Take Note

For the second semester this year, my friend Mary and I are piloting a new kind of homework for us. Called a "Writing Log", the concept is to have students free write a page or more regularly in their notebooks, and then select an entry to turn in weekly. Because the expectation is still new, today I took the opportunity to check in with a couple of kids.

"How long does it usually take you to do your writing homework?" I asked one young man.

"8-12 minutes," he told me with certainty.

"That seems... reasonable?" I prompted.

"It all depends if I know what I'm going to write about when I sit down," he said. "If I do? Then it... just flows!" He opened his hand expansively to show me what he meant.

He needn't have. I know all too well how a daily writing committment goes. "If you get an idea during the day," I said earnestly, "you should definitely write it down."

He nodded skeptically.

I went to my desk to jot our conversation down.

Early Onset

A parent was at school this afternoon and stopped in with her son, my student, to check on a few things. His grade was a little lower than she expected, and she was wondering why.

"Well," I turned to the student, "you kind of stopped turning your reading logs in at the end of the quarter, right?"

He shrugged. To me it was acknowledgement of something he and I had discussed before. To his mom, it was something different.

"Honey?" she began, "Did you know what you were supposed to do?"

He shrugged again. I thought about ways to tactfully remind the two of them that this was the same assignment he had been completing weekly since September.

"He's never deceptive," she assured me. "If he didn't do it, there was definitely a misunderstanding."

I raised my eyebrows. He lowered his head.

"I guess I forgot," he said. "And it takes too long, y'know, to write the date and everything."

"Yes!" his mom agreed, "Writing his name and date on anything has always been a struggle."

"Well," I said, "do you know what the homework is this quarter?"

"The writing log?" he mumbled.

"Right!" I answered. "But you didn't do the writing that we checked today."

He scowled a little. His mom looked on, uncertainly.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I forgot!" he snapped.

"But we talked about it... What's wrong with you? You're never like this about your school! Is it that you love reading and writing so much that being forced to do them makes you afraid you won't like them anymore?" His mother's words hung in the air. He scoffed quietly.

I understood. Although he is a pretty typical sixth graders, he is her oldest child, and she was not expecting adolescence quite so soon.

No One Was Safe

One of the highlights of February for me is always seeing the Oscar nominated shorts-- animated, live action, and documentary. Being recognized by the academy showcases 5 of these usually low profile little films into an anthology shown in theaters. It's an opportunity to see the work of international filmmakers who are often unfettered by the expense and corporate control of the big studios, and most of these films are usually fresh and innovative and even a little edgy.

In past years there have been memorable tales of time machine builders, a pre-teen Somalian pirate, a modern-day cupid (with real arrows), a babysitting job that saved a guy from suicide, and an encounter with terrorists on a bus ride in Nigeria, to name a few of the live-action entries.

This year the subject matter of 4 of the 5 live action movies included little boys in danger, from themselves, from others, or both. They were unflinchingly grim, so much so, that the audience who sat in stunned silence at the end of the first film, giggled with gallows humor at the end of the second, and guffawed at the end of the program, a little traumatized by what we had all seen in the last 100 minutes.

Because of the similar themes and content, it was hard to consider each movie outside the collective, and I'd have to say that this year, the format was probably a disservice to the nominees. (Except for the one about the dying old woman who wondered what she missed when she didn't pursue a same-sex relationship in 1963.)

"This was our first date after our baby was born," I heard a guy behind me tell the total stranger to his left. "What the hell??"

I, personally, was thankful that the only dog made it through unharmed.

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.