On Updating my 20% Project

Cooking is definitely not for me!!! In theory, I shouldn't be too bad. I remember when I was younger I helped my mom wash vegetables and stir pots and watched her as she heated up home-made tortillas. We would dance around the kitchen and she would let me help. It was nice. So why do I suck?? Up top you’ll see two different pans. The dark food = the burnt up onions and garlic intended for the Spanish rice. The lighter food= the “toasted” onions and garlic I actually used on the rice. The YouTube video I used to guide me only said, “stir until your vegetables are nice and toasted,” but it didn't show me what “toasted” would look like, they simply threw in the rice shortly after. When someone says “toasted” I imagine toast bread, so not only did I leave the vegetables toast, I allowed a little black to accumulate. My boyfriend came in the kitchen, and said, “that doesn't looked toasted to me that looks and smells burnt.” Unfortunately for me he didn't leave the kitchen. He stayed the whole way through, which bothered me because not only did I have to chop more onion (ugh) but I had him correcting me the whole way. “Babe, the lady on the video said to use medium chopped onion, you’re cutting them up too thinly.” But I guess I rather have him regulating than his mother, who showed up later to eat my rice. My boyfriend liked my rice, but if you ask me I have a feeling it was more because he feels he had a great deal to do with the taste and everything he does is “amazing.” My mother-in-law on the other hand told me it could use a little more salt and a little less garlic. Moral of this first attempt: that’s the last time I cook in this house  I already made arrangements with my Grandmother who will let me use her kitchen on Wednesday and won’t tell anyone about it. I can’t wait!

On Reaching Day #40

 

I haven’t shared this with many people but today I am so happy that I can’t wait to share my good news. For 40 days now, I have been juicing fresh fruits and vegetables straight from my juicer at home. I’ve been eating nothing else! About a month and a half ago, I was browsing through my Netflix, when I came across the film “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead,” by Joe Cross. Joe Cross began this documentary film weighing at a whopping 310 pounds and was severely sick because of it. His unhealthy diet was slowly killing him. The entire film followed him as he juiced for sixty days in an attempt to gain his health back. Although after his sixty days he began implementing other foods into his diet, he continued eating healthy and helped others begin their journeys as well. I decided I’d do the same. I won’t share how much I used to weigh, because that would just be seriously mortifying. I will, however, say that I am now 30 pounds lighter and happier. Initially, I only wanted to juice for ten days, but when I saw my results on the scale, I decided to juice for three weeks. Three weeks turned into a month, a month turned into 40 days, and 40 days turned into, “What the hey, go for the sixty days.” So here I am. Every morning I wake up excited and energized to continue on this difficult journey, but ever night I go to sleep dreaming of biting into a carne asada taco or my gramma’s enmoladas. I seriously don’t know how much more of this torture I can take, but I hope I have the strength to see the sixty days through.  

On What I think learning looks like

One of the most embarrassing things about not owning my own vehicle is that I have to ride the bus in the mornings, and the bus is usually packed with San Diego High School students. When they spot me there are two usual reactions: One is for them to turn away from me without greeting me as if I were a parent trying to invade their privacy, and the second is for them to go right towards me and begin awkward conversations with me. Putting the awkwardness aside, I enjoy getting to know my students on a more personal level and I love that they feel comfortable sharing their thoughts with me.

One morning, I found a seat at the back of the bus, and I noticed two girls giggling over a book. I recognized one of the girls because she is in one of the classes where I am currently completing my practicum. They were both sitting next to each other at first. The student I work with was reading a book and her friend, sitting next to her, was listening to her iPod. The girl reading the book, couldn’t squelch a giggle so she poked her friend to get her attention. Her friend took her left earphone out and looked at the page where he friend was pointing at. They read the book together on their way to school, giggling about its content. About three stops before the high school, I slightly interrupted them, “Hey, I was wondering if it would be OK for me to take a picture of you girls. You see, one of my teachers asked me once what I think learning looks like, and I couldn’t help but notice how you are both reading the book together and giggling about it.” Although I can tell they thought it was a weird request, they allowed me to take a picture of them reading the book. The awkward thing is that when I finally did take a picture of them reading, the essence of learning was already gone, mainly because I had interrupted the genuine thing. I was still very happy to be able to freeze it in time though.

