by jphilo | Aug 13, 2013 | Top Ten Tuesday
My teacher friends and former co-workers in our school district went back to work yesterday. Speaking from 25 years of personal experience, here are 10 reasons to be kind to teachers for the next few days and weeks.
10. Contrary to popular opinion, most teachers didn’t sit around the pool eating bon bons all summer. Most teachers spent much of the summer going to school to hone their skills. They even turned in assignments, sat at the other end of the red pencil, and received grades.
9. During summer school classes, teachers wore flip flops. At home they went barefoot. And now they have to shove their feet into teacher shoes. Remember those teacher shoes? Not a pretty sight.
8. The first few days back to school, before the kids return, are packed with meetings about exciting topics such as Proper Procedures for Cleaning Up Bodily Fluids (I’m not making this up) and the latest No Child Left Behind government regulations. The powers that be grant these topics higher priority than things allowing teachers preparation time in the classroom.
7. Teachers know those meetings will eat away their preparation time, so they’ve already donated several unpaid days to get their classrooms ready, plan lessons, and prepare materials. And because of budget cuts, they often pay for materials out of their own pockets.
6. At some of those meetings before the kids come, teachers learn about newly assigned duties that take away their scheduled planning time and in some cases much of their lunch hour.
5. Once the students return, teaches spend much of their lunch hour doing one of the following: running home to let the dog out, eating at their desk while preparing for afternoon classes, or supervising students.
4. You know how hard it is for your kids to adjust to the school schedule every fall? It’s that hard for teachers, too, because they’re big kids at heart. That’s why they’re teachers.
3. Teachers would rather help kids succeed than mark assignments with red pencil and fill out report cards. But their job description requires they do both.
2. Teachers spend all day supervising 25–30 people who are crowded together reading and doing paperwork in a small space without privacy cubicles. Can you think of businesses that ask adults to work in conditions like that?
1. Your child’s teacher cares about your boy or girl. A lot. Your child’s teacher cares about every student. But teachers know they can’t give students everything they need. Teachers know that no matter how hard they works, at some point they will fail students. They will obsess over every failure and try to do better the next day, knowing they will fail again. But they keeps trying because they believes kids are worth their best effort. And if you tell teachers they’re doing a good job, they’ll remember your kindness and pass it on to a child. Because that’s what teachers do.
What would you add to the list? Leave a comment!
by jphilo | Aug 6, 2013 | Family, Top Ten Tuesday
My mother and her 7 sibs were a prolific bunch in their heyday. They and their spouses produced 39 children from the mid 1940s until the early 1970s. This coming Saturday a goodly percentage of the 37 living cousins, their extended families, and a few members of Mom’s greatest generation will gather for a family reunion. Here are the top ten reasons I’m looking forward to the day.
10. We all remember Lawrence Welk differently from the rest of the world. To us, he’s not the maestro of national television’s squeaky cleanest dance band of the 1960s. To us, he’s the leader of a traveling 1930s and 1940s North Dakota band that sometimes played in dance halls around the midwest. They were so wild our parents weren’t allowed to attend their dances for fear of being corrupted.
9. After lunch, we reinact reunions of our childhood. It starts when someone asks for a dime to go swimming. (Yes, way back when pool admission was one thin dime.) Then everyone responds in unison, “Ask in 30 minutes, once your food’s had time to settle.”
8. We share the same memories of Grandma Josie’s kitchen: sugar bread eaten in the backyard on painted aluminum chairs, Grandpa’s pink wintergreen mints and Grandma’s red hot candies hidden in the top shelf of the cupboard by the refrigerator, and oatmeal raisin cookies stored in the hat box in the bottom shelf of the cupboard across from the stove.
7. Everyone shares tips for raising African violets and geraniums.
6. It’s rare to be with so many people who take such pride in the state of their vegetable gardens.
5. We all appreciate the value of fresh tomatoes and kohlrabi.
4. Our reunions are a rare opportunity for math nerds and theater geeks to rub shoulders, because we’ve got plenty of both.
3. Being with my older cousins makes me feel young again.
2. I see the faces of Grandpa Hess, Grandma Josie, and my aunts and uncles in the faces around me.
1. Reunions with my cousins renew the security and sense of belonging I experienced at family gatherings during childhood. Could I ask for anything more?
by jphilo | Jul 23, 2013 | Top Ten Tuesday
I arrived home from Alaska (the flowers above are considered a noxious weed in Kodiak) and Idaho almost a week ago. However, my life feels stuck in a hamster wheel of non-accomplishment. To make returning from vacation easier, perhaps someone could invent the items in this week’s top ten list.
