Long Weekend Short

The best consequence of the continuing commercialization the Academy Awards is the release of 15 films we might never see otherwise. Animated, Live Action, and Documentary-- going to the theater to watch the Oscar-nominated shorts is always a highlight of our February. It is the antidote to all those big-budget blockbusters (as much as I love 'em), and a reminder that there is so much more to the art than the industry of the movies.

Gentleman Where Am I?

I love my iPad... except when I don't. An errant keystroke just deleted three paragraphs of tonight's post. It was good stuff, too, all about crazy right-wing novels, time traveling, and various ways of bringing Abraham Lincoln back from the dead, but now it belongs to the ages.

Spinning

A little after noon yesterday our school lost all phone and network connectivity. At first it was a minor nuisance, for example we could not produce grade reports for the parent conference we had scheduled at 1:30, but we apologized and made it through without any trouble. As the outage persisted, though, we were reminded again and again of how dependent we are on technology, mostly because we could not access most of the instructional materials and information that we have come to rely on.

Late in the afternoon, a couple of my colleagues who were going to be out today were trying to make sub plans. One wrote everything by hand, which took several hours, and the other made arrangements to email everything so that it could be printed out this morning. Imagine the frantic phone call I got after he tried to contact school and realized that everything was still down. He was on his way to California and there were no student rosters, no printable copy of the vocabulary quiz he was giving, and the computer labs he had booked for his classes were useless.

Of course we improvised and everything turned out fine. But as the network was slowly restored throughout the day, it was uncomfortable and a little disturbing to realize just how critical this fragile web we have woven is.

View From Below

One of the occupational hazards of teaching younger kids is developing an inflated view of yourself. Such a skewed perspective can be difficult to avoid after spending years being the smartest (not to mention usually the biggest and the strongest) one in the room. Oh, there are always those who will test you, but most of us adults can best an eleven-year-old in any battle of wits. (Once a student asked a colleague of mine if it was Idaho or Udaho. "You tell me," my friend answered. See what I mean?) Such a professional life might at least explain, if not excuse, the arrogance of some teachers. (OK, me.)

Aaaah, but this Writing Club I co-sponsor could just be the antidote to this condition. Thursday after Thursday for an hour after school, I get totally outwritten by those kids, and today was no exception. They are funny, bold, creative, and really, really good writers. They are definitely serving up some humble pie, but I kind of like it.

Thank goodness they're still shorter than I am.

Ode to the Ode

I had a guest poet scheduled to visit my class yesterday. The timing was perfect-- poetry and Valentine's Day?-- and this particular poet and I have worked together for the last 4 years. Even so, I still had a nagging feeling that something was going to go wrong.

Later when I told the story, a colleague of mine said, "I'm going to start asking you for lottery numbers! You were right about this; you're usually right about the snow..." and she continued with a list of other accurate predictions I've made over the years. I liked that. I like thinking I have a little bit of a sixth sense, but as far as the lottery goes? I predict I'm not going to win it anytime soon.

At any rate, prescience is of no value unless you act upon it, and in this particular case, I did not. 8:15 AM found me desperately texting my poet buddy while making small talk with my first period class about how great our visiting artist was going to be. At 8:20 I kicked into emergency mode and began improvising a lesson about odes. Who knows where that came from? It certainly helped that I own a copy of Neruda's Odes to Common Things, and the Valentine's Day angle made things easier, too, but I truly believe that the key ingredient to what turned out to be a very successful activity was our collective focus on the positive.

For me this has been a tough year with a challenging group of kids, so the opportunity for each of us to express our appreciation for those things, both large and small, that make us happy, that make our lives a little easier, was priceless. Yesterday was a very good day.

Post Script: The poet overslept. He called at 9:30 to apologize profusely, and we rescheduled for tomorrow. I do have a back-up plan, but I don't think I'll need it.

That Was Then; This Is Now

It has long been our tradition to have heart-shaped pizza on Valentine's Day:

But, since she's been vegan, pizza just hasn't been the same for Heidi. So tonight's menu is heart-healthy rather than heart-shaped:

I don't care what we have, as long as she likes it and it makes her happy. Happy Valentine's Day!

I Wish it Was Sunday

It was a groggy Monday this morning, maybe because a bunch of the students had stayed up to watch the Grammys, or maybe because I had. At any rate, there was a bit of sluggish discussion about the events of the weekend as my homeroom students organized their binders in super slo-mo. Not surprisingly, the topic of Whitney Houston's death kind of meandered around the classroom. At the age of eleven and twelve, most of the kids knew the name, but were generally unfamiliar with her work. "You know what I hate?" one of them said in reference to her passing. "I hate it when people get rich after they die! My brother told me all her songs are number one on iTunes."

His comment prompted confused looks from his classmates, but as it was Monday morning, they let it go, and so did I.

