...when my anthro professor takes time from his lecture to say it: Valentine's day is one strange holiday. But there really weren't too many strange happenings this past week.
Wednesday February 10th was NYU's first snow day in 13YEARS! And I was somehow here for it! I got up to walk to yoga, and there were a few flakes of snow. Poor Alex wasn't feeling good, so I got to Saint Mark's Street (the home of Yoga to the People) and decided to come home and crawl back under my covers for a few hours. We really didn't get a whole lot of snow...especially compared to how much Philly got... but it was coming down. Alex and I had a nice lunch at Hayden, and then we planned meals for an upcoming dinner party. When it was time to return home, I walked through Washington Square Park and was delighted to see that children of all ages had stepped over the chains and past the "Lawn Closed" signs to build snowmen and have a snowball fight or two. Want to see Thomaz bodyslam an innocent snowman? It's actually a pretty cute video.
Dear Rhoen, thank you for inviting all of us who don't live in your hall to trek there through the snow for dinner. I got a wonderful picture of Kim and Shizuyo shivering in their snow hats and that would have never happened without you. Plus, I got to wear my boots, which are nifty.
Thursday I had classes- Anthro, Sociology of Ed, and Czech- before a quite busy evening. I left Czech a few minutes early so that I would have time to walk down to the Puck building on Houston. They were having a panel discussion for graduate students; the title was "Teacher Quality: The Key to Closing the Achievement Gap?" Ready for some notes?
-What is the best way to assess teacher quality? How do we measure student academic achievement/ student character development/ teacher efforts towards improvement?
-What is the most appropriate way to use test scores in assessing teacher quality? (This one made me cringe. It's such tricky territory. Test scores- if not from well-designed tests or if given on a curve or if the student had an off day...- can be misread. At the same time, they can be so useful if used carefully... hmmm)
-Peter Oroszlany said that he hires teachers based off their practice lessons that they run for him. He looks for teachers who are innovative and strive to creatively make use of all the resources available in the community.
-Argument about the role of passion in making a good teacher. How does one measure such a thing?
-What are the best forms of professional development and how much should schools expect teachers to pursue on their own? (The state does have some requirements.)
-Top three reasons people leave teaching: not sure how to improve, tired of lack of professionalism in the field, little to no room for career advancement.
-What is the role of the union? [At this point, two of the men got into a polite but heated debate. One is a member of the teacher's union and one of the principal's union. The teacher said that the role of the union is to protect the teachers from corrupt administration. The principal said that the role of the school is to protect and care for the children, and that a union that allows something like $65,000,000 a year (approx.) to be spent because the union can't admit that some teachers need to be fired and because some principals can't do their job and fill out the mountains of paperwork to fire them anyway...well... he was not happy to say the least.
-Value of teacher coaches, either education experts or effective teachers on the verge of retirement...
So that was that. It makes my head spin. After that, I headed over to Hillary's for a group dinner. I was worried about being late, but in fact I was early enough to help cook. Unfortunately for you, I can't quite remember what we had. It was delicious, though!
Friday I did homework for most of the day. Then I realized that Rhoen's birthday party was going to be in my apartment and I had little to no food. So I went out and got ingredients to make a chocolate cake (which was ok but not spectacular), cornmeal and dried cranberry cookies, and strawberries in balsamic vinegar. Shizuyo brought a blueberry coffee cake that was delightful. And the new room arrangement survived its first real test. People were in and out, meeting each other, eating, talking. We played around with the Proust questionnaire and I realized that I should always start such games by announcing that if someone wants to pass then everyone has to respect that without further pause. I assume sometimes that people know these things. Oh well. Lesson learned.
That was actually a good round of conversation, though. We talked about sisters and the definition of success and the best way to be a college student. I really enjoyed listening to everyone think.
Cindy and Shizuyo stayed the night. We had eggs and toast for breakfast the next morning before I went to the bus stop in Chinatown to find Maura! In the flurry of birthday-party-planning activity, I hadn't planned too extensively as far as what to do when Maura arrived. Luckily, we got it figured out. First we went to Babycakes- which serves gluten-free dairy-free cupcakes and doughnuts. Then we took the subway to the Brooklyn museum where we admired mummies, masks, and feminism. The mummy exhibit was arranged to show how members of the lower classes cut costs so that they could afford the funeral rites that were so necessary for the entry of the dead into the happy field of food. They made multi-purpose tools, painted stone in imitation of more expensive materials, re-used coffins... and did some other things in the embalming process that I'm sure were shortcuts but were just not pleasant to think about. Yes, even more so than pulling the brain out the nose with a hook. Oh delicious. There was an exhibit on African masks that we strolled through as we headed upstairs, and I recognized a few pieces, which was cool. Upstairs we admired the gallery of American art. Where other than New York can you walk into a museum gallery and find paintings of the street you just walked in off of? There was one that described "the road frequently by drunks, gamblers, and prostitutes." Hm. The street sign said Bowery. Guess where I live!
