Page Turner

 I've always been interested in baking bread and I recently took on the endeavour of baking sourdough. Immediately, I started to hear how difficult sourdough bread is to bake due to the the time consuming aspect of baking the bread properly. Even before this journey, I knew that bread-bakers always attributed sourdough to a very difficult bread. So, I started this journey with my guard up, expecting to make many mistakes that would result in uneatable bread.  Guess what. They lied.  I'm not saying it was incredibly easy, there are plenty of lessons I've learned through my mistakes. But those mistakes do not mark a difficulty for me, they mark my accomplishments. I've made mistakes I never thought I could make through my journey of baking sourdough, but they taught me valuable lessons and I don't regret a single mistake I made.  I decided to dust off my blog after taking to a friend about sourdough, and all she had heard about it was that it was the most difficult th...

Keiko sees herself as an essential part of her community; someone who makes sure everyone has what they need whenever they need it, and someone who keeps everything organized for their convenience. Her work is very important to her, she is very dedicated to her job to the point where it's her central focus in life. Work has been the only thing in her life that's made sense, it gives her purpose and she feels safe in that. Keiko is a convenience store woman. Obviously, her family and friends find it very concerning that she's happy working at a convenience store for seventeen years, and that she's never had a partner, which makes her an "other" in their eyes. The thing is, Keiko knows how she is perceived and she doesn't care. She continues happily working at the store until Shiraha, a new hire at the store, moves into her apartment. "Convenience Store Woman" explores the idea of relationships viewed by society, and how society can make you feel f...

Having baking as a hobby was always a challenge for me, especially because I have a habit of getting angry and blaming the recipe rather than myself. It seems obvious now, of course, that I was to blame for all the burned food I prepared. But now that I am trying to be patient with myself and not rush the process, I am seeing better results. I finally understand how baking or cooking can be fun!  I used to be jealous of people who would eat good food at restaurants and be able to recreate the dish at home. My goal is to become one of those people. Because let's face it, we can't always go to a restaurant to eat good food. Plus, something about the sense of accomplishment makes the food taste better. There's something relaxing about taking your time and cooking something you love. Eventually, you start to think of ways you can improve the recipe and add your touch to it. Like, yeah cookies are cookies but mine have coconut flakes. Which makes them better.  The euphoric momen...

I was substituting for a really great class when I ran across a book called " This I Believe ". It was among one of the many books stacked on to the teacher's desk, but what interested me was the description of the book. "This I Believe" is a series of small essays submitted by people from across the country, and it originally started as a radio show broadcast in the 1950s. People would write their essays and read them aloud on the radio, and they were required to be under five minutes so they had to be clear and concise.  The first story I read really intrigued me to keep reading the book further, and the story was called "Be Cool to the Pizza Dude". The author, Sarah Adams, describes her philosophy for empathy and kindness through the idea that everyone should be cool to the pizza dude. If they cut you off in traffic, be understanding. They have a lot of deliveries and don't get paid too much for the hard work they do. If they are a little rude t...

I'm a nerd and I really wanna talk about one of my favorite sonnets; Ozymandias  by Percy Shelley. I remember reading this sonnet for the first time in my freshman year of university, and I was blown away. I tried to incorporate it in every mock lesson plan I had as I was training to be a teacher. It's a fantastic poem that even inspired a song  by Red Vox. I've been dying to talk about it, so here we go.  The name "Ozymandias" refers to the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, as he was referred to by the Greeks. The poem is narrated by a traveler "from an antique land" who describes his travels; specifically, the statue remains he found of a powerful king in the middle of a desert. The only remains of the statue were two giant legs and the head which lay above the sand, and a pedestal that read "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; / Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!". The traveler could tell the pharaoh was very intimidating in his time thro...

As a substitute teacher, I have been able to observe a variety of K-12 classes...and I have some thoughts. Specifically about classroom setup.  From the moment you walk into the classroom, you can tell what kind of day you're going to have. Not because of the students, but because of how the classroom is set up. For example; if you walked into a class and saw bean bags near a shelf full of books, lamps along the edges of the class, a great speaker system, or a spotless desk with organized cubbies for turned in work from students, you know you will have an amazing day. However, if you walk into a room with single file desks, no posters on the walls, a dusty teacher desk, and/or no speakers (!!!) then you know today is going to be a challenge. The way a classroom is set up is very important, and it sets a good first impression of how the teacher is going to manage the class. From what I have seen, and what researchers have observed, it's clear that a student-centered classroom is...

 Four years is a good enough break from writing, I think. Obviously, I kept writing for my degree and I still write a little bit today for my job as a substitute teacher, but for a while, writing lost its flair. I didn't see anything exciting about it, nor did I think anyone would want to read what I wrote.  But, what the hell. If the last two years have taught us anything, it's that we can't wait for external validation to continue our life. At some point you have to get up, dust yourself off, and try again.  So here's to trying again! Here's to writing those silly research papers that no one but me cares about--and here's no literally no one but me reading them! I do remember having fun writing down my thoughts on the most random things, maybe I'll find the flair again if I just put in a little bit of effort. 

