Why my head hurts

Quick lesson on local foods...

Student Suggestion: Chicken.

Other Student's Response: You can't grow chicken!

Teacher: Okay, where does chicken come from? (Trying hard not to look straight at the chicken egg incubator sitting next to the student)

Sixth grade student (with complete confidence): From cows.

Part Two

Lesson - English Muffin/Egg sandwiches

Student approaches me in the middle of the cooking lab. Puts down her plastic cafeteria tray in front of me, and demands to know - is this a "frying pan"?

Looking with disbelief at one of my brightest students, I have to ask - what makes you think that putting that plastic tray on the stove and cooking on it would be a good idea?

We regard each other. Me, still stunned at the unexpected question. Her, a little annoyed that this is not a frying pan. I look meaningfully at the closest group, wrestling with their frying pan. She follows my glance, exclaims, and hurries back to her group to find something that can withstand a hot burner better than a plastic tray.

More about chickens:

From the grade 8s:

Is there a such thing as chicken-milk? (Answered with a review of animal classification and the characteristics of mammals vs. birds)

Why don't you feed chicken to the chickens? (Answered with a scary summary of mad-cow disease and other cannibalism stories)

In general:

I have been asked at least 1000 times (no fooling!) one of these three variants on the same question: are we going to kill them/cook them/eat them? Are you going to kill them/cook them/eat them? Is someone going to kill them/cook them/eat them? NO, NO and NO!

They are PETS. We don't eat PETS. I hope your cat is giving you the stink-eye right now, and plotting a strategic location for that next hairball.

C'mon people... you really think I'm going to hand a fuzzy little bundle of fluff over to a bunch of children and say - now kill it???

WTF, people, WTF.

Really, you hold this in your hand and all you can think of is blood-shed?

Back in the saddle...

I know I've been remiss; I haven't written since October. Fall was rough - there were complications in our school community and by the time the teaching, other work and home responsibilities, not to mention fall/winter illnesses cleared up, here we are in January. If time flies, I'm guess I'm having fun, right?

Chicken Update:

The incubation process was much smoother the second time around. My precocious chicks started hatching 2 days earlier than anticipated! When I left school, one shell had a tiny crack in it, and I expected I'd return in the morning to watch the chick finish the job.

I entered my dark classroom in the morning, and turned on the lights. I was greeted by a flurry of chirps. Imagine my surprise when I opened the incubator to find THREE newly hatched chicks waiting! Now, that's more like it!

We ended up with 6 chicks, from 12 eggs. I finally figured out how to candle the eggs, so I knew that one was infertile. The other 5 eggs were watched carefully for the next few days, one chick died trying to hatch, another was alive enough to jiggle around in the shell but not enough to attempt a hatch. This time, I didn't open the other eggs. I had marked any eggs that showed movement, and these weren't marked. Having learned hard lessons last time, I had no problem disposing the duds, unopened. Ignorance doesn't haunt your dreams, now, does it?

Letting the students visit with the chicks was much easier with six. I kept the littlest one for myself. Honestly, it was half the size of the others, and I wanted to protect it's immune system as much as possible. The other five were content being loved by different groups of students all afternoon. The little one had to be content being cuddled by the teacher.

Next batch of eggs arrives on Valentine's Day!

I never could get all of them looking at the camera at the same time.

Look at those itty bitty tail feathers!

Vegan Banana Pancakes... of DOOM!

Class W (aka Block 4) was being introduced to this week's cooking labs. We're making vegan pancakes. "Aw!" whined the class. "Why?" I asked. "What do you know about vegan food that makes you disappointed about this lab?" They didn't know. One asked, in disgust, "Is there going to be tofu in this recipe?"

Why? Actually, a severe egg allergy, that's why. Since Class W has a cluster of nut and peanut allergies, they were a bit more understanding once I explained.

I read out the ingredients: flour, baking powder, sugar, a mashed banana and soy milk.

"Soy Milk? But males aren't supposed to drink soy milk. It makes us less... less... um... manly."
Now, since it was an egg allergy we were avoiding, I could have used regular milk, but I wanted an opportunity to introduce a vegan recipe. And my vegan student seemed happy enough - but I think they use this recipe at home... and her group made beautiful pancakes.

Almond milk is out, of course, all those nut allergies. There's still "oat milk" and "rice milk"... but let's not go crazy here.

Three classes of vegan pancakes later... my 11 and 12 year old boys are less "manly" but the pancakes were pretty good. Some groups inexplicably made pancake "scrunchies" - pancakes which refused to be flipped and instead scrunched up like angry fists. Some pancakes refused to cook, despite the seemingly functional electric grills.

