This is Not a Drill

When the fire alarm went off a couple minutes before the end of first period, I assumed it was a drill, but the cold and steady drizzle that greeted us as we evacuated the building made me suspect otherwise. 800 of us shivered in what turned into an icy downpour, waiting first for the firetrucks to arrive, and then for them to clear the building for re-entry. Half of second period was gone by the time we slogged back in, everyone drenched.

What followed was an exercise in necessity. Teachers supervised their soaking students as one by one team groups were called to report to the locker room to change into dry gym clothes. We were all back on track by the bell for third period. All of us except the kid who pulled the fire alarm. His day did not improve at all.

Rule of Three

My students wrote Praise Poems yesterday. This was the second year for the assignment, and like last time, I explained that Praise Poems come from Western Africa and celebrate an individual's identity. They are often call and response, with the audience chanting a chorus between lines.

The formula I gave my students was to write six lines and a chorus. The first line is your name, the second about your place of birth or ethnicity, the third about your family, the fourth and fifth compare you to natural elements or entities, and the last chooses a positive, defining quality about you and repeats it three times. The chorus is an expression of what they hope might be said of them by their community, and so it is written in third person.

There is something about the writing that kids do for this assignment that is just so moving to me, especially the last lines of their poems. So often the defining quality they choose is stunning-- surprising but perfect.

Here are some of their words:

I am the force of a tornado
but I am steady, steady, steady

I change like the seasons
I am energetic, energetic, energetic

As silent as a hurricane,
but I am loving, loving, loving

I have the speed of a snail,
but I am happy, happy, happy

I am the crashing of a storm,
but I am wise, wise, wise

Determined as the cheetah,
I am daunting, daunting, daunting

I have the strength of a rhino,
but I am kind, kind, kind

I keep peace as the dove does--
I am cooperative, cooperative, cooperative

Totem Poll

My day was filled with animals that I don't regularly see. On a lark (haha) I decided to find the spirit meaning for each of the critters I encountered today. Here's my survey:

RABBIT: Reminds us to examine and utilize the tools we have within ourselves. Although our instincts are innate, they also need nurturing and development. Rabbit meanings deal primarily with abundance, comfort, and vulnerability. Traditionally, rabbits are associated with fertility, sentiment, desire, and procreation.

HORSE: You are being reminded that change is good for you. Only through constant re-evaluation of where you are in life can we continue to grow spiritually. It is not about getting there – but simply about the journey itself. Trust and have faith in your own personal goals, realize that when one door closes many more are open. You can always get there from here.

DEER: It is often a sign not to be too hard on yourself. Still the voice of the self critic and treat yourself with gentleness and understanding, be yourself and continue along your path. Seek out your inner treasures and use them generously to help those around you. Trust that kindness and graciousness will be well received.

DRAGONFLY: They are asking that you pay attention to your deeper desires and be mindful of the outcome we wish to have. There are lessons to be learned and you are reminded that “what you think” is directly proportionate to what you “see on the surface”. In other words your thoughts are responsible for your physical surroundings.

VULTURE: You are being asked to be patient with yourself and think things through. Take your time before making decisions and choose paths that support your higher consciousness and your heart. Use all of your resources combined with your past experience to approach the problem from a different angle. Know that you are always free to choose your own path but be flexible while moving forward. 

Hmmm. That's a lot to think about on a walk through the woods.

Writer's Cramp

A little while ago I was congratulating myself on having a pretty productive Saturday-- the heat pump was repaired, the dining room ceiling was patched and repainted, the grocery shopping was done, the cable box was replaced, and we even went out to lunch!

And I?

I paid for it all.

(I also read the New Yorker and deleted a lot of pictures from my phone, so, you know, I was busy.)

Absolutely A-maize-d

I was so taken by the description of frontier hominy in the book I'm reading, Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen, that I promptly went online to order coarse ground corn meal. Arriving home from work this evening, I had no idea what the huge, seriously heavy, box on my front stoop could possibly be.

In a bank-error-in-your-favor moment I opened it to find that, rather than one 24 oz bag, I had twenty-four for the price of one. The company says I can keep 'em if I want 'em, so friends? In the event of a polenta emergency, call me.

In the mean time, I'll check back with news of the hominy. (I also recommend the book! It's fascinating.)

Sibling Rivalry

"This poetry challenge is the hardest one," I told my class yesterday. "It's Shakespeare's birthday and ... get ready for it... you're writing sonnets!"

I went on to give a quick overview of the rhyme scheme and meter (iambic pentameter is like five heartbeats), and then I wished them luck. To their credit, many worked diligently to fit words to the form. I answered questions and offered encouragement as they wrote.

"Your brother wrote an awesome sonnet last year," I told one student.

"He did?" the boy replied. "I'm going to try to make mine really good, too, then."

Here's what he came up with-- (I'd say he succeeded!)

