The Haystack

One of my homeroom students started in person today. Because he was a few weeks behind the kids who had attended already, his mom contacted me yesterday to go over the routine and also to report that he was a little nervous. Understandably so! Our sixth graders have never even been in the building: they have no frame of reference for even the most explicit directions.

"No worries," I told her, "I'll head down to the gym in the morning and bring him upstairs to show him around." 

It was a good plan until I entered the cavernous field house attached to our school. A couple hundred or so masked kids sat on the cross points of a six-foot grid. Many had their hoods up; most were looking straight down at their devices. I scanned the group and considered my options. Short of shouting his name, all I could do was walk up and down the rows peering intently at every student. When at last I was saved by the bell, a figure just ahead of me stood up. "Here I am!" he said cheerfully.

"You are so tall!" I told him. "The camera doesn't show that!"

Later in the day, I found out that yet another of my homeroom kids would be starting tomorrow. "Where do I go?" she asked anxiously.

"I'll come downstairs to find you," I promised, but then looked at the guy I had fetched this morning. "But if you see me before I see you? You better wave!"

Keep Stirring

I made risotto for dinner tonight. Any avid fan of one of the many reality cooking competition shows out there will know that risotto is always a risk, if not a certain ticket to the loser bracket. It is not necessarily a hard dish to make (although it does take focused attention at the stove), but it's a hard dish to time when coordinated service is an expectation. Luckily for me we eat when it's ready around here.

The first time I ever ate risotto I was 14. My family was living in Saudi Arabia, but due to the laws governing expatriate schools in the Kingdom, I was in boarding school in Switzerland. Just up the mountain from my school was a little restaurant called Flora's where all they served were ribs slow-cooked on their wood fire hearth, salad, and risotto Milanese. If you wanted anything else you might have been disappointed, until the family-style platters and bowls arrived at your table and you dug in. A menu as simple as that must be impeccable, and Flora and her staff delivered.

But I was 14. How was I to know what an extraordinary meal I was having? I just thought you could find perfection everywhere. 

When I first started cooking seriously, I believed I could recreate that meal. Over the years, I have tried dozens of rib and risotto recipes, and there have been some good meals, but that Flora's magic? Has eluded me. Tonight our risotto is rather work-a-day: boxed chicken stock with some shallots and shiitakes. We have a shrimp topping sautéed with napini and winter cress from our CSA, freshly shaved pecorino and a little dice of plum tomato. Nothing to complain about, for sure, but no comparison to Flora's either.

But that's okay.

Whiskers Forward

I have a student in my homeroom who has been very shy all year. She never turns on her camera, and in fact, before Fall Conferences she told her dad that I had never seen her before. It was true-- my image of her was based on the photo in my grade book, a picture that had been taken early in fifth grade. When she finally made an appearance for the conference, I was kind of surprised at how much she'd changed: the little girl with pigtails and smile was replaced by a middle schooler with a high and tight mop of curls and an anxious frown. 

After that? I heard her voice (although rarely), but the slash across her camera icon remained steadfastly present, even during the second conference. That is until last week. 

A bunch of the other kids in our group are certified goofballs: they are forever wearing hats and masks, waving papers and books and posters, and parading their stuffies and pets across the screen for us. There were a couple of cats waving in the gallery when her hand went up. 

"Hey!" I said brightly. "Do you have a question?"

"No," she said quietly, "but I do have a comment."

"Go ahead!" I said.

"We're getting two kittens next week," she reported.

Well, the class went a little wild and wouldn't give up until she had posted a picture of her kittens-to-be in the chat. 

And then today? That hand went up again. "We got our kittens," she told us. 

And what do you know? There she was on camera, first with a very stubborn and wiggly gray-striped kitten held up to her cheek, and then again cradling a quite compliant orange-striped baby.

"So cute! Congratulations!" I said, as the image faded to a little circle with her initials. 

But my fingers are crossed that those kittens will be a little less camera shy than their girl.

The C in CLT

One colleague mentioned a mentor text that she had used successfully with her students. Another colleague searched the author and found that she lived and taught in the next school district over. The third colleague went to the author's homepage and contacted her about a virtual visit with the young writers in their classes.

Ten days later? Kids and author were laughing and talking about writing and publishing together.

Now that's collaboration!

It's Been a Minute

I ordered a lightweight vest from LL Bean and when it arrived the other day I found that it was a little big. If this had happened any time in the last 12 months, I would have printed a return label and dropped my package either at the post office or UPS Store. But there is an LL Bean store not 20 minutes from our house, and being fully vaccinated, it seemed like a good Sunday errand to go make an exchange for a vest that fits. 

So we did. It's not that we haven't been shopping all year; we have in moderation, but today being out and about in the sunshine, jockeying for a spot in the parking lot, and then spending a little time checking out the sale racks and new spring offerings? Well.  

And although it is hard to say if it felt more like a beginning or an ending, it undoubtedly felt very different.

Who's Walking Who?

Years ago, a dog trainer we worked with advised us against extendable leashes. "Your dog should never be in front of you," he told us, "much less more than a few feet away." I sheepishly reeled my dog in from the tree she was sniffing and pressed the lock on the handle.

We immediately purchased a six-foot cloth leash and donated the others to the animal shelter. After that we side-eyed all the dogs criss-crossing 12 feet ahead of their walkers, while virtuously keeping our dog a foot or two to the left. Well, that was the ideal, more often than not there was some tugging. Our wrists grew mighty strong, though, and so did our dog's neck. Eventually, we found a balance, and our dogs have been very nice walkers, both.

This evening I looked out the window and saw our neighbor walking her 15-year-old dog. She uses an extendable leash, but rather than run ahead of her, her dog stopped and she was the one who continued walking until she got to the end of the leash. Only then did she turn around and see her recalcitrant pup. "C'mon," she encouraged him, and he lumbered forward. Then she turned and kept going, unaware that he had stopped again. They made their way all the way home just like that, 12 feet at a time.

Running the Workshop

Our sixth graders are writing children's fiction, and we have reached the point in the unit where the planning has been completed and the drafting has begun. Or at least that's what the calendar says; in reality, students are spread out wide along the writing process already, like runners in a marathon. 

Our main means of supporting all the writers, where ever they might be, is the writing conference; a quick individual conversation to catch them up and/or speed them on their way toward a final draft. Concurrent learning both simplifies and complicates our conferences. 

Yesterday and today, for instance, I had some students in front of me and other students at home. Most kids from each group were ready to write, but others hadn't finished their planning quite yet. I made the logistical decision to pop the planners into individual breakout rooms where they shared their electronic plot diagrams with me as they worked. There, we could talk through any blocks that had them stuck. 

I joined the main call on my iPad, too, so that when I was on hold and in a breakout room, I could still monitor the kids who were working independently and answer any quick questions they might have. In between conferences, I muted all the mics and checked in with the in-person writers, most of whom were wearing headphones, as I was, too, when I was talking to someone else. 

When at last I had the room to myself and was able to take a deep breath and remove the mask, glasses, and earbuds that were stuffed into or otherwise covering every hole on my head, I was pretty wiped. But the writers? Were on their way to the finish line.