A Promising Exposition

At the beginning of each unit we ask our young writers to give us an "on-demand" writing sample of the genre we will be working in, both as a pre-assessment and a baseline that both the students and we will use at the end of the unit when we reflect on their learning. 

Today my sixth graders composed their on-demand fiction pieces, and even though I know how much kids love to write fiction, their sheer glee was both surprising and a little intoxicating. They giggled and whispered as they wrote, and many could not contain their enthusiasm: they were out of their seats begging for readers, either me or their peers.

When I could, I asked them to read an excerpt to me, and their voices were engaged and engaging, funny, dramatic, and true. They wrote tales of injustice, heroism, tragedy, and every day life, and there was fantasy, fairy tale, science fiction, mystery, and a bit mild horror among the mostly realistic fiction. 

And although there is certainly room for growth (it's the largest room in the house!), I was also certain that this was going to be a good unit when I heard one writer eagerly ask his reader, "Do you think it's glorious?" 

Endangered

As I walked out of the school building on my way home this afternoon, I passed 2 colleagues in animated conversation. "There she is!" one of them pointed at me. "You know this whole safety oversight thing started with her!"

I took the comment as a joke and shrugged. "You know it," I replied. "Me and safety got nothing to say to each other."

"No seriously," the other colleague said, "you know I was on the phone the other day and they were telling me that anyone who wants to drive kids on a field trip has to be drug-tested, which I'm okay with," he added parenthetically. "But when they started talking about insurance, I said, 'I have an insurance story for you!'"

I knew what they were talking about then. Years ago, when the safety oversight office was first established, we submitted the paperwork for our annual sixth grade dolphin watching field trip. We had been chartering buses to take us to the coast for years, picnicking on the beach, and then going for a 2 hour cruise. The new office wanted a copy of the boat company's liability policy, and when I contacted the owner, he not only refused to comply, he was offended. "I've been doing business with a handshake all my life," he told me. "I'm not stopping now."

It turned out the guy didn't have insurance, and needless to say, we found another field trip to end the year. And these days? Even before COVID, our field trips were scaled back because of time and resources, and our sixth grade has stayed on campus for the end of the year activity for the last several years.

When people say it was a different time, this is what they mean, which is a little sad, really. As my students prepare for their spring conferences, I've asked them what they are looking forward to in 7th grade. All the field trips, wrote one. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was probably looking backwards on that.

Self Improvement

As I embark on this annual writing ritual, my students are beginning another. Our Sixth Grade 100 Day Writing Challenge has kicked off on March 1 for the last ten years or so. We make it as fun and achievable as possible, with different levels of participation, monthly prizes, daily mini-challenges and shout-outs, and the kids get excited about writing and publishing on the discussion board of our LMS. 

Since I write every day, anyway, I always ask my students to suggest a hundred day challenge for me to complete in solidarity with their struggle. In past years I've done 100 daily sit-ups, meditated for 10 minutes a day, and practiced the ukulele. 

This year the challenge coincided with my six-month dental check-up, and I confess I have not been as conscientious about my tooth care routine as I should be. "I know it's boring," I told my class yesterday, "but I think I should floss every day for 100 days. That would be a good habit to form." 

They were understanding. "That sounds good," said one, "but only if you do THE Floss every day, too."

I laughed and agreed. I've been wanting to learn that dance move for a while now.

This afternoon I was telling my hygienist the story. Not surprisingly, he approved completely. "You'll see!" I told him, "in sixth months I will be tartar free!"

"Okay," he said, "but remember, you're not doing it for me. It's for you, AND your teeth."

"Wow!" I said. "You sound just like a teacher!"

For Goodness' Sake

There was a bit of fracas in Heidi's social skills class today. One of her students was very cranky with another. "Why? What did I do?" asked the offending kid.

"You said there was no Santa!" answered the other student with a snarl.

It was true; he had said that, back in December. 

Even though these students are all in 7th and 8th grade, they have developmental delay in common, and so some of their families still keep the myth of Santa alive. Some obviously do not, though, and there has been some contention simmering for months because of this disagreement as to Santa's existence.

The renewed conversation today agitated one of the other kids so much that he couldn't keep his anger in check. "God dammit!" he exploded. "He is a saint! Everybody knows saints are real!"

