Overheard in the Sixth Grade

"Dude! I have BO, too!"

Before you suggest deodorant, here's the reply:

"PS3 or X-Box?"

Now, here's the translation:

Student 1: My friend, I have the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 2!

Student 2: Which game platform do you own, Sony's PlayStation 3 or Microsoft's X-Box?

But keep in mind, they're 12-year-old boys. I wouldn't rule out deodorant just yet.

After Hours

Our friend Amari stopped by my classroom today after school. She's in third grade and her grandmother works in the building. Heidi helps her with her homework a few afternoons a week, but today, it was my turn.

I don't remember sitting down after school to do homework as being such a hardship when I was eight. I think I liked it, probably because it was easy for me, and I also wanted to do the right thing. I was not prepared for any trouble over something as simple as homework.

Today, I know the same is not true for every kid-- hell, as a teacher, I know the same is not true for many kids at all.

Amari is included in that larger group, but I have to admire the strategies she has put in place for herself. Rather than mope around the table, she says things like, "Math! If I get this right I'll do a slam dunk! If not, I'll do two more problems before I get up."

It helps that I have a backboard and hoop in my room, but that's not always necessary. Word sort? How about if we do charades of the words before we write them in the proper column, or maybe we can play hangman on the whiteboard? She knows how to make homework tolerable, if not fun, for herself, and that is a golden skill.

It's Chemistry

When a friend of ours, who is a science teacher, had a baby last year, we gave her a set of blocks. Rather than the usual alphabet, these had the elements from the periodic table. Not long ago, our friend sent us a picture of her little girl playing with our gift.

Such a genius! I wrote back. She already knows the formula for fluoro-uranium carbotassium!

Yep, her mom replied. She's ready for kindergarten!

Litter Bugs

The weather here was beautiful today-- sunny and warm-- so we wanted to get outdoors for a little walk. Unfortunately, that weather combined with that other also lovely in its own way weather we had last week-- cold and snowy-- guaranteed a lot of mud.

Still, we tied on our boots and headed for a little man-made lake not far from here. The trail all the way around is 3 and 3/4 miles, a few ups and downs, but mostly a nice walk. It was a bit muddy, but it was also not very crowded, and that was a big plus.

Finding places to enjoy nature in such a populous area as ours can be challenging. It's rare to walk anywhere and not see some sign of human disregard. One must learn to overlook the floating bottles and other trash in even the best-maintained of parks. I'm not sure why that is, and when I encounter such blight, I usually just feel pissed off at all those anonymous miscreants. But, other times I nurture the hope that its just margin of error, and that most of the trash we see is somehow accidentally left behind.

Take that ten bucks I found on the trail today-- I'm pretty sure that was not intentional.

Voices

In their own words, here is what StoryCorps is:

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide people of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives.

Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 45,000 interviews with nearly 90,000 participants. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and on our Listen pages.

Regular readers might recall that I'm a big fan of StoryCorps, (in fact, I have even used some of the recordings in my classroom as part of the memoir unit) and every week I look forward to sharing a couple minutes of someone else's life. When they gave the teaser at the top of the hour this morning I sat bolt upright in bed. This morning on StoryCorps we"ll hear the story of triplets, blind from birth...

Wow! There can't be too many of them! I thought, and indeed I was correct. It was a recording of some of our former students. Nick, Leo, and Esteban are in ninth grade now, but working to meet their needs when they were in middle school, especially sixth grade, turned our worlds upside down. Those guys left a huge mark on our school.

Listening to the two minute edit of their interview, I was struck mostly by how much was left out of the story. What they said was true, but I knew personally it was incomplete, so much so that it almost seemed inaccurate to me.

To be honest? I was a little annoyed, and for a moment, I even questioned the entire premise of StoryCorps. But then I realized that such inconsistencies actually embody the spirit of the project. Every voice matters, because we all hold a piece of the truth.

It Was Early, OK?

As expected, because of the snow last week, our teacher planning day next month has been canceled. The other morning, when one of my colleagues broke the news to her homeroom students that they would have to come to school on the teacher work day, there were a few sighs and a little grumbling, but one student raised his hand, confused.

"Wait. What are we going to do all day if the teachers are working?"

Carpe Diem

Have I written before about those halcyon days that come in the middle of each school year? If so, please indulge me.

There comes a time in every school year where the horizons become invisible. The beginning of the year was soooo long ago, and the end of the year is too far ahead to even imagine. That's when everyone in the class is working in the present, because there's nowhere else to be. The routine is familiar, the expectations are clear, and the level of trust is high-- everything works and anything is possible.

Teachers! Embrace these weeks! Though they are fleeting, their promise is true, and they are the gift of your commitment to the future.