As We Go

It was slow going in my garden this afternoon. Treat and I were using the lumber I bought yesterday to build some raised beds. We dug holes for the corner posts and then used my battery-powered drill to drive screws through the side rails and attach them. The angle was very challenging to get the screws started, and it was frustrating to try and make the bed true and even. 

When it was done, I looked at where we had placed and sighed. "I changed my mind," I told Treat, I think I want this one over there and the other one here. 

He took the news with good nature. 

"Maybe we can just pick this up and move it?" I suggested, and we did.

Well that changed everything! We assembled the next bed one end at a time, and then stood it on its side to add the long pieces. Then we dug trenches and carried it to the location we had prepared. It was way quicker and a lot easier. 

"I guess it's all a learning curve," I said to Treat.

"Definitely," he agreed. "I'm going to remember this for the next time I build beds."

In the Spirit

This was spirit week at school and for the first time in 29 years I participated every single day. School colors Monday was easy; I just wore one of the many shirts I've been given over the years. Tuesday was wear bright colors and sunglasses, so tie-dye was my choice of wardrobe then. Crazy sock day on Wednesday seemed a bit of a waste, but I dutifully wore a wild patterned pair beneath my jeans. Thursday was pajama day, and today was college wear.

Years ago I used to wish I could wear my pjs to school, but our principal was adamantly opposed to such a spirit day. When she retired, pajama day was instituted, but until this week? I never actually had participated. For some reason it just seemed a bit wrong, but yesterday I put my doubts aside and wore some buffalo plaid flannel sleep pants and a long sleeved T, along with my slippers. 

Dressing that way was okay, but it was a little weird to come home and change out of my pajamas and into something more comfortable.

Not Very Close Captioning

The audio on the school-made video we were watching in homeroom was too low, so I turned on the auto-captioning to help us follow along. The production was of a panel discussion with current seventh graders answering questions that the sixth graders had submitted about next year. 

One of the topics of interest was field trips, and the student being interviewed mentioned the one and only trip they had taken this year. "We went to the Outdoor Lab," he reported in a mask-muffled voice. 

My students gasped when they read the auto-caption: We went to the after life. 

And when asked about one of the best things about seventh grade? "Definitely the Outdoor Lab," responded another student.

Or Definitely the altar of love, according to the auto-captions.

"I'm not sure if I want to go on that field trip," giggled one of my students.

GOAT

Another fun feature of the hyperbole lesson the other day was the warm up question: What's the greatest thing in the world?

Bless their hearts; my students are very earnest. When the class list was compiled, family, friends, and free time were on the top followed closely by food, music, and sleep. 

"What do you think is the greatest thing in the world?" someone asked me.

"Definitely the morning announcements," I said, laughing when she gasped. "They are soooooooo much better than love, dogs, or vacation!"

"Really?" she shook her head.

"No!" I replied. "It's hyperbole. But I do love the morning announcements!"

This morning when my homeroom kids came in the tally was still on the whiteboard. "I see there's still only one vote for the morning announcements," one of the students noted.

"And that's all there will be," I told him. "We're done with that question.

"Don't feel bad," he continued. "There's only one vote for world peace, too."

Freestyle

Today was my last day as Professor Marshmallow, but with a lesson on rhyming coming up tomorrow? 

Ima be DJ Marshymarshmallow next.

Word.

A Bit of an Overstatement

Today, when the lesson was on hyperbole, the fun challenge was to find your "superhero name" based on a silly list and your initials. I know my audience, though, and the activity was very entertaining for all of us. In fact, coupled with the warm-up question, What is the greatest thing in the world? (sleep, the weekend, food, love, friendship, yo mama?), it provided all sorts of inspiration for humorous hyperbole poems.

According to the list, my alter ego is Professor Marshmallow, an identity I embraced with a homemade nameplate and a modified Patrick-Stewart-as-Dr-X accent. And when a table of kids was a little too chatty? 

Quoth Professor Marshmallow: "Don't make me go all hot chocolate on you!" 

