Hard Sell

Earlier in the week, a students asked me to recommend a book for her. I made several suggestions, but none of them sounded quite right to her. As we talked, it turned out that she had just finished a series which she really loved, and she was still in that doldrum period where nothing else could possibly measure up. I understood exactly what she was going through. "I just finished a book I really liked, too," I told her, "and I can't really get into anything else, yet, either." (For the record, it was Moon Over Manifest, the latest Newbery Award winner.) She thanked me and left, empty handed.

Another student overheard the conversation. "Have you read So B. It?" she asked me. I said I hadn't, but I remembered that she liked it enough to write a letter to the author, Sarah Weeks, when we were doing our Letters About Literature assignment. "You have to read it," she insisted." It's the best book ever."

Unfortunately, our library system was being upgraded, and there was no borrowing for two days. On the strength of her recommendation, though, I ordered a copy online. I needn't have bothered though; the next day she brought me her own copy to read. After school, she stopped by my room to see how far I was. I laughed and told her I hadn't had a spare minute to start reading, at which point she picked up the book and read the first chapter to me. It was awesome.

If truth was a crayon, and it was up to me to put a wrapper around it and name its color, I know just what I would call it-- dinosaur skin... The truth is, whether you know something or not doesn't change what it was. If dinosaurs were blue, they were blue; if they were brown, they were brown whether anybody knows it for a fact or not.

This morning I finished the book, and I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't with a big old lump in my throat. More than anything, though, I'm moved by the adamance of the recommendation, and how right my student was.

Thick as Thieves

Yesterday, when it became clear that certain of my students were stealing the keys from the laptop computers, I was supremely irritated.  Six out of fifteen were missing one or more of their keys. Of course, I took immediate measures, signing out each computer and checking it back in at the beginning and end of each class, but I felt resentful that the kids were being cheated out of those five minutes of productive writing time.

Today, I had a heart to heart with a few of my classes. "Be honest," I said, "and speak from the point of view of someone who has stolen something. Why did you do it?"

Some kids confessed to taking things because they wanted them-- they were attracted to the shiny and cool and so they took whatever it was for themselves. Maybe a computer key qualifies as that; I don't know. Most kids, though, admitted to stealing from their siblings or other relatives specifically to hurt those people or make them angry. For them, it was personal.

One of my students adamantly told me that it was my fault for trusting them. She practically mocked me for my naive disappointment. "Face it," she said, "you should have checked up on us more."

I refuse to adopt her level of cynicism, but after hearing their stories, I feel like I do have to accept some of the responsibility for creating an atmosphere where such a thing would happen. That kind of vandalism is a symptom of disregard for our classroom community and lack of respect for me as the authority of that group, and that's on me.

Where Did YOU Come From?

My students are going to write fiction next, and I'm working on a fiction piece, too. I wrote a little of it today to bring to my writing group. I have about 1000 words about a boy named Ned and his mother. They are working as the cooks on a ship, which is something I have a little experience with. Anyway, as I finished the bit that I was working on for tonight, I had a realization about the main character, something I did not know until a few minutes ago.

No matter how many times I read or hear authors tell about how their characters take on lives of their own and literally reveal themselves to the writer, it just seems like so much mumbo jumbo until it happens to me. And THEN it seems almost spooky, like communicating with the Ouija board or something.

Let's just say it definitely puts the spirit in inspiration.

Eye Witness

As the memoir unit draws to a close, I find it notable that this year for the first time ever, four students, in two different classes, wrote about the same incident. It seems that there was a big fight between two girls on the elementary school playground last year, and the kids are still talking about it all these months later. Mind you, neither of the fighters even goes to our school, but the indelible image of the one dragging the other's face through the mud was promoted along with the memoirists. Add to that all the kids who saw the fight but are writing about something else, and the topic has become a bit of a sensation-- even kids who didn't go to that school have an opinion about whether or not Lydia was justified in attacking Claire.

For the most part, the writing on these memoirs is quite good, but it is the discrepancies in the different accounts of this event, which they all saw with their own eyes, which are fascinating. Was it a torn scarf or some defaced shoes that set them off? Who was the first adult on the scene and what did she do? Was it fair for the principal to blame the whole fifth grade for allowing the fight to go on without intervention? What consequences did the girls receive?

Who knows? It sure makes a good story, though.

Rain Maker

This afternoon marked the debut of our new school mascot. We have long been the yellow jackets, and we have a pretty good cheerleading squad, but we have never had an actual mascot until today. They held auditions a week ago, and a lot of sixth graders went out for the chance to wear the cute plush costume and entertain the crowd at home games. They chose six kids to make sure someone was always available, and three of the six are in my class.

The occasion of the Yellow Jacket's premiere was the last home game for the girls basketball team. Before the tip off, there was a ceremony honoring the eighth graders; the coach presented them with flowers and thanked them for their dedication. I watched the poignant moment from the stands, remembering those girls as sixth graders not so very long ago. I knew that they had never won a home game in their three years on the team, and I wished them well.

Wow. Maybe it was the mascot; maybe it was simple pride; maybe it was both, but those girls came out playing harder than I've ever seen. The atmosphere was fun-- the mascot was awesome and the fans were behind the team all the way, and in a super-close game with a fairy tale ending, they won it by one point. Yay!

