Peanuts

It started out as an easy set of lessons to coast into the Thanksgiving Holiday. My classes were working on literary essays about character, and The Peanuts Movie seemed like an engaging and accessible common text, loaded with familiar characters that would give some students a little scaffolding. With a running time of just over 90 minutes, showing the film episodically would easily fill the last three days before the break.

I owned the movie, and I had used the first 15 minutes for an activity I did last year, but I had never seen the whole thing. Even so, I was not concerned about inappropriate content, and I was confident that I could make it work with the assignment. And so there I was, watching most of it for the first time right along with my first period class.

For those who are not familiar, the plot revolves around Charlie Brown and his crush on the little red-haired girl who moves in across the street. Many of the well-known features of both the comic strip and classic animated shorts are present. The movie opens on a snow day where all the characters ice skate around an unsuccessful attempt at flying a kite by Charlie Brown. Sally is his adorably self-involved younger sister, Linus, his sincere and intellectual best friend, Lucy, the brutally honest kid who runs the neighborhood, and Snoopy, his wildly eccentric pet beagle. Woodstock, Peppermint Patty, Marcy, Schroeder, Patty, Violet, Pigpen, Shermy, and Franklin are all in the movie, too.

Although the story starts out formulaically, the tone is a little bit warmer than that of past Peanuts shows. When the kids return to school and meet their new neighbor, a smitten Charlie Brown vows to capture her attention. What follows is a refreshing string of near successes. He puts together a terrific magic act for the talent show, but then sacrifices it to save Sally. When he notices that the little red-haired girl likes to dance, Snoopy teaches him to dance and he practices well enough to actually win a contest, only to accidentally set off the sprinkler system before he gets to dance with her.

The streak continues when he gets a perfect score on the standardized test, and at last everyone recognizes him as intelligent and knowledgeable. Sally guides tours through their home, and kids pay to watch him sit in his chair and read. When book reports are assigned, he gets the little girl as his partner, and because she is out of town, he reads War and Peace in its entirety and writes a book report which Linus calls insightful and “beyond reproach”.

Oh, his luck doesn’t last long, but as I watched I realized how anxious Charlie Brown has made me all my life. Those kids scrape and scrabble through their lives without adult supervision or support. Their words and actions reveal the tension between civilized society and brutish self-interest, and Charlie Brown is the perpetual goat. Witnessing him win for a change was amazingly cathartic, and healed something in me that I didn’t even know was broken. At the very end, when the little red-haired girl acknowledges all he has accomplished throughout the movie (in perfect claim-evidence form) there was a huge lump in my throat, and I would have wept openly had I been watching it alone.

I think kids love Peanuts because it represents a world they know well, harsh but true. I love The Peanuts Movie, though, because it represents a kinder world; one I hope is also true.

As I Do

The final class of students had left for the day and my co-teaching team breathed a sigh. We took a few minutes to debrief and finalize planning for the next day. The task is for students to use a protocol of question stems to explore passages from a short story we read together. As we talked, I brought up some of the details that I had noticed and shared some of the thinking and writing I did using the thought prompts we gave the students. We spent the next 15 minutes dissecting the text and the motivation of the main character.

“Wow!” said one of the other teachers. “That was deep!”

I pointed to the learning target on the board: I can think, talk, and write to explore the details of the text.

“Bullseye!” I cheered. “Now let’s see if we can get the students there, too!”

On My Shoulders

I love the light this time of year.

The angle of the sun is so long that it casts warm, gorgeous gold on even the coldest afternoons which subsides to fiery orange, smoldering red, and then cool silhouettes of purple and black. Even on cloudy days, the light finds a way-- igniting billowing stacks of cumuli in a last blaze before darkness, or casting dark pink rays up and under the somber gray dawn.

It was just such a light I saw this morning, painting the buff underwings of a pair of hawks rose and coral as they circled on the warming air.

And a New Building on the Side

They've been building an elementary school about 20 yards from my classroom window for the last year or so. The building is scheduled to open next September, but right now it's a fascinating tangle of steel beams and back hoes, which are way more captivating than the ginormous hole in the ground that was the site last school year. The work also invites a daily parade of colorful construction crew members and their unusual tools and tasks right by my window the entire time I'm teaching.

My co-teacher pulled the blinds on the show this afternoon, and I understand why he did that, but I'm also of the mind that if children are never distracted, they will never learn to focus. Plus we have plenty of distraction in the classroom, too: we can't block it all out for them.