Since 1665

"I need to clean off the deck," I sighed this morning, cringing at the clutter of empty hanging baskets, pots for plants, dead leaves, and the remains of an empty bird nest I had recently knocked from the rafters. As I mentally added the task to my ever so long list of spring chores, I took a deep breath and remembered what I realized this morning: When I retire? There should be nothing stopping me checking off everything on my to-do list. I may finally organize my life.

"This place is going to be spic and span when I retire!" I told Heidi, who raised her eyebrows and nodded appreciatively. "Spic and span!" I repeated, and then wondered where that phrase (as accurate as it was to describe my post-retirement aspirations) came from. I haven't heard it in a while, I thought. Is it some kind of slur I should remove from my vocabulary?

Thank goodness for the internet when it comes to questions like that. A quick search revealed that the phrase was first seen in print in 1665. It derives from "spiksplinternieuw" a Dutch expression about brand new ships and their spiky wood splinters. My research also led me to a nifty feature that the Merriam-Webster website has, called Time Traveler. There you can read all the words that were first seen in print in any given year; it is like a time-elapsed view of the evolution our language.

What other words were first published in 1665? Notably to me on the list of 94 were amok, biography, fossil, putty, rationalize, and volcano, but the list is fascinating, and you would certainly be intrigued.

Playing around with it, instead of cleaning the deck, (rabbit hole: 1938) I also discovered that zip code, T-ball, salsa, ramen, and porn weren't part of the language until 1962. What a year of innovation that was!

Where's Lucy?

I was looking around, without much luck, for an electronic copy of a recipe I haven't made in a while. I searched my Google drive, my phone messages, my email, and finally my DropBox account with no luck. But I did find the picture of Lucy that the breeder sent before we got her, along with a group shot of her whole litter: five sleepy red puppies propped adorably against each other. 

"Which one do you think is Lucy?" I asked Heidi, a question we have pondered several times over the years, whenever our attention is returned to that family photo. 

We compared her solo shot to the group pictures, looking at eyes, fur, nose, and while there was something recognizable in her portrait, we just couldn't be definitive about which puppy was her in the other one. "We can't even recognize our own dog!" I said.

TBT

I forgot to post an extra challenge yesterday, and to be honest, I was inclined to skip the whole routine, especially because the deadline for the children's book project was looming at the end of class. But when the kids asked about it, I decided to go ahead and throw something up. 

Or rather I should say, throw something back. I made the challenge a Throwback Thursday and asked any who were willing to post pictures of themselves when they were younger. If I had thought it through, I would have realized that such an activity is almost the definition of distraction, and it did take away much more of our class time than I wanted. 

BUT, it was extremely motivating, since everyone had to post a poem before they could share a photo, and it was a community builder: almost everyone was very engaged with the activity. Plus? My students were really adorable little kids, and who wouldn't want to wrap up the first week back after spring break with such a warm and fuzzy bow?

It's the Little Things

"Do you have a stylus I can borrow?" one of my homeroom students asked this morning.

"I think I do," I said, and went over to open my top desk drawer. Another student was standing nearby as I rummaged through a collection of pens and pencils that was probably twice her age. "Here ya go!" I said, producing a stylus that was a teacher appreciation gift about 5 years ago.

"You have so much stuff in there!" the student said, and agreeably I started to pull a few of the trinkets out. There was a fidget counter that everyone competed with to see who could get the most clicks in 30 seconds. There were 2 yo-yos and a rubber popper that were also very popular. Way in the back I found the working catapult-pencil sharpener that a friend brought back from England a decade or so ago. I also had some clown noses that I bought at the suggestion of one of my homeroom students in 2011 as prizes for a joke-telling contest. 

"Why do you have all that?" asked one of the kids.

"Because it's fun!" I answered. 

He couldn't argue with that logic.

Gotta Do

Community spread of COVID is increasing in our area, and so I have returned to wearing a mask in school. 

It was just ahead of a likely pitched battle with the newly-elected governor that our district implemented a three-tiered mask policy. When numbers are low, masks are optional, when they are medium, masks are recommended, and when they are high, masks are required for staff. Since we are going to be living with COVID for the unforeseeable future, such a policy makes sense to me, and so after a year of masking, I removed mine when the data indicated it was safe to do so. 

