Three Squares

At our school, the final project for the first unit of sixth grade English is a personal narrative that is somehow related to food. Since kids have been writing personal narratives since 3rd or 4th grade, our team made the decision a few years ago in an effort to shake our young writers away from their go-to topic. Plus, food is universal, we reasoned, everyone eats every day and there is a lot of untapped material there.

Today was the day when I revealed that parameter of the assignment to the students, and to be honest? They were underwhelmed and even a little resistant to the idea, and as confident as I am in our choice and reasoning, by the end of the day I was a little weary of defending it. 

That is, until in the waning minutes of the last class, when we were wrapping up, a student walked over to me to ask me a question in a semi-private conversation."Can I tell you a fun fact about myself?"

Sure!" I said and turned from what I was working on to look at him. 

"I do not like cake or cookies or pie or ice cream or anything sweet!" he declared.

"Wow!" I answered "That is unusual! What do you like?"

"Mostly Asian food," he told me.

"Your family is from Vietnam, right?" I said. "What are your favorite foods?"

We talked for a few minutes about Pho (he likes it with tripe!) and summer rolls and my favorite, cha gio (Spring rolls). He told me his mom is a great cook, but she has a Bolivian friend who is so good at making spring rolls that they always get her to do it. He also told me that his mom had lost her job because of COVID, but that his dad was still working, and they were doing okay.

"It was really nice talking to you," I said as the bell rang and he gathered his things.

"Can I tell you something else?" he stopped at my desk before he left. "You're my favorite teacher!"

And as pleased as I was to hear him say that, I'd really like to think it was the food talking!

Low Bar

 The question of the day today was What did you have for breakfast? Which to me seemed like a quickie to me, but the chorus of "What if you didn't eat anything? was louder than I thought, and convincing students that "Nothing" was an acceptable answer in that situation took a little time. And I might have seemed a little more frustrated than usual, because, in an astute social maneuver, one of the kids asked me what I had for breakfast.

"I bet it was Eggs Benedict, right?" she guessed.

I laughed, wishing I had that much time in the morning.

"I don't even know what it is," she continued, "but since you used to be a chef it sounds like something you might make."

After I explained what it was, and subsequently gave a quick run down on poaching, and then refereed a heated debate on the desirability of runny yolks, I pulled the class back together by announcing my morning menu.

"Actually, I had avocado toast and iced coffee for breakfast today."

The class sat in stunned silence for a moment.

"Lucky!" scoffed one student.

"What kind of bread?" asked another enviously.

"It was sandwich bread I made myself," I shrugged.

"Wow! You really are a chef," the first kid said.

Recalibrating

Now that we've survived that first full in-person week since March 2020, today I've realized there's a bit of a nasty corollary:

The first real two-day weekend since March 2020.

Ouch!

Equipment Malfunction

 The cart would not go. 

Usually? I'm a hand basket or mini-grocery cart person, but our new supermarket has underground parking which means riding the elevator or using the cart escalator to get your purchases to the car. And so I have learned to park near the corral and select a full-sized shopping cart when my list is long.

Which I did today, and my mind was already in the car and driving home when I pushed my fully loaded cart through the swinging doors and onto the tiny channel which was supposed to guide it down. Except it didn't! My cart froze and it was only sheer muscle that brought it back to me, but there was no rolling it anywhere. 

Perplexed, I signaled one of the young employees overseeing the self-checkout. "My art is locked!" I reported with dismay, and nodding politely, he went over to a secret drawer and returned with a device about the size of a lockbox for a rental property. All of a sudden my cart could roll again!

"Can I take it down?" I asked hesitantly, and I should have listened to my gut, but his nod seemed so reassuring.

Once again, my cart locked at the top, but this time as I was struggling to free it, the young man who had bagged my grocery came to the rescue. "Let me help you," he said, and with a mighty heave shoved my cart forward. 

I hadn't noticed the touch screen at the top of the apparatus until it started beeping and flashing the CONTACT CUSTOMER SERVICE message.

"I'll be right back," the guy said and I watched him go over to the counter about 10 yards away, speak to someone and walk away. When I had almost given up, a women strode purposefully up to me from the other direction.

"I'll help you!" she said waving her key card across the display and confidently tapping a series of numbers. The belt began moving.

"Yay!" I said, but before I could thank her, my cart stalled again and she frowned. Repeating the series, she leaned on the last button to keep everything going, and I hopped on my side of the escalator. Arriving at the bottom along with my cart, I turned to see her wave and start away, presumably to solve another problem. Just then? My cart locked again, frozen at the bottom of the incline.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Excuse me!" 

And thankfully? She heard me and turned. Descending the escalator herself, she commandeered another cart from the guy who was bringing them up in the elevator, transferred my groceries, and yanked the offender out of there. "So sorry for the inconvenience!" she told me, and as I walked away I heard her muttering. "I gotta call my boss."

Here for a Reason

This week the sixth grade writers have been working on sensory detail poems modeled after Knoxville, TN by Nikki Giovanni. The mini-lesson today was on endings, and the importance of adding a final thought to let the reader know the significance of the place and time these poets chose as their topic. 

At this age, theme can be a little too abstract for many kids, but some of them captured their message quite nicely:

...and close your eyes and wish to stay there forever

...and think that everyone should have a monument for the great things they accomplished in their life.

...and be brave and scared at the same time 

...and say good-bye to the ocean and welcome back dear home

...and start a new beginning, not only when you wake up in the morning 

...and laugh and feel like the luckiest person in the world 

...and feel like you can do anything, because you can

Hybrid Design

My friend Mary and I took a working walk during our planning time today. As we stretched our legs on a mile-long loop through campus and around the neighborhood, we compared notes on today's lesson and what we have coming up next week. 

We also looked up the listing for a tiny, 1900 square foot, 2-bedroom, 2-bath house with some updates ($885,000!). Rounding the corner, Mary spotted a huge, new-construction house down the street. 

"Fancy!" she noted. "They obviously have some serious money-- look at their three Land Rovers in the driveway."

"That used to be one of my favorite houses in the neighborhood," I said, "an old farmhouse with a big porch."

"I'm not saying I don't like the new house," Mary nodded. "I'm just saying it doesn't really fit in here."

"Well, they do have that more traditional facade in the front," I said looking at a wide white gable over a spacious porch. "But that back is all contemporary-- it's like a giant brown box." I paused. "I guess it's business in the front and party in the back."

"Right," Mary agreed, "the mullet of houses!”

And although the hairstyle is enjoying a bit of a comeback, I can’t help thinking those people are going to regret that house. Because it’s never going to grow out. 

Sugar

In the three minutes between third period and lunch today there were some students in my classroom shooting balls at the mini-hoop, others reciting poetry in either a single breath or from memory, and still others brainstorming the most precise sensory details they could about a single place in their favorite season. 

All for a chance at candy, of course. 

I did offer sincere congratulations in the form of a way-to-go-kid elbow bump as an alternative, but there were no takers. Even so, I was richly rewarded by their words and their writing and their joy, even when they did not succeed, and I think they might have been, too.

"It's okay," one student said when I expressed my admiration for the attempt along with my condolences for not quite winning the Jolly Rancher. "It will be fun to try again tomorrow!"