Rusty

I was feeling a bit rusty this morning when I sat down at a table in my room for my first conference. It was hardly surprising: for the last 2 years we have conducted conferences virtually. Even this year, we offered families a choice between in-person and remote, and I was a little surprised that only one of my eleven chose to call in. All the others made their way to school for our 20-minute, student-led conference. 

Earlier in the week I had thought a lot about how these meetings would go. The last time I held in-person meetings, all the material had been on paper and, as we sat down together, I presented each family with a packet that their student had prepared. 

This time, the kids had done all their preparation on their devices, which they had when we were virtual. But working on a video call allowed me to share my screen and control the pace of the meeting, so that I could better support the students. Without that option, I was worried about how it would go.

During some sleepless moment on Wednesday night, it occurred to me that I might use my iPad as a second monitor mirroring my laptop, and so I could show the presentations and move them along at a productive pace. And boy! Was I glad I had figured that out, because it quickly became clear that I had not explicitly directed any student to bring their device. Freudian slip or not, it all worked out for me, and I quickly remembered how much easier it is to interact with people in person.

So much so, that I was glad I had a few extra minutes before my one virtual meeting. It turned out that I was very out of practice using those tools, too!

Writing to Unpack

 "Excuse me," said one of my students this morning. "I can't do this assignment."

"Why not?" I asked about the checklist of key features for a successful narrative. We had just listened to an audio version of a short story as the students had read along, and now they were supposed to work with their table groups to analyze the story with the same checklist we had used on two other mentor texts, all in preparation to write their own personal narrative.

"It's too sad," he sniffed.

I was a bit surprised. The story, which involved a boy hunting a blue heron with his dad, even though he didn't like killing birds, and then subsequently rescuing a chick, hiding it in the hayloft, and then jumping in front of his dad's shotgun to save the bird, had been very popular with the other sixth grade readers.

"I know it's a little sad in the beginning and scary at the climax, but everything turns out alright in the end, right?" I pointed out.

Tears were dripping down his cheeks. "It's just too sad," he insisted. "I can't even think about it anymore."

I took a deep breath and nodded. "Could you do the checklist without adding evidence from the text?" I suggested.

He grabbed a tissue and blew his nose loudly. "I guess so," he agreed, returning to his seat and making quick work of checking 'Yes' for every category. He had found it a successful narrative, for sure.

"We're going to talk about the story some more," I told him quietly a little later. "Is that going to bother you?"

"No," he answered, and in fact he participated quite a bit in our discussion, naming the author's purpose and even answering a question about when the main character showed courage.

"I think it took courage to take care of that baby bird," he said, "even knowing that if something went wrong it might die, and then he would be really sad. I'm not that brave," he finished, shaking his head vehemently.

It was not a typical sixth grade exchange, but his parents had warned us that he 'emotes freely', which was clearly the case today.

Not Exactly My Point

Today, a student used both empathy and sympathy to describe why people tell stories. "What's the difference between those two, in your mind?" I asked him.

"I dunno," he shrugged. "It just sounded good.

"It can be a mistake to use words that you're not sure you know," I warned him. "Let me give you an example. Yesterday, one of my students greeted me by saying, Hola, mi amor."

The Spanish speaking students in the class gasped.

"I know, right?" I agreed with them. "When I told the student it was inappropriate to talk to a teacher that way, they said they didn't even know what it means."

"They didn't know they were saying they love an old lady?" asked one of the kids. "That's messed up."

One in the Win Column

 "Double or nothing!" a former student challenged me this afternoon. 

He had come by after school looking for some candy. He remembered I like trivia, and so he had already asked me one. "What day and time did Abraham Lincoln die?"

"Uh," I said, "I do know it was April 15, 1865. I'm not sure about the time, though. 1:30 in the morning?"

"Wrong!" he reported gleefully. "It was 7:22 in the morning!"

"OK," I shrugged and reached for my bag of Jolly Ranchers. I didn't care that I was wrong; I'm still really happy to see the kids from last year. These new students haven't quite managed to take their places, yet.

"Double or nothing!" he replied.

"Sure!" I accepted, but he couldn't think of a question. Another teacher from the team was in my room watching the entire exchange with amusement. 

"Do you speak Spanish?" he asked. 

"No," I confessed.

"Wait!" said the other teacher. "I think she got that one right! Doesn't it count?"

We all laughed, but the kid looked a little crestfallen at having missed his chance to get two pieces of candy.

"I forgot you speak French," he said.

"But you remember that now?" I asked, impressed. "I think that earns you a couple of Jolly Ranchers! It makes me feel good that you were paying attention. Those are good social skills!"

I happily handed over the candy, and he happily took it. 

Festival of Lights

The homepage on my browser is the NYTimes. The setting works for me because I am generally interested in current events, and that page informs me of any pressing matters I may not have been aware of. I like it, too, because it's like picking up the newspaper anytime I go online, and often I'll spend some significant time reading articles that capture my attention, no matter what my original task was. 

That's what happened tonight when I launched my browser to write this very blog post. I had a vague idea of topic, but the item that derailed me was on Diwali sweets. After getting this Indian holiday off for the first time last year, I was all in for the traditional festival celebrating the triumph of light over darkness. Even just reading about the joyous celebration made me happy.

And this evening, when I read about the South Asian sweet shops across the country that are flooded with business as celebrants purchase mithai, traditional sweets of Diwali (for what better way to celebrate such a victory?), I found myself getting right into that holiday spirit!

Just Sayin'

 I did not spend my whole day grading poems.

And so that task is unfinished. There's something wrong with a job you have to work all week and then give up your weekends to get done.

More is More

We finally got around to putting up our Halloween lights this afternoon. 

I write that as if it's an annual occurrence, but we have never had anything other than a jack-o-lantern lighting our home before. Heidi is still embracing the holiday light vibe, though, and so I ordered a few things from Target a couple of weeks ago, and then we supplemented our decor when we went to pick those lights up. 

And although I haven't been able to find that dedicated block of time to get down the step ladder and actually decorate, the light design has definitely been on my mind. Last week I ordered a set of green shower-effect lights, and just the other day I told Heidi we needed one more string of purple lights. So when the porch light blinked on around 4:15, I knew my window of opportunity was both open and closing, and I climbed up to the attic and got the step ladder down. 

Like everything, this project was more complicated than planned; there were hammers, pliers, drills, and extension cords involved, as well as a non-functioning string of lights. Even so, Heidi and I worked together to problem solve and hang those suckers up. It was deep dusk when we finished, and neighbors passing by stopped to admire our handiwork. 

"It looks great!" noted one friend, sweeping her hand to encompass green waterfalls, purple c-5s, Halloween mulits, and spider paper lanterns.

I shrugged modestly. "You know Heidi," I said. "More is more!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" my wife elbowed me.

"You have gusto!" I answered. "Your enthusiasm is a really good thing."

She looked at me suspiciously.

"And the lights are amazing!" I said.