The Photoshoot

A while back, I attended a reunion for Governor General history teaching award winners in Ottawa.  They asked if anyone wanted to be interviewed about anything new they were working on.  I volunteered and talked about this new project I am part of called Landscapes of Injustice.  The project is a massive 7 year multidisciplinary research project through UVic that is investigating the dispossession of Japanese Canadians during the 1940s, and they wanted some teaching resources for elementary and secondary schools.  I am in charge of the elementary part.  I chatted with the journalist who was doing the interviews, and we talked for about 20 minutes. 

I didn't think much about what was going to happen to the interview; I just thought it would go on Canada's History website somewhere.  The history society who sponsored the conference/reunion contacted me and told me that they were interested in running some of the interviews in their magazine.  They asked me to send them some recent photos.  I didn't have any so I got my mom to take a few, but they must not have been any good because the society rejected them.  Alternatively, they arranged for a professional photographer to take some shots of me on Powell Street because the work I am doing focuses on this area.

photo by Rebecca Blissett

I met the photographer outside the washrooms in Oppenheimer Park deep in the heart of the DTES.  Of course that day there was a massive soup line, so it was kind of hard to maintain a low profile.  The photographer was Rebecca Blissett.  I checked her out online before we met and she did some great portrait and photojournalism work, but I was really impressed with her rock concert work.  (She has this great shot of Bono splashing around a water bottle during a show).  We chatted for about ten minutes about what kind of work I was doing, and she picked up the context quickly.  We decided to take some pictures outside of some of the buildings that the students were working with in the dispossession activity.  

photo by Rebecca Blissett

We worked for about 40 minutes in the 300 block of Powell Street.  It was really cool that day so I slipped on a jean jacket I had in my trunk.  I was going to take it off, but Rebecca like the way it photographed.  She'd get me to do different poses outside some of the key buildings, and she'd stand out in the street to get the best angle.  Or she'd pull out a collapsible flash tree and umbrella, and we'd have to wait for people or traffic to go by.  It was interesting to watch her work.  When she was finished, we shook hands, and she hopped on her little gas scooter and scooted away.  Cool.

A bit later, she sent me some sample shots and told me to only use the shots for personal (not professional nor promotional) uses, but I haven't done much with them.  I posted one on Facebook, and Canada's History published them with a brief article in a pull out supplement to the magazine, (excerpted here with Canada's History's permission). 

We teachers don't get treated like rock stars very often, so it was a fun experience.

"Counter" Intuitive: Design and Coffee Makers

Hey Teacher Friends, 

I don't know about you, but one thing that is helping me with getting through the teaching in this unusual COVID context is coffee. If you know me, you probably know that I have to be really careful about how much caffeine I ingest. Too much or too late, and I don't sleep. (I still keep chocolate and tea to a minimum, and I haven't had a cola in years.) 

The Quest for Caffeine 

For a little bit, I was having a small shot of espresso from my sad little Braun espesso machine. It didn't taste great, but it got me through the day. I did it for fuel not taste, and it did the trick. I kind of knew I was missing out on true espresso, and I wasn't keen on the aluminum leeching through the Braun basket or the boiler.

Fast forward to the time we stayed at a nice hotel downtown for my daughter's birthday. The rooms came equipped not with the weird, ubiquitous pillow packs of hotel coffee, but with Nespresso. Fast, easy, delicious.  Later, when the Nespresso machines went on sale, I jumped.  With the Aeroccino milk frother, I was having a delicious latte every morning.  BUT, it was kind of expensive for each of the capsules, and those little capsules were made of aluminum, that same stuff I was trying to avoid with the Braun.  The deciding event for when I started looking for alternatives to the Nespresso was when I found some important papers I misplaced four months earlier; those important papers were in the paper feed of my seldom-used printer.

After a little research, I went with a trusty old system.  My sister gave me a gift card and I bought a stylish looking Moka Pot-style stainless steel stove-top brewer.  With fresh beans from a local roaster, I was able to make a delicious coffee shot in the morning cheaply and quickly.  Sooo good, so stylish, no memory-robbing aluminum leeching.  This had the makings of the perfect coffee maker relationship.  We are talking love for life.

And yet...

I recently picked up an Aeropress, and it makes the yummiest, smoothest cup of coffee I've ever had.  You're probably asking why I jumped ship from my Moka Pot if I loved it so much and it checked the boxes of: taste, ease, time, and cost?  The answer lies with the real love of my life, my wife.  During the Nespresso phase, I started making my wife coffee in the morning.  She likes a HOT Americano while I like a latte, so by the time I got both of our coffees made using two different systems, I was starting to be late for work.  (Did I mention the caffeine helps my morning brain function?)  The solution: 2 Aeropresses!  The whole process can be done in a matter of minutes once the kettle boils (essential for the HOT Americano).  So the Aeropress saved my job and my morning brain, and was a tasty bonus to my marriage.

Looks Count (in coffee makers)

Okay, Greg, you've sort of connected this to education (caffeine as jet fuel), but what does this have to do with design?  As much as I love my Aeropress, once I wash it, I do put it away in the cupboard.  (In fact, today I bought a basket to store all the materials away quickly).  Why?  Because it is so ugly.  I still have the Nespresso sitting on my counter, even though I don't use it.  The Nespresso has a high-design James Bond quality to it.  It is no coincidence that George Clooney is the spokesperson for Nespresso: cool, smooth, modern, expensive-looking.  Similarly, I proudly displayed my Moka Pot on the counter between uses.  My more modern version Moka Pot, like the Nespresso, was sleek, shiny, and high design.  Think good looking Italian barista.  

The Aeropress is really the ugly cousin.  It does the job better, faster, and cheaper than any of my previous coffee makers, but it looks like it was designed by a scientist.  Which in fact, it was.  The same aeronautics engineer who designed the Aerobie flying disc also designed the Aeropress.  The guy is a  genius but not an artist.  The Aeropress looks like it belongs in a science lab.  

If the Nespresso is the George Clooney of coffee makers, the Aeropress is the Breaking Bad of coffee makers.  Think what kind of coffee maker Walter White would endorse.

The Clooney (Nespresso)

 The Paolo (Moka Pot)

Walter (Aeropress)

   

In my classroom, I will probably have something in the open if I am going to use it often (function over form), but there is a lot to be said for having something in the open or on display that is going to do the job but not be a distracting eye-sore.  I still don't think the job of classroom design is just to "make things pretty," but function and design are important factors of how the odd collection of materials in learning environments work to help students learn best.  Otherwise, really effective and accessible storage is going to be crucial to managing the multitude of things we use in classrooms.