My project's focus was helping students who are being bullied. I think the best way to help them (or the thing that helped me the most) is writing or drawing. I had my participants doing that today. Some of them didn't want to keep their pictures so...I took them because I love them too much! It was great! I guess the motivation for the project was that I've seen so many teachers get it wrong when it comes to dealing with bullies, that I wanted to know how I would act under such a situation. How could I improve? My audience for this project was future teachers and current teachers as well. This concerns all of us, and we all have an influence on all our students. If we see bullying and don't do anything about it, that sends the message that we don't care. The form of my project was more activity based. I had my participants draw or write something which I thought was really fun and kind of relaxing. If I had known that we got so little time, then I would have ch...

I think the greatest way teachers can help students is by letting them tell their story and paying attention to it. This can be by a short story assignment or just encouraging kids to write. Especially for kids who are bullied--we have a lot on our minds that often goes unsaid because we felt like no one would care. It's important to encourage students to write about their experiences so that they could try to learn from them. A great resource I found, though it seems a little rushed, is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo. This website encourages people, student or not, to write a "novel" in the month of November and submit it at the end of the month. What you do is you make a profile so that you can start your novel on November 1st. And every time you write, you copy and paste your progress into their website so they can keep track of your progress. You earn badges along the way and even get some feedback from other users. This is a great way to encourage kid...

So, recently I started looking into Jack the Ripper. (Don't ask me why, it's a weird story.) I found out potential suspects and the one I think did it is named Joseph Barnet. Barnet was "active" during the late 1800's, and targeted prostitutes in London because he disagreed with "their choice of life". So you know--he killed them. (Allegedly!) He was roommates with the last Jack the Ripper victim; Mary Kelly. Rumor has it that Barnet was in love with Kelly, and wanted her off the streets. He earned money so that should wouldn't have to do the dirty , but he lost the job after a while so she was forced to go back to being a prostitute. They had fights over money, and ten days before Kelly was killed, Barnet left her. Coincidence? I think not! Now, as I questioned my life while researching this, I thought maybe I could write a historical fiction short story about Jack the Ripper! I could have someone kill him! So I made up a story in which Kelly'...

In this semester I got to go to Preston Middle School and teach/observe students. I got some of my questions answered like what should I do if a student in class keeps goofing off, or how do I get my kids to pay attention and do their work while having fun? There are just a couple questions I still have unanswered. How will I help students who are struggling? How do I teach a student in my class whose first language isn't English? How do I get my kids interested in what I'm talking about? How do I get my kids to engage in lectures and discussions? How will I conduct my class? Will it be traditional or untraditional? Will my teaching techniques work? How can I try new things with my students without failing? Like I said. A few questions. Truth is, I'm filled with even more questions as time goes on, because I don't feel like I'm ready to enter a class on my own. I'm not ready to teach on my own! But that's ok, because I'm not even close to earning my ...

I went on " Stories Teachers Share " which is a podcast website that focuses on the stories teachers have to share. The story I looked at was of Alexa Schlechter . She shared how she often feels stressed by her job because her students expect a lot of her, and she's scared to let them down. This story takes place in her Creative Writing class; this class has a mixed crowd meaning some students are there because they want to learn creative writing and others are there because they want to get the English credit over with so they can graduate. At the end of the semester, Alexa asks her students to write a memoir so they can be remembered as someone glorious! It is then she tells us about the student who always gets her work done, and never causes any trouble. This student comes forward with a story of how she has been cutting herself for six years hoping someone will notice, but no one did. After this, she felt invisible and attempted suicide two times. Alexa asked the stud...

Dear Mrs. Joshi, My name is Mudita Yajnik, you had me as your student in fourth grade. I am writing to you today to say thank you for being such a great teacher, and for helping deal with bullies. You were the first teacher  ever  who made me feel welcome in their class, and I could tell that you really did care about me. While I was in your class, I was dealing with a lot of bullies and the teachers ignored my cries for help. You, however, did not ignore me and let me vent when I wanted and provided a creative outlet for me to express myself. Even though it was an English language class, you had us drawing and playing games and spending time outside in the sun, and that made your class really fun and memorable. I remember we used to sing a song you made up for us. We used to sing it together as a class, and I used to sing that song at home as well! You even offered to tutor me so I can earn better grades in my classes. While I was in your class, I felt comf...

