What Blah

More tales of quadruple teaching a lesson:

Today, I used the white board to record a student-generated list of writing tools we've used this year. During the last class of the day, a student raised her hand and repeated one of the ideas, verbatim, from the class before. I caught on right away. She could read the ghostly shadow of the erased writing. "Good one!" I said. "What else do you see?"

She reeled off another one, and we laughed. "Anything else?" I asked.

"What..." she started and then frowned and squinted. "Blah." She couldn't read the rest.

"What blah?" I repeated. "Very good!" And I wrote it down on the list.

The students who were paying attention giggled. (I'd like to say that it was all of them, but I teach sixth grade. I knew I'd have to circle back and pick up the stragglers another way.) "What blah!" one of the focused kids exclaimed. "I must have been absent that day!"

We joked about it for a minute or two and then went on to complete the list. The assignment was for them to write the first draft of an essay and then use the list to revise. A while later a student approached my desk. "I'm finished my draft," she said quietly.

"Did you use the list on the board to revise?" I asked.

"Yes," she confirmed, "and I have everything except what blah. I must have been absent that day."

Minty Fresh

I'm not sure how it came up at lunch today, but I found myself confessing that, when I was in kindergarten and first grade, I ate the paste. I think I must have assumed that everyone did that so I was a little surprised that I was the lone paste-eater. I felt it necessary to explain.

"Seriously? You never tried it?" I asked. "But, it was so delicious-- all sweet and minty. I wonder what kind of paste that was? I wonder what was in it?"

I thought back 45 years in time. "My teachers used to cut little squares of paper," I recalled, "and the paste came in these giant tubs, so they would take like a tongue depresser thing and scoop a glob onto each square and then student helpers would bring one to each of us," I continued. "We had to use our fingers to rub the paste in, so of course you could taste it, and it was good!"

For a second, I was my present adult teacher self standing in that long ago classroom. I considered the routine from a professional perspective as I tried to describe it to my colleagues. What did we do next? I tried to remember.

"Hmmm... Now that I think of it, I'm not sure how we were actually supposed to get the paste off our hands... did they send us to the bathroom? Did we have a sink in the room?" I shrugged. "Who knows? For me, that was never a problem!"

Stumbling Blocks

I gave an assignment to my classes today that I thought would be a quick review of something they learned in 5th grade, but a few minutes into it with the first group made me reconsider. They did not seem to grasp the directions and when they did, the task took them much longer than I planned for.

One of the benefits of teaching four sections of the same thing is the opportunity to tweak a lesson that needs it right away. The next class went a little better, but it was still not as smooth as I hoped. The third time I started with a little confession about how the day was not going the way I imagined it. "Maybe this is just a hard activity," I warned the class in a tone that was more challenge than admission of defeat. I made the directions very explicit and gave examples.

"That doesn't seem too hard," a student commented.

"I know, right?" I said. "Now show me how it's done!" I ended my pep talk with a little fist pump and then noticed a student raising his hand.

"I think I know what might take so long," he said. I looked at him expectantly. "You forgot to give us the worksheet."

Oops.

I Have Seen the Future

When I heard that the smallish movie theater I used to go to all the time had been renovated and switched over to reserve seating only, I made little note of the fact. Later someone mentioned that not only were the seats by reservation, they were luxury recliners, too. That piqued my interest, but it wasn't until this morning, when we met a friend there to see Zero Dark Thirty, that I fully realized the implications.

Oh. My. Gosh. Wide, roomy, adjustable auto-recline, and foot rests? The movies may never be the same.

21st Century Pioneer Woman

With a dramatic bang and a tiny wisp of smoke, my electric range quit working last night. Fortunately, dinner was ready.

This is actually the third stove we've owned in the 14 years we've lived here. When the elements kept burning out on the original 1985 model, we replaced it with a cool black ceramic top number. It was awesome until that day when the oven shorted out, blowing the entire circuitry on it. The repairman assured me that although the part was on back order, it would be there in a couple of weeks.

Two weeks without a stove seemed crazy. The first thing we bought was an electric kettle to boil water for coffee. We already had a crock pot and a combination deep-fryer and general electric pot. Our microwave is also a convection oven, and so we did nicely. When they called to tell us that it might be another week or so, I got an induction burner.

By now it was early November, and Thanksgiving was on the way. During one of my pointed calls, someone finally broke the news to me that my range was going to be out of commission for the entire holiday season. I reeled for a moment and then went into catering on site mode, channeling the mindset I had given up a decade ago.

For Thanksgiving, I farmed out the turkey and made all my other sides with the versatile little appliances I had. (I don't think I've roasted a turkey since.) At Christmas I did all my baking in the convection. It took a little longer, but it was fine. We ate normal meals and had guests over. Stove? Pffffft.

Thinking back on that time now, five years later, I have to say that being stoveless really wasn't too much more than an inconvenience, in fact I kind of enjoyed the challenge of it all. At last, though, in March, I broke down and bought a newer, better range. A few months later, they delivered the errant part. That kind of made me mad, but I was enjoying the new stove too much to let it bother me for long.

Until last night. Oh, I've put a call in to my new, reliable repair guy, and I have high hopes that he will be able to make a quick and simple fix, but he's so old-fashioned that he doesn't work on weekends, which is okay with me.

We'll make do.

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

The Tolerance Club sponsored our monthly movie today. Last time we showed The Miracle Worker and the library was pretty packed, so we asked for permission to branch out into the theater. The movie was The Hammer, rated PG-13, and so we required our middle schoolers to get a permission slip signed by a parent.

As usual, the TC kids made posters and we ran a trailer on the morning announcements promising a snack and a couple hours of community and service to any student interested in watching this true story of Matt Hamill, born deaf, who against all odds becomes a national NCAA wrestling champ.

This afternoon, the assistant principal and I waited in the lobby as the bell rang, ready to collect permission slip "tickets" and usher the students into the theatre. At first it was a trickle, a few kids came right after their last class, eager to see the movie. Soon, the lobby was full, and when we started letting them in, it was literally only a matter of minutes before we ran out of snacks. As I dashed back to our team room to scrounge up some spare treats, I passed a line of students that ran past the main office and well down the hallway.

Later, when the lights were back up and the late buses had pulled off into a rainy Friday afternoon, we counted up how many permission slips there were and then added in the last minute phone calls home that we had approved. Our house was over 200, meaning that close to 30% of our student body had come to the movie.

Wow.

Golden Statue Playbook

The announcement this morning of the Oscar nominees for the year added a little zest to our day. I was particularly pleased that the acting in Silver Linings Playbook was so recognized; it was easily my favorite film of the year I've seen so far.

I also felt quite vindicated that I pushed for all of us to see Beasts of the Southern Wild back in July. I'm quite sure I remember insisting that it would be nominated come Oscar time... the fried alligator on the floating brothel scene was magical.

A few summers ago we took all the boys to see A Winter's Bone.  (Same story: I had read a few things about it and guessed that it might be recognized by the academy, and it was, and so I am boasting about my remarkable prescience.) Back then, Jennifer Lawrence was nominated, as was the movie. Neither was victorious, but this time around? My money's on Katniss.