What I learned from teaching by Shelley Hopkins

My first real experience with being a teacher was in home schooling my three children.   I especially remember our first day of kindergarten; I think I was as nervous and as excited as my son.   For weeks I had scoured bookstores and the library, planning the themes of our first days of school.  I had purchased cheerful math books, tons of educational toys, posters for the walls, and of course crayons, paper, glue, paint and other art supplies.  We woke early, ate breakfast together and then walked downstairs to our “school room.”  Looking out the window I watched a mother and her two children waking past our house carrying little backpacks, eager for their first day at the school down the street.  I felt a little nagging doubt form in the back of my mind.  Was I denying my son these memories of first days, of walking to school and playground antics?

            We read a few books, played with toys and worked on a math sheet.  He painted a picture, and then it was lunchtime.  This first day had an anti-climatic feel to it, as if it should have been more special.  I wondered what the kindergarten down the street was doing, and if my son were missing out in some way. 

            I tried to decide what we should do next, how to pass the rest of the first day of school, and almost before I knew what had happened we were packing a picnic for the park.  We returned just as the neighborhood school was letting out.  The crossing guard stopped us, so we were able to watch children running, packs bouncing on their backs as they hurried home.  My son observed them for a minute and then said, “I hope their first day was as good as ours.” 

            Before long I had a classroom of three children, of different ages, different temperaments and interests, and vastly different learning styles.  Teaching my kids at home was the best hands on educational research I could ever participate in, plus it was fun and created mostly good memories with our family.

            Of course, there was stress too, and difficult moments when Mom had to push a child for better work and deeper thinking.  This need for a new voice of authority led me to my second educational experience, the University Model School, or two day a week school.

            The UMS is a hybrid of private school and home school, and with it come some of the good and some of the bad of each experience.  The parent is no longer in charge of the curriculum or day-to-day teaching, and the parent looses the control and freedom of being the teacher.  Students have opportunities to learn from teachers with new learning styles.  They can participate in labs and public speaking.

            As a teacher in this school I observed differences in the students from the private school system and those from the home school system.  The private school students, in general, were better organized, better at working in a specific time frame, and better spellers.  The home school kids were better at grasping the main ideas, working on their own without too much direction, and in seeing the big picture.  They generally had wider areas of knowledge.

            What does this mean?  I think all educational choices have strong points and weak areas.  Which path we choose, we have to prepare well, and be honest about the downsides.  It’s our job to try to reinforce the good while doing what may be needed to improve the bad.

            One of the main things I learned while I taught the middle school and high school classes was how much time I spent teaching things besides my subject.  I thought I was teaching science, but really I was teaching life skills, character traits, and organizational skills.  I taught them how important it was to do your own work, to ask when you don’t understand, to listen politely when another student speaks.  I really wanted to teach science, and I did, but the other traits and skills were needed, and perhaps in a way more important. 

            Later two of my children attended public high schools, and they had both good and bad experiences, as usual.  They have suffered mind numbingly boring classes, and classes where teachers had no idea what they were doing, classes where the students were in charge and chaos ruled.  They also have had inspirational teachers that they will remember forever, teachers that inspired them to learn more about a subject, or to believe more in themselves.  I am sure they have learned valuable lessons from both the bad and the good experiences, and I am not sure I would want to take those away from them.

            I guess that is the conclusion I have taken away from our experiences.  From our choices of education we have learned and grown, and I would not trade the good or the bad, because these experiences have shaped who the kids and we are.  The three kids have turned out wonderfully and with no lasting damage as far as I can tell.  Whatever your experiences are, make the best of them, learn and grow from the good experiences, and the less good as well.

Great Vegetarian recipes. Black bean burgers by Shelley Hopkins

This Week has been great for vegetarian meals, and they have all been yummy.  I had no plan to eat this way, as a matter of fact we were eating meal number three when I realized we were eating meatless.  It all started when I got my latest issue of Cooking Light Magazine with a beautiful cover photo of sweet potato soup.  I guess we weren’t entirely vegetarian, because the soup had a few bacon pieces as garnish.