On Cultivating my PLN

Oops, so I had written my list and showed it to my instructor, but I failed to post it on a blog. Based on experience and taste, this is my own personal PLN checklist (as of now anyway because the more I get the hang of it, the more I must explore): 1. Make an effort to tweet out at least once or twice a day 2. Check Edmodo every other day to keep track of due work 3. Respond to my peers’ posts 4. Pin the various videos I will use from You Tube on Pinterest 5. Make a list of the various ingredients needed for the 20% project 6. Write at least two independent blog posts, apart from the required posts a week 7. Connect myself to Mexican food networks on Twitter and follow up on their recipes and share recipes on twitter 8. Begin experimenting with cooking and write about my experiences 9. Document my 20% project on Pinterest and tweet out my experience 10. Learn to download videos on You Tube 11. Participate in an Edchat

On the Essence of Connected Learning

About a year ago, I worked closely with an English teacher at San Diego High School. I was a Special Education Assistant in her class and helped her with her special needs students. I was shocked to learn that there was a particular student, Rhonda Spencer, who would come into our second period class about five minutes late every day. She would walk straight to the back of the classroom, get a laptop out of the laptop cart, take out her earphones, and surf the net the whole period. The teacher expected nothing from her and the students also learned to ignore her. Whenever I asked Rhonda to attempt to do work, she would yell at me and recite all sorts of bad names and bad words my way. I decided to speak to her case manager, who told me that there was an unofficial agreement with the teacher, special ed provider, and student for her to sit in the back of the room and surf the net so long as she was not disrespectful or disruptive to the class. There was nothing I can do, I wish those adults who were in charge of her education could watch this movie. Our Educational System is more focused on our outcomes, what do we want children to learn? And then everything we teach them is centered on that. Children’s interests and strengths are rarely considered. In the little time that I worked with Rhonda, I noticed how beautifully she drew. She also had an amazing imagination. For each episode of “The Walking Dead” that she watched on TV, she would collaborate with one of her classmates and write a mock script predicting what might happen on the next episode. I think Rhonda’s teachers and I could have helped her better if we would have been focused on bringing a community of people who want to learn together and focused on that rather than on content material. The clear message was that she was in the way of others’ learning and therefore had no place in the classroom, it’s embarrassing to know that I worked for educators who do that 

On being a learner or a student

This question should be easy enough to answer. I am both a learner and a student. When I am at home or enjoying leisure time, I love reading novels and doing research about the historical period in which the novel takes place and in which the author wrote it. I love making connections between the characters and the people of their time. I especially love comparing them to how life is in my community/family structure/era. There are no limits as to what I can and can’t learn, there are no deadlines or expectations. I can be a fabulous learner. As a student however, I have always struggled. As terrible as it may sound, I decided to be a student for the mere fear of becoming what the majority of the women in my family have become: young mothers, cholas, or married to an abusive man. I have sought school merely to escape poverty and violence. All this time I thought I was intrinsically motivated to be different, but as I listen to my peers, I am more extrinsically motivated. I have sought education to escape a horrible reality in hopes to inspire other Hispanic students to do the same. I have a feeling that I may not be the greatest person for this job. I feel like my peers are a lot more passionate about education than me. Where I seek it for survival, others seek it because they are passionate about it. I am not passionate about discipline, deadlines, or taking interest in what others tell me to take interest in. I am more passionate about going my own way, to study others without sharing my analysis, and listening to others without being questioned myself. I enjoy being invisible. I don’t think I know a teacher who feels the same why as I do. I know I can inspire my future students to be great learners, but the world wants great students. I can only hope I have what it takes to direct them in the right way.

On taking time to reflect

Someone who’s not in this class did ask me what I’ve learned in this course so far. I told him that I thought I learned a lot, I learned how to create a blog and how to write posts on it, something that was unimaginable for me before. I also learned how to respond to my peers’ posts. I continued sharing that when I finally become an English teacher, I will require my students to set up a Google account and create a blog so that they can write their homework on there instead of wasting and killing off trees. I find it to be a faster and easier way for our class to be connected even out of class. I also informed him, however that after speaking to my instructor, I am not meeting the required expectations of the course. I am not keeping up with all my written blogs, and I am not tweeting. When he asked me why I wasn’t doing the expected work, I went silent. For such a long time, my excuse has been, “because I hate computers and technology.” But now, I can’t say the same thing anymore because now that I understand a little of what I am doing, I enjoy it. I still strongly dislike Twitter, and know that I need to begin tweeting and sharing and reposting stuff. Because I have not done so, I am lagging way behind my classmates and have very little proof of my learning process, mainly because I have not learned much in the twitter department. This is a problem because in order for me to be able to use Diigo or Storify, I am going to need to tweet. If I were a person who naturally enjoyed and understood the virtual realm, this class may be a bit easier for me. Not only do I lack the knowledge and the confidence to start up, let alone maintain, a virtual life but I lack the passion for it. I like having a checklist, examples of what the teacher expects from me, for example: How many tweets a day/week/month is expected? How many independent blogs should I be posting? When responding to my peers’ posts, what exactly am I looking for to respond to? The one good thing about this though, is that it can only get better. I look forward to advancing to be where I need to be. I look forward to growth, and even though its uncomfortable, it will only make me that much more effective as an educator.