On taking Second (or more) Chances

He Who Must Not Be Named's children attend the City of Lakes Waldorf school in Minneapolis.  Yesterday the school presented its 25th annual Circus, which we attended along with HWMNBN, our grandchildren Millie (age 7, currently learning about vowels and letter blends in 1st grade, 2 loose teeth) and Ethan (age 3.5, in preschool, reporting about what the class had for snack each day) and (sort of) their mother, Kitty, who works at the school and consequently was very busy with front of the house activities.

The Waldorf educational philosophy is different from mainstream educational philosophies and is, by its own admission, not for everyone.  While working predominantly in early childhood education, I became heavily influenced by the Reggio Emilia philosophy which informed to some extent the International Baccalaureate (IB) philosophy.  The school district had been exploring adopting IB for all its schools, which it subsequently did, and on the early end, Reggio Emilia served as the basis for the curriculum--or, some would say, lack thereof since Reggio is an inquiry based approach to education, the inquiry being on the part of the student with the teacher as the co-constructor of knowledge.  Also not for everyone.  I mention this because I found myself challenged about the Waldorf school's approach, initially being just shy of extremely skeptical.  Pushing myself to learn more and, even more importantly, keep an open mind, I continue to learn that just like anything in the Education Fifedom, there are aspects that feel comfortable and others that do not.  Somehow or other I managed that dichotomy during my career and remind myself there's no reason I can't do the same right now.

On to the show.  The 6th, 7th and 8th grade students perform; faculty members provide live music.  Adults--at least these grandparents-- hold their breath as the kids who are developmentally tightroping on that fine line between childhood and adolescence ride unicycles, tumble, walk on stilts, juggle, balance.  For the most part, they are wildly, amazingly successful at executing these skills in front of a packed house, an overwhelmingly encouraging audience.

Besides being delighted by their accomplishments, I was more than taken by the students approach to their performance.  It fell into the "If first you don't succeed..." realm.  Clearly the students had been taught/coached/encouraged that if the stunt didn't go as planned the first time, all they had to do was give the audience a knowing glance and hold up their index finger indicating, wait a second, let's try this again.  Sometimes once, often twice, third or fourth times were not uncommon, each approached with resilience and strength and confidence and the expectation that it was absolutely the right thing to do, take that second chance.  That's what really struck me.  The students weren't frustrated or ashamed or angry.  They were determined to exhibit what they believed they could do, even if it didn't go that way on first try.  No three strikes and you're out.  No shame and blame.  Nope, this was the expectation: it's okay if it doesn't go as planned the first time.  All you have to do is stop, engage the audience to let them know you're going to do it again, dig deep into the pool of self-confidence you brought to the stage, and do it again.

Wow.  What a different world it would be if a little of this Waldorf common sense rubbed off on all of us.

Lifelong learning.  A healthy concept.

Cooking:
I'm a tad pissed off at the $40 the NY Times now charges for a year long subscription to its recipes, even the ones I've saved over the years, so much so I briefly flirted with the idea of changing the name of this blog.  I'm probably not going to cough up the 40 bucks but that doesn't mean I won't continue to seek new recipes to follow.  In fact, for Christmas Maggie bought me a book called Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat that explores the chemistry and science of cooking.  I've only read a little, planning on taking it to Florida (t-minus 15 days before the rubber hits the road) and trying out many of the recipes in the book.  My learning thus far: I should be using quite a bit more salt in my cooking.

This is another recipe from the slow cooker cookbook that belongs to HWMNBN.

Slow Cooker Pork Loin and Cranberries
1 pork loin (4 1/2 - 5 lbs)
1 14 oz can whole berry cranberry sauce
1/2 c orange juice
3 strips orange zest, trimmed of white pith
1/2 c dried cranberries
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Using olive or vegetable oil, brown pork loin on all sides, 7-10 minutes. 
2. Stir remaining ingredients into slow cooker.  Nestle pork into slow cooker.  Cook on low for about 4 hours or until thermometer in pork registers 145 degrees.
3. Remove pork from slow cooker.  Let braising liquid settle for 5 minutes, then remove fat.  Discard orange zest.  Transfer to saucepan and simmer until reduced to about 2 c.  Season with salt and pepper.
4. Slice pork as desired, serve with braising liquid.

This was pretty good.  I served it over dumpling style noodles and thickened the braising liquid using the method I described in the previous post.