On the Bright Side

The other morning I heard a poem called accidents on The Writers' Almanac that I wanted to share with my students. When I pulled up the text on the website however, I found that the poet, Marcia Popp, uses no capitalization, punctuation, or line breaks in her work. In my mind, that made it an even better choice for my class.

After their initial confusion with the poem, the students decided that they really liked its narrative and could relate to its message, and they also professed a new-found appreciation for punctuation, which, of course, is priceless in a sixth grade class. Since then, I've purchased Popp's collection comfort in small rooms and each and every poem in the book is an absolute gem.

Yesterday my students turned in their final drafts of three free verse poems they have been writing. One boy who is new to our class submitted the following:

today is a beautiful morning its breezing the football is going to be hard to throw because the wind is going to blow it away my brother throws it hits me in the face i get the football and i feel like i am flying my brother said where is your sweater i say oh snap i am in trouble it is stuck on a branch i climb to get it and we keep playing i throw the ball so high my brother is amazed beat that i say ok he throws the ball i have never seen anyone throw it like that only football players

When I spoke to him about it,  I found that his imitation of Popp's style was unintentional. Oh well, we have some work to do, but at least he's got a bit of a natural poet in him.

More Little Things

A few years ago I fell flat on my face, and there was nothing metaphorical about it. I was playing roller hockey on a basketball court with my nephews and brother. The surface of the court was painted, and the skating was smooth and fast. We were having a lot of fun, but I was playing recklessly hard against my brother. He's less than two years younger than I, so we've been competing a long time. To be honest, I don't think I've ever completely recovered from when he outgrew me in strength and size. Wits are another matter though, and I like to think we're still pretty evenly matched there.

Too bad my wits deserted me that day: setting the worst example possible, I was wearing neither helmet nor any other kind of protective gear. Ironically, I was standing still when it happened-- my skates slid backwards so fast on that slick court that I didn't even put my hands out to break my fall, and I landed on my face from a full standing height. Miraculously, nothing was broken, not even a tooth. I had an ugly abrasion that lasted a couple of weeks and a fat lip, but that was all.

I was lucky, but this past week has brought news of family of friends and friends of family who did not survive the choices they made, both impulsive and otherwise. Right now, my students are doing an assignment which asks them to look at the people and events, the accidents and incidents that have made them who they are. Every year, I write along with them, but I confess that I usually adapt what I've done in the past and share that. Maybe it's time to take a fresh look.

It's the Little Things

I usually find myself stoic in the face of life's tragedies; I wish I could say the same about the nuisances that complicate every day life. Right now it's the short in the light fixture, the stripped gear on the mixer, the leak in the ceiling, the fruit fly infestation, the closet door off its track, and the broken handle on the microwave that seem almost impossible to manage. Of course, larger misfortunes can put all of these things into perspective, and they do, they really do, but they don't fix them. I still have to find somebody to do that.

Gerstensuppe

When I was in high school the whole darn place picked up and moved to St. Moritz for two weeks every January. It was one of the many perks of going to a Swiss boarding school. Ski lessons were included, but unfortunately for me, I arrived a day late the first year. When I went to pick up my equipment, the ski shop was out of boots my size, and so it was another day until I made it up to the slopes.

By that time there were no more beginners... everyone was at least two days ahead of me, and none of those efficient Swiss instructors in their mirrored shades and handsome red jackets seemed willing to catch me up. After careening unsupervised and uninstructed around the bunny slopes for a while, I resolved that skiing was not for me, and with fat tears rolling down my cold cheeks I removed those despicable skis and clunked over to the Signal Bahn where I caught the gondola back down to the hotel.

Despite the impression I had gotten on the mountain, I found out that skiing was not optional, and thus began my longest streak of scholastic disobedience to date. There was no way I was ever going to suffer the humiliation of that first day again, and so every morning when the rest of my classmates tromped cheerfully off for the slopes, I skulked away in the opposite direction and wandered the icy streets of St. Moritz for hours. It was lonely and cold, and even though I brought a book and a little money, there was only so much time I could spend in any cafe or restaurant before I felt my welcome was worn out, plus I lived in terror that a teacher would catch me and I would get in trouble for skipping.

The bright side of those days was literally the finest hot chocolate in the world and a delicious local soup with speck and barley called Engadiner Gestensuppe. Years later I found a recipe for it on the internet, and I continue to tweak it, trying to recreate what I remember so clearly, but so far each attempt falls a bit short. Even so, I often turn to this soup when I want something warm after a tough day, and it still hits the spot.

By Committee

Our district has assembled a committee on grading practices. It seems to be operating like most such groups in our school system-- they asked for volunteers from each school, appointed some administrators, invited some other stakeholders, sent out a book over the summer, and then started meeting this fall. The other day the committee members from our school reported to our staff. They gave an overview of the discussion so far and told us that in the next couple of months they will be making a recommendation to the school board. One of them told us that there probably won't be a single teacher in the county who won't have to change his or her grading practices in some way as a result of the work this committee is doing.

Not surprisingly, we had some questions-- about the process, but also about the resources they were using to guide their decisions. For example, most of us are pretty familiar with the concept of formative and summative assessment. Many of us use pre-assessments as well. But what the heck constitutes performance assessment? In response to that inquiry, the three of them agreed-- they didn't really know. "We are by no means the experts on this," they declared.

It's kind of an important issue... if the people who are making the recommendations aren't the experts, then who are?

To the Wolves

Several years ago a friend of mine was reading My Antonia for a class and asked me if I knew the story. "Not really," I shrugged. "I've never read anything by Willa Cather."

"It's pretty intense," she told me. I looked at her skeptically, perhaps even rolled my eyes. "There are these wolves..." she said and then recounted how in order to save themselves, the brothers, Peter and Pavel, throw the bride and groom off the wedding sleigh they are driving. "What else could they do?" she finished. "They wanted to survive."

"Remind me never to go sledding in Russia with you," I joked, but I've never forgotten that conversation. Later on, when I'd read the novel for myself, I found that the determination to survive and the plight of the outsider are two of its essential themes, and I might say that those same ideas preoccupy my friend.

A strong mistrust of both the structure and infrastructure of our society have motivated her and her family to be as self-sufficient as they can. They don't live off the grid, but they probably could. They have a lot of time and resources invested in being prepared in the event of disaster. We kid them about it, but when we do, it's clear that if anything catastrophic were to happen, the rest of us would be on our own.

Sometimes I worry about my friend and her pervasive pessimism. Whether or not Peter and Pavel were justified in what they did, they lived the remainder of their lives as outcasts-- no one could blame them, but no one could forgive them either. They survived, but was it worth it?

