Resolution

For me, it can be difficult to set school work aside, even on a three day weekend. For example, in my English classes right now, my students and I are focusing on the elements of fiction and plot structure, and so this afternoon when I was watching Marion Cotillard's Oscar-nominated performance in the French-language film Two Days, One Night, I was all about how that story of a woman who was forced to lobby her co-workers to give up their bonuses to save her job was being shaped.

At first, I found that I was a little confused at the lack of exposition, but also drawn in by the same, and then I noticed that I was marking events as they unfolded as "rising action". And when it came to a scene in the hospital that was clearly not the "climax", if one defined the conflict as the character of Sandra trying to get her job back, but was obviously the pivotal event of the movie, I had a true a-ha moment: in addition to realizing the central conflict was internal, not external, I also recognized that those little zig-zag diagrams can really be helpful!

Old Married Couple

At 6 o'clock on Valentine's Day the grocery store was not exactly deserted, but rather patronized by a few single shoppers and several families. The bitter cold of yesterday had subsided and our coats were unzipped when we stopped on our way home from the movies to get the final ingredients for our traditional heart-shaped pizzas. To our surprise, giant snowflakes filled the sky as we exited through the double doors. It was too warm for them to stick, but Heidi and I turned to each other at the same moment.

"Remember that time we went to the movies?" I started

"and when we came out it was snowing?" Heidi continued.

"then we went to the Japanese steakhouse for dinner, and after that? It was really coming down," I added.

"and we didn't have school for a week!" Heidi finished.

"That was fun!" we said together, and we climbed into our car to drive home.

Microaggression

We had our dog to the vet this afternoon for a minor procedure: it was time for an icky wart on her back to be excised. There were a lot of other dogs when we arrived, but ours was too busy quivering to pay any attention to them. The same could not be said for a persistent little black poodle mix about half her size.

All the while his owner was settling up at the front counter, he was at the end of his leash straining toward Isabel, nose high, tail swaggering. At last his owner finished and turned toward us. "Is your dog friendly?" she asked, intoning the tribal greeting of urban dog owners. Because I said yes, the two of us were obliged to make small talk in the minutes it took for our dogs to sniff each other. Generally that takes the form of asking about each other's dogs, and that's what happened this time, too.

"Half poodle, half golden retriever," I said.

"Schnoodle," she told me. "His father was an apricot poodle. Can you believe it?"

I looked at the cast iron tint of her pup, and shook my head.

"All the rest of his litter mates were orange," she continued, "But we wanted a black dog."

I nodded politely. She shrugged.

"Especially since we got him on Martin Luther King's birthday."

Breathing Room

With a special activity and early release for students tomorrow as well as a holiday on Monday, I found myself with a rare feeling this afternoon around 3 PM. There was nothing that I had to do RIGHT AWAY. I surveyed my empty classroom. The custodian had already been through, but the books and papers cluttering my desk and shelves were not her responsibility. I took a deep breath and moved several stacks of stuff to an empty table, where I spent the next hour or so sorting, filing, shelving, stacking, and recycling. For the first time in a while, a sliver of the blond veneer of my desk top was actually visible. With satisfaction I packed my things to leave for the day, and as I closed the door behind me, the afternoon sun shone brightly on the vigorous fronds of my spider plant and illuminated the orderly room beyond.

Plane English

One of my favorite reading activities is giving students directions to fold a paper airplane. Practical and easy to assess, kids will go back to those instructions again and again to get it right. And when they do? They fly.

Clash of the Titans

In this era of high stakes testing, any teacher will tell you that the math and language arts (specifically reading) departments drive the figurative bus, which in our case is definitely bright yellow. In general, these disciplines maintain a wary truce, each convinced that their skills and content actually provide students with the keys to success. Oh sure, math may claim to be an objective subject, but language arts recognizes that construct for the oxymoron it is.

Often these two plan school-wide events; meant to be fun and engaging, at middle school they are transparently self-promoting and usually a little lame. March is a big month for both departments-- the 2nd is Dr. Seuss's birthday which has been designated Read Across America Day, and the 14th? Well, this year, a little before half-past nine in the morning, it will be 3.14.15 9:26. It's the Pi Day of the century!

At our school, the proximity of two such momentous occasions made for a little bit of a prickly meeting this afternoon-- we have almost too much celebration scheduled. Maybe we should declare them both holidays and take a couple weeks off!

There's a Place for You

We got a new student on our team last week. He is in my homeroom, reading, and English class, so I have had some time to observe him. Coming in at this point in the year, a kid has to make a social call-- will he align with the teacher or with the students? A common dynamic is the new kid who has nothing to lose by defying the establishment and flouting the routine for the attention of the other students. Of course I want them to make friends, but not at the expense of the productive dynamic I've worked the last five months to forge.

This new guy has made a gentle venture in that direction. Soft spoken, he is self-effacing in the quiet confusion he broadly expresses about academic expectations, but it amuses his peers even so. The morning announcements can be particularly rich material for his act-- who are these strange folk and their odd pronouncements?

Today, though, there was a trailer for the international film we will air for the whole school on Friday, and when they said it was from Mongolia, his interest was genuine, and he moved to a seat where he could better see the screen. As the video rolled, he sighed and proclaimed, "My Mongolia! I would know you anywhere!" and I knew, that come Friday, he was going to have the attention of our class in a very positive way, as an expert on something he loves.

I don't think we'll have much more trouble after that.