Asian Chicken Salad Similarities between Sunday School and urban school teaching

To all the Sunday school teachers I know -  your work, sacrifice, and effort is amazing, and blessed by our Father above.  To my beautiful Sunday School kids - thank you for your smile every single week.

Last week, as I sat in my sweltering Sunday School classroom and tried to get my class of 16 three to five year olds under control, I was instantly aware of how my years teaching in an urban school (which served the most under served communities of San Francisco) and my suburban Sunday school classroom had in common.  I do believe God used my years as a high school English teacher to prepare me for my challenges with three to five year olds in Sunday school.

This is what I realized.  In both my urban school and Sunday school...

Kids like to put their feet up on their desks.  Sometimes they like to take their socks off too.

Its hard to get everyone to pay attention to you.  Sometimes you have to resort to some unusual tactics.  Humor generally goes very far in grabbing attention.  So does making crazy faces.

Kids know when you care and respond to your caring.  Compliments on their clothing always make them smile.

When kids dont get their way, there is often times pouting, throwing of objects, or a child lying on the ground having a fit.  (This happened often in high school believe it or not.)

Well-rested children make better students.  Students that did not sleep well the night before often disrupt the lesson or will fall asleep right in class.

When kids are bored, they go to the bathroom.  This is just as disruptive in high school as it is in Sunday school.

Students love their teachers to bits and pieces. 

Im exhausted at the end of a lesson.

There is oftentimes a lack of appreciation by parents for the efforts of teachers.

And finally, teachers arent teaching for the fabulously high pay or the prestige - theyre teaching because they believe that kids can be taught and there is wisdom that they have to impart to the students.

God uses all things for the benefit of His kingdom.  My crazy years teaching high school trained me for teaching my 3 to 5 year olds.  And even though Im tired out, tuckered out, and oftentimes VERY sweaty after class, Im grateful for the opportunity to use my training to serve my beautiful students and God.

After my teaching is over, the first thing I often think about is lunch.  Im usually starving and last week, during the crazy-heatwave-with-no-air-conditioning-day, I wanted a cold salad.  I wanted something refreshing and reviving, and had I had the ability, this is what I would have made.

As it is, I ate it three times today.  Once for my lunch, once for snack, and once for dinner.  I just love all the textures, flavors, and overall crunchity crunch of the salad.  If you are looking for your typical, sweeter Asian chicken salad, this is not it.  This has more complex notes with the lime juice and fish sauce, and is a bit of a nod towards a Vietnamese salad.  

Asian Chicken Cabbage Salad

Serves 6

Ingredients

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce

1 tablespoon honey

2 teaspoons (or less) sambal oelek (chili sauce - this controls the heat)

1 teaspoon fish sauce 

1 teaspoon grated peeled ginger

Kosher salt

6 cups of shredded cabbage

3 medium carrots, peeled, shredded

3 cups chopped rotisserie chicken

2 cups baby spinach, thinly sliced (roll up leaves and julienne)

6 scallions, chopped

½  cup chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

½ cup sliced almonds (optional)

2  tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

Method

Whisk together vegetable oil, lime juice, sauce, honey, sambal, fish sauce and ginger.  Taste and add salt if desired.

In a large bowl, add cabbage, carrots, chicken, baby spinach, scallions, cilantro, almonds, and sesame seeds.  Pour dressing over and toss.  Serve immediately.  

Printable recipe

Definitely a favorite kitchen tool of mine.  Been using it to whisk dressings.

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Breakfast Cookie Teaching an old dog new tricks

For HKL who pushes me to try new things; for CJR who reminds me that if I try, I can do anything; for KY for penning the book on how to practice.

Often the best practices of teaching find their way into my parenting.  Ive been thinking about how to really encourage Daughters in the things that I ask them to do, because there are links that are not obvious to them.  How come mommy can play the piano so well?  Shes been playing more than 30 years, which is why.  How come you drive so well?  20 plus years behind the wheel will do that.  Multiplication tables?  Telling time?  Reading a book?  Cooking?  All these things Ive had practice.

One important thing that teachers can do for their students is MODEL.  Show the model of what you want them to produce.  Give them the model of what it looks like to work on the tiniest segment of what it is that you want.  Model the behavior that you want, the words that you want; whatever you want from your students, your best bet at getting it is modeling it.  You want high standards?  Model what that looks like.  And then after you model it, give tons of time for practice in order to master.  The road to mastery of anything is not glamorous or easy, but practice is the absolute cornerstone of it.

