It's not rocket science . . . except when it is

Teacher Musings:
Right now I am two months into summer and five months into maternity leave, so I officially have teacher amnesia and I find myself believing that all of my greatest intentions and ideas/desires will be manifested in my classroom in September. However, my experience teaching has taught me otherwise. I will try a number of new things this school year, including using student work during writer's workshop time, having blogging be the primary homework my students do, and (hopefully!) starting some kind of mentoring program and/or cooking club and/or student running club (lets just say that taking care of a baby is exhausting, but it does leave me lots of time to dream up lots of ways to get way too busy come fall). I have been reading books about teaching writing, and I am currently completely enamored with Penny Kittle's Write Beside Them: risk, voice and clarity in high school writing which will, I hope, improve the way I approach the teaching of writing. All of this thinking and planning is part of what gets me excited and rejuvenated for the school year. I can't imagine doing the exact same thing year after year, and part of what I love about teaching is the chance to start over, try again and improve that every September brings.

Another aspect of this job I love is that it requires a lot of creative thinking and the ability to consider many complicated variables all at once. Trying to match my instructional style to how a "typical" adolescent brain is "supposed" to work is complex enough to keep my mind occupied and engaged. Then I step foot into the classroom and encounter the 20 (or 60 or 120) individual students will different styles of learning, interacting and stages of development and its enough to make your head explode. Every day I am constantly toggling back and forth between focusing on the point of a lesson, remembering different students' emotional needs, trying to be both a sympathetic listener as well as a teacher who pushes students to really achieve and remembering to eat and drink. I know none of this is really news - I've written numerous posts about how freakin' hard teaching is. However, what I have found myself thinking about recently is the aspects of teaching that don't seem difficult to understand (at least, to me). I was talking to a friend yesterday about the importance of teaching problem-solving, rather than making kids simply memorize equations the week before a test and I found myself saying "It's not rocket science - they have to be able to think." When I was reading a section in Penny Kittle's book about the way that response to literature essays are really more of a reading assessment than a writing assessment I thought "Duh! Of course it is - if they didn't read and/or understand the piece of literature, it doesn't matter how good their writing skills are - they essays is probably going to suck." I was talking to another colleague about the fact that students become better writers when they write about something they care about for an actual audience, another fact that seemed self-evident. To all of these realities I have seen in my few years of teaching, I say "It's not rocket science . . ." and then I step into the classroom with all of those teenagers staring at me, with the MCAS looming over my head, with the amount of papers I need to read, the journals I need to keep up with, and suddenly all those seemingly basic truths that are the cornerstones of my teaching philosophy seem so much more difficult. It's not that I stop believing in these things, but I do suddenly realize that believing in the importance of students learning problem-solving is one thing - making it happen is something altogether more complicated. So, yes, there are things seem basic to me, and I'm pretty much over debating them or validating them with other people. Instead, I'm ready to move on to the hard part and figure out what to do about it so that my kids learn as much as they can.

Yummy Stuff:
We are officially into farmer's market season here, and it has been fantastic! I didn't get to go to the big farmer's market yesterday since the baby needed to get home for a nap, but in the past month I have done 90% of our shopping at the various markets in our area, and it has been wonderful. I've been thoroughly enjoying raspberries and blackberries, as well as some beautiful and delicious kale and rainbow chard from a local organic farm. Buying what is fresh at the market requires a different kind of meal planning than I am used to, but, luckily, I have the time to do it since I am home for the summer. Instead of planning five meals and shopping on Sunday, I can browse the market on Wednesday and pick up what looks good and try to make up meals that use the yummy veggies and fruit. This has resulted in a couple of dinners that required a bit more creativity on my part, but with mostly tasty results! Here are two recipes that use some farmer's market goodies:

Summer Squash Orzo:
Ingredients:
2 TB olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 small summer squash (I used two small zucchini and one yellow squash) sliced into discs (between 1/4 and 1/2 inch)
8 oz orzo
1/2 bunch fresh basil roughly chopped (or chiffonade if you are fancy)

