You Can’t Learn Any Younger: Studying Ukrainian

After hemming and hawing over whether to study Russian or Ukrainian, I decided to express solidarity with beleaguered Ukraine and be a more accessible and welcoming teacher for the immigrants and refugees that have chosen our school for their children.

I enjoy and do well at learning languages. In (Canadian) school and in an immersion program I learned French, along with a little Kotokoli when I stayed in Togo a few months. In college I took a year of German and still remember a good deal.

Living in Israel for a few years gave me the opportunity not only to enter the excellent HSL programs there but also to use the language daily. I’ve dabbled in Spanish and thought of arranging an adult immersion experience to advance my fluency, as I expected to encounter many Spanish-speakers in my next teaching placement. All this has been great for my brain and for communicating with a few internationals, none of these languages, even Spanish, were useful in my job. But our school does attract more eastern Europeans.

I was intrigued by the idea of adding another new alphabet to my repertory. People also assured me that most Russians could understand Ukrainian, like the French-Spanish connection. I got the two-week trial version of Duolingo and started practicing daily, learning the alphabet, reading, writing, and aural comprehension. It’s not immersion, and it’s slow, but I can fit practice in every day and it works to build vocabulary and some grammar.

The app is motivating, though I avoid prompts to get me more connected and appeals, based on FOMO, to practice when I simply don’t have the time. My goal is to engage in actual conversation and not just maintain my Top Ten status on the app, so I’m starting to build a notebook and am making reference cards. In using the little language I have, I’ve seen how meaningful it is for them to hear their language from the locals, it helped me properly assess the math levels of a few kids whose geometry vocabulary was in Ukrainian or Russian. I’m getting help from these friends with the more subtle elements of expression and pronunciation. It’s a win-win.

Next steps: watching Ukrainian films, writing more, memorizing phrases useful for my work, and looking for opportunities to practice conversation.

 

Last year I got my US citizenship, and I think I’m overthinking my voting process.

My kids’ packets always comes first in the mail, but that gets me on the alert as I wait for mine. I get my envelope a week or so later and pull out the guide, read all the statements for initial impressions. I look at the candidates’ photos–what for? I don’t know, and I don’t fully trust that, since it will surely, as this Scientific American article says, trigger my ingrained stereotypes. But at least I can observe and reflect on these, and maybe, just maybe, put a little trust in what appears to be a genetically ancient and still adaptive instinct–can I perhaps recognize the look of competence or trustworthiness? But surely I’m not as adept at recognizing these qualities in faces that are unlike those I most frequently interact with. And whether there’s any merit or utility to these instincts is debatable–the variables are many and their testability is questionable, as this NIH article explains. So I prepare to rebel against anything that appears to be, in practice, ancient bigotry resurfacing in a time where (I have been trained) it has no place. Are they more like my “self” or “other” group, my instincts race to ask? “Watch out!” my mind warns, “Check your bias!” Against what? Do I even have any trustworthy standard, rebalancing factor to “check” it against, other than the current socio-political brands being marketed to me daily? Are these any more trustworthy than my paleo-gut reactions, really?

So I back up to consider, why do I vote? What is my goal? In choosing candidates to support, I need to know this. Is it to “participate in the democratic process?” Too vague and theoretical. To strengthen the power of the group(s) I am part of and keep myself insulated, safe, and comfortable? Understandable, and in my experience, a common approach. Is it to right wrongs against others, restore equity, preserve diversity, rebalance access to resources and power, take the moral high ground, be on “the right side of history”? What’s the hidden self-interest there? For I am not so naive to think it’s all about altruism. Is it to solve current, visible, pressing problems that threaten my livelihood, family, resource network?

Consider the argument that all have the responsibility to vote. I’ve absorbed this view along the way, and so felt guilty that I hadn’t started my citizenship application process earlier in my decades of residency here. I certainly think I should vote, as an informed and responsible citizen. But should everyone? Should poorly informed, mislead, psychotic and criminal citizens also vote? If not, then the problem arises, who decides who ought and ought not to vote? What’s to stop the powers that be (at any particular time) from defining these in (can vote) and out (disqualified) groups based purely on power interests, and limiting education opportunities and expanding definitions of criminality and psychosis? Wait…, uh. Oh. I write as if that’s not already a well established practice…

AAct gives ten general reasons that to vote, all about affecting one’s personal quality of life. This makes sense, but how do I figure that out? What candidates will best support my self- and group-interests? Which will best smooth pathways to my best life now? And what about my past religious and humanistic training that says moral choices involve self sacrifice? Is it sometimes best to vote in a way that loosens my group’s grip on power in order to diversify and balance access, in order to, if not improve my own lot, at least improve my self concept and therefore mental health? Or should I give up today’s marshmallow (me first) for the three of the future (diversified and decentralized balance of power for more stability and progress for the larger society)?