Quiet

There's been a lot of press lately about Susan Cain's introvert's manifesto, Quiet. An off the charts 'I' myself, I downloaded and read the free preview as soon as I heard about the book. It's received mixed reviews, from both introverts and extroverts alike, but I think that its premise that being outgoing may be erroneously perceived as superior has some merit.

I have a friend and colleague with whom I have worked for almost 15 years who is an extreme extrovert. We eat lunch together every day, and our relationship works in part because she willingly initiates the conversation on a daily basis. Over the years we've become close enough to laugh at just how introverted I am, and I know that she accepts me.

She is a special education teacher, and a good one, and she and I agree that the best approach is to meet the needs of the individual students where they are, whether they have been identified formally or not, and often I turn to her for advice in making accommodations in my class. I like to think that my own experience makes me a good resource, too, and not surprisingly, our lunchtime conversation frequently revolves around the challenges we're facing on the team.

Not long ago she was describing a situation where a certain student neither wanted to work in a group nor make a presentation in the social studies class she pushed in to. Based on our knowledge of the kid, the other teacher, the class, and the assignment, we bandied strategies to get that student on board with the activity. This was before I had heard of Cain's book, but as we were talking it occurred to me that maybe, since this child was an introvert, we were asking too much. "Why should he have to do that if it's against his nature?" I asked.

This was new ground for both of us, and my friend reacted as if I was being less than serious (which of course I often am in these conversations-- after all, it's lunch time). "No really," I said, "why do we force kids who are uncomfortable with interpersonal stuff to do it anyway?"

"Um, because they're going to need those skills in the future?" my friend answered.

And all of a sudden I glimpsed a grand extrovert bias that has permeated education and society for my entire life. I realized that as much as my friend liked and respected me that she considered my reserve to be a deficit. I thought of all the books about winning friends and influencing people and mastering the art of small talk, and I remembered all the times my mom and my brother talked about forcing themselves out of their comfort zones in order to do their jobs.

"Why?" I repeated, and the incredulity on my friend's face just made me want to mess with her a little. I gasped in mock horror. "You are prejudiced!" I accused her. "You think there's something wrong with being an introvert that needs to be fixed." I shook my head. "Why?" I asked again.

We left it at that; the end of our 35 minute lunch period was near, and our students were returning to class. It was never a serious conversation, but the implications stayed with me. In a world of increasing noise, do we really want to encourage all of our students to add to it?

Didn't She Almost Have it All

We were at a "girls only brown bag wine tasting" tonight at the home of one of our neighbors. There was 80's music playing all evening, and our memories of the songs threaded in and out of each conversation as the guests grouped and regrouped. Cutting Crew, Bon Jovi, Journey, Madonna, and Cindy Lauper were all remembered fondly.

Of course Whitney Houston was bound to come up and she did. "Look where she is now," someone said. "She's a mess."

"But I loved the song I Want to Dance With Somebody," somebody else added wistfully. There were nods of agreement, and then the conversation moved on.

Not for me, though. For a moment I conjured that younger Whitney: gorgeous, and with that voice! and all her energy and charisma and how really really great she was, and I hoped for a come back. She can totally do it! I thought. It's not too late.

Countability

So often teachers of subjects other than language arts report that one reason they don't require much writing is because they are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with some of the finer points of grammar and usage. We did a couple of quick little exercises in my Writing Across the Curriculum workshop today where the objective was to show that that type of incorrectness does not usually impede communication and also that those errors are usually the easiest thing to fix in a writing piece. One task the participants had to do was choose between "fewer" and "less" when the terms were applied to the word "people," as in There were fewer/less people at the park than there were at the movies.

The rule with "fewer" or "less" is countability-- you use "fewer" when you can count the individual items and "less" when you can't, like fewer pennies, less change. The tricky part of the above question is that "people" was not originally used as the plural of "person" (that would have been "persons"), so there was a time when you couldn't actually count the people in a room, and therefore "less people" was the correct usage.

Today that is not the case, people is the commonly accepted plural form of person. The topic certainly made for a lively discussion in our session today, though, and who do you think brought it up?

The math teachers, of course. Count on them!

Billable Hours

Last July I stood with pearly white cavity-free teeth and scheduled my next six-month checkup at the gleaming front desk of my dentist. It was only the second time I had been to the office and the only reason I was there at all was because my long-time dentist had retired. Oh he played it well-- sending postcards to all of his clients informing us that he was cutting back on his hours. I knew then that, seeing as how he was a single practitioner, it could only mean one thing: he was selling us to another practice.

Even so, I decided to go along and see how the new dentist was. My first visit was like time traveling-- the office, the equipment, and the staff seemed at least thirty years ahead of the old-fashioned approach I was used to, and nobody from the old practice was anywhere in sight. It wasn't great, and it wasn't terrible, but it was really really different, yet not so much to make me go out and find myself a new tooth guy.

The second visit was also fine. I found myself building a bit of a rapport with my new hygienist, and the efficiency of everything in this oh so 21st century practice was beginning to win me over. I liked the email reminders and the convenient online confirmation, and I could almost picture myself stopping at the Starbucks a few doors down every six months from now to infinity.