Directions:
1. Cook the orzo according to the package directions. It usually takes about 8-10 minutes, so get the water going and make sure the orzo is cooking when you start the other steps, since this goes together fast.
2. Saute the garlic in olive oil in a large pan on medium-low heat for about 1 minute. Don't let the garlic burn, but it should be fragrant.
3. Spread the summer squash in the pan and toss to coat with garlic and oil. Let them saute in the pan for about 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally. You can have them saute a few minutes longer if you can't fit them in one layer - just make sure to stir them around so they cook evenly. They should be softened, but not mushy.
4. Whenever the orzo is done, drain it. In a moment you are going to put it in with the squash, but the basil will go first
5. Right before you put in the orzo, stir the basil around with the squash for about 1 minute to get the flavors going. Then, pour in the orzo and stir it around so that it is coated with garlic and oil, and so that the squash and basil get all mixed in.

Serve it up just as it is! This is great warm, but it also makes a good salad right out of the fridge the next day.

Any-Veggie you like with peanut sauce
Ingredients:
About 3 cups of any veggie you would like. I suggest broccoli, green beans, bell peppers or a mix of any of these. I used broccoli that was left over from another recipe
2 cups of cooked quinoa (we had some leftover - you can also make fresh quinoa with 1 cup of quinoa and two cups of water)
8 TB of water divided
1/2 inch square of fresh ginger, peeled and grated (a microplane is great for this)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup of peanut butter
2 TB tamari/soy sauce
1 TB of rice vinegar
1/2 tsp. of Asian red chili paste

Directions:
1. Wash and prep which ever veggies you are using, and put them in a steamer basket. Steam them on low while you prep the peanut sauce - or less if you like them cooked less. As you are cooking occasionally (every 3 minutes or so) check the veggies and take them out of the steamer basket when they are as cooked as you like them.
2. In a small saucepan, saute the ginger and garlic on medium heat in 2 TB of water for 1-2 minutes
3. Add in the peanut butter, tamari, rice vinegar and chili paste. Stir with a whisk.
4. Add in the remaining water a tablespoon at a time, whisking with each addition until the sauce is at your desired consistency.
Serve this by putting down a cup of quinoa, half the veggies and topping that with as much peanut sauce as you like. Obviously this recipe can be altered to match many different preferences (for example - I drowned everything in peanut sauce and the G-man was far more conservative in his sauce coverage) but feel free to mess with it to meet your liking.

