Finding The Way

One of our neighbors has a cool Mandalorian sticker on their car: a white, stylized helmet with the slogan This is the Way. Back in the spring, Heidi and I watched the whole first season of the series, partly because after 40 years, most things Stars Wars are kind of a must, and partly because one of Heidi's students was a huge fan and she wanted to be able to carry on a conversation with him. Either way, The Way, a code of honor and behavior which to Mandalorians includes, but is not limited to, never removing their helmets in front of others, is something we are familiar with. 

On our way home from the pool this afternoon we relived our disappointment with the appearance of the Mandalorian when at last the audience sees him without his helmet.

"I feel kind of bad," Heidi said, "because there wasn't anything wrong with the way he looked."

'I know," I agreed, "but it was kind of like that thing when you only hear someone on the radio, and then when you see a picture of them you're like--"

"That was NOT what I was expecting!" Heidi finished. We laughed for a minute, and then I thought back to all the phone calls I had made this week to parents and their students who will be starting in my class next week. To them I was only a disembodied voice on the line, and although they will see me on camera on Tuesday, I may as well have been wearing my helmet.

We teachers have been given strict guidance that we cannot require kids to turn on their cameras during virtual instruction, and I understand why. Revealing yourself and your current situation to others you may or may not know can be stressful. There is enough anxiety to go around these days without adding to it, especially when our objective is for kids to be in both a physical place where they can learn, and an emotional one as well.

Even so, I hope my students will feel comfortable enough to show their faces, if only because it seems like the most direct way to connect with each other. In the show, the Mandalorian is a lonely soul, isolated from others by choice and The Way. (Okay, Baby Yoda may have changed all that.)

As for me, when I called one of my homeroom students this morning, his mother shared their disappointment and frustration with not being able to fully join the virtual open house our school conducted yesterday morning.

"But we saw you in the car parade!" she continued, mentioning the caravan of teachers who drove an announced route through all our school's neighborhoods yesterday, cars decorated and horns honking. "And that made us feel so much better!"

What Went Right

Sometimes when I sit down to write, all the negativity of the day floods my mind and I can't think of anything other than a rant. But while that kind of writing may be therapeutic in its own way, sometimes I prefer to spare my readers that dose of negativity.

Today was tough in more than a few ways, but here's the Pollyanna edit.

My coffee was perfect this morning.
Using chart paper to decorate my car for the Welcome Back to School parade was an awesome hack: it stayed on, and it peeled right off.
It was great to see my colleagues in person before driving through our school's boundaries and waving to kids and families waiting for us.
The grocery store wasn't bust at all when I went this afternoon.
The pool was especially refreshing, and I got 45 minutes of exercise.
Although it was thundering when we walked over to pick up Lucy, it didn't rain. 

Thanks to my friend, Joanne, I listened to the song of the summer insects in between the rolls of the thunder until the storm finally came. 
I'm feeling a little more prepared for school, and happy I have four more days to really nail that first day down.

I guess it was a pretty good day after all!

A Tale of Three Families

Three of our neighbors have school-aged children. One family is sending their daughter to private school, because they fear that she is regressing by not interacting with her peers to learn. The next family is keeping their daughter enrolled in our public schools, despite their dissatisfaction with the way her first grade teacher handled distance learning in the spring. Even though teachers received guidance to keep our instruction asynchronous, some of our colleagues organized a lot more in-person sessions than others, which led to perhaps unfair comparisons. The third family has let us know that although they are "fully committed" to our district schools, many of their friends are either choosing private school or full-on homeschooling, because "if their kids are going to be at home, they can at least control the schedule and curriculum that way."

Obviously? We are not all in this together.

Food for the Soul

I love to cook-- it's my top creative, hands-on jam. I usually begin every day with grinding, mixing, chopping, stirring, and often toasting, baking and/or frying and end it with blanching, roasting or grilling, dicing, saucing, and, of course, pouring a beverage pairing.

It's rare, though, that I cook for myself alone, but that's okay. For me, the joy of the process is sharing the product. Figuring out what people will and won't love to eat is a fun little challenge for me. For example, Heidi loves acid, but not too much heat; more than a tiny hit of salt will ruin a dish for Bill; Courtney hasn't enjoyed onions since she was pregnant with Richard. Sometimes when I'm cooking, I think of a person who would really love the dish, and vow to make it for them when I can.