10. A jet lag eliminator.
9. Automatic weed puller.
8. Automatic plant waterer.
7. Automatic flower dead header. Hmmm….a theme is emerging.
6. Email/mail scout to eliminate spam and junk mail. The deluxe version could include an authentic sounding response feature, too.
5. Refrigerator restocker.
4. Suitcase with washer/dryer combo to launder clothes on return trip.
3. A put-everything-back-where-it-belongs robot that could, say, take the hanging plants off the patio and back onto their hooks.
2. A vacation photo sorter with a sensor that beeps when your photos bore others. This refers to other people’s photos only, since mine are never boring or too numerous.
1. A painless healthy diet restorer.
What invention would make life easier for you after a vacation? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Jul 16, 2013 | Top Ten Tuesday
After a week in Alaska followed by another week in the Idaho mountains, it’s time to head home. Here are the top ten signs that say “It’s time to go back to Iowa.”
10. The mosquitoes found us two nights ago.
9. I ran out of calcium supplements yesterday and have just enough clean undies to make it home.
8. The food is so good here that if I stay any longer, my clean undies won’t fit.
7. While walking a mile to use the internet is healthy, it’s not very efficient.
6. My fingers are itching to get back to my mystery novel.
5. There’s this pesky book manuscript to get done by the September 1 deadline.
4. Mom left a voice mail message this morning wondering where I was.
3. Sweet corn season is underway in Iowa.
2. Hiram and I plan to visit the kids and grandchild this weekend.
1. I miss my hubby.
How do you know it’s time for a vacation to end? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Jul 9, 2013 | Top Ten Tuesday
By 2:00 this afternoon, Hiram and I will have been married for 36 years. Here are the top ten perks of our long partnership:
10. We’ve both come to prefer water at meals. How easy is that?
9. 36 years later, he’s as handsome as he was when we met at the college freshman orientation dance in September of 1974.
8. When we’re on vacation and he says, “Jolene, take a picture of __________________,” I now know we’ll both be happier if I hand over the camera so he can capture the essence of whatever he sees, and I don’t.
7. We both agree Panera’s is the best place to stop for a quick meal on the road.
6. He’s an eternal pessimist. I’m an eternal optimist. Somewhere between our two points of view, we usually find reality.
5. He learned to love wilted lettuce. I learned to prepare and love his mom’s turkey hash. We agree both are delicious.
4. He knows I don’t like tramping in the wild woods, I know he doesn’t like big crowds, and we’ve quit trying to change one another.
3. Our shared memories of people and events are interpreted from differing points of view, but we’re learning to be happy to have memories to share.
2. We agree that watching our children become the adults God created them to be has been the most rewarding, terrifying, satisfying, and fascinating work we’ve ever done.
1. Shared faith brought us together, kept us together, and continues to mold us into the people we didn’t know we wanted to become when we wed on July 9, 1977.
by jphilo | Jul 2, 2013 | Top Ten Tuesday
Plane trips from here to there and back again have lost their luster in the last few years. Maybe because airlines are cutting amenities right and left. Maybe because more of my travel is for business rather than for fun. Maybe because I’m getting older and crankier. But I’m hoping this list of the top ten things to take on a plane trip will put the glitter and shine back into my next up, up, and away adventure.
10. A five day food supply. Airline snacks aren’t enough to keep Barbie and Ken alive, much less full-sized humans. So it’s best to take enough for the time in the air plus enough to keep me going for a few days in case of delays in the airport.
9. A personal assistant. Take someone along to organize boarding passes and itineraries, know the whereabouts of my picture ID at all times, carry luggage, watch my carry-on bag while I use the bathroom, and keep me from acting like a crazy person when things don’t go according to plan. Not that I’ve ever acted like that before, but it’s always good to be prepared.
8. Pilot speak translation program. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a little gizmo to plug in when the pilot’s voice comes over the intercom? Imagine being able to understand what he or she says?
7. Odd Couple DVD. For reference purposes when my sinuses start acting up. That way I can practice and imitate Felix’s “Mmmah. mmmah” and then make everyone suffer with me.
6. Spanx or a girdle. Because the seats on the airplane keep getting smaller and smaller. Plus I want to look my best for the full body scan at security.
5. Airsick bags. Anybody else notice the absence of these essential items from the seat pocket? Ever since a friend of mine told how she became the recipient of the contents of her seatmate’s stomach, I pack my own bag, just in case.
4. Drool catcher. I’m working on the prototype for this. A small, kidney-shaped bowl that can be suction-cupped below the lower lip. It could save a lot of embarrassment for messy nappers.
3. Hidden camera. To record those who use items listed in #5 and #4.
2. Hazmat Suit. In case I need to use the bathroom on the airplane.
1. A sense of humor. Essential if you want to make new friends instead of alienating fellow travelers.
What’s on your list of top 10 things to take on a plane trip? Leave a comment!