First we ate home made black bean burgers, and they were extremely good, so good that I took an extra one to work, reheated it in the microwave, and it was still great.  The next night we had creamy mushroom fettuccini, followed by black bean tacos and then the wonderful sweet potato soup.  I don’t know which meal was my favorite of the week, but when even my husband didn’t seem to mind the lack of meat, I knew we had a good group of recipes.  Of course, we had salmon burgers from Costco today, just to meat up a little.

Here are two of the  recipes that we enjoyed so much this week.  I hope you find them to be as good as we did. For the rest of the recipes check out the Thanksgiving issue of Cooking Light, November 2013. 

Black bean burgers

1 (15 oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained

¼ cup chopped onion

¼ cup fresh cilantro

1 Tbs minced garlic

2 tsp soy sauce

½ tsp kosher salt

¼ cup bread crumbs

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 425.  Place beans in a large bowl and lightly mash.  Stir in onion and the rest of the ingredients listed above.  Divide mixture into 4 portions and shape each into a ½ inch thick patty.  Arrange on baking sheet coated with cooking spray.  Bake at 425 for 8 minutes; turn after 6 minutes. 

I had to cook these much longer than the 8 minutes, I think I cooked them more like 10 – 15 minutes.  I then melted a little cheese on each burger and served the traditional way, for us that was with coleslaw, mayonnaise or ketchup and mustard.

Creamy Sweet Potato Soup

2 pounds sweet potatoes, halved lengthwise (about 2 large)

¼ cup water

2 tsp olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

½ tsp cumin

¼ tsp red pepper

4 cups chicken stock

¼ tsp salt

6 bacon slices

1 oz fresh Parmesan cheese

Place potatoes, cut sides down, in a microwave safe dish and add the water.  Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 15 minutes.  Cool slightly, and discard skins.

Heat saucepan over medium high heat.  Add oil, swirl to coat.  Add onion and sauté 1 minute or until translucent.  Stir in cumin and red pepper.  Add stock to pan; bring to a boil.  Place half of the sweet potato and half of stock mixture in a blender.  Remove center piece of blender lid (to allow steam to escape); secure blender lid on blender.  Place a clean towel over opening in blender lid to avoid hot splatters.  Blend until smooth.  Pour pureed soup into a large bowl, and repeat with the rest of the potatoes and stock.  Stir in salt.  Divide soup into 6 bowls and sprinkle cooked bacon and cheese on top.

I have a hand held blender that I can put directly into the sauce pan to blend, so I removed the stock from the heat, added the potatoes and blended all of the soup at one time.  I still had to be careful not to splash out hot soup. 

Enjoy!

The Simple Life, a few thoughts by Shelley Hopkins

Simple Life

Living simply is a popular movement among busy Americans.  We can see the path to joy and fulfillment lies not in things, stuff and busyness, yet we have to struggle and plan to keep from being swept up in the tide of the To Spend is to Live Lifestyle.

We need shoes for every athletic activity, kitchen gadgets for each new recipe, various activities to raise well rounded children, and things, stuff and do-dads to fill the closets of our large houses.

Even the simplicity movement encourages spending as we read the magazines and books, and collect the trendy colored cloth bags.  I remember reading an article written by a frugal mother of six children.  She wrote books and articles sharing her tips to save money.  A TV station profiled her, and wanted to film the family in frugal activities.   She suggested they film her not eating at McDonalds, not shopping in department stores or buying soft drinks and chips, and not attending theme parks.  Of course this doesn’t make for good TV or video clips, but the best way to be frugal is to decide what you can do without.

The joy of life is not in possessions or even activities, but in something less tangible.  The things that bring us joy, can they be planned for, scheduled?  Can they be purchased?  I have a nice bicycle, a bike that I enjoy riding.  I like the color of the bike, the sleek shape and ease of changing gears, but the joy it brings is not from its color or shape, but in the freedom I feel flying through the trees.  I love the opportunity I have to explore pathways, to follow my family through old railway tunnels along rail trail parks.  The joy comes from spending time with my family in nature, in an activity we all enjoy together.  I did have to purchase bikes, but the bikes were not the fountain of the joy, only the tool we used that day.

Enjoy the simple pleasures of life.  Sunsets and rainstorms are still free, home cooked food is the best, and library books have all the same words as the store bought ones.  Remember there is a difference between the tool and the fountain of the joy, and always try to keep your focus on what is true.  Good luck!

