Month: September 2007

– Back to school

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At an orientation for students involved in a bridge-to-college program, in which we offer enhanced, personal support to students who, in high school, were academically shaky, we asked them to put their heads together and come up with a list of characteristics delineating the “ideal instructor.”

What Makes a Good Teacher (according to students)

  • likes questions
  • loves what she or he is teaching
  • hardworking
  • dedicated to helping students achieve
  • active
  • could be fun in class
  • engaged in class
  • is like a friend
  • outgoing
  • is into it

Those items are all exact quotes. My favorite, and the most simply profound, is the last one. Personally, I don’t have a dog-and-pony show and, as anyone who knows me can tell you, I can’t tell jokes. I hope I’m a friend to my students, but I’m not a buddy. What I can do is show my students I’m “into it” — whether I’m in class or a tutorial — by engaging in what I want them to engage in. When they read in class, I read. When they puzzle, I puzzle with. When they write, I write. And I’m into it. Interested in an example? Continue reading →

– Eat the green

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Backyard farmers have been harvesting ripe, yielding-to-the-touch tomatoes for a few weeks now. There are still plenty of greenish ones on the vine or a kitchen windowsill, hanging out there, awaiting more sun and their own readiness. Some will ripen; some will not.

The gardener, and the eater too, seek the ideal — a ripe, tart and sweet, dripping tomato that matches the memory of a tomato enjoyed, sliced and salted on a plate, in the shady backyard of youth. Waiting for it, they miss today’s chance to eat something very delicious indeed.

Last year, after school started and summer segued into fall, my neighbor Susan gave up on the last of her tomato plants and handed a cache of the stubborn green ones to me. In August, I had eaten a tastebud-altering fried green tomato BLT at a cafe in Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard. Wanting to replicate the meal, I leafed through cookbooks in the house. In the index of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, under “Tomato(es),” I discovered two for “green”: pan-fried, and salsa.

Green tomatoesAbout the green tomato salsa, Jimmy said, “This is one of the ten best things I have eaten in my life.” The kids and my friend Julie and I sat around the kitchen table in the afternoon with tortilla chips and, when they were gone, spoons, and ate it all. Last week, after fruitlessly searching for unripe tomatoes at the Newton Farmers’ Market, my friend Pam gave me the only one she had. Later, I called Susan, who was such a reliable supplier last summer, and cadged another one. From that tiny yield, I fried enough for two BLTs, and a little extra taste for the cook.

Resist perfectionism: Stop thinking of those green tomatoes on overgrown, leggy vines as works in progress. Pick them; prepare and eat them. Recipes are here. The experience might make you wonder, as Jimmy did as we cleaned up the sandwich mess, “What does ‘done’ mean?”

[Photo credit: Eli Guterman.]

– Feed your head

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This curious writing exercise, from Pat Schneider’s Writing Alone and with Others, is unlike any I’ve done before. To begin, I had to put aside my internal language and “blank out,” in a way.

Imagine yourself looking down into a deep well. You are safe, comfortable, looking over the edge and down. You can see the surface of the water far, far down. As you watch the water, allow images to rise to the surface and float there, then recede again below the surface as other images rise. Do this as long as you want, then write whatever comes to you. (70)

I don’t want to say more and risk infiltrating your ruminations with mine. Just try it.