Blah-liday

 It was not a jolly holiday around here today. A muggy, overcast morning gave way to a drenching, tropical afternoon. After working for most of the gray, gray day, I had to get out of the house, so at 4:30 I pulled on some boots and my raincoat, leashed up the dog, and headed out for as brisk a walk as we could manage. Lucy is a sniffer, she never met a patch of grass or invisible trail along the side of a fence that she didn't long to lose her nose in. Such aromatic shenanigans make it challenging to maintain any speed, and so we traded off jogging and meandering, eventually compromising our way down to the local shopping district at the foot of the hill. I was surprised to see a few hardcore restaurant patrons sitting at somewhat soggy tables beneath dripping awnings, but aside from them, the sidewalks were mostly empty. Rounding the bend to the library square I did a double take at the Christmas Tree, all set up and decorated. And although Veteran's Day is mighty early for that kind of cheer, I do confess my spirits rallied just a bit at the sight. I snapped a quick selfie and then off we trotted toward home.

Small Victories

Today was the day when it finally fit in the curriculum to have the students enroll in the online app for writing skills that our school system subscribes to. It's not super complicated: I log in and create classes, and then the students follow a link to set up their accounts and join my class. 

And yet... 

Over the four years that we have been using this platform, even as I give directions and circulate throughout the classroom, somehow there are always one or two kids who get into the wrong class, or worse can't join at all, and I never know until the first assignment is due. So I was prepared for problems when I added this activity to my plans, and I built in some time to resolve them.

And yet...

This time

every

single

student

joined our class and started the assignment! 

Oh, sure, there were a few kids I had to talk through the process. Click on that big blue button under the pink person in the weird desk. Do you see it? Do you see it?  Now log in with your school Google. 

But at the end of the day, I gave the assistant in my class a virtual high five. "They are all in!" I told her. "That never, ever happens, even in person!"

"I know," she said. "We must be getting good at this stuff!"

Having Written

I have my writing group tonight. When we started 14 years ago, the four of us met every month, almost without fail. Back then, I was fresh from the National Writing Project Summer Institute for teachers where the writer within me had awakened. Having the chance to write every month for an audience was intoxicating and fun, and the food, wine, and company were just as potent. 

Since then, our meetings have become a little less frequent, perhaps six or seven a year, and of course this year, the COVID crisis has curtailed our gathering even more; we met once in February and were all set to meet at the end of March when social distancing and lock downs upended that plan along with so many others. We were able to find time to meet outside in late July, though, and this mild November weather has offered the chance to meet outdoors one more time this year.

Over the years, the food, fun, and fellowship haven't lost a glint of their luster, but writing? Well, that's a different story. Obviously, I write regularly, in a few weeks I'll hit 4,000 posts on this site. But while writing every day does build my fluency, I sometimes wonder what the trade off is, and I often ponder that very question in the days leading up to my writing group. The empty screen illuminates my doubts. Where's the passion? What's the point?

But tonight, after a nice dinner and a glass or two of wine, when I pull out whatever I bring to share with the group, and we all adjust the reading glasses that none of us wore when we started, I'll take a deep breath, start to read the words that I put on the page, and I'll remember.

Birthday Wishes

Twenty years ago , on Heidi's birthday, the election between Gore and Bush went into overtime. It was a first for modern history, and definitely nothing we expected as we celebrated both her birthday and what we hoped would be four more years with a president we had voted for. We left my brother's house that evening kind of stunned and unsure, and the disappointment with what happened several weeks later has hung vaguely over every fourth birthday for Heidi ever since.

All that was washed away yesterday afternoon when this election was called for Joe Biden. The birthday texts came pouring in, all with a similar sentiment. "Happy Birthday! Enjoy your new president!"

I think she will.

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.