9:30 in the Bubble

I went to a small high school where everyone was required to play a sport and so if you went out for a team? You pretty much made it. That was me and basketball. I was on the varsity basketball team all three years, but making the team and playing in the games were two very different things.

It turned out that, despite my enthusiasm, I was a bench sitter. At the time, it was a mystery to me. In practice I was nothing if not compliant: I always gave my best in any drill or scrimmage and made all the corrections the coach called out, and yet still I sat cheering for my teammates in every game.

Years later, when I was a teacher and recruited to be a co-coach of the girls team, I understood why. Back then? I was clueless. I had zero body awareness and the concept of plays and strategies flowed past me like an alpine stream over a waterfall. As an educator, in retrospect I could place some responsibility on the coach  (I know what a willing student I was), but on the other hand, as a coach, I know you have a lot to accomplish in a limited time, and sometimes there are children left behind.

Even so, I look back on my high school basketball career very fondly. First, I nailed the lay up-- I totally know how to do that and I have taught countless girls to do one, too. Secondly, there is no feeling like being a part of a team, and I can honestly say that every cheer I made from the bench was genuine-- I loved those girls and their success was glorious.

I am still in touch with one of my best friends from high school despite our fundamental philosophical differences. She is a conservative Midwestern doctor, and I am a liberal East coast teacher, but it was Amy who worked with me to improve my skills. We met every night in the gym after study hall and practiced for 30 minutes. And it was she who flew off the bench in celebration when I scored the only two points of my career.

That's what counts.

Score Board

Back to School Night 20
Me 0

I just cannot make my presentation fit into 10 minutes!

Fortunately?

There's always next year.

North Meets South

I dreamed all night of eating spinach-- raw, sauteed, creamed-- and awoke wondering if I had an iron deficiency. Fortunately, I had on hand one of my favorite breakfasts, Colcannon. This traditional Irish dish is a mixture of cabbage, kale, or other greens with potatoes and onions, and sometimes turnip and ham or corned beef. 

A few days ago, I pulled out the last of the frozen greens from last winter's CSA share, and cooked up a big batch. I like it during the school year, because on weekday mornings it's easy to reheat, and a hard-boiled egg makes it into a very satisfying start to the day. This morning, though, I had another topping in mind.

A couple weeks ago, I watched a slide show on the NYTimes website. Spanish chef Jose Andres demonstrates how to cook the perfect fried egg. It involves a lot of olive oil and some unorthodox spooning, so clearly it was worth a go.

In retrospect Spain meets Ireland could have been a Eurozone nightmare, but of course it was delicious and very economical, too.

By the Book

We went down to the National Book Festival today, mostly just to hear David Levithan speak, and let me tell you, he did not disappoint. I read his latest book, Every Day, a few weeks ago and was blown away.

The main character is a sixteen year old who goes by A. Every morning A wakes up in a different  body and literally spends the day in that person's skin. Age is the only commonality; this has been going on as long as A has lived, and the kids whose lives A has shared grow older as A does. The novel starts when they are all 16. As a result, A has no gender identity, no race, no religion. Levithan said today that he in writing the book he wanted to explore that essential core of anyone who makes us who we are.

David Levithan is a charming, openly-gay guy who is very positive and upbeat. An editor himself, he is also articulate and knowledgeable about writing and literature. He was great in the Q & A, and my only regret is that I didn't dash to the mike to ask if Every Day would have a sequel. To this reader, the possibility seemed open.

The author immediately after Levithan in the YA tent happened to be the legendary RL Stine. Personally, I've never been a big fan, but my students have loved his work for twenty years. In fact, I just read his memoir, It Came From Ohio, last weekend to see if it would fit in to our reading unit. I didn't need to stay for the whole thing, but I did want to see him up close and in person, and so we loitered outside the tent until a green golf cart pulled up. Stine, clad entirely in black, clambered out. He was a little grayer and more stooped than I imagined, but there he was, horn-rimmed glasses and all, a literary superstar among middle schoolers everywhere.

Fourth Annual RSVP

As in past years, I gave the students a writing prompt yesterday to get a baseline of their writing skills. Their pieces will be scored holistically using the state rubric. We'll give them another prompt in early June to measure their progress for the year.

The topic was the same as it has been the last three years:

Your principal wants to invite a celebrity speaker to your school. Think about the celebrity you would choose to speak; then write a letter to persuade your principal to invite this person. Be sure to include convincing reasons and details to support your choice.

It's always fascinating to see who the kids want to invite. This year it was a tie for most wanted:

President Obama
Rick Riordan

In addition to those two, it was cool to see several other authors represented, as well.

JK Rowling
Suzanne Collins
Jeff Kinney
Wendy Mass
Ally Carter

Of course there was no shortage of entertainers, although it's hard for the kids to find convincing reasons for some to speak to our students. They really just want a free show.

One Direction
Stevie Wonder
Taylor Swift
Jay Z
Demi Lovato
Selena Gomez
Wiz Khalifa
Sandra Bullock
Chris Brown
Niall Horran
Kelly Clarkson
Miley Cyrus
Common
Sean Connery
Victorious Crew
Katy Perry
Ringo Starr
Daniel Craig
Shia Laboeuf
Bill Murray
Johnny Depp

Not surprisingly, there were a lot of athletes, too:

Dwyane Wade
Usain Bolt
Josh Lundquist
LA Galaxy
Barcelona
Baltimore Ravens
Miami Heat
Lionel Messi
Charles Woodson
Ryan Zimmerman
Dominique Dawes
Real Madrid
Michael Phelps
Tim Tebow
Gabby Douglas
Bryce Harper
Josh Lindblom

And then there were a few others.

Mitt Romney
Michelle Obama
President Clinton
Bill Gates
Tito from the county drug prevention program
Notch (the guy who designed Minecraft)
Amelia Earhart

You've Got Mail

In the future, the US Postal Service will probably have an abbreviated role in our lives. Even today personal correspondence is way down (hardly a surprise, given the instant gratification of electronic communication), junk mail advertisements are on their way out, and most publications are available online or via an app. Most utilities and credit companies would prefer that we accept our bills electronically and pay that way as well. Of course there will always be things and stuff that must be physically delivered, at least until we perfect the transporter beam. Sure, it might take a while; Scotty won't even be born until 2222, but you're on notice UPS and Fed Ex.

Call me old-fashioned, but I can't help thinking something will be lost in such a transition. Just tonight our six-year-old friend, Savannah thanked us for her birthday gift. We got her a subscription to a magazine published for kids her age. She hadn't even read it yet, but just the experience of having a piece of mail delivered to her house with her name on it was exciting, and when we told her that there would be another one every month? She practically fainted.

Of course I only know this because we were on FaceTime. 21st century communication does have its advantages.

Mainstream Media Miss

I heard a piece on NPR this morning about an experiment conducted by a researcher at the University of Chicago. The main question of the segment was how to motivate teachers to maximize student achievement. Of the method they were covering, "It's not exactly a carrot and it's not exactly a stick," the reporter told us. What "it" is is a riff on "loss aversion." The study found that teachers who received a cash bonus up front under the conditions that they would have to return it if their students did not achieve were gangbusters successful in making sure their kids passed the test.

Could there be any doubt that I was disappointed by this story? Not only is it insulting to suggest that teachers need external motivation to help their students achieve, but nobody even questioned the definition of "achievement;" it was stipulated as success on a standardized test. (Golly, I wonder what kind of test prep, cough, I mean teaching, was going on in those classrooms?)