assistant at the time, who is a bit older than I am, and taller. When the children were asked which one of us was older, they indicated that my assistant was. I then stood on a chair and asked the same question. According to my class responses, I must have aged rather quickly, because I now was considered the older one.

Other times, it seems I might be suffering from some Benjamin Button syndrome. On a late Saturday night at least a dozen or so years ago, I was driving my babysitter (who, by the way was also a former kindergarten student of mine and who is now a mother of two) home after an evening out. We were stopped at an intersection, my car was in the left lane. As we were waiting for the light to turn green, a car approached us in the lane to our right. It was packed with a bunch of teenage boys oozing testosterone. They were glancing our way. "Look!" I said to my teenaged passenger, "Those boys are looking at us!" Now I must confess, I love this now grown up lady very much, but I could have throttled her when she turned her head, rolled her eyes at me as only a disgusted teenager can and exclaimed, "They're not looking at US!" And then, to make matters worse, she ared to snicker. At that moment, in her eyes, I was 95 years old and aging by the nano-second.

I have a simple little rule of thumb that I made up that seems to work for me. When I bump into someone I haven't seen in eons and we both recognize each other, I take that to mean that neither of us has aged. I also have come to believe that fading eyesight as we age is a good thing. Each morning when I look into the mirror without my glasses on, I don't see even ONE wrinkle. That is the beauty of poor eyesight. It is a gift from God. He knew when he designed us that women tend to be a bit vain, so He purposely dimmed our vision so that we might always look young....at least first thing in the morning. If that's not divine, I don't know what is!

Of course, we all know the truth. Staying young is all about keeping healthy in body, mind and spirit. It's about laughing and loving. And I think it truly helps being around children, because they remind us what being young is all about.

So no, dear former kindergarten student, I am not my daughter. I'm the mother. What I lack in youth, I'm beginning to gain in wisdom.

But I might just take a trip to the Middle School every so often to visit.

Call me indispensable

I took a sick day a few weeks ago. Why, you may ask. Was it a fever? Strep? Doctor's appointment? No. I did have a cold. I was sneezing. I worked my way methodically through a box of kleenex. My nose was drippy, my eyes were droopy, my voice was nasal and my throat was a bit raw. I may even have had a slight fever. But that's not why I took a sick day. I took the day so that I could clean my house.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Wouldn't the sane person simply say that they were staying home in order to get better, and then hunker down in bed for the day with a good book or a great movie and a gallon or seven of tea? Probably. But I'm a teacher, and teachers...at least the ones I know...don't follow the rules of the sane.

I'm sure there are many professions where it becomes easier to work sick than to stay at home for a day. Teaching is definitely one of them. Imagine if you will, planning to go away for an overnight, leaving your young child with a brand new sitter who has never met your child. Dare to think that your relatives don't live in spitting distance, so what you leave for that person is all he or she has to go by. Think of all of the things you would have to prepare, all of the things you would need to write down for the sitter including how the house works, child routines, and emergency information (just to name a few), and you will begin to understand the task of being away from teaching for only one day. It's really not much different, which is why teachers tend to come into work sick. It is also why the sick day-when-one-is-not-on-her-deathbed is a coveted thing.

And yes, you are right to say that teachers shouldn't come to school and infect the kids. It's as correct as we teachers are in saying that kids shouldn't come to school with snotty noses or hacking coughs. But they do, and so do we. I admit that we're both in the wrong. I'll try to do better, but for now, this is the reality.

I think that the outside world thinks that teachers come to work when they have a cold because they think that they're indispensable. That couldn't be further from the truth. We all know that we can be easily replaced. No, we come to work when we're sick because we're too lazy to do all the preparation necessary to stay away. In layman's terms, it's just a lot easier to go to work when we're not feeling well than to stay home.

Unless of course the stars collide, like they did that day a couple of weeks ago. I felt crummy, but not too crummy. My work at school was already prepared. I had just the right amount of school work to do at home to keep me busy while I scrubbed floors and wiped my nose. It was the equivalent of a teacher's Festivus miracle.

And yes, I know the big question. Why didn't I simply take a day to convalesce? Why did I need to obsess about making my place spic and span? Why didn't I finish that book, or catch up with back episodes of some show? That my friends, is a blog posting for another day.

In the meantime, I did my housework. And that entire night before, I prayed that I wouldn't wake up in the morning with a fever. After all, everyone needs to be fairly well to enjoy a sick day.

