Author: Denise Krebs

I'm the chief learner in life's adventure.

Time for Family and Home, Not Just School

Denise Krebs2 Comments

I had an amazing summer. We have a two-month break from school, and for the whole time I was settled into my small desert island nest. You can’t drive more than an hour in one direction here before you get to the sea and have to turn around.

I was home for two months with time to spend cooking and baking for friends, including never-before-attempted recipes, spending leisurely time with people, cleaning and organizing my home, keeping up with daily household chores, reading, reading, reading, writing, eating out, taking long walks in air conditioned spaces, enjoying my husband, reflecting on U.S. politics and racism, reading the Bible, praying, and never feeling anxious or worried–except occasionally about the way our country is headed.

Our first time making California rolls.

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My summer is coming to a close, and I am a little bit dreading going back to the never-ending grind of busyness that the school year has become for me the last few years. Recently I read,  “Wrapping Up My Summer of ‘No'” by Katherine Sokolowski. It was like a rallying cry for me to join her fragile movement of finding balance.

Like Katherine, I can relate to making school not only my work, but my life and leisure, as well. My children are grown and live 7,000 miles away, and my husband is an amazing servant who can cook and clean and does. As a result, I have lots of time to work. And like Katherine, I love working. I love creating opportunities, preparing BreakoutEDU games, writing blog posts, publishing student blog posts, shifting the way we’ve always done it, figuring out how best to meet the needs of my English language learners. I am never satisfied and never feel finished with my work at school.

However, that life is less than complete. I don’t have serenity. I miss out on so many moments of joy. I don’t want the unbalanced life of all work.

I’m reading another book right now, The Four Disciplines of Execution. I believe it’s going to help me in my personal life, my teaching life, and my overseeing life as an English teacher coordinator. When we determine our wildly important goals–one or two of them at a time, we can have more success than when we try to do it all. More about that in a future blog post.

So, Katherine, for now, I pray I really will join you in saying no to the things that trip me up. I want to say yes to the wildly important goals that will help me live with no regrets.

Shift This Book Review

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Thanks to Joy Kirr for a book that outlines her growth as a teacher over the last six years. I was privileged to meet her on Twitter in 2012. I have learned a lot about her shifts in education through her blog and on Twitter–with her more than 80,000 positive, affirming, and equipping tweets.

However, now there is something even better. She has invited me into both her classroom and her mind for the rich details. How does this look? How can I shift the classroom environment in my own situation? She wrote a book on it, called Shift This, published by Dave Burgess Consulting.

Currently reading and loving: #ShiftThis by @joykirr1 #cy365 #t365project #jjaproject

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For those who need more specifics on how to create a student-centered classroom environment, this is the easy-to-read, must-read book for you.

Joy begins the book with the beginnings of her journey and a challenging chapter about WHY and HOW questions to ask of your classroom practice. The book continues with chapters on these timely topics:

  • Classroom Environment
  • Classwork
  • Homework
  • Grading
  • Social Media
  • Student-Directed Learning

Finally, Joy ends the book with a chapter called “Resistance.” The opening story, a discussion with a parent asking about homework, is so compelling! It makes me know she has real-life experience with resistance.

Each chapter ends with a Reflection and Call to Action for the reader to write notes about their next steps. In addition, there is a further reading list provided for each chapter.

Joy is so personable and kind. She will always give teachers the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t want to give up your teacher desk, that’s fine, she’ll tell you. “You have to do what works for you…Furniture and walls really aren’t the key to a transformative culture in our classrooms. The key is how we treat students” (Shift This, page 42).

She will always be patient with and give respect to teachers, but when the students’ best interests are in jeopardy, she makes it clear to you. She will always come up on the side of the students. She will influence us, in her kind, personable manner to shift our practice to be more student-centered and student-empowering.