A Bargain

One of the best road trips I've ever taken was with my mom. She lives in Minneapolis and had business in Rapid City, South Dakota, so one late summer morning we set off, beginning our nine hour journey in the green green farm land of southern Minnesota, and continuing over the Red and Missouri Rivers, enjoying lovely vistas and delicious homemade pie. We made a stop in Mitchell, SD, to visit the Corn Palace, and I bought a paperback copy of O! Pioneers in the gift shop. We traveled across the great plains then, my mother driving and I reading aloud Willa Cather's story of hope and despair and struggle and loss, which was set in the very land, so harsh and so opportune, that we were crossing. A more intense and wonderful travel experience I have not had, and I will remember it always. Because the novel is in the public domain it was only a dollar--definitely one of the best purchases I have ever made.

Something New

If you missed the piece on Pecha-Kucha on All Things Considered tonight, consider taking a listen. Sort of the haiku of powerpoint presentations, this new form of communication is defined by 20 slides of 20 seconds each, no more and no less. That's right-- six minutes and 40 seconds is what you get to make your point.

It seems that beyond the pragmatic applications, this format is catching on as the salon of the 21st century. In cities all over the world people are gathering to socialize and enjoy a variety of these presentations, both in selected and open-mic formats. Such events are even being used as fund raisers, most recently to benefit earth quake victims in Haiti.

Oh the possibilities! The focused integration of images, sounds and text makes me really appreciate this concept... both as a teacher of communication and as the victim of countless dreary slide shows.

Alert!

I've had a couple of authors comment on this blog after I mentioned them and their books by name. In both cases I was completely thrilled that these posts I send out into the Universe with perhaps equal parts faith and vanity found not only a reader beyond my immediate family and friends, but also another writer with whose work I had connected.

I suspect that the fine hand of Google Alerts or a similar tool is behind their readership, but that does not lessen the experience for me. I have a couple of alerts of my own out there. One is for Nancie Atwell; I believe she's a bellwether for the state of language arts instruction, and I want to know what people are saying about her theories and practice. Over the last couple of years this alert has led me to some very interesting teacher-written blogs.

The other is for the Barbara Jordan school in Detroit. Early last summer I read that this school was being taken over by a committee of teachers and I've tried to follow their progress, because another of my beliefs is that for schools to be most effective, everyone in charge should teach at least one class (including central office).

After my last close encounter with an author I decided to double my Google Alerts. In addition to those two, my new settings include my own name, first and last, which I never expect to be mentioned, and the name of this blog, Walking the Dog, from which I expect to get several unrelated hits every day. I think it will be amusing, at least for a while, and especially if today is any indication-- I've already found a theme song: Walking the Dog by Fun.

Or not.

She Sighs With Relief

Today was one of those Mondays that I expected I would have to grit my teeth and tough it through. The lesson that I planned before leaving on Friday had just seemed a little off, and as I've noted before, the kids this year are just a little high maintenance. So how surprised was I when every class proceeded quite smoothly with nary a blank stare? It seems like the students are finally settling into a routine, and our daily practice and expectations are finally becoming a common language. Fingers crossed for tomorrow...

Meet the McGees

Once, a long time ago, I opened the door to let my cat in for dinner and he deposited a live white mouse on the doormat before hurrying off to eat his Fancy Feast. We spent some time speculating about where our cat had been-- had he raided a science lab? stolen someone's pet? saved the little rodent from becoming snake food? --but neither the cat nor the mouse was talking.

The mouse was completely unharmed but clearly unfit for outdoor life, so we did what any other nutty animal lovers would do. We got a tank and some cedar shavings and kept him as our pet. We had another cat named Molly at the time, and she was fascinated by him, spent hours watching his tank (we called it MTV, mouse TV), and so we named him Fibber. Soon we began saying that all of our pets had the last name of McGee: they were Molly, Fibber, Oliver, Noah, and Silly McGee. When we rescued a betta fish from a floral arrangement at a party a few months later, we named him Bobby and he fit right in.

The McGees are all long gone now, gone the way of so many beloved pets, but they are not forgotten. Tonight I heard that the Philippines is bracing for Typhoon McGee; at least that's what it sounded like on the radio. McGee seemed like a strange name for a Pacific storm, so I looked it up and found that it was actually "Megi," which by some accounts means catfish. That works, but Typhoon could have been a great name for a canary or maybe even an iguana, too.

Free Range Yeast

A couple of weeks ago I heard a piece on the radio about a more traditional approach to cooking, one that focuses on technique rather than exact recipes. Ken Albala, history professor and co-author of The Lost Art of Real Cooking described for example, how easy it is to make bread without using store-bought yeast. It seems that flour and water stirred together and left alone will attract the wild yeast that reside everywhere. Who could resist the temptation to put such a premise to the test?

So last weekend I whisked together my starter. Albala also mentioned that the powdery substance on the outside of fresh grapes is none other than yeast (who knew?), so I tossed a few seedless reds into the mixture and pushed it to the back corner of the counter. As recommended, every morning I fed it some more flour and water to prevent the alcohol from overwhelming the growing yeast population. My brew bubbled and foamed, and this morning I kneaded in some more flour and water with a pinch of salt, still finding it hard to have faith that the dense dough would rise without that little yellow packet of Fleischmanns.

This evening I can report success! I wrangled that wild yeast into the prettiest little loaf of bread around. It had a crisp crust outside, a moist, chewy texture inside, and it was delicious.

And in just a couple of weeks my saurkraut will be ready, too.

Boundaries

There's a wonderful poem called Dog in Bed by Joyce Sidman in which she describes how her dog hogs the bed at night, forcing her to reposition herself to accommodate her pet. At the end she writes:  

This is how it is with love.
Once invited,
it steps in gently,
circles twice,
and takes up as much space
as you will give it.

This is how it is with teaching, too. Our contract day may be seven-and-a-half hours, but the job is impossible to do in that time span. Planning and grading alone will push your day to nine hours or more, never mind any clubs or study halls you sponsor. It's easy to see how each additional hour you spend will benefit your students, and isn't that why so many of us are here? But if you're not careful, it might start to seem like time you take for yourself is time you take from your students, and that's not good for anyone.

Back and Forth

It's funny how the unrelated conversations of the day can often be thematic. For example, at our team meeting today the discussion turned to security and background checks for field trip chaperons. "Things sure are different than when I started," I said. "Nobody did much checking on me... they don't even have my fingerprints on file."

We all agreed that times have changed since 1993 when I began teaching. Later in the day I ran into two seventh graders from my home room last year.

"Hey old TA teacher!" one greeted me.

"Hey old TA student," I replied in turn.

"Are you going to have my brother, too?" he asked. "He's coming next year."

"Maybe," I shrugged. "I hope so."