Until today. I awoke this morning with the leaden knowledge that I had slept poorly. The idea of busting out the door right after school to get my teeth cleaned, on top of everything else I needed to do today was overwhelming, and in an effort to prioritize, I resolved to reschedule. I called the office at lunch to politely explain the situation and get another date on the calendar. There was a pause, and then the receptionist told me that ordinarily it's a hundred dollar charge to cancel within four business days. They were waiving it for me this time, but I needed to make a note of the policy.

And I did make a note, right away.  

Find a new dentist.

(Not) My Job

In the memoir unit I ask kids to choose a memorable event from their lives and think about how it shaped them, and that can be a challenging task for a sixth grader (or anyone, really). Of course, I don't expect perfection, and in the end I read several under-developed anecdotes about bike crashes, roller coasters, pranks, and beach mishaps. There are poignant tales as well, and usually one or two that I pass along to the counselor. Overall, this writing assignment gives me a lot of insight into my students, and for that it is priceless.

I thought about that tonight as I worked on a presentation I have been asked to make for my colleagues on our staff development day on Friday. The topic is writing across the curriculum, but the subtext is so much more. Middle school is where discipline-based departments begin, and so writing sometimes becomes a "language arts" thing. Part of my job on Friday will be to convince the other subject teachers otherwise.

Stay tuned.

Head Injuries, PANDAS, and Butt Cracks, Oh My

That was my day today. You'll forgive me for not writing more?

A Good Deed Unpunished

Today we had a rare frigid morning in this balmy El Nina winter of ours, and like I usually do on such frosty days, I started the cars and scraped the windshields. Our '01 Jeep Wrangler is a fun kind of buggy, loved by Heidi and the nephews, especially in top-down weather.

Of course it has a manual transmission to go with its rugged take-the-top-off attitude, and so the emergency brake was on this morning when I popped it in neutral to warm it up. When my scraping was done, I turned it off and took the keys inside so that Heidi would have them to lock up when she left.

Then, with a cheery good-bye and full confidence in my good partner status, I headed toward the station wagon with my back pack, lunch bag, and coffee cup. I was loading those items in their customary positions in the back seat when I heard an alarming crunch, and looked up to see the Jeep crashed into our neighbor's car next to me.

It was so confusing at first. Nobody was at the wheel of either vehicle, and yet there they were in a rear-end collision. The Jeep had been parked up the hill and across the way, so it wasn't too long before I realized what had happened, sprinted into the house for the keys, and pulled it back into its space.

This time I left it in gear when I climbed out to inspect the damage. Our neighbor's car had been running to defrost it, too, so I knew she would be out any moment. There was a melon-sized dent in her rear bumper, and a bit of a tell-tale dark blue smudge. I ran inside to tell Heidi, and we emerged from our house a minute later, just as our neighbor came from hers.

Wide-eyed and breathlessly I told the tale of the calamity, but she remained calm. "Oh give me the insurance info later," she said. "After all," she laughed, "I know where you live." We followed her around to the back of the cars to look at the damage, and I gasped. The whole dent had popped out! All that was left was a tiny smear of navy blue. Our neighbor shrugged. "I wouldn't have even known if you didn't tell me."

Choosing Sides

I listened with half an ear as a couple of kids bickered good-naturedly at the end of class on Friday. As the bell rang, they came to me to settle their dispute. "Do you like the Patriots?" one asked.

I shrugged. "Nope."

"Are you American, or what?" he said indignantly.

"Yeah," I said."I'm American. So? The Giants were my dad's team. I'm rooting for them."

They laughed.

"We were talking about social studies," he explained, "We're having a debate and I'm Thomas Paine. Who do you like better? The Patriots or the Loyalists?"

"Tschoo! Patriots all the way!" I said. "I'm American aren't I? Who likes the Loyalists?"

"Me," said the second student, "because I'm King George."

I See

My glasses broke about six months ago. They were trifocals and I'm pretty sure the prescription needed updating, because I was getting headaches after wearing them sometimes. An inveterate procrastinator, I've been able to make do with only reading glasses since then, but I think it might be time to go in. I'm suffering from frame envy.

I've been noticing eye wear everywhere. This afternoon it was in the movies. We saw Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Gary Oldman plays 1970's era spy George Smiley in a tale that flashes back and forth over a period of several years. It can be confusing, too, except that he gets an eye exam early in the picture and chooses new frames. Of course I was all over that, and as a result? I could always tell the past and present from the glasses he was wearing.

For the record-- I liked his first frames better, but the next pair was really authentic to the time period.

Spoiler Alert: He gets yet another pair at the end of the movie. Do you think that might mean something symbolic?

A Million Little Pieces

My students are working on memoirs and their second drafts were due today. The following message was in my email inbox this morning.

