I guess my query about “best practice” touched a nerve with some of my friends/ colleagues… responses are still coming..
As part of an instructional methods class at PCO a group of graduate students (both working and pre-service TVI’s) brainstormed a list of what is ”Best Practice” for working with VI students.
I remember being a bit stunned by some of the “obvious” & low tech points that came up on our list. These included: have students use trays for activities, use no-slip mat under sheets of Braille, use 20/20 or other thick line markers, ask student for permission before touching them, use hand-under-hand instruction.
I think that a piece of “best practice” is the “common sense” things that we who have been educators for some time (or had very good training) do without thinking. Things like “creating transitions between activities” and “activating prior knowledge.” These when these things are in place in the natural rhythm of a classroom, (theoretically) there is a natural flow.
I remember in my undergraduate BS Ed. training in one of the first classes I took the professor told us that we would not be “experienced” teachers until we had 3 years of teaching experience. I think that new teachers can find out about best practice by observing experienced teachers, talking to experienced teachers, reading peer reviewed journals to see what other educators are able to quantify about teaching and learning.
My experience with school systems and institutions is that there is always some new “system” that is being promoted. Teachers are supposed to accept the new inservice indoctrination, learn the language of the system, and incorporate the system into their lesson plans, curriculum, etc. The feedback I hear from experienced teachers (8-15 + years & not too cynical) is that in education the pendulum swings in one direction, and then back again.
To survive these one must be like a reed & bend in the wind.
There is usually some value to these systems. I recommend gleaning them as they come up for “best practice” or “tools for your kit” or whatever you want to call it.
Well, very easy for me to be philosophical. I’m home with 3 preschoolers & not in a classroom presently.
and…
could be off, but every time I hear “best practice” it reminds me of Sundays. Sundays my grandma would dress my sister and I up to go to church. Every week, before we got out of the car, grandma would say, “Now girls, I want you to practice your best behavior”. She never told us what best behavior was, or even why we were only practicing (were we going to be tested later?
) I think best practice is kinda like that. It’s what we as a group believe to be the best way to do something. We might not be 100% sure- maybe hence the word “practice”- but we’re pretty sure that this particular thing would be best for this particular child. As was noted before, I don’t think there’s a really hard-and-fast standard. I think it’s situational, and also depends on who you’re dealing with.
For example, you have a kid who is learning both braille and print. Braille she can do with no problem, but print she can only do with a 20/20 pen, Wikki Stix, and a CCTV. “Best practice” would be to focus this child’s educational program primarily on learning Braille.
I’m probably not helping. I just can’t think of how one can clearly set parameters for best practice. It seems like one of those “I’ll know it when I see it.” Things.
I initially thought this was going to be easy… I’ve heard the term “best practice” for years… and used it often. But now, I had to think about what it meant. So, I went looking for a definition. Ha… not as easy as I thought. I spent several hours searching for this elusive definition, and came up with nothing that felt comfortable.
So, I turned to colleagues and friends and asked them for their input… and this is what I received. Let this be my starting point in our discussion. Names have been omitted to protect the innocent, but I have thanked each one personally for their contributions to my post.
Best practice is defined within a personnel prep system that is chronically underfunded and simply not able to afford the best technology available.
The problem with ‘best practice’, a phrase which is used so often, is that it is so subjective to the person. Try to put it in a rubric. What does it look like? Does best practice depend on the setting? Is it the same across the board? Unfortunately, I think the phrase ‘best practice’ is one of those cookie cutter phrases and that it depends on other things. What it does look like to me is high, clear expectations; academic rigor and student engagement.
Teachers have never been more discriminating about what resources they will use. This is partly because of the constraints of time and partly because there have never been so many educational resources flooding the market.
“Best practice” seems to be tossed around in the schools. Usually, administrators use it when referring to schools with exemplary programs or success or a strategy that is being generally accepted and hasn’t been standardized or universally accepted by all. For better or worse, it is usually the current trend. If, for some reason it becomes unpopular, then it does not become a standard practice for all. Sometimes it is a piece of a bigger picture. Most reading programs adopt phonics as part of the approach to teaching reading as a “best practice.”
And of course, best practices = standardization for sighted students is not always the best practice for students who are blind or visually impaired. Try explaining that to regular education faculty and staff.
I’ve thought a LOT about “best practice” and on the one hand how to establish it, on the other hand how to revise it or drop it when it’s outlived its usefulness. I’ve come to the conclusion that “best practice” can be a godsend (setting guidance and standards, and protecting us in liability issues) and it can stifle creativity and suppress badly-needed change.
