On the Face of It

We had the annual meeting for our community garden this morning, and like most large gatherings safely should be, ours was held virtually. So, at a little before 9 AM, I dutifully clicked on the link to the Zoom call, joining 65 other gardeners as we conducted the business of approving the budget and electing a slate of officers to lead the community through the next season. And I participated in the way I have become so familiar with over the last 8 months-- I replied in the chat and reacted with the built-in emojis. 

Here's what I didn't do, though; I didn't turn on either my camera or my microphone. I wasn't alone, and of course, I couldn't help but think of my students who never show their faces. For this meeting, the organizers actually requested that we keep both off, unless we were speaking, so I didn't feel bad at all about lurking behind a simple black square with name on it. 

Truth be told, I am a an immigrant to this land of virtual interaction, such things were literally science fiction when I was in school. That's my excuse, but the fact of the matter was, I didn't want to turn my camera on, and the people who had theirs on looked odd in that weird video call way: the awkward camera angle, the strange lighting, the distracting background. I didn't want any part of that. 

And although my students are digital natives-- the first iPhone is older than most of them-- they still resist turning the camera on. I guess some things cross generations and citizenship, but it's really hard to teach those little glowing circles!

Ailing Debate

 Another sign of the times...

As the kick-off to our persuasive writing unit, I always ask students if they like arguing. In the past? I have found that sixth graders generally love to argue, and any assignment with the word "argument" in the description or directions at least sounds kind of fun to them.

Today, though, when I posed the question Would you rather argue or walk away? in the chat snap the vast majority of students chose walk away. And when asked why? Well, one student put it like this, "I don't like to waste my time on idiots."

"It is possible to disagree respectfully," I said to the little round circles with their initials in them, but, and I know this anecdotal...

Crickets.

What They'd Rather

One of my online teaching hacks is to give the students a "chat snap" at the beginning of every class. This quick question is posted at the top of the agenda in our Learning Management System, and so students have to navigate from our call to that site, which is where I want them to end up anyway. Then they post their reply in the chat, so I know that they are both present and engaged. As they post, I or my co-educator reads the answers out loud, and we often ask follow-ups to make a connection with each student before the instruction begins. 

I try to make the question fun, but also relevant to the lesson in some way. So, for example when we were working on leads to hook their readers, the chat snap was to post the first sentence of their independent reading book. And when we were looking for topics for their food narratives, the question was, If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Yesterday and today the assignment was to begin the second quarter by reflecting on their writing from the first. The chat snap was, Would you rather be able to know the future or change the past? Why? My hope was to use our conversation as a hook for the notion of reflecting and setting goals, but also to be able to manage any anxiety about current events by saying, "Who doesn't want to know what's going to happen in the election?!"

Their answers were mostly of either the I'd go back and fix my mistakes variety or the I just want to know what's going to happen sort. The replies of the students in one of my sections, however, were notable in their responsibility and altruism. I'm not sure if it's relevant, but all but one of them were from families with parents who had moved to the United States from another country. 

Here's what some of them said:

change the past, so I can make peace and stop war

change the past and stop corona

know the future, because I want to see what the James Webb telescope can see in the universe when it launches next year

change the past and make COVID go away

change the past, because I can redo all the tests

go to the future and see what will happen to humanity and the earth

But don't worry! At least one of those writers had a very kid-like caveat:

also, stop homework from being invented.

Gee, Mrs. Cleaver

I watched my share of 50s and 60s TV when I was a kid. Back then, shows like I Love Lucy, Gilligan's Island, and I Dream of Jeannie ran in continuous loops in the afternoons. We knew their stories so well that we called them, The one with...

One show I never really watched too much was Leave it to Beaver. I don't know if it was programming or content, but it seemed like the show was never on enough to get us hooked. I could say the same about Dennis the Menace and The Donna Reed Show-- they were around, but they just weren't on when we watched.

Even so, I recognized an Eddie Haskell when I was confronted with him this morning. "Let me take a look at your reflection before you leave the call," I told one of my sixth graders near the end of class.

"Go right ahead," he answered brightly. "And may I say? I want to thank you for bringing it to my attention that my writing could use more detail! I truly never thought of that before!"

I pulled up the image of his assignment. It was a scribbly mess. "Do you need to type your work?" I asked him.

"What a great idea!" he said. "Can I have a little extra time?"

Around the Bend

In addition to consciously not worrying about the election results, I spent a big chunk of the last four days grading and commenting on the first "big" writing pieces that my sixth graders have composed. As such? It's been a bit of a slog.

But reading my friend Joanne's blog post about hope and the election reminded me this morning that Martin Luther King said "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," and her optimism, and his, made me feel a little better.

And at the end of reading all that earnest, sloppy, wonderful, imperfect writing I was reminded that, in my experience, the arc of sixth grade is also long, but it bends toward literacy. 

Onward!

Tired Truth

"Who do you think will win the election?" my sister asked me as we FaceTimed yesterday.

"I refuse to say," I answered. "I just don't have it in me to speculate. It would make the outcome even more disappointing. I just want it to be over."

"I know," she said and held up her phone to show me a meme that a friend of hers had shared. 

Yah. 

In the Ring

As I mentioned, one of the decluttering chores I did yesterday was to install the Ring doorbell I received for Christmas. For the last 10 months it's been languishing in its box as I wrestled with whether or not to keep it. For while I am kind of interested to catch a glimpse of the fox and deer that are rumored to pass by here, I liked the doorbell we already had, and I wasn't sure if the time and hassle of installing the ring would be worth it. So, the box just became one of those things that got moved when it was time to tidy up-- from the side board to the desk to the sideboard again, always placed somewhere that I would see it so I wouldn't forget about it and find it 15 years later. (I'm talking to you evaporated milk!)

Yesterday I made up my mind and reclaimed that 72 cubic inches of real estate. The installation, while not the snap they portrayed it to be in the directions, was not as complicated as I feared, and within 45 minutes my Ring was ringing and recording and reporting it all to the app on my phone and watch. 

No doubt the novelty will wear off, but every couple of hours I feel the need to check the footage and see who's been passing by. And while there has been no wild life, I have found cause for alarm. 

"Who are these sketchy guys lurking in the courtyard at 12:34 at night?" I asked Heidi, indignantly thrusting the phone over to her. 

"Um, isn't that our next door neighbor and the guy who's been staying with them?"

"Oh, yeah," I agreed, "that is them. But look at this! They delivered the paper at 3:11 AM! Why so early?"

"So it will be here when you get up?"

"Fine! but who's this guy in slides and bath robe?"

That stumped her for a minute. "Is he smoking?" she asked, squinting at the tiny screen.

I looked, too. "I think so."

"He's the other neighbor, all the way at the end. He must have gotten up and gone out for a smoke."

But mostly, the camera just captures us: me running out in the rain to rescue the pumpkins and the Halloween decorations, Heidi taking Lucy out, me locking the door before we go walking, us carrying groceries up from the car, mundane actions somehow elevated by the simple fact of their recording.