Progress is Relative

I've mentioned before that I got Epic Mickey, a video game for the Wii, for Christmas. Make no mistake about it, I do not have the skill set to be particularly successful in such a game. I blame it on my age: when I was a kid the only video game was Pong. I was in college when Space Invaders made the scene, and an adult when the Pac Man craze swept our nation. I never owned a game system until 2007, and let's just say I had better things to do with my quarters.

My five-year-old nephew loves all things Mario, and his dad, just 5 years younger than I am, grew up playing the game. Those guys have some skills. My older nephews had Gameboys before they could read, so joysticks, A, B, C, Z, triangle, square, whatever, buttons are second nature to them. The same is obviously so for the vast majority of my students, but not me, oh no.

Still, there is something about this Disney game that I find interesting and even engaging. (Maybe it's that I heard a series of stories on it on NPR. Now it's beginning to make some sense, isn't it?) So, I play it, even though I know I suck at it. My Mickey staggers through each level like a drunk: the poor guy can not run in a straight line to save his life (literally), and he randomly hops about like he has a bad case of the hiccups. Add to that, that he is saddled with my own anxiety about heights. My palms actually sweat anytime falling might be a possibility for him; that makes the whole jumping thing a lot harder.

It's good for me to do things I'm not good at. As a teacher, I'm always on the look out for the slightest glimmer of improvement in any student, and lately, despite the steep learning curve, I do think I see some hope in my game. I'm reminded of a story that has become legend in our family. When my sister was five, she and my mom flew to California for a week to help a friend of the family who had just had a baby. Every day my sister asked my mom to help her put on a pair of roller skates. After a little while, she would call my mom again to help her get them off. After several days, she called my mom earlier than usual. "Watch me!" she said.

My mother was a little confused. "Courtney, you've been roller skating all week. Why do you want me to watch you today?" she asked.

"Because I can move now!" my sister answered.

See Mickey? There's hope, yet.

Hard Sell

Earlier in the week, a students asked me to recommend a book for her. I made several suggestions, but none of them sounded quite right to her. As we talked, it turned out that she had just finished a series which she really loved, and she was still in that doldrum period where nothing else could possibly measure up. I understood exactly what she was going through. "I just finished a book I really liked, too," I told her, "and I can't really get into anything else, yet, either." (For the record, it was Moon Over Manifest, the latest Newbery Award winner.) She thanked me and left, empty handed.

Another student overheard the conversation. "Have you read So B. It?" she asked me. I said I hadn't, but I remembered that she liked it enough to write a letter to the author, Sarah Weeks, when we were doing our Letters About Literature assignment. "You have to read it," she insisted." It's the best book ever."

Unfortunately, our library system was being upgraded, and there was no borrowing for two days. On the strength of her recommendation, though, I ordered a copy online. I needn't have bothered though; the next day she brought me her own copy to read. After school, she stopped by my room to see how far I was. I laughed and told her I hadn't had a spare minute to start reading, at which point she picked up the book and read the first chapter to me. It was awesome.

If truth was a crayon, and it was up to me to put a wrapper around it and name its color, I know just what I would call it-- dinosaur skin... The truth is, whether you know something or not doesn't change what it was. If dinosaurs were blue, they were blue; if they were brown, they were brown whether anybody knows it for a fact or not.

This morning I finished the book, and I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't with a big old lump in my throat. More than anything, though, I'm moved by the adamance of the recommendation, and how right my student was.

Thick as Thieves

Yesterday, when it became clear that certain of my students were stealing the keys from the laptop computers, I was supremely irritated.  Six out of fifteen were missing one or more of their keys. Of course, I took immediate measures, signing out each computer and checking it back in at the beginning and end of each class, but I felt resentful that the kids were being cheated out of those five minutes of productive writing time.

Today, I had a heart to heart with a few of my classes. "Be honest," I said, "and speak from the point of view of someone who has stolen something. Why did you do it?"

