Leisurely Loop

65+ degrees on January 7th is a tropical treat and should be embraced and even celebrated accordingly. Still, there were chores to do and errands to run, so we did not get going to formally enjoy the great outdoors until nearly 4 PM. Knowing it would be dark soon, we loaded the dog in the station wagon and headed to America's front yard, the National Mall. There we joined thousands of our fellow citizens and other tourists meandering past some of the world's most undeniably monumental sites.

I snapped a dozen or so photos as the sun set and then the full moon rose, and it was a fun night-at-the-museum moment looking at all those famous flying machines hanging like so many mobiles and models through the windows of Air and Space after dark. Strains of Linus and Lucy played as the carousel spun and the Capitol beamed importantly from up there on its hill, and there were still a lot of people around when I tossed my unworn jacket into the back seat and drove home.

Questions of the Day

Is "brat" a bad word?


It's our skin, why do you care if we make it bleed?


What do you mean by "due at the end of class"?


Did I do better today than tomorrow?


Who made up donuts?

Just another day in the sixth grade.

Word Up

We had the first writing club meeting of 2012 this afternoon, and it was delightful. Nine kids showed up; we had a lap top for each of them; they spent about 40 minutes writing, and then they shared their work with the group. The two of us teachers wrote along with them, although I have to admit that the kids put me to shame today. Not only were they positively prolific, but what they wrote was imaginative, funny, and engaging.

The most remarkable thing of all? They really seemed to be having fun.

I want to try that.

The Good Old Days

I had a meeting today with a number of my language arts colleagues. The focus of the group is how to best meet the needs of ADHD students in a general ed classroom, and the chapter for today was about classroom management. The text we are using is organized by chapter and strategy, and so our discussion usually goes from the theory expressed in the book to our own observations and experience.

Our group consists of ten teachers who range in tenure from 30 to 3 years. Inevitably our conversation turns to how things have changed over the years: parenting, the economy, technology all are popular scapegoats for the conditions in our classroom that challenge us. As professionals, we acknowledge the line between things we can change and things we cannot, but there is palpable frustration in every session.

Today, I asked others in the group how they thought students had changed over the course of their careers, but I didn't really hear any specifics that I could confirm. As weird as it seems to me sometimes, I've been teaching close to 20 years, and sure, some years are harder than others, but can I chalk it up to some sweeping social change that has transformed the children we teach?

Not so far.

Observed With Skepticism

There was a sluggish, almost syrupy quality to the day today. How quiet everyone was, even in the hallway between classes, and how subdued, once they remembered where they sat and what we do the first of every week.

Oh, sure, some key players were absent, and other students were definitely under the weather, their hoarseness and sniffles clearly affecting their behavior. And, some children were definitely exhausted-- however they spent the last 10 days still seemed to be taking a toll, but the rest?

Hmmmm.

Did I detect a wee, hopeful sign? Could it have been a modicum of maturity, that inevitable growth we see in all eleven-year-olds as they live and learn throughout the year? (Which, by the way,  is nearly 10 percent of their whole lives and practically 25 percent of their remembered lives.) Could it?

Maybe.

Never Mind

Perhaps it is my hearing, or perhaps all of my senses are going, but whatever the situation might be, I think I'm going to enjoy the decline. Right on the heels of the NFL's miraculous concussion suits, today I heard how concerned many Iowans are about foreign policy. No stereotyper of heartlanders am I, so that fact itself did not surprise me, but I did note the odd, single syllable pronunciation of the word "foreign": it sounded almost like "farn" the way they said it.

I listened even more carefully about the particularly high interest in rural Iowa on these policies and the impact they might have on local jobs and prosperity, and even though it was a bit of a stretch, I was right there with them even when they started talking crop subsidies, until it occurred to me that maybe...

Yup. It was farm policy.

Speed Celebrating

On December 23 I braved the crowds of folks doing their holiday food shopping to pick up a few last minute items of my own at the grocery. One corner of the store was much quieter than the rest-- not many people were shopping for household cleaners and paper towels that day. I did a double-take, though, at the display right next to that aisle-- it was full of Valentines Day candy, cards, and gifts.

Who can really be surprised at such early marketing? It wasn't that long ago that the Christmas stuff was peeking out from behind the Halloween decor, which was itself recently just beyond the back-to-school displays in... July.

Despite the rapid-transit commercialization of holidays, I don't object to looking ahead, and anticipation is one of my favorite pleasures. In fact, all those holiday catalogs that were filling up my mailbox are already giving way to seed catalogs. I can't wait to sit down and go through a few of them, because spring must be hiding around here somewhere.