Jeni Ann Flores

“What have you cooked recently?” the chef asked.             I almost said “oatmeal”, but somebody blurted Aglio e Olio. The answer made me realize I was not in Kansas anymore but in a roomful of gourmets. I had made Aglio e Olio before but that is a story for another day.  For today I was at the Hilton cooking demonstration. Executive chef John Beriker was going to demonstrate how to make risotto with seafood and truffle sauce, and lobster cappuccino with morel and celery leaves. Then we have them for dinner after the demonstration.             My impression about risotto is that cooking it is difficult to master. As I recall, whenever a contestant makes risotto in a cooking show, the judges often seem unsatisfied with the way it is cooked. In my imagination a judge first makes a comment dripping with sarcasm – how dare the contestant cook risotto. Then, ...

      You know something is terribly wrong with the world when someone like me starts to watch football. A few years ago, I came home exhausted, collapsed in bed and started to watch the San Diego vs. New Orleans game.        I was half asleep and all I could see was a field of squirming and running angry men in black and white tights, some with pink accessories, some without. I could not tell one team from the other. I get it. This is the Pink team vs White team game.  I made a mental note to myself: watch more TV to catch up on the latest styles of NFL uniforms.       Then I was baffled - why were some players in the Pink team pouncing on others from their own team? Maybe they were preventing their teammates from going in the wrong direction? But why did those teammates keep insisting on going the wrong direction? Or were their teammates trying to get to them before they are tackled by opponents? Hm. Note t...

     What if you can send an email to your future self and receive it five, 10 or 30 years from now?      This idea so fascinated Matt Sly and Jay Patrikios that they created "Future Me" (www.futureme.org), a website where you can send yourself an email that will not arrive until months, years or decades later. How far into the future you decide to send your email will depend on how you define “future.”  What you say about your present will also depend on how you define “present”.     The Greeks had two concepts of time - "kronos" and "kairos." "Kronos" (as in chronology) describes measured time, such as minutes, days, years. "Kairos" is relative, having to do with seasons, opportunities, relationships and moments. Teachers get frustrated when students come into the classroom without a “kronos” concept of time. Sometimes it is developmental - they are not old enough to have an accurate sense of time. Sometimes it is cultural - they ...

   Need a reality check? Not just any reality check, but an expanded, strengthened reality check. This new reality, called augmented reality, or AR, is described by some techies as the next big thing since sliced bread. Some think it will so revolutionize the way we live that it would equal the change brought about by the internet.      Yup, it’s that big.       What is augmented reality? Imagine walking in the woods. You point your camera towards a mountain and it will show an overlay of information - the mountain’s height, fauna and flora, etc. Your washer breaks. Just point your camera towards the washer and there will be an overlay diagram showing parts which need to be replaced. You point your camera towards a storefront and see an overlay of a sweater on sale. A voice message was left there by a friend who had recently been to that store and raves about that sweater.       Augmented reality w...

      “I accidentally  kicked  him,” my student said.      "You were both standing there and your foot, without your knowing it, accidentally kicked him."       This is a typical exchange between me and my second grade students. Hopefully this “by accident” plea is not something I use when it comes to teaching and learning in my classroom - that my students are not learning “by accident,” but rather, they are learning by design, or purposefully.      Or are they? Thankfully, there is a way to find out through a t-test using paired samples.     It sounds complicated but it's really quite easy. Dr. James Carroll of the University of Portland taught me how to do it with EZanalyze,  a free add-on to the Excel spreadsheet program. I type in my two sets of scores from a pre test (test given before instruction) and post test (test given after instruction). With a few clicks, (plea...

   Derek Redmond was favored to win the 400-meter race for Great Britain in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. However, midway through the semifinals, Derek's hamstrings tore. He dropped to the ground in pain. Then he got up. He pushed past race officials trying to help him.    "Everything I had worked for was finished. ... I hated the world. ... I felt so bitter that I was injured again. I told myself I had to finish. I kept hopping round. Then, with 100 meters to go, I felt a hand on my shoulder."    Derek's father had run from the stands to his son. He caught up with Derek and put Derek's arm over his shoulder. "I saw my (son) having a problem and it was my duty to help," he said later. As Derek hung on to his father, there was a burst of emotion in Derek's face, as if every fiber of his is being exploded with an altogether different kind of pain. He was no longer just an injured runner -- at that moment he was a little boy again, tellin...

                Six to eight weeks. That’s how long I need to wait for my Flip. Flip is a camcorder smaller than my hand with a USB port that will allow me to take up two hours of video. I will enlist a 9-year old to help me learn to use it.             Nine year olds. Their worlds are digital and global. It’s a scary thought, especially for teachers and parents, that the world these children will face will be vastly different from the world as we know it. Howard Gardner, best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences, in 2007 wrote “Five Minds for the Future” (required reading in Dr. Maria Ciriello, O.P.’s University of Portland graduate class.) In the book Gardner  mentions four unprecedented trends of globalization that have implications on how we prepare children for the future: daily instantaneous movement of capital and other market i...