S is for Substitute

Why is that kids always misbehave for a substitute? I remember when I was in school and our teacher was out-- the kids in my class turned into people I barely knew. The day was always full of chaos and I soon came to dread the sight of some strange adult sitting at our teacher's desk on any given morning.

Once when I was in fourth grade, we had a substitute. As usual, my classmates were like the rabid zombie versions of themselves, but I just kept my head down and tried to get through the day. Right before the bell was going to ring, the sub asked me and the girl who sat next to me to come over to the teacher's desk. She seemed frazzled and annoyed, and I was sympathetic-- the kids had been awful to her. She frowned and held up our spelling tests: both were 100%. "I do not believe that these were written by two people!" she accused us. "Look at that handwriting! It is exactly the same. You obviously both cheated!"

We were stunned. First of all, our penmanship was not that similar. Secondly, we got A's on spelling all the time. We tried to tell her that, but she didn't believe us. She scolded us in front of the class until the bell rang and we could go. I felt humiliated and angry.

When our teacher came back, she knew we hadn't cheated. She recognized our writing and she knew us well enough to know that cheating wasn't our thing. She shrugged it off as no big deal,  but that didn't really make it any better.

For a long time, I was mad at the substitute, but now I don't think it was really her fault. She didn't trust us because most of the students she tried to teach did not behave in such a way to earn her respect. If I wanted to hold a grudge,  I should have blamed the other kids.

Life Lesson: Hey! Students! Leave that sub alone!

H is for Hoe

After one year, I would not say that I am an experienced gardener, and lately, when I have driven by our community plot and seen how the weeds have done their best to take it back, I almost want to give up. Enter the hoe. A little internet research convinced me that this tool should be my best friend, and today it was. I found the sharpest one in the shed, and just as I had read, I let the hoe do the work, swinging it lightly at the tangle of weeds aiming just a fraction of an inch below the surface. Soon I had piles of weeds strategically located all throughout the garden. We scooped them into those big brown paper gardening bags, taking care not to overfill them. After three and a half hours of chopping weeds, though, my forearms were shot, and carrying the bags to the curbside was out of the question. Enter the wheelbarrow...

Life Lesson: There's a tool for that... use it!

A is for Alphabiography

I've issued another writing challenge to my students for the month of May:

	An Alphabiography tells stories of your life in short chapters, with each chapter focusing on someone or something important to you. We will work on this challenge for the month of May. You are required to post at least two chapters each week (for a total of 10), but you can post a chapter every day if you want to. CHALLENGE: Post a chapter for all 26 letters of the alphabet and four numbers to win a prize! Each chapter will end with a short “Life Lesson,” something you believe, something you’ve learned, something you want to teach the reader, or an explanation of why the subject of the chapter title is important to you. Each chapter will have a title that begins with a new letter of the alphabet.  The chapters will vary in length. The minimum is 75 words, but two of your chapters must be at least 250 words.  In response, my students issued a challenge to me-- that I complete the assignment along with them. How could I say no? Watch this space for the results.

Oh Lord!

Today the Tolerance Club sponsored another movie-- this one called New Muslim Cool. It's about a Puerto Rican-American rapper who has converted to Islam. Given the age and ethnic diversity of our student body, we thought it would be of interest, and we had about 50 kids stay after school to see it.

Later, three of the other sponsors of the group and I were brainstorming appropriate titles for our last film of the year. We have shown five documentaries, and our thought was that a more main stream movie that conveyed a message might be a good way to finish the year. As we talked, three of us were using our smart phones to look up information on the titles we were considering. IMDB turned out to be a handy resource for us, but we had to laugh at how the "Parents Guide" information was presented. For example the section on profanity lists all of the swearing in a movie, out of context, like so:

At least one slang term for breasts (as in "It's as cold as a witch's t*t"), 6 damns, 3 hells, 3 craps, 1 ass (used with "hole"), 1 turd, and 2 uses of "Oh my God" and "Oh Lord" and 1 use each of "Jesus Christ" and "Oh God" as exclamations. 

