Student-Centered Learning or How About Cheesecake in Class?

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."—Benjamin Franklin

I'm teaching several different types of classes this quarter and have close to 100 students! I teach at a local community college.

This quarter, I'm teaching everything from a Prep for Small Business Ownership class for immigrants and refugees as part of the ABE ESL program to a new class I created as part of the Arts Now program called Blogging and Journaling: Freeing the Writer Within.

I'd like to say that I'm not just teaching, but allowing students to become the center of their own learning process and development. I can give instruction, information, ideas, materials, stories and share my own personal experiences, but the students must take the extra leap and apply all these things to their lives.

For real learning to take place, experience is necessary. 

The classes I remember most from school are the ones where the teacher was more like a guide and it was up to me to take these ideas and materials and put them to use.

So what does this all have to do with cheesecake, you ask?

In my Prep for Small Business Ownership class, I had the students read an article from 2005 Small Business Resource Guide (A supplement to Business Examiner). It was a little magazine that is chocked full of interesting "real life" stories about people who took the plunge and started their own businesses.

The article they read is called Agencies Can Provide Sweet Deals and it's about a woman named Danelle Bentley who loved to cook delicious cheesecakes for friends, family, neighbors—anyone she could think of. Many of them, after tasting her creations, said, "This is the best cheesecake I've ever eaten—you should go into business."

She didn't take it seriously at first, but before long she had transformed her garage into a commercial kitchen and later opened her own shop, Dee's Licious Gourmet Cheesecakes, and was selling to a restaurant chain and even sold a product at Costco.

After reading the article in class, I said, "I wonder if she is still in business? Maybe you all could Google her and find out."

One student took this very seriously and managed to track Danelle down. She even went to her place of work and interviewed her and came back to the class to report what she discovered.

At first I was a bit surprised and even thought maybe this was a step too far, but the student had a very pleasant experience chatting with Danelle about her cheesecake business and this gave me the opportunity to contact her and ask if she'd come to the class as a guest speaker.

Even though Danelle is no longer in the cheesecake business, her experiences—both positive and negative—about operating a small business were invaluable to my students.

Besides that, what an amazing journey it was for my class to read an article in a 2005 supplemental magazine and then have that person show up in class with arms full of mini cheesecakes (a secret recipe) for my students. They were so thrilled and had so many questions.

It was one student's very keen interest in finding this woman that brought her to our class. This made our class experience and the learning process much more interesting for the students because they were involved in this process.

The entire class came up with questions to ask Danelle and I compiled those questions into a list and emailed it to her.

I know this was an experience the students will never forget. At the end, we all clapped and thanked Danelle for coming and took a picture with her.

Students in my Prep for Small Business Class with Danelle who formerly owned Dee's Licious Gourmet Cheesecakes

Perhaps, after years of being out of the cheesecake business, the enthusiasm of our class sparked that interest and passion in her again. At least I know it did for the time she was in our class and we were so lucky to hear her stories.

Was there ever a time in school where you were excited to be part of the learning process? What were you doing? Do you have any specific teachers you remember very well?

365 Inspirations—326: Seeing the World from a Different Perspective

“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.”—John Lubbock

Have you ever looked at the world upside down? The other night I was lying on my back on the living room floor before a yoga class (my husband now teaches yoga classes in our living room) and I was looking at our geometrically shaped dining room light.

From a standing view the light looks like a light, but from a prone position, this light looked like luminous orb suspended in mid-air.

Walking around Greenlake, I started to look at everything in a different light and it changed my perspective completely.

I wonder how many people spend their days doing much of the same thing? I know I do.

 Do you drive the same way to work? Do you listen to the same radio station? Do you tend to eat the same things for lunch or dinner? Do you talk, call and text the same people? Do you ever step out of your 'box' and look at the world in a different light?

I've been getting up earlier and walking around Greenlake alone because my husband has yoga classes at our house in the mornings and the morning classes are currently full. I'm not normally up so early walking, but I've found it to be quite an invigorating start to my day.

Today I met a friend for lunch and then we went to a coffee in the same complex. It was nice catching up with her. Then, my husband came and met me at the coffee shop and we went to see the beautiful movie called 'About Time.'

It's the story of a family (well just the men in the family) who are able to travel back in time. They can only travel back to a time in which they have lived and they can't go back any further than the birth of someone in the family or the story will change.