How do people of other countries see the USA? by Shelley Hopkins

Books are transport ships to other worlds, the worlds of imagination, history, new ideas and great learning.  But more literally, books are transport ships to other lands, especially when travel literature is being read.  A good travel literature takes us on a grand ride as we experience the culture and land being explored.  It educates us on the history and geography of the place, but it also causes us to come face to face with our own ideas and cultures and beliefs, to evaluate them and understand their and our place in this world.

 One such book was written in the 1950’s by a foreigner discovering the United States, Manuel Zapata Olivella.  Zapata Olivella was a black Colombian doctor and poet who also considered himself a vagabond.  He spoke some English, and he finished a major world travel by crossing the United States during a difficult time in our history for a black man.  Zapata Olivella entered the country with Mexican guest workers, invited farm hands that were sprayed for insects like cattle, and then trucked out to the farms to work.  Zapata Olivella travelled on to California where he experienced American racism for the first time.  Although he was a medical doctor, he wasn’t licensed to practice medicine in the United States, so he was hired as a janitor in a hospital, with all the other black men.  One day, while sweeping the floor of one of the hospital rooms, a teaching doctor and several students entered and observed the patient. The doctor quizzed the students on the case of this particular patient, and when none of the students were able to answer the question, Zapata Olivella did.  He had an interest in the patient, and he was naively expecting to be treated with the respect due a doctor that had studied and understood difficult cases.

The doctor was shocked.  A black janitor had answered a difficult medical question, correctly, and in front of his students.  The doctor complained, and Zapata Olivella ’s reward was the assignment of having to clean all the bathrooms on his floor of the hospital.  The other black janitors were so proud of him, they gladly did all the cleaning, not even letting the young doctor help.

Later Zapata Olivella continued his travels, meeting black war veterans that couldn’t find work after fighting overseas.  He met and befriended Langston Hughes, and these two men remained friends for life.  The hardest experience for me to read was his’ bus travels through DC and Virginia.  The bus was segregated.  Zapata Olivella had to ride in the colored section, and he spends some time writing about the sign on the bus separating people based only on the color of their skin.  He sat next to a wealthy black mother and her child.  The bus stopped, as they do, at a rest area that offered restaurants and diners for the weary travelers.  The child was hungry, but all the restaurants were white only, so even though the mother had plenty of money, she and her child had to continue their trip hungry.  She had money, she cared for her child, but she was unable to provide a meal or even a snack, simply because of the policy of Jim Crow.  How sad, and how humiliating for the mother, and how difficult for the child to not understand why his mother couldn’t take care of him.

Not all of Zapata Olivella’s experiences were bad ones.  In many ways he enjoyed his travels and the friendships he collected while journeying through the United States.  Unfortunately the racism left its mark, and he returned home.

I had studied Jim Crow laws, and I knew the history of our country, but how much more informative it was to experience these times from a visitors eyes.

Usually travel literature takes us to distant lands and gives us opportunity to experience the lives of other countrymen, but this book allowed me to see my country fresh from the perspective of one that is outside, not shaped and influenced by having grown up here.

The book he wrote is in Spanish, He Visto La Noche, or I Have Seen the Night.  I am not sure if it has been translated into English, but if it ever is this book should be a classic.

Another book, written in English this time, and in a more modern era, is Steven Fry In America.  Fry is a very dry British comic who comes to America and visits every state, all 50 of them.  He made a video series of this trip which I thoroughly enjoyed, and can be viewed on Netflix, at least right now.  The book is also excellent. 

When a foreigner visits our country sometimes they see the way things really are, not clouded by our own stereotypes and beliefs.  Perhaps we are too close to see the truth at times.  Zapata Olivella wasn’t raised in our culture, so he saw our racism as an outsider, yet as a fellow sufferer.  Fry was able to peer through our culture and grasp the strengths and weaknesses of it.  In the introduction to his book, Fry says, by way of apology for not getting everything right about the USA and the individual states, “My eyes, those of an outsider looking in, are bound to miss and to misinterpret.  As it happens, I enjoy reading impressions of Britain written by visitors to our shores; the mistakes and misreadings only add to the pleasure and often make me think about my country in new ways, so perhaps my sweeping inaccuracies and dumb failures to grasp the essentials can be taken in that light, as revealing rather than obscuring.  Sometimes the spectator sees more of the game.”