Sonnet 1
by Andrew

Spring is a beautiful time of the year,
So many blooming flowers on the ground,
The weather delights and brings lots of cheer,
The morning is quiet with just the sound,
Of the beautiful birds chirping away,
At a rising sun on the horizon,
As the trees stay still but the branches sway,
In the perfect light from the glowing sun.
The afternoon is longer and lighter,
And great for exercise late in the day,
Spring has become the champion fighter,
As Winter has lost, and stumbles away.
Why is the time of Spring so important?
The days are longer, the nights are shortened.

Pocket-worthy

One of the many great things about Poem in Your Pocket Day is that every year I read and hear so many amazing poems that I've never heard of before. In fact, just today I actually found a poem by Robert Frost that I really can't believe I've never read. It's that wonderful:

Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Pathos

Another year brings another Poem in Your Pocket Day.

As you may have read here before, to encourage my students to participate in this annual event, I always break out my personal poetry library. Consisting of sixty or so volumes, many are edited and written for kids, but some are for more general audiences. Oh, I have culled my collection of any books that might have more mature material than not-- there is no Reuben Jackson, Richard Brautigan, or even Sylvia Plath, although I do own some of their work, but when I offer my poetry books to my students it is always with the caveat that they must turn the page on anything that they feel may be inappropriate, or bring it to me. Since the purpose of the assignment is to find a poem to share, I caution them to consider their audience and avoid choosing anything that might offend.

Most students enjoy browsing through such a variety, and in general the poems they choose seem just right for them. Of course some students take my caution as a challenge to find the most inappropriate poem they can, and others enjoy bringing something they think is racy to me and asking me to explain it to them. My stock reply? "If you don't know what it means, pick another poem!"

Today, though, an earnest student picked up my copy of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.

"I've never actually read this before," he told me.

"Really?" I answered. "I'm surprised. It's a classic-- enjoy!"

A few minutes later he returned gravely to my desk. "Wow!" he said. "That went really dark really fast." He shook his head. There was no irony in his voice. "I mean, she swallows the horse, and she's dead "of course"??? And then a little cartoon gravestone?" His eyes were wide. "This book is totally not for me." He placed it back on the table and walked away.

It's What I Do

First day back from break and our weekly Tolerance Club meeting was on the calendar scheduled for 2:30. We sponsors had come up with a vague plan a few weeks ago ending with, let's meet before break to finalize the details. Well, that didn't happen, and since the club meets in my room, I often feel singly responsible for the hour.

Mondays are both easy and hard for me-- the routine of my class dictates reading log checking and word study quizzes (easy), but then there's the grading, recording, planning for the next day, and team meeting, which theoretically all happen between 1 and 2:30 (hard). Then there's Tolerance Club from 2:30-3:30.

Our tentative plan had been to show a clip from the documentary Girl Rising, which we had all seen in the theater last spring. The film tells the story of nine girls from developing nations all over the world and their struggle for agency in their mostly patriarchal societies. Each segment is written by an author from that region and narrated by a famous actress. It is a powerful movie with the thesis that educating girls will not only empower those individuals but also accelerate the economies of their families, communities, and nations.

So, we had the movie.

At 1 o'clock, I researched educational materials and found an outline for teachers and students. Using the questions on their worksheet, I designed a pre-view activity for small groups, found information on Nepal, and planned a one-on-one discussion for after the clip. I prepared all the materials and set up the movie, sign-in sheet, and snack. At 1:30 I went to my meeting.

The activity? It was a success. Everyone was engaged and seemed to really enjoy the discussion. One student, new to our club, told us how cool the experience had been. My fellow sponsors were also very complimentary. I appreciated their appreciation and thanked them, but finally I had to just shrug and remind them, "I do this for a living you know."

Good to Go

I'm more resigned than sad that spring break is virtually over. I had a nice week, and although my to-do list is always impossibly long (still that optimistic!), I feel like I accomplished quite a bit.

I'm ready for the last leg of this school year. I'm also ready to put my garden in, ready to celebrate my nephew's college graduation, ready for his brother's return from his freshman year away, and ready for our god son's graduation from high school. Look at all that potential!

And when summer comes? I'll be ready for that, too.

Inspector Gadget

It's Bill's birthday dinner!

So of course I had to use...
the Vitamix,
the juicer,
the Cuisinart,
the ice cream maker,
and the pizza oven for my grill.

Also,
the pastry bag,
the mandolin,
and the kitchen twine,
were very handy.

Not to mention all the
overnight soaking
and marinating,
and the toasting
and braising
I did.

I hope he likes it!

Greenhouse Effect

Sixty-nine little vegetable plants in pots under plastic bins take up our whole dining room table. But they're my babies, started from seeds. Where else can they go? Soon the air will be warm enough to place them outside on the deck, and in a week or so, the soil will be warm enough to transplant them into the garden, but for now? It's breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the living room so that later, in July, August, and September our table will be laden with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash of many varieties, and perhaps even...

a pumpkin.

Oh Didi

Moving to Saudi Arabia when I was 13, my brother 11, and my sister 9, could have been one hell of a culture shock, except that it wasn't. Who knows why we were able to roll with what, to us, were the oddities of not just one, but several strange new cultures.

