Every teacher in Ontario is working hard on report cards this week… for some, that means pouring over pages of anecdotals and crafting comments to summarize students’ demonstrated learning in various areas.  For others, it means scrambling to mark a few last pieces of written work before pulling together a final mark in one subject or another.

But I must confess that I am amazed, in this day of excellent assessment PD available everywhere, to still see some teachers “averaging marks”!

Out at an activity with my kids this afternoon, I watched a teacher who often does his marking in the waiting area hold his clipboard in one hand and a calculator in the other, and repeatedly punch in a row of 10-12 numbers and then jot down something – presumably the average of every mark he had collected on the kid since Sept – in the margin next to each name.

It was reminiscent of my first year of teaching over a decade ago, and it made me cringe.

Heaven forbid the kid had a rough start to the school year – those three assignments from September and October are going to cost him no matter how hard he worked in November, December and this past week at school!!!  Or what a bout the student who just didn’t "get it" then, but now – thanks to your fabulous teaching, and her growing brain – she has demonstrated a marked improvement in her understanding of a concept? Oops, too bad: those Ds and Cs from the start of the school year will drag down the more recent and consistent string of B+s when you average them in with your nifty little calculator!

I wanted to scream at this guy, shake some sense into him – USE YOUR HEAD, MAN!

Alas, he was a stranger to me, not some eager teacher sitting in one of my assessment workshops listening to me preach about triangulation of data or “more recent and most consistent” or the value of specific anecdotal, descriptive comments, and dismiss meaningless, isolated numbers or letter grades on a page.

And so, I had to let him carry on, calculator in hand.

I bet he uses a red pen to mark, too!

I am thinking of quitting.

No, not smoking, flying! 

Well… not even "flying", technically, but rather, I am thinking about quitting the pursuit of my PPL.

I love flying.  Difficult as the learning process has been for me, it’s also provided me with endless inspiration, both in my writing, and in a more metaphysical sense. (I think learning to fly has made me a more “spiritual” person, has brought me a greater appreciation of God... or at least, of Mother Nature!)

But there comes a time in every major challenge worth pursuing – at least for a while – when one must consider when the end is near, and if that "end" is the accomplishment of the original goal, or if it is the decision to quit and make space for other goals.

I don't like the idea of "quitting", in and of itself.  It feels so incomplete, somehow, so failure-like.  But would be the cost of NOT quitting, in this case?  The money and time I have spent on learning to fly has been robbed from other, also important and valuable pursuits:  My children, my career, my musical hobbies, my work with multiples….  I didn’t mind putting some of those things on the backburner for a while, while I learned this incredible new thing.  But as months turn into years, thanks to uncooperative weather, bouts of bad health, and a recurring shortage of funds, I have to ask myself “how much longer”?!

On the one hand, I feel like I would be giving up so much if I quit now:  I’ve soloed, even flown a cross country all by myself!!!  I passed a three-hour written exam I never thought possible!  I understand (superficially) mathematical and physical concepts I was terrified or blissfully unaware of my whole life up to now… if I quit after all this, am I a total loser?!  How will I face my many new Pilot friends in PEI this summer and tell them that I not only STILL do not have my PPL, but that in fact, I have chosen to stop chasing after it?!

On the other hand, I feel like if I don’t drop this all-consuming hobby, I will never play a Bach violin sonata on the xylophone, or sing in a choir, or play my drums ever again!  If I don’t make space for some reading (not flight training manuals!!!) and thinking and writing at the end of a stressful day at a job that seems to be the target of attack from all angles these days, my ability to do so will shrink until I am no longer able to write a coherent, grammatically correct or even mildly interesting sentence.  And if I voraciously check the weather report every Sunday morning to see if it is VFR and whether I can fly, when will I be able to enjoy an uninterrupted sermon-series at church again?

I miss reading fiction books without feeling guilty that I am not studying for my next flight lesson.  I miss taking AQ- or other teaching-related courses.  I miss the idea of an uninterrupted summer in PEI with my family.  But every time a plane flies overhead, my eyes turn heaven-ward.  If I stop chasing after my PPL, will I forever resent the missed opportunity to become a licensed pilot?

In the uncertainty that is the limbo between deciding definitively to quit, and hoping that the weather and my financial situation will align favourably in support of a final series of flight lessons leading to a successful flight test, I am not sure of anything anymore!