My favorite inspiration recorded by Fry about my country came from Johnny Ive, a design guru for Microsoft that lives in Washington state.  He was born in Britain and chose to work and create in the United States, because he felt that our country was the best place to nurture creativity.  He said of the US, “There’s a conspicuous lack of cynicism and skepticism.  Ideas are so fragile, aren’t they?” His fragile ideas included the ipod and the macbook. 

   Here he felt the environment was better for trying out ideas, taking creative risks, and just thinking. What a great commentary on us.

Why Go Out To Eat? by Shelley Hopkins

Why go out to eat?  There are many reasons, such as not having time to prepare a meal, not wanting to cook every single day of the week, wanting to get out of the house, and my favorite, not having to do the dishes.

When my husband and I go out for dinner we both want healthy and clean choices, but mainly we want variety, something we can’t get or cook at home. 

Last weekend my husband and daughter ran errands and I joined a friend for our own activities.  We ate out in separate restaurants, cultures and countries.  My husband and daughter went to a Vietnamese place.  Laura ordered a soup in which the ingredients were all listed in English except for one item –Gan.  Laura asked, what was Gan? The owner/waitress shook her head and, said it was tendon.  She offered to serve the soup without tendon, but Laura loves to try new things, and despite being asked twice, she ordered the soup with all the ingredients and enjoyed the meal.  The waitress checked several times just to be sure.

Later in the week they brought me to eat at the same place and the waitress remembered Laura and her meal.  The day I joined them we were the only customers that had to speak English to order, at least at first.  While we were eating another English speaking couple entered and sat near us.  They eyed our meals and asked what we were eating.  I’m not sure they liked their food as much as we did.  I think some people try food of other cultures expecting it to be the same or very similar to what they are used to.

We had summer rolls on our table, beautiful food works of art.  The bread that held the veggies and shrimp was clear, like cellophane, yet it tasted good, like bread.  The soups had cold noodles in broth, with bean sprouts, vegetables and large chunks of peppers.  A plate of fresh cilantro and mint was included, and the bright green leaves contrasted in texture, color and taste with the soups.

Chatting with the owner we learned she had just made a Vietnamese cake.  We showed interest and on our way out she made us wait while she heated some of the spongy green bread for us, served in a paper bowl.  I’ve never eaten moss green cake before, but it was excellent.

On the first day that they were discovering this place, my friend and I decided to eat at a Central American Café we knew about.  We would probably be the only non Hispanics in the place and we were eager to try our language skills and enjoy the meal.  When we pulled up to the building it was closed, and the lights were off.  Disappointed we drove on.  At the end of the street, at the last minute, we decided to at least have ice cream, and we stopped at a little cement building with pictures of ice cream cones painted along the walls.  At the door a printed sign said, “We do not serve ice cream – We serve Hispanic foods.” 

Inside several customers were chatting in Spanish while waiting to order.  The building was small, with only 3 tables.  My friend and I chose our food, ordered in Spanish and enthusiastically soaked in the languages around us.  One lady was the sole employee.  She stood behind a cabinet and took orders.  Soft drinks and jarritos were in a cooler at her feet.  A butcher’s block held fresh cilantro and a package of corn tortillas.  On a griddle she warmed the tortillas, added pork or chicken, sauce and cheese.  To the plate she added a salad, and lemon wedges for dressing.  We ate, dripping juices and cheese on our faces, plates and laps.  The food was excellent.  On the way out we thanked the cook/ owner for being patient with us in speaking Spanish.  She smiled and laughed a little and said no problem. 

Why go out for warmed up pre-cooked lasagna’s, and yesterdays meatloaves, or the many varieties of chicken and sauce, chicken and noodles, chicken and cheese, or chicken burgers and fingers when you can experience a new meal and a new culture all at once.  Here in South Carolina the culture and food is unique, with the Gullah influence and the fresh vegetables and fruits.  Gullah food is the local culture, and it can’t be found anywhere else, at least not with the South Carolina twist.  Why eat the same food in every place, when visiting other countries or new states?