Remembering Jake

The Artdog Image(s) of Interest
I'll write the planned post about another endangered beauty spot a different time. Today I simply want to remember a beloved friend. My dog Jake has gone on ahead of me, as dogs too often do, taking a journey I'm not yet ready to take.

Jake in the back yard with me, in October 2016--Photo by Signy Gephardt

Jake was my writing companion, the co-inspirer of certain dragon body-shapes in my artwork, and my exercise buddy who made sure I took walks as often as possible--at least until his lungs gave out.

He was a rescue dog, an Italian greyhound-whippet mix (thus, a "whiggie") who came into my life around the turn of the decade. He died this week of lung cancer, at the age of almost eleven.

He will be sorely missed.

Mine's missing someone at the moment, alas.

IMAGES: Many thanks to my daughter Signy for capturing a moment between Jake and me in 2016, and to Defining Wonderland's post "Adventures in Dog Watching," for the Roger Caras quote. The source they cite for the quote image is no longer there.

My horse-trough "Hab" lives on!

A I recently confessed, I'm a lifelong gardener. However, in the last few years Earth has had little need to "fear my botany powers." After a couple of bad falls on the ice a few winters ago, it was hard for me to get low enough to garden. I needed some kind of raised bed for easier access.

Signy and Pascal created a sturdy base for my project last May. Later, Ty filled it for me.

Well, thanks to my Beloved and my long-suffering adult offspring, I'm back, Baby! My Mother's Day present was a galvanized horse trough on a sturdy wooden stand, filled with rich, composted soil. This collection of creative solutions now sits on our back patio in easy reach of a hose, and I've been having lots of fun with it.

My cool-season crops (spinach, kale, and a leaf-lettuce blend from Morgan County Seeds) continued to yield regular crops of salads and greens well into what we Kansas Citians think of as "winter."

As cold weather approached, Pascal and I made a "dome" out of two basement-window-well covers, to protect my plants from the frost. On windy days (here at the edge of Kansas, we get a few of those), a bungee cord holds it down. It's not excessively elegant, but it works.

But then it snowed. It got really cold. I thought when temps hit the single digits that my horse-trough garden was a goner.

I was wrong. Under the dome, it's alive! How can this be? Fortuitous placement, it turns out. Back in May, we set it up right next to a furnace vent. The air goes out, and directly up under the edge of my makeshift dome. You can see the life-giving vent pipe at lower right in the photo below:

We've gone through two rounds of single-digits and snow, now, and each time I've gone out as soon as I dared, uncovered the garden, added a couple quarts warm water, and my crops have come back to life. In fact, I really need to harvest again.

Potatoes in the Hab, from The Martian: now that's extreme farming!

I've started thinking of my little survival-miracle on the back patio as "The Hab." (For Christmas, my son gave me a copy of The Martian, by Andy Weir. Thanks, Ty!). My horse-trough garden is not as amazing as "Martian potatoes," but who knows? At this rate I might be able to harvest spinach all winter long.

IMAGES: I took most of these images myself, except for the last one. Many thanks for it to NASA! It's from their fascinating article, "Nine Real NASA Technologies in 'The Martian.'" 

Movie Review: A "Frozen" Visual Feast

My daughter Signy and I are both full-grown adults by this time, but somehow we've never lost our love for well-made kids' movies--especially visually lavish animated movies.

Thus, we found ourselves at a matinee of the new Disney movie Frozen, recently. And enjoying ourselves fully.

Frozen, based extremely loosely upon Hans Christian Andersen's 1845 tale, "The Snow Queen," is the fullest merging I've yet seen of what I'd call the "Disney" and "Pixar" styles.

Queen Elsa's ice palace is visually wonderful.

Visually, it's quite beautiful.  I especially enjoyed the scenes in which Elsa, the elder sister and eventual "Snow Queen," works her magic with ice and snow. The sequence in which she retreats from her home on the fjord to her own icy "Fortress of Solitude" on an impossibly steep mountain is a real tour de force.

That the story doesn't follow Andersen very closely at all (there's a magical "snow queen" named Elsa, love melts a frozen heart, and it takes place in Scandinavia--and that's about it) is not necessarily a bad thing.

Brave's Merida is more strong-minded than either Elsa or Anna in Frozen.

