Ya Think?

With the rise in the availability of e-readers and e-reader apps, our school is on a threshold. We want kids to read and have their books handy, and kids want to read on nooks and kindles. All well and good, but for our antiquated rules about electronics in school.

And so it was in good faith I brought up the question of revisiting or even recrafting our regulations about such things in our team leader meeting this morning. At first the concern was roundly dismissed by another teacher. "Just tell them to turn it off or take it away," she said. "You have to monitor it, just like anything else."

Set aside the implication that I don't know what to do when my students are off task, and you'll see that she actually reinforced my question. Do we tell them to turn it off, or do we take it away, or is there another option?

Perhaps a clear rule would be helpful here...

Dinner is Served

Thank goodness I don't have to do the dishes!

Sense of Wonder

I spent the day catching up on some grading, and so at last I had the chance to carefully read the final drafts of the "sense poems" my students wrote and posted a week ago. As I mentioned in a previous post, the assignment was to choose a specific place and then conjure a descriptive detail for each of the senses and then put those descriptions into a prescribed format.

Overall, the kids did a nice job; most of the poems were sweet and observant, and almost every one had at least one inventive detail or conclusion that elevated the poem.

Even so, my favorite piece by far was this one about Egypt:

crowded stores with unique clothes that are new and fashionable

polluted air makes me hold my breath

shouting sellers make my eardrums go boom boom

strangers rush through me like I'm invisible

the hopeless water that comes from nowhere tastes like nowhere

oh my, what time is it?

Well Hush My Mouth

"Why don't we have summer rolls this week?" Heidi asked me last Sunday at the grocery store.

I shrugged. "Well," I said, "we could, but it's fall. That doesn't seem very seasonal."

Heidi graciously let it go, probably because in our family, I'm kind of the boss when it comes to food.

You can imagine my surprise (and humility), then, when I checked in with the New York Times food section this morning only to see this headline: Spring Rolls from Fall Vegetables.

And the recipes looked pretty darn good, too.

Thank Gooodness

On Friday evening everything seems possible. Homemade vegan pizza? No problem. Another glass of wine? Why not? That stack of papers in my school bag that is begging to be graded? Plenty of time for that--

tomorrow.

There are also books to be read, trails to be hiked, movies to be seen, groceries to be shopped for, and birthday dinners to be prepared and celebrated.

All easily within reach

on Friday evening.

Where Are They Now?

The English teachers in my school had subs today so that we could holistically score all of our students' writing samples. I spent most of the day reading eighth grade essays, which was fun, especially when I got to the ones that had been written by my former students. There weren't as many as I would have liked, and perhaps that was for the best, because call it bias, but I thought that overall they were better than the others I also read.

Not all who passed through my program shined, though. My favorite off-the-wall submission of the day was the work of one of my prior scholars. The prompt was to write about a special place-- describe it and explain why it is special to you. He wrote about the Virgin Islands. Reason number one that it was so special to him? Well, on his first visit, he caught a crazy virus and came down with a rash of blue spots all over. Reason number two was that his "great aunt (no relation)" has a condo overlooking the beach.

Can you wait for reason number three? Well... you'll have to, because that's where his story ended.

Poor Me! I Have Nothing to Say Because I'm too Busy

I once gave the following advice to a fellow blogger: Never write about having nothing to write about. It's boring and amateurish, even if done cleverly.

I stand by that, and there are a few other rules that I have developed over the last few years: General bitching is also dull, and No one wants to hear how busy you are.

Sometimes I think that I have unnecessarily hobbled myself, because when you try to write every day in addition to taking care of the rest of your jenk? Those three topics seem like an easy hundred words and out.

And yet I soldier on.