From the unsolicited text appeals, I discerned that the local Republican group wants me to vote, because there was a time my late spouse, usually a Democrat, voted for Trump. Certainly not because they believe everyone should vote, as this Pew Research poll indicates. Democrats want me to vote because either they believe I’m in the Democrat majority of my riding or as a member of a teachers’ union I’m likely to support them. The websites of both encourage readers to come out to vote, surely based on the belief that those looking at these pages are already on their side.

This year the local voters packet receipt deadline came and went without my getting anything, so I did a little research, finding that I’d be unable to get to a voting station in time without quitting work early, except on November 7th, on which day the polling was open until 8 pm. Down I went, where the sense of civic responsibility was on full display, people strolling in from the rain-wet streets and poring over their options before slipping their envelopes into the box.

 

My Emergency Preparedness: I am ready for everything but combat, which I plan to avoid. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Writing Prompt: Your emergency preparedness

I live on the Washington coast in the Rim of Fire, on otherwise stable, solid ground. I am above the tsunami zone and outside the direct path of any volcano. Weather is rarely extreme even now here, with hot but not scorching summers and generally mild, wet winters. Rarely, high winds can knock down branches and occasionally trees, and a winter storm or freeze comes every few years. Global warming has made the new normal warmer overall with more extreme fluctuations between a wetter fall through spring and regular summer drought. Wildfire in the dryer east sends smoke, but everyday fire risk is much lower here.

I live on the edge of a small city in a single family residential neighborhood with a small urban center nearby–mainly mid-rise condos with small non-essential businesses plus a small grocery store and a few small health clinics. Puget Sound is a few blocks west down the hill, train tracks run along the bay, and a freeway runs north-south a few miles inland. A few streams run down to the sea via gravelly ravines and wetlands, all pretty dry in the summer. There are single and stands of mature trees, a lot of lawns and ornamental shrubs.

What are the most likely disaster events here? This website outlines Washington’s main risks, although the listed flooding impacts in my area would be indirect. A major earthquake is expected at any time, as the Cascadia subduction slowly builds tension. More extreme heat is expected with greater fire danger even along the shore, flooding is already becoming more common in the low parts of the city. There could also be a chemical spill or fire from the risky rail cargo that runs northward through here daily, as coal producers and shippers of natural gas, chlorine, and and other toxic chemicals go to market.

I will define “emergency” as something that cuts my main lines of digital interaction with the world, as well as electricity, gas, and perhaps water supply. I will also assume some combination of the following: a stalled retail and wholesale food system with a consumer run on supplies and hording, no access to digital financial services, and structural damage to roads, bridges, and buildings. I’ll assume for now no ongoing threat from human aggression, just that something major and relatively natural has occurred and here I am in the aftermath, including possible minor injury.

I have some family and friends nearby, with all but one adult child within walking or biking distance. Other family members are out of county or state, with communication problematic.

First for the status of my existing resources. I have a small a one story home on the power grid with natural gas, water, and sewer connections, which I now assume will be without these services. The house is unlikely to have suffered dangerous structural damage due to its small size and simple, solid construction, although there are numerous large trees that could have fallen on it, and it might have been jiggled off its foundation onto the clay beneath.

I have no off-grid power source and no indoor wood heating, so a winter storm would send me seeking shelter solutions. A big enough wildfire would quickly consume my home as I fled, and gaseous toxins could easily seep in through cracks in poorly sealed doors and windows.

For emergency supplies and equipment, I have first aid supplies, written guides and training, a battery/dynamo operated radio/light, and rechargeable two way radios. I have dust masks, basic shop gas masks with filters, gloves of many materials, tarps and plastic sheeting, packing and duct tape, and a shop full of hand tools. I have several types of water purification systems, and an understanding of evaporative distillation and sediment-based filtration.

