Deciding He's Done

I asked my students yesterday to name the "best" Pixar character and give three reasons why they thought so. I have to admit that I was surprised by the outcome. The character most often mentioned was Lightning McQueen from Cars. 

McQueen garnered a lot of support from the boys, while the girls spread their arguments out over many characters. Those who wrote in favor of Lightning gave reasons like he's strong willed, he's hard working, he never gives up. Some made it personal: I'm a car guy, and he's a car, and I grew up watching him, and he's funny and fast.

And then there was the most poignant answer of all: Basically, he's my childhood, and those were happy times. 

What a world it is when 11-year-olds express such nostalgia for a childhood that by all rights should not be over yet.

Old Timers

 The lights were on and the door was open in my classroom when I arrived at school this morning. A large black tool bag sat on one of the tables, and as I entered, I could see a gray-haired man sitting behind it with the pieces of my disassembled clock laid out between him and the bag. "Yay!" I cheered. "You're here to fix the clock!"

He nodded. "You know what the funny thing was?" he asked without looking up. "I got here at 7:15 this morning, and your clock was right. I almost left, because I checked all the other rooms around you, and their clocks all said the same time. But when I got back, your clock still said 7:15, so I knew it was broken."

"Broken!" I said. "Wasn't it because of the time change?"

"Oh, no," he assured me. "The movement was totally frozen. I had a new one with me, though, so I'm replacing it right now."

"Do you think that clock is original to the building?" I asked.

"No," he said, "the original ones are like the ones that stick out of the walls in the hallways."

"Well it's pretty old," I told him, "It's been here at least since 1994."

"Yeah," he nodded. "This black plastic ring model was probably made in the early 80's."

"That makes sense;" I said thoughtfully, "that's around the time they added the walls to convert from an open-space school."

"This clock has been fixed a few times since then," he noted. "This movement I'm replacing was made in 2005. How long did you say you've been here?"

"This is year 28 in this room," I said.

"Well, I used to work for the company that makes these clocks," he continued, "and when I retired, the school system recruited me to work for them."

"How long has that been?" I asked.

"Over 15 years," he told me.

Before I could say another word, the bell rang, and kids started pouring in the room. He climbed the ladder to hang the clock back on the wall, and then packed his tools.

"Thank you," I said over the clamor of another new school day.

He nodded and left without another word.

All the Pieces

Because we use the Toy Story short film"Small Fry" as a introductory text for our character analysis and argument essay unit, I was doing a little research for supplementary materials this afternoon when I came across a whale of an argument essay written about Pixar.

Have you heard this?

Every single Pixar movie takes place in the same alternate universe, and they are all connected! This is according to "The Pixar Theory" which blogger Jon Negroni first published in long-essay format in 2013, and has since added to as new Pixar films have been released. 

Here are a couple of videos that will nicely bring you up to speed:

Pixar Easter Eggs

The Pixar Theory

As for the argument itself, the claim is spellbinding, although unquestionably debatable. The evidence is colorful and engaging, consisting of clips and characters and plot lines from Pixar movies, and the reasoning? Well the reasoning is compelling with the extra attraction of uncovering a secret, complex universe the clues to which have been hiding in plain sight all along.

I like it!

Right Twice a Day

The clock in my classroom was frozen at 7:15 this morning when I got to work. Over the years the clunky old analog system has had a little trouble adjusting to time changes in the spring and fall, but I never remember it stopping completely, and I was sure I would see the hands speed magically ahead to update. I hadn't realized how reliant I am on that good, old round school clock on the wall, but without it, here's how the day went:

7:15 Homeroom

A few oppositional kids are resisting the lesson on vaping, and as I patrol the room using proximity to keep them focused, I'm wondering how much longer until they will be dismissed. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell.

7:15 1st period

I tell the class they can have 5 minutes to copy the notes on the board and glance at the clock to start my mental timer. No dice.

7:15 still 1st period

I'm running a pair share activity and trying to gauge about how much time they will have at the end to write a paragraph with the information they have given and received, but it's a little hard to tell.

7:15 3rd period

The chat snap warm up activity seems to be running a little long; a quick glance at the clock tells me nothing.

7:15 5th period

This group came in with a lot of energy and I want to give them a couple of minutes to settle down before I raise my voice. I think I do.

