Dreaming of Wishing Wells

Here's some of what I've been up to lately: I took these two lovely ladies to Chick Fil A for a Halloween party. It was the first time I've done something fun with my students outside of school, and it was really nice. Yes, it made for a very long day. But it was totally worth it to see how much fun they were having. Plus they're both very quiet in class, so it was great to see them come out of their shells. They were very giggly! Friday we had a school-wide Harvest Festival. Each class painted a pumpkin. I had a lot of fun painting the pumpkin with my class. Somehow everyone got along and no one argued about how the pumpkin should look. We named ours Benjamin, after a student who was on my class roster the first day but then never came. So we sometimes talk about him, cause I made a cubby and nametag for him and stuff. The day I wore my glasses to school (and apparently looked like Harry Potter), I kept taking them off and calling my students Benjamin, which they thoug...

It's a quiet Friday night, and I'm waiting for a new recipe to finish baking in the oven, so I thought I'd sneak in a blog entry. This recipe is not very impressive or exciting (like the black bean and sweet potato chili I made for dinner), but I am expecting it to be delicious. Quick caramel rolls...yum. I'm making them cause I have a squeeze bottle full of caramel syrup and nothing to do with it. It's mostly just caramel and Pillsbury crescent rolls. This is the first blatantly unhealthy thing I've made this year, and I feel OK about that. So I'm just sitting here smelling my caramel-y delicious treat and thinking about my week. It was a big week of changes at Urban Promise School, namely the departure of two teachers, which when you only had seven teachers to start with, is a big deal. They were the two first year teachers. One left for another job in a public school district, and one is going to be doing a different kind of work with the ministry. So jus...

I saw Waiting for "Superman" yesterday. Kristin offered to go with me, and she was great person to go with. I really liked the movie. David Guggenheim did a great job of making you care about the children that the movie follows as they try to get into a charter school. And I liked how he illustrated the statistics with little cartoon people. Honestly, I was expecting the movie to be more controversial. I'd heard different groups (especially teachers' unions) were boycotting it. I left the movie feeling really sad that people were refusing to see it or saying it was evil. Because really the message of the movie was that we need to work together to make sure children get a better education. I guess some teachers are angry because the movie didn't say much about parents who need to do their part and be more involved in their child's education. True. But the movie gave examples of schools that are being very effective at education children from low-income families...

I've still been extra busy with school stuff, and I've been thinking about school a lot, so I feel like writing something that's mostly not about school. Let's see...this might not be too exciting. Yesterday the girl who cut my hair asked me what I like to do for fun, and I literally said, "Uhhhh..." until she asked me another question. I hate answering that question. Yes, I do things for fun, but I never feel like they are exciting enough to say to someone to answer the question. Like I like reading (even though I don't do it too much) and watching my TV shows and going for walks. I feel like that sounds kind of lame. I feel like I should say I like rock climbing and going clubbing and writing bestselling novels or something like that. Speaking of haircut...I got my hair cut. All my hairs. I'm expecting at least 1 kid will tell me I look like a boy tomorrow. But I like it, and it's been a couple years since I last got lots of hair chopped off, whi...