The oil booming Saudi Arabia of the late 70s was a crossroads of opportunity. Our dad was a white collar airline professional, and there were a few other Americans like him, but many of our fellow US citizens were oil hands and rough necks from Texas and Oklahoma. In addition, there were business men from all over Europe, and then there were the men from Pakistan, Yemen, Korea, and the Philippines who did much of the unskilled labor-- building roads, waiting tables, cleaning houses, driving taxis.

We went to an International School and so naturally our classmates reflected the same diversity. To say that it was different from our neighborhood school in the suburbs of South Jersey would be a truism, but the difference didn't seem any worse to me than moving anywhere far away from my friends. So what if some of the people spoke with funny accents?

To be honest? We used to mimic the ones that sounded funniest to us-- everyone from the Pakistani guard at the gate to the little girl from Kansas City was fair game for us. So it shouldn't have come as any surprise to me when one day my brother and sister starting chanting "Ohhhhh Didi!"  at me in a sing-songy exaggeration of an Indian accent. Still, I didn't know what they meant, and after a while it became a little maddening. With tears in my eyes, I begged them to stop.

They did, but they also laughed when they explained that "Didi" was an Indian term of respect for an older sister or cousin that they had learned from a girl at school. It's a "compliment" that they still pay me every now and then to this day, mostly because of my memorable over-reaction. Still, I giggled a little when I read what one of my students posted for her slice of life challenge today:

In India we call our big cousins didi and bhaiya. Didi is for girl and bhaiya is for boy. We say this to give respect to elders.

That's right, I thought, and posted it directly to my sister's Fb time line. She liked it, but it was my cousin Elaine who closed the loop:

Hello this is didi she wrote.

CGI Candy

When I was a kid, I used to imagine that there were many whole rooms of mysteries contained within the walls of our house. I always wished that I could find the way in to explore those magical places. Of course, as I grew older, I understood the spatial reality that made such a fantasy impossible.

Not so the producers of Captain America: Winter Soldier. We saw the inaugural movie of the Summer of '14 today, and it did not disappoint. In addition to an excellent part for Scarlet Johansson's Black Widow, there were all sorts of secrets from the past and present revealed. Plus, Chris Evans? Cobie Smulders? Anthony Mackie? And even Robert Redford? Pretty easy on the eyes.

I confess, though, that my favorite character was probably S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, the Triskellion.

Most of the movie took place in Washington, D.C. and a lot of it was in that fictional building located, by the looks of it, between Rosslyn and Arlington Cemetery, maybe right on top of Roosevelt Island. At least 21 stories tall with its own private bridge into the district, I couldn't take my eyes off of that imaginary place, even before they revealed an hangar big enough to house three helicarriers and all their fighter planes under the Potomac.

Now that's a secret hiding place.

Still Half Full

Q: What do you call a rainy day during your vacation?

A: Vacation!

Also, a chance to pot all those seedlings I started and to run errands in a nearly deserted Target. Sure, the HVAC news was bad, and I do believe that is sleet I hear tapping against the window panes, but friends? The alarm is not set for tomorrow.

I'll take it.

Half Full

Believe it or not, we turned the a/c on this evening just to cool the place down. Even though it's only mid-April, it was in the 80s again today, a little muggy, and Sonic and Isabel were offering just that amount of doggy goodness smell that we thought a blast of cool, dry air might make the place a tad more pleasant.

That's what we hoped, anyway, but the gods of the HVAC must have seen it differently, and our heat pump did not comply with our command. Two hours later it was much warmer and much doggier inside than out.

The upside? It's going to be nearly freezing tomorrow night, with temperate temps for the rest of the week, AND we're off for spring break, so lining up a repair will be neither urgent nor inconvenient.

I'll take it.

MIA

Um... isn't there usually a season between winter and summer? 

Anyone?

My Own Private Cherry Blossoms

We met some out of town friends downtown today, and coincidentally, their visit coincided with the Cherry Blossom Festival.

In general, I am a person who avoids crowds; I think it was the 90 minute wait to get into the metro station after the July 4th fireworks (20 some years ago) that really sealed the deal, even more so than the packed subway trains we were waiting for. But today, our objective was to see our friends, and they happened to be in a verrrrry popular place.

I can honestly say that I've never seen it so crowded downtown-- there were five lanes of people streaming in both directions everywhere you went, so everywhere you went was packed. It was a beautiful day though, high 70s and blue skies. The cherry blossoms were nothing short of perfect, too-- trees full of pink blossoms with just a scattering of confetti blossoms swirling in the light breeze. And, as impossible as it seems, everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

Everyone also seemed to have a camera of some kind, all of us trying to document the beauty we were witnessing. We all had something else in common, too. None of us wanted any of those strangers in our pictures. 

Where is Everybody?

I glanced out my classroom window at around 4:15 this afternoon. The parking lot was deserted, save for my trusty station wagon parked in the back corner. Embracing the rare quiet in a building usually buzzing with the business of over eight hundred souls, I cleaned my desk and set out all I needed for our first early morning back at school, nine days from today. Then I packed my things, headed out into the incredible 80 degree afternoon, and turning my face to the sun, I welcomed spring break and emptied that parking lot.

