Tile by Tile

This is not the time of year for me to make any decisions about my career.

One month on, it seems like students should be settling in as systems and procedures become familiar, but that is not what is happening. The kids from 7th grade are still coming back, seeking the comfortable routine we worked for 10 months to establish, and the new sixth graders are still dazed and confused by the expectations their predecessors eventually mastered.

But I know the key word is "eventually". I know that last year at this time I was still working hard and waiting for everything to click, and even feeling a little discouraged that those kids didn't get how great the class could be, if only they gave it a chance. If I think about it, I will recollect what a slog the first unit always is, and I will understand that building community and relationships takes time, especially after the initial excitement of a new school year wears off.

And so I must resolve to carry on and make adjustments for the new group when necessary, to be mindful that some of the activities that were awesome last year might not be as good a fit this time around, and to notice the new magic whenever it happens. Like today, my homeroom was playing Bananagrams (which they like, but not quite the same way my last group did), when at the end of the game one student proclaimed that the longest word in the English language was antidisestablishmentarianism.

I laughed. "That used to be true," I assured him, "But it's another word now. My students last year taught me that." I sighed a little inside before I continued brightly. "Look it up! Find out what it is!"

I was encouraging another group to find a book to read when the Bananagrams kids called me over. 

"We're trying to spell pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis with the game tiles, but we don't have enough Cs," one reported.

"But we decided just to flip some tiles over so that you will know the blanks are supposed to be C!" his buddy added.

"What does that even mean?" asked another student.

"You can figure it out," I said and pointed at the row of tiles. "Pneumo means breathing or lungs, and ultra means extremely or a lot. Microscopic means--"

"Small!" a student supplied, and I nodded.

"Silico refers to the element silicon and you know volcano, right?" I looked into several shining eyes. This was exciting to them. "The rest of the word just means it has to do with a medical condition."

"So it means some kind of small, silicon particle that hurts your lungs, right?" one of them deduced.

"Close!" I clapped. "It's the name of the disease that happens when you breathe a particle like that."

Just then the bell rang. They looked at each other, deflated because they weren't quite done spelling.

"Go ahead and finish!" I told them. "I'll write you a pass."

My other class filed in as they plucked Os and Ns and Is and arranged them at the end of the word. Some were very interested in what was happening, and one guy knew the word, spelled it, and gave us a definition.

"Take a picture with your iPad," I encouraged them when they were through, which they did. 

Everyone was smiling as we quickly scooped the tiles into their banana-shaped bag. "That was fun!" one student said as I signed the pass.

"Yeah it was!" I agreed.