Rock

Sisyphus got nothing on me today: 

The kids came in tired and grumpy this morning. "Whaaaat is the point of even having school?" one whined, his head lolling to the side. "We aren't going to learn anything. There are only four days left."

I rolled my eyes.

"You know you feel the same way," he said.

"Oh yeah?" I fired back. "Did you learn anything the last four days? What about the four days before that? How about the first four days of school? These four days are no different," I harrumphed.

His frown acknowledged that my point was well-taken. A few minutes later the bell rang, and my home room left. "Why are we even in schooooool?" a first period student moaned on the way in the door. "We aren't going to learn anything..."

And so it went.

Scissors

Today was our big end of the year trip. An all day excursion, we take our team of 90 sixth graders to the beach and then on a dolphin watching cruise. It's about a three hour bus ride away, and the kids are always very excited. This was my tenth time taking the trip, but today there was a first: one student brought his homework to finish on the way. Oblivious to the hub bub around him, he whipped out a pair of scissors and neatly cut out the little squares on his worksheet, then as we rolled through the coastal countryside he produced a glue stick so that he could complete the assignment.

Impressive.

Paper

I spent way too much paper time today. It was spring writing sample scoring day, and for some reason I was the only one in the English Department who got the memo that, hello, it's a group effort. I had an all-day sub, and everyone just else dropped in when they could find the time, meaning I read A LOT more essays than anyone else. The writing was quite competent but ultimately completely uninspiring, and my head still hurts.

My other primary paper pushing activity was picking up the printed literary magazines. I'm so thankful for the miraculous turn-around-- I only finished the layout a week ago, and although the publication is far from perfect, the product is pleasant, and I am pleased to check that puppy off my to-do list.

Water

Our garden hasn't been thriving as I wish it would, and I've figured out that it's because it needs water: it's been a dry spring, and the truth is that we haven't compensated nearly enough. Even so, ever since we've had the garden, I keep getting caught in the rain. Yesterday I was actually watering when my mother and I were drenched in a downpour. (It had been threatening for days without a true drop, so it was hard to believe it would ever actually rain.) The rule in the garden is that the last one out has to turn off the water, and by the time we got the tools loaded and made our dripping way over to the far side, the rain had almost stopped, but there was a full arc of a rainbow in the Eastern sky.

Bring on the rain.

Reckoning

Today was the day when my students added up the pages and counted all the books that they had read this year. It's always pretty impressive-- even the minimum hundred pages a week for thirty-six weeks translates to 20-25 books on the average. They do a little reflection on their accomplishment, and one girl wrote, This is ridiculous-- I read more this year than in third, fourth, and fifth grade combined! Those who hadn't read as consistently as they should have showed some remorse and vowed to do better next year. A couple of kids recognized that this was a break-through year for them: I didn't use to like it, but now I'm a reader, one wrote.

Here are the numbers:

Average pages per student: 8,488
(That's over half a million total pages.)
Average number of books completed per student: 40
Most avid reader: 41,104 pages and 136 books
Reader most in need of acceleration and encouragement: 723 pages and 8 books

I also asked them to pick their top three books of the year. Most popular? The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Other favorites were the Maximum Ride series and the first two books in The Hunger Games trilogy, and of course, many vampire books were mentioned as well.

Mulch

Our county collects all sorts of lawn clippings, fallen leaves, and Christmas trees and grinds them into a gigantic pile of mulch which we then distribute for free to residents who request it. Our community garden always has a ready supply of the stuff-- a huge mound of it lays not thirty feet south of our plot. Today as I forked load after load into my wheelbarrow, I thought of all the yards and homes that had contributed to this blanket which I placed so hopefully and protectively around the plants in my garden, and I felt a tug on that deeply-buried root that connects us all.

Still Working On It

Twice in the last two days I have attended performances put on by kids. The first was the talent show at our school and the second was my nephews' final school of rock performance, this one a tribute to the Doors. I struggled with being an appreciative audience member for both of these events; I really admire the kids for getting up there on the stage, and there were undeniable moments of entertainment and, yes, brilliance in both shows, but in the end they were flawed at best.

You might think that as a teacher I would have made peace with the predictable weaknesses of such presentations and even come to enjoy them in spite of their blemishes.

You would be wrong.

(My nephews were great, though.)