Like Joy, I’ve had more than 20 years teaching experience. I try to be like Joy in another way: Even with her many years of experience, Joy always has something new to learn. In Shift This, Joy consistently models her love for and need for her own personal learning. One thing that spoke to me poignantly was this quote I discovered on her classroom website, which she had linked to in the book. On this Scholars in Room 239 post, I love how she sought advice from parents:

Please help me grow as an educator. Although this is my 22nd year as a teacher, I know I can always do a better job, and I’ve already asked for your child’s feedback. I’d also love your honest feedback.

She’s left a link to an anonymous survey for all the parents of her students. Brava, Joy! You are inspiring us to all be more humble and thriving as educators!

Here are just a few things I’ve gleaned from Shift This for this new school year, which will start in a few weeks. I want to just list them here to help me remember and so I can hold myself accountable:

  1. Choices of material, length, level and more in independent reading. We’ll take a challenge of how many books to read, rather than the traditional one every two weeks. Students will share their “book reports” in informal book talks with peers and other ways to share books they loved.
  2. My teacher desk will become a modified student station, as it was last year. I’m trying to take it to another level, though. Still a work in progress.
  3. Organize my student web page so there are no questions about what we did in class and what is expected of students. Right now, there are still too many unanswered questions on our Grade 5 News page. My excuse: I was new in grade 5 last year. I can’t make that excuse any longer.
  4. Homework each day will be reading an English book for at least 20 minutes. This will be more intentional and monitored than last year. Last year I gave very little homework, and there was little to no resistance from parents and students. I think it is a good decision.
  5. Grading is developing in my school, too. Another work in progress that I will continue to push for and develop is standards-based grading, collecting evidence of mastery.
  6. I will choose a volunteer photographer for each week rather than trying to do it daily as in the past, which didn’t work so well.

Shift This is the kind of book you can read over and over. As you make shifts in your classroom this year, you will see the benefits. Then next summer you will read the book again and see ideas that last summer seemed out of reach. But next fall…you will be ready. (So be sure to date the entries on the Reflection and Call to Action sections. You’ll be back.) On this journey as the chief learner, each fall you will be able to make your classroom a more safe, student-centered, joy-filled, learning-owned-by-students environment.

You can bet, I will return to this book again. For the sake of my students.

A Day in the Kitchen

Denise Krebs11 Comments

I have so much I could have done today–write a Slice of Life post, write an #EdublogsClub post, finish Shift This by Joy Kirr (I’m close), or work on school work (that’s a whole other to-do list).

Instead, I did what I’m good at and what I love. I stayed in the kitchen. (Am I an expert? My husband thinks so.)

I made Spanish rice, chicken fajitas, black beans and salsa and all the fixings. I baked tahini chocolate chip cookies for dessert. (That is a magical little recipe, by the way.) I even cleaned out the Tupperware cupboard.

Each Tuesday evening this summer, we host our pastor and his son who are home while the rest of their family is in the U.S. We have them over for dinner with dessert. Then we send the leftovers home with them for the next day. They are always so appreciative, and I love cooking for anyone with a good appetite.

Today Keith was giving the tour of the buffet line. “We’re having Mexican rice bowls. It’s like at Chipotle’s–you just put whatever you want into your bowl,” he said.

Minus the E. coli, I thought to myself, though I didn’t want to say it aloud.

After dinner and the dishes, I sat down to write this post. Since today’s Capture Your 365 theme was “Relaxing,” I took this picture–one of the first times I relaxed today.

Relaxing. #cy365 #t365project#jjaproject

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A Wondrous Hidden Mud Puddle

Denise Krebs

I wrote the post below today for Teachers Write, but I thought I would share it here because it’s a slice of my life, though 20 years ago. I was thinking of Arizona a lot today because I baked a lemon meringue pie and because the weather is really hot and steamy here in Bahrain, a little like Arizona during the monsoon season. When I saw today’s prompt, this wondrous mud puddle came to mind.

A wondrous puddle is hidden in the Bermuda grass most of the year. Who would have thought there was magic in that small bald patch of yard? The patch near the naval orange tree where the grass can’t grow has the approximate diameter of a large kiddy pool, but the comparison ends there. There is nothing tame about this piece of earth when the rains come.