We read J's story which is due today. There were a few sections with inappropriate content, we have discussed this with him and he will make necessary changes. He can stay after school today to complete or use time this weekend. Thank you for understanding.

Uh oh. The last I had seen of the piece was a little silly, but not too far out of bounds for a sixth grade boy. I talked to him first thing. "What's going on?" I asked.

"My parents are totally over-reacting," he sighed.

I asked to see the draft, and there were a few things that I knew I would suggest editing out. I replied to his mom at lunch.

The drafts that were due today were not intended to be in final form. I encourage the students to take creative risks in their writing, but I agree that J's piece was not appropriate for school as it was written. One of the objectives of the assignment is for students to choose a memorable event from their lives and to consider how it shaped them and what their actions and reactions in that situation reveal about them. When I talked to J about his story, he explained that he had only presented the perspective of his eight-year-old self. Today he worked on adding what he learned from the experience, what he thinks now, and making clear that he and the boy mentioned are still friends. He should continue working on it over the weekend.

He can also start a new piece on another topic if your family would prefer. Please contact me with any further questions.

A little later I found out that J the author had been taking liberties with the facts.

Thank you for your quick response to our concerns. The content of the story did not reflect the incident as it occurred or how J has felt when similar situations have occurred in the past. He is struggling a bit with his identity recently and I understand he would like others to see him with a different bravado. Thank you for providing the specifics of the assignment, I see he still needs to address the other points of the assignment as well.

It looks like J is going to be doing some revising this weekend.

Will Write for Donuts

We had 12 students attend our little writing club today. Their challenge was to write in second person, and they wrote some pretty good stuff. I like to think it was for more than the chocolate frosted chocolate donuts, but who cares if it was?

This was one of my favorites:

You grinned and laughed as they flew around, glowed and disappeared, on and off. You would grab them out of the air and hold them, staring at them in awe. You would always let your fireflies go. You didn’t want to hurt them, but letting them go would make you so sad. You were so little and so happy, then. This story will be our secret.

I remember you at every age and I know that one day you will be someone extremely important. There are so many people around who will help you on your journey. I am sorry that I am not going to be there to help you along the way.

Oopsie

Was that me who said "irregardless" at a meeting of English teachers?

Oh my.

Found Poetry

We have a neighbor who goes by the name of Peach. I've never been formally introduced to her, but I know her well from the rather loud conversations she has at the pool with anyone who will engage with her. I know, for example, that she was devastated when Tim Russert died, she is feuding with her sister, and she doesn't care too much for cats.

Who knew she was a post-modernist stream-of-consciousness poet, though? Take a look:

their are rules in condo living one is Noise and another is Trash when to bring it out when not to tonight a bag of trash was left outside all broken up i kicked it over found a letter with address on it walked it back to its owner . the owner of the trash came out and looked at me like a deer in headlights and said Oh i was going to walk it down later when i get the baby to sleep i handed her Her Trash

I like it.

Goldilocks and the Three Balloons

We had our school-wide science fair last week. The way we run it, all students create a project and all staff members are judges. Even though the event is ultimately a very positive and successful one for the majority of our school community, this policy can create some conflicts, too.

For example, one of the projects I judged was a blank board. I honestly did not even notice until I picked up the evaluation sheet and fastened it to my clipboard. When I looked up, I laughed. The student smiled and shrugged. "So, tell me about your science fair project," I said. She didn't even bother to explain the absence of the Introduction, Materials and Procedures, Results, Graph, Pictures, and Conclusion. She simply plunged in with a description of her experiment which involved balloons filled with different amounts of helium, static electricity, and hang time on the wall.

And she almost had me. I could imagine a situation where she had not been able to produce the required elements for her display, and the experiment itself seemed fun and interesting-- the benefit of the doubt was all hers. "But why?" I asked when she told me her results, "why do you think the middle one stayed up there the longest?"

She shrugged. "Who knows?"

"Could it have been the helium in the bigger one pulling up?" I tried.

She looked at me blankly.

"Or the weight of the smaller one pulling it down?"

"Maybe," She looked bored. "Or the other one was probably just right."

Take It Easy

It's always fun to browse through iTunes and look for the holes in your music collection. For a couple of bucks here and there, you can wile away the hours lost in nostalgia. Sometimes it's shocking to realize what you don't own, especially given its prominence in your past. Such was the case today when I downloaded the Eagles Greatest Hits.

When we were teenagers my mom used to blast that album on the 8-Track player and let it loop endlessly while she cleaned the house on weekend mornings. That and the vacuum were kind of hard to sleep through, but we did our best.

To Market

We are down to the last 6 quarts of tomatoes that we canned last summer, so today seemed like a perfect time to shop for seeds. Each packet that I added electronically to my virtual cart came along with a thumbnail photo of what it would eventually yield, so that I could practically envision my garden as I checked out. I've got to hand it to the company-- that colorful column of herbs, tomatoes, eggplant, okra, peppers, squash, pumpkins, and daisies certainly made parting with my money a lot more palatable.

