Snow Days Don't Really Mean No School Days

This is a shot off my balcony...which is as far as I ventured outdoors today. Last night we received a "significant snow event," which always makes me laugh because it usually consists of a few inches of snow that effectively shuts down the entire region (mostly because Seattle is all hills and doesn't have a lot of snowplows). Meanwhile, my aunt in Alaska has been posting pictures of -20 degree weather...it's all relative, I guess. School was a late start on Tuesday, was cancelled today, and we just got word that it is cancelled again tomorrow, because it warmed up just enough to start melting the snow and then froze again.

For me, while I like snow, and am perfectly fine with snow when I am prepared for it (which I was), I prefer that it happen on a weekend. Especially when it happens the week before finals, and my kids need to work on their final project.

Here is where technology pays off...As soon as I heard we were missing school again, I immediately figured out how I was going to adjust the final project (which I gave the kids on Tuesday) and tweeted that out, asking the kids to retweet the information since not all my kids follow me. One of my kids tweeted me a clarifying question about the project, which I also answered on twitter. I was able to email my students parents from home, so that between those two mediums, 90% of my kids SHOULD know the adjusted expectations. In addition, all the information I gave them in class on Tuesday is on a classroom website hosted by my district.

Online, other teachers posted on facebook that they had texted the principal to ask if we were planning on moving finals (we aren't) and we discussed alternative plans and suggestions for finals. The other ASB coordinator and I were on the phone today for almost an hour, talking about plans for the spring, which we normally would have discussed at school, and I did spend a little time grading, and will finish that as well as entering grades tomorrow.

After I sleep in, drink more hot chocolate, and continue my Doctor Who marathon, of course.

Fine. I'll tweet you.

Although I had a brief fling with myspace and have had a facebook account for years, I have never felt even the slightest twinge of desire to jump on the twitter bandwagon. The name stops me, first of all. I will forever associate it with the Disney classic Bambi, in which one character declares another character to be "twitterpated." The word "tweet" is ridiculous to me and while I can control who sees my thoughts on facebook, I cannot control it on twitter...and I don't really have anything that profound to say.

But then, another teacher mentioned that her students had asked her if she would set up a twitter account for homework reminders and so on, and it suddenly clicked. That might actually work.

So I contemplated it over break, and asked my kids about it (and got an overwhelmingly positive response), got a phone that will actually support a twitter app, and decided to just see how it works. The goal is to tweet things like "homework due tomorrow!" and "don't forget to sign up for the blood drive!" you know, lame stuff like that. =)

Meh....we'll see.

book review - Driven Out

Driven Out: the Forgotten War Against Chinese-Americans by Jean Pfaelzer

I don't normally choose books from the American history side of the library aisle, but nothing on the Africa or Asia shelves was catching my eye, so I picked this one up. I am very glad I did. I knew some of the history of Chinese Americans in the United States, but had no idea of the extent of the hatred and violence that was perpetrated against this particular group of people in the 1880s. Pfaelzer gives a detailed explanation of the motivations and specific actions taken against Chinese immigrants, especially in California, and takes a brutally honest look at the repercussions that still echo today.

This book made me angry and disgusted. I generally read while on the treadmill and my heartrate went higher than normal more than once while reading this book. It really brought home to me the fact that people may talk about life "in the good old days" but for many MANY people, the opposite is true. In fact, from what I can tell, it seems that being anything but rich, white, and male meant little to no justice would come your way until the later 20th century. Did you know that while the enslavement of African-Americans was made illegal in 1863, Chinese women were openly sold on the streets of San Francisco well into the 1890s? Did you know that despite mob violence that drove out thousands of Chinese sometimes overnight, little to no damages were ever paid to the people that lost their homes, lives, and property? And did you know that Chinese immigration into the United States was prohibited until 1943, in a deliberate effort to keep the Chinese people from becoming part of American life (and it was only lifted then because the US government hoped to use the Chinese to help fight against the Japanese during World War II).

This book is amazing, powerful, desperately sad, and angry. It is one of the most powerful historical books I have ever read and I would highly recommend it.

Book Review - the Last Jews of Kerala

This year is going pretty smoothly, school-wise, and I find myself without a lot of blog fodder. But I have been able to get back to reading down the history aisle at the King County Library, so I thought I would do a little book report here and there.

The Last Jews of Kerala - by Edna Fernandes

I didn't really know what to expect when I picked up this book and even getting into it I wasn't sure for the first 50-60 pages. The author writes at first as if this book is a novel. It is very descriptive, and several times she tells part of a story, hints at an issue (for example when referring to the flooding that hit Cranganore) that only gets finished 50 pages later, which is kind of annoying, but I did get into the book and it ended up being really interesting.

This is the story of one of the few Jewish settlements remaining in India. What made it more interesting to me was the fact that the area being discussed is the southwestern, or Malabar, coast of India, an area that we had just finished discussing in my world history class. The author spends time with the "white" Jews of Mattencherry, the "black" Jews of Ernakulum, and finishes by spending time with Indian Jews who emigrated to the then-new country of Israel in the late 1940s.

This book reads as a wistful and nostalgic story of a group of people that have nearly disappeared, and will probably be gone completely within 50 years. As an Indian herself, the author has a lot of sympathy for the culture and history of the area, and seems to be fluent in the language spoken in the area, which for me, made reading this more interesting.

I would recommend this book, it is not particularly scholarly, but it is interesting in a quiet, meandering, philosophical kind of way.