"He's exactly like me except he does his homework," he told me.

"He sounds perfect!" I said. "Now, I'm going to make sure I get him."

"What about my sister?" asked the other student. "She was born on Sunday."

"Last Sunday?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Congratulations!" I told him. "Why not? In eleven years, I'll take her, too."

"Eleven years?!?" the first student exclaimed. "Aren't you ever going to retire?"

Thank Heaven for Little Boys

Here's the first draft of a free verse poem that one of my students turned in today:

I have Toy Story 3
the game for my Xbox
360. It has two modes
in it, story mode and
toy box mode.

In story mode it has
eight levels. Toy box
mode you can make
an old western town
of your own. You also
have to do missions from
the townspeople.

I heard the movie
was going to come out
on DVD on November 2.
I've seen the movie
with my dad in June and we liked it.

Rooting Around

Back in the late spring I had a big sweet potato on the counter that was beginning to sprout. On a whim, I chopped it into three pieces and buried it in a corner of the garden and pretty much ignored the vines as they spread their way across the plot all summer long. Today on my way home from school I harvested 15 pounds of sweet potatoes! How incredibly exhilarating it was to dig down into the soil with my bare hands and ease the giant roots from the ground-- one of them was two pounds by itself. It was more than a fair return for all the unwanted roots I dug up and tossed aside as I weeded all season.

Oh the potatoes I'll plant next year!

When I Was a Kid...

Our district offers an online course in Early Adolescent Development for middle school staff who are interested in an overview of the physical, cognitive, social emotional, and identity development milestones that are students are experiencing. This fall, I am facilitating the course for the second time. One of my favorite questions that participants answer as they work their way through the material is Are kids today really that different than they were when you were a kid?  because it requires people to grapple with how differences in environment affect children, as well as any greater impact that large-scale changes might have on society and culture as a whole.

Here's what a couple of people have written:

1. I really do feel that kids today are much more visually-oriented as many of them have grown up with TV and videos from a very early age. 
2. With so much technology and external stimuli readily available, there seems to be a much lower threshold for boredom. 
3. How many of us have seen a student using the computer, texting on a cell phone, and doing homework at the same time?  It makes me wonder how many college students are working diligently in a library carrels these days?  Or are they working with laptops sitting on their beds in their dorm rooms?
4.  Of course, with our modern fears, how many children are allowed to roam and explore freely through our neighborhoods?
5. How many kids today are comfortable with silence?

AND:

While it wasn't that long ago when I was the KID, I still have to answer "yes" to this question.  Just the other day I asked someone, how did we survive without cell phones?  Without the internet?  Without the immediate gratification of instant news, communication and feedback?  As I commented on my assignment guide, kids today are living in a multi-media, need-to-know-NOW, technology-rich environment.  I really feel that this type of "environment" has really played into how we teach and how we approach our teaching - in both positive and "not-so" positive ways.  In many ways, I wish I had the technology that kids today have - online databases with CURRENT research, Web 2.0 Media, cell phones, internet, Smart Boards.  But on the other side, I am very appreciate to how I grew up.  My sister and I invented games to play.  We built forts, played outside, rode our bikes, did arts & crafts... car rides included conversations with our parents & other family members, not playing video games & watching DVDs. 

What would you say?

Bonjour Paresse

It's the first three-day weekend of the school year and I've decided that every weekend should have three days. Of course in a few weeks, I'll tell you that every day should have 25 hours, too. (And for the record? Everyone should be off all summer, too.) Obviously, I should have been born French.

And I Am Not Making This Up

I stopped by the grocery store on the way home last night. As I came around the end of an aisle I was surprised by a six foot pig in a black teddy with garters and bustier. I nodded, smiled politely, and walked past, the oddness of the incident only fully registering a few steps beyond. With wrinkled brow, I turned to look again, but the pig had vanished.

I didn't really think that I had imagined it, but despite the fact that the store was sort of crowded, there were no other shoppers around for a reality check. Plus, the more I thought about it, what had it been doing there? At first I had assumed that it was some sort of product promotion, but that get-up really didn't fit with anything that they were selling at the grocery store. Also the pig wasn't doing anything other than standing there when I went past; it wasn't selling anything, nor did it approach me in any way.

I shook my head, only questioning my sanity slightly, and continued my shopping.

It was in the dairy section that I next encountered the pig. This time it was walking briskly toward me. There was a guy a few paces ahead of it, but if he noticed anything unusual he sure didn't show it. They passed me and disappeared around the corner. You can bet I was on my guard after that, but as I finished shopping and paid for my groceries, I did not see any more giant pigs. It was with relief that I crossed the parking lot, but as I approached my car a silver mini-van screeched toward me at high speed. I jumped aside and gasped as it careened away.

Riding shotgun? The pig.

Driving? The guy from the dairy aisle.

Really.

Perfecto

Conferences are over and they went well: I had a hundred percent participation; the kids did a nice job leading them, and only one other student cried. It was the last meeting of the day and, ironically, he was the kid with the highest grades. He had straight A's, but in the category breakdown, he had an 85% in homework for one of his classes.

I made the mistake of asking him about it, and he burst into tears explaining that he had misunderstood the directions on an assignment and had only received partial credit for it. That coupled with the fact that one of his teachers had commented that he should participate more had him literally sobbing for a good few minutes. His mother rubbed his shoulder and spoke to him in Spanish, "Usted no tiene que ser perfecto."

The day before, in preparation for the meeting, he had set two goals for himself. The first was to participate more in class and the second was to follow directions carefully. He and his mom were supposed to set one more together in the conference. "What do you think it should be?" I asked. He wiped his eyes and looked at his mother.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," she said and that is what he wrote.

All Conference Eve

Conference day isn't officially scheduled until tomorrow, but this afternoon I had a single student-led conference in order to accommodate a parent's conflict. Oooh, it was a good one! It had a little of everything-- obfuscation, disappointment, tears, scolding, recognition of personal strengths, pride in some tasks well-done, a promise and a plan for both improvement and continued success, and a hug at the end-- all in a little over 20 minutes.  Not bad for the first conference of the year. I wonder what tomorrow will be like.

Code Switching

I had the second session of my professional learning group on grammar today. Our assignment was to read the first three chapters of Catching Up on Conventions: Grammar Lessons for Middle School Writers by Chantal Francois and Elisa Zonana. This section of the book describes how they, two teachers committed to writing workshop, came to the conclusion that teaching grammar is important. Their main reason had to do with the fact that their classes were predominantly made up of ethnic minority students and they felt that it was necessary for them to master academic English, which is the language of power.

