Past, Picture, Present

I was recently messing with the settings on my desktop computer and inadvertently changed the screensaver. In order to restore my previous view of the glacier in Resurrection Harbor, I had to browse through my photo library.

These days when everyone has a camera in their pocket, it's easy to lose sight of the present in an attempt to capture the moment. I know I'm guilty of that, and I try to be more mindful of when and how often I open my camera app. Even so, as I scrolled through my Alaska Album, I was amazed anew at the grandeur of the scenery, and it was hard to believe that not only had I been there, but I had actually taken the pictures I was looking at.

(This is one of the little lakes on the vintage railway line from Skagway to White Pass Summit)

Gagvertisement

This time of year our sixth graders have a unit on media literacy, where they learn to identify the persuasive techniques in commercials. One of the more engaging activities has them working in small groups to view recent Super Bowl commercials and analyze them for their strategies.

The classes usually hum along during this assignment as students huddle in twos and threes, their intent faces illuminated by the glow of their iPads, their ears plugged with earbuds. So I was a little surprised this morning when a student approached me with an urgent request to leave the room.

"I don't feel so good," he moaned.

"Do you need to go to the clinic?" I asked.

"Nah," he shook his head, "I just need to get away from the Chunky Milk commercial."

Memorable? Yes.

Effective? You be the judge.

Garth, Ruthie, and Chuck

When I woke up this morning and heard the radio guy say, "It's February 7, 2019. Garth Brooks is 57 years old today,"  I wondered, in my half-awake state, how he could be possibly be soooo old. It seemed a little sad and wrong.

A little while later, I realized it was my friend Ruth's birthday, also. Just a few months older than I am, she too was turning 57. I reached for my phone to text her my best wishes.

Here's our exchange:

42 Minutes a Day

Having a student teacher reminds me of what a complex task we tackle every day: mastering content, delivering engaging instruction, and managing a mini-mob of evolving human beings. It is a little like juggling the universe.

And, how odd it is to sit on the sidelines and observe the students in my classes being instructed by someone else! The novelty of the perspective is bright and shiny; I have the opportunity to actually look at each one of the 131 kids I teach, in real time, and see the person he or she is, with a whole world of hopes and worries and dreams and losses.

New Sheriff in Town

My student teacher has been getting her feet wet, trying a little instruction over the last couple days. Even though we explained who she was and what her role would be, the shift has taken some students by surprise. They enter the room and are astounded to find me at my desk and the intern up front by the smart screen.

"C'mon guys!" she encouraged them this morning. "You need your iPad and your writing notebook! Let's get ready to go!"

One student stood by her table, stunned. "But... where are we going?"

The Grind

What? Rising at the usual hour and working a full day, five days a week?

There must be some mistake!

Now about that 61 degrees in February...

Freewriting

"We can write about anything, right?" asked a student the other day when I introduced the new daily free-writing assignment.

"Anything," I assured her.

"Then I'm going to write about that!" she pointed out the window and up. "What is it anyway?"

I looked at the skeleton of the elementary school being built in our former parking lot. "The school?" I tried. She shook her head. "Those big wooden beams wrapped in plastic?"

"No! Those white things in the sky! There were only 2 before, but now there are six."

I looked up, way up. Six bright white contrails scored the brilliant blue sky. "Do you really not know what those are?" I asked with wonder. 

I could tell by her face that she did not. 

"They're airplanes," I explained. "It's so cold that their exhaust freezes and leaves a thin cloud behind them."

"But I see them in summer, too," she replied.

"They are miles above us!" I said. "It's always cold up there."

She was silent. We looked at the sky together. I was thinking of all the hundreds of people aboard those flights, wondering where they were going and why. I don't know what she was thinking, but I hope she wrote about it.