Unfortunately, Mom never let them flood it with the hose. Otherwise they could have enjoyed mud baths all summer long, mud baths that were simultaneously exhilarating and restful. Mud baths that put grit in their teeth, long-lasting cakes under their fingernails, and the smell of magic in their nostrils. Instead, these girls were forced to pray for rain.

On this day, monsoon winds come. Dust is in the air. Finally, raindrops the size of 50-cent pieces splotch the deck around the pool and back porch. And, yes, the drops are even noticeable in the sticky caliche soil near the orange tree. The girls watch from the French door windows, willing the drops to keep falling. Please not another false rain alert is their unspoken prayer. So often the muddy drops end as a vain attempt to wash the dirt out of the sky, a tease of petrichor they can feel and smell even in the house. More often than not, in Phoenix, the summer rains stop not only before they wash the dust out of the air, but well before they fully wet sidewalks or muddy the hopeful spot in the yard.

This time, though, it’s different. The magic is working. Not just pitter patter. These drops are thunk thunk thunking on the roof, ping ping pinging on the tin cover of the A/C unit in the yard, and quietly invading the dry soil around the orange tree. It is a real monsoon rain. Finally. The season came late this year, but today rain will win the battle to uncover the wondrous mud puddle.

Digital Citizenship

Denise Krebs5 Comments

This week’s #EdublogsClub Prompt #28 is about Digital Citizenship. We read this article on Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship based on the book Digital Citizenship in Schools by Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey, published on the webpage DigitalCitizenship.net

The nine elements of Digital Citizenship:

  • digital access
  • digital commerce
  • digital communication
  • digital literacy
  • digital etiquette
  • digital law
  • digital rights & responsibilities
  • digital health & wellness
  • digital security (self-protection)

The article is worth reading and mentioned aspects I had yet to think of as being part of digital citizenship, such as access, commerce, law and even health and wellness. Certainly all important aspects of digital citizenship.

For 20 years now, my students in a variety of grade levels (K-8 since the late 90s) have had digital access. Together we have learned about respecting fellow students’ digital file folders when they weren’t password protected, how to share six laptops for 25 students, managed a digital environment with MacBooks for all, and, of course, the never-ending learning curve of navigating the Internet.  In the past and where I spend most of my time as teacher is on Ribble and Bailey’s elements of digital etiquette, literacy, and communication.

Teaching and modeling etiquette in many areas of life are important, I believe, and one of those areas is teaching digital good manners. We can’t let up or leave it to chance learning. It has to be taught explicitly.

Here is a Prezi I made with my junior high students in 2011. I believe it still has a lot of truth about Netiquette (or Internet Etiquette). It was inspired by this online summary of the book Netiquette by Virginia Shea, which is well worth the read.

We spend time on digital literacy and communication in class. My grade 5 students can do a lot already, but I try to take them to a more advanced level of responsible usage. For instance, we learn to use Creative Commons images instead of the ubiquitous Google search and snatch method. They learn to post photos and videos on their digital portfolio to share with their parents. They learn to create and edit Google documents while they write novels. And more.

In addition to etiquette, literacy and communication, there is another important element of digital literacy I model and teach. It is that of digital production. I attempt to inspire my students to be more than consumers. When they are with me, they produce–online publishing, forming connections with world-wide audiences, and adding their voice to make the Internet a better, warmer, friendlier place than it could be without them.

Used with permission from Krissy Venosdale, digital producer extraordinaire.

What do you think?
Is digital production another element of digital citizenship?
Are there other elements not mentioned?

Even the Boy Scouts of America

Denise Krebs15 Comments

Donald Trump gave a speech to the 2017 National Scout Jamboree, a once in four years major event for tens of thousands of Scouts, Venturers and their leaders.

On this, the 19th ever National Scout Jamboree, the eighth one that a sitting president attended became another political game for Trump. His speech, which lasted 38 minutes, was an equation of laborious teleprompter reading (and misreading)  of a speech he didn’t write and doesn’t believe plus his off-the-cuff remarks in his infamous political campaign rally style.