The movie poses some very interesting questions. For example: If you could go back in time, what would you change?

In the end, the son tries to live each day and then live it again more slowly so that he can appreciate the moments one more time. After his father dies, he realizes that he doesn't need to go back in time to live each moment. He just needs to live each moment fully as it comes.

There are certain things he tries to go back and change, but later learns that some things happen for a reason and there are lessons to be learned from those things, even though they are unpleasant at the time or cause pain.

Lately I've been feeling a lot of gratitude for my life and the things I'm led to each day. I think that gratitude multiplies and makes room for even more gratitude to enter. Even on bad days, I try to find a kernel of good. Writing inspirations this year has helped me with that.

I'm paying attention to details, seeing life with a new perspective, and I'm grateful for every moment I have. I'm also learning to venture out of my comfort zone to experience things that are new and different. These things help me grow.

Have you recently spent any time looking at the world from a different perspective?

365 Inspirations—262: Transitions (i.e. marriage, children, new job, loss of job, divorce, death)

"Divorce, disease and death don't have to be terrible journeys that we should all avoid, they can be enlightening journeys of growth, depth and new understanding."—Katherine Jenkins

CHANGE

How do you feel about that word?

Transition is my inspiration today. Life is full of transitions, some small and some life changing.

Our world seems to be getting smaller and smaller. All we have to do is log onto Facebook or Twitter and we find out in an instant who gave birth or who died.

Most people like to share the good things on these sites. We see hundreds of pictures of newborn babies from every angle. Wedding pictures splatter the pages showing happy faces and sunshine. Those traveling to exotic locations around the globe like to include albums of their travel pics (I'm one of those people). It's enlightening and uplifting to read about these transitions. We prefer, on average, to share those transitions which are positive.

But what about the not-so-postive transitions? What about divorce, disease and death? The three Ds? Not many people are willing to share these or look at these as a transition anyone would CHOOSE to have.

The funny thing is that we will ALL, each one of us, get sick at one point or another and we will ALL die.

I know you are thinking, "Please don't remind me, I don't want to hear it, I want to focus on the positive transitions!"

I don't know what it is about our culture that makes us afraid to except all transitions equally as passages to a new way of living. One is not better than the other, it is just different.

Divorce, disease and death don't have to be terrible journeys that we should all avoid, they can be enlightening journeys of growth, depth and new understanding.

If everything in life were simple and easy, full of ponies and rainbows and sunshine, then why would we need to make any effort at all.

I realize that being a positive person may make it difficult for others to open up to me about their own suffering or uneasiness. Sometimes it is even difficult for me to open up on such topics because who wants to be a downer, right?

The truth is, when I do choose to share that my day is not going so well or that I'm suffering in some way, people are often very empathetic and supportive. Why? Because THEY'VE BEEN THERE. We have all been there.

Maybe they haven't had exactly the same experience, but each one of us has had to go through our own share of not-so-wonderful times.

No matter what any of us may be experiencing at this moment in time, there's one thing for certain. IT WILL CHANGE.

The process may not feel nice. We may even feel like running away or escaping. But if we can move through the transition. If we can look at our situation and say, "This is happening right now. Things are changing. I'm going through this transition. I'm here and witnessing it and hopefully learning and growing from it," then it doesn't matter what we may be experiencing or going through. It is in fact all the same: a learning experience.

And now you are asking, "What transition are you going through?"

And here it is:

My husband is planning on closing his yoga studio in order to pursue a self-sustained business model. I believe this is necessary and will turn out extremely positive, but the process is scary. He has built a very wonderful community near Seattle. I believe that community will continue, it will just take on a different form.

Do you tend to embrace transitions (positive or negative), or do you try to avoid them like the plague? 

365 Inspirations—233: Letting Go

"Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go."—Hermann Hesse

This post comes to you from fellow blogger Amanda of ARTiculation. Check out her blog here.  She's got lots of wonderful words to share and she's on a journey of her own that has been interesting to follow. I read this post and there was so much heart in it and such a powerful message that I asked her if I could repost it. Please be kind and leave a comment or visit Amanda on her blog. Here's her lovely post:

The other night, after working all weekend and going to a much deserved vegan buffet with a coworker, I came home to see a couple neighborhood cats stalking my walkway. This was strange, as it hasn't really happened before, but I pet the cats nonetheless, and began to head inside. As I was about to go through the gate, I looked down in front of me at a blue bird on its back looking up at me. I was stunned, literally stopped in my tracks, as I looked down at this bird, still fluffy with youth, bleeding from its leg, crumpled and badly wounded.