At school, kids were more hesitant. Proportionately? They have been wearing masks for a pretty large part of their lives, and removing them seemed strange. They also looked to their peers, and not many kids were unmasking. The same was true for my colleagues: the vast majority of them continued to wear masks at school. 

And at first, when I pulled the elastic straps of my light gray K94 mask over my ears yesterday and greeted the kids returning from spring break, no one even noticed. "Why are you wearing your mask again?" a student asked at lunchtime.

"The numbers are up in our area," I said. 

"They are?" he replied with some alarm. "I'm going to start wearing mine again, too."

A Lesson in Sharing

Our school is a mixed-use facility, which means, among other things, that groups can rent space and use our classrooms on weekends. As such, it's always been a bit irksome to me to arrive at school on Monday morning and find this or that out of place, or this or that left behind. Some of my reaction is undoubtedly related to the proprietary feelings I have for this room I have occupied for so many years, but it is also the failure to respect my professional space: I doubt that the principal or building administrator would be happy if people used their offices when they weren't there. 

Anyway, a few weeks ago I came in on Monday to find my room in disarray and the screen on my iPad smashed. I took photos and sent them to the facilities manager, along with a request that my classroom be removed from the rotation for a while. In return, I got a tepid apology and no assurances. When some unkind words were scrawled on my chalk board a couple of weeks later, I sent another picture and received the terse reply that no one was scheduled in my room that weekend.

But today when I returned from 10 days away over spring break, my room was neat and orderly, better than I had left it. I was thankful, too, until a colleague a couple of doors down came by. "Was there a bubble machine in here this morning?" she asked.

"Huh?" I replied.

Just then the guy across the hall came in. "I had one in my room, too," he nodded.

I had to go see them! Sure enough, the folks who used their rooms had left behind devices about the size of an electric pencil sharpener that when plugged in? 

Generate a steady stream of soap bubbles! Which is obviously way better than vandalism and graffiti. I am going to have to borrow those.

They're Circling

"I can't believe you're 60!" my aunt said to me the other day.

"Hey now!" I cried. "I'm not, yet! I still have 75 more days!"

"How do you know that?" she laughed and my uncle joined in.

The way I know how many days to my birthday is an overly complicated story involving the 100 Day Writing Challenge, dancing every day, and of course, my birth date, but rather than go into it, I shrugged. "I just do."

A little while later we were watching all the birds in the woods right behind her new place. "Wow!" I noted, "there are a lot of buzzards!"

"Go away!" my uncle called. "She's not 60 yet!"

A New One on Me

After a warm week, Easter Sunday dawned a crisp Spring day, full of blue skies, warm sunshine, and cool air. Heidi and I met some neighbors downtown for a full circuit of the National Mall. Notably, all the fountains and pools were completely drained of water, their granite and cement scrubbed clean of algae and gunk.

Tourists took advantage of the situation and, ducking under flimsy barriers, walked on the bottom of the Capitol Reflecting Pool, the WWII fountain, and the Reflecting Pool between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, replacing the ducks and geese who usually preside there.

 It was a sight I have never seen before in all my years in this city.

Check, Check, and Check

Unintentionally, the theme of this spring break has become checking things off the not since COVID list. Monday was a visit to Mt. Vernon, Wednesday was the movies, and today Heidi and I drove the hour it takes to visit my Aunt Harriett. She is my mom's sister, and at 85 is the last survivor of that generation on my sister, my brother and my side of the family. I last saw her in February of 2020, right before everything shut down. A few days later, she and her husband moved from the home she had lived in since 1962 to a nearby retirement community. 

In the 2 years since, we've face-timed and spoken on the phone, but it didn't really compare to that big hug I got this afternoon and the smell of the perfume she's been wearing all my life. It was a fun afternoon, and we stayed longer than we planned to. Before we left, we made plans to meet again soon for some genealogy research and lunch at the American Legion in Greenbelt. 

I can't wait.

A Sort of Spring Cleaning

It felt good today to get back into my garden for the first time this season. The weather was perfect for it: 65 and sunny with a light breeze. With Treat's help, I got all the beds cleared and about half or the other space. It'll take several hours to get the whole job done, but today was a good start. 