After slamming the press twice in the first minute and taking credit for the Scouts’ record-breaking crowd (“That’s a great honor, believe me.”), he then introduced his speech saying he was happy to leave politics behind and talk to the Scouts about success:

Tonight we put aside all of the policy fights in Washington, D.C. you’ve been hearing about with the fake news and all of that. We’re going to put that aside. And instead we’re going to talk about success, about how all of you amazing young Scouts can achieve your dreams, what to think of, what I’ve been thinking about. You want to achieve your dreams, I said, who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts? Right?

I was intrigued, so I kept listening. I thought I would give him a chance to give that speech. However, in two years of listening to too many of his speeches, I have never heard that speech–that speech about anything but himself, fake news and politics.

It turns out everyone who was listening for that speech was disappointed, as I was. Besides mentioning the fake news media or the cameras that won’t show his crowd size at least a half dozen times, here are just a few of his comments to the BOYS SCOUTS OF AMERICA:

And very soon, Rick (Perry), we will be an energy exporter. Isn’t that nice? An energy exporter. In other words, we’ll be selling our energy instead of buying it from everybody all over the globe. So that’s good.  We will be energy dominant.

Thank you, Mr. Trump, for defining this second grade vocabulary word for these young people (12-18 years old). I’m sure they wouldn’t have understood the concept of energy exporting had you not taken time to teach them.

  • You know, I go to Washington and I see all these politicians, and I see the swamp, and it’s not a good place. In fact, today, I said we ought to change it from the word “swamp” to the word “cesspool” or perhaps to the word “sewer.”
  • And I’ll tell you what, the folks in West Virginia who were so nice to me, boy, have we kept our promise. We are going on and on. So we love West Virginia. We want to thank you.
  • Secretary Tom Price is also here today. Dr. Price still lives the Scout oath, helping to keep millions of Americans strong and healthy as our secretary of Health and Human Services. And he’s doing a great job. And hopefully he’s going to get the votes tomorrow to start our path toward killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare that’s really hurting us. By the way, are you going to get the votes? He better get them. He better get them. Oh, he better. Otherwise I’ll say, “Tom, you’re fired.” I’ll get somebody. He better get Senator Capito (West Virginia senator who accompanied Trump to this speech and one of the senators who said no to repealing Obamacare) to vote for it. He better get the other senators to vote for it. It’s time. You know, after seven years of saying repeal and replace Obamacare we have a chance to now do it. They better do it. Hopefully they’ll do it.

Yes, I see you left the politics behind in Washington to talk to the Boy Scouts about success.

As the Scout law says, a scout is trustworthy, loyal — we could use some more loyalty I will tell you that.

Yes, you’ve been telling us and people in the Executive Branch about loyalty.

He spent about 20% of his speech telling stories about William Levitt, thrice-married, adultering, racist landlord, yacht-owning real estate guy who lived an “interesting” life after selling the business. Those stories on the yacht in the seas off the south of France, though, Trump wasn’t able to elaborate on because he was talking to “Boy Scouts,” you know. (Yeah, we know. You are talking to young people who are not yet of voting age, thus the puzzle about why you still can’t keep yourself from doing campaign rallies wherever you speak.) William Levitt was the one bit of humanity’s story he chose to share with the Boy Scouts of America’s 19th National Scout Jamboree. He was an interesting role model choice.

He spent another five minutes or so reminding the Boy Scouts that he won the election (“that map was so red it was unbelievable”), the economy is going better than ever, and they will be saying Merry Christmas again.  So much winning.

He finally, haltingly read some more of the prepared speech addressing the Scouts.

The crowd as a whole loved this speech and acted like they were at a campaign rally. That’s frightening. Clearly many of them were tickled that he didn’t just read the copious words off the screen, but he did animate his speech with policy fights. However, I know there were people in the crowd who were not applauding and shouting U-S-A at the anti-American and anti-Scouting values of this speech. There were many young people and adults who long to Live Scouting’s Adventure to be Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.

I am sickened that he politicized the National Scout Jamboree.