Lack of outcome research
Validate practices (from the National Agenda)
Best practice should ideally be based on research; on what we know works. That would be pragmatic. In reality it is much more philosophical, and based on what we think we know works. Which is one reason that prevailing practice now is to name such things promising practices, thus admitting that we don’t know what is truly best, and so we’re trying what we think may have promise instead.
My professor has stated that one needs empirical data to prove that it is a best practice. My professor wants to know what makes this concept a best practice and how can you prove it (loosely translated) If your professor wants a best practice that is empirically based, you will find limited resources in the field of vision and blindness.
There has been a lot of research done in inclusion. You can use that data and bring in some recommendations from the field if it applies to your topic. Good luck.
Try this site, the real question is why are you working so late?
http://oma.od.nih.gov/ma/bps/db/faq.asp
http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki
That gave me some good starting information, and an intriguing definition…
Wiki is in Ward’s original description:
The simplest online database that could possibly work.
I’m going to copy/paste part of the definition directly from the website because it’s easier to talk about it with a frame of reference:
Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly.
Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself.
Like many simple concepts, “open editing” has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users.
Now, check out wikipedia at http://www.wikipedia.org/ and be prepared to get lost in the tunnels for days… weeks… months. It claims to be:
The biggest multilingual open access encyclopedia on the internet. Over 500000
articles and still growing.
I shared it with a student who had to research the 26th amendment for his government class. I didn’t see him for 2 weeks! (only kidding!) He started off with the 26th amendment and ended up reading about a Japanese shogunate and couldn’t tell me how he got there! He just kept clicking links. It reminded me of the food web activities we would do with a ball of yarn… stand in a circle and toss the ball of yarn around to form a web… and at the end, one student was told to “drop his web” and the whole thing collapsed.
A definite advantage is the ability of anyone to edit at any time. Perhaps this is also a disadvantage as well, for how does one assure accuracy? I can see a similarity to Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
Nevertheless, if you’ve never visited the world of Wikipedia, go to http://www.wikipedia.org/ and give it a whirl. You have to admire the structure, if not the content.
I had every intentions of posting about a wiki… I find it a fascinating tool. I WILL post about a wiki… AFTER I tell you about my adventure.
I created a new blog. I was so proud of it, until I realized I put it in the wrong place… it’s on the edublogs COMMUNITY board… oy. Now, creating it in the first place was a real risk at the time, because Nate was away at a conference, and I couldn’t holler to him with my questions. But, I tried it anyway… and was panic-stricken when I found it in the community place. I tried to remove it, but couldn’t… so I hid beneath the table for a few hours. Then, I found Nate… and James… and both reassured me that I didn’t mess up as badly as I thought. But, I’m going to let that blog fade away into oblivion and hope the community ignores me.
Never one to quit… I created ANOTHER blog… but got this one in the right place. It’s called brailleblog (what else?) and you can find it at http://brailleblog.edublogs.org Stop in and say hi to my university students. I want a lot of action on it so they can see the potential for communication.
It gets better… I put the URL up on Blackboard, and now my students can access their course and go directly to brailleblog to post. I created brailleblog because of the limitations of the discussion board, where I am the only one who can create content; they can only respond. This gives them a role in designing their own learning experiences.
Well, I THOUGHT I’d be able to enter each of them as a contributor to brailleblog, but I only get a blank screen. Nate tried, and couldn’t do it either, so he convinced me to email James to ask him about it. I’m waiting to hear how to enter my students into brailleblog. For the moment, they can only add comments. Hopefully, they will soon be able to take a contributor role.
So… what’s happening? Five of my students have already posted on brailleblog. It was born less than 24 hours ago.
This took me a lot of time to figure out, so that’s why I didn’t post on the wiki yet. Forgive me?
As many of you know, I am (in week 7 of) teaching a university braille class. We use Blackboard, which (as anything in life) has its assets and liabilities. This year (as a result of my new learning and desire to decrease the social distance) I established a section on the Discussion Board called Just for You. This is how I explained it to the students:
This is a place for you to communicate with eachother. Share ideas… ask questions… provide resources… whatever works!
Be aware that any of our invited guests, and/or any professionals given access to this course, as well as myself have access to these comments, even though we will not participate because this section is JUST FOR YOU.
