Power Walk

One of our neighbors was recently profiled in a national magazine as "the most important person you don't know." Around here? Those are teasing words. 

"Considering you were on network TV last night until after ten, you're up pretty early!" I commented when I ran into her this morning out walking her dog.

"Oh! The traffic was terrible yesterday for NO REASON!" she explained. "It took me 57 minutes to get work, and I can't be late this morning."

"That's right," I agreed, "because you're the most important person we don't know."

"But you do know me," she replied.

"True," I shrugged. "Actually, you're the most important person I do know."

She leaned over to pick up her dog's poop. "Lucky you."

Practice What You Teach

The dawn of 2015 saw the advent (arrival, from the Latin ad meaning to and vent meaning come) of my third Word-a-Day calendar, as well. A couple of years ago a student gave me one as a holiday gift, and I've been hooked ever since. One thing that always delights me about it is how much the students like it, too: rarely a day goes by that one sixth grader or another does not comment on the word, and some even ask if they can have it to keep. It's such a conversation piece that more than one former student has stopped by to check the words for their coming birthdays.

I always set aside any page with a word that fits our word study parts, and most recently that word was transpontine. It is particularly timely, as we happen to be learning about the prefix trans this week. My friend Mary, who also teaches sixth grade English, noticed that page on my desk this morning when she stopped by.

"Transpontine," I said. "What do you think it means?"

"Across something," she answered.

"What does "pont" mean?" I asked. "Like Ponte Vecchio?"

Mary took Russian in high school, though, so my romance language clue was not very helpful. She is Catholic, though. "Pontiff is pope," she said.

I frowned. She was right. "Pont means bridge," I told her, my brain working away at the pope puzzle.

"The pope is a bridge..." Mary was thinking out loud.

"Between heaven and earth?" I finished.

"See how we did that?" she said.

Sing Along

"So, did you sit around all week playing ukulele while Heidi sang?" my uke instructor joked when we sat down for our second lesson.

I shook my head, but the image of it made me giggle. Tonight as I practiced what I learned, Heidi sat down next to me on the couch. "Hey, that sounds familiar," she said.

I pushed the sheet music closer to her. "I hear it now," she told me.

"Sing it!" I said.

And as I picked carefully, she verrrrry slowly sang, I keep a close watch on this heart of mine...

and continued until the very end, when Josh joined in, too, Because you're mine, I walk the line.

And then we all laughed. I can't wait to tell my teacher about it!

The Woods are Trees and the Trees Are Wood

Another day another movie, and this one we saw to the end, which was a good thing-- that Stephen Sondheim is one witty lyricist.

A Mysterious Emergency

With about 7 minutes left in Unbroken, I was reclining in a luxury movie seat, well aware of the irony, when suddenly the screen went dark and the house lights came up. A strobe light flashed halogen-bright and a mechanical voice quietly announced that An emergency has been detected in the building: please proceed to the nearest emergency exit and evacuate immediately.

All around me, people blinked, some straining to hear the message, others straining to comprehend it. Soon we filed in an orderly line to double doors down and to the left of the screen. I wasn't afraid, but I was alarmed as we entered the unheated concrete corridor beyond. We followed it to a wide stairway, also concrete, our footsteps echoing coldly, until we reached another set of metal doors and pushed through them into the night. 

Back at the entrance people were streaming through all sorts of anonymous doors that I never associated with the theater. There was no sign of emergency, but neither was there any sign of management or even other personnel, and hundreds of folks shivered in groups of three or four discussing their options. "I think it's just a drill," a child confidently assured the adults in his group, and of course he did. At school, it must seem like we are forever interrupting kids' routine activities and forcing them to file outside for no apparent reason.

At last we agreed that, since we knew the ending, and any sort of on the spot compensation would take some time, that it would be best to leave with our ticket stubs and worry about recompense later. So far, despite my efforts, I can't find out what happened-- it's more of a cliffhanger than the movie.

Rehearsing for the Show

It may not surprise you to learn that in order to prepare our students to take high stakes standardized tests, teachers in our district are directed to give high-ish stakes standardized practice tests. Oh, it's all in the name of data-analysis, and by now, kids in public school are pretty used to the routine. 

So, yesterday I couldn't resist adding a playful password that was required to download their second quarter check-up. Everyone had to wait until each student reached the screen where they were required to type in the secret word to continue. I found their anticipation kind of funny-- many were practically vibrating waiting for those last few screens to load, and when at last it was time to reveal the magic word that would let them start the, ahem, test, all eyes were riveted on me.

"I'm just going to put it on the board," I said and grabbed a piece of chalk. There I drew three stacked circles, a little hat on top, and some stick arms. "Do you want to build a..." I sang.

"SNOWMAN!" they warbled in chorus and eagerly set to work.

"Wait! WAIT!" cried one student. "It's NOT working!"

"Bro!" answered the guy next to him. "It's a compound word! NO space!"

Go Ahead and JUMP!

After writing letters asking for advice at the end of last week, yesterday it was time for my students to offer advice. The letters were coded and handed out to kids in other sections so that they might remain anonymous. We read a few examples and broke the art of writing an advice letter down in to three parts:

First offer sympathy and support. Next show that you understand the situation by rephrasing it and then giving your ideas to solve and/or resolve it. Finally, express your hope that you have been helpful and invite them to write again should they need further support.

In general the letters are super cute-- the students took their task very seriously and most offered the best advice they could. My favorite was this letter written in response to a student who felt he wasn't a good enough jumper to play soccer well:

I am sorry this is happening to you. I play football and in that sport you have to jump, just like soccer.

If you want to jump well, then I suggest that every time you walk by a doorway try to jump and touch the top of it. Every time you leave a room touch the top of the doorway. When you walk, try to skip or hop to the place instead. Last advice I have for you is before any practice or game try jumping side to side, forward and backward. 

I hope my advice helps you. Jump well and stay fit!