Fraught

I decided to give the new CDC masking guidance a spin yesterday at the mall. As we entered I was wearing my mask, but I scanned the crowd intently eying each person walking toward me to see if I could read the overall mask vibe. 

As of Friday, our area is now considered "low risk" according to the new metrics the CDC has adopted. As such, anyone fully vaccinated is not recommended to wear a mask. The crowd was mixed, perhaps 60-40 in favor of masks; more white people than others unmasked, but a fair share of all shoppers were mask-free. 

I tapped Heidi's arm, and with broad gesture unhooked my mask from my ears, folded it, and put it in my pocket, momentarily relieved to be without it in public. But that feeling was short-lived. I couldn't relax, and I was anxious and worried. 

Worried that I was being premature, that the CDC was overly political in its decision-making process, that I was making others uncomfortable, that masks were a small price to pay for avoiding even the slimmest chance of COVID. Any sense of liberation I felt vanished, and I pulled my mask out of my pocket and put it back on.

Surely You Are Mistaken?

 We ran a few errands this afternoon: grocery shopping, dropping donations at the local thrift shop, that sort of thing. When we reached the last item on our list, I punched LL Bean into the map app on my phone to find the fastest route. I was irritated when it returned a location 35 minutes away when our trip should have taken no longer than 10. I x-ed out of the app and started again. 

"Bethesda?" Heidi said, looking over my shoulder. "What?" 

I gave up and entered "Tysons Corner" instead. "We know where it is when we get there," I shrugged, and Heidi agreed.

And it wasn't until we were actually approaching the shopping center that it occurred to me that the store might have closed. It had been many months since last we had ventured to any mall, let alone this enormous, ever-crowded one. Even so, we parked and walked inside, making our way around to where the first LL Bean outside the state of Maine had been since 2001. 

Of course we were confronted by an empty store front. It was only then that I bothered to search the internet to discover that the place was shuttered on January 17. Apparently, retail real estate is at a premium these days: all that shopping online during the pandemic has given consumers a new appreciation for brick and mortar, while subsidies and bail outs have driven bankruptcy down. In short, everybody wants a physical presence, so when Bean negotiated with the mall owners to downsize their huge operation, the two sides couldn't come to terms.

The article said that the company is actively looking for another location in the area, and that for now they are directing customers to their Bethesda location.

Just as my map app tried to tell me.

Long May You Run

I like to think I'm pretty flexible when I'm teaching: interruptions rarely bother me, and teachers, administrators, counselors, and students are usually welcome to come in and out of my classroom as needed. That's why I didn't miss a beat in the directions when a couple of folks from our technology team slipped in this morning. As they made their way over to my desk, I walked that way, too. "What do you guys need?" I asked.

With big grins, they waved a computer at me. 

I must have looked confused. "It's yours!" one explained.

"It's finally here," agreed his colleague.

I saw then that they had a brand new MacBook Air, and it was true that my school computer was a couple years past its replacement date. But I also looked at the set-up I had put in place connecting the old workhorse to an extra monitor and a really old SMART Board. I knew the new computer would, at the very least, require adjustments. 

"I can't have it right now!" I told them wide-eyed. I still had 2 more classes to teach.

"No worries," they reassured me, just sign in and we can configure it for you." 

Regaining my composure, I sat at my desk and began to navigate the slightly unfamiliar device. Then I looked up, gave the students their next directions in my booming teacher voice, grabbed the mouse for the other computer, and clicked over to the next activity. I scanned the new screen, and entered my user name and password again, ticked the Trust button, handed the new laptop over, thanked the tech team, and stood up to continue the lesson.

As promised? My configured MacBook was delivered to me a little while later. I needed to figure out a few things, but it's a pretty nice machine, and I'm enjoying using it right now. Fingers crossed, the transition to my teaching set-up will be seamless, and I'll hand over my old lap top on Monday. 

Before I do, though, I will thank it for its service; it has seen me through a lot in the last five years and change. I have planned hundreds of lessons and graded countless assignments on it, learned how to use our Learning Management System with it, and took it to Minnesota in 2019 when my mom was sick and used it to send my lesson plans while I was away. I posted asynchronous lessons with it every day when we went out for COVID in 2020, and of course I taught all my classes from it, first remotely, and then hybrid, for the entirety of the 20-21 school year. And in addition to all of that, I have probably written close to 2000 blog posts on that keyboard. 

That's a lot of work! At least one of is retiring.