Crazy Hearts

The kids were very excited about Valentine's Day today-- more so than in recent years, I think. Certainly I received more candy and cards than usual. One student also presented me with a flower she had made out of duct tape-- it was pretty impressive, and it will definitely stay in my curio collection for a while.

Right before lunch, I looked up to find another student mouthing words at me and giggling. I squinted at him and then raised my eye brows. That cheeky boy raised his brows right back at me and continued on with his sweet nothings. Fortunately, I had been tipped off about this prank earlier in the day. "Olive Juice to you, too," I answered him.

Never Mind

Today on the phone my sister told me a funny story about how disappointed her kids were when the attendants at the valet parking weren't wearing tutus and dance slippers. It made me think of Emily Litella-- What's all this about... violins on TV? The deaf penalty? Conserving our natural race horses? Youth in Asia?

It also reminded me of how excited I was on the first day of second grade when our teacher told us we were going to the laboratory, and then how confused when we ended up at the bathroom.

Thaw

The trail down to Raccoon Creek was muddy from all the melted snow. Fifty degrees in February was a welcome break from our recent frosty weather and so we decided to take a walk at a nearby wildlife refuge. The pale sun was not quite warm in the shadeless winter woods, but we had them and the blue, blue sky to ourselves all the way down to the creek, unless you count the woodpeckers and robins as company. (Welcome back, robins!)

Once at the water, we saw a couple gulls and a bald eagle, and when we made it to the marsh, we were greeted by hundreds of tundra swans wintering in the wetlands. Some of the big white birds were clamoring, some were foraging, some were basking in the buttery sunshine, and some doing that graceful swan swimming thing. It was surreal and beautiful and a little hard to turn away from, but the days are still short and so we headed back.

Back to School

I went back to work today, not fully recovered but certainly much, much better than I have been. It wasn't going to be a strenuous day: I knew my students would be busy typing during class time, and I wanted a chance to get a little organized for next week. I also figured if it wiped me out, I'd be able to rest some more over the weekend.

It was nice to be back-- many of my colleagues expressed concern and wished me well and the students seemed very happy to have me back. Too happy, in fact. It didn't take long to notice that they cheered my return without even asking about my absence beyond an occasional accusatory "Where were you?"

In what became a typical conversation of the day, I would answer, "I was sick," in a voice still a bit congested and punctuated by a little cough now and then.

The inevitable reply? "Well thank goodness you're better, because that sub you had was meeeeeeaaaaan!"

See? Education really is all about the students. It's all about them.

Breadcrumbs

Sometimes the signs all seem to point in a single direction. Several weeks ago, we saw a preview for a movie which was memorable mostly because it had one of the actors from Glee in it. A couple weeks after that, we were watching TV on a snow day when we saw another young actor badgered into removing his shirt. He was on the show to promote that same movie. Just last week, one of my students told me that her whole family was reading a particular book-- they had it in hard cover and kindle versions and they kept swiping them from each other to get a little farther along. "You should really read it," she told me earnestly, "it's that good." And then the day before yesterday, when my head hurt too much to read or watch TV, or almost anything else except lie in a dim room, it occurred to me to look for an audiobook I could listen to (turned down very low) to at least distract me a little from my misery. The first one I found was I Am Number Four, which was the very same movie and book from each of these other anecdotes.

I finished it a little earlier today, and I liked it enough to look forward to seeing the movie when it opens next week and to pre-order the next book in the series (not out until August). And, if nothing else, it saw me through to a point in my little illness where I can once again sit in a lighted room or in front of a screen for more than a couple of minutes. Thank you, Pittacus Lore. (Yeah, that's a pen name.)

Not Quite on My Way

Being sick today was like being stuck at the airport when your flight has been delayed-- there's nowhere to go, and none of the food tastes good. I sat around all day drinking water and listening to an audiobook. Fortunately, my couch was slightly more comfortable than the notorious gate area seating, but I'm still waiting to hear that boarding call for my flight back to wellness.

Round Three Goes to the Flu

Down for the count, flattened, conquered, beaten. Crushed, trounced, overwhelmed, routed, white washed-- that's me today.

Bring It

Today I had the opening session of the latest section of the online early adolescent development course I coordinate, and once again it was very interesting how different this group was from the other two. I guess I understand this concept when it comes to kids, but for some reason it still surprises me when it's an adult class. This group was much less freaked out by the technology details but way more concerned with the minimum amount of work that might be considered "acceptable." I gave my now standard speech about the design of the course and its reliance on participants applying the information provided to their teaching practices. I made the point that each would really get out of the course about as much as he or she put into it. Still there was a question at the end about a particular component. "What if I'm on line, but I don't post very much?"

I shrugged. "Look," I said, "it's like a pot luck. You can bring the paper napkins or you can bake a pie. You still get to eat. You decide what's best for you."

Mixed Blessing

I went to bed last night with a fever of 101 and a sinus headache that felt like I'd been hit in the face with a cast iron skillet. I didn't feel any better when I woke up this morning, and nothing I took or did seemed to help. I stayed in bed until 2:30 this afternoon, and only stumbled down to the kitchen because I was craving grapefruit and a cup of tea. The steaming water in the kettle gave me another idea, and acting on that whim, I made a hot compress and placed it over the bridge of my nose, cheeks, and eyes. It was really hot, and it totally worked-- my headache went away almost immediately. I think I'm even going to be able to go to school tomorrow.

