School Daze Chapter 3

"Tracey, what would make you happier at school?" my mom asked me on FaceTime yesterday.

"I'm not sure," I answered.

"Well, what is making you unhappy?" she asked.

I thought a minute. "I guess it's not really that much fun," I shrugged. "Teaching used to be really fun."

It wasn't quite as hopeless as all that, though. Just Friday, when the 90 degree heat had finally relented slightly just in time for the annual "Sixth Grade Watermelon Social," I had stood on the turf soccer field surrounded by over 300 kids running and shouting and generally playing quite nicely together. Eating a big slice of sweet watermelon, I soaked in their exuberance under the clear blue sky.

To carve out these 45 minutes, we had had a crazy-schedule day with short, out-of-order classes, but the kids pretty much rolled with it. And to be honest, the looseness seemed to become us all.

Maybe it finally felt like September.

School Daze: Chapter 2

It was the hectic beginning of my last class of the day. Twenty-three sixth graders had jostled their way through the hall and into their seats in my room. "Record your homework," I reminded them routinely and then--" I stopped, spotting an anomalous sight. "T!" I said. "What're you doin' in here? You're not in my class!"

I paused. T looked upset. "I wish you were," I assured him, but your real teacher will be missing you. What class do you have now?"

With over a hundred kids on the team, by the second week of school, well honestly? By the second day of school I knew who T was, even though I didn't teach him. Not only did his behavior stand out a little in the halls, his teachers had shared several anecdotes to illustrate their concern about him.

My favorite T story came from the science teacher. A few days earlier, in the hubbub of changing seats for a group activity a student inadvertently pushed T, who turned around and punched the other kid in the head. "Hey now!" said my colleague to T. "We never put our hands on another person!" Then she turned to the other student with concern. "Are you all right? Did he hurt you?"

"I'm okay," the boy assured her, rubbing his head. "It didn't hurt."

T reached over and scratched his arm. "How about that?" he challenged him. "Did that hurt?"

Before I continue, let me assure you that the other student was fine, and I do not condone such behavior. But I do find T's reaction a little amusing, mostly because it is so far from the norm.

More than that, though, to me it showed how impulsive T was, and how little self-control he was able to exercise in that situation.

Back in my classroom, T looked panicky. "It was just a mistake!" he chanted over and over as he jumped out of his seat and started to pace.

"I know!" I assured him. "I think you're supposed to be right next door, though, in science."

"Yes!" he said.

"It's okay," I told him as I led him to the right place. "Kids get confused sometimes."

He sighed with relief as he entered the classroom.

Later I considered what his reality must be like: how out of focus must this new school be to him that he could sit, unaware, in a classroom he had never been in before with a teacher and kids he didn't know?

School Daze: Chapter 1

The writing prompt seemed so do-able:

You have one class period to write the best personal narrative- the best true story about you- that you can write. Make this be the story of one time in your life. You might focus on just a scene or two. You’ll have one class period to write this true story, so you’ll need to plan, draft, revise and edit in one sitting. Write in a way that allows you to show off all you know about writing.

After all, we had been coming up with topics for a week, talking about them, and free-writing. All of those resources were available as my students sat down on Tuesday to complete this formative assessment. I just wanted to know what kind of writers they were.

A few minutes into the first class period, I noticed a student who was reading. His writing lay, seemingly abandoned, on the table:

"Whoa!" I whispered to him. "It looks like you're having some trouble."

"Not really," he shrugged. "I'm just finished."

"Hmm," I answered, "why don't you bring your writing notebook out to the hall so we can talk a little?"

He grabbed his notebook and I picked up the paper and out we went.

I was determined to be patient, and he was determined not to write, and so we didn't make a lot of progress in our conversation. "The assignment says to write your best story," I finally said. "Is this really it?"

He assured me it was. With 178 days to go in the school year and the knowledge that I had only begun my work with him, I said, "Okay," and we went back inside, where I read the placement card his fifth grade teacher had sent.

