You Should Go

Just a couple of months ago I wrote about enjoying the view across the Potomac from the rear portico of Mount Vernon. Today I found myself on the other shore looking up at the mansion on the hill. 

Founded in 1957 to protect the view from Mount Vernon across the Potomac River, the Accokeek Foundation, an educational nonprofit, became one of the nation's first land trusts. Today, the Foundation stewards 200 hundred acres of Piscataway National Park in Accokeek, MD, where visitors can hike a network of trails winding through wetlands, visit a native tree arboretum, and observe an award-winning forest restoration project. The newly reconstructed boat dock offers stunning views of Mount Vernon and allows visitors to arrive by passenger boat and kayakers to access the Potomac via newly installed kayak launches. The Foundation also runs the National Colonial Farm, a living history museum that depicts a Maryland middle-class family farm on the eve of the American Revolution. Through our heritage breed livestock and seed saving programs, nearly extinct heirloom crops and animals are preserved for future generations. The Foundation's organic Ecosystem Farm emphasizes the future of agriculture as farmers learn the tools of a new trade and practice sustainable use of natural resources. "Shares" of the farm's organic produce are sold to area households. The park's beautiful grounds, trails, and programs are open to the public year 'round  

(https://www.nps.gov/pisc/planyourvisit/ncf.htm)

I've been to Piscataway NP before, and it's just as cool as it sounds. Not many people know about the place, though. In fact, we practically had to ourselves this afternoon, unless you count the chickens, pigs, cattle, rabbits, geese, squirrels, and turkey vultures.

And unlike Mount Vernon, which I do love, PNP is free!

Ode to my Coat

My breath was invisible in the chill morning air, but I still turned the collar up on my winter jacket as I headed out for the day. The forecast of a warm afternoon prompted me to leave my scarf and mittens behind, and I was not wrong to do so. Spring is definitely on the way.

As the season changes we thoughtlessly shed the coats that have kept us warm all winter for more temperate gear. They have done their job well, but on a certain day we put them away, and they hang in the closet unused and forgotten until the weather turns cold again.

Was today that day? The last day for my coat? If the soft air coming in through the back door keeps its promise, then the answer is probably, Yes. 

Then and Now

I've done a memory map assignment with my reading students every quarter for the last 5 years. As part of the activity, we look at Newbury-award-winner Jack Gantos's answer to the question, "What tips or advice can you share with young students who hope to start writing?"

The first tip is to get a good journal or small notebook—not too big as you want to be able to slip it into your back pocket. Then get a decent pen. Then I want you to draw a map of your house, or a map of your neighborhood, or map of your school and I want you to draw where everything funny, serious, insane, unexpected, heroic, lousy, triumphant and tragic took place. And then I want you to think about your life as the best material in the world, and each one of your small drawings where something interesting happened will be the opening material for your story. Your discipline should start with ten minutes per day—start small and meet your goal. Then extend your goal as you wish. 

~Library of Congress,"Meet the Authors"(https://www.loc.gov/bookfest/kids-teachers/authors/jack_gantos)

Then I show the class a map that was included in the Gantos book Heads or Tails, from which we've read excerpts so they recognize some of the images, and I also share a map of my own that I made of the neighborhood I lived in from ages 4-10. Each icon has a little story attached to it, and usually the students' curiosity about those anecdotes is an effective springboard into creating their own map.

This morning when most of the class had started sketching their own memories, one student waved me over. As I approached to answer her question, she flipped her iPad over to reveal a familiar house. Using just the two street names on my map, she had used Google Earth to conjure up my childhood home, still recognizable 45 years after my family had moved...

Out?
On?
Away.

For a moment I was speechless. Then other kids came over to look. Where was your school? Where was the creek? they asked about features on my hand-drawn map. Is the peach tree gone? Was that where your mom built the igloo? Is your best friend's house still there?

I answered their questions and set them back to work. Can we use our iPads to search up our neighborhoods? someone asked, of course, because they were born into a world where memory and imagination collide with technology and convenience all the time.

"Start without it," I suggested, "and see where it goes."

A New Attitude

For my intervention group this rotation, I have 22 sixth graders who have been identified as having an aptitude for English, which is a 180 degree switch from the groups of reluctant readers I've worked with so far this year.

My plan? Some advanced word study based on Greek and Latin, along with an examination of Greek drama and mythology and a little playwriting.

I knew I was on the right track with these kids yesterday when I told them we were going to start the session with a spelling inventory. Their spirits were high as they sharpened their pencils and cheerfully numbered the papers in front of them.

"Is it hard?" asked one.

"Sort of," I answered.

