Ichi Ni San Hi Go

A young colleague and I sat with a parent in the library this afternoon waiting for a meeting to begin. The family was military and had recently moved back from Japan. We were there to be sure that the student was receiving the appropriate services after two years away from our district, but the meeting before ours was running late, and so we chatted with the mom about this and that. At one point, the subject of Japanese numbers came up, and my colleague quite capably counted to five. "I don't even know how I learned that," she told us humbly.

I did a quick calculation. "Maybe from watching Pokemon on TV?" I suggested.

She looked at me in exasperation. "That was a little after my time!" she said. But then her brow furrowed. "Well, maybe I did hear it when I was babysitting," she admitted.

Tighten Your Belts, Kids

Word yesterday that, here in the richest county in America, in addition to the continuing paper shortage in our school, the bus allocation for field trips has been cut in half and administration will no longer approve funds for extra buses. We have 17 buses for the whole year-- a generous calculation makes that about 1000 seats for a school of nearly 900. With the capital of the free world and all it has to offer right next door, we're funded for just one field trip per student per year.

These cuts seem drastic and fundamental. School without paper and buses? Could pencils and teachers' dirty looks be far behind?

Postcard from a Soulless Suburb

I've thought of my hometown in many different ways over the last 25 years since we adopted each other. Confusing, hilly, chilly, expensive, desirable, elitist, eclectic, friendly, kooky, and crowded come to mind, but "soulless suburb"?

Nope.

How long were you here, Senator?

The Other Side of the Story

I had a few errands to run this afternoon after school and so I found myself in the office supply store located in our school neighborhood. The parking lot was nearly full and as I walked in I recognized another shopper. Her sons are in 7th and 8th grade now and I taught them both. "I think the whole middle school is here!" she told me as we made our way to the entrance. 

I laughed at the hyperbole but she persisted. "No really. This is my second time here today and the store is full of school shoppers."

Sure enough, right as we entered I was greeted by one of my students. She waved her English binder and five dividers at me with glee. Truth to tell, there were several other familiar faces as well, including one of the employees who was a former student. 

I had only come for post-it notes and to exchange my Soda Stream carbonators, so it wasn't too long before I was in line. Behind me I could hear parents comparing notes about confusing school supply items, and I felt like a bit of an interloper. 

"I just don't under stand why you need both regular colored pencils and twistables," one mom said to her daughter.

I didn't understand either. "That's typical," another mom told her. "Last year we looked all over town for white erasers." She paused incredulously. "Pink ones evidently smear too much."

I just couldn't let that one go. "Those are really good erasers, though," I said.

They were not convinced.

Couldn't Drag Me Away

While I wouldn't say the weather was cool here today, it was much cooler, and so I took the opportunity to use vegetables from the garden to make a vegan chili for dinner. To the peppers, squash, potatoes, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes I grew I added onion, garlic, corn, beans, and barley. It was, for the most part, a New World dish made complete by a few Old World staples.

Years ago I went to an exhibition at the Smithsonian called Seeds of Change. It was marking, but not celebrating, the 500th anniversary of Columbus's exploration of the west, and as such it focused on the exchanges that inevitably occurred between Europe and the Americas. Even though at the time I was nearly 30 years old and pretty well-educated, the premise of the exhibition was completely new to me. I had never considered an Italy without tomatoes or an Ireland without potatoes. Of course, the atrocities committed to ensure a steady supply of sugar and tobacco were no less horrendous once put in historical context, but it did shed some light on the economic power of addiction.

Just as fascinating was the story of the horse. They became extinct in North America around the time that the wooly mammoth did, around 10,000 years ago. European, mostly Spanish, explorers brought horses with them. Escaped or abandoned animals thrived so well in the land that was once their home that soon there were vast herds of them roaming the American plains. But here's an interesting distinction: all of those horses were feral, not wild, because they were descended from domesticated animals.

There is no such thing as a wild horse.

The Witty Will Have Fun

I spent a fair amount of time at the picnic yesterday chatting up some of the new sixth graders. At one point I found myself seated in the shade next to Alondra. "I can't believe you're not running around in the sun," I teased her as she fanned herself.

She raised an eyebrow. "Is that sarcasm?" she asked.

When I was in "teacher school" a couple of decades ago, they warned us never to use sarcasm. We were sitting in desks lined up in rows facing the front of the room when our Foundations of Education instructor, a retired principal with 40 years of experience, told us that sarcasm would at best confuse and at worst humiliate our students. My friend, sitting behind me, whispered "They couldn't possibly understand it, could they?"

Personally, I have found most humor, even gentle sarcasm, to be a helpful tool in creating an engaging class room or even redirecting a student. The rule of thumb might be that as long as they feel in on the joke, the joke's not on them, and we can all laugh together.

So yesterday I looked at Alondra and with an exaggerated shrug shook my head and said, "No! I would never use sarcasm. Would you?"

She waved her hand dismissively and answered, "No! Not me!" Then she looked at me with a grin and asked, "See what I did there?"

Cool It Kids

We had our annual sixth grade picnic today. Traditionally held on the first Friday of the year to celebrate the successful completion of week one of middle school, it's quite an event. In the past, the new sixth graders have had about 90 minutes of recreation time and a lunch of grilled hot dogs, chips, and watermelon, but this year construction on our building put a crimp in our plan. We decided to shorten the time to an hour and just serve the watermelon.

I felt a little sad, but it was fine; as several veteran teachers pointed out to me, the kids don't know what they're missing, and the weather was really, really hot today, so less time in the sun was probably for the best. As I circulated through the groups of students playing and talking, I couldn't help but remember other picnics in other years. The group we had six years ago are seniors in high school now, and the day of their picnic was just as hot as today.

Back then the turf soccer field we have now was a crushed gravel pitch that had to be watered regularly to keep it playable. There were timed sprinklers all around the perimeter, and right at the end of the picnic they all came on. The students let out a collective cheer and flooded on to the field. The teachers let out a collective gasp and tried to wave them all away, but it was no use. In the end it was so hot it didn't matter-- everyone cooled off AND dried off by the time we had to go back inside, and as a group they were exhilarated.

I walked back in with a trio of girls, still chattering about the dousing. "That was awesome! Did you guys plan this special for us?" they asked.

I laughed and said nothing, because in a way? I wished we had.