They’re now up to 120+ messages among themselves (26 students). They have asked questions, clarified assignments, offered moral support, and even shared recipes! At times, I’ve had to bite my tongue NOT to respond to a question… and when I waited it out, sure ‘nuf… one of their classmates came through for them.
Most recently, there has been a lot of activity under “Presentation.” This is the scoop:
The students are required to spend time (8 hours for this course) in observation… either another TVI, a workshop, inservice, conference, video, etc. that is directly related to any of our major topics (braille, literacy, teaching reading/writing to chn who are blind, tactile graphics, etc.) For some reason, this is often a stressful activity (unstructured, perhaps? they have to devise their own learning opportunities?) for them.
One of the students who lives in the middle of the state approached a very well respected and experienced TVI in her geographic area and asked this TVI if she would create a 4 hour workshop for her (the student) and some of her classmates. The TVI was delighted to share, and honored that she had been asked. This student went back to the Discussion Board and set up a workshop – not for her classmates, but with them. They all discussed what they wanted to learn, and communicated it to the TVI. Some of them will be travelling 4-5 hours to attend this workshop session.
And, I got to sit back and watch them figure out what they wanted or needed to learn, and how they were going to go about setting it up and making it happen.
It’s tomorrow!
I heard this podcast about 5 or 6 times… the first 4 times were the beginning over and over and over again until I could teach my i-river how to continue after I had stopped it. The last 2 times, I took notes because there was so much I wanted to ask. I’ve got a lot of questions (nothing new…) and in case anyone wants to respond to them, I think I will number them so you can say, “in response to question # 97… ” … you get the idea.
First and foremost, I am impressed and awed by Kay’s vision and courage to step forward when it wasn’t popular to do so, and to work towards the development of a NCLID. Everyone who is affiliated with this program has every right to be proud and pop some buttons.
I’m sure you’ll be able to follow my thoughts as I pose them in the form of questions.
Question 1 – “Congress designated UNC as home for NCLID.” How did this come to be an act of Congress?
While listening to the “old paradigm” and the “new paradigm” I realized that we should have known the new paradigm all along… it makes such sense…
Question 2 – how could we have missed this for so long?
Question 3 – how does spoken language come to be defined under technology? I need something to help me make this connection.
Regarding Blackboard.. “you have to do it right” and correspondence… “you have to do it right”… doesn’t that go for any style of education? No matter what presentation you choose, you have to do it right.
Question 4 – what determines if we do it right?
I love the soap opera strategy… wonder how I can get it into my braille class… need to think on this for a bit. The idea of sending files and doctor notes and other “authentic” materials in response to “the right question” makes me smile…. but…
Question 5 – what is the objection to a textbook in online education?
Question 6 – regarding the use of chat with students… again, this is a very intriguing idea for me, and I’m going to try to set it up with my students this semester… at least once… to give it a try. And, I’m really curious to see what happens if I don’t tell them to “raise their hand” to speak… but how does this work with a student who uses a screenreader?
A comment to Kay… I remember reading that “teachers are being asked to teach in environments in which they were never students.” That line stuck with me for many years… it is so very true!
Question 7 – regarding the philosophy of academic freedom and intellectual property… how do you see this happening, given the egos that Kay mentioned in the field. Some are eager to share, but is this group the minority, the majority, the middle… and how do we make this equitable for all… and do we have to make it equitable? Will some always be takers and never givers?
Question 8 – Nate – can you explain to us how to “do html” instead of powerpoint… and … what is your opinion of the powerpoint reader … there is something that claims to “read” powerpoint slides.
Question 9 – Regarding the comment that graphics and pictures are a distraction… aren’t most sighted folks used to – and want – a visually attractive environment? Do most consider plain text to be boring?
Question 10 – With regard to the need to maintain a social presence, and the university instructor who tries to do that by responding within 24 hours (and often within hours or minutes), how does one deal with the affect it will have on the next semester… when the next teacher does not want to be on call 24/7? (I think I already know the answer to this one… but let’s go with the scenario where the program chair does not want to impose 24/7 on her faculty, and the faculty will not choose to do this – no – you can’t fire them).
Well done, guys… not only did I come up with a lot of questions, but I also have some neat ideas (interactive listserv, chat, etc.) that I intend to try out firsthand.
Last question… how does one go about creating a podcast? What do you need to know/do/be?
thanks,
I was away attending the APH annual meetings, and met (ftf) Chuck, Shawn, Loana, Julie, and Kay. Blogging and IM are fun, but nothing (IMHO) beats a smile and a hug. It was neat to see what you guys look like!