The biggest obstacle continues to be ingredient disbursal - I just haven't found an efficient way for all 6 groups to get their ingredients quickly and accurately. This means that the last group to get organized enough to send their unit manager for ingredients doesn't stand a chance of finishing on time.

Like this, only worse.

Next time... for sure.

Chicks in the Classroom

Animal Husbandry is hard. I don't know if any of the students learned it, but the teacher certainly did.

I booked an incubator and 12 chicken eggs for the term (actually, all 4 terms). My goal was to start to reconnect students with the food system, by letting them get acquainted with some real, live chickens.

The first three weeks were quiet. The incubator was set up, there wasn't much to see, but the kids kept an eye on the calendar and the upcoming Hatch Day. By Day 20, there was quite a bit of excitement, the eggs were wiggling! On Day 21, tiny chirps and peeps were heard! By the end of the day, though, the only progress was one small chip in one eggshell.

Day 22 - some chirping, no chipping. I was worried. I sent a few messages to the farm owner to find out what, if anything, I should do. She advised (that evening) that I should help the first one out. So, back to school I went, and tried to figure out - how to you help hatch an egg? Anyway, I got the top of the egg off, and left the bottom for the chick to figure out.

Day 23 - Chick 1 was still stuck to its shell. The umbilical cord hadn't twisted off. I took care of that, and put the chick into the pen under the heat lamp. There was one more egg with a chip in it. I enlarged that hole, and checked in with the farmer. By 9 am it was decided that I was opening eggs.

It was messier than I thought. There was blood. I was anxious and queasy. Four of the eggs were undeveloped, they must have died in the first week. One had been deemed unfertilized and disposed of earlier. Chick 2 was assisted from the shell and sent to the heat pen. Chick 3 was transferred to the pen later that morning. The remainder stayed, partially opened in the incubator, which I blocked off from (most of the) prying eyes. Some children see a sign that says "Do not disturb" and immediately peek to see why.

At the end of the day, I went back to the incubator. One chick was still breathing so I moved it to the pen. Another was dead - it's distended tummy hinting that it hadn't developed properly. Two more had died in their shells. I didn't look closely enough to investigate why.

So, 4 chicks came home with me this weekend. Chick 1 (Clumsy) since he couldn't quite get the hang of his feet, Chick 2 (Cheeky) who has tons of attitude, Chick 3 (Pretty), the dark one of the bunch, and still quite fragile at day's end, and Chick 4 (Tiny), the last one out, and the most delicate.

Saturday - at home. Cheeky and Pretty are up and peeking playfully at each other. Tiny is still resting in a small bowl but breathing (I put her in a shallow dish to keep the others from pestering her). Clumsy, however, didn't make it through the second night. I'm surprised, and disappointed - he had been so social, and vocal, I thought Clumsy and Cheeky were the survivors, for sure.

I don't know that I want to repeat the project. The kids are highly engaged, yes, but I'm feeling really bad. I knew that not all the eggs would hatch or all the chicks survive, but I thought we'd at least meet the average, or at best, beat the odds. I thought the chicks would hatch naturally,  and I'm wondering if I've done something wrong that made it harder for them.

I guess Lesson 1 is: you can follow all the instructions, and do everything according to procedure, but Nature is still a wild card. It's a good lesson, but a hard one. But who learned it? The kids, or me?

P. S. About noon on Saturday, "Tiny" died. It had been struggling to breathe and seemed weak, but "Pretty" was in the same condition yesterday, and is quite perky today. I had held out some hope for the littlest one.

Saturday evening: Cheeky and Pretty are looking strong. Pretty is less willing to let Cheeky push her around and the peck order is in constant flux. Their vocalizations have changed - what was initially a strong CHEEP, is now a more melodic chirp. It's so flutelike, in fact, that I have tuned to a flute-based classical music station, which they seem to respond to. I hope they both make it through the night.

Sunday morning: Cheeky and Pretty are both still looking good. I hope that means they're sturdy enough to survive.

Tuesday evening: Tomorrow morning, Cheeky and Pretty head back to their roots, their mothers and their siblings. And just in time, too! Pretty's starting to move fast and she zoomed into the far wall of their pen today. Cheeky is starting to get a little lift-off too. Apparently, the lid isn't to keep the children OUT of the pen, it's to keep the chickens IN.

I've spent more time observing the chicks than most of the students, and I've been fascinated to watch their quick development. Each new skill and behaviour is amazing! I'd mentioned that on the weekend, we listened to a lot of flute music, to which I thought the chicks responded... I tried some Bach. They had a lot to say. Especially during organ music - which does features lots of flute-like trills. Having noticed their "fondness" for organ music, I put on some music after class, and went to chat in another room. Later on, the other teacher and I heard a terrible outcry from the chicks in the next room. Perplexed, we came in to see what the trouble was. Nothing. Well, the music was finished...