Our group talked a lot about this code switching. The reasons the authors described resonated with one of the other white teachers because she felt they applied to many of her students. For the teachers from our north county schools such an argument was irrelevant-- over 90 percent of their students speak the dominant language at home; they don't need to learn another vernacular. As for me, I thought it was hypocritical to make an argument like theirs without acknowledging that such an attitude perpetuates an unfair dynamic. To dismiss the necessity for some people to have to learn the language of the majority as simply a necessary evil does not address the underlying issues.

(Don't worry-- I'm not against teaching conventions-- I just think we should teach them to everybody, in the context of their writing, based on the individual needs of those particular students.)

The other teacher from my school, who is Black, affirmed the importance for people of color to learn to speak and write academic English but also pointed out the social complications that accompany such a choice. "It's sad to say," she told us, "but kids and even adults make fun of Black people who talk too White."

We also discussed proofreading marks, and one of the teachers confessed that she just never got the hang of using them: there were too many and she found the marks confusing. "It's just code switching," I teased, but when later the conversation turned to texting language, we discovered that of all the teachers there, I was the only one who doesn't use it, thanks to my trusty iPhone and perhaps my own resistance to code switching. In my experience, though, this is the exchange that is most difficult for students. Once they get hooked on shortening words and phrases and ignoring capitalization and punctuation, it is very difficult to get them to switch to standard conventions for school writing.

Maybe text talk is a minority dialect; it is a language that belongs to the young. The difference between that group and most ethnic minorities? One day young people will be in charge. r u rdy 4 dat?

Change is Good?

Well, I went ahead and did it. The Battle of the Sexes classes have been officially reorganized. The numbers in my two after-lunch classes are now 9 boys and 7 girls and 8 boys and 8 girls. Has the gender balance been a magic bullet? No. Some personalities still stand out, but in general? The students seemed less playful and less social and therefore more focused on the task at hand.

This particular success could be my imagination, but grouping, in the form of class scheduling, small group work, and even seating assignments is a time-honored tool of classroom management. Even so, I believe we should use our power carefully. These days, we try to spin it positively to the kids, especially when we split up friends, as in you don't work very well with that person, and We just want you to be successful, and Don't worry! You'll still see so-and-so at lunch.

We do that because kids, especially middle school kids, often have a hard time with what we adults see as a simple schedule change. As an example, when I told my classes of the above mentioned switches, there were gasps and groans of horror, and many kids openly begged me not to change their schedule. This after four weeks of school.

I believe that there are far more insidious reasons for us to take care about moving students for their own good as well as the good of the class, though. In my experience, a lot of the time the kids we want to separate are minority students. In a diverse school such as ours with almost equal representation of Asian, Black, Latino, and White students, it's most often those Black and Latino cliques that get busted up in the name of group dynamics, and that gives me pause.

A.K.A.

Middle school presents an opportunity for kids to reinvent themselves-- we always tell them it's a clean start, a fresh slate, a chance to be the best they can. Some take advantage and some don't, and some are more successful than others. Six years ago, I taught a young man named Kenneth who introduced himself as Kenny. Kenny was as cute and charming as they come, but he didn't always complete his work, which was what I was telling his mom in our parent-teacher conference when she whipped out her cell phone. "Excuse me," she said to me as she deliberately dialed.

Bemused, I waited for her cue to continue. In a moment I heard the mwah mwah of a voice answering the phone. "Is Brandon there?" she asked. Confused, I wondered if I should pretend to be busy with something else. "Well get him out of bed," she told the other party. I shuffled a few papers and clicked my pen once or twice. Soon I heard another muffled "hello" and she picked up that progress report and started in on the person on the other end of the line about those missing assignments. It quickly became clear that Kenny was an alias for the student formerly known as Brandon, which was his middle name. Once she hung up, it was sort of challenging to continue the conference-- I wasn't sure how to refer to her child.

I saw Kenny's mom today in a professional development class I'm teaching. "Do you remember me?" she asked, and I smiled because when I had seen her name on the roster I couldn't wait to find out how Kenny was doing.

"I sure do," I told her. "How's that son of yours?"

"He's a senior! Can you believe it?" she said.

"Wow!" I answered. "What's he going by these days? Kenny or Brandon?"

"I still call him Brandon," she shrugged, "but everyone else? They call him Kenny, and he's doing great."

By that, I took it that he was getting all his assignments in, and silently I congratulated him on his successful reinvention.

Now Playing

I recorded the first episode of Tony Danza's reality show on A&E but I haven't had the chance to watch it yet. Called Teach:Tony Danza, the premise is that Danza teaches one section of high school English to 26 students at a school in Philadelphia. What teacher could resist watching at least one episode?

This morning at the farmer's market we ran into some parents of former students, along with a relative of theirs who also works at one of our district middle schools. "Have you seen Tony Danza's show?" she asked. When I told her that I have it recorded, she said "I won't ruin it for you, but the guy has one class of 26, with another teacher in the room with him, and they make him cry in the first episode!"

The non-teacher in our group said, "That's good, right? It shows how hard teaching is." Not having seen the show, I hope he's right that it shows teaching can be tough rather than Tony Danza can be lame, but my reservations are a little more serious than that. I've read a bit about Danza's press junket to support the show, and it sounds like he is highly supportive of teachers and the complexity of the job we do. That represents a departure from the majority of other public voices recently heard on teaching and schools.

NBC and other high-profile media organizations have been paying a lot of attention to public education lately, inviting philanthropists, politicians, chancellors, and bureaucrats to speak about what the "problems" are. Notably absent? The voices of teachers... but don't worry: an actor who by most measures is a bit down in his career and taught one class for one school year is evidently a more than legitimate spokesperson for our profession. Just ask Oprah.

My Theory of Parking Dynamics

I believe that you should never wait for a parking space, especially if the garage or lot is really crowded. By doing so you stop the flow of traffic, making it difficult for people to both get into and, more importantly, out of spaces. If everyone simply drives until a parked car is ready to pull out, then everyone will get a space with roughly the same amount of waiting time. By following this practice, you may increase your own personal wait-time occasionally, but your wait will also decrease at other times, as will the general frustration level of all parkers, you included.

Doesn't that make sense? Who's with me?

(Remind me to post my theory of merging when a lane ends on the highway sometime.)

In the Kitchen

I spent 20 minutes or so when I got home tonight julienning some butternut squash to toast in the oven. I wanted to use it as a crispy garnish for risotto. I tossed it with olive oil, sage, salt and pepper, and put it in the oven with a timer to check and turn it in 10 minutes, knowing that I would have to attend to it closely so that it would cook evenly. Things happened... the phone rang, the neighbors stopped by, and I watched my squash, truly I did, but not carefully enough, because the last time I checked, some were perfect, some were still a bit limp, and a good bit were too done to

Maybe that's a good analogy for teaching: All the shreds of squash start out roughly the same-- they are in the same pan, in the same oven, but they don't bake evenly. Who knows why? You have to stay focused and keep checking and making adjustments so that all the individuals who make up the collective are well-prepared; otherwise it's all no good.