A Teacher Voice

Teacher Musings:
I have not written a post for a few months, mostly because I have been on maternity leave. This means that I have not been teaching and have, in fact, felt rather out of the loop when it comes to my school. While I don't miss the school politics and difficult behavior issues, I have found myself missing teaching lately. I am looking forward to getting back to my classroom and my students in September, although I will miss the wonderful time I have now with my little one. There are a lot of changes going on in my school right now, most significantly a change in leadership. As I consider what this means for me and my career at my school, I have also started wondering about what larger changes in education are taking place, especially all that has gone on with Race to the Top in the last few months. I read a number of education blogs, and I have been following Anthony Cody at Living In Dialogue for quite a while and I have been especially excited by his rallying of teacher voices through Teacher Letters to Obama. As I read what he and other teachers have written it has really reminded me of what teacher's voices mean in the discussion about how society can re-shape our education system. Teachers are on the ground and we are the ones who see how policies play out on student's lives. Sometimes this means we can be almost too focused on our immediate realities, but in general I have encountered more teachers that are both able to deal with the urgent needs in front of them while simultaneously taking the long view than teachers who are stuck in their own limited reality. So when I heard Arne Duncan in an NPR interview (I think it was on Talk of the Nation) I was a bit pissed off when I heard him say he was a "teacher" ("well, really an 'educator'" as he put it, since he had been educating his whole life) even though the closest he got to actual classroom teaching experience was helping out his mom in her classroom when he was a kid. I'm not necessarily opposed to educational leaders who do not have classroom teaching experience, although I do think that classroom experience can be a huge asset for obvious reasons. What bothers me most about Ducan's response was the utter lack of respect it shows for teachers and the work they do. If you think that being in the education "field" in an administrative role (oh, and helping out in mom's classroom) makes you qualified as a teacher you really have no clue what it takes to teach - which is scary when you are making far reaching decisions that drastically impact students and teachers.
One of my good friends and I were recently discussing how frustrating it can me when you tell people that you are a teacher and people immediately launch into the their thoughts and opinions about teachers, their experiences as students and then - the final touch - give you advice about what you should do in your professional capacity as a teacher. I am happy to hear about people's classroom experiences but what I resent a bit is the idea that anyone is qualified to tell a teacher what to do if he/she has been a student. I have spent years and countless hours not only doing the work of teaching, but reading, writing, researching, thinking, meeting and engaging in countless hours or honing and improving my craft. When someone suggests that there is some easy fix to makes teachers and schools better (such as "fire the bad teachers," "don't assign busy work for homework - I hated that" or "be really tough with the kids - that worked for me!") it suggests that teaching is simple - and it is not. While I definitely need to hear the outsider perspective to keep me from getting to focused and blinded by my time in the classroom, it is important for those who are not classroom teachers to thoughtfully consider both what they can offer to help teachers and schools improve and what insights they need to get from teachers who have a wealth of knowledge and experience that is too often overlooked or barely touched.
I really didn't plan for this first post back to be a rant. Perhaps part of my frustration is due to the fact that recently I have felt like a bit of an outsider since I have been on leave. When I talk to teacher friends sometimes I have to keep myself from giving advice because I know that I am missing crucial context since I have not been in school for months. On my time away, as I consider new legislation on both the state and federal level, I do feel like the Race to the Top issue has the potential to be a positive step forward for our schools, but I have yet to see people on the federal level really tackling the assessment question. Like many others I am behind the idea of teachers being held accountable for student growth. However, the question becomes how that manifests itself. What I hope is that Race to the Top leads to an overhaul of our assessment systems that start to look at the assessment work that teachers do every day in their classrooms. Perhaps if we look to teachers first, before we look to testing companies, we can find more authentic assessment models (instead of standardized tests) and creatively think about how to use those models on a larger scale. But hey, this is just a teacher talking.

Yummy Stuff:
After my slightly snarky rant, I would like to provide something a bit more palatable - how about a yummy bean recipe! In my current post-pregnancy state I am trying to get back into shape and deal with my changing hormones, so that means returning to what I call my "beans and greens" diet - lots of veggies, fruit and legumes and little starch and very little sugar. This week for dinners we had lots of lentils and bean dishes, but one of my favorites was the black bean soup I veganized from the Easy Beans cookbook. After making it the G-man and I decided that we would like it a bit thicker and with more stuff, so we will add more veggies next time (another carrot and bell pepper) and decrease the stock a bit, but I will give out the version we made this time - it was quite good!
Classic Black Bean Soup (Vegan Style!)
Ingredients:
2 cups dried black beans
3 TB olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
1 red or green bell pepper chopped
1 carrot, peeled and diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
10 cups of veggie broth
4 bay leaves
1/2 tsp savory
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 crushed red pepper
1/2 cup white wine
juice of 1/2 lemon

Directions:
1. Soak beans for 8 hours (I started them soaking when I got up at 7am and then started cooking around 5 pm). When they are done soaking, rinse and drain
2. In a large soup pot, saute the onions, bell pepper and carrot in olive oil for 10 minutes. Then, add the garlic and stir for 1 minute
3. Add beans, stock, bay leaves and savory. Simmer 1 1/2 hours (90 minutes)
4. Remove bay leaves and take 4 cups of the soup mixture and puree in a blender or food processor until smooth. Return mixture to soup pot
5. Add cumin, oregano, crushed red peeper, white wine and lemon juice. Stir well and heat until piping hot.