I threw my things down in my apartment and came back to look him over. He was still breathing, very much alert, and without doubt in tremendous pain. I scooped him up with cardboard and moved him away from the swarming cats. I was desperate to save him. I called three or four animal clinics, but considering it was about 7:00 on a Sunday night, my calls met answering machines and the resounding realization that I could not save him. My neighbor came out to walk her dog, and she sympathized and advised me to put him out of his misery.

That was my first thought, as well, but... I've never been the one to have to make that call. I've never had to be the executioner. I sat for a few minutes just staring at him while mosquitoes devoured my blood, unable to move for fear that there would be no good decision. I was paralyzed with sadness over the inability to help him. I still don't know how it happened. My theory is that this teenaged bird, ready to fly (or to try) leaped from the nest and was unable to make the ascent, plummeting to the concrete where feline foes hovered over his body.Or, as my neighbor informed me, one of the cats, a boy named Sasha, is an expert bird killer, and he likely was the culprit in bringing him down.

 Either way, I can't be mad at the cats—this is what they do. So what could I do? All I could do was bury him. He would try to move his smashed legs, to stand, to fly, to show me 'Look! Look! I can make it! I can get better!', but he could not move. He could not fly. He would not get better. My neighbor offered to do it for me, but knowing that I'd have to learn how to let go, I took on the task.

Alone now, I funneled the bird into a paper bag, and began sobbing as I looked into the bag at his crumpled body, his eyes still blinking, his heart still beating, and I just sobbed. I sobbed as I dug a shallow grave for him, and sobbed as I pressed the bag, warm with his fading life, into the dirt, his bones likely breaking as surely as my heart with each heave of my hands. I sobbed for him, apologized that I couldn't save him, and asked God to let him die quickly.

To most people, this experience likely seems trivial and inconsequential, but to me, it was like The Tell Tale Heart. I wept as I washed dirt from under my nails, distraught that this bird with dreams of flying will never know the rush of wind between his feathers or the comfort of a nest ever again.

Despite all of the sadness, the experience taught me that no matter how painful, sometimes, we just have to let go. We have to forgive ourselves, bury the past, and move forward with the understanding that we did the best we could with what we had, and that the rest is left for worms.

Have you ever had a similar experience of letting go of something or someone? What did you learn from this experience?

365 Inspirations—218: Failure and Mistakes

"If you never try, then you'll never know just what you're worth."—Coldplay.

This was post 210 from my 365 Lessons from 2010, which will become a book soon. I'm digging up some of my old posts and I really like this one. Here it is:

Rejection, failure and mistakes are sometimes the name of the game in life. If you are afraid of these then chances are you are afraid of living. Most of us don't live in protective bubbles keeping us out of harms way. Did you ever notice that if you try real hard to avoid certain situations, they end up happening anyway. Do you know how powerful your thoughts are? If you sit there and think, "I know my kids are going to drive me crazy today, but I don't want that." Guess what ends up happening. Or you say in your head, "I probably won't find a parking spot, but I really want one." Well, guess what, no parking spot for you. It's like you're afraid of what's to come and you don't want it to happen and at the same time, in your head, you are already giving it energy.

Let go. Just let go. Stop trying so hard to fight the current and just go with it. Then, when mistakes and failure happen, you are much more able to roll with it. Here's a story you'll appreciate:

So, when my agent sent out my book proposal to various publishing houses, I didn't get an immediate acceptance. In fact, I got quite a few rejections. When the first rejection came in via e-mail, I said to my husband, "Well, I got a pass." He almost started jumping up and down. He said, "Congratulations!" How could you blame him. The English language is so weird like that. A pass can mean you made the grade or someone passed on you. He thought it was the former. Kind of like passing your driver's test. You passed! I had to explain to him that a pass in the publishing world means something entirely different. He looked at me and said, "English is a strange language." Don't I know it. I teach English as a Second Language. I can't tell you how many times my students have asked me "Why?" about the idiosyncrasies of English and all I can tell them, when there is no formal rule to explain it, is "Well, I don't know, that's just how it is."

