Fiasco!!

Yesterday was the first day of ISTEP testing - those state mandated tests which weigh heavily on our minds, that have made more than one of my students physically ill through test anxiety, the test that determines if schools are "good" or not (as well as my merit pay.)

Only the ISTEP didn't happen.

It wasn't for lack of trying. Nope, schools statewide were geared up to go and the children were prepared and ready.

It was the state that wasn't ready.

Around 10:00 AM students across the state were in the middle of their online tests when the CTB/McGraw Hill server crashed under the stress (oh, the irony of that!!)

Screens went blank and no matter what type of tech support was in the building (and TSC had tech people in every building), the test was offline and NO ONE in Indiana could take it.

How could this be? The same thing happened last year during the pilot test, and the year before that during another pilot test. Tippecanoe School Corporation was one of those districts participating in the pilots, and CTB/McGraw Hill had the same issue then, although it was at a much lower level since the entire state wasn't taking them then, just some of us.

Why didn't they get the glitch figured out over the ensuing year??

So, now we wait for a fix. And wonder what happens to the tests of the children who were partially completed. Do they start over? Is the test invalidated? What will the stress from this do to the poor kids who were at the keyboard when the server died? Will we be granted an extension of the testing window?

Pass the Tylenol.

Celebrating Lisa - Our Summa Cum Laude Graduate!

Here is the newest teacher in the Isenbarger clan:

 Lisa Marie Isenbarger, Class of 2013, Utah Valley University

Summa Cum Laude

 The university had a huge sign welcoming the new grads.

Another university sign. 

Lisa has marched in and stands with her friends. That's her right in the very center. (Her hand is by her face.)

 A view of the podium and the education faculty.

 Lisa walks across the stage to her family's thunderous applause.

 She is positively glowing!

 Holding her diploma, she heads back to her seat.

 A view of the graduates.

 Craig, me, Jessica, and Andrew with Lisa after the ceremony.

 Zina joined us for the ceremony and for lunch.
(Lisa is wearing her distinguished graduate medal.)

Lunch at Tocano's - a family favorite. Lisa wears a lei given to her by Andrew's mother, Laurie, who is from Hawaii and met us for lunch.

The wait staff sing to Lisa and to her former roommate, Amanda, who was celebrating her thirtieth birthday.

 Some of Lisa's closest friends: Mocha, Amanda, and Lindsey. 

Congratulations, Lisa! I am so very, very proud of you, and think you will be a terrific teacher.

Celebrating Cole

Through his work at MTSU, Match Records, and One Machine, Cole's career is really starting to take off. As a result, he is beginning to rub shoulders with some interesting people.

Cole, Emily, and CEO of Sony Nashville, Gary Overton, at the RIM scholarship awards ceremony.

Why is Gary Overton posing with Cole and Emily?

By unanimous faculty vote, Cole was awarded the $5,000 Miller Harris Scholarship, MTSU's biggest scholarship.

He's also accepted an internship with WhizBang, an artist management and music licensing company in Nashville.

Congratulations, Cole!

Happy Birthdays!

Look who is turning one today!

Happiest of birthdays, Corinne! Your Grammy loves you!

And someone else celebrates her birthday/anniversary the same day as Corinne.

Abby!

A year ago today I brought Abby home, so she turns 13 today.

The Flood of 2013

The Wabash River peaked at 25.5 feet, the highest it's been since 1958. Sunday evening Craig went down by the levee and North River Road and took some pictures.

 The John Meyer's Pedestrian Bridge as viewed from the bank. That water is high!

 It looks like something is caught against the bridge piling - look at the water swell and roll up.

 The South Street/26 Bridge (top white bridge) and the railroad bridge (the lower black bridge.) I would not want to ride a train across that bridge right now!

North River Road where Catherwood comes to a T at it. Looking south.

The water stranded my mother early Friday morning, and she just today, four days later, had the water recede enough to uncover the road so she could get out and about again.

Love These Cuties

Ashley posted this picture on her blog, and I had to re-post it here. It has to be one the CUTEST pictures ever take of some of the CUTEST grandchildren ever!!

Braden, Corinne, and Adelaide.

Love these sweeties!!

A New Year of Ella-Noise!