Clowning Around

So the joke box in my room is overflowing, which is an excellent reminder that kids know what kids like and we should listen to them as often as we can. The student who initiated the joke contest came up to talk to me about it the other day. "So what are we going to give as a prize? Don't say a lollipop."

I laughed and shrugged. "This is your thing. What do you think the prize should be?"

Yesterday, all on her own, she brought a little back-flipping gorilla and a better lollipop than the ones I have. "Time to judge the contest," she said and ceremoniously dumped all the jokes onto my desk. Friday is game day in homeroom and several kids set aside their connect four and checkers and came over to lend a hand. After we went through them, it was a tie. "What are we going to do now?" the jokemaster wondered, and I looked around my room. After 18 years, I have quite a whimsical collection of odds and ends. I pulled a clown's nose from a decorated tin can on the shelf behind me.

"How about this?" I asked, donning the schnoz for effect. It was perfect, so perfect in fact that we jumped on the computer and ordered a dozen more to last us the rest of the year. The whole set was four bucks and they'll be delivered on Monday. "Don't worry, I got this," I assured the assembled students.

"See? This is why I love this homeroom!" said one, and I had to agree.

Word Study

I always like it when my students are smarter than I am. Let me give you an example from today: My classes are revising their drafts of memoirs, and one of the kids came up to ask my opinion about a sentence in her first paragraph. I was clinging to the red balance bar oblivious to the fact that soon I would be seeing another shade of red-- blood red.

"That's great!" I told her.

"But does oblivious sound right, there?" she asked me.

"Sure," I answered. "You don't know you're going to fall soon. You're definitely oblivious."

"But doesn't oblivious mean I should know I'm going to fall, like I'm supposed to be aware of it, but I'm not?"

She had a point about the implications of the word. Her usage seemed right to me, but I had to stop and think about the nuances of oblivion. I questioned her about the bars-- how high they were and how she got up there and whether they were meant to be climbed on as she was doing. She and two other students gave me a lively discourse on the playground design at their elementary school, even drawing a diagram of the equipment. I listened carefully.

"Well," I said when they had finished, "I think you were oblivious to the danger. You should have known you might fall."

"But I climbed them every day," she said. "Everybody did. I never thought they were... ooooohhhh! I was oblivious! Thanks!" and off she went to finish her draft.

Vitamin G

I don't like taking medicine. Headache, stomach ache, cramps, aches and pains, whatever, I usually just go with it. Occasionally, an aspirin to take the edge off, but I don't even like to take vitamins-- I try to get my nutrients from my diet. My doctor and I don't always agree about this practice, but so far my blood panels have been fine.

Even so, the last time I saw her, she pushed the multi-vitamin again. "But it upsets my stomach," I grumbled.

She recommended gummy vitamins. "They're not just for kids, you know."

Reluctantly, I made the purchase and threw the bottle in my lunch bag. The next day after I finished my delicious homemade vegetable soup, all full of vitamins, and before I ate my clementine, also chocked with nutrients, I sighed and picked out two soft little orange drops.

And here I must confess that my doctor was right-- they were really good! I don't think I've eaten gummy anything since high school, but I always liked the bears back then, and suddenly I understood why my niece and nephew beg to take their vitamins each day. Yummy! I am a convert.

Salut!

A Fair Day

On this most unscientific of days, when traditionally we interpret the actions of a large rodent as signifying whether the weather will be wintery for another six weeks or if perchance spring is right around the corner, we finally held our school science fair.

Oh the fun I had as a wandering judge questioning random students about their experiments. They gave us a rubric and a standard set of questions that every student was supposed to be able to answer. First and foremost, they were expected to state the hypothesis and ideally cite some research to support it. Most of the kids I talked to, though, based their theory on personal experience-- they believed the battery, fire log, and detergent they used at home would perform the best. No wonder companies spend so much money marketing to kids.

Another of the stock questions was, How could you improve your experiment? My favorite answer came from a cute little sixth grader wiggling around with a skate board in hand. His display board was very stark-- all black and white with minimal text and missing the required graph. In front of it, though, were four little finger skateboards of the type that are confiscated by teachers any time they make an appearance in the classroom. The student himself wore long shorts, a t-shirt, vans and a cap turned backward on his head. His hypothesis? Skateboarding relieves stress.

"Why do you think so?" I asked.

"Because, I'm a skater and I never feel stress," he told me.

I couldn't argue with that, but his scientific method was a little iffy. He'd gone to the skate park and asked people how they felt as they entered and then again as they left. He also asked a few other random people how they felt. I began to understand why there was no graph.

"So... what would you do differently if you did this experiment again?" I asked him. "How do you think you could improve it?"

"I wouldn't change anything," he told me. "Other people might have a problem with this experiment, but personally, I like how it is. I'm satisfied."

It must have been the skateboard.

Emeritus

This year I gave up my position as co-coach of the girls basketball team at our school. There was no animosity involved; it was really just my realization that 15 years was enough and the fact that I wanted to do other things with that time, like the Tolerance Club and the Literary Magazine.

Still, it's an odd sensation to watch the games from the other side of the court. I know all the players, not to mention the plays. I like to imagine that I am helpful in some way, calling out encouragement and guidance in a familiar voice from a place where perhaps the coach's voice is too faint for the girls to hear. And I am still very disappointed when they lose, because I know they are so much better than that.