Excellent student! he had written, and under "Writing"? There was a checkmark in the High column.

It was a conundrum, indeed.

An Old-Fashioned Conversationalist

We went out to dinner this evening with a neighborhood friend and her parents who are visiting from Colorado. Her mom and dad were lovely company, and I have to admit that I was completely charmed the two times her dad worked a joke into our conversation.

Both stories were perfectly timed, relevant to the topic, and funny. As we walked home from the restaurant it occurred to me that such a style of humor has become very old-fashioned. I have memories of my grandfather and an uncle or two weaving formal jokes into a conversation, but not too many people do that now. I never considered it before, but I think it might really be a loss.

I.

A frugal farm widow went down to the newspaper to publish her husband's obituary. "That'll be a dollar a word," the clerk informed her.

"Write: Johannsen died," she told him.

"There's a five word minimum," he replied.

She thought for a moment. "Then put: Johannsen died. Tractor for Sale."

II.

A man was driving along a country road when a cat ran in front of his car. Unable to stop in time, he hit the cat but pulled over to see if he could save it. Unfortunately, the cat was dead. Feeling guilty, he walked up the nearest driveway and knocked on the front door of the house. "Do you have a black and white cat?" he asked the woman who answered.

When she nodded, he apologized. "I'm so sorry to tell you that I hit her with my car, but I'd really like to replace her," he finished.

The woman looked at him skeptically. "How many mice can you catch?" she asked.

Ghosts

Ever since I was a kid I have loved a good ghost story, and judging from the books many of my students choose, I am not alone.

My students also love graphic novels, and Raina Telgemeier is a favorite author. Her breakout book was Smile, a memoir of orthodontic woes and her own middle school years. The novel Drama and another memoir, Sisters, were her follow-up offerings. In between, she also illustrated graphic versions of the first four Babysitter Club novels by Ann M. Martin.

Popular with boys and girls alike, no matter how many copies I have, I can't keep her books on my shelf. So, when I saw back in May that her newest novel would be released in September, it was a no-brainer pre-order. This morning, I grabbed it from my mailbox and threw it in my school bag, knowing it would make great reading as my students were taking a required online reading inventory.

I was right! Ghosts has everything-- perfect for this time of year, it follows a family of mixed Mexican and American heritage who move to a coastal town in Northern California right before school starts to benefit the youngest daughter's health. There they find a diverse population who all seem to embrace the ghosts the town is famous for. Spooky but not too scary, it straddles this world and the spirit world and culminates late at night as Halloween fades to Dia de los Muertos. With a likable but conflicted main character, Ghosts explores serious issues that are relevant to lots of kids: loss, family, regret, death, and forgiveness.

I loved it! In fact, when one of the kids spotted it on my desk and asked if someone was reading it, I confess to being a little snippy when I replied, "Yes! Me!"

But, since I already have a waiting list of ten kids to read it next?

I ordered three more copies.

Lesson of the Day

"Hey guys!" I started my class today, "do you realize that this is your one week anniversary of starting middle school?" After a spontaneous but very well-earned round of applause I continued, "So guess what? We are going to take some tests!"

There were equal parts groans and laughs, but everyone was resigned: these kids have never been in a school that didn't test the heck out of them. They expected nothing else.

And as such? Most of them performed like yeoman, brave and stout, producing a page or so of prose in 45 minutes or less. (We'll talk about quality later, I'm sure.)

At the end of the day, one girl stopped at my desk on her way out the door. "I have a pop quiz for you," she said.

It was only fair. "Shoot," I replied.

"What's my name?" she asked.

"Greyson," I answered without hesitation.

"Wow!" she said, "How do you do that?"

"I work at it," I told her honestly, thinking of how I go over and over my rosters matching names to faces, "Because it's important!"

She nodded, genuinely impressed.

Darking Bogs

Sounds ominous, right?

But it's just a spoonerism our neighbor inadvertently used to describe some local tension in our little community. Hopefully it will all be resolved soon-- we definitely prefer dappy hogs!