What I Wish I Had Known (but probably wouldn't have listened to anyway)

Mom Thoughts:
This is going to be a new section of my blog as I have recently gone from being not only a vegan teacher but a vegan mom as well! As I go through the first week and a half of my son's life, I am having some time to reflect back on what I wish I had known. Some of these are things that I don't think anyone told me about, and some of these are things that I know friends and family told me about, but I didn't really get until now!

• Being in labor hurts like nothing else - but it will end, and I did (you can) handle it
• Pushing was the easiest part because I had some control over it (this may not be the case for everyone, but it was comforting to me!)
• Eat lots of iron-rich foods before you go into labor!
• When you are in labor have at least one person in the room who has gone through it and/or that you are willing to listen to and trust
• Trust your instincts - especially when you are overwhelmed with information from the rest of the world
• In the first couple weeks there will be little or no pattern or routine to your life - learn to live with it. It will not always be this way (or so I'm told)
• After giving birth about the only thing your body is capable of doing is feeding your child. Let everyone else do other stuff for you
• Don't feel guilty or upset if you find breastfeeding both difficult and boring
• People want to do things to help you - let them!!!
• There are a million different emotions you can have with regards to your baby that range from frustration, indifference, joy and excitement - and you will probably have them all at various points. That is how it is - don't get stressed about it.
  
• If the baby is calm and quiet but awake, you are allowed to put him/her down and do something for yourself, whether it is sleep, eat, take a bath or call a friend
• Babies make funny faces that may or may not mean anything yet
• Being a mom doesn't stop you from being the person you were before - its an added piece, not a whole new identity. Don't be afraid to do things you would normally do, even if others find it strange

Teacher Musings:
Well, my brain has not been fully teacher engaged recently. After a month away from the classroom, I can already feel my teacher sense atrophying as it did when I was a literacy coach - only now it is more so since I am not in a school at all. However, I did, finally, get to read through some work e-mails this weekend and give some feedback on a possible writing prompt we would use to assess student writing in grades 9-12. The prompt uses a few quotes from articles in it, but also gives students the choice of using their own experiance as evidence to write about social networking in the internet age. For me this brought up one of the issues I grapple with constantly as an English teacher. When we are trying to teach students how to develop their ideas in writing, often we are asking them to write about things they have read. Obviously this is important, since the majority of the writing they will do, both in college and in professional settings, will be based on some text they have read. While I might take issue with teaching them literary analysis as an isolated skill, I do recognize the importance of being able to craft an argument in an essay based on a text (or several texts). However, when I read the students' writing, and they seem to be struggling, sometimes I don't know if there struggle is in the writing itself (i.e. they need to be better taught how to craft an argument, etc.) or is based on the fact that they really didn't understand the text that they read. Sometimes I have assumed that students have a "writing problem" only to find out that if I ask them to write about a text that they read and understood the write fairly well. Interestingly enough, I have also found that when I "explain" a text to them (i.e. they didn't really get it on their own and I force fed the ideas from it to them) their writing about that text still seems problematic. So, while I do find it useful to assess some aspects of writing independent of reading, the two still are so inextricably linked, and it is impossible to teach one without detail with the other in the day-to-day teaching. As someone who likes things organized and compartmentalized, this has been difficult for me both comprehend, and figure out what to do. I still don't know, but I do have ideas for how to better integrate the two next year, starting with using writing to help them understand their reading (both through annotation - which I already teach - and short written responses to reading, which I started to do this year and found very useful).