My husband changed everything for me with that story. I started to look at rejections and mistakes as passes. If I got rejected or I made a mistake, I began to look at it as a pass to a new level of understanding. Instead of seeing failure and mistakes as something to be avoided, I saw them as tools to learn from. By using them I uncovered more of what I needed to do and where I needed to go.

When you hit rock bottom, there's nowhere to go but up and if you ask people who seem to have it together if they were always that way, you'd be surprised to learn that many of them hit rock bottom or struggled and had to go through very painful life experiences. Instead of letting those experiences get them down and remain forever stuck at the bottom, those people chose to strap on their climbing boots and, step by step, make their way out of the hole they most likely dug for themselves.

We've all been in that hole at some point in our lives. Life is not smooth sailing all the time. Sometimes there are storms and waves and lightening and thunder and you think, "How am I going to get out of here?" The truth is, you aren't going to get out of here. Not alive anyway. But one thing you have going for you is the fact that you are alive. YOU ARE ALIVE!

It's very easy to forget. You get a big PASS if you're able to recognize how amazing that is. Now, the question is, what are you going to do with this life you have here? Are you going to live in fear of what doom lies around the corner for you? Are you going to stay put in a life situation that just isn't working for you anymore because, well, you don't know what to do and are afraid to try anything new because you might make a mistake or fail? It's your life and it's your choice how you want to live whatever time you have left here.

News flash: Not a single one of us on this planet is perfect. We've all made mistakes and failed at one point or another. Knowing that, what makes you so different from anyone else? 

What do you have to lose? Will you lose your life from making a mistake or failing once in a while?

365 Inspirations—170: Green Juice and an Amber Alert

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship."—Louisa May Alcott

Well, the adventure has begun. I took off in my car with new wheels this morning and headed for the woods. I'm at my family's lake cabin.

While much of the journey has been smooth and quite calm, there were a few glitches.

Let's start with the smooth and calm:

I sat on the ferry boat and planned my solo retreat out  on paper while staring out at seagulls and Puget Sound.

On ferry boat headed off on an adventure

 It felt good to finally be off. I stopped off at a grocery store on the way and bought enough food supplies to last me for about a week. I bought a lot of veggies and fruits because I had planned to do a bit of juicing at the cabin. When I got to the cabin, I unpacked my stuff and set up my room, meditation and yoga area up in the loft. I then took a walk around the lake.

I wore a raincoat because it had rained earlier, but soon found myself peeling it off. It was warm out! There was a gentle, warm breeze and I kept a moderate pace. I was filled with the heady smell of pine all around me. I felt my feet in my shoes and my breath on my face. I felt my body slow down as I worked my way to the top of the small hills. I noticed how naked everything looked from the other side of the lake ever since a private company came in and took a stretch of trees down on one side. The lake area residents tried to fight it, but they don't own the land on that side. Those trees are the reason people moved out here. Fortunately it's only in one small section.

Whenever my mind would start to wander off on various topics, I'd try and bring it back to my body and senses. I heard an owl in a tree hoo-hooing. I saw two huge puffy clouds overhead that looked like people flying. One was in the exact shape of a mermaid. Hmmm....flying mermaids.

Crunch, crunch, crunch, I felt the gravel beneath my shoes. Now an open stretch of highway walking. Suddenly I thought of my friend George who is walking across America and just about to finish after 4 years of walking. It made me smile to think we may both be walking on open roads.

Now for the Glitches:

While winding my way to the lake, my cell phone went off like a siren. I had no idea what was going on.

I picked it up and a text message read:

 Amber Alert. Blue Ford Focus, Montana Plates. License plate number %$#@!*?.

What the heck? This has never happened before. The siren on my cell phone just kept going off. I looked in my rearview mirror and there was a blue Ford! I turned off the main road and headed down a side street and the Ford followed me for about 5 minutes. I pulled into a driveway and the Ford drove away. As the car passed,  I noticed the car was not a Focus and it had Washington plates.

I got my wits about me and headed back out on the main highway. When I arrived at the cabin, I found nothing about this alert online, so I let it go.

I decided to get my juicer out and make vegetable juice. I threw in half a cucumber, a few heads of broccoli,  a third of a cabbage, half a head of garlic, ginger and celery. This juice was glowing green. It seemed to shout, "Drink me. I'm nutritious!'