Another thing we did was turn the compost. I have three bins that I have been filling, one since I got the garden in 2009, another since about 2018, and a third since last summer. All the weeds and unusable vegetables go in there, plus the plants when I clean out at the end of each season. The newer bins were easy to turn-- we simply removed the front slats and pitch-forked the contents out. From them, we got about 5 5-gallon buckets of nice, dry compost to add to the beds we had cleared. Then we layered the bigger, unbroken stalks and stems with the weeds we had pulled today, and some of the dry compost, too. 

Afterwards we put some contractor bags over the top to heat it up and some cobble stones from the garden to hold them down. I have great faith that it will turn into the best compost ever, a belief I repeated to Treat more than a few times. He is very tolerant of his auntie, though, and listened without complaint. 

The third bin was there when we were first assigned to our plot. A repurposed trash bin that sat wheel-less in one of the overgrown corners of the garden, it, along with the huge manhole that usurps a big space in the middle, the rat bait trap on the fence line, and the weeds that had overrun the whole plot did not daunt me when first I took stewardship, although they probably should have. And indeed, the bait trap was removed right away, the manhole is a perfect place to set a container garden, and the weeds, well, every year they reign a little less supreme. But that compost bin? I did manhandle to a spot against the fence a couple years ago, but emptying it or turning it? I've never had it in me to start that task. 

Until today. Treat and I brought it over to the other bins and dumped it out. For 13 years of clippings and such, its contents were unimpressive, but when we got to the bottom we found some electronic sprinkler thing, a bone, and all manner of trash that had been left by the previous gardeners. The experience was a cross between an archaeological experience and just plain gross. But we tossed the garbage, and incorporated the other contents into the greatest compost ever, and then dragged that bin back to its corner where it can continue to do its job for many more years to come.

Hmm

I literally snorted when the yogi asked her first journal question in our virtual session this morning. "Are you a walking blessing?"

My answer was a hard no, and of course the follow-up was "How can you be one?"

I could not dismiss the question.

I still can't.

Tarnished

We decided to go to the movies today. 

What a couple of years ago would have been a non-decision, based only on what was playing at what time and how many seats were left, today's plans involved the calculus of how empty the theater was and whether or not to wear a mask. The movie we chose for our re-engagement with the theater was well-reviewed and sounded like something we might like: Michelle Yeoh starring in Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. At the last minute, we invited Treat, and he met us there. 

"This is the first movie we've been to since COVID," I told him as we settled into our recliners. There were only 3 other people in the theater besides us. 

"Congratulations," he said.

The trailer reel began rolling right then, and, in the third row, I wondered if I had chosen seats a little too close: everything was so big and loud and hard to focus on. Heidi was munching on some cheese corn which we both agreed tasted a little off, and I adjusted and readjusted my seat, trying to find the sweet spot I thought I remembered. 

25 minutes later, after a weird tribute to going to the movies featuring Nicole Kidman, as well as the inexplicable repeat of the first preview, the house lights dimmed and the movie started.

"What did I just see?" Heidi asked, when the end credits began their crawl over 2 hours later.

"I'm not sure," Treat answered.

"I didn't love it," I agreed, "and I'm not sure I liked it either. I'm going to need some time to think about it."

For the Pie!

I love trivia.

I was a 19-year-old college student when the first edition of Trivial Pursuit came out. Back then, my family would spend hours rolling the die, answering questions, and collecting pie. Forty years later, I still know that when you roll a 4 or 5 on Roll Again, you automatically move to another Roll Again space. 

Over the years, we have collected dozens of games that feature knowing stuff, and they are often a big hit whenever the family gathers. A few years ago, we were all into HQ Trivia, eagerly waiting fro the next live match where we could vie for our share of the jackpot, usually 18 cents or so.

These days? My daily source of trivia is the Name Drop game on The New Yorker digital site. Each player gets 6 clues and 100 seconds to guess the identity of a specific person. I like it when I win, because I feel smart, but I also like it when I lose, because it reveals big gaps in my cultural knowledge, which forces me to confront my biases and assess my priorities in cultural consumption.