Re-thinking My Routine

When I sit down to write I always check my email first (all three accounts) and then facebook and my iGoogle page. Who knows what inspiration lies in those places? Well, to be honest, I actually have a fair idea, and it's usually not much. Still, I persist in my habits, despite my limited time and the other demands on it.

This morning on the radio I heard that it was Norman Mailer's birthday; he would have been 88. I think the only thing I ever read by him was The Executioner's Song back when I was in college. I don't remember what drew me to the story of Gary Gilmore, but I do remember that it was his girlfriend, Nicole, who was the most compelling character in the book, that and the whole "Let's do it!" thing.

But I wasn't thinking of any of that this morning when I heard Garrison Keillor read this quotation of Mailer's:

I used to have a little studio in Brooklyn, a couple of blocks from my house — no telephone, not much else. The only thing I ever did there was work. It was perfect. I was like a draft horse with a conditioned reflex. I came in ready to sit at my desk. No television, no way to call out. Didn't want to be tempted.

No, hearing those particular words, I was simply struck by the wisdom of the writer. Happy Birthday, Mr. Mailer.

Exceptional

To regular readers of WtD it is not news that I see a lot of movies. I like going to the movies, and I'm really not that picky about the films themselves. It takes a lot to make me dislike a movie.

Having said that, it also takes a lot to make me love a movie. It seems the older I get, the harder I am to impress; movies don't seem as thrilling and as moving and as completely involving as they did when I was younger. I'm not sure what that is about, but most of the time, I leave the theater with a half smile and a that-was-okay shrug, ready to get on with my business. I confess that it is always a little disappointing when the unspoken promise of the darkened house lights is undelivered and a movie does no more than simply entertain me for a couple of hours, but I manage.

Today was an exception. We saw Biutiful with Javier Bardem, and it was completely gratifying to me-- I loved it. In an interview with NPR, the director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, explains that the film is a tragedy and defends its darkness:

...tragedy has some rules and those rules is about somebody who will be hit by destiny in every angle.
And while he is falling down, free-fall, how this character, with dignity, will find a way to redeem himself, to find light, to find a verticality in his existence and put everything together. That's what tragedy's about. And this film is that. It's an exercise. From "Medea" to "King Lear," to "Macbeth," it's just that this guy is not a king.

Don't be put off by the bleak premise. Biutiful is a smart, empathetic movie that addresses desperation and morality in the world today, and Javier Bardem's performance is stunning.

Ten Out of Ten

We saw the last of the best picture nominees this afternoon. Our viewing quest actually started last June, when we went to Toy Story 3, and  I blubbered my way through the entire film. Then in early July, we saw Winter's Bone, and you can bet I'm still patting myself on the back for calling that one. Like many people, we saw Inception last summer, too, and we also saw The Kids Are All Right, which I did not enjoy.

We went to The Social Network right after Thanksgiving and True Grit and The Fighter over Christmas. I can't believe I didn't blog about the girl-on-girl stuff in Black Swan when we saw it on New Years, but The King's Speech was on my mind on January 2.

So, when the nominations were announced last Tuesday, it turned out that we only had one movie to see of the ten nominated for Best Picture. It was 127 Hours, and I confess that I had been avoiding it. I got a little graveyard chill and my arm tingled anytime I even considered spending 93 minutes watching that gruesome story unwind.

But with 100% completion so close to my grasp, I laid my eight dollars down and braced for the worst. It was excruciating in places, but not at all what I expected. The director, Danny Boyle's last film was Slum Dog Millionaire, and his depiction on life-or-death adversity in this movie was a compliment to his earlier work. He uses montage, music, and intense sensory images to convey the harshness, but also the beauty, of the situations his characters must rise above.

Don't get me wrong-- I didn't really enjoy 127 Hours, but I guess I do appreciate being pushed out of my comfort zone-- it gives me stuff to think about, for sure-- so maybe you could say I did like it.

By that reasoning alone, I'm glad I saw each of the 10 movies which have been recognized this year.

Plus that's all of them! Ha!

Idiot Box

A couple of snow days and a new TV have combined to create a situation where I have watched too much television today. A bank robber shot dead, a young actor badgered into removing his shirt, the Kardashians, and Charlie Sheen dominated the day. I know better, but I guess I needed a reminder.

No TV tomorrow.

One More Science Fair Story

So before the weather refused to cooperate yesterday, our students were busy preparing to defend their science fair projects and answer the questions of the three random adults who were there to judge them. They worked in pairs and quizzed each other, starting with the basics and moving on from there, with varying degrees of success and confidence. As they practiced, I circulated, listening and making suggestions here and there. Eventually I got to one pair of boys. "What's your hypothesis?" asked the first.

"What is a hypothesis again?" asked his partner in return.

"You know-- your idea about what will happen," said the first.

"Oh yeah! My hypothesis is that I am going to rock this science fair!"

Now that's confidence.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

Six hundred science fair boards filled our cavernous field house. A few finishing touches were being put on a few last-minute displays, and everywhere, kids rehearsed answers to the judging questions. Clipboards, badges, guidelines, and refreshments were prepared for the 150 volunteers coming to help judge, when...

Our school was informed we would be closing two hours early for the winter weather on its way. We had 90 minutes to feed everyone lunch and get those display boards back to the correct science teacher. Yes. It. Was. Chaos.