For long term survival, I have both knowledge and reference literature about wild food availability and harvest methods, as well as shelter in place protocols. I have a stock of firewood including kindling, candles, fire-starting gear. I have no firearms, just a can of pepper spray for emergency defense in sketchy situations. No training in combat or self defense either, although I’m pretty good at de0escalating tensions at times. I have too many fishing rods and an abundance of line and tackle, including a fly-tying kit.

My food supplies include a healthy larder for two people (my son and me), with a mix of food in the fridge and freezer, some baking ingredients, condiments, nuts, popcorn, tea, coffee, cheese, herbs, and spices. I also have at this time a large garden growing an abundance of greens, beans, zucchini, beets, tomatoes, brassicas, peppers, fresh herbs, and berries. As they ripen, I eat or preserve what I can and give away or compost the rest. I have the year’s harvest of potatoes stored, bags of berries and apples frozen, dried, or made into juice, with more harvest yet to come. My hens lay two to three dozen eggs a week. I’ve also stored about 20 gallons of emergency water and have several five-gallon buckets full of rice and beans, as well as a half bucket each of kamut and wheat. I also canned a half dozen quarts of chicken broth from a few months’ worth of leftover bones from my and a friend’s meals.

My cooking and warming tools include a gas grill with a half full tank of propane, camp stoves with extra gas canisters, and a metal bonfire container. I have tents, sleeping gear, and miscellaneous recreational gear.

I have skills and supplies for sewing and knitting to pass the time or create things needed, as well as writing, drawing, and art supplies, musical instruments, games, and plenty of reading material.

Wild food supplies available here: fish and crawdads inhabit a small lake and a few low-flowing streams within walking distance, and in the bay there are more fish, shellfish, and other edibles. I have a small metal fish trap and the skill to create one from natural materials. I can move by on the water kayak and paddle board, on land by bicycle (including a charged e-bike), and a plug-in hybrid, fully charged and with a full tank of gas. There are two other gas-powered vehicles on site–a second plug-in hybrid, and a 4WD pickup with inverter. Both have at least a half tank of gas.

I am fit enough to walk long distances, swim, and do manual labor. I am not dependent on any medications or other health supplies.

So I have no worries of starvation, boredom, isolation, or any physical or mental health crisis in the short or long term. Although within a few weeks in summer, my vulnerable fruits and vegetables would stop producing or die due to the drought, unless I fetch water and irrigate them. Within a week I would need to consume, can, dry, or use as chicken feed all freezer and fridge contents, which I could do over a wood fire. But still, I have access to plenty of foods for a sustaining diet. Pooling with neighbors to prioritize the consumption of perishables, we would do rather well. Furthermore I am not averse to consuming wild animals such as our local insects, squirrels, birds, and especially our abundant local rabbits and deer. I am confident that my ancestral teaching and reading on how to trap, gut, skin, and preserve wild game (with some practice on rabbits and fowl) will enable me to obtain such sources of sustenance for me and my community, without sacrificing my hens or beloved cat. Indeed, these last two can provide guidance by their example as to which small animals are safe and nutritious, such as the amphibians living in wet areas around the neighborhood.

My only concern therefore would be to establish and maintain contact with family and friends and help make sure their needs are met. As soon as possible I would execute the family connection plan–not yet formalized, but since I have more resources to survive at my place and have caring children, I expect my locals would head over this way as soon as they could. Perhaps one of us would have been able to send word to their out-of-state sibling and some of our extended family–it can be easier to contact those outside an emergency zone than within. There’s another thing to formalize–the chain of contact, making sure all have the relevant written contact information. We would also probably need to connect with local emergency personnel regarding our safety and how we might assist others.

A few things I would also consider adding to my emergency preparedness system: A solar panel and/or pedal-powered dynamo with chargeable battery, a rainwater tank, a fish pond, more poultry, and proper wire for snaring small animals. My grandfather, who had a trapline, used picture cord.

This feels good. I am ready. I plan to avoid attack by sharing skills and resources, using de-escalation techniques, and if necessary overwhelming would-be enemies with with lavender oil and folk music.

 

Can’t Learn any Younger 2023B

Learning Ukrainian

I enjoy learning and using words, including languages other than my mother tongue. I started learning French in middle school (Canada)with Madame O’Toole –“ee, oh, euw!” and continued through a few college courses, got stuck where it became academic and technical book study and memorization (while not spending enough time in the audio lab). I thought, this isn’t for me after all; I guess I’m done with French.

