franco sarto – Teachers Have Lives Too!

I just finished a 3 day Science as Thinking institute through PEBC. It was amazing and I learned oh so much about inquiry and how to foster real, valuable, scientific thinking in students. Actual learning through teaching for understanding. We were given this brilliant book and I’m in the process of devouring it. The institute was all Expeditionary Learning stuff without actually calling it Expeditionary Learning. That ‘rigor’ that was so elusive and confusing to me before? I totally get it now! That ‘discourse’ that was so forced before? I know how to make it more authentic and natural now! If you’re in a school that values quality professional development and a budget exists for PD, I would recommend checking out PEBC – they run institutes for all the core subjects.

I’m in my 7th year of teaching science. I learned how to teach through an intern program. It was trial by fire (literally – some kids lit a fire in my room one day). I developed some very bad ‘survival’ habits to lesson planning those first 2 years. In my credentialing program, I learned that ‘inquiry’ meant doing labs (science teachers, you know what I’m talking about) and having students predict and explain through modeling real word phenomena. Lastly, I make my kids take notes, and my assessments this year are unit tests. Shock horror. All joking aside though, I am very seriously reconsidering what I am doing as a science teacher. What are my kids actually learning?

I’m feeling the need to scrap everything I do and start from scratch. This past week has been somewhat soul shaking (a little dramatic, maybe?) for me. I may be in the midst of a yet another teacher existential crisis.

New additions to my closet and a glass of wine are helping me weather this crisis tonight. I have a new coat! This Madewell City Grid Coat was on super sale and I justified the purchase by rationalizing away the fact that I have my favorite Arcteryx and another similar coat (but none of them are warm and black!) already hanging in my closet.

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glasses: warby parker – coat: madewell – cardigan and blouse: uniqlo – jeans: 3×1 – boots: franco sarto

I have finally reached adulthood, people. I bought a house here in Denver – last May. This is not news to people who know me (I can’t ever stop talking about it), but it is news to the blog. Yup, B and I are now officially adults with adult type responsibilities such as mowing the lawn and making mortgage payments. This also means that my conscience gets a whirl every day – B and I are gentrifiers. Seriously, we are – Slate Magazine confirms it. This means that I am one of those people who drive out economic and cultural diversity from “up and coming” neighborhoods because it’s the new hip area to move into. And boy is it hip. There are about 6 awesome micro-breweries within walking distance, and we regularly hear gun shots in the night. Recognizing that I am a gentrifier puts me in a tizzy, since my hometown is experiencing all kinds of turmoil with gentrification and the homogenizing of culture. Hell, even B and I have been priced out of SF considering we could never afford to buy in the city. So I try my best to remember this article on how not to be a gentrifier.

Now that I am an adult with adult responsibilities, I felt the need to dress like a child today. This is a new top from Anthropologie (super sale, as always) with a very child-like collar. I dig it, Alexa Chung style. The lipstick, by the way, is a cheap find from Wet n’ Wild (Plumegenue, by the Fergie collection) and I highly recommend it.

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