Old School

We took a traditional approach to learning poetry vocabulary today when my students made personal flash cards. Sure, in a nod to the 21st century we used neon index cards, but the only cutting and pasting took place with scissors and glue. When everyone was done, I provided a handy sandwich bag for each to store the cards. This, many found confusing. "How do I close this?" was the question of the day, and I demonstrated how to tuck in the top and pull the folded part over many times to much amazement.

"I think we're seeing the future!" one student marveled.

Rare Bird

I got a new student the other day. She's been on our team all year, but only just transferred to my class at the beginning of the fourth quarter, so I know her, but not well. Today on our field trip, she beckoned me over to the bird feeder outside the window of the nature center. "Isn't that a female brown-headed cowbird?" she asked.

As a bit of an amateur birder myself, I happened to know that it was. "Her mate was here yesterday," I told her, "I bet he shows up soon."

He took his time, but while we waiting she correctly identified a white-breasted nuthatch, a tufted titmouse, a Carolina chickadee, a downy woodpecker, and a red breasted woodpecker. "My mom loves birds," she explained. Later, as the naturalist was giving his talk, she caught my eye and nodded to the window. It was the male cow bird at last.

When our group headed outside for the next part of the program we stood in the lacy shadows of towering leafless trees. High above us, birds darted from branch to branch and the air was full of chirps and whistles. One four note trill sounded above the rest, and her eyes got wide. "Isn't that a blue jay?" she asked. 

It sure was, and rare is the sixth grader who could tell you so.

Silly Me

I told my students this morning that over Spring Break we were going to put the poetry challenge on hold and go back to slice-of-life. They were a little disappointed, but before I could explain my reasoning that I wanted to be able to clarify some of the poetry forms and terms in class as we go, someone's hand shot up.

"I know why you're doing that!" he blurted out. "It's so you can keep in touch with us over break, and know what we're doing, right?" His classmates nodded in understanding.

It's so cute that they think that. It reminds me of when Josh was a little boy. We were getting ready to go on vacation and were talking about the pet sitter. "Maybe when you're older, you can stay at the house and take care of the cats and dog," I said to him. "We would pay you and everything. I bet you would be the best pet sitter ever!"

At first he thought it sounded like a great idea, easy money, but then his face fell and his brow furrowed. "But wait," he said, "won't I be on vacation with you?"

Spring Break Fever

Monday is done; Tuesday and Wednesday I'm on a field trip, Thursday and Friday are planned and ready to go.

The countdown is on!

Protective Clothing

Browsing through a catalog this morning, I came across a garment described as a "smock." The very word transported me back to elementary school where, every year for art, we were asked to bring in an old shirt of our dads' to use as a smock. I could remember pulling on the over-sized garment that somehow still smelled like my father, my classmates and I a tiny, clownish white-collar work force. The buttons were always a struggle, and the sleeves dangled far below my hands; the cuffs were uncontrollable, dragging through the tempera paint and on to the paper as if they had an artistic vision of their own. At the end of class, having done their diligent duty, the spattered shirts went back on the hook or into the cubby, neglected until next time. By the end of the year they must have been a work of art themselves, but I couldn't tell you what happened to them once that final school bell rang in June.

This Is Just to Say

Today's poetry challenge is to write a parody of William Carlos William's beloved poem. Here are a couple of my favorites, (written on a Saturday, no less!):

This is just to say
by Andrew

I have destroyed
planet Earth
that was in
the Milky Way

and which you were probably
planning
to live on
with the rest of your species

Forgive me
(but if you were more advanced)
your planet would not be
so burnt
and so dead.

********************

This is Just to Say
by Carlos

I threw away
your ticket
that was on
your desk

and which you were
planning to use to go to Wrestle Mania
this Sunday in the
Mercedes Superdome in New Orleans

Forgive me
but if you put it in a safe place
this wouldn't happen

So now you gotta watch it in T.V.

Sounds Like Poetry

Today's poetry challenge is to write a poem in the style of Shel Silverstein, interspersing onomatopoeia between the words of a sentence. Here's the original:

The Fourth
by Shel Silverstein

Oh
CRASH!
my
BASH!
it's
BANG!
the
ZANG!
Fourth
WHOOSH!
of
BAROOOM!
July
WHEW!

The kids in my class really liked this one, and they wrote some terrific stuff. Here's my version:

My
clickety
students
clack
are so
clickety
busy
clack
writing
clickety
poetry,
clack
it's like
clickety
they've
clack
forgotten
clickety
how
clack
to
clickety
talk!
clack

Will Rhyme for Gum

Yesterday was the big prize day for any of my students who wrote 20+ days in March. I warned them in advance that the prizes were silly and the real reward would be to become a better writer. Even so, their eyes were wide when they saw the array of 30 prizes in the front of the room. Each prize was numbered and each winner got to draw a slip from a jar to see just what treasure he or she had earned.

