Fall Apples

My granddaughter will be ten months old in October. The time has flown by! But as she gets a little older, and as fall approaches, I am getting very excited about re-living some of my favorite fall traditions with my little one.

I love the apples of fall! I remember when I was growing up one of the fundraisers for our church was baking and selling apple dumplings at the fall festival. Members of the congregation would get together on Friday of the festival weekend. The church kitchen and social hall would be a-buzz with activity. Some folks were mixing and rolling dough and others were peeling and coring apples.

One year, I brought my boyfriend to help with the preparation. I figured if he could endure the whole apple dumpling event he could endure most anything! He laughed and joked with the ladies of the church as we rolled out the dough for so many apple dumplings! We took some home and baked them. There’s nothing like a warm apple dumpling with some ice cream on the side.

Apples are also great for cider. We usually head out to McCutcheon’s or Baugher’s in Westminster to pick up our stock. I love mulling cider in the fall. Sitting in the kitchen and looking out at the beautifully colored leaves while I sip my cider is always a well spent fall afternoon.

And what would fall be without apple pie! I cannot wait to bake my first apple pie with my granddaughter. I hope she enjoys being in my kitchen as much as I enjoyed spending time with my grandmother in hers. A grandmother’s kitchen always smells like heaven.

Now, I’m not much of a cook, but I do hope that my little girl and I spend some wonderful times in the kitchen together. And that boyfriend with all of the dumpling experience, well,he learned enough about peeling apples and rolling dough that I decided to keep him! I’m sure he’d be more than willing to help us girls with our apple adventures in the kitchen.

Fall is such a beautiful time of the year. I cannot wait to share it with my granddaughter!

Teachers and Education

School is back in session and everyone is excited about the upcoming academic year. I have always believed that success in school takes teamwork, in particular, a team of three: student, parents, and teacher.

I have been teaching for more than a dozen years. Those years have been filled with stress, lots of work, some tears, many smiles, and joy. At times, I have been frustrated with the system, parents, students, and myself. And yet I have also been elated at times with the system, parents, students, and myself. Teaching is a challenging, stressful, time-consuming career that I absolutely adore.

I have had the opportunity to watch students grow, to experience things they never dreamed of, and to meet challenges they never thought possible. I have shared joys and sorrows with my colleagues, many of whom have become dear friends.

Each school year starts with excitement; new faces, new clothes, new hair. Hopes are high and everyone begins with a clean slate. By winter break, we’re all tired, beginning to wear out, and in deep need of a vacation. The New Year begins everything anew, but the snows of winter and the cold mornings heading out before the sun gets up make everyone wonder if the school year will ever come to an end.

But summer does always manage to show its face and a long respite from school begins. These things happen over and over again, and yet each year it feels so new!

I won’t sleep the night before school, not much anyway. I’ll toss and turn wondering if I have enough handouts for the first day, what my students will look like, how they’ll behave. I lie awake thinking about what types of projects we can come up with, how I can convince my principal to let me try something wild and crazy! I worry that I might not be able to help all of my students. What if they don’t understand and I can’t figure out how to teach them? I try to solve all of the problems of the world that night before school!

I’ll wake up the first day of school with butterflies and I won’t be able to eat a thing for breakfast. As a teacher, I think that I’ll be just as excited as my students. Full of energy and ready to go! Here’s to a great school year!

This blog post appeared in my column, "The Empty Nest," in the Frederick News Post on Sunday, September 2, 2012.

Students and Education

School is back in session and everyone is excited about the upcoming academic year. I have always believed that success in school takes teamwork, in particular, a team of three: student, parents, and teacher.

I recently read Tony Wagner’s book Creating Innovators. In the book, he talks about how education needs to involve play, passion, and purpose in order to be effective in creating innovators. The author interviewed several successful innovators who shared their experiences of playing at school and about teachers who encouraged them and tailored activities to things the students were passionate about.

The key to those activities was the communication that occurred between teacher, student, and parents. When students shared their interests and their passions, teachers used their resources and parental support to create lesson plans that were student focused. Students then became engaged and excited about school. But communication, especially for young people, can sometimes be difficult.

Often the teacher is the last person a student feels comfortable approaching. The stern looks in the classroom that first week (because all teachers know that if you smile before Christmas you lose complete control of your classroom) can be a bit intimidating for certain students. But students should learn not to be afraid of stating their thoughts. If you’re a parent, grandparent, friend, or neighbor of a student, encourage him or her to communicate thoughts to the teacher.

Now, right in the middle of class might not be the perfect time to communicate these thoughts, so you might encourage students to find time right before or right after school. Students can certainly send thoughts to teachers in notes. I’ve received some beautiful notes before from my students that were quite eye-opening in terms of their opinions and beliefs.

If you attend parent conferences, and if you don’t I strongly encourage you to do so, bring your student along! I learn so much about my students when I can sit and chat with them and their parents. It’s a great opportunity to share whether your child has an A or an F in the class. Communication is a tool for improving education.

Students need to recognize that their education is theirs and that their thoughts are valid, and in many instances, very helpful. Communication is a skill that they will need to be successful in their adult lives.

Communication takes effort, but every little bit helps! Here’s to a successful school year!

Parents and Education

School is back in session and everyone is excited about the upcoming academic year. I have always believed that success in school takes teamwork, in particular, a team of three: student, parents, and teacher.

In a recent article in USA Weekend, actor Tony Danza wrote about his experience spending a year teaching in an urban high school. One of the things that struck him the most was the absence of parents in schooling. Mr. Danza encouraged parents to be actively involved in the schooling of their children.

So, how does one become involved in schooling? To begin with, it requires the commitment of time. It takes time at the end of the day to ask your child probing questions, not the typical “how was your day?” But things like “what did you do in Math class today?”, “who did you sit with at lunch?”, “what did you talk about in English class?” Don’t ever let your child get away with a simple yes or no response. Keep asking until they tell you what really happened. With my son, it sometimes took ten to fifteen questions before I got more than a “yes” or a grunt.

Ask a teacher how you can help out. Running a copy machine is a great gift to offer any teacher. There are always handouts that need to be copied and your spending fifteen minutes at that machine is fifteen minutes more that your child’s teacher has to spend on teaching.

Volunteer to chaperone a field trip or a school event. When my children were in elementary school, my husband was the preferred parent chaperone. My kids enjoyed having Dad tag along on museum trips or science center adventures. My husband was able to meet their friends, have lunch with them, and spend quality time observing the interactions of his son and daughter.

Offer to purchase supplies or materials for the classroom. So many teachers spend their own money to make sure the needs of all of the students in the class are met. This sometimes means buying extra notebooks or scissors or paper. Just making a telephone call to offer this assistance will give you the opportunity to speak to your child’s teacher, and the offer will be greatly appreciated.

Attend Back-to-School night, walk into your child’s classroom, take a look at where he or she sits. Teachers are very willing to share their goals for the school year and talk about what the students will be learning.

Parent involvement in the schools just takes time, and every little bit helps! Here’s to a great school year!