On the Same Side

The other evening was Back to School Night and it's always kind of interesting to meet the parents after knowing their kids for a couple of weeks. Sometimes there are surprises, but generally it's nice to put a face to the moms and dads. As for myself, in the very short time we have, I try to give an overview of my course and leave them with a good impression along with my contact information.

The next morning, one of my students was insisting that he hates writing. I asked him to give our class some time to change his mind, and then I mentioned  that I had met his parents the night before. He rolled his eyes and sighed. "I know," he told me. "My mom said she liked you."

"Uh oh," I answered. "I liked her too. Guess you're in trouble now."

He went back to his desk and started to write.

Battle of the Sexes

By some random act of computer-generated scheduling I have one class this year that has 13 boys and three girls and another one with 12 girls and four boys. They meet back-to-back, immediately after lunch, first the boys, then the girls.

For a variety of reasons I won't go into, there's been a lot of contention surrounding the master schedule this year, and at first I didn't think that my little disproportion was enough to request a change over. It was true that neither of those classes ran quite as I expected, even after I had taught the exact same lesson three times before I ever saw them. The boys were silly and rowdy: they didn't keep their hands, feet, or even their shoulders to themselves, and they took at least ten minutes to wind down from being outside at lunch. The girls, on the other hand, were constantly minding someone else's business-- questioning, directing, and correcting, and openly competing with me for the class's attention. Because I didn't have these issues in my other classes, I was pretty sure it might have something to do with the gender imbalance. Duh.

Still, I felt like it was somehow wrong to complain, that it showed some kind of teaching weakness and might even be considered to be whining. I thought that a veteran educator such as myself should easily be able to accommodate these different group dynamics, so I decided to approach it from a research perspective, noting the differences and varying my instructional strategies to address them. Well...

Let me state for the record that all of my English classes are heterogeneously grouped, by my choice. I have found that diversity of all kinds is a strength in our reading and writing groups, and maybe that's why I'm still struggling with these classes. Those guys are still pretty goofy and those girls are still really bossy, and all that social energy is beginning to impact the amount of work those classes get through.

I haven't decided exactly what I want to do next, but I will confess that I pulled up the schedules for every child in each of those sections, and it was pretty easy to find a two-for-two switch with a couple of other teachers that will create a little more gender diversity in my 5th and 6th periods.

Should we do it?

Second Annual RSVP

Like we do each year, we gave the students a writing prompt today to get a baseline of their writing skills. Their pieces will be scored holistically by the whole staff using the state rubric. We'll give them another prompt in early June to measure their progress for the year.

The topic today was the same as last year:  Your principal wants to invite a celebrity speaker to your school. Think about the celebrity you would choose to speak; then write a letter to persuade your principal to invite this person. Be sure to include convincing reasons and details to support your choice.

Here's who the kids chose to invite, in loose order of popularity:

President Obama
Lady Gaga
Justin Bieber
Michelle Obama
JKRowling
Fred
Taylor Swift
Ronaldinho
Selena Gomez
Rick Riordan
Michael Jackson
Elmo
Katy Perry
Bruce Lee
Taylor Lautner
John Cena
Michael Phelps
Mia Hamm
The "Head of the Nutritious Department"
Phineas
Brandon Mull
Steve Carrell
Thomas Jefferson
Alex Ovechkin
Andrew Clements
Avi
RL Stine
Martin Luther King, Jr.
LeBron James
Tom Brady
Jeff Kinney
David Bowie
Adam Sandler
Neil Armstrong
Mr. T
Kurt Cobain
James Cameron
Donovan McNabb
Muhammad Ali
Lionel Messi
Jon Scieszka
Billy Joe Armstrong
Seth McFarlane
Oprah
The Rock
Paul Langan
Lea Michelle
Ellen Degeneres

Brainstormin'

When the Tolerance Club met this afternoon one of our tasks was to frame our mission statement. The process required the assembled group to answer four questions:

Who are we?
What do we stand for?
Why is that important?
What are we going to do to accomplish our goals?

In order to gather our thoughts, we used the tried and true technique of collective brainstorming. Members of the group called out their thoughts and responses to our guiding questions and we wrote them on the board. Here's what the kids came up with:

Who are we?

The Tolerance Club

What do we stand for?

• Helping people make friends
• Building self-esteem
• Spreading peace
• Helping people feel accepted
• Helping people accept others
• Making school a safer, happier place

Why is that important?

• It's not fun being lonely
• People should feel good about coming to school
• There should be a positive atmosphere for everyone to learn and grow
• If you're not helping, you're part of the problem
• Prejudice is wrong

What are we going to do to accomplish our goals?

• Invite people to join us
• Spread the word
• Reach out 
• Talk to your friends about how they act
• Accept responsibility for our school
• Stand up for victims of bullies
• Look at yourself and your actions and choices

 And here's our mission statement:

We the members of the Tolerance Club pledge to spread peace through our school by helping people feel accepted and encouraging people to accept others, because it’s important for everyone to feel good about coming to school so that we can learn and grow. We understand that if you’re not helping then you’re part of the problem, and we invite everyone to join us and to take responsibility for your part in making our school a safer, more positive place by talking to your friends about their choices and actions and by looking at your own behavior, too. Stand up, reach out, and spread the word. Prejudice is wrong. 

Ruh Roh

It's that time of year when the days grow crisper and more colorful and pumpkins and mums are on every front porch. And that can only mean one thing... it's time for the new Scooby Doo straight to video release! This rite of autumn started for us when my oldest nephew was six. He and I were shopping at one of those big box stores when his eye fell upon a huge stack of VHS boxes, and he literally gasped. It was Scooby Doo and Zombie Island. "Aunt Tracey," he told me earnestly, "this time the monsters are real."

I did a double take myself at this nugget of information; child of the 70s that I am, it was hard for me to believe that the mystery wouldn't be resolved by the yank of a mask from the face of a bound bad guy revealing the all-too-human culprit. And what would that villain's response be? "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids."

My nephew's enthusiasm along with this intriguing premise of real monsters landed that movie right into our cart, but not for long. He insisted on carrying it for the rest of the time we shopped. At the check-out line I noticed another little boy watching us enviously. As his dad pulled him forward to the cash register he pointed at the box my nephew eagerly clutched. "Can we get that?" he asked. His father brushed him off by saying that they already had lots of movies at home. "But Daddy," he told him, "this time the monsters are real!" His dad looked at me, and I nodded and pointed to the display.

"Stay here," he told his son and headed over to grab the video.