Full transcript of this speech from Time.

Trump’s Jamboree speech from CNN.

A Complete History of Presidential Visits to the National Jamboree – Note: they all managed to give an apolitical speech to boys.

George W. Bush’s Jamboree speech –  Breathe in this: “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
“Love a neighbor just like you’d like to be loved yourself.”

Disclaimer: Before 2015, I had never been very political. I am moderate and a registered independent. I vote faithfully for the best candidate in all elections–either D or R. I never thought President Obama was perfect, but the longer he’s gone the more I miss him. Since Trump came on the scene, I have been against what he stands for and the damage he is doing to our country. We are not the people we thought we were because we nominated him, elected him and now continue to allow him to serve with impunity. Hopefully the latter will change soon and we will learn our much-needed lessons.

Slice of Life – Interviewing My “Expert”

Denise Krebs8 Comments

Yesterday I was considering doing some research about how to make a Mars Curiosity model for my Teachers Write Monday assignment. The assignment, by Sarah Albee, was to do nonfiction research, particularly to talk to an expert. However, I am spending my writing time this summer working on a children’s fiction story. Plus, since I’m hanging out at home with my husband after his eye surgery, he became my “expert.”

My Mr. Fix-it husband would know what kind of motor I needed and how to make the Mars model. I wanted it to be made of cardboard for a shout out of sorts to making, to Caine Monroe, Nirvan Mullick, and the subsequent Cardboard Challenge and Imagination Foundation.

Keith suggested I would need a base to hold the motor. He said you’d want to make a base out of plastic or something.

I argued. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. I’m not really making it. No one who reads it is going to know if it’s really feasible,” I said.

He acted like he didn’t hear me.

He found a rubber band car on YouTube. After watching the first minute, he said, “OK, here’s what Bailey needs to do. Make the base with straws and toothpicks, like in the video. You can use the bottle caps for wheels. This will be strong enough to hold the motor from the broken RC car he’s going to find abandoned at the thrift shop.”

“OK, maybe,” I said when I woke up this morning.

It was also after the part last night, when I snatched my Chromebook from him and gave the I-said-I’m-not-really-going-to-make-it-!-don’t-you-get-that-? speech.

So here’s a short scene from my story after my “expert” interview:

“Hey, Bailey, look what I found at work today!” Dad came bolting into the kitchen through the back door, the wooden-framed screen door bouncing behind him. Bailey was sitting at the round yellow Formica table–what Bailey used to call “our sunshine table”–munching Oreos dipped in milk. “Some gals ordered smoothies for lunch and they came with these jumbo straws. Perfect, right?” He held up two shiny straws, one peachy cream color and one lavender.

“Perfect?” Bailey said. “Dad, the Curiosity is like white, gray and black. How can these be perfect?”

“Oh, but look how strong they are. You can’t even bend ‘em. They must be close to a half inch in diameter. And heck, we can spray paint them black.”

“Black would be good. Won’t we need more?”

“I asked the women to save more for us. They said they order a few times a week. I had never even noticed them until I saw them in the garbage today. You know, after we watched that YouTube video yesterday.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think that was going to work,” Bailey was still suspicious about it.

“Let’s give ‘er a try after supper. What do you think? And, hey, why are you eating Oreos now?”

My Husband

Denise Krebs4 Comments

My husband talks a lot and makes me laugh. Here are some snippets from our Friday afternoon.

While I started the car in the stifling ground level garage, Keith carried the hefty, plastic shopping bag overflowing with garbage toward the dumpster. When he came back to the car, he noticed I had opened my sunglasses case and had it sitting on the center console, ready to grab when we pulled out of the dark garage. He started in, “Now, what am I going to do? You know that’s my job. Are you taking my sunglasses job? Now, I guess I’ll just have to do my other side seat driving tasks.” I began driving through the cramped garage. “Watch out…Don’t hit that wall…Careful, there’s a car…Ooh, that was close.”