Many of the surrounding school systems were either delayed or closed today, because of sleet this morning and fair warning as to how the storm would develop; if we had been, too, the fair would have been automatically postponed to the snow date, sparing many folks a lot of inconvenience. As it is, we're going to do it all again next Wednesday, which just happens to be... Groundhog Day!

(Cue I've Got You Babe to play us out.)

Science Fair Madness

Tomorrow is the all-school science fair and since every student is expected to participate, 150 members of the community have volunteered to come in and help our staff judge over 600 science fair projects in just under 2 hours. All the teachers on our team have been working hard to support the science teachers and make sure that every student has a board and is prepared to explain the experiment and answer the questions of three judges.

You can imagine how hectic it's been in every room and the hallways as students spread their 4 x 4 presentation boards on every available surface to cut and glue all the components in their proper places. Scraps of paper, scissors, tape, and glue sticks are everywhere, and kids commute back and forth down the long hallway that runs the length of our school to the color printer.

This afternoon, it was all hands on deck for that final push. The science teacher was in my room helping one student with his data table, and I was helping another make a bar graph from his data, when a third boy burst into the room. "I've lost my purpose!" he cried in panic. We shrugged and shook our heads without much sympathy. "But, but," he stammered, "I don't have a purpose!

"Well," the science teacher told him, "print another one." Problem solved.

Earworms

Lately when I wake up in the middle of the night and find it difficult to get back to sleep, I realize that I have a song stuck in my head, too. It's not always the same one, but it is always nearly impossible to get rid of, and it definitely contributes to my sleeplessness. In researching this phenomena, I've found that it is called an earworm. No one knows why it happens, and there is no definitive cure. The number one piece of advice offered is to tolerate those haunting melodies until they fade off on their own. Um. No.

Years ago I had a friend who swore that singing Sister Christian by Night Ranger would knock any song out of your head, but even motorin' through that little ditty hasn't helped. Focused breathing, meditation, prayer, none of them help to disrupt the phonological loop bludgeoning my brain. Today I read that music on a non-western scale, such as Indonesian Gamelan or even Gregorian chanting, might work, and I intend to put some on my iPod right now and leave it next to my bed tonight.

Can't hurt.

Check Your Local Listings

I like football.

Not to watch, but because it empties the roads and stores and movie theaters for a few hours every Sunday, allowing me to delude myself that this area really isn't way overcrowded. I live the same fantasy during the summer when I'm off, too.

For that reason alone, I'm a little sad that the season is almost over, even though I don't care at all about the sport. I was, however,  really looking forward to getting a lot done with two high profile games scheduled for today. Unfortunately, I didn't check the game times before I went about my business, and I paid a high price for that oversight. The gym and every store was packed, packed! with people trying to fit their own errands in before the 3 PM kickoff of the first playoff game. In fact it was even more crowded than usual because of the big games.

I hate football.

Working Hard for a Restful Saturday

It's a lot of work to enter the 21st century. We decided to get a large-ish flat screen TV for Christmas, and the 46-incher was delivered last Monday setting off a cascading chain of events. It would not fit in the TV cabinet we have, and so we needed something else, BUT that was a nice piece of furniture, albeit obsolete now. We decided to move upstairs to our landing to provide a little extra storage in our space-challenged condo. It's much too heavy for us to carry alone, and the TV in there? A monster. We asked our handy man if he would mind doing the heavy lifting, and he agreed to come over this morning. The next question was to do with a perfectly good television that no one really wants. Best Buy would dispose of it for a hundred bucks; various other enterprises would recycle it for anywhere between 25 and 50 dollars; Goodwill would take it for free. We asked the handy man to drop it at Goodwill on his way home. Our DVR boxes are dinosaurs at the age of six, as is our cable box. The cable guy is coming on Monday to install some cards into the new HD DVR I ordered. It's optimal to have the DVR on our home network, but that requires a new wireless adapter, which I ordered, too, but then there was the requisite set-up wizard, this before we could activate the DVR. Then there's the hardwired set up: DVR, DVD player, cable box, and Wii, a total of 12 cables and cords. Ay yi yi-- like so many things, there's just so much to do before relaxing.

Six-Word Memoirs

This year I'm again using a studio approach to memoir, giving my students lots of opportunities to collect material through writing exercises and other short assignments. For example, yesterday we had a guest poet who did "I Remember" list poems with the kids, and today they composed six six-word memoirs each and posted them to our class's online discussion board. Here are some of my favorites:

The teacher never saw it coming.
That baseball bat was my favorite.
Never let Mom cut your hair.
Who stays frozen in freeze tag?
Bad things happen on slippery floors.
Geese hate sharing with each other.
Your parents are not good dancers.
Stay away from my pet monkey.
The foam cubes smelled like feet.
Bike + speed bump = crash.
Long car rides are worth it.
Jellyfish are like sneaky little spies.
My first yellow card was stupid.
The medal gleamed in the sun.
The diving board was my nemesis.
I will avenge my squished rabbit!
My name means victory in Arabic.
Ignore the question, "How many fingers?"
We got away from the police.

The final product will be a Tom Romano inspired multi-genre piece that incorporates the best of what each student has. They will take vignettes, maps, comics, poetry, and even a six-worder or two, and weave them into and around a more traditional narrative memoir. Constructing a multigenre piece requires the higher order thinking skills of analysis and synthesis, and also provides kids ways to organize and express their ideas using multiple intelligences.

That's the concept, anyway. This part is new to me, so I'll be interested to see how it all turns out.