Frozen's story speaks to today's ideals of female strength, although the princesses are very traditionally beautiful, at least one of them is really pining for a man, and once again they're white girls. Merida in Brave was more unconventional, and the mistress of her own mind.

However, I did like the twist on "true love," and the determined loyalty shown by the characters Anna and Kristoff. I wonder sometimes if loyalty isn't undervalued in many of our media offerings today.

The music is enjoyable and well performed, and integrated nicely into the plotline. I liked that the voice actors themselves did the singing. This means the voices are fully consistent, whether speaking or singing.

It is clear that Wreck-It Ralph and Tangled have much in common with Frozen.

The movie poster I used above says, "From the creators of Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph," and that heritage shows in many ways, from aspects of the story to the way they portray horse characters. Signy and I remarked on similarities to both of those movies while watching this one, even before we knew much of the background.

IMAGE CREDITS: What would I do without IMDB?  Various pages from that site are my source for all of the images used in this post: the Frozen movie poster; the image of the ice palace; the Brave movie poster; the Wreck-It Ralph movie poster, and the Tangled movie poster.

Holiday Essentials

Every family develops traditions, in my experience--and mine is no different.  The one that's upon us as I write this is Thanksgiving.  It is traditionally the one my household spends at "our house," with a cherished circle of family and friends gathered around the Thanksgiving feast, or joining together for a walk to our local-but-internationally-famous event, the Plaza Lighting Ceremony.

A view of the Kansas City Country Club Plaza Lights and the crowd in 2009

Lately, my family's holidays seem to have been anything but "normal," however. Last year we spent a bittersweet Thanksgiving at my father's lake house in Arkansas, which we knew would probably be the last, and it was.  Dad sold his longtime home (our cherished relaxation retreat) in April, and moved to a much-safer-for-him retirement community.  It was a necessary change, but none of us was happy about the necessity.

The view of the lake from Dad's wrap-around porch is one of many things we miss about his former home in northwest Arkansas!

This is my daughter's motto.

While we were in Arkansas, my aunt in the San Francisco Bay Area suffered a health crisis that set us up for many changes in 2013. She was hospitalized the day before Thanksgiving--we got the news while we were on the road south--and unfortunately she has been unable to return home since. 

My son and daughter traveled to California in December to evaluate the situation, and my daughter moved there "for as long as needed" in January, to be my aunt's household manager, "dog Mom" and much-needed patient advocate. This will be her first Thanksgiving and Christmas away from us.

Part of my daughter's duties include caring for my aunt's Miniature Schnauzer Fritz (L), as well as her own pack: (center-to-R) Border Collie Cole, Toy Fox Terrier Luna, and Rat Terrier Anika.

A small glimpse of former Christmas glory.

My mother-in-law has had even more wrenching changes to deal with.  For decades she reigned as Queen of the Family Christmas, but as she and my father-in-law have fallen into ill health, and especially now that she is a widow, Christmases have become a pale shadow of their former selves. 

She marked last Christmas by spending a final night in her home on Christmas Eve, and moving officially into a nearby assisted living facility on Christmas Day afternoon.  I can only imagine how difficult that must have been for her.

Wine and memories.

It's hard not to see all the changes as losses.  But if we live, we see changes.  My family currently includes three octogenarians, the youngest of whom is 85.  Both of my children are young adults, of the age when people usually marry and have children if they are going to.  More changes are inevitable.

Traditions and cherished rituals may seem like the "meaning of the season," but they, too, eventually either morph into new versions or fall away as they become impractical.  It's another category of changes that can seem like losses.

The challenge lies in finding the essential, eternal goodness at the heart of the holiday, that which remains in place, no matter what else changes.  We are thankful for recent blessings, for memories to cherish, and for the persistence of love between family and friends--whether they are near or far away, living and drawing breath, or living in memory.

At their heart, holidays boil down to love--or they don't boil down to anything at all. 

PHOTO CREDITS: I took the Plaza Lights photo in 2009.  My husband Pascal Gephardt took the photo of Beaver Lake from Dad's porch during the Thanksgiving visit in 2012.  The little "Lilo and Stitch" image and quote is from the Facebook page of my daughter, Signy Gephardt (currently her profile picture). Signy took the photo of the "California Canines" in the loft at my aunt's condo in Daly City, CA. 