Then I was fortunate to be accepted into Canada World Youth/Jeunesse Canada Monde, which took me to the next level through real life French immersion, although the focus of the program was an introduction to rural development. Tn Togo I also learned a smattering of some Kotokoli and experienced the joys of learning from children, using drawings, music and role play to build elementary vocabulary. I especially remember the excitement of four little girls of my host household, Teyba, Falila, Nura, and Celimata, as they recognized my sketch of a scorpion–“Chaliamleh!” they exclaimed, and their delight as I inserted their names into a song as I strummed my guitar. Another day as I heard a young Togolese man call out a suggestive comment, I was able to retort and startle him with my own retort in Kotokoli.

In later years I lived with my family in Jerusalem without much contact with an English language community, and took well-taught Modern Hebrew classes with other internationals, getting to reasonable written and spoken fluency in those two and a half years.

In both of these immersions I suffered the humblingly frustrating aspects of being a language learner, and got over some of my shyness about interacting with others with little shared language. Remembering how welcome were the efforts of native speakers to connect with me then, and knowing the mental and emotional strain language learners experience has motivated me to do what I can to address communication gaps. That led me to independent study and a course in Spanish and the intention to arrange a Spanish immersion experience for myself in future.

I got a long term teaching position in a community where Russian and Ukrainian families are the dominant post immigration group, so after inner debate on whether to learn one or the other language, I settled on Ukrainian. I am on day seventy-two of my DuoLingo membership for that. It’s a nice way to build up auditory and reading vocabulary, but I’ll be ready for and need more grammar and spoken conversation practice next.

The rudimentary Ukrainian I’ve tried with families has been minimal, but with a disproportionate payoff in the faces of kids and a few parents who support them in the classroom. I hope I’ll become a more useful language liaison as I progress.

 

Ocean Elation

If water is whence all before you have come
and whither your ashes one day will be strewn

It's sensible meanwhile to seek  full immersion
and not pay much mind to your natural aversion

It's a proactive choice of the will, I suppose
and it's best to be bearing some stored adipose

You hear a lone gull, feel a swirl and a lift;
you draw in your breath, immerse, and then drift

Lightly, but firmly, the sea will caress you
though what moves in the dimness may slightly distress you

Then, calm and alert as you cool down your vagus
You are free from the pains of tension and sadness

The cold and the fear soon give way to elation
With a grin, you release your salty libation

When it's time to repurchase the gravel and climb
you have gained more than shore, 
and saved more than time

 

Can’t learn any younger 2023A

Masters in Creative Nonfiction

My application is in the works and I hear back in a few weeks. After searching off and on for something that would be most suited to my needs and most effective for the cost, finally a web search led me, much to my surprise, to a new program offered by my alma mater. No, really–I wasn’t trying for that (an algorithm, maybe?). I got my biology degree from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but at the advice of a friend, lived in the dorms of the centuries-old University of King’s College. It was there that I enjoyed a rich community of mostly liberal arts students from all over the Maritimes and elsewhere. King’s is known for their first year great books study year, the Foundation Year Program (FYP) and journalism. So while studying the natural world at Dal, familiarizing myself with the living kingdoms and their evolution and ecology, collecting and analyzing data, drawing conclusions, over lunch or up at all hours socializing in the dorms or down at the pubs, I was immersed in far ranging conversations with people who spent all day, every day, reading, writing, and philosophizing. I loved it–it was the next logical step from my home life.

Their Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction program is newer, but built on that fine foundation. Also affordable (for Canadians), mostly remote, coordinates well with full time work, and is built around mentoring by pros and a writers’ community cohort. Targeted courses and deadlines provide structure for the learning curve and launch students toward book publication. After all the research and assessment of the data, I am also listening to my gut–it also feels right. Feeling right is something I have learned to trust, after I use my intellect to collect information and weigh pros and cons as objectively as possible and check my biases, values, and any comparable options I can find.

If I do get in (odds somewhat better than 50-50 according to King’s data), I’ll need to take four annual weeks off work (a stretch for sub-strapped schools) for the residencies, book flights, and consider what other changes may need to take place to help me succeed. For me that means a high level of professional growth and having my book well underway toward submission for publication, while still having been the best science teacher I can be and maintaining some balance with family and community relationships and commitments. I’m thinking hard about what this will look like and whether going to part time teaching is an option financially. I know my district would welcome it, as they are underfunded and want to minimize their cuts to resources and staff. I just got chickens, so there will be some egg money.