Even so, the adults that gathered in my room for our semi-monthly leadership team meeting were drawn to the spectacle, too. When the last two teachers left after the meeting, one turned to me with a mock bow. "Thank you for letting us meet in your room," she started. "You are always the host with the most..." She paused, looking for the perfect compliment. Just then the room shook from some epic construction task.

"The most activity outside my window?" I supplied for her.

Nothing New

I was walking in to school behind a bunch of kids this morning when I noticed one of my students dipping a candy pacifier into some weird blue powder and eating it. "It tastes like chemicals!" he cried, "but I like it!"

"Candy in the morning?" I shook my head as I passed them by.

"Twenty-first century breakfast!" he answered.

Small Dog in a Big City

The afternoon was beautiful, 60 degrees and sunny, but still with a bit of November in it, and so we decided to take Lucy and Beckett, the little dog we were sitting, down to the Tidal Basin for a nice walk. There were lots of folks with the same idea as ours, but we found parking without any trouble and started our stroll. Well, Lucy, Heidi, and I walked, but Beckett is a mini Australian Shepherd with limited leash experience, and he kind of danced along on the end of his tether.

A little while later, though, he was trembling as he pattered nervously along, clearly terrified of something. We paused at the Jefferson Memorial, and as my eyes swept over the scene, I tried to see it from Beckett's point of view. In addition to the traffic roaring over the bridge behind us, there were bikes and scooters and strollers coming at us, and lots of legs and feet in his face, not to mention at least 50 Canada geese larger than he was and honking proprietarily right along the water.

It seemed like it might be too much for a puppy from the suburbs, but he took advantage of the break to check in with Lucy, who was genuinely enjoying the outing. Some message must have passed between their noses, because he visibly relaxed and we continued on our way.

Over Under

On the final day of our family Thanksgiving Holiday we did one of our favorite things: we played a game. This was a trivia estimation challenge,  and we learned quite a few nuggets of knowledge that may [never] come in handy someday.

For example, How fast does a bumble bee fly? That would be 7 mph, or just about the same speed that a rain drop falls, but much faster than a centipede crawls and a lot slower than a porcupine can dash 50 yards.

But the most important statistic of the day was that we will all be together again in 31 days.

Contrary

Something there is in me that wants to greet Black Friday with raised fist and resistance. It has long been my goal to not spend even a single cent on this, the most materialistic day of all. But dinner with friends and family has almost just as long blockaded me-- there was always fresh bread and salad greens to be purchased.

This year was promising-- a kind invitation to brunch and a bit of early holiday fatigue put leftovers on the menu tonight, but then I opened my email, and damn! There was a deal I couldn't? didn't? pass up.

Thanksgiving

I was the first one up this morning, and the neighborhood was still when I took Lucy for her first out. Later there would be parades and pies, wine and gravy and dear family, but now the sun filtered through the tall trees to the east turning the frosty air golden. High above my head a messy vee of geese honked through the clear blue, and even as my day began, the breath caught in my throat and gratitude filled my heart. 

Never Have I Ever

A couple of weeks ago, when I was on vacation, feeling relaxed, and everything seemed possible, I read an article that recommended brining my thanksgiving turkey. The technique has been popular with certain foodies for decades, but I had never given it a try. “I’m going to brine the turkey this year!” I announced to all within earshot, and so a plan was hatched.

Flash forward a weekend and an article in the NYTimes which made the case that brining was useless and dead. My resolve crumbled a bit at the edges, but I understand that intelligent cooks can disagree, and brining was still on the agenda.

“Are you doing anything fancy with the turkey?” My brother asked last night, and we launched into another conversation about the pros and cons and logistics of brining.

“Despite the recent turn about, people who have been doing it for years are committed,” I cited the article.

“Of course,” my brother agreed. “It’s their tradition, now.”

And that pretty much settled it for me. Perhaps Thanksgiving is not really the time to try something new.

Useless Knowledge

Back in the late 90s and early aughts I made a concerted effort to reacquaint myself with early adolescent culture. I had been teaching sixth grade for a few years, and I realized how out of touch I was, so I learned all the Spice Girls (Sporty, Baby, Scary, Ginger, and Posh) and the chorus of "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. I also taught myself to recognize all the members of The Backstreet Boys by name, face, and voice.

