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Posts from the ‘Slice of Life’ Category

Mar 2

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Slice of Life 2: Body Language

By Janice Ewing

Peering out at our back steps and driveway this morning, taking in the icy slushy mess, I’m somehow reminded of an old-fashioned refrigerator in need of defrosting. Once that image enters my mind, I’m taken back to childhood memories of my mother defrosting our chunky old General Electric.  I’m back in the small, normally neat kitchen, suddenly cluttered with odd-shaped packages that bear little resemblance to foods we eat. I think this must have been one of my mother’s least favorite tasks. I didn’t know this from anything she said, but, even then, I could read it from her body language. Her usually calm, measured movements were abrupt and choppy, almost violent as she did battle with the recalcitrant ice. Read more

Mar 1

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Slice of Life 1: Every Eight Weeks

By Janice Ewing

This is a transition weekend for me, between grad classes that is. One semester just ended and the next is about to begin.  There something about transitions that makes me reflective. Maybe that’s why it seemed like a good year to jump into the March Slice of Life challenge, which I’ve followed, but haven’t participated in before. So here it is, a very wintry March 1st, and I’ve just finished “Spring 1” and am about to start “Spring 2,”  with a group of teachers who are new to me, but not to each other. I teach in a cohort program, so if the course, like the one coming up, is far along in the program, the teachers often know each other better than colleagues in their own schools, and I’m the new kid on the block. That raises its own interesting issues – where people sit, food habits, break time, and the like have often been well-established before I arrive. No matter, I’m flexible enough to adapt to those aspects of the ecosystem as I find them. Read more

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