 

A 1st draft will follow the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

Fresh from the first few chapters of Ann Lamott’s Bird by Bird, I think again I will write. Her thoughts will help me keep the critical inner voices at bay, as I picture them as mice and drop them one by one into a jar, sealing it. And the idea that, like I use when sketching, this one is just first draft. Words of her writer friend: first draft is down draft: get it down; second draft us up draft: fix it up; third is dental draft: check every tooth.

I’m cozily tucked into a recliner lined with sheepskin. The gas fire is starting to overheat me, though I started it because I am recovering from a cold and caught a bit of chill while out with Jay for lunch and then to Eclipse used bookstore, ending up with a pile each—his on ancient Egypt, mine on writing, weather, corporate America, and deer hunting.

This week I finished teaching a second lesson on deer to the K-2nd graders, where they learned the words “twilight” and “crepuscular,” practiced the Freeze, Fly, Fight response to a predator, and sang the first few lines of “Do(e), a deer, a female deer.” After practicing deer sounds, including bleating, barking and the mating bellow, I suggested to the kindergartners that, when they grew up and were thinking of finding a good mate, the boys should make that sound, which I then did, and that it would surely impress. They hadn’t had a clue that I was building up to a joke, but at the last they broke out laughing, as they had been picturing the whole thing in their minds as a realistic possibility. Kindergartners may be literal minded, but they like a good joke. And they are not yet grossed out by the idea of marriage.

The students also all made antler headbands, coloring the antlers, and the table under them—I’d forgotten to lay down scrap paper–with crayons. Several of the 2^nd graders wanted not my pre-cut antlers, but their own homemade ones, and make them sharper, some colored red as if fresh from a goring.

Since I had been wanting to learn hunting skills to go along with botany and food processing, I bought a book on understanding deer from the perspective of the game hunter. Good pictures, biological information, and ways to make the kill, including with archery. I also came back with an idea to write a book on being a generalist, non-intense athlete who wants to intelligently dabble, without prior training, and not wear out any body parts in the process by age forty-five. After a fruitless search, I’m convinced there’s a need.

The fire isn’t really warming me that much—I think it’s the creativity. Same happens when I sew in a cold room: I stop feeling the chill.

 

A swamp is also a bog, where richness is preserved in layers.

It is day four of my spring break, a mid-week morning, and I am in my boyfriend’s house listening to Radio Paradise and finishing a second cup of strong coffee and absorbing nutrients from a vegetable smoothie packed with carrots and collards. My system has been cleansed and brain stimulated, and I consider my choice of morning activities. How shall I pass the time while my love is playing softball for a few hours?

I am free of the duties and pleasures of my usual tasks in yard, garden, and inside my small house currently shared with two grown sons, two dogs and two cats, free to rest my aching hands after days of digging up glacial till in clay, pulling buttercup and dismantling old wood structures. My pickup truck is there, waiting with its load of bark mulch, and in my warm, humid greenhouse, tomato and pepper seedlings are quietly growing while the spring sun and rain soften and warm the garden beds outside.

I have brought my copy of Horizon by Barry Lopez, and have just read with distaste and the mild and distant grief of one descended from privilege his description of a visit to the site of a formal Australian penal colony. He then recounts his introduction to the largest freshwater reef in the Southern Hemisphere, with its thousand year old thrombolites mounding under the surface of the clear water. I want to mark this part of the book to read to next year’s biology students, but instead I consider the difficulty of organizing my sharing of such excerpts, so many there are in this and other books, and I have not brought any sticky notes, and will I be able to find the relevant passage at the relevant time? And will they appreciate and remember these readings as meaningful and helpful, or affronts to their young Earth sensibilities or a threat to their inherited faith?

I am finishing the last of my second cup of coffee. Where I sit at the computer I have a view out over the tree-filled ravine and the river valley beyond, and hummingbirds arrive to sip at the feeder. One chickadee, also, which seems attracted and confused by the window’s transparency and reflection. Leaves unfurl, a maple stands rotting in the near distance, and a fine layer of dust covers a selection of twentieth century toy figures on the shelf beside me: Gumby, a beanie Tigger, a two-headed yellow one my love calls Bendy Guy. Above them is a miniature of Rodin’s The Thinker, a small meditating Buddha, and a gold party horn.