Either my son Tyrell Gephardt or I took the photo of my mother-in-law's Christmas decorations in 2006, one of the last really "like-old-times" Christmases there, but already shadowed by my father-in-law's ill health. My son Tyrell took the final photo at Dad's lake house last Thanksgiving: A favorite wine (Stonehill Norton) and one of my dad's glasses, commemorating his ship the St. Lo, sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944.  The survivors still hold reunions, but those traditions are necessarily changing, too.

Two Personal Pieces Achieve Closure

A couple of pieces of my artwork have found their intended homes lately. 

Neither of these pieces was ever part of my competitive fine art collection, nor was either created for the sf convention art show market. Instead, each was a piece made specifically for a person I know.

The first is a little piece I made for a relatively new friend.  Ann recently celebrated her 80th birthday.  A group of us created an appreciation piece in her honor, a special hat adorned with Minnie Pearl-style tags that each bore a note  recalling a memory, favorite moment, or other appreciation.

This is the miniature piece Ann's Hat, created as an appreciation.

Since I didn't know her as well as some of her friends, I opted for a visual appreciation: Ann is a woman of truly distinctive style.  She favors large rings and brooches, colorful scarves, and vintage hats. I always enjoy seeing what she wears to our monthly gatherings.

I was in California for her party and presentation, but I hope she liked my offering.

I created the other piece for my Aunt Bobbie, who has been a collector of hippopotamus-themed artwork (mostly small sculptures) for as long as I've known her (i.e., all my life).  

The piece I created for her actually has been in the works since 2011 and was not delivered till 2013. In the course of creating the final image, I developed several techniques that I have used in subsequent works, most notably all the floral/herbal works created so far in 2013.

Bobbie's artwork portrays a hippo of the Okavongo, among the papyrus mats that are a feature of that river.  It is titled Hippo at Home.

This is a photo of Hippo at Home, in its original mat.

Bobbie's had a very rough year. Starting with an illness that forced a trip to the Emergency Room on the night before Thanksgiving 2012, she's been in and out of the hospital and a rehabilitation facility, and at present lives at a boarding care home (where she recently celebrated her 85th birthday) in South San Francisco.

To compound the problem for all of us, she has for many years lived far away from the rest of her family: my sister is in Dallas, and I'm in Kansas City.  She has many friends in the Bay Area, but sometimes there's no substitute for family.  My daughter Signy Gephardt (a jewelry designer about whom I've blogged in the past) now lives nearby at Bobbie's condo, and acts as Bobbie's patient-advocate, household manager, and dog-caregiver.

Unfortunately, while I got the mat/frame in focus, the artwork is NOT.

This fall, partly thanks to Signy, Hippo at Home received a much-needed mat-makeover.  It was delivered while I was visiting in early October, so i got to see it. 

Although I tried, I couldn't get a very good picture of it in its new triple mat and shadowbox frame, created by Aaron Brothers of Daly City, CA. It is now hanging in Bobbie's room at the boarding care home, right above her TV. 

IMAGES: all photos are by me, of my own artwork.

In-class collaboration for ADD students' success

Follow-up to a 3-Part series
My last several posts have been a series on the topic of "The ADD-Friendly Classroom," developed as a result of several conversations with my daughter, Signy Gephardt. She was diagnosed with ADHD in the first grade (and successfully completed her BS degree in Biological Science last May). I quizzed her about “best practices” from a student’s point of view, and she shared some ideas that all teachers may want to consider, to help the easily-distracted students in their classes.

The power of mutual support

If students know each other, they can help each other succeed.

One subset of suggestions, however, deserves a post of its own. These suggestions revolve around the idea that building a sense of collaboration and mutual support in the classroom helps distractible students succeed much more readily than dividing the classroom through competition.

Signy told me, "Students in class need to know each other, because there WILL be moments when kids 'drift.'" If the classroom culture supports collaboration, students can help each other fill in the gaps, so more of them are better able to succeed.

There are many laypersons and not a few educators who consider competition to be very important--some would even say that competition is an "American" value. It is quite true that fostering competition can motivate some students to excel beyond what they would otherwise accomplish. Demonstrably, competition has its place in education.