Yummy Stuff:
With a new baby in the house, I have not done much cooking at all, and G-man has only done a bit more. Luckily we have amazing friends who know we are vegan and are still willing (and often excited!) to cook with us! Just a side note - babies are supposed to gain their birth weight back by the time their two weeks old - if they are not on track to do that they may not be getting enough to eat. My son gained all but one ounce of his birth weight back by one week after been breastfed exclusively by his vegan mom. Not enough protein my butt!! My point is that both me and my son are thriving on our whole-foods plant-based vegan diet and loving it!

Now, with not having a lot of time to cook, we had to strategies our meals a bit. This included getting some "easy to make" options from the store. I thought I would share some of the things we made last week (while G-man was home) for anyone else out there with limited time or energy on their hands.

• Trader Joe's frozen pizza (veggies without cheese!)
• Trader Joe's black bean enchiladas (again, no cheese and with yummy tofu and veggies!)
• Trader Joe's 17 bean soup (comes in a pack with dried beans - you need some celery, onions and bell pepper with it, and I recommend adding some spices, but it is easy and really good!)
• Homemade chili (beans pre-made before the baby and ready to go in the fridge)
• Tofu scramble with Trader Joe's frozen stir-fry veggies (to minimize chopping time)
• Pre-made and frozen mushroom and rice casserole (recipe from Vegetarian Times)
• And of course whatever your friends bring you (we got some amazing dal and several rounds of Darwin's sandwiches - thank god for that! Also some friends brought us frozen cookie dough and bags of spinach - the spinach helped me build my iron stores back up and the cookies were so comforting on this last rainy weekend!)

Collaboration and Maternity Leave Reflection

Teacher Musings:
Well, its been a whirlwind of a few months since I last posted, although the days go by much slower now. I have been officially on maternity leave for over a week, and I spent the time from Christmas break until my leave working hard to make the transition as painless as possible for the amazing teacher who is taking over my classroom. I am incredibly lucky that my students will continue to get taught, not babysat, while I am away.
In these last few months I have really found myself having to acknowledge one of my many weaknesses - I struggle to collaborate with other people. Let me be specific - I really enjoy and get a lot out of sharing ideas and discussing pedagogy with other teachers. These conversations have always improved my practice, and I really enjoy the process of taking ideas or even just germs of ideas from these conversations and making them my own. But (and you knew there was a but) what I struggle with is collaboration that involves an aligned curriculum. I am currently on a team with two of the most thoughtful and talented teachers I have ever worked with, and we have been lucky enough to have my equally thoughtful and insightful replacement planning with us for the last nine weeks. That means four thoughtful, interesting and dedicated teachers have been trying to align themselves with each other - and it has been damn hard (at least for me). What I have realized during my week of reflection (giving me ample time to read some teacher books and magazines I have been ignoring) is that part of the difficulty of this type of collaboration, for me, lies in the apparent similarity of all the people at the table. All of us our somewhat experienced teachers, but we all want to improve, and all of us know we don't necessarily have the "best" way of doing things. While we have similar goals and share some basic principles on the surface, I am starting to suspect that the actual goals and principles that drive our teaching may be just different enough to cause some tension without being able to pinpoint where that tension resides. Often as a group we will come up with a plan, or an assignment, or a reading, that seems fine at the time, but then when I go to use it, I realize that there are problems I didn't see. Most of this is due to a lack of time - we don't get nearly enough planning time together, and the time we do have is often squished between classes, which is not always conducive to real work. However, I have also realized that I have some strong beliefs and principles that drive my teaching that I was not acknowledging to myself or to the group. This meant I was pushing back on some ideas without knowing exactly why, which was frustrating to me, and I'm sure frustrating to others as well. So, in the last week I have decided to really reflect on and think about the principles that drive my own decision making on teaching, and really critically think about how those principles are useful and not useful. I am hoping that this will make me both a better teacher and collaborator next year. I think that the more transparent I am with myself and others, the more productive any planning can be.