Too tired to post today -- after being in limbo for the past 48 hours, and then not knowing what to do with my own children until 7 a.m. this morning (yes, imagine, some Ontario Teachers are also parents!)  So, in the spirit of our colleague in TDSB, let me instead share the words of someone who more articulately shares some of the REAL issues. (Though -- unlike my former colleague -- I will quote the source below, and give credit!)

From a Star article by  Sachin Maharaj -- read more here.

With snow on the playground outside, I did one of my favourite lessons/activities with my students today:  "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".  Here's how I unpack this Robert Frost poem in my classroom:

First, I prepare envelopes, one per group, with a stanza from the poem in each envelope.  The stanza is cut up into individual lines.

Then, after reading the title of the poem and having a brief discussion about rhyming vs non-rhyming poetry, and reviewing what we've done to date in terms of poetry reading and writing, I pass out the envelopes, one to each group.  Students work collaboratively to guess the order of the lines in their stanza. They are asked to think about and explain their choices to their peers.

Next, I unveil the order of the first stanza, and we explore the rhyming pattern there (A-A-B-A).

Now students return to their group to make any changes to their predicted line order, based on the one completed stanza we just read together.

Finally, we unveil the remaining stanzas one by one, and the groups celebrate their success (most of them guess correctly by this point).  We also look at the rhyming pattern of the poem holistically (Frost uses the third line's non-rhyming sound from each stanza as the first, second and fourth lines of each subsequent stanza, except for the final one -- the students are amazed to discover such attention to detail), and ponder the meaning of the repeated final lines and pattern break of the last stanza of the poem.

Afterwards, I hand out fancy paper for the students to write their favourite stanza on in creative lettering; they LOVE it!

With so much political stress going on in teaching in Ontario right now, not to mention the trauma of not-yet completed Term One Report Cards looming over my head, I felt like it was a good time to just do a fun and engaging activity that introduces students to a great poet!

Visiting Lisbon, while an enjoyable experience, has made me grateful for a number of things back home in Canada, and especially Toronto. 

For starters, I appreciate the vast space we have in Canada.  Even in our larger, busier cities, roads are comparatively wide, and there is plenty of room for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians to move about comfortably.  The cobblestone paths of Lisbon were cute, quaint, but not particularly practical for modern-day society.

Accessible public washrooms are another welcome thing to come home to, especially since I seem to have developed some sort of bladder or urinary tract infection:  Searching desperately for a place to pee every half hour in Lisbon was getting a little old; many places do not have washrooms, or, if they do, you need a code from your rec’t to get in, or you have to pay to use them.  I know some businesses are becoming more restrictive about public washroom access in Toronto, too, but believe me, it’s not nearly as bad as in Europe!!

I am also grateful for the culture of non-smoking that we have worked hard to cultivate here in Toronto.  One of the first things one notices when traveling outside of Canada is the stench of cigarettes all around. 

Finally, our city's tree canopy and green spaces were gifts I took for granted until we went to Lisbon for a week and -- with the exception of a few palm trees here and there -- were surrounded by stone and cement.  We saw no parks at all in Lisbon, and very limited stretches of grass or greenspace in the immediately surrounding area.  Returning to Toronto, with its many public parks and private gardens was like returning to paradise.

There is one thing I like better about Lisbon, though, without a doubt, and that is the climate; I could not believe how chilly it was when we stepped out of the airport at YYZ.  And grey snow everywhere...  Yuck!  Winter in Toronto really is unwieldy for those who have experienced January in a warmer environment.

One hat, a cell phone (hers, not mine!) and one very good pair of thin but warm cycling gloves.  Those are the items left behind in Lisbon.  The former on a train to Belem, the latter two – who knows where? 

They are gone, but we are home safely.  Brrr... it's cold!

As there was no direct flight  from Lisbon back to Toronto, we had to make a stop in Ponta Delgada, a PEI-shaped island in the Azures, and get on a connecting flight to YYZ.  The layover was approximately 2.5 hours, and even taking into consideration boarding and passport checks, it still seemed like a long time to sit around in an airport.

Since we had checked most of our luggage, we had relatively little to haul around with us, and we had recently discovered a few extra euros tucked away in an inner pocket of on of our jackets, so we decided to take the airport bus 4 km to the town’s centre for 50 minutes of exploring, before heading back to the airport to press ourselves into the long line-up with the rest of the passengers boarding our 310 Airbus to Toronto.

