Questioning

My students are writing essays about characters in short stories that they are choosing from a curated collection I have provided. Because character is key to the assignment, many of the stories have first person narrators, and several times today students have referred to an unnamed speaker by the opposite gender that I imagined they were.

In some cases the students missed an important detail, but one of the conversations started with the student correcting me when I referred to the main character by the other gender than she had imagined.

"You mean he?" she said with a sniff. And when I frowned, trying to recall the details of the story, she told me, "It doesn't say either way, but I think it's a boy, and that's how I'm going to write it."

I nodded, impressed by her confidence. "I guess you could make that claim," I said, using the language of the essay unit.

"Claim?" she shook her head. "It would be debatable if I called the main character "they"! I'm pretty sure the speaker is a guy."

"Okay," I answered. "Keep working! I can't wait to see your evidence."

On Target

The office called in the middle of class yesterday and asked me to send a student. "Oh, I know what that's about," he told me as he got up to go.

"Is everything okay?" I asked him with concern.

"It will be if you mind your own beeswax!" he snapped. "Not everything is your business."

There were audible gasps from the other students as he left the room, but I let it go and they got back to the assignment they were working on. The bell rang before he returned, and I put his books behind my desk to clear the table for the next class. He came in about 10 minutes later looking for his things, but I asked him to wait in the hallway while I got it.

"You were pretty rude me to me before," I said, and my voice was not as neutral as I would have liked.

He shrugged. "Can I have my stuff?" he said. "I'm late for science."

"Really?" I asked. "That's all you have to say?"

"It is for now," he answered, so I handed him his binder and went back to my class.

Later on I found out that he was having trouble with another student and his mom was there to meet with him, the counselor, and the assistant principal. That type of information is shared with the team so that we can support kids with whatever they are struggling, and in this case it explained why he was so touchy. For me, the incident was closed, and I didn't even think about it when I saw him in class today.

Now, this particular student is very fond of the magnetic dart board I have in my classroom. He loves to tell anyone who is nearby how his father is Scottish and that the game must run in their blood. Truth be told, he is pretty good at it, and he often stops by at the end of the school day to see if I have a few minutes for him to shoot.

I was on the phone when he knocked today, and I had a meeting right after, so I waved him and the other student who wanted to play away with a shake of my head. He continued to stand there. "She said it's closed," the other kid hissed and jerked his head at the door. The first boy waited calmly until I hung up the phone.

"I'm not here to shoot darts," he started. "I wanted to apologize for the way I treated you yesterday. I was feeling anxious about the meeting, and I took it out on you."

I raised my eyebrows and smiled in appreciation. "I accept." 

A Mile in her Moccasins

The IB Learner Profile trait in December is always "Caring" and so we are given activities meant to instill empathy in the 11 and 12-year-olds in our homerooms. Today was the day designated for those discussions, and I confess to not doing the assigned lesson, mostly because it was not appropriate for my group.

My homeroom is comprised of 12 sixth graders who range in age from 12 in October to 11, turning 12 next September. They also represent the spectrum from life skills to Gifted, with 1/3 of them identified as qualifying for special education services. There are kids who grew up speaking Spanish, Urdu, and not speaking at all, and so this morning we watched a video about empathy, twice, and then another video about the difference between empathy and sympathy, also twice. Then we talked about caring and kindness.

I think it went pretty well, but often I am skeptical of such attempts to overtly instruct human beings on "character", especially out of context. Still, in the very next class, I gave the students a short passage from the novel Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu. 

The desks were in five perfect lines of six. If ever these lines strayed from perfect, if someone should move his by scooting back too vigorously, or trying to get just the right angle to pass a note, Mrs. Jacobs got very cranky.

The topic of the lesson was finding big ideas about characters in small details. "What does this passage tell us about Mrs. Jacobs?" I asked.

I expected the students to answer with some variation of the idea that she was strict, a perfectionist, or inflexible; then I would push them to dig deeper into her motivation or at least into how her actions might affect her students.

One girl raised her hand immediately. "Maybe she has a lot of chaos in her life, and this is something she can control, so it's really important to her," she suggested.

I caught my breath. "Now, that is empathy," I told her.

Heard on High

"Are you finished with your holiday decorating?" a friendly salesperson asked me yesterday as I browsed in her pricey gift shop.