Yummy Stuff:
Whenever I am feeling stressed or down (which has been off and on the last few months - its hard to tell what is mood swings and what is stress!) I love to have breakfast for dinner. For me, there is nothing more exciting than waffles and tofu scramble at the end of a long day - it feels like a special treat! Tofu scramble is one of those things that I have seen recipes for, but never used one recipe - instead I have taken ideas from a lot of places, but essentially made my own. So, here is one of MANY versions of a delicious tofu scramble:

Tofu Scramble:
Ingredients:
1 block of firm or extra firm tofu (your choice)
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 a small onion, chopped
1 1/2 cup of chopped veggies (Your choice - I often use a stir-fry mix from Trader Joes, or veggie leftovers from other dinners. I suggest broccoli, bell pepper, mushrooms and carrots as a good start)
1 1/2 TB of tamari/soy sauce
1 TB cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried ginger
1/2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp turmeric

Directions:
1. Drain the tofu and crumble it over a saute pan with you hands. I like to have big chunks that break down more when cooking, but you can crumble it to the consistency you want.
2. Cook the tofu over medium heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring every once in while - not too much (maybe 2-3 times). You can drain out some of the water that will appear if you want - it will help make a firmer scramble.
3. Push the tofu to the side of the pan and pur in the oil. Saute the onions for 5 minutes
4. Put in the rest of the veggies with onion and saute for 3-5 more minutes. Then, mix the veggies in with the tofu.
5. Pour in the tamari and stir it around to coat all of the tofu and veggies.
6. Put in all the other spices EXCEPT for the turmeric. Stir around to coat the tofu and veggies
7. Finally, put in the turmeric and stir it thoroughly so that it coats all the tofu. This will give it that nice yellow look, along with some flavor.
8. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the veggies are cooked through. Enjoy (with waffles!)

Did they learn what I taught?

Teacher Musings:
As I sit here at 2 am, I am unable to sleep for several reasons. The main one has to do with the little one who has decided to spend all night kicking me in the ribs. However, as I have been lying around trying to sleep I find myself thinking about school and teaching. I don't know if writing some of my reflections down will help to end the karate chops, but hopefully it will prove insightful when I re-read it in a more awake state.
I have always been strong believer in backward planning, and I cannot truly conceive of any other way to plan and teach. I also see backward planning as intricately tied to actual learning objectives. To me, backward planning means clearly explaining what you want a student to be able to do independently by the end of the year, and then plan instruction and assessments from there that both teach and then measure whatever it is that you are working towards. In my ideal situation this is all fairly linear, clear and stays on track through a school year and from unit to unit.
However, like all things with teaching, their is often a gap between my ideal and the reality I encounter (which is not necessarily a bad thing - I'm not entirely convinced that my ideal is the "right" way to go). In the last two weeks I have taught my students about finding details and using them to find the main idea in non-fiction pieces. So far we have focused on narrative non-fiction and expository non-fiction. Next week we are going to read editorials, and the first day will put the teaching that I have already done to the test. I'm somewhat anxious to find out if they can identify the details in the editorial, the reasons the author uses those details, and as a result of all this, the author's message in the editorial. On one hand, I expect that most of them (with a few exceptions that I know need some extra interventions) will be able to do this, based on the formative assessments I have already given. However, this is the part of teaching that I still struggle with. I want to see if they are meeting my expectations. If they are not, I will re-teach what I need to teach. However, if they aren't doing what I thought they should be able to do, what does that say about our work for the past two weeks? What could I have done better? Is that precious time wasted, or should I look at it as a learning experience for myself? On one hand, this dilemma is a demonstration of the benefits of backwards planning - the work we did before is informing the next steps in instruction. However, this also means what I taught will be needed and measured which could easily point out my complete failure to teach what I thought I taught.

Yummy Stuff:
One of my favorite dinners is Warm Chickpea Salad from the "Voluptuous Vegan" I've made it so much that I don't need to recipe any more, but this is pretty close to the actual one in the book!

