Still Wondering

The waiting room was pretty crowded when the young mother walked into the doctor's office with her two small sons this morning. The boys were restless, and the three attracted my attention as she checked in at the window. A quick look around the small lobby showed me that there were no seats together, and so when they turned around, I moved to the empty chair next to me so that they could sit while they waited to be called. She held the youngest in her lap, he looked to be perhaps 18 months, and patted the seat next to her for her older son. He was skeptical, but sat anyway. "I'm hungry," he said to his mom.

"You just ate breakfast," she told him.

He squirmed.

"Let's read a book," she suggested and handed him one from her bag.

"No!" he scowled, and so she took another and began reading it to the toddler on her lap.

I heard her older boy sigh and felt his eyes on me.

"No school today?" I asked him.

"Nope!" he answered.

"What grade are you? First?" I guessed.

He smiled. "Yes!"

"What's the name of your school?"

I wondered if he was from our district, but I didn't recognize the long name he mumbled. Still I nodded enthusiastically. "Nice!" I said.

"We're going to the zoo today," he told me.

"Fun!" I answered. "What's your favorite animal?"

He cut his eyes at his mother, who was listening to his conversation with the stranger next to him.

"That's not an appropriate joke for people you don't know," she said to him.

He laughed. I was confused.

"Oh, you're not really going to the zoo?" I guessed.

"No, we're going," she answered, "but he was kidding about it with me earlier, and I don't want him to repeat what he said."

"Oh," I replied, because there seemed nothing else to say, but I couldn't imagine what she could possibly be talking about.

Fortunately, the awkward silence was broken a moment later when they were called in to see the doctor.

I guess I'll never know.

Half-Baked

All the sixth grade students at our school have been taking their quarterly district-required standardized reading test the last couple of days. Designed as a predictor for the state assessment they will take in the spring, the first quarter test consists of four texts and 23 questions.

The passages are a mix of fiction and nonfiction, and one of them was actually a recipe for crispy oven-fried chicken. Which one of these steps should come first? the students were asked and given four choices including beat the eggs and lay the chicken legs one inch apart on a baking sheet.

It's kind of a tough question for a non-cook, and let's be honest: how many 11-year-olds have the background knowledge to make that inference? Plus, did anyone stop to think that they were literally asking which comes first, the chicken or the eggs?

But the best story of the day came from my friend Mary. One of her students pulled out his iPad during the test. "What are you doing?" she asked him.

"I want to get a picture of this recipe!" he replied. "It looks so good!"

Some Battles Choose You

We rolled out the iPads for the sixth graders today and much of the conversation centered around what they were and were not allowed to download. Our district organizes acceptable programs into an "App Catalog" and students are only supposed to download from there; in fact they and their parents sign an agreement to that effect. The problem is that they must have access to the Apple App Store as well, so that Apple can push down or otherwise make updates available, so for a few hours every day a siren song lures them into forbidden waters.

Oh I heard an earful today on the subject. "You know the seventh graders all have games on their devices!" was a common complaint.

"They are taking a risk and breaking the rules," I answered. "If they get caught, there will be consequences."

"One of the other sixth grade teams told everybody they could download one app, just one, but any one they wanted!" was another widely reported rumor.

"I doubt it," I said. "We teachers are not even allowed to give you permission to get apps from the app store. Do you know why? Because they ARE NOT our iPads! And they aren't yours either! Who owns those?"

"The schools," they chorused miserably.

"That's right!" I answered brightly, "and whatever they want you to have is in the app catalog!"

At that, one student indignantly raised his hand like a prim little flag. "Well then why did they have us get Apple IDs if we're not allowed to use them for games?"

"Why don't you give me that iPad back," I suggested, "and then we can see what you need it for when you don't have it?"

He drooped to half mast. "That's okay," he mumbled.

Fish out of Water

We went out for Heidi's birthday dinner last night. "What should I get?" Heidi asked scanning the menu.

"Be adventurous!" I advised. "Try something new."

When the waiter delivered the plate of whole grilled porgy festooned with pickled celery and shallots, she sat back a minute in dismay, but then quickly regained her composure and grabbed first her knife and fork, but after a moment, her camera, too.

"Don't," I said.

"Why not?" she asked.

I shrugged. "It's a kind of uncool."

She listened to me, but later we were both sorry. I because I regretted being so uptight and controlling, and Heidi because at least five people asked to see a picture of it when she told them what she had!

Cast Off the Shackles

We went to see the movie Suffragette this afternoon, and it was an empowering tale of the struggle of many working class British women to gain the right to vote.

Perhaps it was a little too empowering. About three-quarters of the way through the film, a woman's voice rang through the theater, clear above the soundtrack. "Whose phone is that?" she demanded. And a moment later she repeated her question, the righteous indignation in her tone unambiguous as she affirmed her right to an interruption-free movie, "Turn it off!"

The irony of her dictate was perhaps lost on her, but not the other patrons, one of whom hissed, "Jeez Lady! It's on vibrate!"

Haters Gonna Hate

It's the end of the quarter, and I find that my students are struggling with independently breaking down directions and then following them. So today I took an assignment that they were to complete by last Friday, copied the directions and included a few of the actual responses they turned in. Tha task was simple: work with a partner to evaluate the examples and then explain why did or did not fit the assignment directions. The next step was to go back over their own replies and revise and improve them. Of course there were some good exemplars, too, and when it came to the class with the student who had written them, I thought it was only fair to give him credit. "Oh stop," his friend said. "You're only feeding his arrogance! They really aren't that good."

Lifelong Learning

From time to time I re-arrange the tables in my room into long courses where students can easily work facing a partner. To provide movement opportunity as well as a variety of perspectives, I usually break the activity into parts and have students share their ideas, and then move seats for the next section. It's an approach that works well with sixth graders, but when there is an uneven number of kids, I either have to work a trio into the rotation, have someone go solo for a round, or join in myself.

I like the last one best, but it requires me to manage my class AND participate in a meaningful conversation, so it doesn't always happen. It did today, though, and because I use the Socratic method of asking way more questions of my partner than I answer, I gained some insight into the poem we are reading. Let me be clear: I have taught this particular poem for over ten years, and with 4-5 sections per term, that means I've read and discussed it at least 40 times. Today? I saw something brand new, and that is why this job never gets old.