Stealth

Spring may have arrived, unseen. On a tour about the yard today surveying for winter damage and inventorying spring yard work, I discovered I've already lost my purple crocus to the rabbits. These survivors showed up without fanfare, sometime between the blast of warm air last Friday and a dusting of snow yesterday. Looks like I should be monitoring the perimeter more closely or I'll miss more of these sly characters!

5:01:04 PM    comment []

Babelicious:  Tyler Florence on Food 911

We now take a break from kid care and warfare to rediscover that which occasionally brings a little joy into the bleak life of an unemployed mom.

Ooh, ah, it’s Tyler!

Yeah, some of the other shows on FoodTV are better in terms of food content.  Can’t argue that – Alton Brown’s Good Eats for one, is an absolute wealth of knowledge about food.

But Tyler has something more than kitchen chemistry.  Ever notice how many of the home chefs he rescues are women?  There’s a reason for that.  This guy is the boy next door, never threatening even when giving a critique, always the gentleman, has a ready smile…and he has that little something else that makes the women warm right up to team cooking.

I wish I could bottle whatever that little extra something is, I would make a mint.  For now I will settle for watching Tyler, indulge in being a kitchen voyeur.  Yum -- this is my idea of “food porn”!

Mmm-mmm, good!

1:35:56 PM    comment []

The “French” Teacher, redux

It’s stuff like this that gets in my craw and sticks, makes me wonder if there’s a bigger problem with my daughter’s teacher.

Dear daughter tells me this morning she’s been going to the student teacher for assistance when she needs it; the student teacher will answer everyone’s questions, but the teacher only helps the boys.

Grrrrrrr…

This is the same teacher about whom I posted this past week a couple of times; I’m still not entirely comfortable with the issue that spawned those posts.

There’ve been a number of other eyebrow-raising issues in the past 6 months, more closely tied to this teacher’s effectiveness.  Due dates and test dates poorly communicated, no benchmarks or standards provided on project grading – let alone grading of day-to-day coursework.  (There aren’t any textbooks in use; as a parent I’ve no way to see what my daughter is working on.  We have to rely on whatever homework and notes from the teacher have been sent home, or assess work that’s already completed and graded.)

And now this.

Is my daughter being hypersensitive?  I don’t think so, although I know she’s keenly aware of “fairness”.  She has been, all her life.  She’s more likely to make decisions based on fairness than any other kid I’ve ever known.  Heck, she’s even called me decisions I’ve made: is that fair, Mom?  How is that fair?  It’s not something I think I can fully claim to have taught her.  She’s been wired this way from the start.

I’m certain that my daughter wasn’t aware that my first question to the principal of her school four years ago was whether the school was working on gender equity.  I asked this when she was being tested for the gifted program, just as my son will be tested today.  Even her father didn’t understand what I was asking the principal at the time; if he didn’t get it, how would a five-year old?  (I was assured at the time that the entire program was gender neutral.)

(There is one area about which I do want to talk with the principal.  I noted an extracurricular program based on Legos, subsidized by a local manufacturer, is comprised entirely of boys.  They won a state award for their work on a project – and not one female, not even an adult coach, on the team.  On the other hand, the school has a newer extracurricular program based on “American Girls” books and dolls – again, not a single male in that group.  I’ve talked about this with my daughter, asked her to think about the Lego group because she’s well ahead of all her classmates in math and science.  She’s turned her nose up at “American Girls”, thank goodness; she sees it as kind of ditzy.  I’d put money on long-term career success rate being higher among the Lego team participants than the American Girl team; sad to think these 4^th and 5^th grade girls are probably already “lost” to the sciences.)

My daughter hasn’t been aware I’ve been watching for gender equity/inequity and saw no indication of trouble in the last couple of years.  Until now.

Great for my son if he ends up with this teacher (although we’d still have to deal with the other flaky performance issues unique to this teacher).  It’s going to be a long couple of months until school gets out for my daughter, though.

There’s going to be many more long conversations ahead about the possibility of a divide between boys and girls, men and women, and how to transcend the divide – if that can be done.

8:52:39 AM    comment []