Happy Sticky Bun Day! (and a small rant)

Monday, February 21st was National Sticky Bun Day.

In honor of that sacred day, I have included a recipe for very simple caramel rolls.

24 Rhodes Frozen Rolls

½ cup chopped pecans

1 package buttersotch pudding, (cook and serve, not instant, if possible)

1 stick butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Rhodes dinner rolls may be a midwestern only product.  If so, this is the kind of thing you are looking for.  I'm sure your area has something similar if Rhodes is not available.  My suggestion would be to buy the 72 count bag and make them 3 weekends in a row.

Put nuts in bottom of greased 9 X 13 pan. Put frozen rolls in pan in two layers, 12 in bottom layer and 12 in top layer. Sprinkle cinnamon and pudding over the top of the rolls. Melt butter, add brown sugar, then pour over the top of the rolls. Cover the pan with saran wrap, then let rise overnight (or all day) on counter. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes. Flip over the pan onto a serving platter or onto parchment paper on the counter (when you are done the nuts should be on the top).

These are very easy to prepare and can be done in 10 minutes in the evening and then popped into the oven first thing in the morning.

Some history, if you don't mind.

Back in the 90's the school district I worked for was still interested in training teachers to be good teachers.  As part of that idea, there was a course offered in the district on Cognitive Coaching.  The point of the course was to train teachers to assist other teachers in improving their teaching skills.  As a cognitive coach your job was to ask questions that were intended to elicit insights on the part of the person you were coaching. Developed in part by Art Costa, who was a big name at ASCD in the 80's and 90's, it had as a major stated goal to "facilitate thinking through questioning and developing greater precision in language."  It piggy-backed on what our district evaluation process was all about for tenured teachers: reflection.  Newer teachers were shown how to reflect on their lessons, their teaching style, and their successes and failures in this class.  I was fortunate to be asked to teach this class when the teacher I took it from retired. We met on Saturdays all day and after school. It was a big commitment, but worth the time.  As part of the class, early on each person was asked to teach for 3 minutes something (non school-related) to the class, then meet with their partner and practice the cognitive coaching skills. Later in the class we did full blown teaching lessons. Besides learning a lot about teaching, I learned a lot of interesting skills in the first teaching segment. I learned how to fold napkins into shapes for a dinner party, I learned how to sew on a button, and, most importantly, I learned how to make caramel rolls (from Maggie in the English Department).  At the end of the 90's our school district had started making a huge switch on staff development from being a good teacher to being a good technologist.  In a large part this was due to the loss of our good friend and former math colleague, Jenny, in the staff development office.  Where in 1995 you were encouraged strongly to take Cognitive Coaching or Reading Across the Curriculum, by 2008, you were encouraged strongly to take a class on interactive white boards or how to use the online grading system.  And our evaluation system now is all about changing student behavior, not teacher behavior. The principal questions are about what the student will do and how will you measure the growth in the students.  I remember being in the district in the 80's and having marvelous discussions with colleagues about the science of teaching versus the art of teaching. We argued Bruner, Ausubel's advance organizers, and Piaget's cognitive stages of development.  Now the discussions center around common assessments and RTI.

Maybe the pendulum will swing back in time for the younger teachers out there to experience a district committed to developing great teachers.  For their sake, I hope so. Thanks for listening.