Over the years, all of these skills and knowledge have become less useful; not much evolves more quickly than middle school popularity. Imagine my delight this morning, then, when at our Pre-Thanksgiving Hot Chocolate Dance Party, my homeroom students requested not only the new Backstreet Boys single, but also the golden oldie, "Ain't Nothin but a Heartache".

You can bet I busted out my mad BSB skillz. "That's Nick!" I declared as the opening notes of the song floated from the speaker, "That's Kevin, then Brian, Howie, and AJ." I should have left it at that, because when we watched the video on YouTube, the students were much less impressed.

"They're so old!" one girl said.
"And ugly!" her friend added.
I must have looked a little crestfallen.
She patted my shoulder. "It's still a good song, though, Ms. S," she said kindly.

But the Kitchen Sink

The agenda item in our team meeting was student concerns. After at least 15 minutes of heavy conversation about strategies that were and (mostly) were not working to support some of our tougher students, we switched gears to more typical sixth grade problems.

I mentioned that a new student came to me three times a day all week last week. "Do I have your class now?" she asked every time.

"She was coming from elementary school," one of the other teachers pointed out. "She just thought you were her everything."

"Yeah," I winked, "I get that a lot!"

Close Shave

For the most part, I'm not much of a talker, especially with folks I don't know, and so things like getting my teeth cleaned, or having my toenails done, or getting my hair cut can sometimes be a little awkward. Where I am perfectly happy to sit in companionable silence, the person who is performing the service frequently has other ideas.

In the case of the dentist, it is literally impossible for me to reply, so that's not usually a problem. At the nail salon, you are free to move your head as you please, and so a magazine or electronic device can provide a distraction, but when you are in the barber's chair, not only is there nowhere else to turn your attention, there are also mirrors, so that the person behind you can make eye contact. that's where I found myself this morning.

"So are you ready for the holiday?" my stylist asked.

I smiled and shrugged. "Sort of," I told her. And then I used the trick that my six-year-old goddaughter taught me so long ago. "How about you?"

And I never had to say another word.

Deer Neighbors

Our housing complex is tucked into a pretty densely populated area: more than 20,000 souls reside in the two square miles surrounding us. Still, we are buffered with an illusion of nature provided by a thin strip of woods just across the way that separates us from the county utility lot and an elementary school right up the hill.

It was in this sparse little forest that I took a neighbor's dog to take care of her business this morning, and where the two of us had to hop over several big piles of fresh deer scat.

A little later in the day, another neighbor told us of her experience just last night. Taking her own dog out for the last time, the two of them strolled up the stairs by our unit, and making the turn past our door and into the courtyard, were confronted by a six-point buck. As they slowly backed up, retracing their steps, he continued confidently forward.

And then bounded off toward the woods-- obviously to poop!

Election Results

In this fraught election season full of disputes and recounts, some evidence that our national polarization is trickling down:

Four of our team students ran for student council. Two had most of the votes, one with a marginal plurality, but neither with a majority, and so we held a run-off. The results were 50.5% to 49.5%, or in this case, victory by a single vote.

On the same ballot, the students voted for the t-shirt design. Of four choices, there was a 3-way tie for second, and a winner by 3 votes.

It seems like there might be a lot of unhappy sixth graders out there.

On the bright side, we had 90% participation.

Hopefully, this is not where voter disillusionment starts.

Bad Call

Will they or won't they? was the question on everyone's mind this morning. The first measurable snow of the season was predicted to begin between 6 and 7 am, but the forecast was iffy. Our larger neighbors to the west and north preemptively called a delayed opening, and districts a little farther out were closed.

When we got up at 5:30, there was just a little sleet and no news about any change in the school's operation. We shrugged it off, and continued with our morning routine. By the time Lucy and I stepped out for our morning walk, fat snowflakes were falling fast, and a little while later we actually had to brush off the car in order to go to school.

The snow was beautiful, steady and strong as we drove, and the grass was more than coated on campus when we arrived. And so it continued throughout the morning and into the afternoon, causing all kinds of havoc.

In the end, central office issued an apology and canceled all after school events. It was hard to be upset, safe and snug as I was in my classroom, plus I knew that they owed us at least one, and I expect them to err on the side of the caution for the rest of the winter.

Stay a While

The day began with defiance. One of my homeroom students refused to put his winter coat in his locker, even though we had discussed it yesterday. "I'm just going to say 'No' to that," he told me.

"Then you're just going to have go to the office and talk to the assistant principal about it," I answered.

"I'm going to stay here with my coat on," he said firmly.