Some were thrilled and some were disappointed. At the end of the day, a couple of the more coveted prizes were left unclaimed, and I assured everyone, those who had met the challenge last month and those who had not, that they were going back into the bag for April, a new month and a new challenge where everyone, and anyone, could be a winner, if only they would

WRITE!

The Limerick Zone

Day 2 of the poetry challenge involves limericks. These little five liners can be tricky to compose since they have both a set rhyme scheme and meter. My students were pluggers, though, and it didn't hurt that their teacher has an ear for doggerel. Case in point:

Our meeting today was a sham.
Our department is in quite a jam.
They push us their best
to teach to the test,
but that's not the teacher I am.

Year by Year

My students started the second annual poetry challenge today. In support of our 100 Days of Writing and National Poetry Month, a different poetry assignment is revealed to students every morning. The first one is called Hello Haiku! and after a quick look at the form and some examples, (and a review of syllables), each student must write and share three haikus.

When I looked back at the sample haiku I had composed last year at this time, I realized that this persistent of winter of ours demanded a little revision.

2013:
Ask the wind that blows
the pink cherry blossoms when
they will fall to earth.

2014:
Ask the bare branches
that blow in the April wind
when they will blossom.

Be Afraid

If my students are any indication, this April Fool's Day is going to be eventful! Here, in their own words, is a sampling of their schemes and dreams, plots and plans, conniving and contriving:

April also means april fools day!! Which means sugar and salt switching, fake rat on the pillowing, ketchup for blood clinic pass getting (haha i wish) and much more.

This year I'm planning in doing something really sneaky. I might change the clock by an hour, or change something to something else I guess.

TOMORROW IS APRIL FOOLS DAY! My favorite "bring your family together" day of the year! I can already feel my evil-ness coming through.

When I go to bed tonight, I will tell my family to watch their back. April Fools Day will be so much fun.
1. Wake up my mom by shooting her with my nerf gun.
2. Wake up my sister by spraying her with an unknown substance.

Tomorrow is April Fool's day! I'm going to trick my parents and my brother, but not my baby brother and sister. They wouldn't get it. Anyway, our family has a "Prank Week" every year, so I have a document on google docs with all the pranks I use. It's going to be so much fun!

The Frozen Bubble Gum Trick:
Blow a bubble.
Freeze the bubble in the freezer.
Take the bubble out of freezer after 15-20 minutes.
Stick the bubble in your mouth.
Then, tell people you just blew the strongest most unpoppable bubble in the history of the world. This one is my favorite.

The only thing I know I'm going to do is prank someone. Hopefully it will turn out successfully and no one will get hurt

Good plan.

Solving for X

People are sometimes surprised to learn that math was my favorite class in school. While I love the romance of ideas that is the humanities, particularly the artistry of expression in literature, it was always the unequivocal absolute of mathematics that I enjoyed most. Math was easy for me, too, and perhaps that is why I spurned it in favor of what I perceived as more complex. It is for that reason that I understand completely why the vast majority of students turns first to math when it comes to homework. They, too, are drawn to its clear-cut expectations and right or wrong answers.

I always enjoy helping them after school or in TA when they need it. Although teaching strategies have changed, the answers are still the same. And when the daily math challenge is presented on the morning announcements, I can barely contain myself from shouting out the answer. "Come on guys! Math WOW with me!" I exclaimed just the other day, when my homeroom seemed completely indifferent to determining the volume of a cube.

The last couple of weeks I have been tutoring a friend of ours who has gone back to college to finish her degree. She's taking algebra, and the hours we have spent solving and graphing equations have been so much fun that I actually thank her at the end of the session.

Hm. 

For the Best

There was a wait of an hour fifteen minutes at the restaurant where we hoped to have dinner after the movie tonight. We gave them our name and number and headed back outside into the quiet rain to consider our options. Right across the plaza was another place that we had never heard of and they didn't look too crowded at all.

It could have gone either way. The place was more of a tavern, with a huge bar, high wooden booths, lots of basketball-filled flat screens, and some thumping nineties tunes on the sound system. I ordered the usual Saturday night dinner from when I was a kid-- steak, french fries, and salad-- and washed it down with a cold pint of draft beer, and when the first place texted, I replied with a satisfied Thanks anyway.

Selfie

There were five minutes left before lunch when a small group of students gathered around my desk. They were finished their work and excitedly looking at some of the writing challenge prizes that they might win next week. They were also examining the interesting doodads I have. They love my word a day calendar, my twenty year egg, my Zen wishes box.

I was paying a little less attention to them, perhaps than I should, caught up as I was, in monitoring and commenting on their classmates' fiction pieces in progress. I heard a roar of laughter and then a guilty giggle. "We took a selfie with your phone!" one student immediately confessed. "Sorry."

Yes, my phone, too, had been sitting on my desk, and no, it wasn't locked.

My first reaction was to be annoyed, very annoyed. "Give me that!" I demanded. They handed me the phone. I looked at the screen.

How could anyone stay mad at that? What an epic portrait of exuberance!

Also-- how did that even happen without my noticing?