Even so, I have never gotten the answer right on the first clue, until today. I have had some strong hunches, and a few Oh I should have guessed that! moments, but never certainty of the correct answer from Clue 1:

In my memoir “A Girl from Yamhill,” I recall discovering my love of reading when, bored on a rainy day, I picked up “The Dutch Twins,” by Lucy Fitch Perkins.

Of course it was Beverly Cleary, who, if she hadn't died last year, would have been 105 on this day, the day before my brother's birthday, and to whom he wrote a letter when he was eight (and she was 56), and who answered him back, in what I remember as one of the most miraculous events of our childhood!

Membership Has its Privileges

Three days before the world shut down in 2020 I was on a field trip to Mount Vernon. The outing was an annual event, and I had been to George Washington's home many times. That day in March was warm and sunny, and in my memory everyone had a good time and learned a lot. The bus ride home was a little bumpy, but kids were singing and laughing all the way back to school.

Sometimes I wonder if that will be the last field trip I ever take-- my career is waning and resources for such activities were waning, too, even before COVID. There may be another ride on a yellow bus or two in my future, but probably not too many.

Today, though, on our unplanned spring break staycation, Heidi and I took Lucy to Mount Vernon. The estate is privately run by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, and they, like George Washington himself, welcome dogs on the property. Years ago we had annual passes because our first dog, Isabel, was so fond of the farm and its animals; we used to hop in the car and head down the parkway just to spend an hour or so strolling the grounds.

Today it seemed right to purchase a two-year membership, which comes with unlimited visits. Even though Lucy had never been there before, Heidi rightly assumed she would love it. Seeing Lucy joyful and engaged makes Heidi happy, and the sun was shining, the sky was blue, we watched an eagle build her nest in the top of a tall tree, and the mansion and grounds seemed just as I left them 2 years ago. 

I think we made a good investment.

Parking Karma

 We were trolling for a parking space down around the Tidal Basin when a car just ahead of us pulled out of one. I put my blinker on and rolled forward to begin a parallel park, but as I did the car stopped. "What's he doing?" I said to Heidi. "Is he leaving or trying to get into the space?"

"He's getting out of the car," she said. "Here he comes."

Generally? I am not a competitive parker. If someone sees the space at the same time as I do, or flips their blinker on, or even if they stare me down, I will wave and continue my search. It's just not worth the negative interaction to me.

So I was fully prepared to apologize to this guy and move on when I saw that he was waving a little white slip of paper. 

I rolled down the window as he approached. "There's another hour on this," he told me as he handed the parking ticket over.

"Hey! Thank you!" I said and slid the pass on the dashboard. "I think that's all the time we'll need." 

After the two mile loop we loaded Lucy into the car, and before easing back out into traffic I drew the ticket from its place and glanced at the time stamped on it: 4:58. 

Then I checked my watch: 4:58.

For the Teacher

"Here ya go!" a student said cheerfully as she deposited a zipper plastic bag with an apple into my hand yesterday morning. "An apple for the teacher!"

"Uh, thanks?" I said.

She laughed. "You like apples don't you? Of course you do. They are very healthy!"

"You're right about that," I agreed. "Thank you very much."

Kids giving you random gifts is one of the oddest things about being a teacher. Just the day before, another student opened a re-used water bottle full of homemade horchata and offered me some. I dutifully dug out a small paper cup and he poured me a shot of the beverage. I thanked him warmly, and he happily replaced the cap on his drink and went to lunch.

As for the present yesterday, no other teacher received an apple. Not to be ungrateful, I wondered if it was part of her lunch that she didn't want. Even so, I removed the shiny red delicious apple from the bag, and placed it on my desk where it gleamed iconically all day long.

"Did you eat your apple yet?" the student inquired after lunch.

"Oh no," I said. "I'm going to take it home and bake something with it."

"Apple pie?" she asked.

"Apple bread, I think," I told her, "or maybe muffins."

She nodded with approval. "I knew you would appreciate it," she said.

Hai Jinks

A simile to consider: 

like trying to get a class of sixth graders to focus on the Friday before spring break

Oof!

Hai Praise

The sixth grade assistant principal was visiting one of my English classes the other day when I was conferring with a sixth grade writer about the plot chart she had created for the children's book that she is working on. 