A Groundhog Day Surprise

I've been giddy for days. I've been like a little girl, running around with fanciful thoughts. It was the anticipation of something that could maybe, possibly happen to me. It was a hope for something I had been wishing for would come true. Honestly, I never thought it could happen, but it did.

The school called a Snow Day.

Gifts are great things. When it comes to birthdays, we know that we'll be getting presents. Sometimes, we send out feelers, so that our loved ones will know exactly what we want. Some of us just go and buy what we want so that we won't get something we might loathe. Everyone hates having to gush at how fabulous the gift is while we loathe it. Yuch. But today was not like that. Today was the surprise of surprises. It was unexpected. And it was perfect.

The news that a big storm was heading this way had been on the news for a week. I ignored it, knowing that my school doesn't close unless the world is coming to an end. It seemed by Monday however, that the people at the weather network seemed to actually think that the apocalypse was coming, so I began to hope in private.

On Monday after work, I plotted my scheme. I was going to hunker down and cook on that day that would be known as the Snow Day. I bought a chicken to make soup. I bought a brisket, for the sole reason that it takes a long time to cook. I was going to bask in the glory of cooking everything that takes too long to make on a regular day. My one problem....what if a snow day isn't declared? No, I thought, I wasn't going to entertain negative thinking.

On Tuesday, I prepared my class. I gave them their work...due for Thursday. I wasn't going to accept that we wouldn't have a day off. But I really didn't believe it would happen.

I didn't touch my ruby slippers three times, but lo and behold, magic! The school called a Snow day before the snow even started.

I tell you, I could have won the lotto, I was just that happy. I was...well, jubilant. Everything that I planned was going to be actualized. But it even got better! The icing on the cake came when I woke up, and noticed that there wasn't as much snow on the ground as predicted. The Groundhog Day storm didn't amount to what they thought. School didn't have to be closed. I know, you think that miracles don't happen very often, but this, my friends, was a true miracle.

And so, today, my heart has been singing while I made my soup and my brisket. This little vacation that came from nowhere has done more for me than some other, longer ones. I think it was because it was so unexpected. It was a little gift that I never thought would materialize. But it did.

So I'm passing a mid-week posting on to you.
Happy Snow Day!

Sdrawkcab

Teachers all over the world are learning how to teach math the way it is done in Japan. For those of us who are used to the 'old' ways, this method might come as a shock. It might even sound backwards to you because, well, it sort of is.

Instead of teaching a particular concept, giving practice questions and then slowly introducing more difficult questions, the process is done more or less in reverse. Students are given a problem and are left to their own devices (usually in groups) to try to solve it. The lessons evolve from how the children solve or attempt to solve the problem. The question is debugged, and strategies, methods and reasoning is examined. The thought is that once someone has tackled the problem, he is applying all of his prior knowledge so that he can build to a next step. It's as if you were to give someone a jigsaw puzzle already in pieces, and ask them to assemble the puzzle without having the picture on the box to guide them. It can be very frustrating. It can lead to struggling. And that's the point of the exercise. 

Does it sound mean? Unfair? Maybe even a bit cruel? Does it go against everything you feel in your gut? Are you feeling angst about it? Well, I did at first, until I began thinking about the whole idea.

More and more, educators are realizing that struggling with a problem is the key to finding an effective, if not creative solution. A challenge, a struggle, tends to be an impetus to achieve. The goal of solving the puzzle, in this case the math problem, becomes a game. It is here that striving for excellence is born. And when one problem is solved, the stakes rise, and more challenging math problems become the new goal.

I see how this concept might work in math, but can or does this apply in our day to day problems in life? Do we necessarily need to struggle with a problem in order to find the most appropriate, creative and best solutions?

Let's start with something simple--the morning Sudoku puzzle. Generally, my morning newspaper tends to have easier puzzles at the beginning of the week. As the week progresses, so does the difficulty of the puzzles. I tend to appreciate the simplicity of Monday puzzle; I'm too busy dealing with the thought of getting to work to have to suffer through a potential snag in a measly Sudoku. I zip through the puzzle, completing it before my toast pops. But here's the rub--even though I wouldn't have wanted to spend the time working on the puzzle, even though I got what I wanted and completed it post haste, I am left with a feeling of disappointment, a lack of fulfillment. Something inside of me, the same me who wanted to get the puzzle over and done with as quickly as possible, feels cheated that the Sudoku author didn't make the puzzle challenging enough. Conversely, on those days where I crack the sweat-inducing puzzle, the one where the author's sadistic attempt at outsmarting the free world  is foiled by my obvious brilliance, I'm on top of the world. The challenge pushes me to do my best, and causes me to come perilously close to being late for work.