But one size does not fit all--and that goes double in education.

ALL students' needs are important, not just those of "stars"

All students, and especially distractible ones, do better with a supportive circle.

Students who excel with ease in school often love competition, because it makes them feel like "winners," but a system that identifies winners also by necessity singles out losers, as well.

Historically in schools, distractible students nearly always come out as "losers."

An essay about the plain fact that a normal bell curve demonstrates the traditional age-group-based system of classes as "production lots" makes it inevitable that some students' needs will not be served is not in the scope of this post (anyway, I've covered it already). My premise today is that competition may be one tool in the educator's toolkit, but that collaboration and teamwork are even more powerful tools for many students--especially for those who are easily distracted.

Students need to learn how to work together in teams.

Teamwork is becoming an ever-greater force for business success in industries that rely on a strong and capable workforce, for precisely the same reasons it needs to be an ever-greater presence in our classrooms: everyone is different, and therefore everyone brings different strengths and weaknesses to projects. Students need to learn how to work together to support each others' efforts so that all may become stronger.

Yeah, but what does that look like in real life?

If you've been steeped in the tradition of competition, winners, and losers in school, you may fear that "teamwork" is a euphemism for "stronger" students carrying "weaker" students along with them, or else maybe some kind of meaningless "self-esteem" exercise. I won't lie: in today's classrooms, those things unquestionably do happen.

But that's not what I'm talking about. Those are examples of what happens when it's not done right.

Mutual support reduces weakness, builds strength
Some time strategically spent at the start of the semester on “classbuilding” exercises can pay huge dividends in overall student success. Dr. Spencer Kagan’s Cooperative Learning structures include a helpful variety of classbuilding exercies; a similar approach is offered through the Tribes Learning Community, to name two.

When students work together and help each other, all do better.

"Classbuilding" is the process of helping students who may or may not know (or like) each other when they first enter a class, and turning them into an effective, dynamic team--a team in which all members function at a higher level than they might, if left to flounder along on their own.

Humans are evolutionarily predisposed to function as "tribes," or small cooperative groups. As with wolf packs and prides of lions, humans developed a predisposition for social interdependence because it made all group members' survival much more likely.

Academic survival (indeed, thriving success) is also well-served when everyone in the group feels they are "on the same team," and can bring value to the work being done. Teachers—especially when they have distractible students—need to explicitly guide their students to the idea that "you should help each other get complete notes," for example.

The effective use of small groups

Groups of four students can work together and stay engaged.

Signy specifically recommended small groups as being extremely helpful for ADD students--providing the group work is structured effectively.  

"Small-group discussions and working together to answer questions [really help]," she told me. "Up to four people per group is best."  Pull chairs around to create an opportunity for students to talk face-to-face. Switch habitual groups periodically—but only after a few days or weeks of working together. "It's pretty chaotic to mix up groups more often."

She also recommended "group-style" tactics for class discussions. "When going through assigned questions in class, make the session as interactive as possible, by having a semi-presentation style," she suggested, and described a process by which a chosen student stands up, says his/her name, identifies which of the assigned questions s/he will answer, then answers each. Follow with a recap of "this is what I said," and take other students’ questions as needed.

A Kagan-style variation on this would be to have small groups of students discuss questions among themselves, then have each group's chosen spokesperson present its answers to the larger class.

I hope you'll give some of these ideas a try, or at least do further research on the positive effects for all students of helping your most distractible ones.

PHOTO CREDITS (and a few interesting references, as well): The photo of the group of three students is from “Five Principles of Effective Guided Practice,” by Richard Stowell. The photo of children and adults around a round table is from an article titled “Those with special needs seek accommodating churches,” by Irie Price from the Lubbock (TX) Avalanche-Journal. The photo of the circular group of students is from a post titled “How to Maximize Cooperative Learning by Tapping into Personality Strengths,” from Insights, “The official blog for the Insight Learning Foundation.” The photo of two grade-school girls at a computer is from the article “Students show off latest tech,” by Chris Torres from the Daily Journal of Vineland, Millville, and Greater Cumberland County, NJ. The group of students with their desks pushed together to work on a project is from Laura Candler’s “Cooperative Learning Resources” page.
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