Ponta Delgado on a Saturday afternoon in January is like Charlottetown on a Monday morning in September, after all the summer tourists have left the island.  NOT MUCH HAPPENING!!!  Even the tourist centre was closed, and doors barred!

Undeterred, we pulled out a city map, and wandered around a bit.  We even saw a casket being carried into a local church, and marvelled at the unique, fishbowl-like “Hearse”  that had carried it there. 

Photos of our brief walk through Ponta Delgado below and above, uncaptioned.

Last night I skyped one last time with my babies before heading back home to see them in person. It was about 8:45 pm Toronto time, just after their bedtime.  But Alex and Simon are increasing in their worldly wisdom, and both knew that in Lisbon time, that meant we were still awake at nearly 2 a.m. 

“Tatsy!” exclaimed Simon to my girlfriend, who was in front of the screen at the time, “You guys are becoming nocturnal!”

Well, yes, it does rather seem that way. 

Whereas in Toronto, I fight to get to bed before midnight in order to ensure a decent night’s sleep (I typically rise at 6:15 a.m. for work), in Lisbon, it simply did not seem possible to get to bed before 3 a.m. local time most nights – and even so, we were considered by most to be turning in “early”!! 

Dinner in Lisbon begins around 8 p.m.  Many restaurants don’t even open until 7:30 p.m.  (Most nights in Toronto, we have finished eating by 6, and are getting the boys ready for bed around 7 p.m. or so!) 

After dinner, people have a drink or two, then many head to a club, before turning in for the night.    Bars don’t generally open until about 11 p.m., and clubs often don’t open until much later.  Drinking in the street is permitted, and friends tend to congregate in various public squares before heading to a bar, buying a drink, and then congregating in the streets some more, to chat with friends or make new acquaintances.  Around 2 or 3 a.m., the club scene begins to take shape, and people move from drinking in the streets to dancing in nearby clubs. 

For this sleep-deprived Torontonian, it was unreal!

Although I myself am not much of a drinker, I do confess to exploring the bar scene a little while in Lisbon, primarily because we wanted to check out the local, er, “alternative” bars, as one of our hotel desk clerks referred to them when giving us suggestions of where to go, you know, the type of bar that caters to “a lot of different types of people”, as she explained.  :-)

New Year’s Eve we went to Bairro Alto and were amazed by the throng of people in the streets; even at 3 a.m., the party showed no signs of slowing down!

Last night, our final night, after dinner, we met some friends at the Café Pensao Amor, a burlesque-themed series of lounge spaces that turned into a pretty happening dance room after 11 p.m., and whose sound system was such that the welcome diversity of jazz, alternative and 50’s rock sounded almost live at times.

Once we’d had enough of Amore, we headed around the corner to a completely different scene, sort of a blue collar club where ladies got in free, and men paid 5 EU entrance, which included a drink at the bar. 

Our friends were both male.  The first handed the bouncer 10 EUs, waving his hand backwards to refer to his boyfriend, who was behind me and Tats.  The bouncer wanted to know “which of the boys” was with him, but soon realised his mistake, and apologized profusely to Tatsy.

Inside the dank, smoky joint, the DJ was spinning tunes from the 80s, which I and my friend’s boyfriend (who is also well into his 30s) enjoyed tremendously (the tunes, not the smokiness!) Also tucked away at the back of the club was a small stage with a pole for dancing.

Tats visited the ladies’ room, where she was promptly told off by a bouncer in Portuguese.  It seemed he, like his colleague at the door, had mistaken her for a young man, and insisted that she use the other washroom!

But the jewel of the evening was the 1 a.m. show of Fabiana, a well-known Libon stripper who does two short shows a night at the Viking Bar at 1 and 3 a.m.  She is adored by both male and female fans, it seems, because she is rather generously proportioned.  Her confidence turns on the men, and her healthy body image appeals to the women, apparently.

I suspect that our friends would have easily stayed out another few hours, but by 1:30 a.m. I was ready to head back to the hotel; I still wanted to skype with Trevor and the boys, and besides, we had an early morning the next day, our travel day.  So, we night owls turned in ”early”, heading home just before 2 a.m.

I reflected on Simon’s comment later… nocturnal  could work for me, I suppose… I like the solitude of it at home, when others are sleeping…. But it’s the constant, necessary early arousal the next day that kills me.  Going to bed at 3 a.m. or later only works if you don’t have to get up at 6!