“OK, wise guy, you can keep your job.” When I got to the door of the garage, I handed him my regular eyeglasses and waited for him to pass me the sunglasses. I put them on and pulled into the narrow alleyway, into the 110-degree heat. (It feels like 113, so the humidity isn’t that bad today.) “So, which mall should we go to?” I asked my husband, who is exponentially more opinionated than I about such things.

“Let’s go to the little fancy mall in the Seef district,” my husband said, “It won’t be so crowded on the weekend.” I turned the car toward the mall of our Friday afternoon walk.

As we rode along, I said, “OK, I have some advice I could give you about church today, if you are interested. About prayer.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Well, when all the pastors and elders were in front praying for individuals, you were the only one I could hear.”

“Oh, no, did I leave my mic on?”

“No, the mic wasn’t on. I think you just need to work on your whisper.”

“Ah, I was projecting! I learned that in seminary.”

“Yeah,” I laughed, “but you shouldn’t broadcast the person’s prayer request. ‘God, help this sister get over her drug addiction.’ Just kidding. I didn’t really hear that.”

“You maybe just heard my voice above all the others because you are so in love.” I could sense him staring and batting his eyes.

“Oh, yes, that’s it.”

Lots more side car driving, “50…50…50…the speed limit is 50!” And later, “I would have gotten off at this exit.” That sort of thing until we arrived at the upscale mall.

“Oh, look, Denise. This place was named after us!” It was a chocolate fountain restaurant called Dip N Dip. We had to stop for a selfie.

At this point, I remembered my little writer’s notebook I was planning to carry this month for Teachers Write. I said, “Hey, I need to write down some of those things you’ve been saying that made me laugh today, but I’ve already forgotten on the way here. Maybe I’ll write about you today, funny guy. Can you remind me what made me laugh today?”

“Just write everything I say. You can actually record it. Keep the audio going all day long. That way when I die you can listen and laugh anytime, or cry maybe.”

“Oh, never mind!”

We took a lovely walk around this high-end mall. High-end, yes: For instance, I walked into one small shop with an “up-to-90%-off” sign in the window. I was curious. The first thing I saw on the rack was a long, single-knit teal dress with some embroidery through the middle. It looked like a prom dress. BD1780 was the original price, and the marked down price was BD178 (What? Almost $500!)

“Thank you,” I said, as someone came up to see if they could help me. “I just wanted to take a quick look.” I slipped out after looking at only one price tag. This place was out of my price range, even with 90% off.

When I told Keith about it, he said, “We’ll come back when it’s 99% off.”

It’s a good thing I don’t need a prom dress.

     *      *      *      *     *

On the way home, we enjoyed listening to music on a playlist that Keith created.

It has Beatles, Kansas, and lots of his other favorites–pop, rock and roll, and gospel. I’m not really big on music, but one day, I did say, “How about Gordon Lightfoot and Simon and Garfunkel?” My old time favorites. The next time we went in the car, he had a new playlist including some of my favorites.

Today, when “Rainy Day Lovers” came on, I asked him if he even likes Gordon Lightfoot.

“He’s OK,” he said. We talked about rainy days and loving.

     *      *      *      *     *

When we came back, I baked chocolate-dipped peanut butter cookies to bring to a dinner tonight.

Keith exercised and then came into the kitchen to drink water. Afterwards, he dug into the dish drainer looking for his coffee pots for tomorrow morning. “I’ve never seen anyone who can stack dishes like you. You are super talented in that area! No one else can stack like you, Denise!” He began putting some dishes away. He finally made it down to one of his coffee pots. (I think he has a half dozen). He shook the water out of the pot and gave me some advice, “You know, for dishes to dry, it’s best not to use the super burial method of stacking.”

     *      *      *      *     *

It’s a work day for him tomorrow, so he was ready for bed before me. “Good night,” I said. I wanted to stay up and finish this blog post before I went to bed. “I love you.”

“Yeah, that’s what she says now.”

“Thanks for making me laugh.”

“Yes, I am a Dad joke.”

That you are, but I wouldn’t want you any other way.

“Rainy day lovers don’t hide love inside, they just pass it on.”