Holy cow! I guess that's good to know, but can you imagine having that job?

Crap Shoot

The other day I saw a bumper sticker that resonated with me: More Fun, Less Stuff. Probably one reason I was drawn to it is because I have a lot of stuff, and although I feel like over the last few years I have getting better, in essence that really only means that I am accumulating junk more slowly. I'm not sure how to break the habit, because like many people in affluent countries, I want what I want when I want it. Big ticket items are the easiest to resist; I think carefully before spending over a certain amount. It's the little things that are easy to toss in your shopping basket and that are currently cluttering up my house, my attic, and my classroom, because once they're paid for, it's hard for me to throw them away.


All of this is the prelude to my annual complaint about the PTA fundraiser our school does. We ask homerooms to choose a them for a "basket" and then the kids contribute items. The baskets are raffled off for a dollar a chance at our big international celebration. It's hugely successful, and why? Because people want stuff.

The Power of the Board

The chalk board is a powerful symbol of a teacher's authority, and as such, I confess that I do not like it when my students write on the board, and I rarely allow it. But kids LOVE a chalk board, perhaps for the same reason.

Today I was doing a lesson on the relationship between words and visual images. The students were supposed to take a passage from their books and parse it over the panels of a cartoon, and then illustrate the words. It can be a powerful activity to discover that rather than the proverbial thousand words per picture, sometimes one single word is worth a picture, and a rather detailed one at that.

In the class before lunch, a second language student asked me what a shingle was. Then she asked about a cape. I deduced that it was a cape-style house, and I drew a picture of one on the board; as a good measure, I added a few cedar shakes to the outside. "Can I finish the shingles?" a student asked, and I nodded, having better things to do than detail a chalk sketch.

My assent opened the floodgates. Along with the exterior of the house, kids wanted to add trees, a garden, tornadoes, earthquakes, and a chimney fire. Not to be outdone, other students started drawing things from their books until soon the board was transformed into a fantastic mural. "Stop!" I protested, but half-heartedly, since they were actually pursuing the objectives of the lesson, if only in a tangential way. "I'm just going to erase it when you leave," I finally threatened.

There arose a collective "Nooooooooo!" and so I told them that the only way they could save their masterpiece was to start their group discussions and do them very, very well. They flew to their seats and did a great job in the minutes that remained. As the bell rang, one of them asked me if I would take a picture of the board, and I promised I would. Off they went, quite proudly, to lunch. A nice story, but it doesn't end there.

During lunch, a few other students entered the room to drop off or pick up their things. They were stunned that any kids had been allowed to write on the board. "You like them better than you like us!" they accused me, and I tried to tell them it wasn't so, but in nothing short of outrage, one picked up an eraser and started to obliterate the chalk art. The others joined in with their bare hands until chalk dust powdered the tables and the board was an empty cloud.

"You didn't really need to do that," I said, a little shocked and perplexed. They wanted to write on the board themselves, but I took all the chalk and put it away. "Go to lunch," I told them.

Of course the first group was mad and disappointed to find their work was gone. "That's what happens when chalk is your medium," I told them lightly, but unconsoled, they had some choice words for their eraser-happy classmates.

Maybe my next lesson should be on symbolism.

Q-tip?

Our school is organizing an origami crane drive to benefit the survivors of the Japanese Tsunami. In support of the effort, the Tolerance Club learned how to fold them yesterday. The idea was that we would make some ourselves, but we would also teach other people how to make them, too.

First of all, those critters are complicated, but like skinning the proverbial cat, there are many ways to make the necessary folds, and since learning the skill, I have done my part to spread the word of the crane. Yesterday afternoon, two boys came to my room after track practice, one sorry he could not have been to the meeting, and the other just tagging along. "She's going to show us how to make origami cranes!" the first kid told his friend.

"What??!" his friend asked with profound confusion.

"Origami cranes," I repeated, but still he frowned.

I showed him one that was already finished. "Ooooooh," he answered, "origami cranes. I thought you said origami brains."

I laughed and crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it at him. "Here! We can make those, too."