Another Snow Day

The storm yesterday reminded me of another snowstorm a couple of years ago. In January of 2008, I traveled with a friend and colleague to Maine to spend a week observing at Nancie Atwell's school, The Center for Teaching and Learning. We arrived in Edgecomb on Sunday night, just ahead of a major Nor'easter, but we weren't concerned. My friend had had the foresight to rent a four wheel drive vehicle, and plus, this was Maine, we shrugged, surely they knew how to handle whatever snow there would be.

The next morning my cell phone rang. "This is Nancie Atwell," the voice on the line said. "Is this Tracey?" After getting over the initial shock of actually having Nancie Atwell herself call me, I realized that she was telling me that school was canceled that day because of the weather. She arranged to meet us for a couple of hours that morning anyway to go over the rest of the week. I couldn't decide if I was disappointed, relieved, or exultant... the joy of a Snow Day is a powerful thing.

At 10 AM when we left CTL, after having met Nancie and seen her school, the snow was falling fast. Faced with an unexpected free day, we set off in the storm in search of a late breakfast. The roads were terrible, but my friend navigated them admirably, and before too long we found ourselves on a nearly deserted Main Street in Damariscotta. A restaurant called The Breakfast Place seemed just right, and we parked in front and made our way inside. A cheerful group of rather grizzly Mainers was leaving as we came in, and those gentleman gave us a thumbs up as they passed.

Inside, we were the only customers, and the waitress led us to a table in the back that looked out over the water. Lobster boats bobbed on anchor buoys in the snow. I ordered a poached egg and crab cake on a homemade English muffin with coffee. There were Trivial Pursuit cards on the table, and we took turns quizzing each other until our breakfast arrived. The food was good, and our conversation wandered to books; my friend recounted the entire plot of Walk Two Moons right up until the end. There she paused. "Do you want to know what happens?" she asked, and I nodded, completely charmed by the story, by the setting, by the food, and by the company.

Back at our hotel, we spent the rest of our day talking about Atwell and her school and about teaching and teaching writing as the snow piled up and up. I didn't feel trapped at all-- the promise of the week ahead seemed as boundless as the expanse of drifts outside the sliding glass door and as long as the icicles that formed drip by drip on the overhang that sheltered it. And it was a good week, a great week, really, but in the end, my favorite part of it was the snow day.

Lotta Lotta Snow, Man!

Well, as promised, our area got a major winter storm. Unofficially, we have a couple of feet out there, and we've taken full advantage of it so far... we watched a so-bad-it-was-good movie on cable (in the middle of the day!), went snowshoeing through the neighborhood, let the dog play off-leash because there wasn't any traffic anyway, baked cookies (two kinds), had a fire all day long, and started a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. We have not picked up the shovels yet, but there's always tomorrow for that.

Turns Out, It Was the Cable Guy

My internet service has been restored just in time-- a historic snow storm has been predicted to wallop this neck of the woods, a storm that promises to have all of us housebound for quite a while. Here at our place, we have all the provisions we need to be more than comfortable during the snow: books, food, and firewood, but I have to be honest: it would have really sucked not to have the internet. That's the lesson I learned this week.

Leaders of Tomorrow

It was an early release day today, one of two built into the calendar for professional development for teachers. That meant that the kids left at noon. For the second year in a row, our school showed a foreign film during this shortened academic day. We are an IB school and the objective of the activity is to expand the international sensibility of our students. Last year we showed the Tibetan movie The Cup, and this year it was Whale Rider.

Before the movie, I split the students into two groups, boys and girls, for a discussion on gender, traditional gender roles, and leadership, which are major themes of Whale Rider. Independently of one and other, both groups listed the following three qualities as important in a leader: committed to the people, trustworthy, and smart or wise. In addition, they also agreed that none of those things were gender specific, and they were truly puzzled as to why people in the past did not often consider women fit to be good leaders.

Golly. Do you think they might be on to something?

It's Complicated

I have a student whom I find very challenging this year. Impulsive and disruptive, she has a genius for turning the focus of the class away from what I've planned and onto her. She's difficult to manage, partly because the other students are so willing to engage with her. The other day, she refused to move into her small discussion group. "What are you doing?" I asked her. "You talk all the time when you're not supposed to, and now that it's time to talk, you won't. Help me understand this."

She threw herself to the floor and sighed. "Nobody likes me," she said. "I don't want to talk to them."

"What do you mean?" I replied. "The kids in here like you."

"No they don't. They think I'm annoying. Watch!" And just like that, she flipped the attention of the class as she stood and queried every student in turn in her booming voice. "Do you think I'm annoying?"

To be honest, I sort of ceded control of the class, because their reactions were pretty hilarious. Most were like, yeah, duh, of course you're annoying, although a few kids tried to be kind, and one pantomimed locking her lips and throwing away the key. It's a small class, and she got through her survey quickly and then turned to me in a so there stance.

"That doesn't mean anything," I told her. "Watch this: Hayley, do you think I'm annoying?" I asked.

She looked at me and shrugged. "Yeah, sometimes," she said.

"Kaelan, do you think I'm annoying?" I asked another student.

"Mm hmm," he nodded."Especially when you make us get organized."

"But, do you like me?" I asked them.

"Of course," they both said. "Everybody's annoying sometimes."

"What about this one?" I pointed to the kid standing next to me. "Do you like her?"

Their affection for her was unanimous, and so I told her to get over to her group and get to work.

Holy Crow

Every year around this time large groups of crows (I know, I know, they're called murders) gather in the evenings right outside our house. Flock by flock, they fly in and fill the bare branches at the tops of the tall trees in the woods across the way, creating a noisy spectacle. Some of the neighbors find them threatening-- they  dash for their cars, ducking and making inevitable Hitchcock allusions.

I like the crows, though. Sometimes I close my eyes and try to pick out individual crow voices in all that racket, and when I feel like I can almost tell some apart from their kin and companions, the noise changes and it sounds like they are speaking in some language and I could understand them if only I knew it, or if at least there were subtitles against the gray evening sky.

How Could You Miss That?

One time, several years ago, the counselor came to get a student from my class, and when she returned I went over to her with concern. "Is everything all right?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I'm being bullied," she confided.

"Oh no," I said. "Who's doing that to you?" She whispered the name of another student. "When is it happening?" I asked with concern.

"In your class," she told me.

You could have knocked me over, so stunned was I. The two of them sat in the front of the room, about three feet from where I stood most of the time while teaching.

Teachers like to think that we know what's going on in our classrooms, but over the years I've learned that as much as we catch, we miss a lot, too, probably more, and so the best we can do is create an environment where the students feel safe to tell us when something goes wrong.

And as for missing things? I've come to expect it, so much so that I was barely surprised at all this afternoon when I discovered a toy soldier in my classroom. Armed and guarding a paper rocket, he was stationed in the corner of the room right below the flag and next to a sign reading Don't Touch! Bryan's Top Secret Missile Base. How long it's been there I have no idea, but Bryan is in 8th grade now.