Public Display

In general, Heidi and I are an amicable pair; in many ways our strengths compliment each other. I don't mean to imply that we always agree, far from it, but it was a rare occasion yesterday when we walked into our local grocery store bickering about what to have for dinner. As luck would have it, the first person we saw was a friend from work, Renee, waiting at the check out line. She was on the phone, but her eyes widened as we approached. Our moods changed completely when we shifted our focus from ourselves to our friend, and we greeted her with genuine cheer.

"What are y'all doing here?" she asked, and then pointing to the phone she added, "I'm talking to Nik." (Who is her adult daughter and also a friend.)

"We're just fighting about what to have for dinner," Heidi laughed, and I joined her because it was so ridiculous. She continued with excellent imitations of our cranky exchange, and we laughed even harder.

Renee looked relieved. "They're fighting about dinner," she said into her phone. "Tracey wants roasted butternut squash risotto, but Heidi wants grilled bread with heirloom tomatoes and a salad." She paused. "Nik wants to know what time she should be there."

An Irving Berlin Kind of a Day

We decided to take advantage of the PERFECT weather this afternoon and head down to the national mall. At 5 PM there an almost carnival-like atmosphere prevailed beneath the cloudless sky. A street musician played Linus and Lucy on his keyboard while four little children danced on the grass. A young man carefully placed a wine bottle in his shoe and rapped it sharply on the ground next to his picnic blanket while the pretty girl he was with looked on. The cork remained firmly in place as we passed, and the rapping became pounding. I always wondered if that trick really worked. A little further on, another man passed us juggling three tennis balls as he went, and right after we rounded the west steps of the Capitol, we caught up with and passed two guys chattering in Italian and also practicing their operatic la-la-la-la-las as they strolled along the gravelly path. 

Nothin but blue skies.

Hashtag

Is "pie hole" an example of metonymy?

Open yours and discuss.

Coming to You Live

A neighbor stopped by the other night to chat. She was giving us the latest on her 5-year-old niece who recently started kindergarten in another state. It seems they have a behavior plan in her class that involves a 10 point system. Her niece is never quite clear on how many points she has or where they went by the end of the week. The family suspects a bit of truth-stretching here and there; it's hardly surprising-- who wants to report unflattering news, especially when you're five?

That's okay, though, our neighbor told us, because the point system is going to be online in a couple of weeks with live progress reports for every kindergartener.

Of course it is.

(Shakes head and turns off the computer.)

The Whole Story

I got a look at the first examples of my new students' writing today. After we read "The Follower" by Jack Gantos, I asked them to identify a possible theme of the story. Don't follow a bad leader; be yourself; monkey see monkey do; listen to good advice, were all accurately offered. The next step was for them to write the story of a time when they learned that lesson themselves.

Given the nature of the prompt, it's hardly surprising that many of their pieces included the sentence, We got in big trouble. Every single story left it there, though, and because I don't know these kids very well yet, I was curious about their definition of "big trouble."

Turns out, it doesn't take much more than a few harsh words or a tap on the wrist for these kids to call it hot water. Well, either that, or they were taking creative license. It doesn't matter though, because it was a great opportunity for me to remind them to elaborate.

"Tell me everything!" I encouraged one student. "What did the principal say? How did you feel? What happened then?"

He frowned and shrugged. "Details, details," he sighed.

I laughed. "Exactly."

Late Summer

What to do when the high temperature for the whole year falls in September?

Fire up the grill!

Traction

This is our fourth year of doing Tolerance Club, and today's meeting was full of surprises. In other years, we have embraced the largely sixth grade participation as a good thing, hoping that we could count on their commitment as their middle school time progressed. That was never the case, though. For some reason, Tolerance Club just wasn't appealing to 7th and 8th graders, and all but our most faithful participants dropped out. This year, we made the conscious decision to be happy with whoever we got-- everyone can use a little tolerance, right? So, imagine our delight when the majority of the kids who showed up were in seventh grade, most of them our alumni from last year.

Could it be that this tolerance thing is finally catching on?