After that, the annual release of the feature length Scooby became a fall institution: October always included the corn maze, the pumpkin patch, and the Mystery Inc gang.

Twelve years later my nephew is a freshman in college and this weekend we're putting together a care package for him-- homemade cookies, a Starbucks card, and what else? The latest Scooby Doo, 'cause, like, you're never too old for tradition.

Happy Accident

I find that Saturday mornings are a good time to get lost on the internet. With a little of that extra weekend time, I'll follow this link or that like so many bread crumbs and I usually end up in some pretty interesting places. This morning was a good example. I actually started out on facebook marveling at the juxtaposition of my libertarian tea party friend's status with those of my much more liberal-leaning buddies and wondering how I became the fulcrum that balances such opposing views when I noticed that one of these characters had liked something called Coiled Comics.

Did I click on the button to get out of the sticky middle or was there genuine interest there? It was a little of both, to be honest. Over the last few years, I have been working to introduce more opportunities to create graphic pieces in my class and so I do have an interest in comics. Plus, kids love reading them-- In my experience, both the Bone and Diary of a Wimpy Kid series can be classified as genuine gateways to more text-based selections for many kids.

Anyway, I was not disappointed this morning. Coiled is a weekly serialized web-based comic that has a sixth grade boy as its protagonist. It looked like something my students would like as readers, but also something that I could use as a model text for them as writers. I was only concerned that, since it isn't finished, the series might take a turn for the inappropriate either in terms of violence, language, or even sex.

With that in mind I promptly e-mailed the co-authors. It was only a few hours later that I received Peter Gruenbaum's reply: My personal philosophy is that people should be able to tell good, exciting stories without the level of violence that are found in many young adult novels. The prologue is as violent as it will get, and the story will have no sexuality or swear words in it -- they just aren't relevant to the plot. He also invited me to stay in touch as to how the kids like it.

How cool is that?

Learning Curve

This year on our team we have some students with disabilities with which I do not have much experience. We have triplets who are all blind and a girl with cerebral palsy who is confined to a wheelchair. Working with these kids offers a new lesson in perspective almost every day; I never realized how much I take my sight and mobility for granted until we started figuring out how to include these students in all of our lessons and activities. As challenging as it is for us, I am continually impressed by the independence and tenacity of these four children. They are amazing.

In support of the triplets we have a vision-impairment specialist assigned to our school who is blind himself. I have never had the opportunity to spend much time with a blind person, and I'm afraid it shows. The other day at lunch he asked me where the trash can was. "It's over there," I told him.

"Um, that's not very helpful," he said, and we laughed at my mistake.

"Well," I replied, "I pointed, too!"

Like Any Other Day

Today I received the following email from a particularly conscientious student:

I am absent from school today because I'm sick. I will be back in school tomorrow. I was wondering if we did anything important today in English since I missed a class. Please let me know.

To which I replied:

Of course we did something important in English today, but it was nothing you can't make up when you get back. I hope you feel better. See you tomorrow!

Warm and Cool

One great thing about our school is that, in support of writing across the curriculum, we use one of our professional development early-release days for the entire teaching staff to holistically score expository writing samples from every student. Everyone is familiarized with the state rubric and team teachers meet to read and evaluate their students' writing.

Perhaps, as an English teacher, I'm biased in my perspective on this; no doubt some of my colleagues in other content areas might express another opinion. I have the sense that many non-English teachers feel that writing has a very limited place in their classes, despite lots of research confirming writing across the curriculum as best practice for instruction in both writing and content. (Bottom line: Like people who can read well, people who can write well are generally more successful in all academic areas than their peers who cannot.) Even so, every year we experience some push back and even resentment when it comes time to read and score those essays.

This year the English department was presented with a request from our colleagues. Since they are asked to not only rate each writing piece from 1-4 in composition, written expression, and correctness, but also to provide the student authors with a comment both praising them and offering a suggestion for improvement, our fellow educators wanted a comment bank from which to draw their remarks for the kids.

Hm...

Oh, wait! I have one:

Nice initiative in trying to make this as easy and thoughtless as possible! Next time, try actually engaging with the task at hand to give our kids some authentic feedback.

What a Difference a Year Makes

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote about the amazing new group of students we had. Flash forward-- for the first time in my career, there has been no personnel change at the sixth grade level since then, but this beautiful fall day found several of us veterans reminiscing about last September.

Don't get me wrong-- the kids this year are sweet and age-appropriate, they just aren't the kids from last year. Tuesday is the day when we meet with the counselor to discuss student concerns, and she left with a list of at least 20 kids who aren't doing their homework, aren't coming prepared, don't follow directions, can't open their lockers, can't make it on time, can't make it all. Oh, they love middle school, all right-- they say so all the time-- but middle school is sort of a challenge for them right now. Sigh.

At the end of the meeting, one teacher who has been on the team for seven years, but has thirty-plus years of teaching experience made an announcement. "Well," she said, "this makes me feel much better." We looked at her, momentarily perplexed. She shrugged. "I thought it was me," she laughed. "I was sure I had lost my sixth grade mojo."

Pinwheels for Peace

The awesome art teacher at our school introduced a cool activity last year: Pinwheels for Peace is an art installation project conceived of by two art teachers in Florida in 2005. Every year millions of windmills are created and displayed on September 21, in observance of the United Nations World Peace Day.

This year, our new Tolerance Club took the lead on the project, helping to organize materials and set up the display of over 350 pinwheels in front of our school for World Peace Day tomorrow. Tonight as I left the building, hundreds of colorful handmade pinwheels twirled in the soft breeze. Our school is a mixed-use facility, and I saw dozens of people there picking up their children, attending night classes, riding bikes, walking dogs, and jogging past. Few could fail to smile at the pinwheels spinning in the setting sun, especially after reading the banner...

Visualize Whirled Peace

Bunny Ears

Our school system subscribes to a password-protected academic internet service. Each teacher has a "course" with tools like a discussion board, blog, wiki, online assignments, etc. that students can access from anywhere they have an internet connection. One part of my English class involves giving my students the chance to write informally for an audience of their peers on our course's discussion board. I put up topics of interest like sports, music, pets, and video games and invite the kids to post at will. There are other more structured writing assignments, too, and we start the year with introductions. Each student has to write a couple of paragraphs introducing him or herself to the rest of the group. As a follow-up, they are asked to read and reply to at least five other kids.

Anyway, we were in the computer lab on Friday to kick off this activity, and so I've spent a good chunk of my weekend reading sixth grade writing, some of it rather silly indeed. Not that I mind-- I find what they have to say to each other pretty interesting, and this assignment can really provide a lot of insight into their personalities, interests, concerns, and of course, writing skills. Sometimes what they write is hard to understand, which is a good lesson for them, because quite often, whomever it's addressed to will reply in confusion, giving that writer incentive to revise the message.