It's a sad thought to think that the best things in life, the things that make us happiest, are those which we must work the hardest to achieve. After all, what's so wrong with the things that come easy? I think the answer to that question is: nothing. Nothing's wrong with the things that come easy. But it's precisely because those things come easily, they're not given the importance they deserve.

Challenges propel us forward. Whether it's a Sudoku puzzle, solving a math problem, overcoming an illness, financial burden or relationship gone wrong, facing a challenge and overcoming it is an incredibly satisfying feeling. It's important, however, to never overlook the things that come easy.

Waking up in the morning. That's a big one. The whole day becomes bearable knowing that I'm able to read the obits and not be in them. Hitting the snooze button is another one. Love those extra nine minutes. Hitting it again (decadent!). Realizing that I didn't run out of coffee yesterday. Or milk. What about that first sip of coffee--isn't that the best? A smile from someone I love (any time of the day). The sun on my face (SPF 30). Remembering the meeting I have first thing in the morning. The list goes on and on......

Sure, I love the fulfillment of life's challenges, but even though 'they' tell me not to sweat the small stuff, it's the little things that make my day special.

Long live my Monday morning Sudoku!

Who Got Higher?

A Grade 5 student approached a colleague of mine at recess very distraught. When the teacher asked what was wrong, the story unfolded. It seemed that the issue was that when playing a game with another child, the other child kept winning. "Ok, so...what do you want me to do about it?" asked the teacher. The student replied, "Make him not win all the time. It's not fair!"

In recent years, the idea of competition at school has been down played dramatically. We have cooperative games, and cooperative learning. Marks are not given to the extent that they were in the past, as we now use either rubrics or a 1-4 scale, much like as in universities, which use a 1-4 grade point average. Come to think of it, we don't even give tests anymore, we give assessments. There aren't 'winners' and 'losers' anymore, there are simply participants. Everything is geared so that the child's self esteem will not be compromised. But when all is said and done, are we making a mistake? Are we doing more harm than good by ensuring that children never fail? Will these children be able to cope in the 'real world'?

I remember when I was in Grade 1. We had reading groups in our class. The groups had cutesy names. I don't remember them now, but it was something benign like chicks and ducks and geese. The groups could have been called the 'weak kids', the 'average joes',  and the 'smart kids'; everyone knew where they stood academically in the class, without anyone ever mentioning it.

There was also healthy competition. My friend and I were always going back and forth as to who did better on what assignment. I didn't suffer psychologically if she did better than I did. If nothing else, I was (a) happy for her and (b) spurred to do better myself the next time 'round. We would get our tests (not assessments) handed back, compare marks and then go out and play. But then again, those were the days when we were allowed to walk to school by ourselves, without the fear of....well...anything, because there really wasn't anything to fear.

With all the comment writing, rubric making and reworking of the marking system, children still know where they stand in a classroom. They know who to call on to find the correct answers. They know that if they receive a 2+, they are not close to receiving a 4....without anyone telling them. So, if not so deep down they know the truth, what's the secret we're keeping from them? Are we offesetting our mark-obsessed guilt ridden selves by softening the blow to our children?

Frankly, I thought so for a long time, but now I'm not so sure, and I think it has to do not with the marking system, but with the comments that accompany the marks.

Constructive comments give context to whatever style of mark is on a paper, be it an 'assessment' or report card. A child needs to know where he has gone wrong, but also know where he's gone right. And even that is not enough. The child needs to be guided as to what he needs to do to succeed to greater heights. He needs to be pointed in the right direction to not only correct his errors, but to soar.

I come from a place and time where it was considered a good thing to figure out what was wrong and find solutions independently. Feedback was an end result, not an ongoing act of development. Sure, learning anything needs some trial and error-even healthy frustration, but imagine the difference between learning something with constructive feedback as opposed to not getting anything until there's a final product, and then only getting a mark.

Whether it is writing a test, trying a new recipe, or talking through a problem with a friend, providing healthy, constructive feedback takes the mystery out of whatever it is we're attempting. Constructive feedback is like the kind lady's patient, unthreatening voice on the GPS when we go the wrong way. She knows (in any language or accent) that even though we're trying to get from Point A to Point B, and even though the machine is pointing out what to do, we can screw up. GPS lady doesn't yell at us or call us names, doesn't laugh at us or deride us. She understands that learning is a process, so the moment the mistake is made, she utters that obnoxious word, "Recalculating" and points us once again towards our destination.