I wonder if life on the farm includes music lessons?

Term One settles in

Fortunately, the veggie plate labs proceeded more or less in order. There was no bloodshed, at least (see previous entry). So we're settling in and picking up the pace.

The incubator has been in the class for 2 weeks now, and the chicks are due to hatch in just a few days. Since this is a long (long) weekend (not complaining!), the eggs and incubator are at home with me. Next weekend, the chicks need to come home with me!

In the meantime, we've started sewing! The grade 8s are making button banners - thanks to the incredible support from our Aboriginal Education people who brought mounds of felt, and then returned with even more mounds of pre-cut animal shapes and letters, so that each student could have their totem of choice and their initials. It's a lot of sewing. I'm not sure how we'll be able to pace it. The students appear to be excited about the project!

The 6/7s are making phone cozies from felt.

We've spent some time on design, and now we're onto practice sewing, with relatively few complaints. Overheard (from the back of the room) - "I'm the best at sewing". Retort from the other side of the class - "You wish". Aside from that, they're working pretty hard and not being terribly noisy about it. Maybe that's just the block 7 class. After the chaos of a very large grade 8 class, and a large 6/7 class, the smaller end-of-the-day group has startled me with their composure. Must remember to enjoy it while it lasts!

Of Bears, Blood and Apple Crisp

In the middle of the afternoon, the principal's tenor came through the P.A. system. The bear is cleared. Business as usual. And I stood there completely perplexed. What did I miss? Shouldn't there have been an announcement stating the appearance of the bear? What had I missed? And when did I miss it?

Eight years at this school and there hasn't been a bear sighting in all that time. Some of the neighbouring schools are plagued by wandering bears all the time. Our side of town, just isn't really bear country.

The students were happy to fill me in - the announcement was before lunch. Although WHEN before lunch varied a great deal. It seems that there was an announcement as I was cleaning up the first cooking lab of the year. No wonder I didn't know there was a bear on campus!

If my first foods lab last year had been like this one, I certainly would have resigned the post, on the spot. Tomorrow is "Let's try to fix this mess and produce an edible apple crisp". I'll settle for an apple soggy.

I gave my demo, explained the salient points carefully, tried to not overload them... and set them to their task. Within minutes I was told someone was bleeding. Not unusual, that... but I scurried over to assess the damage. The patient was a little green. He couldn't tear his eyes from the wound, which was quite hypnotically dripping... into the sink, onto the floor... Yikes!

Switching into First Aid mode, I had him apply pressure, coaxed him to breathe more deeply... all that. Meanwhile, 20 some odd 11 and 12 year olds are on hold waiting for their ingredients, not knowing what to do. I assign a Teacher's Helper, who does her valiant best to deal with the supplies... it's a big job. My patient is still bleeding. I send a runner for help, and I move the boy out of his unit so he can sit down and I try to get the rest of the class running more smoothly.

No, it didn't help. By then, it was really too late for the rest of them. I have a fridge full of apple crisp in various states of assembly. The patient was attended to by the staff first aider, and returned before the end of class, looking much less green.

I may have been a bit green. There was blood to mop up, and while I'm not all that squeamish (I'm a mom, after all), it doesn't take much blood to make a big mess. And I was worried. Cutting your finger with a vegetable peeler must hurt... a lot... so he managed the whole situation very well.

The other classes have been told that no one is allowed to get hurt, at all, that all the turns were used up this morning. Let's hope it gets better. Tomorrow, we have to fix some apple crisps, and the 8s have Banana Muffins to bake.

Will the Poltergeist get the last laugh?

Things have gone missing and have moved, seemingly of their own volition, throughout the year. Mostly, it's just been irritating. The item that worried me was the Chef Knife. I have six, new, not-very-good-quality-but-sharp knives. Okay, I have 5. One has been missing for a few weeks now. I didn't put it in any of my silly hiding spots. The Community Schools group swears that they didn't touch it. I can't see any of the kids sneaking off with it (Really. It disappeared between labs, and they'd have to get into a cupboard and into a drawer.) None of the other staff know anything. It's just weird.

Well, it got a little weirder today. I found a knife. Not that one, either! Actually, I found 3 knives, a chef's knife and two paring knives. They have a decent edge, so I assume I sharpened them this year, and then put them... into my ESL lesson bin?

As I tidied the detritus of the year, I spotted the contents of a plastic tub. "Tchaikovsky? I was going to teach music? What was I thinking?" So, I opened up the bin to rummage through a melange of music books and Canadiana. And 3 knives.

So far, I cannot think of what prompted me to put 3 knives in a bin and then forget about them, for most of the year. I hope I remember. But until I do, the Poltergeist gets the blame.