AND, they promised it would never happen again.

The Romance

"It just makes me so sad," a friend of mine said yesterday. She had just finished a story about her sister who had confided that she was no longer in love with her husband; she wasn't really unhappy, and she had no plans to leave, she simply accepted that the passion was gone.

Certainly relationships change over time, and of course it can be worrisome. Just this evening Heidi came downstairs in the outfit she plans to wear to school tomorrow. "How does this look?" she asked. 

I glanced up from the cutting board. "Great!" I assured her.

"What would you think if you didn't know me?" she asked. It is a question I have answered many times before.

"Well, the blue in your sweater really makes your eyes pop," I answered, "so I would think, who is that with those pretty blue eyes and that great smile?"

"What would you do to get me?" she said.

I didn't hesitate. "I would find you the perfect dog, cook you all the vegan food you wanted, make fresh juice every morning, and pack your lunch every day," I replied.

She hugged me. "That would do it!" 

Auotbiography of a Student

When she wakes up in the morning, she is excited to go to class, mainly because she will spend the day with her friends. Lunch and the other breaks are definitely her favorite part of the day. In class, she is alert when she knows she might be called on and could probably answer a few questions correctly, and she participates good-naturedly in the group activities, but she is somewhat distracted by what she has to do once she leaves for the afternoon. To be honest? Next week most of the content covered will be a hazy memory.

Careful, It Bites

I heard a fascinating piece on the radio this morning about using statistics to help find missing aircrafts. Of course it was part of the flight 340 coverage, but the specific case they cited was the 2009 Air France plane that disappeared in the South Atlantic. It seems that using Bayes' Theorem, a statistical model that can compute a likely outcome when there are many competing variables (like where a missing plane might be), can be helpful.

Coincidentally, I also read an article today about a company that plans to use the data gleaned by tracking kids' responses to computer programs to develop a complete educational profile and action plan for every student. Education happens to be today the most data-mineable industry by far,” says their CEO in this video. "Every single thing in education is correlated to something else."

No doubt, they, too plan to use some iteration of Bayes' ideas to develop their automated response to students' needs. To many, that approach may sound ideal, but Arnold Barnett, a statistician at MIT, included this disclaimer in the radio piece this morning, "Bayes Theorem can't find the plane, period. It can, at best, change the odds."

And in fact, when they applied the theorem to the Air France flight five years ago, they "eliminated huge swaths of ocean floor because nobody heard a signal from the plane's black boxes. But it turned out, against the odds, both of the black boxes were damaged." It took two years to find that plane.

In the words of Colleen Keller, the mathematician working on that case, "Sometimes the probabilities will turn around and bite you."

Look out kids!

Heaven Forbid

"How come the fourth quarter is so much longer than all the others?" a student asked me today when I mentioned that we would be officially three-quarters of the way through our school year in less than a week.

"It's not," I explained, "but we do have spring break in a few weeks, and that adds a little time."

"Really?" She looked at me quizzically. "Isn't it, like, four months?"

"No!" the whole class cried.

"It's not four full months, " I told her as her peers practically writhed in agony at the very thought. "We have just a week in March, then April, May, and part of June."

"Oh," she shrugged, "I thought we went to July."

Daughters of Triton

I recently read that, in what seems to be a trend these days, Sofia Coppola will direct a live-action version of The Little Mermaid. It is rumored to be closer to the original Hans Christian Anderson story, and so much darker than the 1989 Disney cartoon. A screen writer is quoted as saying, it is so beautiful and exquisite and painful, so we absolutely have to have the original ending.

Twenty odd years ago I found myself on a spacious front porch in suburbia with my brother, sister, and our cousin, Sandy. All the outdoor furniture had been pushed aside and a fisher-price cassette player stood at attention on the top step, as we did too. Sandy's 7-year-old daughter, Jennifer, was about to perform an interpretive roller skate routine to the soundtrack of The Little Mermaid.

It was a very expressive performance, and once I got the giggles out, it kind of made me consider the movie in a new light. Personally, I did not find the story of Ariel very moving, but it was plain that Jennifer felt differently. If that resonance was representative of her generation, I'm sure the new, grown-up, movie will be a big hit.

Jennifer is a successful consultant these days, having earned her MBA from Wharton a couple of years ago, but you better believe that doesn't stop us from teasing her about the goofy stuff she did when she was a kid. That little skate show, so beautiful and exquisite and painful, is right at the top of the list.

'Cause that's what cousins are for.

Sunrise, Sunset

We took advantage of the springtime temperatures today to go for a walk. The National Mall and Tidal Basin were packed with like-minded folks, so on a whim I headed over to Haines Point, even though I hadn't been there in years.

IS this the pathway that I walked on?
Is this the place I rode my bike?

It was easy enough to find parking over near the NPS headquarters, although a golf ball from the public course across the way landed just a few yards from our car as we pulled in. We walked a short way over to the one-way road that horseshoes around the point and then crossed to the water.

I don't remember growing older.
When did it?