If I focus on one or a few things at a time I can travel across my experiences in a somewhat organized way. But momentarily I see in a more three dimensional perspective and perceive a layered depth and richness of connected meaning that could overwhelm me. It seems to be made of of everything–bio geological substances and events through time, human experiences across time and space, thought and feeling, a quiet, humid bog converting minerals and light to complex carbon compounds communicating with one another and the atmosphere, or gigantic frozen rivers explosively plunging into Antarctic ocean–events fast or unimaginably slow to human thought frame, changes we cannot see without joining that time frame, at least in thought.

The choice to try and understand and work in the world by means of any one field of study or point of view shuts out so much of the other ways of understanding. I want to broaden my mind, pay attention to everything–to the words of the writer, the song playing on the stereo, the light vaulting millions of miles through the window glass to create the shadows along the veins of my typing hands, the pips and caws and trills of spring birds’ breeding calls, if I would only step outside. I want to fold all this into the considerations of my own heart as I contemplate past, present and future of my own. This is to me a fine adventure, with risks, discoveries, and riches to gain and pass on.

But developing the itinerary to this adventure is challenging. I must focus, keep my brain from drifting aimlessly, or overloading. Even the sliver of Barry Lopez’s wide-ranging considerations of how his experiences speak to like’s meaning is hard to grasp, let along share and use as a substrate for something even broader. I am drowning, going down in swampy quicksand as no one set of frameworks has a solid floor to strand on, a “this is how it works” Table of Contents to index its key points for my notebook of life. Everything is connected to everything else. And to maintain sanity (?) I need to ignore most things, and choose a mental life framework, almost arbitrarily, but mainly drawing on my socialization or upbringing, infused with the apparently determinism of my genetic expression in any given conditions.

I take comfort in the things that seem closest, when meaning seems too hard to grasp. To taste fresh blueberries from a plastic box from Mexico, poke pea seeds into brown soil, dance to a groovy tune, rub my hands over the warm skin of my love’s arm while he sits beside me. Yes, even though I know there is a war on, homeless and helpless people, forests burning, and I will sicken and die one day. Typing in a web search that I do not end up pursuing.

The only thing that still seems to apply to everything is that energy will dissipate, even while it seems to accumulate, accumulate even while it seems to dissipate.

 

Tenderness vs. Rigor

We educators are conflicted by a desire to be affirming and sensitive to students (and colleagues) experiencing stress and anxiety, on the one hand, and on the other hand, to challenge them to grow and develop new skills, produce new work, and learn to push themselves in order to be truly college/career/community ready. I would say that most of our PLC work, including what happens on the fly such as in the break room, is about this balance. We come out of meetings with fresh commitment to addressing both social-emotional needs and rigor (not to the point of rigor mortis–see this post), but at the end of the day, acknowledge with frustration or guilt that the balance was not really there, again.

Sometimes we look back and compare our own experiences in a more “traditional” system, wondering why, and if, it “worked” for us, and why not fall back on that, being at least more familiar (we have so much to do already!). Or we drift toward judging current this generation of students as oversensitive, weak, or lazy. Personally, I sometimes wonder if there’s something in the water — microplastics (NIH review article)? PCBs (CDC article)? Or maybe it’s EMFs (here’s an article on that).

We also question the attitudes of students’ families toward our efforts–do they even support the idea of academic success, or are we just babysitters? Or, on the other hand, do they “get” that we are sometimes easing off on academic requirements in order to make sure our students feel “seen” and affirmed, and grow in those important “soft” skills as well as the three Rs?

Is the new acknowledgement of how hard life is for young people these days, and the destigmatization of expressing this, dumbed us down as a culture, in terms of requiring training in real world knowledge and skills?

We know some of our students come in raring to go, with attitudes, abilities, and support that can launch them on a trajectory of high achievement if only we can stay enough ahead of them. And there are others with a variety of social-emotional and intellectual challenges that mean the progress will be slower despite highly effective practices on the part of educators. So how do we help each one?