I said I would reprint the “tying up the cat” story that I share with my university grads. I ask them to respond to the following:
Read this article. Then use the information in the article and mix will with your newly gained knowledge. Sprinkle liberally with your previous experiences, and then respond to:
Do we do things a certain way because it’s always been done that way? Share an observation or a personal anecdote of a time when YOU have tied up a cat, OR have watched as a colleague tied up a cat. What was the issue then? How would you react to the same issue now? And, how does this issue of tying up cats relate to your participation in VI 535 this semester?
“Remembering Why We Tied Up The Cat”
This paper was presented in a slightly different form at the
General Session I of the 1999 CTEVH Conferenceby Stuart Wittenstein, Ed.D.
Our conference theme is “Looking Forward, Looking Back.” When we talk about the “Looking Back,” we can quickly see what a young field this is. It’s really not that long ago that there was no Braille Code, that there was no movement toward educating persons who are blind.
But, why look back? What do we hope to discover?
There’s a story that comes to us from Asia of an ashram where meditation was taught by the Master. However, the Master found that his students were distracted from the study of meditation by the ashram’s cat. So, he ordered the cat to be tied up during meditation lesson time. And so it was done. And the cat no longer distracted the students. And so it went for some time. Every day as the meditation lesson began, the cat was tied up. More time passed. The Master died and was replaced by a new Master. The new Master maintained the practice of tying up the cat during meditation lessons. Time passed. The cat died. The ashram obtained a new cat so that it too could be tied up during meditation lessons. And so on. Three hundred years later scholars continued to study the symbolic meaning of the ritual of tying up a cat when teaching meditation.
So we look back. To understand how we got here and why we might be tying up certain cats.
I’d like to take us further back than the 40 years history of this organization — let’s go back 200 years and more. Let’s go back to before there was a Braille Code, before there was any education for individuals who were blind . . . . How did blind persons access information?
Throughout history there have been remarkable and talented blind people who managed to educate themselves. Ever since blind individuals took part in the intellectual life of their society, they also wanted to share in the common ways of communication — whether it be language or the printed word. This desire became particularly strong after the invention of printing with movable type by Gutenberg in the first half of the 15th century. There was practically no limitation for blind people in the sharing of oral language but the printed or written word remained a closed book for most blind individuals until Louis Braille gave us his system of reading and writing.
As society moved from an oral tradition into print and literacy, many blind persons attempted to solve the problem of accessibility to print. Since there was no organized attempt by society to educate these blind people, Lowenfeld call them the “self-emancipators.” (An aside here, most of the information contained in this presentation come through two sources — Lowenfeld’s 1975 “The Changing Status of the Blind” and French’s 1932 “From Homer to Helen Keller.” Coincidentally, both of these scholars also served as superintendent of the California School for the Blind.)
An early example of the self-emancipators, in the fourth century in fact, was Didymus of Alexandria who used carved letters made of wood as a literacy mode. However, the true era of the self-emancipators occurred in the 18th century. By the mid to late 1700s there are many reports of blind persons creating adaptations to allow them to access their world. Lowenfeld points to the reasons for the blossoming of the self-emancipators: 1) the invention of printing in 1436; 2) literacy becoming more common and almost a necessity for commerce and exchange of thought; 3) the religious reformation putting renewed stress on the biblical value of work; 4) and as the Renaissance ideals of the arts and sciences became more popular, the individual became more important. This recognition of individual rights and obligations, values and contributions, also had a profound affect on societal views of blind people. They were no longer unidentified parts of a mass of beggars but became recognized as individuals whose ambitions, aptitudes and achievements must be considered. Individuals have their own right to happiness, fulfillment, and self-determination.
So, there came the blind self-emancipators inventing and stretching and growing in ways previously thought to be impossible. The most noticeable creativity came in their self-made adaptations of literacy media. Some of the tactile reading techniques created by self-emancipators included reading by carved wooden letters, stylus on wax coated tablets, pinpricked letters, knots in string, pins in pin cushions, cut paper letters on threads, movable letters cast in tin or lead, or cut out of cardboard, embossed print letters on paper. One of my favorite adaptations comes from the story of Blind Jacob of Netra, a town in Germany. In the mid-1700s, Jacob devised a system of notches that he cut with his knife into sticks. The sticks were less than an inch in thickness and a few inches long. The notches were all over the sticks and only he was able to read them. During his lifetime he accumulated a library of bundles of these sticks. After he died, his sticks were used by his heirs as firewood.