Yes, we have to lose sometimes. Yes, we have to get a bit lost. We simply need people in our life who will tap us on the shoulder, whisper "Recalculating" in our ear, and guide us to the finish line.

I'll do it tomorrow

It's the most wonderful time of the year. I'm not talking about that. No, I'm talking about report card writing time. Why is it so great, you ask? Simple. This is the time of the year when my house gets really, really clean. What's the connection? If you have to ask, you're not a teacher, or you don't live with one.

It's all about the art of procrastination.

You see, report card writing sits at the summit of the Teacher's Pyramid of Disdain. Most of us would rather deal with a troublesome parent (troublesome kids are easy), or even prepare for an evaluation than write report cards. Which is where procrastination finds a solemn place on the teacher's mantle, and where cleaning suddenly becomes an activity of paramount, holy and dire importance.

The husband of a colleague of mine told me that he always knows when it's report card writing time, because that's when he finds his wife on her hands and knees in the living room, scrubbing the baseboards. The other day, another colleague of mine was bemoaning the fact that she hadn't finished her reports. She was mentally preparing a list of what she needed to do that evening and decided the order would be (a) wash the kitchen floor, (b) make dinner, and finally (c) if she felt satisfied that she had cleaned enough, write her reports.

Trying to wrap my head around why so many of us choose to clean as a method of procrastination, I turned to Google for help. I was led to a number of dissertations that prompted me to procrastinate finishing this posting, but otherwise left me dissatisfied. People talked about choosing a boring activity to put off something more boring. Others talked about cleaning as something which spawns creativity. I'm not convinced.

I don't know why anyone else goes through this ritual. For me, knowing that my chores are out of the way relaxes me. If my house is in order, then my thoughts will be too, which enables me to do the king of chores, report writing. Interestingly enough, I only get this way around report card time. Any other time of the year, cleaning plunges down the pyramid to the level of any other household, okay-I-guess-I-better-do-it.

So, here I am, admiring my clean place. Report cards are finished. All is right with the world. In the end, procrastination paid off. Now I'll look forward to the next set of reports, because I just remembered that I have some closets that need straightening.....

I'll take one from column A and....

Multiple choice tests drive me crazy. I know, some of you love them, but I don't. Oh sure, I can easily whittle the four choices down to two, but after that, I almost always choose the wrong answer.

My high school Physics teacher used to counsel the class saying, "When in doubt, choose the longest answer". I think he was simply having pity on me. I worked hard in class. I tried, but I was pitiful when it came to Physics. I used to beg (literally, on the bottom of every test) to pass, writing, "Please sir, I want to go to university. Please let me pass this test!", and he would write back, "Ok" and give me one mark above failure...every time. It was bad enough that I couldn't understand the work. When I had a 50/50 chance at a multiple choice question, I blew it, over and over again.

Which is why, I've decided, I'll never win the lottery. I think even if I let the computer choose my numbers, it will pick the wrong ones.

Here is a caveat for all of you who see me in the cashier line at the grocery store: do not stand behind me. I always choose the wrong line. For some reason, the person in front of me has an item which needs a price check, or the cashier's tape runs out just as my order needs to be processed, or the bundle of cash has to be sent up that magic money vaccuum machine (I love that thing).

When it comes to ordering in a good restaurant, I usually let the waiter make the ultimate choice. As in my multiple choice quizzes, I whittle my desires down to two, and then I ask my server which of my final choices of entrees he or she would choose. I must say that the tactic works; I'm rarely if ever disappointed.

The more I think about choice, the more it confouds me. It's amazing how the very thing that makes us free, can enslave us. We are allowed to choose, but what if we choose the wrong thing? How do we deal with making the wrong choice, be it answer (c) instead of answer (d), the wrong line at the supermarket, or even choosing the wrong person to share your life?

Let's Make a Deal was an iconic TV game show that capitalized on the dilemma of choice (fine, it was about greed, but humour me, please). A contestant would be 'randomly' chosen by the great emcee, Monty Hall. If the contestant could pull a hard boiled egg out of her purse, or knew his driver's license serial number off by heart, he would win a washer or dryer, a trip somewhere, or a piano. He would then have to decide whether or not to trade the whatever it was for the unknown something that would be lurking behind Door Number 1, 2 or 3. The choice would have to be made...keep the prize, or relinquish it for the possibility of something greater. Most of the time, that new appliance or lovely trip was forfeited. Monty would then give his command. Sometimes when the door opened, the lovely Carol Merrill would be standing next to a new car. Other times, the wrong choice meant that the sad sot would be leaving the studio hitching a matronly looking milking cow up to his car.