There was a clear high tide line in the grass leading down to the sidewalk that leads along the river. Obviously the point had been flooded over the winter. The cement of the walk way was in terrible condition. Huge gaps revealed the rebar and yawning holes beneath. Even so, there were quite a few other people strolling and fishing.

When did it get to be so broken?
When was it ever such a hike?

As we picked our way along the uneven trail, I was anxious to get to the end of the point, even though I knew The Awakening was long gone. Despite the beautiful weather and cheerful company, it started to seem like we would never get there. Finally we spied a playground and picnic area with lots of families enjoying the first real evening of spring. There the path turned back toward town, and we followed it back to our car as the sun sank lower in the western sky to our lefts.

Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days

Like a Room without a Roof

Fantastic word today that Josh was accepted into the Corcoran School of Art with a pretty nice scholarship.

He and his parents will work out a separate financial aid package, but it looks like this prestigious, private school will probably end up being a better deal for his college education than the state school just down the road.

Everyone who cares about Josh is pretty tickled by the news; the congratulatory texts and emails and facebook posts have been flying all day.

I have to confess, though, that when I read his text this morning, it was definitely a bit of a paradigm shift:

accepted into the Corcoran with a $32k scholarship looks like im living with you guys!

But I quickly recovered and texted him back:

Yay! Congratulations!

Mm Mm Mm

It was impossible to recover my right-before-lunch class for the last ten minutes after one student made a very lewd gesture. Although I asked him to step out into the hall to discuss that particular choice, and despite the fact that they had a pretty engaging activity (if I do say so myself), all anyone wanted to talk about was what did he do!? and what did it mean!?

Some students tried to shrug it off and play it cool. "What?" said one boy. "There's nothing bad about that. It just means one girl likes another girl." Although I appreciated his open mind, I informed him that he was misinformed, and tried again to move on.

I was still a little grumpy a few minutes later when three of my female colleagues joined me for lunch, but at least I had a good story. We rolled our eyes and giggled as I told the entire tale, ending with that other student's remark. "I guess he was sort of on the right track," I shrugged.

"Hey now!" said one of the other teachers, "No need to be so limited! No need at all."

Oh my! My jaw dropped, and I can not remember the last time I blushed so hot and so red, but the four of us almost fell out of our chairs laughing.

Which is probably why we are middle school teachers.

Common

One of the first things I learned when I started teaching is that fair and equal are not synonyms. Perhaps Dr. Richard Curwin, co-author of Discipline with Dignity and contributor to EduTopia, can explain:

Students are not the same. They have different motivations for their choices, different needs, different causes for misbehavior and different goals.

No one would go to a doctor who treats all headaches the same, since the cause for one may be allergies and the other a tumor. Identical treatment for two students who don't do homework for different reasons -- one who has to help at the family business after school, and one who watches too much television -- is no different than that crazy doctor with the single cure for all headaches.

These days, though, there is a hard push toward standardization of everything school-related. Not only are teachers and administrators encouraged, or even required, to treat every student the same in regard to discipline and achievement, but we are also being herded into systems that require considerable homogenization of our teaching practice.

Today a presentation on the merits of common formative assessment was made to our staff by some of our colleagues as part of a school-wide book study. It was a well-intentioned overview of chapter 2, and one of the powerpoint slides offered a couple of definitions of the word "common."

One was, collective, communal, and the other was familiar, popular, general.

All very warm and fuzzy, but as an English teacher I know that's only part of the story. I was struck by the definitions they left out:

ordinary, average, unexceptional

not to mention

uncouth, vulgar, coarse, unrefined, unsophisticated

March Madness

Perhaps you've heard? Warren Buffet is offering a billion dollars to anyone who picks a perfect bracket for this year's NCAA tournament. (Don't worry-- those two 16th seed play-in spots are not included.) Even so, the odds, they say, are 1 in 128 billion.

If you are so inclined, you can do a little research to find out just how slim your chances are (the same as flipping heads 37 times in a row, for example), but I have another question. What would you do with a billion bucks? Or, if you take it in a lump sum, 500 million bucks, minus 39.6%? That seems practically unspendable to me, but perhaps my tastes are too simple?

I confess that I did enter the contest... fingers crossed I'll be able to answer that last question myself.

Anything is possible

until Thursday.

Popcorn

My dad was neither a good eater nor an accomplished cook, but he did have a few culinary specialties. On Saturday morning he would fry bacon and cut up oranges into eighths for us to eat while we watched cartoons. Later, when he took us grocery shopping for the week, store brand sodas were 10 for a dollar so each of us got to choose three and he picked the tenth. (It was always cream soda or root beer.)

We drank the sodas on nights when my mom was out at one of her meetings or another. Then, my dad would make popcorn on the stove and serve it with plenty of salt and butter in the biggest bowl we had. He set it in the middle of the three of us on the floor in front of the TV, and we would crunch and munch and wash it down with ice cold soda straight from the can. When the popcorn was gone, the unpopped kernels languished in a little puddle of butter and salt at the bottom of the bowl until it was wiped away one little fingerful at a time.