Tonight that person was my mom. For some reason every component of the meal made me think of her. Mom would love this! I knew as I chopped tomatoes from my garden, made lime slaw, and pickled onions for the (wait for it) cauliflower (lots of acid, not too spicy) tacos we're having.

And as I worked, I reflexively considered her appreciation in present tense, as if I could make it all for her the next time I saw her, and she would tell me herself just how yummy it was.

If only that were so.

Practice, Patience, and Grace

To some it may have seemed a little silly to schedule a dry run of online classes, taking a whole day away from the precious time we have to plan delivering our curriculum in a radically new way, but once I heard that I would be able to do a lesson in the conference app our district has chosen, and that my "students" would be my colleagues on the interdisciplinary team I have worked on for my whole career, the idea was a lot more appealing.

And as it turned out, it was really useful. From 8:30 to 2 we took turns presenting, introducing new apps and new ways to use tried and true tools. We asked questions, trouble shot, and made suggestions in a group that was very, very safe. I learned a lot, and despite all the technical difficulties (that were either resolved or referred to our tech department) I feel much more confident about what's coming.

Brain Games

When I was in ninth grade, I spent some time in an activity where the teacher in charge briefly flashed long strings of numbers on a screen and our job was to write as many digits as we could recall in the moments after the screen went dark. To be honest, I have no idea what the objective was, or even why I was there. It wasn't connected to any academic class, and I don't remember getting any kind of feedback or results. Were they trying to improve our short-term memory? If so, why? The kids that were selected to participate were already pretty high-achieving, and in my experience as a teacher, weak working memory often negatively impacts academic success. Maybe we were there to show that link?

Speaking of memory, I don't really remember how often we went or how long it lasted, probably because it didn't count toward anything. I do remember sitting at tables with my friends, cutting up before and after the test sessions, or whatever they were, and I also recall being pretty good at the task. I think I could go up to 12 or 14 digits without any problem.

I haven't thought about that experience in over forty years, but the recent rise of two-part verification has brought it all back to me. As much of a pain as the extra step for security is, I get a tiny thrill every time I get that text with the six digit code. Just like I used to do when I was 13, I repeat the numbers to myself once, and then type them in before I forget. It's like a little push-up for my aging brain, and just like before? I'm not sure why I have to do it, but I like being good at it.

The Marble Not Yet Carved

When we were teenagers, my brother and sister and I went through an Irving Stone period. Of all of his soapy biographical novels, I must say I liked The Agony and the Ecstasy, about the life of Michelangelo, best. Starting with the his time as an apprentice in Ghirlandaio's studio, a position he takes against his father's wishes, the book is the turbulent tale of Michelangelo's struggles to stay true to himself and become a successful artist.

One of the things that stuck with, me even after all these years, is when Michelangelo is trying to get a commission to carve a huge block of marble in Florence. The stone is famous for its size and quality, but was mis-cut when it was quarried, and no one thinks it can truly be salvaged. But Michelangelo believes that each statue is already in the stone; the sculptor need only recognize it and reveal it with his chisel. The result? His masterpiece, David.

I also learned what "contrapposto" meant from reading that part of the story: one shoulder forward, one knee bent, relaxed yet powerful, it's the perfect pose for strength and beauty. It's how Michelangelo solved the problem of the huge gouge in the side of that enormous block of marble.

As silly as it seems, I thought of Michelangelo's precept more than once this summer while painting rocks. In addition to some perfectly smooth and round stones, some oddly shaped ones found their way into our collection. Rock painting is not a craft for the impatient; it takes time for the base paint to dry as well as the details, and on such a small canvas, that means setting the little project aside for a while between stages. And if Michelangelo is to be believed, it also takes patience and a little imagination to let the rock reveal its true identity.


And that is exactly what I found in the case of Kermit, Pikachu, watermelon, Nemo, rugged heart, and ladybug.

But more importantly, the lesson for me as an educator, is to look for the masterpiece within each student and do my part to reveal it.