We were at an impasse, and so I called the AP. When she arrived, she had a similar conversation, except that hers ended when the bell rang. "I'm just going to go to my next class with my coat on," the student said as he walked out the door.

Tensions were high, but the situation was above my pay grade and out of my hands, and I had another class to teach. I looked up to see that a few kids had entered the room and had been watching the drama unfold, including one kid who had given me a lot of pushback about his coat the day before.

He caught my eye as he headed for the door. "I'm just going to put my coat in my locker," he assured me.

"Good decision!" I said.

Paid Vacation

 After ten days away, I returned to work today rested, recharged, and ready for anything. Or so I thought.

The discipline I had spent the whole first quarter building into my students seemed considerably lacking. The room was in disarray and my rocking chair was broken. Several were wearing coats and hoods, despite our school's dress code. Many others were without books, pencils, and/or iPads. It was a challenge to get the group to focus on even the most routine of tasks.

Still, I greeted each group with a hearty smile. "I missed you guys!" I told them, which was entirely true. "I'm so glad to be back!" I continued, which was not.

Dog Tired

After eight days on vacation, it seemed like Lucy was feeling a little down today. Maybe she missed having a houseful of pups and people to play with, or maybe she missed starting and ending each day with a sprint down the beach and a romp by the sea.

Or maybe she was just exhausted!

Hibernation Temptation

It was dark and cold at 6 PM this evening when I made a quick grocery run, and I was grateful for my fleecy flannel shirt. On the way, every light seemed twinkly and welcoming, and at the store all the hearty holiday provisions were tempting, but the promise of a warm home and woodfire at the hearth sustained me as I shopped.

It might be a long winter.

Prickly Paradise

Blue Skies
Offshore Thunder Storms
Fog
Warm and Humid
Cool and Breezy
Rain
Mist
Blazing Sunset
All the Stars in the Sky
Beach Combing
Pelicans
Crabs
Striped Burr Fish
Half a Sea Turtle
Lighthouse
Hunting Mansion
Enchanted Forest
Boardwalks
Lost Colony
Rocking Chairs
Crackling Fire
Hot Tubbing
Pool
Corn Hole
Tennis
Basketball
Ink Blots
Quiplash
Biscuits
Apple Sauce
French Toast
Shrimp Every Day
Homemade Pizza
Poundcake
Amazing Friends
Wonderful Family
Five Dogs
Wow!

Go Dog Go!

It's been a productive week:

Monday I facilitated an online discussion, graded essays, entered assignments to prepare for report cards, went out to lunch, and watched river otters frolicking as the sun set over Currituck Sound.

Tuesday I graded essays, checked the Monday work my students did, entered report card comments, got a pedicure, played corn hole, and walked five miles on the beach.

Wednesday I finished grading essays, answered several emails, posted my grades, hiked through an enchanted forest in search of wild ponies,

Thursday I checked the Wednesday work my students did, answered emails, shot some pool, visited the Lost Colony, and welcomed six guests and 2 more dogs to our beach house.

Today I exchanged emails with the teacher subbing for my class, planned for next week and the week after, reminded my team about the weekly newsletter, wrote my own newsletter information, sent the newsletter, baked biscuits, picked a dozen crabs and made crab soup, and visited a wild life museum.

If only I could always do my job from the beach!

How I Spent My Vacation

The day dawned blustery but not too cold, and so Lucy and Rosie and I took out customary early morning walk on the beach. Atlantic Flyway took on a new meaning as flock after flock of birds vee-ed their way south over our heads, sometimes pausing to just float in the offshore wind.

After that, it was a classic rainy vacation day: we cooked, and read magazines, and watched TV, and then headed south ourselves to Manteo for an afternoon at the Roanoke Island Museum.

Nature, relaxation, and education-- now that's a plan I can get behind!

Foraging

The vegetation here at the beach is wild and scrubby. Live oak and laurel cling to sandy hills; browning sea grass and burrs blanket the dunes. Prickly Pears are also abundant, most with plump purple pears on top.

Which brings me to our project for today: prickly pear lemon squares. The pear juice offers a refreshing melony cucumber-like note and a lovely a magenta color. The dish is a success! Now the grilled nopales, or cactus leaf? That’s a different story.

Growth Mindset

It was misty on the beach at 6:45 this morning, but that didn't stop me and Lucy. "Even a foggy day at the beach is a good one!" I told her and off we headed. Not five minutes later, the sun rose above the marine layer, a squadron of pelicans skimmed over the bronze waves, a nice little piece of sea glass lay right at my feet, and a fine day turned even better.