Enough Rope

We have a student this year who is totally invested in being "bad". He's a smart kid, smart enough to have figured out that grades lower than a C get you the kind of trouble he doesn't want to deal with, and smart enough to know that an unending series of annoyances may get you isolated temporarily from the class but rarely will result in a referral to the administration. Still, he is eleven, and so a miscalculation here and there is inevitable.

Today was team t-shirt day. This is an annual tradition: the front is always designed by a student and voted on by all the kids, and the back has their names written in their own handwriting, so it's pretty cool. This year they were extra awesome given the fact that students had the choice of two tie-dye shades, and it was with a lot of excitement that they received their shirts this morning.

I was prepared for a bit of distraction in each class, but when I walked over to see what this guy was doing instead of the assignment, I was surprised to see him blacking out names with a permanent marker. "Are those the kids you don't like?" I asked in a bit of disbelief.

"Yeah!" he answered me enthusiastically (remorse is really not his thing), "and I've highlighted the names of the kids I like!"

"Yeah, I''m going to have to take that from you," I told him.

"OK, but don't look at the names of the people I like," he said cheerfully. "That would be embarrassing."

I assured him I wasn't really interested in that information, and then continued on with the lesson. After class he asked for his shirt back, but I told him I was going to have to hang on to it for a while.

It was much later in the day when I looked at his handiwork. I was on my way to speak to the principal about him, and grabbed the shirt as one more example of his inappropriate behavior as I headed to the office. My jaw dropped as I walked. Not only had he marked other kids, but he had also applied his system to the faculty names. Oh, I was highlighted (lord knows why), but the principal was crossed out.

I'm pretty sure there are going to be some consequences for that.

Duty Done

The courtroom was silent when I entered this morning, despite the ten people scattered about on the polished wooden benches. I checked in with the juror coordinator and then took a seat near the back, near the wall. I was impressed by the room. Ten stories up, it had 30 foot ceilings and a blockbuster view from the full-length windows behind the jury box. It was way nicer than anything I've ever seen on TV or in the movies.

It turned out that I did know someone there, the clerk of the court. I met him at a couple of parties almost 20 years ago, and our paths have crossed here and there, at restaurants, meetings, and dog parks since then. He was on the county board for several years, and I had forgotten about his more recent appointment.

Anyway, after our orientation, we moved to the jury assembly room, more high ceilings and awesome views, but the squeakiest door I ever heard-- after a while, anytime someone went for water or coffee, it was excruciating. They gave each of us three crisp ten dollar bills and then at 11 announced that the only case for the day had been settled and we were free to go, ineligible to return for three years.

So that was it. My big experience with our justice system kind of slowed to a halt like a roller coaster on a steep hill, and for a moment, my day hung there motionless until I realized what I could do with such unexpected free time. And then I was racing down the track-- lunch at my favorite sandwich place, grocery shopping, picking up the CSA share, a hair cut, and back to school for writing club and a wrestling match, then on to the gym, and home to cook dinner.

I Am Number Eight

I was talking to a colleague in the hall this afternoon about the possibility that I may have jury duty tomorrow, when a passing parent overheard our conversation.

"Jury duty!" she interjected and I liked her enthusiasm. It had just the right mix of awe and surprise to capture my own feelings about this unprecedented experience, and when I explained to her how it works, that you never know until 5 PM, whether you have to report, her sympathetic grasp of this colossal inconvenience was also quite gratifying.

"My husband's a litigator," she confided to me. "He always says 'no teachers on the jury!'."

"Why?!" I gasped.

"Oh, it's not just him, either," she continued. "It's like a lawyer's rule of thumb."

"But why?" I asked again.

"Oh you teachers," she said. "It's your job to get up in front of people and convince them of things. He's afraid you won't be on his side, and then you'll sway the whole jury. It's too risky."

A couple of hours later I checked in with my official juror ID. Yep. This teacher is scheduled to report tomorrow at 9 AM. Look out litigators! Here I come.

Is He the One?

We live in a very small community that borders a national capital, in many ways the ideal combination of small town and world class city. So, when I told my sister-in-law I had jury duty she said, "You are definitely going to know someone else in the pool. There's no way around it."

I knew she was right; not only because she's smart about those things and had recently reported for her own duty and run into someone we both know, but also because it makes sense: as I said it's a small town, and we're both teachers who have lived here a long time. Shoot, I can't even go to Costco without seeing at least one friend or acquaintance.

Still, I wondered and even fretted a little about who it might be. What if it was someone I would rather avoid? Then, in all the will-I, won't-I uncertainty of the week, I totally forgot my concern. This afternoon after the bell rang one of my former students stopped by to visit. "You should definitely judge my science fair project tomorrow," she said.

"Oh I'd love to," I told her, "IF I'm here... I might have jury duty."

"My dad has jury duty!" she said. "He didn't have to go yesterday, but he went today. Maybe you'll see him tomorrow!"