I drank two sips and immediately felt a burning sensation and nausea in the pit of my stomach and thought I was going to either vomit or pass out. So much for juicing! I ran to the kitchen and took out a rice cake and slathered it with almond butter. The protein and fat seemed to help with all the raw stuff.

I later drank a half cup more of the green stuff and am feeling okay. I had planned to only juice while I'm here, but read online that some people can't tolerate raw juices very well on their own. I realized that I may not be a juice fast kind of person. I do better with lightly steamed or sauteed veggies and a bit of protein/fat. I seem to be okay with raw fruit juices with a few beets or carrots thrown in, however.

Live and learn is my inspiration today. The green juice taught me that I don't need to go to such extremes to be healthy. I just need to do what is good for my particular body.

The Amber Alert on my phone caught me off guard. Later, after some online research, I discovered that the government is using cell phones to alert people of natural disasters and amber alerts. I found the buttons on my phone and they were set to "on". I have kept these buttons on. At least now I know what this is all about in case it happens again. Now you know about it too!

The adventure continues....

Have you learned anything new today?

365 Inspirations—156: Endings and Beginnings

With some of my students this quarter

“All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.”—Mitch Albom

Another quarter is almost over. In the  almost seven years I've been teaching ESL at a community college in the area, I've seen hundreds of students come and go. Sometimes I see them in the hallway a year later and many of them say, "Teacher, do you remember me? I was in your class last fall."

 I usually remember their faces, but remembering hundreds of names is another thing. There is something about a face I can never forget and I try to remember their names after they've come and gone, but I often have to be reminded. I will say that while they are studying with me in any given quarter, I'm very quick to have ALL of their names memorized within one week of classes! I can have up to 100 students in any given quarter, so that's pretty good. I have to put their faces, names and something about their personality all together.  Every single one of my students has something unique and memorable about them.

Sometimes I can have up to 20 nationalities in one class. This quarter I had students from Gambia, Madagascar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Guatamala, Brazil, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Russia, Ukraine, Korea, China, Taiwan, Israel, Morocco and the list goes on....

I sometimes forget how rewarding my job is. I've done it for so long that it is kind of second nature. I'm often so touched by the stories my students tell me about their cultures and about their lives. We all learn from each other.

Now that quarter is almost over, I realize that the time we spent together was important and precious. During the quarter, when things are busy and I'm checking papers, preparing lesson plans and helping students, I can forget how wonderful it is to do what I do. It is only when I reflect on our time together that I'm reminded of how lucky I am.

So another quarter is over, but there is another one beginning soon. I'll finish this quarter on June 12th and I'll start teaching summer quarter on July 1st! Another beginning!

Speaking of beginnings, today my best friend gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, but it is not her baby. She decided to be a surrogate mother for a friend who is unable to have her own children. What a joy it was to hold this child on the second day of his life today! So fresh and new to the world! I'm proud of my friend for her selfless act of kindness. She is an inspiration. Here's a link to the post I wrote about her.

Have you had any memorable endings or beginnings recently?

365 Inspirations—117: Dreams Taking Shape

"Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."—Steve Jobs

Sometimes it's hard to see a full picture of what our dreams are telling us. Yesterday, I got a full snapshot of what the picture looked like. All the pieces formed an overall theme and I knew what I wanted to do.

 I do collages often and they are another creative way of using the right brain to get ideas out of the head and onto paper. My friend who is an art therapist got me hooked on creating collages and I've always been amazed at how many of the things I've created on paper have actually come true in real life.

What I love about collaging is that there are no set rules. We can work with all kinds of materials, different textures and colors to bring what is inside to life.

A really good friend who was in the South Pacific for two years in the Peace Corps came over and we collaged together. She joined a collaging party at our house a couple of years ago and had such a great time, she requested to do it again.

We spread out all the materials on my dining room table and without further adieu, we got to work.

So for all of you who are wondering what this "birth of an idea" (Inspiration 116) is all about, my collage this evening sheds some light on the themes that are coming to me. I believe that we all intuitively know what we are meant to do, but often times the picture we get presents a challenge. I believe all of the challenges come from our own minds.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I'm going to lay some foundations down under my pictures. I'm ready for this change!

Do you ever collage or participate in creative activities in order to get a view of what you are called to do?