"My main character is a girl in third grade," she told me.

"What does she want?" I asked.

"She wants to do science and math and engineering," she answered.

"Why can't she?" I responded. "What's stopping her?"

"She lives in a place that doesn't support girls who want that," she replied.

"Where is it?" I said. "What's your setting?"

"I don't know? Texas?" she suggested. "Isn't everyone sexist in Texas?"

"Well..." I started.

"That sounds like a country song to me!" noted the AP with a laugh as she slipped out the door on her way to visit another class.

Hai Stakes

The pressure was on. 

With the March writing challenge in the books, it was time to award prizes. Last year, with hybrid instruction and its many complications, I took the sage advice of my friend Mary and had the winners fill out an online form indicating their choice of candy. Mary and I spent a couple of pleasant asynchronous Monday mornings basking in the sunshine and congratulating young writers, many of whom we had never met in person. 

This year I was also inclined to streamline my previous wheel-spinning extravaganza, and so I sent a similar form to the 40 (YES! 40!) kids who had written 20 days or more in March, but old habits die hard. In addition to candy and snacks I was pretty sure I could get for a dollar, there was a "Surprise me!" option. I threw it in both as a gesture to kids who might not want candy and as a nod to the past, figuring I'd buy a few things from the dollar store and clearance bin and resurrect the wheel. 

And I would have been fine with the plan until I overheard one student advising another on his choice of prizes. "Dude! You have to pick Surprise Me! You know it's going to be awesome!"

His classmate was not so convinced. "Okay," he decided after some deliberation. "I'm trusting you."

"It's Ms. S!" said his friend with a confident nod.

And at first? It went pretty well. I had the excitement of spinning the wheel, a variety of prizes, and a few pretty cool things that made that choice seem like a winner. But I did feel a little deflated when the same kid who had been my biggest booster took a look at the options and raised his hand. 

"Is it too late to switch?"

Hai Brow

We usually start the poetry unit with haiku because its form is relatively simple to understand and students are typically familiar with it from elementary school. This year, however, I was surprised at the number of kids who had never heard of haiku or even those who could not say what a syllable was. 

After some consideration, I realized that this group has not had any direct instruction in poetry since third grade. We went out for COVID before they reached the unit in fourth grade, and poetry was part of the content that was dropped last year in order to streamline the curriculum for hybrid instruction. 

So for the last two days I've found myself actually teaching haiku rather than delivering a cursory review of its rules. It has been a surprisingly satisfying intellectual experience to take a deeper dive into the form: 17 syllables of observation leaves no room for the extraneous nor any repetition; perfect verbs and adjectives etch the fine strokes of these profound and exquisite sketches.

Or not. The writers I spend my days with are still in sixth grade, and so I got a few poems like this:

The sky is ugly.
The kids are ugly, too.
The birds are stupid.

Hai Jacked

When the poetry section of our 100 Day Writing Challenge begins in April, my friend Mary always reminds us that kids love to plagiarize haiku. As simple as it seems to write seventeen syllables, she is always right, and this morning was no exception. 

No sooner had I opened the electronic challenge and was going over it with my first group of students than a writer in another class posted three haiku. "Wow!" remarked one of his peers, "that was fast!"

It was the second poem that gave him away:

An ocean voyage
as the waves breaks over the bow
the sea welcomes me

and the third that sealed the deal:

The flowers wither
beneath the weight of the sun,
yet the weeds stand proud

I read without comment, knowing I would speak to the plagiarist later, and continued my lesson. "Make sure that your poem is original," I stressed. "I've been reading your writing for seven and a half months, and I know your voice. I'll probably be able to tell if you copied from somewhere else." 

Plus? Kids are terrible at picking believable poems to steal, I noted silently.

The Past as Prologue

Two years ago, when the COVID shut down was just getting started, we would pass some time by meeting friends to walk on the National Mall. Back then, it was eerie how deserted the place was. All the museums were closed, and people were unsure about the safety of anything, even being outside in public. At the same time, it was amazing to have such a beautiful place to ourselves, and to wander world-famous monuments and spaces alone.