Epilogue: I won't see him tomorrow (unless it's at the science fair). Nobody has to report; we got an email that all the pending trials were resolved today. But there's always Thursday...

Box Seat?

I was mildly alarmed when I received my jury questionnaire some months ago. I have lived and been registered to vote in this county for over 20 years with never a summons. Of course, I did my civic duty, which at that point only involved answering a few questions and dropping the envelope back in the mail.

Then, early in December I got the news. I had been selected to serve the week of January 23. Oh it sent me into a bit of a tizzy. Monday was a teacher work day. (Was that good or bad?) Wednesday was the science fair. (Was that good or... never mind.) But the more I read, the more uncertain I felt.

The way it works is that you never know until after five the night before if you will have to show up. That makes it kind of hard to plan ahead in terms of lessons. There's a big difference between what happens when I'm in the classroom and what kind of activities I leave for a sub. So far, I got my work day (yay!) and I'm not scheduled to go tomorrow.

Wednesday and Thursday are still a mystery.

Cold

Why is it that 70 degrees on the thermostat is too warm in the summer and a splurge in the winter, but still not quite warm enough?

Forget it! I'm building a fire.

She's Gotta Have It

Not long ago I passed a restaurant in the city. The day was cold and I was hurrying to my car and home, but not so fast that I couldn't hear the music when someone pushed open the door. It was as warm and light as the rush of air it came out on, and as I continued on my way I realized that I definitely need more sax in my life.

Six-Word Memoirs!

It's that time of the year again where my students have to post six six-word memoirs to the discussion board of the online part of our class. This group started out a bit slower than students have in the past, but they came up with a lot of compelling stuff: funny, poignant, and raw.

Going, Going, Gone! Or is it?
Some pretty caterpillars are very poisonous.
That hole in my foot hurt.
I hate the smell of camels.
Illness took my brother not me.
Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary
Guinea pigs aren't food, they're pets.
Dad never comes home from work.
She could have just told me.
Don't give the lost puppy cookies.
There's a girl at wrestling practice.
Doing something wrong will have consequences.
Squirrels are not always cute fellows.
What! I will have a baby brother?
STANLEY you blew the fuse box!
Uh oh...the door was left open.
I break bones, mostly my fingers.
America is the most awesome country.
Don't accept sandwiches from old ladies.
Who knew Little Red could rap?
My brother danced with a monkey.
Pomegranate stains do not come out.  
My ancestors are all horse thieves.
I shouldn't have painted her blue.
Surgery is very painful and expensive.

And my sentimental favorite, because it is so not true for this group of sixies:

Always listen to your English teacher.

I, too, have a few new ones of my own:

Do you know what "termagant" means?
Clap on! Clap off! Clap! Clap!
Hey! Someone hacked my google docs!

How about you? Come on-- get in on the fun! Reply to this post with your own six word memoir.

Ah So

This morning we did a little activity in homeroom about the upcoming celebrations surrounding the Lunar New Year which starts on January 23. It's always fun to talk about the traditions of this holiday with sixth graders, because for most of them, the new year will be their year, given that it is a twelve year cycle and they are turning twelve. Today my students crowded around my desk with interest as I read the characteristics typical of dragons:

Dragons are the free spirits of the Zodiac. Conformation is a Dragon's curse. Rules and regulations are made for other people... An extroverted bundle of energy, gifted and utterly irrepressible, everything Dragons do is on a grand scale... Even though they are willing to aid when necessary, their pride can often impede them from accepting the same kind of help from others.

I laughed a bit ruefully as I finished, because it seemed sooooo accurate for so many of the kids, and while one dragon, or even two, in your life is dynamic and fun, a whole room full of them is definitely a teacher's challenge.

Hunting for Treasure

As part of our memoir unit, we take the advice of such great writers as Ralph Fletcher and Jack Gantos and spend some time drawing maps of places and times that are important to us. Turns out, there's a lot of writing material to be found in those maps.

Tell a Story About Your Name

That's the assignment I'm going to have my students do tomorrow. Here's mine:

When I was growing up, I never really liked my name. Nobody else had it and everyone always either spelled it wrong, leaving out the ‘e’, or just called me Stacy, which I hated. Whenever we went to gift shops, I could never find anything with my name on it. Everybody else could get a personalized pen or key chain or mug or something, but not me.

Once when I was in high school, I complained about that to one of my best friends. That summer, when she went to Disneyland, she found an embroidered patch. It was sky blue, and it had Mickey Mouse wearing bright red shorts and those giant yellow shoes. Underneath Mickey it said “Tracy”. My friend pulled out the threads of the letter ‘y’ and stitched it again so that it had my name spelled correctly. When she gave it to me, I couldn’t believe it! It was awesome to finally have something with my name on it, but the fact that my friend went to so much trouble for me was even better.

(Note to fans: six-word memoirs are on the way!)

Carnage

I could not wait to see this movie based on the cast: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly, and Cristophe Waltz. All four have won my heart in one movie or another.

