Where He Is Now

It must have been the eyes I recognized first-- despite his face being two-thirds covered with a mask, his eyes were unmistakable. And he nodded when those eyes met mine as he rolled past me on his skateboard; he knew me, too. Then, when I called his name, his eyes narrowed as I'd seen them do so many times, and I knew his lip was curling beneath the mask as he skated past without a word or a backward glance.

"Aw," I said to Heidi, as we continued on in the same direction. He turned around about 50 yards ahead, and glided off to the side, stopping where would have to pass him again.

"You knew that was coming," Heidi told me.

I called his name again and waved. This time he looked up and waited for me to get there. "How are you?" I asked.

"Good," he nodded.

"How about school?"

"It's okay." He shrugged. "Virtual."

"The other teachers are going to be so excited that I saw you," I told him. "Do you have any messages you want me to give them?"

He mentioned two of the team by name. "They were cool," he said.

I ignored the implication that the rest of were not. "Well you look great!" I continued, and it was true: his eyes were clear; his clothes were clean; his body was relaxed. "Come on by and see us when you can. We always want to know how you are."

"Maybe," he allowed. "I think I might move back here for high school next year."

"Can we get a picture?" I asked. "I want to show everyone at school."

He nodded, and I stepped over. He pulled his mask down, and we smiled. I know mine was genuine, and I want to believe that his was, too.

Plagues Upon Us

Rather than outside in the breezy March sunshine, the annual spring meeting for our community garden was held on Zoom yesterday morning. To be honest, it's never been my favorite part of gardening there: so often the presentation and approval of the budget and bylaws devolves into a bit of a scolding session, and this meeting was no exception. 

Particularly unpleasant was when, while discussing a bit of controversial rule-smithing, the membership chair unmuted, and brandishing the waiting list for plots, assured us all that if we didn't care to conform to expectations, 150 of our fellow citizens would jump at the chance to get their gardens planted by May 15. (Now June 1-- score one for the democratic process!)

Later in the call, the question of "brown space" came up. Were our gardens supposed to be at least 30 percent clear of growth or no more than 30 percent unplanted? 

"It's at least," one of the chief gardeners confirmed. "We made the rule 17 years ago because of the cicadas. Well, really it was the rats. There were so many cicadas for them to eat, that the rat population in the garden exploded, and they were everywhere. If there was no brown space, a plot would be infested with rats burrowing and breeding under the plants."

Silent gasps of alarm lit up the digital gallery of gardeners, myself included, because this is the year that Brood X will emerge again, just as soon as the soil warms up to 65 degrees. And if a pandemic and billions of cicadas weren't enough, the thought of battling hoards of rats, too, was more than a little daunting.

All in Good Time

I needed a key cut, some lightbulbs, and super glue, so yesterday afternoon I celebrated the end of the work week by heading out to the big box home improvement store right after school. On a Friday afternoon, the place was not crowded at all, and the unspoken promises of repair and improvement drew me up and down the aisles long after I'd found the items I came for. 

Eventually, I made my way out to the garden center and was surprised to find a wide selection of herbs and annuals. So many years the plants are pretty picked over by the time I get to shopping for them; I was tempted to fill my cart right then. The string of 70 degree days we have enjoyed this week made it seem like the time was right to plant the containers and hanging baskets that we enjoy so much in the warmer months of the year.

But I knew better: the danger of frost in these parts extends to mid-April, and starting things too early, no matter how much I wished it was a good idea, was not a risk I was willing to take.

Who knows what might be lost when I shop again in April? But it doesn’t matter— my baskets will be lovely, as they always are. 

Soft Opening

I welcomed my last group of in-person learners this morning. Our hybrid concurrent block schedule means that I'm only in the same room once a week with most of the kids who opted to return to the building. The rest of the time they are virtual along with the majority of their classmates. 

"How has actually being here at school been so far?" I asked them.

"Good!" they nodded with mild enthusiasm. 

"Well it sure is nice to see you!" I told them in return.

A hand shot up. "Do you know when spring break is?" 

"It starts two weeks from today," I answered without hesitation.

He looked as relieved as I was.

One More Pivot

Just as the students were arriving for their first day in the building this morning, some sort of HVAC catastrophe had the halls outside my classroom roaring like an airport runway. With my door closed, the thunder was manageable, and when the noise quit, I assumed it was fixed. 

Not so fast, though! The principal knocked on my door a little while later. "We're going to have to move your class down the hall while they work in the ceiling to replace the part," she told me. "It's for safety reasons. Have the students pack up." 

In another time, the request might not have seemed so complicated, especially since there were only 4 kids in the room with me. But concurrent teaching and all its attendant technology had me dismantling my carefully calibrated set-up: unplugging several cables, turning off the SMART board, and leaving my extra monitor and the webcam and mic behind. 

"We'll be back on the call in a minute!" I told my virtual students and led these brand new students to an unfamiliar classroom with only laptop and iPad in hand. With no other choice, I propped up my laptop on a student desk, almost as if it was the fifth student in the class, and taught from the front of the room.

Oh, the lesson went fine, and it was actually quite liberating to get up from behind my fortress of a teaching station and move around a little. By the end of the class period, the repairs were complete, and I was able to return to my classroom and reconnect the whole apparatus before the next class began... 

...and dream of a time when the room is filled with kids agin, and all that technology is no longer necessary to do the job.

Not so Free Market

"I need to work on getting more commissions at lunch today," a student told me this morning. Although I have been teaching him remotely since September, this was our first face to face interaction.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"I draw humanoid figures," he explained with a bit of impatience. "Customers ask, I go home and do it, and they pay me two dollars when I give it to them."

"Hm," I responded. "I like your initiative, but I'm pretty sure kids aren't allowed to sell things to each other here at school."

"Oh," he dismissed my concern, "that would just be faulty logic. I'm sure it's fine."

"Well," I responded. "I'd hate to see you get into trouble. Why don't I check the rules to make sure?"

Signs of Life

For their fiction project, the sixth graders in our school write and illustrate a children's book for an audience a few years younger than they are. It gives them a chance to apply the elements of fiction and all they know about creating characters and conflict and setting in a simple, but creative way. Throughout the unit we read and analyze published books as models and mentor texts, again, a simple and accessible way for students to solidify their knowledge of fiction and its structure. 

Today we read A Place for Pluto by Stef Wade, a book that checks all the boxes for the assignment. Once he is stripped of his planet status, Pluto wants to find a place to fit in, so he talks to comets, meteors, and asteroids before finally meeting the other dwarf planets. The resolution is a two-page spread with all the planets, plus the Sun and Halleys Comet answering the classic question Where are they now? with a little joke for each. For example, the Sun says, "You all make me dizzy!" 

I like to go through the page and ask students to explain why the lines are funny. "Because the planets spin around the sun," they'll say. 

But when we get to Mars, it's a little tougher when he says, "Let's celebrate with chocolate!" Not many kids make the connection between the planet and the candy company of the same name. 

Even so, I had to laugh when one of the students who was here in person this morning mused, "Did they find chocolate on Mars?"

But ever an exemplar of growth mindset, I recovered my composure quickly and answered, "Not yet!"