I get this image in my head that if Jacob’s system had been widely adopted, the library at the California School for the Blind would be filled with big baskets of bundles of sticks. How many bundles of sticks would make up a history textbook? Who would come up with a mathematic system for the Jacobian sticks? I think I would be very concerned about all of our CSB students walking around with knives used for writing (instead of a slate and stylus) — our school has a zero tolerance policy for weapons after all — and how about the thousands of blind students in local school programs. Don’t even want to go there! And thanks to Louis Braille, we don’t have to.
Anyway, all these self-emancipators, combined with the change in modern philosophy regarding the rights and obligations of the individual led up to: Denis Diderot (1713-1784) perhaps the greatest philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, in 1749 wrote “Letter on the Blind for the Use of Those Who See” and in 1760 “Addition to the Letter on the Blind.” His letters are considered a milestone in the history of the blind because it brought to the attention of his contemporaries the fact that blind persons can be highly competent, intellectually as well as physically; that they can lead normal lives and need not be beggars, and of particular importance — that in order to know more about them they can be asked themselves for answers.
And then the ground breaking idea of Valentin Hauy that blind children could and should be educated. He founded of the first school for the blind in Paris in 1784 — not very long ago.
In 1771 a group of blind men from an institution were exhibited at St. Ovid’s Fair. They had been given eyeglasses to wear and attired in ridiculous costumes. Valentin Hauy witnessed this ridicule and was seized by a far different emotion. He dedicated his book “An Essay on the Education of the Blind” to the King of France.
Hauy educated a blind youngster that he found on the streets. He taught the child to recite and to calculate and presented him at court. Hauy’s message was, “Give me the resources and I can do more of this.” Thus started the first school for the blind, The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris. The French Revolution followed shortly renaming the school, The National Institute for Blind Youth — Hauy did have connection to the aristocracy and was almost caught up in the Reign of Terror, but managed to evade punishment and continued to run the school. It is still in operation in Paris — in what was once a rural setting — the city has grown up around it and in fact, there is a Metro stop right in front of the school — as well as a statue of Hauy and his first pupil.
Hauy understood that in order to have a systematic education for blind children, he needed a literacy system. He developed one based on the wet printing process of the time that used raised versions of regular print letters. However, there was no efficient way of writing using this system and reading was very slow.
Then of course comes Louis Braille who changed everything about literacy and blindness. Louis was a student at the Paris school and later a teacher there. He came in contact with a system developed by Charles Barbier for the army so that coded messages could be read “under cover of darkness” and not be understood if intercepted by the enemy. Braille grasped the importance of this raised dot system immediately but recognized that its 12 dot cell (2 x 6) was too large for a fingertip. He intuitively understood that to read tactually, the reader must be able to move his fingers in a steady left to right motion and not be interrupted by the need to move up and down as well. So he cut the cell in half to today’s 2 x 3 and developed an alphabet– and the rest, as they say is history — or should have been.
We all have heard about the “War of the Dots,” but did you know that Braille’s own school did not adopt his code as a literacy system until after his death in 1852? The educators stated that a dot system was too different from what sighted readers used and would set blind persons apart. However, the blind students used Braille’s dot code to communicate among themselves because it worked for them — and was a natural reading medium for them. Eventually, the code’s use became so pervasive among blind students and staff that it could no longer be denied. Back to Diderot — in order to know more about blind persons they can be asked themselves for the answers — and even develop the answers.
So what can we learn from our history — and what cats have we tied up? Our field needs to take note of its history to remember important lessons. From Diderot — that sighted persons need to listen to blind persons — they know what works for them and what doesn’t. Blind people need to know this history — and take pride in the creativity, advocacy, and perseverance of the self-emancipators. And always remember to ask WHY. Do we do things a certain way because it’s always been done that way? Let’s make sure we understand why we tied up the cat.
Hi, Chuck –
I’m going to copy/paste 2 comments from your comments to Nate’s post and stick them in my blog b/c they’re important to me, and I don’t want to lose them later.
you wrote:
“As to what questions to ask, I am fascinated by your remark a few posts ago about the inappropriateness of final exams for most courses.”