So, here is my own half-dozen six-word memoirs:

Those tadpoles never had a chance.
Every beach house needs a kite.
Round one goes to the dog.
Watch out! Bigwheels don't have brakes.
Broken thermometers taste like sharp mercury.
He can't cross the street alone.

Good Call

A student walked up to me today and said, "You're going to give me a lolly pop." I raised my eyebrows, and she continued, "I have a joke I know will make you laugh."

"Let's hear it," I said.

Three guys were driving through the desert when their car broke down. They decided to walk for help. The first guy said he would carry the water in case they got thirsty. The second guy volunteered to carry the food in case they got hungry. The third guy started unbolting the door from the side of the car. "What's that for?" one of the other guys asked. 

"In case we get hot, we can roll down the window," he answered.

Yep. She was right.

Another Note to Self

I took the day off to run some errands and take care of some routine medical appointments. As it happened, nothing took as long as I thought it might, and so I arrived early for everything. What a revelation! I'm usually a one-or-two-minutes-late kind of a gal, but I found that when you're early it's a lot less stressful. So what if you can't find a parking space right away? You have time to spare. Who cares if the elevator is slow? No worries. I relaxed guilt-free in every waiting room until my name was called either right on time or even a little early.

I think part of my tardiness trouble may be the start time for school. To get everything I need done in the morning and be on time for work, I have to get up by 5:30. Even though I've been doing that for fifteen years, it still seems way too early for me, and I cling to those few minutes of extra sleep, so when I get up I'm already behind. Then, too, I fall into the trap of trying to cram too much into a day, so that I'm always rushing to finish this so I can run do that.

How can I make every day more like today?

PS-- I named this post before I checked to see if I had used the title Note to Self before, and it turns out that I had, almost exactly a year ago, so I retitled this one. I'm glad I checked, because that other post was good advice, too.

And in this Corner...

I've always liked the movie Stand By Me, probably because it has so much that appeals to me personally: the boys in it are roughly the age of my students; it takes place in Maine; it's based on a short story by Stephen King. And then consider the cast: River Phoenix, Kiefer Sutherland, Jerry O'Connell, Will Wheaton, and Corey Feldman. Great movie.

One of my favorite scenes is when the boys are sitting around the campfire and they have the following exchange:

Vern: Do you think Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman?
Teddy: What are you, cracked?
Vern: Why not? I saw it the other day. He was carrying five elephants in one hand!
Teddy: Boy, you don't know nothing! Mighty Mouse is a cartoon. Superman's a real guy. There's no way a cartoon could beat up a real guy.
Vern: Yeah, maybe you're right... It'd be a good fight, though!

I thought about that tonight when I heard Michelle "Waiting for Superman" Rhee on Marketplace talking about the value of competition and how it relates to education. After hearing her perspective, I think this would be another really good fight:

Michelle Rhee vs Alfie Kohn

Family Is as Family Does

Over the weekend we drove 900 miles to Buffalo and back to see Heidi's nephew, Kyle. He lives in northern Mississippi, and part of the reason we made the trip was because his mom won't allow him to spend "unsupervised" time with us, since we're a same-sex couple. It's okay if Heidi's folks are around, so off we went to their home for one of our twice-a-year visits.

It turns out that even though Kyle is only ten, he has a facebook account. Evidently, his mom approves of that. So anyway, in between the sledding, and the magic tricks, and the homework, and the alchemy, and the charades this weekend, we friended him.

Tonight when I signed in to fb, I had the following alert: Kyle added you to the group Family.

I clicked Like... but what will the rest of the family think?

No Lolly Pop For Them

I'm more than a little confused as to why the Hollywood Foreign Press (aka the Golden Globe Awards) insists on treating the movie The Kids Are All Right as a comedy. I can't say I found it the least bit amusing, but maybe it's just me. That reminds me of a joke:

Q: How many lesbians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: That is NOT funny.

The Other Side of the Coin

Sometimes when kids or their parents know they will be absent for one or more days, they ask for the school work in advance, and then we the teachers dutifully write directions, gather assignments and materials, and send them home. More often than not, we never see them again, and that can be kind of frustrating.

As it turns out, Kyle brought a lot of homework with him this weekend. He's missing a couple of days of school in order to visit his grandparents in Buffalo, so his teacher sent along several assignments in all of his subjects. Our first reaction was no problem-- who better to help a fifth grader stay current on his school work than two teachers?

Oh how naive we were. His spelling has taken hours, and we're still not sure that he's doing it right. There is still reading, social studies, and math work to go. He's trying to be responsible, but he loses focus after a certain amount of time, even with a licensed teacher sitting by his side.

No wonder we don't get that work back.

Life Lessons

It seems impossible, but some people need to be told explicitly not to play ring tones with lyrics like I wanna shoot you in the ass with a beebee gun for their grandmothers. True, said person is ten, but still...

Would I Get a Lolly Pop?

Who knows where some conversations come from?

The other day I heard myself tell the students in my homeroom that I would give a lolly pop to anyone who could make me laugh out loud. To be fair, I'm pretty sure one of the kids started it. I think it went something like this:

Student: We should have a suggestion box.
Me: Okay.
Student: Or, just a comment box.
Me: Okay.
Student: Or a joke box... Yeah that's it!
Me: What would we do with a joke box?
Student: You could just read the jokes at the end of every month.
Me: Why don't we just tell jokes sometimes?
Student: Why would we do that?