The Chicago Red Stars opened their fourth season two weeks ago, and Ella is starting for them. Here are some pictures from some early-season scrimmages and the first game (in which she had an assist to Olympian Lori Chalupny to tie the game.)

 Going up for a header. (Obviously, she puts her whole self into every game.)

Playing hard against her friend, Emily Zurrer, who plays for the Seattle Reign.

The Red Stars are using Ella quite heavily in their advertising.

Here she is on a poster of their 2013 schedule.

And on another poster of the team starters.

This is also a 2013 team schedule - with a wintry touch!

And her 2013 team picture.

Ella-noise!!

Cake - Shifting Perspectives

One thing about gifted children that I find very interesting (and sometimes even amusing) is the way they view things and the perspectives they bring into my classroom. Friday I had one of those moments.

JG was sharing a classic presentation on Frankenstein. (I must point out that this was a "for fun" paper and project that she asked to do. The paper was twenty-one pages long, and although I graded it, the grade doesn't go in the grade book. JG knew that - she simply wanted to do this for the joy of books and writing about them!)

She was reflecting on what makes a book a classic, and came up with a new and very different perspective, albeit one that made compete sense. (I might also point out that every student does four of these presentations in two years, so after six years of teaching the class, it is hard to tell me something new. JG, however, did just that.)

"If cake is a classic dessert, but I don't like it, is it still a classic?" she asked rhetorically. Then JG answered her own question, asserting that, if a majority of people like something, then her personal opinion doesn't mean it is not. And she then connected that simple analogy to classic books.

I sat back in my chair and thought, "I have GOT to write down what she just said. It is so simple but quite brilliant."

Later in the day I had the opportunity to ask JG how she'd come up with that analogy. Her response?

"Well, I was hungry and looking for a snack in our pantry. There was a box of cake mix on the shelf marked 'Classic Cake" and that's what made me think of it."

How many times have I purchased and made those "Classic Cake" mixes in my time? Did I ever once think about cake as a classic dessert? Or how that might connect to classic books?

Nope. Not once. It took a fifth grade girl to shift my perspective.

Stranded!

Yesterday after I returned from Indianapolis, I went around the barricades on North River Road to see how close I could get to my mother's home. I am very worried about her as she is well and truly stranded.

Approaching from the south, there is a two mile stretch of road underwater; from the north the distance is shorter, but the road is still impassable for about a half a mile north of her home.

I could get to the bend in the road just south of Soldier's Home Road, but I am still a long way from the house.

The billboards on that curve are half submerged. (They are reflected in the water which makes them look like they are not quite as underwater as they really are.)

For perspective, here's the back side of those billboards taken Thursday, two days ago when the flooding had just begun. I am heading in the opposite direction and am by Mom's neighbor, Bill's house. Look at how high the billboard is compared to the car on the road! Since the water in the first picture (taken yesterday) is more than halfway covering the billboard, I would say that any car on the road now would be completely submerged. Yikes!

If you look carefully behind the billboards in the picture I took yesterday, you can see the outline of Mom's neighbor's A-frame home. The white patch is a recreational vehicle, I think. I hope Bill's okay! He has our flat bottomed river boat, aptly named The Ark. In the past when we'd be flooded in, Bill would go to town and get our mail, etc. and then bring it to us by boat. Looks like now he, too, is underwater and in need of aid.

Mom's next neighbor up the road has the water partially up into his yard and beginning to overtake his parked truck. (The water was still rising when I took these pictures.)

 The silence during a flood is eery. Normal sounds of traffic and life are gone, and all you hear is the water lapping on the road. You feel a sense of isolation and even some fear. As I looked at all the water, deeper and more extensive than any other flood I've ever experienced in my life, I felt that fear.

There was no way I was going to get to my mother - too far to go and too deep to drive or wade, so I turned around and went home. I stopped at the top of the Soldier's Home curving hill to take some more pictures of the extensive flooding.

The river is at the bottom in this picture (that's Jackson Island, although it is completely submerged - I've never seen that happen before!) and North 9th Street is the tiny line with the twin silos.

That tiny white spot is a car navigating the road. The road is atop a levee, but I sure would not venture out on it! My guess is the water extends at least a mile to a mile and a half from the original banks of the river.

