Promoting Achievement through Technology and INstruction for all Students
What I Love More Than Pie
I am well into my 5th year with PATINS, and I am wondering how I’ve made it this long without a focused blog about pie. How did this happen?
I love pie.
My top 3 flavors would be chocolate, wild black raspberry, and apple cream. I enjoy making pie, but through my travels across Indiana as a specialist for PATINS I’ve decided I enjoy HUNTING for pie in small towns even more! I even created a pie map of Indiana, marking the coffee shops and bakeries where I’ve found good and great pie.
Pie is a food about memory for me. I remember picking wild black raspberries with my mom as a child, and pouring our berries into a bowl to have enough for a pie. I remember my sister, Patty teaching me how to smooth out the ball of dough completely before beginning to roll it out to prevent cracks and tears in the crust. My enormous extended family has served pie instead of, or in addition to, cake at several weddings, and I remember joyful forkfuls from these celebrations.
When I find a new place on the road that serves homemade pie, I always think about the memories behind the recipes, and the stories of the folks in that town whose hands sealed the edges of the crust.
Yesterday, I scored big as a specialist in Jonesboro, IN. I met a new Kindergartener who is learning braille, and the brave paraprofessional who has signed up to learn to use a braille embosser, braille translation software, and a braille display device. Together, along with a wonderful general education teacher (who has welcomed the loud embosser into her room!) they will discover how to make a way for learning. It's Kindergarten--what's a little more noise?
I was instantly impressed by the paraprofessional who had loaded the software and connected everything correctly, but humbly confessed,
“I can’t figure out how to load the paper.”
“And I hate asking for help.”
She was intelligent, kind, and already talking about how she would help her student become more independent. I confessed that I didn’t understand the embosser either. (They keep changing the buttons!) So we dove into the manual translated to English from Dutch, and failed our way to success.
Afterward, I also scored a delightful piece of cherry pie at Kammy’s Kafe in town. I sat and enjoyed my dessert while reflecting on the morning of training, knowing that this student will be included in her school and community. And I decided that I love determined paraprofessionals even MORE than pie.
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