We're all familiar with a variation of the popular maxim, 'when life closes a door, somewhere a window is opened'. We use this phrase to allow people who are feeling powerless that new opportunities, and new opportunities for choice are possible and possibly imminent. At the same time, we caution university students not to 'close doors', because their choices will become limited. Keep the options open as long as you can, counsel parents and school advisors.

Coming to terms with the doors we've closed allows us to open new doors wider. During our lifetime, we no doubt  walk through doors which bring us metaphorical brand new cars. Other times, it seems like Carol Merrill is in her overalls, pigtails and painted-on freckles, dealing us a milking cow. Our task is to try to understand what leads us to make the decisions we do, so that when that new door opens, we'll be thrilled by what's behind it and not disappointed.

As I get older, I try to laugh when I realize I've chosen the wrong line at the supermarket yet again. I've decided to embrace the familiar. I take the opportunity to chat with the frustrated person in front of me. I warn the person behind me never to stand behind me in a line again because the curse follows me.

Sure, I might have chosen a better line at the grocery store, but it's nice having the chance to chat with the people around me in line every once in a while. Choosing those wrong answers on my tests forced me to get help from my classmates, which strenthened friendships. And I almost always get the best dessert in the restaurant. You know what? Door Number 3 is not such a bad choice after all!

What time did you say it is?

Standing out on yard duty in the middle of the winter, braving sub-Arctic temperatures with the wind blowing is not what I call fun. I'm chilled to the bone. Insanity dashes in front of me in the form of a bunch of boys running around the playground in their t-shirts. On those days, I stand and wonder as my teeth chatter how fifteen minutes can possibly be such a long time. Why is it that sometimes time passes so slowly, and other times it flashes in the blink of an eye?

My grandmother used to say that the older you get, the faster time passes. She was right, unless of course we're talking about waiting in supermarket line-ups, traffic jams, or waiting for water to boil, to name just a few.

I used to play a game with my Grade 3 class, to demonstrate how long one minute is. I'd have the class stand and turn with their backs facing the classroom wall clock. I would be the timekeeper while the children's task was to sit down when they thought a minute had passed. The child who came closest to sitting down at 60 seconds was the 'winner'. Each time I played this, I was fascinated to see how quickly the children sat down, thinking that time was up. The children, too, couldn't believe how long one minute truly is.

Yet, time passes so swiftly. I remember the first time the passage of time kicked me in the face. Sure, everyone knows that we're constantly aging, so that's no surprise, but we don't really notice it because generally, the people we associate with are doing the same things at more or less the same time as we are. Life milestones such as getting married, having the first baby, sending your first off to school are done with others who are doing the same. We coast along together, sharing these events, but not really realizing the ticking of the clock.

It happened when my oldest was in her first year of high school. A bunch of her friends were coming over to the house for a barbeque. Since these were new friends from a new school, I told her that I didn't need names, only an idea of how many friends were coming. The day arrived and there was a knock at the door. I opened the door and couldn't believe what I was seeing. This was no ordinary duo. The dad was an old friend of mine from my teenage years who I hadn't seen in a very long time, standing with his teenaged son. At that moment, time stood still. I looked at the four of us and wondered what had happened to the time. Wasn't I just a teenager myself? Wasn't that father not the father but in fact the boy he was standing with? I was baffled. Where did the time go?

I often chuckle to myself in the morning as I'm putting up the coffee. I'll stop and wonder, didn't I just do this? Yesterday went by so quickly. It seems like mere minutes since I padded into the kitchen to make my morning java. How did that happen?

And now it's 2011. It will take me 3 months before I write the year correctly on cheques and on the chalkboard. Sometimes time will still seem to pass slowly. Yard duty in the winter will still seem longer than yard duty in the spring. And water will still take a long time to boil. But before I know it, I'll be writing final report cards. June will be here in a blink of an eye. Another school year will be over and there will only be 6 months left of the year.

Time marches on. This year, I hope to make the best of my time, use it wisely, even waste it wisely. And to all of you who take the time to read my musings, I thank you so much, and wish you a year filled with wonderful times.