Ingredients
3 cups of cooked chickpeas (equivalent of two cans)
1 onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 stalk of celery, chopped
1 can of artichoke hearts (whole or quartered - if they are whole, cut them in halves or quarters depending on your preference).
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes (you can use dried, but rehydrate them in boiling water for about 10 minutes first)
1/4 olive oil plus a bit more for sauteing
3 TB lemon juice
1 TB fresh rosemary, chopped

Directions:
1) Pour the chickpeas into a bowl
2) Saute the onions, garlic and celery in olive oil over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until onion is translucent. Then, pour this mixture over the chickpeas
3) Put a bit more oil in the pan, and then put in the artichoke hearts so that they are spread out in one layer. Cook them on medium heat for about 5 minutes, and then flip them over to cook on the other side for five minutes more. Then put them in with the chickpea mix.
4) Chop up the rehydrated sun dried tomatoes (if needed) and put them in the chickpea mix
5) Mix the 1/4 of olive oil, lemon juice and rosemary in a separate bowl to make a dressing. Then pour it over the chickpea mix and mix it up. Serve on its own or over some greens.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Musings:
Things I am Thankful For:
1) My amazing partner who is truly my best friend and the reason I can get up in the morning and do any good in the world.
2) My family who I remain close to even across the country. They have never made me feel bad about our move, are endlessly supportive and we have somehow found ways to maintain a close relationship, for which I am very grateful.
3) My dear friends who are really my family. I love that I spent last weekend with one of my best friends sharing a house in Philly, and the night before Thanksgiving in my sweats at another friends house enjoying indian food and good company. I have so many people in my life with whom I am completely comfortable, and I never thought I would be so lucky.
4) The fact that no one had to be hurt or die for me and my husband to enjoy a beautiful Thanksgiving spread (more on that later!) Becoming vegan and getting together with the G-man were the two best decisions of my life (don't ask me to rank them!)
5) I am still doing a job I love that never leaves me bored. I love the planning, I love the students, I love my colleagues and I love the joy that comes with making a small different in so many lives. I found a career I can really see myself doing forever, and I'm lucky to have found it so early.
6) The little things - drinking green tea on a cool rainy morning, listening to "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" with a cat on my lap, reading a really good book, etc.

Here is to you and yours this holiday season!

Yummy Stuff:
We had an AMAZING Thanksgiving dinner (yes, just me and the G-man - and Nuzzle!) We had:
1) Vegan Pot pie (from Vegetarian Times with some modifications)
2) Bourbon-Laced Sweet Potatoes
3) My mom's stuffing - delicious (and easily veganized - just use veggie broth rather than (ewww) turkey juice)
4) Garlic-mashed potatoes
5) Pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon icing (a la Vegan Cupcakes take over the world!)

So, the pot pie was good, the stuffing was great (my favorite part) but the G-man's garlic mashed potatoes were AWESOME!! Since he makes them a little different every year, and this year was possibly the best, I thought it best to capture what he did - so we can remember next year :)

G-man's Garlic Mashed Potatoes:

Ingredients
About 4 large (or 7 small to medium) yellow potatoes
One head of garlic
About 1 1/2 TB of olive oil
1/4 original Almond Milk (feel free to use any non-dairy milk)
1 TB Earth Balance (vegan margarine)

Directions:
1) Pour the olive oil over the garlic and wrap the garlic in foil. Roast it in a 400 degree oven (or toaster oven) for 1 hour)
2) Meanwhile, peel and thinly slice the potatoes. As you work on the potatoes and finish slicing them put them in a bowl of cold water - this keeps them fresher.
3) Put the potatoes in a pot and cover them with water. Bring the potatoes to a boil, and keep them boiling for 15-20 minutes - until they are very soft.
5) Get the roasted garlic out of the oven, peel it and mince it. This is messy since the garlic is soft and squishy when it is roasted - you could also use a food processor for this step if you have a small one (or small bowl in a larger food processor)
4) Drain the potatoes and put them in a bowl. Add the minced roasted garlic, the almond milk, salt, pepper and Earth Balance. Use a potato masher (or a pastry cutter in our case - we don't have a potato masher) to mash the potatoes.
5) Serve! Or, if its going to be a little while, put the potatoes in a oven-proof container and stick it the oven (at whatever temperature it is at for your other dishes) to keep warm. Definitely a hit!