Today, I read a post that temporarily stumped me. It was in reply to a girl who had written that she was excited about all the field trips we might take in sixth grade. To that another student responded, REALLY, REALLY, Kim Positive can't wait for the exciting (with bunny ears) field trips? WOW! I understood the teasing sarcasm-- it was the bunny ears that got me. I read it again and was just about to click away with a shrug and a note to self to ask him about it tomorrow when I realized what they were... He meant air quotes! I was fascinated by the implication: he didn't realize that the bunny ear gesture actually stands for punctuation marks, much less that he could have written them directly into his reply.

Now, that is going to make a good mini-lesson.

Impulse Purchase

Today while out and about on weekend errands, we noticed that a new shop was opened not so far from our home. It's actually the second location of a place devoted to all things doggie, and since we've driven to the other side of the county to visit its sister store, we were delighted to drop in and browse a bit this afternoon. They had a fun assortment of things we really don't need-- dog beds and t-shirts, collars and leashes (remind me that one day? I really must write about Isabel's extensive collar wardrobe), but as we made our way to the back of the store, we stopped by the small book collection, and there it was... a book on teaching your dog sign language!

We laughed to begin with-- we have many friends who have taught their pre-verbal children to sign, and based on that alone, this seemed like the ultimate scam targeting DINKs like ourselves-- but as I've written before the desire to truly communicate with your pet can run deep. We decided to buy the book.

Our dog has a pretty good repertoire of tricks, none of which I can take credit for teaching her, and she is nothing if not a willing student, so as we plunked our hard earned cash on the glass top boutique counter, I knew that if any dog could learn sign language, it is Isabel, and if anyone could teach her, it is Heidi.

We'll see.

More Than a Rhetorical Question

I heard someone on the radio today describe teaching as being like a salesperson for a product that nobody wants but everyone is forced to buy. That made me a little sad, but I realized that it does speak to one of the most common pitfalls of teaching-- how to make the curriculum relevant to people who are not necessarily present in your class by choice.

The answer must lie in the fact that although no one loves every minute of school, everybody has experienced the utter exhilaration of learning something totally awesome. How can all of the stakeholders work together to make school like that?

Be Prepared

Today was the day when we set up English binders in my class. Last week, each student was asked to procure a 1-1/2" binder and five dividers to store and organize all the reading and writing work they will do in class this year. Last night, I went to the office supply store and purchased 10 binders and 20 sets of dividers. My deal is simple-- I'll lend those students without what they need today in exchange for a replacement as soon as possible. I ran out of supplies in the fourth of my five classes, despite scrounging through all the spare binders I've collected over the years as well as the generosity of the students who bought 8 divider sets and donated the extra 3 to their classmates.

This practice is considered wrong by some. To them, it is harmful to the students because it is enabling: as the theory goes, if students have enough advance notice for any given task, then accepting anything less than full compliance is reinforcing the idea that requirements aren't mandatory. Hm.

To those folks I say: Look. My students are ten and eleven. They are in a new school in a new position of greatly increased responsibility and independence. I think they're doing the best they can. Many of their parents work long hours and some have limited access to transportation. Add to that that today, new figures were released showing that one out of seven people in the US lives in poverty. I suspect that statistic applies to the families of some who come to my class every day.

Not one student turned down my offer; they want to have what they need for the class. I know I'll get back a few binders and some sets of dividers, too, but I won't break even, and I don't really care. We have our English binders ready to go!

I Thought You Should Know

Yesterday a student approached me right at the end of class asking for a moment. When the rest of the kids had cleared out on their way to PE and electives, I asked her what was up. "I just thought you should know that (and here she named another girl in the class) has been spreading rumors that you're gay." She hastened to add that she didn't believe such a terrible thing for a minute; she just figured I'd want to know.

She was wrong-- I didn't really want to know. Knowing forces me into a difficult position. I am gay, and for most of my life I have lived with a certain amount of shame because of it. When I was much younger, it was not acceptable at all, and although over the years being gay has become less of an issue, even for a teacher, I am not open about my sexuality with the students. For a teacher at our school, it's okay to be gay; it's fine if adults-- colleagues and even parents-- are aware of it, too, but we don't mention it to the kids.

In the rare cases that it comes up, as it did for me yesterday, we usually tell the students that it's inappropriate for them to discuss a teacher's personal life. That's not entirely true, though. Any of my heterosexual co-workers would have no problem telling kids that they were married, nor would they be discouraged from doing so. I know of one teacher in my building who happily shared the details of his engagement with each of his classes. He called it "building relationships."

So, what did I do yesterday? I told the first student that although it was inappropriate for someone to be speculating about my personal life, I hoped she understood that there was nothing wrong with being gay, and I was not insulted by the rumors. She looked at me with skepticism. "You should be!" she said indignantly, perhaps honestly believing that she was defending my reputation.

"I'm not," I said flatly, but I was lying. My day was ruined. My stomach ached as if I had been caught doing something wrong; I was worried that the rapport I was building with these new students would be compromised, and I dreaded telling the counselor and the other teachers on the team about the incident, but I had to.

I'd like to say I was back to normal today, but I was still a little off balance. We had a modified schedule for testing, so I didn't see either of the two students involved, and maybe that was for the best. Even so,  I'm sure it'll be fine when I do see them tomorrow. Internalized homophobia is insidious and damaging, and as I know all too well, damn near impossible to get rid of completely, but soon enough it fades back beneath the conscious surface. Until next time.

White Horse

Hey, look isn't that Alfie Kohn riding this way?

Go ahead, give it a click.

Twenty One Preps

We have a class in our building for emotionally disturbed students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. It is behaviorally based with a counseling component, set up so that students can earn their way into less restrictive classes by doing well on their point sheets. Until then, one teacher is responsible for delivering an appropriate curriculum for every subject in all three grades. Sixth grade students are rare in the program, especially at the beginning of the year, but right now, they have three in there.

At 8:15 this morning, I was waving good-bye to my homeroom kids and greeting my first period class when I saw that teacher making haste down the hallway. We've been friends for years, and when he saw me too, he waved. "Hey, what do you do in sixth grade English?"

I raised my eyebrows and looked at him skeptically over my glasses. Where to start? "Nothing," I shrugged sarcastically.

"Yeah, me neither," he said, and we laughed.

"Listen," I told him, I'm happy to help you, but it's going to take a little longer than the two minutes my students have to record their homework and get out what they need for class."

"I get you," he answered, and hurried off to the science teacher next door.