Yesterday afternoon, Heidi and I loaded Lucy in the car and drove downtown for a walk. The place was packed. The Cherry Blossom 10 Miler had gone off earlier in the day, and scores of food trucks and ice cream trucks lined the cross streets, blaring their electronic jingles. And even though the trees were quite past their peak, thousands of tourists and residents strolled along in the warm spring afternoon, snapping photos, lounging on the grass, and wandering in and out of museums,

almost as if the last 2 years had never happened.

Cultural History Lesson

As an IB MYP school, part of our mission is to raise awareness in students of organizations that serve the community, so the homeroom lesson the other day was to explore the local animal welfare league website. The kids were most interested in browsing the animals that they have for adoption, and spent a few minutes scrolling through profiles of cats and dogs, and bunnies, guinea pigs and hamsters, too. 

"I like the names of the Hamsters!" I said. "Bobby? Cindy? Greg? They are kind of quirky!" But when I saw the next two hamsters, Jan and Marcia, I literally slapped my forehead. "Oh! Duh! It's the Brady Bunch!"

"What's the Brady Bunch?" asked one of the students.

"You don't know?" I replied with an incredulous head tilt. "Really?"

I looked around the room. "Has anybody ever heard of the TV show the Brady Bunch?"

"Maybe?" said a single student. "But I've never seen it."

"It's about this guy who has three sons and this woman who has..." I started, and then paused and opened a new tab on the browser to pull up a few videos. The opening credits and theme song sort of rang a few bells.

"It's so old, though," noted one kid. "Why would you expect us to know it?"

"Because it's classic!" I replied hitting play on the Marcia, Marcia, Marcia scene. "This part is practically a meme!"

Now I was talking their language! They were watching Jan complain about her big sister when another teacher from the team came in to borrow a lap top. "Mr. G!" called a student. "Have you ever heard of the Brady Bunch?"

"Oh yeah," he waved his hand dismissively. "My mother loved that show."

April Foolin'

Ordinarily? I am not a big fan of April Fool's Day, but yesterday when I was looking for a fun challenge, I read several pranks that teachers could pull on their students. Before I left for the day I jotted the words "Flood Drill" on a post-it note as a possibility, should the opportunity arise. 

I was reminded of my plan when the kids on the morning announcements played a few silly April Fool's jokes, and so when the program was over, I stood up from my desk and walked out to the middle of the room. "You guys we have a drill today," I said seriously, in the same tone I always use to inform them of such things.

"What is it?" asked one student.

"It's a flood drill," I answered.

"A flood drill!" she replied. "I've never heard of that."

"Maybe because of COVID you missed it?" I suggested. "Has anyone else ever done one?"

They hadn't, and I would have gotten away with the whole prank except that when it came time to tell them they had to stand on their chairs, I started to laugh so hard I couldn't give the directions.

"You have to do better!" they scolded me. 

"I almost believed it!" someone agreed.

So when the next class came in, the kids from my homeroom helped out. "We have a drill today," I started.

"That's right," said one of them. "She told us about it. She got a note in her mailbox."

They were so convincing, that they pulled me along, too. "When they announce the drill over the loud speaker, you have to stand on your chair," I explained. "But if it were a real flood, lifeboats would drop out of the ceiling."

"Lifeboats!" exclaimed an incredulous girl. "Why can't we just walk out?"

"Because of the electrical wires," I said seriously. "It's too dangerous! You have to step from your chair to the lifeboat and then paddle it down the hall the same way we go for a fire drill."

"Really?" I saw them looking at each other doubtfully. 

"Yes," I continued, "unless you're on the swim team. Then you have to report to the nearest bathroom and flush the toilets over and over to keep the water level down. You are the designated flushers! When the whole building is evacuated, you can swim to safety."

"Why can't we just open the window to let the water out?" somebody said.

"The lifeboats won't work if there isn't enough water!" I told them.

Most of them were laughing now, and I was too. 

"Are you ready to practice?" I asked them. "Attention! This is a flood drill!"

They climbed on their chairs. 

"Great job!" I congratulated them. "You're ready for the flood drill!"

"When is it?" asked someone.

The other kids rolled their eyes. "April Fools!" they roared.