7:15 still 5th period

This block is split by lunch, and I can tell that the bell will ring soon, but as I explain the concept of character analysis, I wish I knew how much time we had.

7:15 Lunch

After keeping a few kids for who knows how long to finish their notes, my colleagues join me for lunch in my room. Luckily they have their phones out and can check to see how much time we have. Even so, we are momentarily confused when there is a flurry of activity in the hallway. "Wait! They're back already?" False alarm, they were sent up a little early.

7:15 Planning Time

I re-read the email I received earlier, subject line: Classroom Clocks may be a little off, still synchronizing to time change

Please not that some clocks are still adjusting to day light savings time. Please give it 24 hours and then let me know if it's not correct.

The notion that clocks need any time to adjust let alone 24 hours seems absurd to me. I send a terse message: The clock in room 275 is still stopped.

In return I receive an equally clipped reply in all caps: GOT IT. THANK YOU.

7:15

As the sun slants in through the western facing window, I pack my things to go home.

25 for 53

If there's anyone who deserves an extra hour to her birthday this year, it's my wife Heidi, tireless champion of kids and animals alike, and a girl who never met a battle she didn't choose.

Mwahhhh!

And, never fear! I'm all buckled up for another trip around the sun with that one.

Power of the Group

Since January, I have been practicing yoga and meditation most mornings. Courtesy of my sister, I have connected with a Kundalini yogi who offers a 45-minute live session at 6 AM. After tuning in and a few warm-ups, she leads us through 20 minutes of breath work, mantra, poses, and mudras (hand movements), and then 15 minutes of meditation. It has been a positive way to start my day, and I feel lucky to have found such a good fit. Sometimes the kriyas, or routines, are a little challenging, and that's okay, too; alone in our spare bedroom (cum-office, cum-guest-room, cum-yoga-studio) I do my best and give myself grace and props just for showing up. 

That's what happened on Friday when we were challenged to hold our arms straight out, one palm up, one palm down, for 5 minutes straight. We were balancing our energy, our hands representing the sun and the moon, (or the light and the dark, or the sky and the earth, feminine and masculine, and so on-- yogi's choice of opposites!), but I confess to dropping my arms a couple of times. 

And my shoulders were still a little bit sore a couple of hours later when one of my students complained of something being hard. "You want to try something really hard?" I asked, rubbing my upper arm. "Listen to what I had to do in my yoga class this morning!"

One thing led to another, and soon my whole class was standing at their seats arms spread open wide with a three minute timer on the board. "What do we get if we can do it?" somebody asked.

"Besides balance and a sense of accomplishment?" I replied, my own arms floating above the floor. "A piece of candy, I guess."

Well! They were in! And with the exception of one student, they all accomplished the challenge. A few minutes later, with jolly ranchers slipped in their mouths behind their masks, they settled down to work, and I was amazed at how quiet, focused, and productive they were.

Right before the bell, as the class was packing up to go, one of the kids asked me if I was going to do the "mindfulness arm thing" with my other classes.

"Yes!" I answered, "because you guys were so great at it."

"But what about your arms?" he responded with concern.

"I'll be fine!" I told him, because I knew there was no way I was going to drop my arms in front of the class. And by the end of the third time I did it? I knew that I could easily go for two more minutes.

Literally No Headache

"Did I really give you a headache?" one of my students asked this morning.

I looked at her confused. "What do you mean?"

"When I said reading so much was giving me a headache, you said my complaining was giving you a headache."

I had forgotten our exchange in homeroom earlier in the day. "No," I told her, "it wasn't a real headache; it was metaphorical, like yours."

"What does that mean?" she asked in alarm.

"Your headache wasn't real," I explained. "You were comparing the feeling of doing something you really didn't want to do, in this case reading, to having headache."

She shifted her eyes away.

"And I was doing the same," I admitted. "I really didn't want to hear you complain about something that wasn't real."

What I was saying was not a surprise to her; she knew what I meant in homeroom, but she was put out by my tone. When I was thinking about it later, though, I realized that her reaction was part of a pattern. The kids this year seem more fragile than in the past, less able to take negative feedback, whether it is constructive or not. 

Maybe it's because before this year started, the last time they were in a regular classroom was 4th grade, when they were nine. Middle school? Is a whole different dynamic; we expect the kids to have a bit of a thicker skin. 

But they don't right now, so I'm going to have to be more mindful of my sharp tongue (at least for a while).