This is an area of major concern for me, too. As you know, my university braille course culminates with an on campus (or proctored) final proficiency exam. I’ve been flexible, and negotiable on all aspects of my course, but not on this issue. BECAUSE I cannot determine for sure that a student is actually doing his/her own work online, I have held fast to my practice of a SUPERVISED proficiency test. The code is the code… either you know it or you don’t. Whatever you do during the trimester builds up to this demonstration of “yes I can, and here it is.” I have not yet figured out how to assess this in any other manner, so I would appreciate everyone’s thoughts and ideas.
You wrote:
“I am curious as to how best to address the need for authentic assessment in the online environment?”
The projects assigned to the students are (IMHO) authentic assessment via online environments. They learn how to speak intelligently (to a parent, administrator, colleague) about promising practices in literacy, they create braille-print books, they transcribe children’s short stories. They collect business cards of people who are involved in all aspects of braille literacy, tactile graphics, etc. to build their personal network of where to go and who to ask when they realize they don’t know all the answers. All of these are “real-life” activities; things they would do as teachers.
But… this final proficiency determination… it has many of us concerned. For that reason, the university teachers of braille will be meeting at Getting in Touch with Literacy to discuss these very issues… online braille instruction. I do believe it’s scheduled for Sunday morning…
This is a conversation we wouldn’t have had 5 years ago…
Michelle, I can’t post a comment on your blog. I’ve tried it as many ways as I can tinker, and I keep on getting an error message b/c I can’t type my name in the name box. So, let me try to reach you and comment this way. I just want you to know that you’ve been read and heard!
Your writing…
“I think the technology is prohibitive, though, to have my class do a blog. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I do not feel like I understand the blog process well enough to teach it so how can I require it of my students? And, as a result of a converstaion with Nate I asked my class two questions. Who knows what a blog is? Who has a blog? Out of 20 students, one knew what it was, three had heard of them before, and none had one of their own. I think that is a good illustration of the fact that this technology is still select.”
My comment… I wonder the age of your students? I tried the same experiment with my high school ASL students; ages 14-17. Almost all of them have a blog. I asked them how many use My Space, and again, almost all the hands went up. And then I heard a hushed comment, “how does SHE know about that?”
I’m pedalling as fast as I can to try to keep up with the technology skills of my high school students. They can rip music into their I-pods, they can create Powerpoints with music and animation, and they’re blogging on a daily basis.
On the flip side, I shared news of an AFB (American Foundation for the Blind) newly formed blog with the AERNET listserv this week (Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired) and received an email message from a university professor asking, “what is a blog?” I admire her courage in asking in a public forum. I provided a resonse. Another lister commented on the proliferation of podcasts, and again, email comments indicated that podcast was a term never heard before.
So, what’s the plan? The generation of teachers out here now knows less about technology than the students we teach. How can we lessen this gap? Well… you, and me, and our colleagues, and Nate-the-nudge is making a pretty good start. Part of my plan… I’m going to get a new blog on Edublogs, and add my high school ASL students… (and limit it strictly to ASL and Deaf Culture issues) and hope that it’s really true that it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
Most people eat dessert at the end of a meal. Parents say that their children have to finish dinner before they can get dessert. Some folks have dessert every night. Some red-hatters eat dessert first. But for most people, dessert signifies the satisfying end of a meal – usually a meal shared with family and friends, and perhaps for a special occasion.
Is dessert like this road map… the ultimate or penultimate accomplishment for this course?
Dessert involves choices. Do I want the Death by Chocolate, or will I opt for fruit? Do I care about the calories, or do I believe that we only live once, so go for it and enjoy. Do I share dessert with my husband… two spoons and one plate.
When I’m home, I can make my own dessert. I can take eggs, sugar, flour, and other ingredients and whip up crepes, or brownies, or apple pie. Eggs, sugar and flour are my basics, but I get to choose the recipe. I get to choose whether I make fudge or a triple-tier wedding cake.
If I weren’t an experienced dessert-maker, and if someone gave me a recipe for rice krispies snacks, I would be (at that moment) limited to making that recipe with the prescribed ingredients. I might want that, in which case, just pour me a cup of coffee to go along with it, and I’m happy. But sooner or later, I’d start to wonder what else was out there that I could make by using those ingredients… or perhaps adding some new ones that I’ve never tried before. Adding ingredients I’ve never used before could be risky. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Yes, it could take a lot of time to figure out something that does work. It might even involve a phone call or IM to a friend who bakes more often than I do. I might like it, I might not… but it’s pretty satisfying to come up with a new dessert. And, it’s even better if my family likes it, too.
