Eek

A student raised his hand when I was in the middle of instruction this morning. "I just saw a mouse," he reported.

I was neither alarmed nor surprised. After the last bus has departed for the day, I have seen a critter run with stealth along the baseboard as I work at my desk in the quiet of the afternoon. Long ago, I learned to store any food in the metal cabinets and drawers of my desk, because they are inaccessible and impossible to chew through. Because there is nothing to encourage a mouse to stay for long, I don't worry about seeing one passing through. 

I know I'm in the minority, though, and the custodians routinely answer calls to catch and kill mice in classrooms. It's as it should be, I suppose, because in addition to being vermin and all, mice can be a huge distraction in a classroom. 

This morning, though, I was very surprised at how calm my class remained. Maybe it was my attitude that set the tone, but although one student did tuck her feet up onto her chair, where they stayed for the rest of the class, there was no screaming or running either away or toward the creature. 

There was a lot of conversation though. 

"Can we name him?"
"Let's call him Mickey!"
"No! Let's call him Jerry."
"Yeah! Jerry! Who votes for Jerry?"

And so Jerry it was.

Unfortunately, Jerry's reputation preceded him the rest of the day. "Is it true there's a mouse in here?" someone asked at the beginning of every class. 

"Maybe," I would shrug, trying to keep things business as usual. "He won't bother us, though."

That approach had more success in some groups than others.

"I heard his name was Jerry. Where's Tom?" quipped one student.

Where indeed?

On the Scent

Someone had an accident at the dog sitter's today, and that was a big topic of conversation when we picked up Lucy. I appreciate the information: perhaps it was Lucy who has a bad belly; maybe one of the other dogs has something we should look out for. But it was a rather drawn out conversation, more than might be considered polite, considering the topic. 

"Too bad the dogs can't talk," I said lightly. "They probably know who it was."

"They definitely do," she replied. "If they didn't see it, they can smell it." 

I thought about that on the walk home. What would it be like to have such an enhanced sense? I wondered. And why are there no super heroes who can smell really, really well? As far as I could remember? It was really just vampires and werewolves that could do the scent thing.

Just then, a man passed us on the sidewalk walking in the opposite direction. "Whoa!" I said to Heidi. "That guy was drenched in Patchouli!"

"I smelled it, too," she agreed.

And for the next few blocks, as we traced his steps in reverse, I continued to get a whiff of cologne here and there. He was here! my brain told me every few yards, until at last we turned a corner and the scent was gone. 

22

My best from high school texted me last weekend: Do you have any interest in seeing Elton John? He is coming to DC September 24. Wanna house guest?

I checked out the tickets, and they were kind of outrageous for me and my means, but Pauly lives in Colorado, and it's been a while since we have seen each other. After a bit of back and forth, I got us some side view seats in the first tier for a little less than a car payment. Elton John ain't going to be around for ever and neither are we.

In fact, seeing her was one of the items on the 22 for 22 list I made back at the end of December. I got the idea from the Happier podcast by Gretchen Rubin. The concept is to make a list of specific measurable things you would like to accomplish in the year, rather than a more abstract resolution. During the holiday season, anything seems possible, and this particular approach to goal-setting kind of resonated with me. The first thing that popped into my head was to see Pauly this year.

Like so many lists of that kind, my 22 for 22 has languished since January. Hearing from Pauly and the prospect of actually checking something off inspired me to dig it up for review. Turns out? I have made some good progress on at least 6 of the 22 aspirations. I have booked a house in Maine for my family to celebrate my birthday in June, reinstated our Oscar weekend, ordered Hatch chili seeds to grow in my garden, and set a goal to walk the entirety of the Bull Run to Occoquan Trail, 20 miles through history and nature. 

A few others are in the likely category. Traveling internationally could easily be checked off by a trip to see my nephew in Iceland. Have a dinner party? Thanksgiving at the Beach? I think so. In fact, everything on my list still seems well within reach, but no matter what? I won't dwell on what I didn't do. 

I will relish whatever I did.

Theo Gets a Baby

One of Lucy's closest friends, Theo, had a very eventful week, but he didn't appreciate the entirety of it all until today when his folks brought home the new baby. An only dog, he's used to being the center of attention, and when they found out they were expecting, his family's announcement was phrased as "Theo is getting a sister!" 

This week, when there were complications that involved a hospital stay, all the neighbors jumped in to make sure that Theo was well cared for while his people were away, but today was the big day. A video was shared of Olivia sleeping peacefully in her car seat, her parents' excitement clear in their voices. "Are you ready to go home? Are you ready to meet Theo?" 

Once at home, Dad sat with Olivia in a chair, and Mom brought Theo over. He smelled her toes. "Gentle Theo!" they advised. He smelled her eyes. "Gentle Theo!" they repeated. Before they could tell him again, he retreated to the kitchen and laid down by his dish, perhaps still unaware of how profoundly his world has been rocked.

Come On In and Look Around

Before I went to bed on Thursday, I dutifully set up my new lap top and the monitor I purchase in the summer of 2020 on the dining room table, so that I would be at least technically prepared for the 11 student-led conferences I had scheduled for the next day. Our district had sensibly made the decision to do the conferences virtually, and as I sound- and camera-checked the MS Teams feed, I was faced with that familiar decision-- to blur or not to blur the background. 

Last year, I kept the default setting the whole time that we were teaching remotely from home, and as such I got compliments on my lamp and the painting on the wall, as well as suggestions for organizing the desk behind me. Plus? My cats could join the call whenever they were so moved. To be honest, the main decider then was that weird pixilated halo around my head with the alternate backgrounds; it was always too distracting to keep.

This time, as I scrutinized the backdrop I experimented with blurring and other artificial images before just getting out of my chair and tidying up so that I could keep it on default. I also packed up all the winter and Valentines Day gnomes my wife has collected that were in full view on top of our book shelf. 

And as silly as I may have felt then, I knew there had been significant shift away from the days when everything was online, because as I conducted the virtual conferences? I was kind of distracted by looking around at what I could see in the background of every call. Thank goodness I put those gnomes away!

Hey! That's Me

Sometime last week I changed my profile picture on our LMS to my sixth grade school picture. I found it when we were going through family photos at my sister's house a couple weeks ago, and I thought my students might get a kick out of it, if they noticed at all. 

In the photograph, the sixth grade me looks directly into the camera with an amused gap-toothed grin. The shag haircut my mother gave me frames my face and tumbles to the top of the floppy purple collar on the blouse I'm wearing under the bib of my quilted pinafore. I look a little sassy and a lot more confident than I know I was.

I definitely underestimated how much attention kids pay to such things, though, because my new profile was a big topic of conversation in each class. 

"Who is that?" they asked.

"It's me!" I said. "When I was in sixth grade! Can't you tell?"

"Maybe?" they replied.

I honestly didn't expect anyone to say that I hadn't changed in in 49 years, but I was a little dismayed that so many found the photo to be unrecognizable. Maybe it's the masks...

Even so, I forgot all about my picture until yesterday, when I was reading through some discussion board posts. A tiny circle with our profile image stands to the left of our names on anything we post, and there I was right next to one of the student's names. They had copied the picture and used it as their own. If it had been another kid I might have thought they were messing with me, but I have a feeling that this choice was not motivated by mockery or mirth.

Because of conferences today, I haven't had a chance to talk to the student, and I'm kind of glad I have the weekend to think about the conversation. I can't decide exactly what I want to say, because it's kind of flattering, but also a little perturbing.

Thoughts?

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?"