So for the sake of Daughters piano practice and overall perception of practice and grunt work, Ive also decided to model how long it takes to learn an instrument and how much work it takes.  A couple of years back I tried learning the drums, only practicing the drums in the house late at night was counter productive.  Even with headphones on practice just didnt seem to quite work.  Then began the quest for the next instrument to learn, and it was in conversation with friend CJR who said, "You should learn to play the bass guitar.  You know how to hear it, you feel the rhythms of it, and you essentially copy it when youre playing the piano."  Only we dont own a bass guitar.  We do however own a guitar which is what Husband has been trying to learn to play for many years, only he doesnt put in the practice time.  Ive commandeered it and have taken it over.

Ive committed to myself daily practice.  I watch online videos and study chord charts and have just been getting comfortable holding an instrument.  To learn something new I will tell you is not easy.  In frustration I told CJR, "Im missing the gene that allows me to play this!" to which she responded "There is no gene that you are missing that will prevent you from playing it."  The answer, of course, is that I have to practice a lot more.  The skill that I have at playing piano doesnt automatically transfer over to the guitar, as much as I wish it would.  The 30 plus years invested in the piano doesnt mean that the guitar will come easy at all.  I am essentially an old dog, learning new tricks.

After three days of practice, I pulled the guitar out to show Children how far I had come.  I had figured out how to really hold the guitar comfortably, how to play a chromatic scale up all the strings, and how to strum an "A" chord, the only chord that I successfully deciphered off of the chord chart.  Daughters response to my playing was "THATS ALL YOU CAN DO?" while Sons response was, "Let me strum the guitar."  Im hoping that in a few more weeks, I might have actually mastered five chords (Im on the schedule of mastering one chord a week) and that Ill be able to strum some sort of song.  Maybe.  But in the meanwhile, I showed Children how hard it is for me to learn the guitar, but how Im not giving up, and every single night (after I post this blog post) Ill be sitting and practicing until my fingertips are numb.

Along with trying to get this guitar thing under order, Ive been trying to rework and teach Children new breakfast habits.  Sugary cereals, empty calories, and empty nutrition foods are normally what many eat for breakfast; Im trying a new standard at home.  Friend HKL challenged me to make a "breakfast cookie" or "brookie" that took out all the normal breakfasty type ingredients - sugar, flour, eggs, and oil, and just really pared down the cookie into really good, nutrition packed ingredients.  This is what I came up with.  Its almost like a granola bar, but far less sweet, but the texture is chewy and crunchy at the same time.  You can definitely take out the ingredients you dont like and add what you like, but I really liked the addition of toasted sesame seeds to give it a nutty flavor.

Its not too late to learn new tricks, as long as you give it a good solid practice.  (this was my 3rd attempt at this cookie.)

Breakfast Cookie (Vegan)
Makes 16 to 18 cookies

Ingredients
2 cups old-fashioned oats (you can make this gluten free by buying gluten free oats)
1 cup dried cranberries (or dried blueberries, dried cherries, raisins)
¼ cup toasted sesame seeds
¼ cup sliced almonds (optional - add flax seeds, chia seeds, or any other seed or nut you’d like to add)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt

3 ripe bananas, mashed really well
¼ cup coconut oil. heated and melted so that it is liquid
1 tablespoon of honey
2 tablespoons vanilla extract

Method
Preheat oven to 350. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix together oats, cranberries, sesame seeds, almonds, cinnamon, and salt. Mix well to make sure fruit is well distributed throughout mixture.

In a separate bowl, mix together mashed bananas, warm coconut oil, honey and vanilla extract. Mix until uniform in texture. Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients, mixing together well.

To help make a nice shape for the cookie, use a ¼ cup measuring cup, filling it halfway. Press to slightly compress mixture together and then flip cup over onto parchment lined baking sheet and slightly reshape if necessary.

Bake for 20 minutes, until golden brown. Allow to cool and set on pan for 5 minutes. Serve warm (or at room temperature for a breakfast on the run.)

Printable recipe

If you have any interest in reading about how to make practice better - this book hasnt been published yet, but the writers (including my awesome friend) have studied the way to make practice more effective and more powerful.  These are super smart teachers and I am thinking of ways to convince them to come to the west coast to spark change and reform.

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