Pancakes of Innovation and Coffee of Freedom!

So I have been seeing this particular iHop commercial lately:

Now, it seems like a pretty mundane commercial; iHop is showing how people who eat at their restaurant eat their pancakes and that’s supposed to be appealing.  But if you look closely toward the beginning of the commercial, you see a guy that they call “The Big Dipper” dunking a dry pancake into a mug of coffee:

When I first saw this, I wondered aloud what kind of mental defect this gentleman has that would cause him to dunk a pancake in a cup of coffee.  Not that I don’t like things dunked into my coffee, but dunking is reserved for stuff like cookies and donuts, not pancakes, which are meant to be smothered in some sort of syrup or compote, maybe with some butter, and eaten with a fork.

Then I watched the commercial again and I had a revelation.  Everyone in the commercial was eating their pancakes in their own way and they seemed to all enjoy their meals.  In fact, iHop was not only condoning this practice, it was encouraging it.

How innovative!

There was a time when pancakes were all eaten the way I like to eat them.  People sat at tables in a diner–tables which were usually arranged in rows–and undertook a standardized procedure to have breakfast.  But then came places like iHop, which set aside the industrial-model pancake eating in favor of customer-centered, differentiated eating.  In fact, their very name suggests that they realize that pancake eating doesn’t just happen within the restaurant and that the pancake eating shouldn’t feel so contained and detached from the rest of the world–after all, it is the International House of Pancakes.

My guess is that someone at iHop took lessons from people like Steve Jobs, who didn’t feel that the traditional way of dealing with apples was right for him and dropped out of eating apples to reinvent the concept of apples.  And The Big Dipper is taking ownership of his eating pancakes within an environment that does not enslave and abuse its eaters or steals their dreams of dunking pancakes in coffee, but instead lets them fly.

So fly, Big Dipper.  FLY!  You have me so INSPIRED!

 

Is suspension worth it?

During my senior year, my girlfriend got suspended for being caught with a cigarette.  I can’t remember what she claimed had actually happened–something along the lines of she was either “caught holding it for someone” or happened to be hanging around with someone who was smoking.  It was all some big conspiracy hatched by a female gym teacher who hated her or something.  Anyway, she received a day of in-school suspension (ISS) and on that day showed up to school wearing sweatpants and carrying a pillow.

Fast forward 15 years and I’m running work down to ISS.  I walk in and while there are a few students doing work, there are a few who have their backpacks on their desks and are sleeping.  Nobody had the foresight to bring a pillow, but it didn’t look like anything had changed.  In fact, I’ve had students who not only tell me that ISS is a “day off,” but will often not show up to school on a day where they are scheduled for ISS so when they have to make the day up, they have two “days off” instead of just one (this often happens when ISS is near a weekend).

This morning via Twitter, Christopher Lehman shared a New York Times piece from August 7 entitled, “Suspension Rates are Higher for Disabled Students, Federal Data Indicate.”   The basics of the piece are that those students who are learning disabled in one way or another tend to be suspended more, as do African-American students, who seem to be suspended at a rate completely disproportionate to their peers:

According to a new analysis of Department of Education data, 13 percent of disabled students in kindergarten through 12th grade were suspended during the 2009-10 school year, compared with 7 percent of students without disabilities. Among black children with disabilities, which included those with learning difficulties, the rate was much higher: one out of every four was suspended at least once that school year.

It’s a good sketch of the discipline situation in the country, but the Times seems to provide just a sketch and reports on the basics of the study, which is a bit more in depth and does its best to explain the disparities that exist and any flaws in the data.  I personally would like to know why students tend to get suspended–are they doing something that’s worthy of suspension, like fighting or drinking or doing drugs, or are the suspensions a knee-jerk reaction on the part of administration?

Eggs of Enlightenment and Waffles of Inspiration!

Photo by Old Shoe Woman. Used under cc license.

I used to be one of those teachers.  You know, the teacher who had a clear set of rules clearly posted in the classroom (in fact, mine was typed in comic sans, mounted on red construction paper, and laminated), who paid a lot of attention to the concept of classroom management and who lived in fear of hearing comments about his classes being “out of control.”  When I got compliments from substitutes on how well-behaved my children were, I beamed with pride; when I heard comments about my classroom being a “revolving door” I took it personally and cut down on bathroom passes.  But a few days ago, I had an experience that changed my view on classroom management and may very well have changed my life.

I had breakfast in a hotel lobby.

My family takes a vacation each year to Virginia Beach and for the past three years we have stayed at the same hotel.  One of the huge advantages of this place is that it has a full breakfast buffet.  And when I say buffet, I am not talking about a spread of overripe bananas, stale coffee, soggy danish, and sweaty bagels you’d get at your average Days Inn; I’m talking about eggs, biscuits, sausage, bacon, waffles, and other hot food that makes you want to get out of bed before 9:00 in the morning to avoid the rush.

Now, before I begin connecting this experience in any way to classroom management, I need to preface it by saying that I am a product of the abusive industrial model public school system.  My classes were always grouped by date of manufacture, and my teachers destroyed my freedom when they forced me and all of my classmates to learn the same set of 26 letters and the same arithmetic functions.  Furthermore, my schoolmates and I all had our dreams stolen when we were told to keep a neat desk, walk in a straight line, wait our turn, and not talk when someone else was talking.  I am pretty sure that all of this ruined my life, because nothing I learned as a part of that system of indoctrination prepared me for an experience like the breakfast buffet.

First of all, much to my surprise, when you go down to a hotel lobby for its breakfast buffet, there are no assigned seats.  You simply choose where you want to sit.  And it’s a true collaborative environment because if you are with someone, they can save the seat that you have chosen because even if you put your stuff down to save your seat, there is no rule dictating that other people can’t just sit there anyway.  In fact, the tables in the lobby can be used for more than simply eating your breakfast.  I had the opportunity to see a family set up and play The Game of Life during the busiest time of the breakfast buffet, and while everyone was shuffling around, worried that they would not get a seat, these people were sharing and using critical thinking skills to move pieces on a game board.  It was truly inspiring.

The line for the food itself is nothing short of amazing.  Because while it is polite to stand in line for things like a tray or utensils or food, those who do often find themselves missing out on a carton of milk, a tub of cream cheese, or an apple cinnamon muffin because a guy in a Yankees T-shirt who is obviously thinking way out of the box will eschew the conformity of the line and seize the opportunity to grab that last muffin by shoving his arm right between you and your intended baked good.  And he is wonderfully modeling this for his children, who if they’re not in line can be seen over at the self-serve coffee station emptying every sugar packet available into one cup of coffee after having thrown about all of the cups, lids, and creamers in a burst of experimentation and creativity that makes even my heart soar.