Although it is by no means a perfect film (unless you enjoy squirming at awkward situations), their performances do not disappoint, and?

It has the funniest. barfing. scene. ever.

Last to Know

We were watching the Golden Globes when Christopher Plummer won the first one for his role in Beginners. "What was that movie about?" Louise asked.

"A guy whose dad came out as gay after his mother died," I replied.

"Ewwwww!" Kyle interjected.

I frowned at him as he lounged in front of the fireplace, belly full of all the favorite foods I had prepared for his dinner. "Why would you say something like that here in my house?" I asked him.

"I thought this was Aunt Heidi's house," he said.

"It's my house, too," I said.

"Who pays the bills?" he asked.

"We both do," I told him. "We're partners. Do you know what that means?"

"Yeah," he said, "I get it."

"So you know why I might be offended when you say something like that?"

"Yeah. I shouldn't say something, even if I believe it, when you think something else if I'm in your house," he replied, more than a little grudgingly.

"Really?" I said. 'That's what you think we're talking about?"

He shrugged.

I took a deep breath. "Well, we're not. I'm saying that I'm offended when you say 'Ew" about someone being gay, because I'm gay."

"Oooh," he said. "Well, no one told me!"

Some More

All my life I have loved a fire; in fact, thirteen years ago, when I was in the market for a house, my only non-negotiable was that the property had a wood-burning fireplace. Since then, it has been a comfort and a delight on many a cold day, as well as entertainment on many a weekend with the nieces and nephews. For in addition to gathering pine cones and other things to burn, and then building and tending the blaze, we like to use the flames for a more practical purpose as well. Tonight, after a busy day, it was Kyle's turn to cook-- there were hot dogs and s'mores on the menu, and they were delicious.

Why Not?

I pulled up to a crowded restaurant this evening; with no parking in sight and a line at the door, I stopped to discharge my passengers do that they could get on the list while I parked. As luck would have it, a car right ahead of me on the street was pulling out, and so I paused a bit longer to wait for the space. At that moment, another car came around me on the left and stopped. Looking over, I saw it was a police cruiser and the driver was gesturing at me. Did he want me to move along? I pointed to the about-to-be-vacant space and nodded in explanation. He turned on his lights and gave me the whoop whoop. I rolled down my window. "I understand you want to park," he chided me, "but you can't just let your passengers out in the middle of the street."

"OK," I said, the darkness covering my knitted brows. He left and I parked, sill a bit confused about why he felt the need to confront me. What was the problem with what had happened? What law had been broken and who was it hurting?

The more I thought about it, the more annoying it was, until it occurred to me that this is how a lot of kids in school must feel. They are constantly be corrected for things they think are fine. No wonder they get so cranky.

Hey Girl!

That is how one of my students greeted me today when I ran into him in the cafeteria between classes. I laughed and even returned the fist bump, but then explained to him that it wasn't really an appropriate way to talk to your teacher. He looked abashed then shrugged. "I was just trying to make you feel young," he said with only a trace of malice.

"Thanks," I replied with more than a trace of irony.

If Prince William Jumped off a Bridge, Would You Do it, Too?

Over the last two or three years, our school system has been edging its way toward a change in the way we schedule our classes in middle school. We have reached the point in the process where there is a pretty firm implementation date, (SY 2013-14) and a proposed schedule is being presented to stakeholders, but whether we do it has never been the question; it's always just been how to make this major change. Strangely enough, why hasn't been very thoroughly addressed either: every presentation I've attended has alluded to "the research" which is the basis of the proposed upheaval, but nothing definitive has been offered, beyond the fact that most of the surrounding jurisdictions do it.

Is that a good enough reason, Mom?

The Dog Catcher

We're starting on memoir and to begin with we collect material by writing to open-ended prompts. Today my students wrote about an encounter they had with an animal. There were many memorable anecdotes, but the one that stays with me is about a boy chasing his errant pit bull down the street. Oh there was blood and mayhem to be sure, which was bad enough, but the most disturbing part was when a stranger pulled up in his car and offered to help. My student actually got in and went with him.

Ordinarily, I don't interrupt when kids are reading their work, but this was an exception. "What!" I said in shock. "You actually got in the car!?"

"What could I do?" he shrugged apologetically. "I couldn't lose my dog."

"But that guy was a stranger!" I said. "I understand about your dog, I do," and here I took a deep breath, "and obviously it worked out because here you are safe and sound," I paused again, "but--"

He interrupted me. "I had to," he said firmly. "Plus, I knew it would be okay. He had like six cages in the back of his car."

"Yeah! And they could have been for little boys chasing their dogs," the girl next to him said.

Chew on This

So apparently these days it costs more than a penny to make a penny.

Hmmm... No wonder gum balls are so expensive.

Or is it just inflation?

(Get it? Gum? Bubbles? Inflation?)