The water crested at 25.5 feet, the highest since 1938 or 1958, depending on whose report you read. Regardless, it is the worst flood my family has ever experienced during our forty three years of living on the Wabash.

Saturday Priorities and Long Time Collector Friends

Saturday had a string of plans, all prioritized:

1) Finish the prom dress (it was a bust, so... CHECK!)

2) My sisters' birthday celebrations (the river flooded, plans changed, CHECK!)

3) Head to Indianapolis for a collectors get-together my friend, Pat, was having (BINGO!)

After I told my collector friends I would come down if I got the dress done and saw what the river did to the birthday plans, I was invited to another friend's surprise birthday lunch. I was sad to miss it, but I had already told Pat and Michelle I would be there. Bummer - I would have really liked to have gone to that lunch.

(You'll notice that cleaning and laundry aren't on the Saturday priority list. Hah!!)

So, since #1 and #2 were off the list, I drove down to Indianapolis to Pat Reed's mini show to visit with her, Michelle Evans, and other fellow collectors.

Me, Pat Reed, and Michelle Evans

It was really nice to see both of them again - it has been over ten years! I rarely go to collector gatherings, although I did go to two shows and BreyerFest last summer. We talked and talked and talked, and I got to meet some of the new collectors in the Indiana area as well as some from Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky who had also come to Pat's show.

It Comes in Threes

This has been a tough week - a student cheating, prom dress failure, and today's problem?

You'd think it was the time of Noah. And not just here - all across the midwest. Chicago got 8 inches of rain in twenty-four hours!

As I pulled out of Hershey's drive and headed down 300 after school, this is the sight I saw just down the road from the building.

That's a minivan that drove off the road into a cornfield so flooded that the water is up to the undercarriage of the car! And there is no creek or river nearby - this is rainwater that's collected in the field. The ground is saturated and there is no place for it to go.

As I continued on 300, the road was flooded over for about thirty to forty feet near Archerville.

My neighbor, Lynn Wood, took this picture of our neighborhood creek. I don't have a picture of the lake, but I have never seen the lake so high up its banks.

I tried to drive south down North River Road to check on my mom and this is what I encountered just before her house:

A few foolish people were driving through it. I watched, and when the water went over one car's headlights, I backed up, turned around, and went back up Soldier's Home Road, down Happy Hollow, and onto North River Road again, approaching my mom's home from the south. (This photo is in front of her next door neighbor's home.)

She is watching the Wabash River as it creeps up into her yard. So far she still has access to her driveway. She's going to spend the night here probably tomorrow when the water does breach the road in front of her home, stranding her if she's still there.

Sarah took some pictures from around Iowa City and Tiffin.

 This is I-80 with water right up to its edge. In 2008 they had to close I-80 for days due to flooding - the water actually covered the freeway.

 A road out in the Tiffin/North Liberty area near where Sarah works.

 Highway 6 (it goes across Iowa), the railroad tracks that run alongside it, and an overpass, also near Tiffin and North Liberty.

I am wondering if maybe we will have a delay tomorrow morning due to flooded roads that are impassable to buses.

Now What??

I took a personal day and have spent the entire day sewing on the prom dress and STILL it isn't done. I had to take a break - when I get tired, I make mistakes, and I don't want any errors.

 The six individual tulle and organza layers, each with six pieces, stitched and ready to layer one on top of another.

Layered and ready to gather.

The skirt is very, very full, so the gathers were tight. I could barely stitch the skirt to the bodice.

 Believe it or not, that's the skirt. The darker color is the underskirt, the lighter the frothy layer all gathered and squished together.

 My arms ache from fighting the fabric and trying to get it stitched.

I got the skirt attached and hung the dress to let the fabric fall out and settle.

It looks pretty, but my heart sank - look at that bodice. It's stretching under the weight of the skirt. And the pretty blue waistband has stitches that are pulling out due to the weight.

I am heartsick. We used the fabric the pattern called for, so it should not have been a problem, but it is. And, I am nearly out of time to sew. I have commitments tomorrow and Friday evening, and prom is Saturday.

Now what??