And so it went, until six students were crowded around my desk trying to tell me jokes. Maybe it's performance anxiety, maybe I'm a tough audience, but so far only one has made me laugh:

Q: Why don't sea gulls fly over the bay?
A: Because then they would be bay gulls.

Wait for it...

Funny, right?

Don't Spend It All in One Place

Getting an inch of snow is like winning ten cents in the lottery. ~Bill Watterson

Day One

Okay. It's really hard not to scold kids. Here were the hazardous conversations I had to have today alone: the seven children who did not have their homework, the three who did not bring anything to write with to my class, the two who were tardy unexcused, the one who snapped the pencil I had just lent him in half and left it on the table when class was over, the one who broke one of my rulers and threw it on the floor, and the several who felt it necessary to have side conversations when one of their classmates was reading.

In Trouble

I got a scolding today. I won't say who administered it or what it pertained to, because that's not really relevant. I will say that nobody likes to be chided, and after years of teaching and aunting (and delivering more than a few tongue lashings myself) I have come to understand that such a rebuke is usually more for the benefit of the scolder than the scoldee.

As good as it feels to vent your righteous indignation, being reprimanded makes most people very defensive, and as a corollary, deaf to your message. All they're thinking of are excuses and reasons why you are more wrong than they are. That's exactly the position I was in today-- speechless, but also angry and closed-off to any legitimate concerns that may have been expressed in the admonishment.

So, although it's a little late in the new year, I hereby resolve to scold not, and also to curb my own negative reactions when reproached, because neither is especially productive.

Weather

I use iGoogle to keep track of the weather in places where there's a little piece of my heart. There are five locations stacked up and down in the center of my home page like a blue and white highrise and checking the weather is like looking out the windows of the apartments on different floors. Today, for the first time in my condominium of climate, there's snow behind every curtain-- in Minnesota, Buffalo, and Maine (which is hardly surprising but rarely happens all at once), and also in Washington and Atlanta a perfect palette of white will prevail. Cool.

The Timing Was Off

“My name is Helen,” the student read, “I sort of like my name. Helen is unusual, but I just can’t find it on key chains and stuff, which I hate. I also don’t like it, because everyone’s grandma is named Helen.”

“My grandmother’s name was Helen,” I said.

“See what I mean?” she answered.

We laughed, but later when I thought about the conversation, I thought about my grandmother. I never knew her; she died ten years before I was born. When I was growing up, my father rarely spoke about his parents, and as children, we never asked. To us, they were black and white faces in a picture frame, and nothing more.

So here’s everything I know about my grandmother: Her name was Helen and she lived her entire life in Little falls, NY. She married my grandfather, Harold, in 1920, at the age of 20. They had eight children, seven boys and one girl. I have a photograph of the entire family taken in 1942 when my father, the second youngest, was seven, and they are a very handsome family, indeed. In 1928, when the Phoenix Underwear Company mill, of which he was a manager, moved to NC, my grandfather bought a funeral home and became the town’s Catholic undertaker. The sinks and slab were in the basement, the parlors and office were on the ground floor, and the family lived upstairs.

Helen was very permissive with her children—no matter what they were having for dinner, she always made a platter of hamburgers, in case someone didn’t like the meal, and once, when the boys were rough-housing in the dining room, they tipped her china cupboard out the second floor window. When he heard the crash, my grandfather came running from his office downstairs, furious at the destruction, but she stood in front of the children. “Harold,” she told him, “they’re just boys, and boys will be boys.” Then she went and cleaned up the mess, because none of the boys were ever required to lift a finger around the house.

She was diagnosed with cancer at the age of fifty and was bed-ridden for most of a year. Dying, she was determined to make it to my uncle’s wedding in December of 1951, and to everyone’s amazement, she did. My grandmother died in the first days of 1952 and was buried on my father’s 17th birthday, something from which he never completely recovered.

That's it. My dad, my uncles, and my aunt are all gone now, and with them went the chance that I'll ever know much more about her, which is really a shame for me, because now? I'm interested.

Exposure

We're still plugging away at the Tolerance Club. A couple of months ago, someone had the idea to sponsor movies every month or so after school and invite the whole student body. Our first presentation was Bullied, a short documentary about Jamie Nabozny, a gay teen who was so severely harassed in school with so little support from the administration that he sued the school district and won. We advertised, served popcorn and drinks, and offered an hour of community service credit for anyone who came to the library on a Friday afternoon. To our amazement, 75 kids showed up and heard the message that intolerance is wrong. They even applauded when the verdict was read.

Yesterday it was another documentary short, this one on kids with Tourette's Syndrome. In addition to the film, I Have Tourette's, but Tourette's Doesn't Have Me, we also had a guest speaker-- a young woman who was diagnosed with the neurological disorder at the age of four, but who went on to graduate from UVa and is currently in law school. Her presentation and Q&A with the 75 students who also attended this event were compelling and very moving in their honesty. At one point she told the kids that as hard as it was to cope with her condition and the social consequences, she was glad in a way to have had Tourette's, because everyone has to deal with something and her struggle made her much more empathetic.

I know enough about adolescent development to understand that having difficulty accepting differences is actually an appropriate stage for kids to work through. I don't expect miracles, but it feels good to initiate some real conversations the likes of which rarely happen in middle school.

What is Literacy?