Half Century

What was it today that had me listening to Vince Guaraldi? Hard to say, but the truth is that I like me a good 1960's anything. There is just something about those skinny ties and narrow suits, the bouffant hair and that mod, mod furniture with those jazz combos playing softly in the background that resonates with me. I actually told someone a couple of weeks ago that any Christmas special produced after the Grinch was a "new"one in my mind.

Yeah. That means you, Frosty.

Leisurely Loop

65+ degrees on January 7th is a tropical treat and should be embraced and even celebrated accordingly. Still, there were chores to do and errands to run, so we did not get going to formally enjoy the great outdoors until nearly 4 PM. Knowing it would be dark soon, we loaded the dog in the station wagon and headed to America's front yard, the National Mall. There we joined thousands of our fellow citizens and other tourists meandering past some of the world's most undeniably monumental sites.

I snapped a dozen or so photos as the sun set and then the full moon rose, and it was a fun night-at-the-museum moment looking at all those famous flying machines hanging like so many mobiles and models through the windows of Air and Space after dark. Strains of Linus and Lucy played as the carousel spun and the Capitol beamed importantly from up there on its hill, and there were still a lot of people around when I tossed my unworn jacket into the back seat and drove home.

Questions of the Day

Is "brat" a bad word?


It's our skin, why do you care if we make it bleed?


What do you mean by "due at the end of class"?


Did I do better today than tomorrow?


Who made up donuts?

Just another day in the sixth grade.

Word Up

We had the first writing club meeting of 2012 this afternoon, and it was delightful. Nine kids showed up; we had a lap top for each of them; they spent about 40 minutes writing, and then they shared their work with the group. The two of us teachers wrote along with them, although I have to admit that the kids put me to shame today. Not only were they positively prolific, but what they wrote was imaginative, funny, and engaging.

The most remarkable thing of all? They really seemed to be having fun.

I want to try that.

The Good Old Days

I had a meeting today with a number of my language arts colleagues. The focus of the group is how to best meet the needs of ADHD students in a general ed classroom, and the chapter for today was about classroom management. The text we are using is organized by chapter and strategy, and so our discussion usually goes from the theory expressed in the book to our own observations and experience.

Our group consists of ten teachers who range in tenure from 30 to 3 years. Inevitably our conversation turns to how things have changed over the years: parenting, the economy, technology all are popular scapegoats for the conditions in our classroom that challenge us. As professionals, we acknowledge the line between things we can change and things we cannot, but there is palpable frustration in every session.

Today, I asked others in the group how they thought students had changed over the course of their careers, but I didn't really hear any specifics that I could confirm. As weird as it seems to me sometimes, I've been teaching close to 20 years, and sure, some years are harder than others, but can I chalk it up to some sweeping social change that has transformed the children we teach?

Not so far.

Observed With Skepticism

There was a sluggish, almost syrupy quality to the day today. How quiet everyone was, even in the hallway between classes, and how subdued, once they remembered where they sat and what we do the first of every week.

Oh, sure, some key players were absent, and other students were definitely under the weather, their hoarseness and sniffles clearly affecting their behavior. And, some children were definitely exhausted-- however they spent the last 10 days still seemed to be taking a toll, but the rest?

Hmmmm.

Did I detect a wee, hopeful sign? Could it have been a modicum of maturity, that inevitable growth we see in all eleven-year-olds as they live and learn throughout the year? (Which, by the way,  is nearly 10 percent of their whole lives and practically 25 percent of their remembered lives.) Could it?

Maybe.

Never Mind

Perhaps it is my hearing, or perhaps all of my senses are going, but whatever the situation might be, I think I'm going to enjoy the decline. Right on the heels of the NFL's miraculous concussion suits, today I heard how concerned many Iowans are about foreign policy. No stereotyper of heartlanders am I, so that fact itself did not surprise me, but I did note the odd, single syllable pronunciation of the word "foreign": it sounded almost like "farn" the way they said it.

I listened even more carefully about the particularly high interest in rural Iowa on these policies and the impact they might have on local jobs and prosperity, and even though it was a bit of a stretch, I was right there with them even when they started talking crop subsidies, until it occurred to me that maybe...

Yup. It was farm policy.

Speed Celebrating

On December 23 I braved the crowds of folks doing their holiday food shopping to pick up a few last minute items of my own at the grocery. One corner of the store was much quieter than the rest-- not many people were shopping for household cleaners and paper towels that day. I did a double-take, though, at the display right next to that aisle-- it was full of Valentines Day candy, cards, and gifts.

Who can really be surprised at such early marketing? It wasn't that long ago that the Christmas stuff was peeking out from behind the Halloween decor, which was itself recently just beyond the back-to-school displays in... July.

Despite the rapid-transit commercialization of holidays, I don't object to looking ahead, and anticipation is one of my favorite pleasures. In fact, all those holiday catalogs that were filling up my mailbox are already giving way to seed catalogs. I can't wait to sit down and go through a few of them, because spring must be hiding around here somewhere.