Home Base

Our flight from Atlanta made good time; we broke through the rain clouds a few minutes later, and heading north, the ground was soon visible. Our pilot was optimistic, too. "Our flying time will be a quick hour and 15 minutes," he reported. I considered the 10+ hour road trip the same journey would take and whistled softly. 

As promised? The familiar skyline of DC was visible in less than 75 minutes. But we were too high to land, and as the airport receded, I understood that the wind was from the south and we would need to keep going and bank around to follow the river and land. we flew over our house, our school, Bill and Emily's house, and up past Great Falls and even beyond River Bend before we finally turned. 

I had the same view of Arlington as our plane descended, now only 100 feet or so above the buildings in Roslyn, the Iwo Jima and Women in the Military memorials floating by, then the Eternal Flame, Arlington House, the Pentagon, Gravelly Point rushing toward us until that ever-present bump as we touched down. We were still early; so much so that the plane at our gate had not pushed back yet, and so we taxied slowly and then waited on that runway I have been taking off from and landing on all of my life. 

Picture Day

I'm sitting amidst a sea of faces in family photos spanning 115 years, many that I haven't seen in 25 years or so. We are at my sisters going through the trove of pictures we inherited from our mom.

Looking at so many pictures dislimns the passage of time: hours fly by as the eye skips years, decades, centuries; faces long gone seem as familiar and fresh as they did back when the pictures were snapped. What is one to do with so many analog images in this digital age? 

Sift through them, sort them, scan them, split them up, store them, but then what?

When Dreams Come True

I've written before of my most recurring dream, the one where I am at the airport with international travel plans but without my passport. In those dreams I always try to make it back home to get my passport before my flight leaves, but I never make it; something always gets in my way and I either wake up or the dream moves on.

This morning as we rolled our suitcases into the airport on our way to Atlanta, Heidi turned to me and gasped. "I don't have my wallet," she reported, her blue eyes wide over her black K95 mask. "It's in my walking bag, and I didn't bring it."

The Uber that had dropped us off had disappeared into the sea of cars washing their way to and from the curb like waves on the beach. "Should I get a cab and go home to get it?" Heidi asked.

And I didn't even have to think about the answer. "Let's call one of the neighbors and see if they can bring it," I suggested. Heidi got on the phone, and soon someone was on the way with the whole bag, and 15 minutes after that, Heidi had her wallet and we were on our way to the security line. It was a little tighter than I would have liked, but they weren't even boarding our flight when we made it to the gate. Crisis averted.

As we settled into our seats, I raised the shade on my tiny window and looked out over the tarmac, considering how easily we had handled the situation, and I had to wonder if this could possibly be the resolution for my nightmares, too.

Imagination Station

I spend so much time with sixth graders that I sometimes forget how childish their perspectives still are. I do not mean this in a bad way; in fact, it's very endearing. 

Take the commercials they are producing, for example. This year, I made an investment in some costumes. I shopped at the thrift store and online to find an inexpensive lab coat, construction vest, scrubs, a cowboy vest, a velvet vest, a double breasted blazer, a black choir robe, some aprons, a couple of neck ties, and a bunch of hats and glasses to go with them. To me, it gives them a jump start when they are planning their productions, and it's fun for them to try different things on, so they are more engaged in the assignment. For them? It's a whole other level. 

"Look at me! I look like a legit business man, Bro!" said one guy sporting the blazer and tie. 

"You look exactly like Harry Potter!" another student told a girl in the choir robe, round glasses, and pointed hat. "I really can't believe it! And that broom I helped make out of a yard stick, duct tape, and construction paper? Every class has somebody using it in a commercial because they think it is so authentic. 

Yesterday, I paused a group who was recording video at a table in my classroom. They were supposed to be in a house somewhere. "Don't you want to turn the SMART Board off?" I asked. "It kind of ruins the home effect to see our class announcement behind you."

"Oh, yeah!" Good idea!" they agreed.

"What if you drew a window on some chart paper and hung it up there?" I suggested.

They thought that was another great idea, and excitedly drew a window with some curtains. When we put it on the board by their table, and they turned the camera on to see the effect, they were stunned. "I can't believe how good it looks! It's like we're in a real house!"

Except, it really wasn't. I love how their imaginations still fill in all the blanks, though!

Know Thyself

In 2018 the Commonwealth of Virginia added the requirement that all middle school students participate in a career investigations course, and that's what my homeroom students were online doing this morning when one of them called me over. 

"What if someone doesn't have any strengths?" he asked.

"Oh, everyone has some strengths," I answered. 

He nodded, and I stood watching over his shoulder as he began to make his list. Wiggle my ears, he typed. 

I looked at him to see if he was joking, but he really wasn't. "I think maybe you could add some school strengths," I suggested.

"Those I don't have," he shook his head.

"You are really good at participating in class discussions," I said, "and you have a lot of creative answers to questions."

"Maybe you're right," he shrugged. Talking in class, he entered, answering questions, and then he added Raise one eyebrow really high. 

"You need one more, " I told him, and left him alone to continue pondering his strengths.

Professional Learning

I did 3 1/2 hours of required training this afternoon. The session was offered via Zoom, and strangely enough, started 18 minutes before my last class of the day was finished. It worked out for me: my sixth graders were taking a test, and they were more than happy to quietly cooperate in the novel situation of their teacher having to be a student before their very eyes. 

The topic of the course was meeting the needs of English Language Learners, specifically by using Higher Order Thinking Skills when planning questions and activities. It was a good reminder and also an affirmation of many of the strategies I already use. The group was relatively small, only 13, and there were several moments of complete crickets when we were asked to share our thoughts and observations. At those times, I was somewhat uncharacteristically quick to turn my camera on, unmute, and participate. Someone had to, and as I said, I was pretty comfortable with the material.

A mainstay of that type of workshop is always viewing a video of some long ago teacher somewhere instructing a class and then filling out an observation chart noting the strategies you see in the recording and their effectiveness. Sometimes I jot questions as well; even though the teacher can't answer them, I know I'll probably be popped into a breakout room where I can pose them to colleagues should the conversation lag. This time, the video was of a sixth grade science teacher and her class of perhaps eleven years ago. The students were working in groups; they had no personal devices or computers; it was kind of an old school lesson on molecules and polarity.

As we started our debrief, one of the other participants unmuted. "I have to confess," she said, "that that recording was me. I still teach sixth grade science, too."

You could have bought me for a quarter. The group offering the training is a national organization, and there was no reason to think that the teacher was local. When we were asked to offer observations and critique, the silence was even deeper than before. I glanced down at my chart and unmuted. "How were the students grouped?" I asked. "Did you match the level of the questions with the level of the students?"

And we were off! Because when do you ever get to ask real questions about those things? "Would you do anything different?" asked one of the facilitators.

"I wouldn't be videotaped!" the teacher quipped. "No seriously," she continued. "That was a lot of work. The students needed permission, we filmed through lunch, and the editing took a long time."

Everyone onscreen nodded sympathetically. 

"Then? Even though I'm the demonstration for higher order teaching, they made me take this class anyway, because they said it was too long ago to count towards our requirement!"

"Oh look! We're out of time," said the facilitator.

Quiet on the Set

There was a moment today when every single student in my class was off with their group recording their commercials in some quiet corner of the school. I had checked their scripts and planning, and given them the responsibility pep talk and a pass instructing any concerned adult to call me if necessary. So far, all the productions were going very smoothly.

Even so, the quiet of my empty classroom seemed so out of place that I didn't even make it all the way inside before I was off on another loop of filming locations, checking in on my suddenly so independent sixth graders.