Today was our only organized tour day: we had prebooked a full-day bus tour, including lunch, to Sintra and its surrounding areas.

Sintra is a touristy town with narrow, winding cobblestone paths marked by cafes, restaurants and shops offering their wares, mainly tablecloths and liqueurs.  We spent most of our free time and money there in one of the shops specializing in the latter, where we picked up several "souvenirs" for folks back home. 

We also did some geocaching in the town's centre, depositing a travel bug we had picked up in a Toronto cache earlier this year in a "hole in the wall" next to the Tivoli restaurant in downtown Sintra, and fighting with some man-eating vines to uncover a cache in front of a private villa nearby.

So, off to the bus we ran, cheescakes and tea in on hand, bags of cherry wine, chestnut liquor and port in the other, trying not to spill our waxy Pepsi-cup tea, as they had no lids...

Next we visited the Pena Palace, a large estate with obvious Moorish influence and too many tourists crowding into its various rooms.  This was followed by a fairly average lunch.  During our meal, I enjoyed some conversation with a Brazilian mother and daughter, and two sisters, one from Hawaii, the other from Spain.

After lunch, it was on to Cape Rock, the westernmost tip of Europe, or, as the poet Camois wrote, "where the land ends, and the sea begins".  The mighty ocean's powerful, repeated assault on the shore and any rock that stood in its way offered an impressive sight indeed, and caused me to think longingly of PEI (only 6 more months).

The areas we visited today were considerably greener than Lisbon; a great variety of trees and other plant life covered the many hills and mountains our bus drove through.

Once back in the urban centre, the bus dropped us off at a square near our hotel, and we saw some skateboarders working their magic on the steps outside the roofless church I wrote about in a previous blog post.

We resolved to eat our final meal at a restaurant that serves Bacalhau, the traditional Portuguese codfish, which my girlfriend had been wanting to try all week.  Salgadeiras, a restaurant not too far from our hotel, offered the perfect ambience and menu, so off we went for our last supper in Lisbon.

Off to Belem today, to visit the Belem Tower and the Monastery, do a little geocaching, and eat some famous Belem Pasteis…  Lisbon and its surroundings are rich in museums and cultural centres, and today was the day we intended to see at least some of the many offerings.

We had our Lisbon 72-hour card, so were able to get onto public transit for FREE, and took the train out past the monument to the explorers to the Belem Tower.  From there, we also had a panoramic view of the Golden Gate, er no, replica bridge, and the Rio De Jan-, er, no, also a replica, Jesus statue!

Next it was off to the Monastery of St Jeronimo, which recently celebrated 500 years.  Inside the stone walls of the monastery we found a sculpture that had been crafted by Grade 3 and 4 students at a nearby school.  Look closely… can you see what it is made of?!

After the Monastery, we had the opportunity to take in a show at the Planetarium, a real treat for me; I LOVE planetariums, and was really disappointed when the one next to the ROM in Toronto shut down several years ago.  My infatuation with the projector dates me, however; my partner laughed her head off at my fascination and amazement with the large, archaic mechanical wonders of the 1970s and 80s, especially when she saw that many of the supplemental images where being  projected via slide projector!!!

Click any image above to enlarge.

Perhaps the greatest highlight of the day trip was our stop at Belem Pasteis, to try their famed egg tarts.  We had heard they were very good, served hot, and customarily sprinkled with cinnamon, that they come out fresh from the oven every 15 minutes, that people line up from morning ‘til night to eat them… but we were totally unprepared for just how delectably tasty these treats really were:  a freshly baked flaky pastry surrounds the still-warm tender egg tart centre… as the fellow traveller at the next table remarked when he saw us order seconds, “you can’t have just one”!  (He himself had just packed away two "to go" -- after the several he had devoured at his table!)

Finally, we decided to take the tram back to Lisbon, to look for a grocery store near our hotel where we could purchase the much-anticipated Port to take back to eager friends and family in Canada.  We did so, and also snagged a few other souvenirs, before returning to our hotel, a hot bath, and – finally – bed. 

Tomorrow, our last day, promises to be filled with adventure once again (so much for the relaxing vacation!), as we head out to Sintra by bus, followed by one last supper and evening out with friends here in the city, before madly packing our bags for the long trip home on Saturday.