Before I left for my grammar PLC yesterday afternoon, my friend advised me to cheer up. "At least you'll have something to write about," she said.

"Don't worry about me," I told her, because I wasn't worried at all. I was attending as a teacher who had assigned out of context grammar worksheets and given a quiz on pronoun agreement in the last couple of days. Surely I would be embraced by the group.

That's not quite how it went down, though. Just as we were getting started, one of the other members entered the room breathlessly. "I have a question about grammar!" she announced. "How do you teach transitive and intransitive verbs?" she paused dramatically. "You see the text book," and here she opened it with a flourish, "only mentions action and linking verbs. What do we do about that?"

I happen to know the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs (hint: it has something to do with a direct object), but the discussion that followed was about whether it is reasonable to expect the same from sixth grade students, and what our objective might be for such an expectation. Will it make them more fluent writers? Will it make them better communicators? Is it worth not only the instructional time but also the engagement credibility you would be forced to spend on such an endeavor?

"I just think they should know basic grammar," the original teacher declared. "At some point it becomes a matter of cultural literacy."

Others posited that perhaps that was specialized knowledge that might not be a top priority for sixth grade. "Do you know the sixth grade science curriculum?" I asked her. She admitted that she did not. "You're a functional, productive citizen," I told her, "even without a sixth grade science education. It seems like you're doing okay."

She allowed that she was, and the conversation moved on.

That Which We Call a Rose

As part of the memoir genre study we are working on, I'm giving the students short daily writing exercises from which I hope they will be able to gather material. Last night they were supposed to write a page on their names-- what they mean, where they came from, how they like them, etc.

Today volunteers shared their pieces with the class. There were some touching tales of nicknames and namesakes, but there were some hilarious stories, too. One girl swore that her mother found her name on a keychain in Walmart that was 75% off. "She got my name on clearance!" she gasped.

Another girl told us that she was supposed to be named Dixie after her great grandmother, but when they informed the old woman about the honor, she said, "Why would she want that old name? She's too pretty for it! Call her something else." So they did.

And then there were the two students who were named by their young brothers after the Pink Power Ranger and one of the Rugrats.

This is going to be a good unit.

Wise Woman

it's always heartening to read the words of someone who gets it:

Where can teachers find such collegiality today? Where are the institutions or publications that are built around deep respect for the intelligence and inventiveness of teachers—and kids? Are they there, but I'm missing them? The teachers I run into seem instead overwhelmed with study groups and programs driven by contextually empty data. Garbage in, garbage out. 

Read the whole post here.

I Heart Divergent Thinkers

First day back from break, and I decided to do a little grammar to ease back into our routine. I know. It's out of character, but there you have it, and who can't use a little practice with pronoun agreement? I made it as palatable as possible-- I used a chompchomp.com exercise; the students worked in collaborative groups; there was a smartboard involved-- high interest, I tell you, engaging, even.

The final sentence was a bit of a challenge, referring to some crickets and a frog making such a racket outside a poor kid's window that he couldn't study properly for his pronoun agreement quiz, and one of my students was extremely confused. "But wait," he said with furrowed brow. "Wouldn't the frog eat the crickets?"

Call it Denial

I whiled away the day in mindless leisure. At 9:40 this morning we caught the first show of The King's Speech at our local cinema, enjoying coffee, cookies, and clementines in the dark of the nearly deserted theater. Back home, it was lucky leftovers from the traditional New Years dinner, and an hour on YouTube watching newsreels and listening to recordings of the real King George VI.

I moved from computer screen to TV screen next, spending a couple of hours on Epic Mickey, the Wii game I asked for and received for Christmas. I am not a natural or experienced gamer, so it was by extreme trial and error that I made it out of Dark Beauty Castle, and although I never tired of the implicit menace in the arrangement of Once Upon a Dream in minor chords, I felt a great sense of accomplishment in doing so.

But then, while trying to update my Wii internet connection, I totally screwed up the settings for my home wifi network, and I was engrossed in configuring and reconfiguring this and that wireless router, without complete success, I'm afraid, which leaves that particular puzzle for another day. And that brings us to now-- me in front of a screen again, thinking of the final preparations for dinner, and the movie we'll watch tonight, but not at all about returning to work tomorrow.

Those Things, Those Fabulous Things

It's another family tradition of ours to have holiday crackers on the table at this time of year. For those who may not be familiar, crackers are an English tradition; they are rolls of cardboard covered in colorful foil that is twisted at both ends. Each has a snap, a paper crown, a toy or novelty, and a joke of some kind inside. You open them a little like you break a wishbone: two people tug on either end until the snap pops and one person has the larger half with all the goodies inside.

By the end of any festive meal, everyone is wearing a crown, and some may have two or three on. My favorite part is the joke or riddle-- usually a terrible pun but occasionally an unfathomable British joke, for example, Q: What do ghosts wear on wet days? A: Khaghouls. Funny right? (Seriously-- comment if you get it and are willing to explain it to a dim witted Yank like myself.) Years ago, the crackers we used to get had the jokes in English, French, Spanish, and Italian, and trying to read and translate them was lots of fun and much hilarity always ensued.

Tonight's New Years Day dinner was the last cracker event of the season, but rather than be done with them entirely, I found this article on The Telegraph website: Top Ten Worst Cracker Jokes Ever. The jokes are only in English, but I think they are corny enough to get me through until next year.