I nodded politely. "Actually, I just finished today," I answered.

"You can't really be done without an ornament from us," she smiled.

"You do have some beautiful things," I told her and shrugged, for truly there was nothing there for me.

A few years ago I wrote about how as children whenever my brother, sister, and I received ornaments as gifts, mine was always the angel, and I always wished it was something else, something more fun, like the Santas my brother always received, or the stockings, teddy bears, and drums my sister got. Back then I ended my post like this:

When I think about it, I wonder, though. What's my problem? Seriously, who could possibly object to angels? 

These days when I hang the ornaments on my own Christmas tree, each one of them sparks in me appreciation of the things I love. Among them there is a skillet, a fountain pen, a school house, garlic, snowshoes, several dogs, a basketball, a Navajo polar bear kachina, and a suit case labeled with destinations all over the world. Are these not all angels in some form? Do they not represent a bit of the divinity that inhabits our everyday lives? 

I'm going to go with yes.

After my conversation with the saleswoman, I waited patiently as Heidi continued to shop, my attention on the Christmas display. A basket of glass ornaments sparkled from beneath the tree in the window. "Do you like those?" Heidi startled me from behind. She reached down and picked up a tear-shaped ornament and held it up. Thin lines of glitter spiraled across the frosted glass below and crystal wings and halo shined above.

"Yes," I told her. "I do."

"You know, we don't have any angels on our tree," she reminded me.

"I know," I said. "I think we need this one."

As we turned to the register, the saleswoman was looking on.

"You were absolutely right," I told her. "I wasn't finished, yet."

It's Better to Light a Candle than Curse the Darkness

The day started and ended with lights.

After a week standing bare in the stand, the little Frazier fir in the living room finally became a Christmas Tree this morning as I laced five strings of lights in and out of its dense boughs, holiday music playing merrily in the background.

And tonight we found ourselves in the conservatory of the brand new MGM resort at National Harbor. It's becoming a holiday tradition for us and our friend Susan to try a hot new restaurant in the early weeks of December. Arriving a couple of hours before our reservation we explored the property thoroughly-- gawking at the casino and boutiques, restaurants, art work, and amazing holiday decorations.

The meal was disappointing, poor service and mediocre food served under unnecessarily harsh lights, but the evening was still fun. On the drive back across the river we passed lots of holiday lights glittering in the frosty night, and arriving home, we were greeted by the glow of our very own Christmas lights.

Make My Day!

Most mornings you can find me outside my classroom door greeting every student I can by name. As part of our cultural competence training early in the year we read an article that said in large secondary schools kids can for days without ever being personally recognized. As our school grows ever larger each year, that seems like more of a risk for us. A simple solution? Teachers greet each student by name as they enter the class.

I have a student in my homeroom this year who is in our school's life skills program. Such a placement is only made for students with very low cognitive ability, a severe physical disability that impacts learning, or both. This guy is kind of a tough nut to crack. Almost completely non-verbal, he demonstrates aptitude in many areas, but inconsistently. Except technology. The kid literally loves pushing buttons, and he knows what he is doing, so it has become his job to turn the smartboard on and off each morning for and following the broadcast announcements.

He is often the first to arrive, unaccompanied, although a personal assistant follows not far behind him. I always wish him a good morning, but he rarely shows any indication that he has heard me. Early in the year I learned to enlist the other kids; he is much more likely to respond to them. His speech is mostly parroting things he has recently heard, so I was really impressed a month or so ago when he greeted his assistant by name.

But not nearly as impressed as when I saw him coming down the hall this morning. "Good morning!" I called to each student as they approached.

"Good morning, Miss Sheh-har-son!" he answered.

I'll take it!

Bundle Up, Buttercup

"What's the weather like?" a colleague asked this afternoon peering across my room to a pair of the rare windows in our school building.

"Gray and blustery," I answered, and we exchanged unimpressed looks.

"Did you hear that next week..." she started.

"we're going to get a polar vortex!" we finished together and laughed.

"Polar vortex?" she shrugged. "It's like the new thing. We're always getting them lately, and they sound so... dire."

I nodded in agreement.

"What did we used to say?" she asked.

"Cold snap?" I suggested.

"Cold snap!" she agreed. "Much less dire." She paused. "Have you seen the latest cabinet picks?"