I took advantage of that one more unexpected snow day we had today to pop some corn over the fire. When it was done, I poured it in my big bowl, a twin to the one my dad used, and sat down on the floor in front of the fire to crunch and munch and enjoy the warmth, both of the fire and of the memory of those long ago evenings.

Silver Palate

Finding a table for a party of six at 7:30 on a Saturday night can be tricky in these parts. Most of the places we checked had at least a 90 minute wait, but then for some reason I recalled a review I had read a few years back about a Burmese restaurant in the area. The description of the menu, 200+ dishes that would take you on a gastronomic tour of Myanmar, had stuck with me, and I'd been meaning to try it for some time.

When I called, I could hear the clamor and clank of a busy Saturday service over the phone, but they told me that they could probably seat us in 30 minutes, so off we went. A few minutes later we found ourselves in front of a storefront in a strip mall. The sign either didn't work, or was turned off, but we pushed in through the standard plate glass door and waited for a six top to open.

I'm lucky to live in such a diverse area with so many ethnic restaurants to choose from. As kind of a foody, though, it's been a while since I have experienced anything completely unfamiliar as far as cuisine is concerned. That all changed when I took a look at the menu as I waited.

Myanmar is bordered by Thailand and Malaysia to the south, Laos and China to the East, and India and Bangladesh to the North. Consider, for a moment, the intersection of all those cuisines. Can't do it? Neither could I. Add to that my lack of experience with anything Burmese (except the python and Aung San Suu Kyi) and you might have an idea of how clueless I felt approaching the menu.

The six of us blundered through, though, and we had food that ranged from the sublime to something my brother politely spit into his napkin. It was both interesting and frustrating, and on the way home, Heidi asked me if I'd ever eat there again. "No way!" I told her and went on to explain my disappointment.

Later, though, I took a second look at the review I'd read so long ago. They had said that some dishes were uneven, and they had also provided a primer for the inexperienced. Two of the dishes we liked, ginger salad and chicken coconut soup, were on that list, but there were several others that we had not tried.

Oh all right! I'll go back.

What kind of a foodie would I be anyway to dismiss an entire cuisine after one try?

The Spice of Life

I can honestly say that I don't mind 60 degree weather one day and a possible snowstorm the next.

Bring it!

Wearin o' the Green

Was it just last year that St. Patrick's day was on a Sunday and April Fools a teacher work day? Talk about luck of the Irish-- in middle school, those have got to be two of the silliest days on the calendar, and missing them both in a single year? Brilliant!

This year, though? We're up da spout, lads, and St. Paddy's day is Monday. In an effort to prevent as much pinchin' as possible, I've loaded up on green pipe cleaners and beads, so that anyone who wants to court a little luck can fashion themselves a wee emerald charm.

If not? I recommend this little blessing:

May your neighbors respect you,
Trouble neglect you,
The angels protect you,
And heaven accept you.

Tony

It was windy when I left school this evening. The 50 mph gusts that had our light poles swaying earlier in the day had given way to calmer, but more sustained wind. As I crossed the parking lot, my eye caught a flash of buff and auburn against the blustery blue sky to my right.

It was hawk. At first I thought perhaps it was on the hunt, the way it powered its mighty wings into the wind, and then let go to soar like a glider on the upgusts. I watched it for a while, curious about its quarry, wondering what possible meal could be scurrying across the windblown asphalt.

The longer I looked though, the clearer it became that this hawk?

Just catching air, dude!

It Takes Two

My students are pairing up for a collaborative writing project over the next couple of weeks, so today I had them "interview" prospective partners and then submit their requests to me, along with a rationale as to why this particular duo would be a good match-up. Before they go to work, each proposal has to be approved by me.

Most kids pick their friends, which is hardly surprising; I know what I do when put in a similar situation. Still, I like to know what they're thinking when they consider the endeavor ahead; it can be very enlightening, and in some cases it helps me to explain why I haven't approved a certain partnership.

Today I laughed out loud when I read the following explanation:

I know he's a slacker, but he's got a BIG imagination!

That about sums it up-- seems like that student knows the risks and advantages, too.

Approved!

State of Mind

Perhaps I spoke too soon when I proclaimed a near truce in my decades-long battle with Daylight Savings Time...

(Actually its real name is Daylight Saving Time, or even more accurately, Daylight-saving Time; for a full discussion on this topic, click here.)

Anyhoo, even if I feel like my own personal transition to the abominable time change has been relatively painless this year, over the past couple of days there has been compelling evidence otherwise.

Exhibit 1: My own sister's comment on this very blog: I believe it is the karmic balance effect. It is killing me!

Exhibit 2: No fewer than 15 students have mentioned oversleeping or being verrrry tired in school in the last two days. Some kids can barely pick their heads up off the desks until third period!

Exhibit 3: From the mouths, or rather the keyboards, of children, here's what one of my students posted today:

Now, we have to get up an hour earlier, so I'm not 100% sure about school, and the teacher's state of mind. They're now probably not getting the right amount of sleep every night, what with staying up grading papers all night. 

He's right! What was I thinking? DST-- you still suck!