The Simple Things

Yesterday was one of those vacation days to dreams about, the kind I know I'll remember years from now.

The day was perfect: warm but crisp, blue skies, and that impossible golden light that autumn so generously provides. The company was also exceptionally pleasant: Heidi and Lucy and I were joined by our friend Mary for a long weekend at the beach, and we did some really fun stuff: walking the beach, shopping, a delicious lunch, and a visit to a really great historical site.

It was actually there that I got the biggest thrill of the day. When we checked in at the tiny gift shop for our tour of Whalehead, there was a sign displaying the prices. Kids under 5? Were free. Everyone else was seven dollars, EXCEPT active duty military and...

anyone over 55! We fine folks only had to pay five bucks for the tour!

Mary and I did a little happy dance. "That's my first senior discount!" I told her.

"Mine, too!" she replied.

"Not mine," said the cashier. "I'm 72. That'll be 17 dollars."

Back Around

The last time I was down here in the Outer Banks was spring break of 1985. Some friends from graduate school and I rented an enormous house in Duck. At the time the location was extremely remote-- the closest grocery store was 30 minutes away-- but we didn't care; we had plenty of beer and the beach to ourselves. It was a fun week, and one of the things we did was explore the newly opened road up to Corolla. Before that year, the only way to reach that stretch of shoreline had been to 4x4 on the beach.

We headed the few miles north hoping to see some wild ponies, but instead we found a 100 year old brick lighthouse and a huge abandoned building with an amazing blue copper roof. As decayed as it was, it had clearly been something, the seven gables and five chimneys made that very clear, but in those days before the internet, the place was a complete mystery. Later, one of the locals told us it was a hunting club built in the 20s for rich folks who wanted to shoot waterfowl.

The specter of that ruined mansion has stayed with me all these years, and with a gorgeous first day at the beach stretching before us, I proposed a visit to the lighthouse and hunting club. Turns out a lot has happened in the last 33 years! The site is now a park dedicated to the history of the area, and the mansion is completely restored and open for tours. We learned the backstory of the place as we walked the signed trail that runs the perimeter of the little island, then climbed the lighthouse, and finally headed over for a tour of the house.

The tour was self-guided with audio stations located throughout the mansion, so we were able to explore the house on our own. We discovered that Whalehead was built as a private home in the early 1920s by a wealthy couple from Philadelphia to indulge their passion for waterfowl hunting. After they died in 1936, the house went through several owners and incarnations, until it was abandoned in 1962. When restoration began seven years after I first saw the place, the copper roof had leaked badly, there was extensive water damage, and the basement was infested with... snakes!

Even so, the mansion is beautiful and impressive, even by today's standards. The organization that owns it is dedicated to tracking down as many of the original furnishings as possible, and most of the original Art Nouveau fixtures and woodwork remain. The tour also goes into the servants' quarters and work areas, giving visitors a look into a real upstairs-downstairs situation.

At the end, I crossed the threshold back out into the perfect autumn day, all my questions from long ago answered.

Upgrade

The beach house we rented for Heidi's birthday week is rather a step up from our usual digs. In fact our whole condo would fit in the upper level-- a spacious open area with kitchen, great room, master suite, and of course a deck and ocean view. It's more than enough for us, but there are two more levels with four more bathrooms for the guests who will join us throughout the week to celebrate.

I could get used to this! 

Good Times

The concept was simple-- we were going to celebrate the students' writing by having each one pick a favorite passage to display.

The execution was so much more elaborate than I ever could have imagined. I provided the printed copies, but then the kids used scissors, construction paper, markers, colored pencils, glue, and tape to fashion incredibly creative displays of their excerpts. I did not predict their enthusiasm, and it delighted me.

The room was cheerfully boisterous as the artists set about their work, and when all were done, 130 pieces of writing were hung with pride, turning a simple hallway into a multimedia gallery.

A celebration indeed!

Deep Discount

At the self checkout I methodically emptied my hand basket and scanned first my shoppers card, then my fresh tuna steaks, my green beans, potatoes, arugula, and lemons, and a couple of six packs of beer. I was thinking ahead to the quick salad Nicoise I was making for dinner when it came time to insert my card for payment. The total? Was a little over five bucks! A $45.00 store coupon had been applied to my order via my shoppers card, for no reason I could fathom. But you can certainly imagine the spring in my step as I scooped up my bags and headed home to my salad!