The dreaded finals week is upon us! You know what this means: staying up late to catch up on work and trying not to fall asleep in your early classes. Keeping up with all the deadlines coming up, while trying to keep a positive attitude so that you can fool yourself into believing that you can get through this. It sucks. But here's what I found. The more you stress yourself out by not relaxing or not sleeping, the worse your results will be. If you don't relax, you won't be putting your best foot forward. And I look for pretty much any excuse to relax, so here's what I do when I get stressed: 1. Eat! Eating distracts me somehow because all of a sudden this food is the most important thing in the world. I start to realize how hungry I've been this whole time and give myself a break as I find something to eat around the house. 2. Sleep. The most important thing to remember is that your brain will not function if it doesn't get rest. You won't be wasting ti...

A few posts ago, I described my dream school in which students are not judged harshly on their grades but their effort. A letter won't define their grade, the amount of work they put into it will. The school would be project based and would rely on outside resources so that students can understand from a young age how to look for good resources on their own. Essentially, I want my students thinking critically so that they don't believe everything they see. I want them to search for facts before believing something. I also want my school to be a self-improving school so the teachers would try to get their students to ask themselves why they believe what they believe. The perfect example of this is looking through advertisements, and looking at your own bias. Do you prefer one product to the other even though those products are the same? How is the viewer supposed to be influenced by the advertisement? Another way to self-improve is to read "controversial" texts in whic...

For my Advocacy Badge, I am advocating for teachers not  having guns in the classroom because I believe this will make students afraid of the teachers and this will lead to students having little to no trust in their teachers. This can't be good for the teaching environment because a student can not learn when they are scared. I say this from experience. My example is not as intense as a gun in the classroom, but I know what it's like to be afraid of a teacher. Before my family and I moved to America, I used to go to public school in India. Indian schools are a lot more different than American schools; mostly because teachers are allowed to bully students if they don't show results the teacher wants to see. For example; if a student (me) didn't complete their homework, the teacher is allowed to humiliate the student (me) in front of the class. If you complain about this to the principle, you will be seen as the troublemaker, not the victim. I think my teachers thought...

I know a lot of cheesy inspirational quotes say "hold the door open for opportunities" as a metaphor for having new experiences and opportunities to work with, but what about metaphoric flies? No one ever thinks about that. What about a really bad opportunity? I'm in a good mood today, as you can tell, so I wanna talk about the bad results I have seen by trying things I knew I wouldn't be good at but was pushed to do them by my parents, peers, or friends. #1: Riding a rollercoaster after eating. Can you guess how that story ended? (You probably can.) So, my friends and I drove up to Denver to go to Elidge Gardens. I was a bit hungry so I had some food, and immediately my friends wanted to go on the rollercoaster. I tried to say no, that I'll just watch and wait for them to get back, but they pushed me to ride with them and I threw up as soon as I got off the ride. #2: AP. American Literature. I wasn't always interested in Literature, and my A.P. American...

I've had a couple classes that were super boring. And having that thought in the back of my mind, I was not expecting a fun class when I walked into Accounting 1 in high school. The teacher had a reputation for choosing favorite and being extremely boring, but my dad wanted me to try out the class, so I didn't have a choice. I walked in and chose a seat in the back of the class. But when the teacher walked in, we noticed that it wasn't Mr. VanDalen! It was Mr. Gould! His substitute for the semester! The first day of class he handed out the syllabus and told us he will most likely not follow the due dates and let us take our time with whatever we need because he knew everyone worked at their own pace. He also made us laugh, which was a welcome surprise in Accounting 1. After that, I always looked forward to that class, even though I had absolutely no interest in it. Why? Because my teacher made it fun. He would assign us work for the class but no one complained because...

So there's this Hindi movie called 3 Idiots, in which the main character says that when life gets too hard your heart starts beating really fast which makes you scared of the task ahead. But your heart is really stupid and will react to everything around you. His advice was to put your hand over your heart and say "all is well" until you start to feel calmer. This will give you strength to take on the task ahead. I followed the advice the other day. I was working on my badge and an essay for another class, and then I remembered I needed to read an article for another class and read a book for another class and I couldn't help but panic. I started thinking there was no way I could do all this in such little time, there was no way I could finish any  of the tasks in time! But then I remembered the advice. So I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, put my hand over my heart and said: "all is well." I did this for about a minute and each time I told myself ...

The semester is coming to a close, and the tensions are high! I have several essays due in finals week so I am starting on those, I am doing well with my badge, but still feel like it could use more work, and my weekends are spent at work so my window for doing school work got a lot smaller. But other than that it's going great. I mean it. You know why? Because ever since my family and I moved to Fort Collins (in 2012) I have wanted to attend CSU. And now that I'm finally here I really love it! And yes, it's hard but I expected that. So whenever things get too overwhelming, I try to remember why I'm here in the first place. This helps me calm down and focus on the task at hand. My intentions for this semester is to walk away having learned something that will help me in my career. That's what I'm here to do, and that's what I hope to accomplish by the end of this semester. I have learned a lot from my EDUC 340 class because I get the opportunity to observe...