Effulgence

Summer vacation has come, as it does every year. Never one to relish transitions, my initial reaction is that of a teacher without a class: What meaning is there in that? I wonder.

Oh, I'll adjust. Soon, I'll be a gardener with a garden, a hiker on a trail, a reader with a book. Everything will find its equilibrium, and everything will shine.

Unexpected

Yesterday I told my students that we would spend most of our last day in homeroom groups. "Will we have cake?" my homeroom wanted to know, but I told them that we had no June birthdays. They were disappointed until someone said, "Hey, isn't your birthday next week?" I nodded. "Will you bring a cake for yourself?" he asked hopefully. I frowned and said no, but they were welcome to bring anything they liked to celebrate. In the general lack of enthusiasm that followed, we dropped the subject and moved on to when they would get their yearbooks.

My birthday was the last thing on my mind this morning in the mayhem of a last day with a few key staff absences. Running around trying to get several things settled at once, my patience was wearing thin when the same student I wrote about in my last two posts came running in out of breath and drenched in sweat. Chronically tardy, here he was-- late for the last day of school. I sighed with a little exasperation as he burst through the door. "Did I make it?" he gasped.

"You're fine," I told him, realizing that another unexcused tardy more or less was inconsequential. "C'mon in."

"I missed my bus!" he huffed. I made a sympathetic face.  He held out a plastic bag. "I missed my bus because I ran to the grocery store to get this, and when I got back to the stop the bus was gone, so I had to run all the way to school with my skateboard. Here!" he offered me the bag. There was a smashed up apple pie inside. "It's for your birthday."

Wow. I did not see that one coming.

Turn About

Today was the last day of regular instruction and my classes returned to those logic puzzles that I wrote about yesterday. What a difference a couple of days can make. The same boy who could not get over Keith and his doll became very engaged with the puzzles when I mentioned that his older brother had been good at solving them. He worked diligently on a complex matrix only to be frustrated by finding an error when he got to the very end. He asked me for another copy as the bell rang for lunch. I told him that he didn't have to finish-- it was really just for fun-- but he was determined, so I offered to go through it with him and he accepted. We sat side by side solving a scenario about five hikers, trying to determine the color of their t-shirts, their shorts, and what snack they had in their pack. It only took a few minutes for him to figure it all out, and he didn't even mention the fact that Frank was wearing pink shorts.

Diversion

Since most of the students have wrapped up their last writing pieces, we did a little logic puzzle in class the other day. This was a Perplexor, a matrix puzzle that starts with a brief scenario and then lists all of the possibilities in each category. To solve it, you use clues to both eliminate the incorrect and identify the correct answers.I thought it would be a fun way to spend a little time.

The puzzle that I chose started with the following story: Kathy, Keith, Ken, Kyle and Kirk all had a dumb habit of bringing toys to school so they had something to do while they were wasting time in class instead of paying attention. They brought cards, marbles, a toy car, a doll, and a yo-yo. They were all failing a different subject-- either math, reading, science, history, or English. Then you are supposed to use the clues to match the children with their toys and the subject that each was failing.

Working through the puzzle, it becomes apparent early on that Keith has a doll. I was shocked by the number of kids who took issue with that as we were solving it together in each of my classes. In the first group, one girl actually crossed doll off of all of the boys' lists simply on the strength of her belief that they shouldn't and wouldn't have one. In the next group, a student said that she didn't have a problem with Keith and his doll, because her grandfather was "like that" too. When pressed, she rephrased to tell the class that her grandfather was gay; even so, she could not accept that any heterosexual boy might have a doll.

When it came up in my third period class, one particular boy snickered loudly and giggled. "That's just wrong," he laughed.

"Why?" I asked him. "Why do you care if Keith wants to have a doll? What difference does it make to you?"

"I wasn't raised that way," he said. His eyes narrowed. "I can have my own opinion, right?"

"Right," I said, "but why are you judging someone based on what they like? Why can't he have a doll without having to worry about it?"

"He shouldn't worry about what I think," he answered.

"True," I conceded, "but would you treat him differently because of the doll?" I asked. "Would you make fun of him?"

"Maybe," he shrugged.

"That's bigotry," I told him. "You do have the right to be a bigot, but do you want to be one?"

He thought about it long and hard. "I still think it's wrong for a boy to play with a doll," he said. The bell rang, and he went off to his next class.

So much for a fun little puzzle the last week of school.

Outstanding

Last year at this time I wrote a bit of a screed about awards ceremonies, and I stand my ground on that issue (please read that Alfie Kohn quotation), but the counselor reminded me a couple of weeks ago that the last time she was in sixth grade (our counselors loop with the students), we did an alternate awards activity where the students nominated each other for some sort of positive school-oriented achievement or action.

When she said so, I remembered that I got the idea from those painful few classes after past awards ceremonies where some kids would come up and ask why they hadn't received some recognition. I think we always hope that they will just know, and learn from the experience of not being one of "the chosen". What do you think you should have gotten? I asked a student one time, and when he told me, I whipped out a blank certificate left over from the official event, filled it out for him, and shook his hand as I presented it. He seemed genuinely appreciative, and I knew in my teacher's heart that it was a meaningful gesture.

This morning, as I introduced the nomination process to the students I told them that they really knew each other better than we ever could hope to, and I saw many heads nod in agreement. They were asked to identify noteworthy traits in one or more other students and to explain why these kids deserved acknowledgment for those things. The completed forms were very sweet-- the kids saw each other as friendly, smart, hard-working, joyful, independent, funny, athletic, creative, supportive, dedicated, helpful, and kind, among other qualities.

Tomorrow, each student will receive one certificate that is a compendium of the strengths that their peers and teachers have recognized in them, and during the presentation we'll cite the words of their fellow students who distinguished them for these honors, although the nomination will remain anonymous. Also, although students could nominate anyone on the team, we do this activity in class-sized groups so it doesn't become tedious.

If it's anything like last time? It'll be a nice way to end the year.

Circumstance

I used to wonder what it would feel like to be a person who didn't celebrate a main stream holiday-- for example Christmas in most western cultures. Did those people feel left out or even envious? Today I think I have my answer, but it's taken 23 years, give or take, to reach it. That's as long as I have been fatherless. There is no father in my household, either, and although I love my family fiercely, the third Sunday in June is like any other for me, and I must confess that I don't miss the fuss one bit.

Pomp

Tonight I attended the graduation ceremony of the top high school in the country. As proud as I was of our graduate, I was struck by the mediocrity of the event. There were several cleverly contrived speeches by students, educators, and dignitaries alike, but none of them hit home for me, much less hit a home run for me. My mind wandered and I wondered about the objective of such an occasion.

Still wondering.