Corny Like a Fox

"My soul is just a shinin"! It's shining through!" said a student this morning when I asked him to get his reading book from the shelf.

"Great!" I answered. "How about shining over to get your book?"

"It's a shinin!" he replied without moving. "Shining bright!"

I could see that the conversation was going nowhere, so I tried a different approach. "I see that!" I told him. "Keep on shining! Brighten our day!"

"Now that's just corny," he scoffed, heading over to pick up his book.

"Sorry!" I shrugged, and hit play on the audiobook.

You Can't Handle the Truth

I looked over a few minutes before lunch to see a student wailing despondently, head on the table. "Hey, now," I said, "what happened?"

Full disclosure? This student is known for extreme emotional outbursts, which certainly doesn't mean such behavior should be dismissed, but I did approach the situation with some prior experience.

She pointed to another student, also no stranger to classroom disruptions. I raised my eyebrows at him. He shrugged and shook his head. We waited for her to speak.

"I asked him why he hates me so much," she managed to choke out between sobs.

"And...?" I asked.

"...and," she gasped, "he told me!"

Status Report

The weekend has passed in a holiday blur, but I am pleased to report that the tree is fully decorated, and the cookies are baked, and the gifts that are here are wrapped, and those that are not here are on their way. There is also a fire burning, a little soft Christmas music playing, and I am wearing red and green, feeling pretty darn good.

No Tech Friday

The wifi was down for most of the day at school yesterday, posing quite a dilemma for teachers who have been encouraged to integrate technology into every lesson. To be honest, it took me a minute, but I finally came up with an activity that would allow my students to apply what we have been learning to their self-selected reading. It also incorporated movement, collaboration, and competition.

Here's how I started: I'm going to give you a 3 x 5 card and a popsicle stick...

No Experience Necessary

"Do you have any children?" a student asked yesterday as she worked on some missing assignments after school.

"No," I answered.

She looked shocked. "So you don't have any experience with kids?" she said.

"Not unless you count the 25 years of teaching," I told her dryly.

"Oh, yeah! I didn't think of that!" she replied, and continued working.

Emotional

The movie we showed the students for the early release day yesterday was Coco. We had some curriculum connection activities for them to do as they watched, which my group did dutifully and well. When they were finished, they could make themselves comfortable and simply enjoy the show, and so the last 15 minutes of the film found a group of three 11-year-old boys lying on the floor in front of the interactive whiteboard, riveted to the climax and resolution of the story.

As the credits rolled, they sat up and began punching each other on the shoulders.

"Who's cutting onions in here?" one of them asked.

"Dude, are you crying?" his friend replied, wiping his own eyes.

"I'm not crying, you're crying!" said the third.

E Pluribus Unum

Today was an early release for students so that teachers might spend the afternoon in professional learning sessions. This year, our system has changed the structure of our PD by centrally offering dozens of opportunities so that educators can select topics that meet our needs at the moment.

In the morning, we took our students to the music assembly, where the band, orchestra, and chorus performed abbreviated versions of their winter concerts. Later, Heidi and I attended a showing of the first episode of the documentary series America to Me, which follows several students of color for a year at Oak Park River Forest High School, one of the Chicago suburbs most progressive schools. The demographics of OPRF are notably similar to our own system, and so the experience of these kids was pretty close to home.

Following the film, the group split into small discussion groups. The first question was What is the difference between desegregation and integration? Our group agreed that desegregation is simply removing a separation between two factions, but integration should entail creating a new whole.

The follow-up question was Where is OPRF and where are we in that pursuit? and we all agreed there is still a lot of work to be done in both places before people of all races share collective ownership of our country and all its opportunities.

I know we have a long way to go, but this morning, at the concert, I sat with a lump in my throat marveling at the miracle of 100 kids from 6 continents raising their voices as one in incredibly moving renditions of A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman and One Day from MLK.