Stuff and Gravy

How sad we were on Saturday morning to hear the news that we lost Judy at a little before 6 a.m. We've spent the weekend helping her family in any way we can, and yesterday afternoon we stopped over at the house to see if there was anything we could lend a hand with there. Judy had fine taste and was a tireless collector and shopper. She always gave wonderful gifts, and her home is filled with more cool things than many museum exhibits or antique stores. Tiny sculptures, books, jewelry, buttons, vintage toys, hand-carved wood, dollhouse furniture, paintings, shadow boxes, ceramics, and other exquisite items decorate every surface and most of the walls, and fill all the closets and drawers to overflowing, not to mention the attic and the cellar. Her home is a wonderful expression of her life, but the unifying energy that made it more than just a collection of things has gone, leaving all the stuff behind for her children to handle. It's going to be a huge job, and I confess that I came home resolved to get rid of some of my own possessions.

Of course for me, helping means cooking. I'm always happy to have the chance to cook for people, and since Friday night, I've been over at my brother's each evening to cook dinner for him and the boys and my sister-in-law when she returns late from her parents'. I've tried to vary the menu, but we've had gravy every night: along with the company, it warms us.

This is too Much Pressure

This is a last minute emergency guest blog post, guys. This is Nemo from notably awesome neighbor-blog A Road That Disappeared, and I am running out of time to write this guest post, so I am calling on you, the reader, to imagine something really excellent being written in this space! It can be pretty much anything. I don't mind, just as long as it lives up to my high standards of quality. Meanwhile, I'm going to fill this space with some random noise. Ok, so when I'm an adult I'm going to raise any children, nephews, or nieces or whatever by misleading them even more then my parents did to me. I'm going to construct elaborate fantasies and insist that they are entirely true, like claiming that marshmallows grow on marshmallow sheep and that when they get a little older I'll take them to the ranch and they can help harvest the marshmallows. They'll grow up skeptical and with completely developed imaginations, so if they're ever presented with a situation that requires them to think quickly, such as, for example, having to come up with a guest post for someone else's blog at the last minute, they'll be totally prepared and not have to pull off something lousy like this.

Well, that's that then. Thanks for joining us and be sure to tune in tomorrow, when we'll be returning to your regularly scheduled Walking the Dog post.

Starve a Fever

Over ten percent of the kids on our sixth grade team have been out sick this week. Many families are heeding the flu precautions to keep home any child sick with a fever, but some are not. I've sent several students complaining of headache and chills to the clinic. A couple have mentioned that they were not feeling well the night before or even that morning, but their parents told them they had to go to school.

The health department recommends keeping a child away from school for twenty-four hours after he or she has been free of a fever, without medication. Still, we've had kids show up in the morning, go home by nine, and come back a day later, only to be out the next. No wonder the flu is spreading. Probably the worst case I've heard so far is the dad who called on conference day to say that his son had thrown up that morning and had a slight fever. Our conferences are student-led, so the teacher asked if he would like to reschedule. "No," he said, "Next week is busy for me. He can suck it up for half an hour."

Suck it up? Maybe. But can he hold it in so the rest of us don't get it, too?

Choux de Bruxelles

So the kids are working on drafts of free verse poetry, and I stop to confer briefly with one student. She's composing a poem about how yucky brussel sprouts are. "Yes," I whisper, "I can tell that you don't like them, but what I'm missing is convincing details and a reason why you're taking the time to put these thoughts on paper. What do you want your audience to get from this?"

"That I hate brussel sprouts," she answered. "They're really gross."

"Yeah," I said, "but I like brussel sprouts. What's your message for me?"

She raised her eye brows in disbelief. "Ewww," she replied.

"That's it?" I asked. I thought for a moment. "Do you like bacon?"

"Everyone likes bacon," she said.

Now we had the attention of the girls sitting near her, too. They, too, nodded in support of bacon.

"Well," I told her, "I roast my brussel sprouts with bacon and potatoes. They're delicious that way."

She had the grace to admit that the dish didn't sound too bad. The other two girls asked for the recipe.

What Really Counts

I'm of two minds tonight, thinking about all that's going on at school-- preparing the students for conferences, writing free verse poetry, the text book ultimatum handed down from central office, IB planning, and the first of our regular ELA professional learning community meetings-- all of this happened today, and all of it was overshadowed by the news that our dear Judy has taken a turn for the worst.

Judy is my sister-in-law's mother; I've written of her here twice before-- in Thicker than Blood and Preservation. The sorrow of knowing that these are her last days makes everything else seem like a stupid chore. Driving home tonight after we stopped by to see her, it seemed wrong that everyone was going about their business as usual, waiting for the bus, playing at the park, walking the dog. How could any of that matter?

Redundancy

There is a HUGE spider spinning her web on our front porch at this very moment. In the interest of housekeeping, I know I should take my broom and either shoo her away or smush her guts out and then clean up her cobwebs, but I'm much too impressed by her size and skills, not to mention her smarts, to do her any harm. She's building in wide-open air right in front of the light. To be accurate, it looks like she's actually re-building; a location like that must get a lot of heavy action, and that can do some serious damage to filament, so she eats, and then she repairs, so that she can eat again.

Oh, and that meeting this morning? Both conferences and study hall were indeed on the agenda. In the name of consistency and equity we all agreed to what we've agreed to before. I'm sure it will last until we agree to it again.

Rumor Has It

I happen to know, from an inside source, that tomorrow at our weekly team leaders' meeting, someone will bring up the issue of after school study hall. As long as I've been at my school, the sixth grade has offered what we call "Homework Club" every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for an hour after school. Historically, it started out a little on the punitive side; we offered it as a place to get some help and a head start on your homework, but it was run as an after school detention, too. It took a few years to separate those two very different activities, but once we did, the study hall became a much more productive place.

It's always one of the first interventions we suggest to students who are struggling, and mid-year, especially after progress reports go home, we really get a full house. 15-20 kids come voluntarily (or with a bit of parental prodding). In addition to being staffed by a team teacher, we have supplies and text books; we give them a snack and a frequent attendance punch card that they can trade for a few points of extra credit, too. For some of our kids, all that turns out to be very helpful.

So helpful, in fact, that a few years ago, our school adopted it as a blanket policy. Our principal removed all of our before and after school hall duty time in exchange for the teachers on each team agreeing to provide study hall three days a week. On our team, this year, that worked out to thirteen days each where we committed to staying 30 minutes past our contract time. Intructional assistants are responsible for all the hall duty that we used to sign up for, and, minute for minute, it works out to be a pretty even swap.

The principal cannot require us to work beyond our contract day, though, and over the years, there has been a breakdown in this shared responsibility. Rumor has it that a few teachers refuse to supervise study hall at all, and that 3 of the 6 teams are only offering it two days a week. That's the issue that I hear will be on the agenda tomorrow. I'll let you know how it all goes down.