Who's that Guy?

"Who's that?" the first student entering my room this morning asked sotto voce pointing at the guy sitting by my desk. "Are you going somewhere?"

I am hosting a teacher-in-training in my classroom for the next two weeks. Brandon is young and enthusiastic, and he came in today prepared with a colorful visual slide to introduce himself to the students.

After they examined the images and made inferences as to why he had included them in the presentation, he explained the significance of each-- the Miami Heat and Philadelphia Eagles logos represented his love of sports and especially those teams. The stack of books and headphones next to it stood for his double major, English and music, at George Mason University whose green and gold emblem was also present.

The front-and-center drawing of a tree with the word FAMILY scrolled within its leaves was easy for the kids to decode, but the picture of a the sun rising over a long pier jutting out into the ocean had them guessing a bit. "You like long walks on the beach?" one girl suggested without a trace of irony. Maybe, but he was trying to show that he was born and raised in Virginia Beach.

Finally, he told them he was going to be my intern for a couple of weeks and asked them if they knew what that was. Most kids had a vague understanding of the concept, but one boy was certain he knew. His hand shot straight up and he wiggled his fingers as he strained to catch Brandon's eye. "It's someone who wants someone else's job!" he burst out.

Brandon and I laughed and made eye contact. "Sort of," I shrugged.

Raindrops Keep Falling

It seemed like a good plan. We walked down to the nearest bike share, grabbed a couple of bikes, and pedaled over to a nearby shopping district. Sure, it was drizzling as we clicked our bikes into the station there, and yes, it was predicted to rain all day, but we walked through the damp afternoon undaunted. And I think I was genuinely surprised when we came out of the grocery store to discover that it was raining in earnest. Even so, we dashed down a few blocks and darted inside another shopping center, optimistic that we still might make our way home under our own power. Alas, it wasn’t to be; the nor’easter that had been forecast had arrived. Then it was a choice of bus or uber, until a friend happened to text wondering if we were interested in shopping. Turns out she was headed our way in a nice warm, dry car.

In the Middle

On a day when many of my friends and family were making history I decided to forgo the crowds and take in some history. Our county has a tiny historical museum that I have driven past over a hundred times in the last almost 30 years, but despite an avid interest in the local past, I have never been there.

So, after taking a brisk walk and running a few errands in the quiet gray streets (most people really were at the march!) I headed up to the ridge that overlooks the Potomac and the capital beyond and pulled into the tiny parking lot of the former Hume School. Just as I prefer, I was the only visitor for most of the time I spent there, and I was able to take the time to examine all of the maps and artifacts in as much detail as I pleased.

Walking out again into the misty afternoon, my mind full of stories of those who had carved their lives here in the past, I paused to look east to where so many were gathered in hopes of shaping the future.

And there I was.

Monoculture

Washington DC is our hometown, and though we stayed away from the pageantry surrounding the peaceful transfer of power this noon, I couldn't help but watch the inauguration on TV. What struck me most as the camera panned across the crowd gathered on the National Mall, a place where we have spent countless hours mingling with the diverse crowd that usually populates "America's front yard," was just how white they were. 

Take Two

Another day, another trip to Mt. Vernon. Originally scheduled to chaperone our other activity, a series of personnel min-crises landed me back on the southbound bus. As before, the kids were delightful, however one day before a presidential inauguration is probably not the ideal time to visit the home of our first, and only unanimously-elected, president. Throngs of tourists joined us on our tour of the plantation and mansion, and subsequently the narration was rushed and disjointed.

In between rooms, I tried to fill in some of the gaps for the students I was with, both to inform them and keep them occupied as we waited. For example, waiting on the east-facing portico I swept my arm toward the wide Potomac. "A land trust owns all that property on the other side," I told them, "so that what we see will always look as much as possible like what Washington saw when he looked over there."

The kids nodded with half-interest, but as it turns out, they were not my only audience.

"He must have had a hell of an arm to get that silver dollar over there!" the guy ahead of us said.

Political Compass

“It’s one thing to say: ‘I think the proposal on the following is a serious mistake. I think it’s gonna do the following damage.’ It’s another thing to say, ‘The guy’s a fucking idiot, and he is an egomaniac who’s a whatever.’ ”

~Joe Biden

The Zen of Field Trips

It was cold and drizzly when we left school this morning. 40 minutes late because transportation had "forgotten" us, we were on our way to Mt. Vernon. The plan for the day had already been altered to account for the weather: we would come back to school a little earlier than planned and eat lunch in our rooms, but now as we bumped along the GW Parkway, it looked like we might miss our tour of the mansion as well.

Of course the 50 kids chattering all around me had no idea that there might be a problem; half of them hadn't even worn a warm coat, and several had already eaten their entire lunch when we advised them to a have a snack while waiting for our errant bus. Conceding my powerlessness, I wiped away the condensation on the window and peered out at the iron of the Potomac. Rafts of geese, ducks, and other migratory birds floated serenely on its steely surface.

I ticked off the misty landmarks as we traveled south and noticed that the rain seemed a little less steady, and when at last the bus pulled around the circle to the familiar gate and the 55 of us piled out, it had stopped altogether. The staff at the estate kindly pushed our tour 15 minutes, and as we crunched up the damp trail toward the house, the sun actually came out a moment, and I saw blue skies for the first time in days.