In my thought experiments I have streamed students into ability levels like in the old days–not to the point my generation experienced, with 7th-9th grade divided into five categories from “brightest” on down and SpEd students in their own isolated group, but just a little–say dividing into those who are held to the “priority” learning standards only, and those who can learn more and faster with less hand-holding. It would be all according to data, of course, with an element of student choice. And fluid throughout the year, with learning activities addressing a range of needs in each group. Here’s an article on the pros and cons of streaming.

We do that already, if unofficially. We don’t always call it streaming, but addressing learning needs and challenges, and it is a delicate and challenging art. We excuse, grade differently, offer bonus work, hold different students to different standards or means of showing learning. We embed assessment instead of giving universal final exams so that we don’t favor students who either cram successfully or can actually remember and reconstruct all important ideas by reading and writing under pressure.

This is the part where I try to wrap it up with a neat conclusion. Which should be more important, tenderness or rigor? Should we set up student streams or tracks where we dole out different balances for different types of students?

My own students know that as a science teacher, that’s not my style. I usually just say It’s complicated–look at the evidence, the environment, and the requirements, and make a reasoned decision. Re-evaluate as you go ahead and act on your working hypothesis, because the world is dynamic and we need to both depend on tried and true strategies, and to evolve new ones. But especially, remember the apparently unrealistic vision which nevertheless drives you, and take one year, one week, one day, one moment, at a time.

 

Having cold feet about the composting toilet

The Separett Villa 9215 composting toilet is now sitting in the entry in its box, and I’ve read the installation instructions. The plan is to replace my high efficiency Toto in the master bathroom, which, now that my grown children are on the move, will be the house’s main repository of metabolic waste. The device seems easy enough to use, relying on positioning to separate solids and liquids, sealing each away for eventually disposal or use in the landscape. I can have the urine sent to a tank outside, even automatically mixed 1:8 with water, or remove it manually and add to my dry, nitrogen-hungry compost piles. I can add the desiccated, partially decomposed poop to a long-term section and turn it into rich, safe black gold to amend the garden soil. Meanwhile I will save thousands of gallons of water a year, along with the energy and costs of treatment at the plant.

The Separett Villa Composting Toilet

But in-home human waste collection is not normal (here, now, yet), and along with forging ahead with this, climbing the learning curve and replacing daily habits, I’ll be running an education campaign with friends, family, and other social contacts. “You’re putting it in the house?” “What about the smell?” And from my neighborhood website, where I asked for installer recommendations: “Them damn things are a nightmare. Good luck and god bless to you.”

I am not a “who gives a shit” type of person, however willing I may be to buck the norm for the sake of principle or pragmatism. I am looking for approval, I guess, a sign that I’m not doing something foolish but only leading the charge (back) to closing the loop of nutrient cycling, getting “back to Nature,” something which (surely?) will become more and more common even in homes whose sink, showers, and privies conveniently drain into sewer mains. That’s the emotional need. But I try to be a “head first” person in the sense that reasoning backed up by evidence it what I generally trust over tradition, social trends or fads. And none of the arguments presented so far against using a composting toilet has held any more water than this toilet will.

But I need support in this. My only experiences with toilets not hooked up to a sewer have been stinky campground outhouses and stinky portable toilets. The Separett Villa is neither, and I need to really see how this will work with real waste. The included manual and most online resources depict a clean, empty, theoretical toilet, described as a wonderful, trouble-free device, but I envision a realty that might overwhelm me, when the shit hits the fan, say. I want to plan for success by learning about and preparing for possible difficulty, and by difficulty I mean a growing sense that I just can’t do this in the city. That secreting waste into underground pipes flushed down with purified lake water in order to be re-purified and let out into the bay is just nicer somehow, more civilized.

And, what will it feel like? How will it smell? Will it be a little like those fetid and distasteful visits to the blue plastic portable toilets at festivals? Will maintenance be as simple as what I already manage with daily composting and sink water garden dumps? Will my family members and house guests be able to accept and adapt?

I’ll answer that it’s said to be minimal and temporary discomfort, as is normal toilet use, which is also a little stinky and inconvenient. The continually running fan will take care of smell as now–probably better, since the fan takes air right from that are instead of drawing it up through the room first. The vent will go up through the roof, through a screen to block curious insects. It will be located so as not to vent near any outdoor leisure areas.

I am turning a corner on this. I am ready to try it. Not ready to share the plan with any but close family, very close friends, and almost complete strangers, no one in between.