Finally, we went to the famous/infamous feminist wing. "The Dinner Party" by Judy Chicago is- of course- the focus of the collection. I wish I had been able to study the timeline of famous women longer; it included brief biographies of women whose place settings were on the table, and it explained some of the symbolism used on their pieces. The table itself is in a triangular room with glass walls. Everything is dark except the installation itself. I hadn't been sure if all of the- erm- imagery would be too much for me, but actually I found the place settings meticulously designed and pleasantly intriguing. I was more curious than anything else, and really enjoyed the piece.
Now the installation that wrapped around the outside of the room was beyond me. Maura and I were both really confused. It just wasn't appealing and didn't make sense. We did, however, find a nook with a crazy installation about the wedding ritual. There were pictures of women on the two walls of the hall, and then there was a big room at the end that you could look into. The room was very pink. At first glance, it looked like a party! There was a bed piled with a cake and jewelery and flowers and streamers. Then you realize that the cake is made of tampons, the jewelery made of birth-control pills, and the streamers made of garters tied together. The piece is called "Reception" by American artist Vadis Turner. I couldn't quite tell if Turner was hating on marriage or just trying to point out that we romanticize a complicated reality, but the creativity in the use of materials for the piece was admirable. I mean... a cake made out of tampons? Who thinks of these things?
After the museum, we attempted to go the the gardens (which were closed) and then to a restaurant (that I couldn't find). We ended up back in Manhattan, where we ate yummy Thai food to finish off our night. Then I took Maura to her bus uptown. We hid from the cold in a Duane Reid until the bus came.
Sunday was Valentine's day, but as mentioned earlier it was a fairly normal weekend day. Hillary invited everyone over for scones, lemon curd, jam, and tea. Such good tea!!! It was rose flavored. Hil gave me a bag to bring back to my dorm, and I'm saving it for a special occasion. After our all-girls Valentine's tea, we headed uptown to a Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club party on 59th st. I was really amused at first because Nicky (who was the planner of the party) is from England. I was loving the Beatles reference until one of the girls at the party told us it was her idea. Still cool. But...
Hillary and I ended up leaving relatively early. Which was good because the subway seemed to be having problems. We waited a half hour for our train back to Union Square! I had been planning to go back up, but after another 20 minutes of waiting, I called it a night.
We didn't have class the next day (President's day) so I ended up being very productive. This has actually been such a productive week. I'm going to post the research paper I wrote instead of writing all this sooner. I hope the libraries at the abroad sites are as good as Bobst. I don't know how I'll survive paper-writing otherwise. Soooo many boooks!!!!
I was pleasantly surprised to find that my dad was in town on Wednesday to meet with a friend for dinner. After they finished their meal and I finished my classes, I met them uptown for dessert and conversation. It's fun watching dad with friends. I feel like it's been a while since I've been witness to such an interaction. Well... that and at home I always felt as out of place with the adults as with the other kids. Regardless, it was wonderful to see them both. They were even gracious enough to talk about education for a bit. I was fascinated and learned quite a lot. I only hope they weren't completely bored. It's an odd topic sometimes...
Thursday Hillary and I went to a story-telling slam. The theme was tradition and...let's just say I left humming Fiddler on the Roof songs. The guy who won told a story about how his family decided that they were scared of sending their children to school in the US in the 70s so moved them to Israel. Then when they moved back, he went to a religious school while his siblings went to public school. Surrounded by Orthodox Jews, he became Orthodox and drove his family nuts for a while ("I used to bury silverware and throw out pizza..."). Then he went to college and was convinced to try shrimp. Suddenly he realized that non-Orthodox Jews and even gentiles could be pretty cool. The plot was there (though very loose), but his style was great. A favorite was a father who was, after the circumcision of his son, given the foreskin and told to bury it under a tree. Living in New York City, the father had to sneak into a park to bury it (apparently it's illegal to carry gardening tools in the parks in New York?). He talked about looking for the perfect tree and imagining his son getting arrested some years in the future when he returned to cut a branch from the tree for his wedding canopy... It was hysterical. There were others, too, about pot olympics, Jewish wedding traditions (apparently the parents meet the groom in the middle of the aisle and hand the bride off there), the power of an Italian grandmother's "evil eye", stealing the grooms shoes at an Indian wedding... We picked a good night to go.
After the stories, we went to Cafe Habana for a delicious dinner. Hillary always knows these places. Thank you thank you, Hillary!
Friday I went to the gym for a bit and then did a lot of homework. Today I've just been doing more homework. The next two weeks are some of my busiest, but I'll be entertaining friends for the next few weekends so I need to get the work done now. Which is what I'm off to do. Ciao!
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