Cheating Breaks My Heart

Very, very rarely have I ever had to deal with cheating in my teaching career. In fact, I can't think of the last time it happened. Sadly, I had to address it today.

The situation is particularly heartbreaking because the student involved is a perfectionist who is afraid to make mistakes and terribly hard on himself when he does. Case in point, when raising his hand to answer a question in class, he will say often back off, saying, "Oh, I forgot" when I call on him or else dissemble, "Well, I don't know why I think this, but I'm not sure, but I think that maybe...." rambling on and on without ever actually answering the question. He's just too afraid he will be wrong and lacks confidence to say what he thinks.

I know why he cheated - but that doesn't make it right. And in doing so he made a HUGE mistake, and got himself in serious trouble.

Another sad part of the incident was that, after I spoke with him about his actions, he began pointing out flaws and faults of others. I think he was desperate to justify his actions, at least in his own eyes. For example, he pointed out that his family had cheated while in school and that his father had "just cheated in school yesterday." (His father is not a student and has not been one for a very long time. And, I am not sure I believe that any of them cheated in school; I know his parents very well and had his brother as a student.) Then, at dismissal, he frantically kept pointing out that two students had forgotten to put their chairs up, again and again even though I responded and he knew I was aware of those two chairs. He was SO upset, and unable to accept that I was not going to rectify the situation then and there. I had to turn and walk away as he talked because he would not stop.

I am far more interested in helping this boy through this experience than in punishment, but what he has been doing is very, very serious. I have to figure out a course of action that addresses what he did, and I do think a consequence is needed.

I am praying for wisdom on this one. I don't know what to do.

With a Cherry on Top

JM did his fourth and final Classics presentation on Friday over Jules Verne's book, Journey to the Center of the Earth. The fourth paper is the biggie, the culmination of two years of studying good literature for children. We look forward to our Friday Classics Celebrations (when two kids present); even more so when it is a 5th grader doing their final paper.

After presenting their paper to the class (and JM's was FORTY ONE pages long), the other students ask questions, offer feedback, and comment on the book that was read. JM was so excited about his paper and the book he had read  that I started jotting down snippets of his responses.

When asked why he had written forty-one pages, JM responded,  "It was my fourth classic and... wow. There's nothing that motivates me like a good book."

Another classmate asked about the genre and also about the length of JM's paper. "I just took Jules Verne and launched. Sophie said in her paper that she was intrigued by her author; I was even more intrigued."

To someone else. "On this paper, my mind said to me, it doesn't matter how long the paper is, just write. And this is what I had to say. I wasn't worried about breaking the record for page numbers."

And finally (and probably the comment that made me smile the broadest), "I focused mainly on completing my fourth classic smoothly and with a cherry on top."

Yes, JM, you most certainly did that!!

The Four Room Dress

The prom dress I am making for a former student is going to be lovely, but it has been a lot of work. I am tracking my hours, and I already have fifteen hours into it!

The skirt has been the biggest headache - there are six layers of tulle and organza, with each layer consisting of six large pieces to be sewn together and then gathered. Cassidy and her mom have been madly cutting out those thirty-six pieces of tulle and organza while I sew and sew and sew. (The skirt has another layer for modesty constructed from two pieces of satin for a whopping total of thirty-eight pieces in the skirt!)

Another headache was that the skirt fabric we paid for and ordered March 22 never came in (it was oversold at the warehouse) so we had to scramble and find and purchase another coordinating color of fabric.

Because the skirt has three different pattern pieces cut into three different colors of fabric, I have kept each piece and its colors in a different room of the house. I do NOT want to stitch the skirt to the bodice only to find I grabbed the wrong pattern piece and have to rip things out so the bodice and skirt go together.

 Skirt piece 17 is in Curt's old room, separated into color piles and awaiting pinning and stitching.

 Lisa's soon-to-be room hosts piece 19 in its various colors.

 The overlook has piece 18 and its colors, plus I am hanging stitched sections of the skirt over the banister in two piles. The one on the right is the skirt front, on the left is the skirt back.

My office is the fourth room and where the actual construction of the dress is taking place. I sew, press, hang, and then go get more pieces and start the process over again.

Prom is ONE WEEK from today. Tick, tick, tick!!