Rah Rah Rah

Two interesting pieces about education in the NY Times today, one in The Week in Review section, called Testing the Chinese Way, by Elisabeth Rosenthal, and the other an opinion piece, We're No. 1(1)! by Thomas Friedman: whether intentional or not, to me they seemed rather companionable.

Rosenthal recounts the experience of her own children when enrolled in an international school in Beijing. It was, she writes, "a mostly Western elementary school curriculum with the emphasis on discipline and testing that typifies Asian educational styles." Her point seems to be that neither of her children suffered unduly under such a regiman, although her son did have a year when he required "endless parental cheerleading" and that when they returned to the States, the kids chose a more traditional program because they preferred the feedback that regular testing provided them. The question of whether such a test-centered approach actually benefited her children is left unanswered; it seems that the best she can say is that they were not harmed by it. To me the obvious follow up question is would we be able to say the same about those kids who may not have endless parental cheerleading?

Just a few pages later in the Sunday paper, Thomas Friedman addresses the fact that the USA is not even in the top ten of Newsweek Magazine's top 100 countries in the world. (We're number 11.) Friedman attributes the poor ranking to our education system, and cites Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson's opinion that when it comes to education reform the fault may not lie with "bad teachers, weak principals, or selfish unions," but rather with a lack of student motivation. In a recent piece Samuelson wrote, "Motivation is weak because more students (of all races and economic classes, let it be added) don't like school, don't work hard and don't do well."

Where are those parental cheerleaders when you need them?

Dog Day

It was a gorgeous late summer day here; in fact the weather was much more like fall, and we wanted to spend some time outside. The last time we visited Mount Vernon we discovered a surprising fact: dogs are allowed on the property. Knowing so influenced our decision to upgrade our admission tickets to annual passes; at only ten bucks more, it would take just one more visit to pay for the additional cost, and being able to bring the dog along sealed the deal. So this afternoon, Isabel made her first trip to Mount Vernon.

Because it seems so unlikely that dogs would be allowed on the grounds at all-- it's a national landmark for heaven's sake, and you have to walk them through the visitor center both coming and going-- not many dogs are there, and most visitors are surprised to see one, so she was a celebrity all day. She herself was very interested in all the other animals. She has met horses before, but sheep, hogs, and mules were a different story. She enjoyed the gardens, the wharf, and the model farm, too.

I was pleased to be back just two weeks after our last visit, and as we left today, I imagined seeing the grounds in late fall, maybe on a winter Saturday afternoon, and again in the spring. That annual pass was totally worth it.

Notice

Today at school we got an email that there was a confidential memo in our mailboxes. Such an unusual chain of communication had the staff in a buzz, and it wasn't lessened any by the note from the police officer assigned to our building alerting us to the fact that a somewhat disturbed woman tried to gain access to our school this morning. She insisted that she needed to use the library to watch the children. It was clearly stated that there was never any indication of danger, but the combination of her instability and persistence made it prudent to let us know that she was around. We could recognize her by her Thomas the Train backpack.

Later I was talking to three of my colleagues about the incident. One wondered if it was the woman who lives in her car right down the street from our school. "Who?" I asked, and she described the car and the lady, adding that she had been there since last winter. I drive by that location every day, and I have never noticed either car or woman, but they are there-- I saw them tonight as I left. In my defense, I suppose I could say that my mind is always on the day ahead as I pull into the parking lot and my attention always turned towards home on the return trip. Still, I think there is a larger truth about the invisibility of people who are disadvantaged in our community.

Last Sunday at our local Farmer's Market, I was returning to my car with a bag full of fruit and vegetables. A fellow shopper stood chatting with a friend in the parking lot, and I noticed that her dog was very focused on something in the direction of my car. As I approached the driver's side, a woman was on the sidewalk ahead, and she was talking. I assumed that she was speaking to the dog, and I gave a grin and a nod to a fellow pet lover. "What are you smiling at you f--cking wh-re?" she asked in such a sweet voice that I was literally sitting in the car before I understood her words.  

Hey! I thought, and locking the doors, took a closer look at her. The bags that I had assumed were the result of running errands were stuffed with clothes and all sorts of other things that obviously had not been purchased that day. She picked them up and shuffled away from the bus stop where, had I bothered to think about it, I might have imagined that she was waiting for the transportation that would take her on her way to home or work or some place safe where people cared for her. She was talking to herself the whole way down the street.

Could it be that it is time for me to pull my head out of whatever hole it's in and pay a little more attention to the humans around me? Ya think?

Locker Day

You probably wouldn't think about it unless you were a sixth grade teacher, but when most kids come to middle school, they have absolutely no experience opening a combination lock. Receiving a locker assignment is no less than a rite of passage. Picture if you will, hundreds of 11- and 12-year-olds crowded in along banks of narrow lockers, gripping their combinations in sweaty hands and desperately twirling the dials on their padlocks. Right Left Right is a totally foreign concept to them. Skip the second number once before stopping on it? Ludicrous! What do you mean I have to start from the beginning if I miss one of the numbers?

Twenty minutes of utter chaos always marks the third day of school, but it's one of my favorite mornings of the year. To start with, the kids are so excited to be getting a locker at all. Four cubic feet of property to call their own in the vastness of our school must be very reassuring. The whole combination thing is challenging for most, but not so frustrating as to be impossible, and it's really easy for the staff to assist anyone who is stuck. 

By the end of the day, upwards of 80 percent of the sixth graders can open their lockers unassisted, and it will be everyone before a week has passed. Their faces shine with pride when they feel the lock give way to their tug and hear that satisfying click. They love their lockers, and they are very appreciative to those who have helped them learn a skill that is so valuable to them.

If only all of teaching could be like that.

My Favorite Show

At our school, the morning announcements are shown on television. Various students anchor the broadcast, reading the important events of the day to students and staff, leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance, and directing us to observe the state mandated minute of silence. From time to time, they will have a guest, for example the principal, the IB Coordinator, or a student involved in some activity. They do a nice job, but it can be a little dry, and last year I noticed that not many of my homeroom students were paying attention. Of course I put a quick stop to any talking or whispering, but it's impossible to force someone to focus on something, and who wants a fight like that first thing in the morning, anyway?

My response was to start calling the announcements "my favorite show" as in, Yay! It's time for my favorite show! or Hey! Pay attention! You're totally missing my favorite show! Of course they rolled their eyes at me, but I didn't stop when it was over.  Wow! Did you hear that! The boys basketball team won! AND, they have practice this afternoon! Gosh I love that show! Don't you? Soon, the kids started watching the announcements just so they could make fun of my favorite show. It was excellent!

I started that routine again today with my new students. Obviously, they don't know me yet, and as soon as the announcements were over, one of them turned to me with concern. "So what's your second favorite show?" he asked.