"Bring it!" said another.

And then today?

All they wanted was to see how they did on the test and then to correct the words they misspelled.

My!
That
is 
different.

Just a Drill

I was giving my first period class a heads up about our imminent tornado drill this morning along with the boilerplate reminder of the importance of being quiet during an emergency drill when a student raised his hand. "Have you ever been in a real emergency here?" he wanted to know.

I paused and considered. "In all the years I've been here," I answered, "there have been four." The students were rapt, and I know a teachable moment when I see one, so I told them the following stories.

The first time that a real emergency happened was before school even started. We arrived one morning to find a fleet of firetrucks, lights flashing, lining the bus lane and all of our colleagues standing outside. Our school has a rec center attached, and we quickly found out that there had been an electrical fire in one of the saunas.

"Wait! We have saunas?!" a student interrupted.

I laughed and shrugged. "I think they're still working, but who knows? Anyhow, the damage was enough that they closed school for the day. We spent the morning waving as the buses arrived and then immediately turned around, and then all the teachers went out to breakfast!"

"Lucky!" a kid said. "I hope that happens again!"

"Another time, we got here and the power was out. That morning they made the whole school stand outside for two hours," I remembered.

"Were the kids allowed to play, or did they just have to stand in line?" one student wondered.

"There wasn't a lot to do," I told them. "Everyone just ended up sitting on the sidewalk and wishing we could either go in or go home, already."

"What happened?"

"Eventually the power came back on and we had a modified schedule," I said, to my audience's disappointment.

"What about the other two?" someone asked.

"One of them was the earthquake we had a few years ago," I said.

"Oh yeah!" one girl remembered. "I was about 6 then!"

"Well, this was in August before school started, and I was in a teacher meeting in the library," I started. "When the whole building started shaking we all looked at each other and realized that we didn't know what to do. Earthquakes are so rare around here that we never practiced for them."

"Now we do!" noted a student.

"That's why!" I said, "We realized then we needed to be prepared. And that's why we practice for things that will probably never happen. So if they do, we all know what to do. And that's why it's really important to be quiet during a drill, because when the real thing happens, it doesn't always go exactly the way you planned."

"So what about the last emergency?" another student asked.

"Well, " I started, "That was September 11, 2001." I paused, remembering that day. Our school is about a mile from the Pentagon, and we went into lockdown that day after hearing the explosion and aftershocks of the attack. Despite the fear and uncertainty of the situation, our staff pulled together to keep the kids safe and calm until their parents arrived to get them.

This morning as I looked over the class, I realized that most of them did not understand what I was talking about. It happened years before they were born. "Anyway," I said, "that was a very unexpected situation, and it was important for everyone to listen and follow directions."

They nodded. Just then the announcement for the tornado drill blared from the loudspeaker. They stood and lined up in silence.

Spring Training

The first afternoon of spring was more lion than lamb here, and there was a raw breeze blowing through iron skies as I set off for a walk through the neighborhood a little while ago. The sight of a baseball being tossed back and forth across a field reminded me of the new season though, and I smiled as I made my way toward it. At first all I could see was the ball arcing from side to side through an opening in the buildings ahead, but when I entered the clearing my smile widened to see that it was a mom and her little girl practicing throwing and catching.

"Turn your glove over," the mom instructed, "and don't try to use your bare hand; you'll get hurt that way." She tossed the ball and her daughter just missed.

"My pants are falling down!" the little girl explained as she dropped her glove and began tugging on the waistband of her warm-ups.

"... but..." her mother's response was lost to me on the wind, but I saw the girl's face light up in surprise.

"What?!" she asked her mom, giggling.

And this time I was close enough to hear. "I guess if you don't want your pants to fall down, you're going to have to grow a butt!"

The two of them collapsed in laughter, and just like that, the chill vanished from the afternoon.

Food for Thought

From the corner table of that hip pizza place where we ate lunch today I had a pretty good view of most of the other patrons, but my attention was totally drawn to a couple just across the way. While they enjoyed their pizza and salad, their baby sat in one of the restaurant's high chairs contentedly watching a program on the smartphone that was propped up on the salt and pepper shakers in front of him.

Oh, it was clear to me that the video was especially designed for a child of about his age-- there were mamas and babies and elephants and bells and doors and drawers with bright balls that bounced in and out and hands that clapped and snapped. That child did not fuss at all during the meal. 

And then right before we left I made a pitstop at the restroom. On the way I passed another father with his slightly older son sitting at the counter that looks over the kitchen and pizza oven. His father talked quietly to him as that child stretched a small disc of dough that was destined to become his lunch. He didn't have any complaints either.