Concrete Thinker

The counselor was in my classes today to do a lesson on social media. Part of the activity was making students aware that people often read meaning into what others post, whether it is intended or not. That message was timely, given that our third quarter assessment indicated a strong weakness in making inferences for the sixth grade as a group.

As an example of this principle, she showed the students a tweet from Chris Brown:

"What can you infer from this?" she asked. "Read between the lines."

"I can't," one of the students cried. "There's only one line!"

Favorite Colors

Today's poetry challenge was to write a poem about a color. Blue was definitely the most popular, and there was only one about brown, not so shocking.

A little more surprising? There was none about pink, or any other color beyond the Crayola classic eight. There was only a single poem about purple, and I think mine was the only ode to green. There were a couple of poems about black, though, including this awesome one:

Black
By Kimberly

Black is the dark of night,
and smells like burning wood.
It tastes like black licorice
(only liked by the lucky),
And it sounds like eerie music
or crunchy gravel.
Black feels like leather
or snake scales.
Black will be what ever temperature
you want it to be.
It is dark and scary like on Halloween.
It's also free and wild– 
in the dark you don't have people watching and judging.
Black can make you think of a Haunted House,
or a midnight walk on the beach.
Black is anything...
use it to your advantage

Cherry Zen

When engulfed in a huge mass of humanity, at, say, a festival, maybe one celebrating the annual blossoming of certain cherry trees around a particular basin of tidal water, it can be helpful to remind yourself that each person is a human being just like yourself with dreams and hopes and desires.

Yes.

For example, we all want that perfect photo of ourselves with the blossoms, without any of you other people in it!

A Reaction

Heidi got just what she wanted when she posted those pictures of the dogs with a big pink floral costume around their necks. It was only seconds before her text tone sounded:

Treat: oh my god you dressed the dogs as flowers

Heidi: Yes I did– thanks for the immediate feedback. Also, I'd like to point out that Sonic seems way happier about it than Isabel.

Treat: Haha yeah he looks thrilled

Truth be told? Sonic did look pretty pleased about the whole thing.

Excused Absence

It wasn't hard at all to drag my butt out of bed at 5:30 this morning and into school for one last day this week, especially after a work day Monday and a little two-day vacay midweek.

"Where were you?" was definitely the question of the day, as student after student inquired about my unusual absence. I was pleased that the follow-up was usually, "Did you read my poem?!!" That's a lot of ownership for a four-day-old writing challenge.

"I was in Philadelphia," I answered, "and, yes, I did read your poem! It was awesome!"

And when a few asked why I had traveled to Philly, I told them. "I went to hear an author read his writing."

They totally got it; it was like I took a field trip, or something, and I didn't feel bad at all about missing a couple days of school.

Run and Eat

It's always nice to to be home again, but we didn"t leave the City of Brotherly Love empty-handed. No indeed. We rolled south this afternoon with a pound of coffee from Elixr, half a dozen Federal Donuts, a vegan pizza, and two cheese steaks from Geno's, all packed to travel. 

Just tryin to make the most of a quick trip!

Like-minded

On our trip up to Philly today we spent some time listening to Invisibilia, a new NPR series on psychology and quirky brain science. Each show has a theme and one of those we heard today was on categories and why they are so crucial to helping us know and understand the world. One of the segments featured a native of India who, after thirty years in the U.S. longed to retire to His native land, but logistically found such a move impossible, so he founded a retirement community in Florida that targets other Indian ex-pats by recreating India. Everyone they interviewed loved the place, and they all spoke of how good it felt to be in place where they fully fit in, especially as they grew older. Sort of like an Exotic Marigold Hotel in reverse, I guess.

Once we made it to town, our first stop was a place Heidi's been anxious to try since we heard of it back in the fall. Blackbird Pizzeria is an all-vegan establishment, but their pizza is pretty good. With the exception of the fake cheese, it's actually awesome-- the crust is light and crispy outside with a few blisters from the oven and nice and chewy inside. The sauce is delicious and the toppings were, too. I had a kale salad with croutons, grape tomatoes, olives, and roasted mushrooms that was also yummy. The place is in an old building in a funky, upcoming neighborhood, and the smell of the blazing oven perfumes the air. 80s music played as we ate, and I looked across the table at one happy Heidi. "This place is awesome!" she confirmed between bites. "Let's move here!"

"Maybe you could just start a retirement community for vegans who grew up in the 80s," I suggested.