Reflection and Confidence

Teacher Musings
Tonight was my grad school night, where I run out of school at 3:15 and take various forms of public transportation to UMass Boston. This semester I am taking a philosophy class, which has been really interesting and has been an enjoyable experiance since much of the "philosophical" way of thinking that our instructor wants us to engage in is very different from the real-world, pragmatic thinking I find myself usually engaging in. I don't know if it is this type of thinking environment, or just the fact that this is often my only time away from a computer and other distractions, but I often find myself reflecting on both my teaching practice and on my values in teaching during this class (especially when the professor, with his soothing, very, very quiet voice, talks for more than 20 minutes). I find myself really questioning if my actual instruction (such as my focus on theme in The Color Purple during the last two weeks) is matching my philosophy about education (that it should be both skills-based as well as driven by the learner/student). During these times when I have little else to do but doodle and let my mind wander (I'm not kidding about my professor's soothing voice) I find myself questioning both my actions and my beliefs in a way I have never done before. When I think about why I am engaging in this self-questioning now, I think there are several reasons. The first is having time in which to do it - it is rare that my attention is not diverted away from truly deep thought. However, I think the second is important - I am now more confident in myself as a teacher, which allows me to question myself. This might seem paradoxical, but to question my motivations and beliefs in this way my first or second year would have been the equivalent to asking myself if I was really cut out for this work, which was a much scarier thing to face. At this point (after a scant 6 years, I know) I not only know I want to be a teacher, but really feel like I AM a teacher. It is so intricately tied into my sense-of-self at this point that I can't conceive of losing it - which is part of what allows me to feel that my questioning is building me up as a teacher, not potentially driving me away from teaching. So, I am dedicating myself to finding more time for this type of deep thinking and reflection when this class is done - it might just be that I allow myself to go sit at a coffee shop with a notebook and think for thirty minutes - and I think it will be time well spent.

Yummy Stuff:
It is interesting thinking about my identity as a teacher, since I feel like my identity as a vegan has evolved in a similar way. I am now in my second year at a job where I have always been "vegan" and people just understand that is who I am. I also don't even think about being vegan much anymore unless I am eating out - its just how things are, and I really don't miss dairy, eggs and meat, even when I find myself using "substitutes" which I now like better than the animal-riddled versions. So, in that spirit, I thought I would share a couple of my favorite snacks that might seem like vegan adaptations but are really just some of my favorite goodies!!

Nachos:
Lately I have been really wanting nachos. I recently made a huge batch of salsa rice when my in-laws were over, so with that on hand I heated up 1/2 a can of vegetarian refried black beans and the rice. I put down a layer of chips on a plate and then spread the beans and rice combination over them. I topped it with salsa and sliced black olives. Really simple and really yummy, especially when watching football!

Fried Won tons
I used to love what my sister and I called "crab meat cheese fried won tons" at our local chinese food restaurant. I had never heard them called crab ragoons until I came out to the east coast. Needless to say, I don't put crab in mine. Instead, I mix vegan cream cheese with some chopped scallions and put about 1 tsp. in a won ton wrapper. Then I use my finger, dipped in water, to moisten all the edges of the wrapper, and fold it in half so that it ends up in a triangle. Finally, after heating some canola oil on medium for about four minutes I fry up the won tons - about 2 minutes on each side. When they are done I get all the yummy gooeyness of the cream cheese and crispy-ness of the won ton without any little crabs getting sacrificed - a good deal all around!