Felicities

Things to be happy about:

*family fun time
My brother and his fiancee Erin arrived in San Diego on Tuesday night. Having the whole family together is cause enough for celebration, but having the family together while also enjoying Mexican food and a Padres game that the Padres actually win? Perfection. Michael and Erin have remained rather elusive, but I will be sure to capture them on film before the weekend is over.

{chips and queso at Miguel's}

{What the hell? Mo and Buckley - super weird, as per usual.}

* flowering trees
You have to pay attention in order to appreciate the seasons in Southern California, but it's really worth it when you do. All of San Diego's streets are lined in purple right now thanks to the Jacaranda trees.

*live music, specifically Melly Frances and the Distilled Spirits
I always enjoy watching Tom do what he loves...plus, they're damn good.

*sincere apologies
The other day one of my students was being particularly challenging (that's the nice way of saying that he was acting like an ass), and among other things, he intentionally broke one of my colored pencils. In the moment, he expressed no remorse. I asked him why he thought it was okay to destroy my belongings, and he answered, "Whatever, it's only a pencil!" I was furious, but the next day he sheepishly handed me the following note.

{Clearly, we need to do some more work on verb tense.}

Focusing on the Positive

A student brought these to me the other day.

They were obviously stolen from the little rose garden outside of the front office at school, but I chose not to ask. I chose instead to focus on the sweet gesture and the beautiful flowers...just like I am currently choosing to focus on the kid who asked me to help her "use really smart vocabulary" in her letter to the governor of Arizona and not the fact that my job ends June 4th andthe the education system is hopelessly broken.

Deep Breaths

I did an introductory activity today that required students to list five U.S. states. Answers included: Los Angeles, Canada, Baja California, Cuba, Chicago, and-I'm not kidding here-China. Later, during a conversation about the largest states, the same student again shouted, "China!" I made him repeat after me three times, "China is a country." Explaining the difference between cities, states, and countries was the bulk of my instruction today.

Yesterday, I spent a solid fifteen minutes explaining the basic premise of the Civil War so that they could understand a passing reference to the Confederate flag in a reading we were doing about the Civil Rights Movement... Did I mention that I teach 9th grade?

Indoctrination Part II

My food props for the Super Size Me lesson... Part of my little intro/pre-assessment was giving the kids three foods (peanuts/peanut butter/peanut butter cups or corn on the cob/popcorn/Doritos) and having them put them in order from least to most processed. I am proud to say that I had to go out and buy all of the examples of the super-processed food since we didn't have any on hand... Less proud to say that the Doritos aren't in the picture because I let the kids eat them.  They are so much quieter when they are stuffing themselves with high fructose corn syrup...

I also had the students take an anonymous survey on their eating habits and activity levels. After they finished, I collected the surveys, redistributed them, and had the students mark the responses on chart paper on the walls. I was pleasantly surprised by their answers to many of the questions. The vast majority know how to cook, eat a home-cooked meal with their families three to five times a week, and eat fresh fruits and vegetables on a regular basis.

I realize that this may look like my students are serious booze hounds, but they were supposed to indicate how many sugary, non-water or milk drinks they have a day.

Despite the fact that every single kid said that fast food was very unhealthy...

most of them eat it once a week or more with McDonald's and Jack in the Box battling it out for their fast food eatery of choice.

After the survey, they calculated their BMIs, figured out their caloric needs, and took an online quiz on "portion distortion" where they had to guess the number of calories in the average muffin, Starbucks drink, bagel, etc. I also showed them a couple of clips from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution in the hopes that they might get fired up about the disgusting food they are served at school. Plus, I wanted to gross them out with the clip where Jamie shows us where chicken nuggets come from. It is alarming at best.

They returned from lunch bragging about the healthy choices they had made, fluorescent orange fingers, however, told a different story... After lunch we watched Super Size Me, and they were appropriately horrified.  I am hoping that the graphic images of Morgan Spurlock throwing up his Big Mac, the footage of the gastric bypass surgery, plus the truly alarming bonus footage of the french fries that seem to be preserved in formaldehyde will be enough to keep them away from the Golden Arches at least until Monday....