Some kids confessed to taking things because they wanted them-- they were attracted to the shiny and cool and so they took whatever it was for themselves. Maybe a computer key qualifies as that; I don't know. Most kids, though, admitted to stealing from their siblings or other relatives specifically to hurt those people or make them angry. For them, it was personal.

One of my students adamantly told me that it was my fault for trusting them. She practically mocked me for my naive disappointment. "Face it," she said, "you should have checked up on us more."

I refuse to adopt her level of cynicism, but after hearing their stories, I feel like I do have to accept some of the responsibility for creating an atmosphere where such a thing would happen. That kind of vandalism is a symptom of disregard for our classroom community and lack of respect for me as the authority of that group, and that's on me.

Where Did YOU Come From?

My students are going to write fiction next, and I'm working on a fiction piece, too. I wrote a little of it today to bring to my writing group. I have about 1000 words about a boy named Ned and his mother. They are working as the cooks on a ship, which is something I have a little experience with. Anyway, as I finished the bit that I was working on for tonight, I had a realization about the main character, something I did not know until a few minutes ago.

No matter how many times I read or hear authors tell about how their characters take on lives of their own and literally reveal themselves to the writer, it just seems like so much mumbo jumbo until it happens to me. And THEN it seems almost spooky, like communicating with the Ouija board or something.

Let's just say it definitely puts the spirit in inspiration.

Eye Witness

As the memoir unit draws to a close, I find it notable that this year for the first time ever, four students, in two different classes, wrote about the same incident. It seems that there was a big fight between two girls on the elementary school playground last year, and the kids are still talking about it all these months later. Mind you, neither of the fighters even goes to our school, but the indelible image of the one dragging the other's face through the mud was promoted along with the memoirists. Add to that all the kids who saw the fight but are writing about something else, and the topic has become a bit of a sensation-- even kids who didn't go to that school have an opinion about whether or not Lydia was justified in attacking Claire.

For the most part, the writing on these memoirs is quite good, but it is the discrepancies in the different accounts of this event, which they all saw with their own eyes, which are fascinating. Was it a torn scarf or some defaced shoes that set them off? Who was the first adult on the scene and what did she do? Was it fair for the principal to blame the whole fifth grade for allowing the fight to go on without intervention? What consequences did the girls receive?

Who knows? It sure makes a good story, though.

Rain Maker

This afternoon marked the debut of our new school mascot. We have long been the yellow jackets, and we have a pretty good cheerleading squad, but we have never had an actual mascot until today. They held auditions a week ago, and a lot of sixth graders went out for the chance to wear the cute plush costume and entertain the crowd at home games. They chose six kids to make sure someone was always available, and three of the six are in my class.

The occasion of the Yellow Jacket's premiere was the last home game for the girls basketball team. Before the tip off, there was a ceremony honoring the eighth graders; the coach presented them with flowers and thanked them for their dedication. I watched the poignant moment from the stands, remembering those girls as sixth graders not so very long ago. I knew that they had never won a home game in their three years on the team, and I wished them well.

Wow. Maybe it was the mascot; maybe it was simple pride; maybe it was both, but those girls came out playing harder than I've ever seen. The atmosphere was fun-- the mascot was awesome and the fans were behind the team all the way, and in a super-close game with a fairy tale ending, they won it by one point. Yay!

Crazy Hearts

The kids were very excited about Valentine's Day today-- more so than in recent years, I think. Certainly I received more candy and cards than usual. One student also presented me with a flower she had made out of duct tape-- it was pretty impressive, and it will definitely stay in my curio collection for a while.

Right before lunch, I looked up to find another student mouthing words at me and giggling. I squinted at him and then raised my eye brows. That cheeky boy raised his brows right back at me and continued on with his sweet nothings. Fortunately, I had been tipped off about this prank earlier in the day. "Olive Juice to you, too," I answered him.