Better than Best

Our principal likes to tell the students that "We are the best of the best, better than all the rest." While I don't appreciate the idea that quality must be comparative, her turn of phrase is catchy and memorable, and the kids often chant the ending with her in assemblies.

Today and yesterday as the hook for a lesson on hyperbole, I asked students to post something they thought was the greatest thing ever. On Monday morning, it was hardly surprising that many kids mentioned sleep and food as it got closer to lunch. But other kids also mentioned the sound of Christmas carols, or birds singing in the morning, video games (of course), talking to their friends, going to Chik-fil-a on Friday after school, the moon landing, science, the beach, and the 100-day writing challenge. 

Then there was the kid who simply posted "You guys" meaning all of us in her English class. "Awwwwwww," was the collective reply, and for me, her words cast a much warmer light on what it means to be one of the best.

User Error

 More often than seems possible, a student will be working furiously on some writing assignment they need to post online using our LMS when a loud cry of distress rings through the room. "I just lost everything I wrote!" they will groan. 

I confess that I am not always very sympathetic in these situations. For one, I always advise them to use the browser version of the site rather than the app, because it has more functionality including an autosave feature. For another, they usually don't have that much to write, and it seems like little more than an aggravation to have to recreate their thoughts.

Yesterday, I was pushing an end-of-month deadline to get some professional learning done when I was interrupted by something. I returned to the task, a couple paragraphs written in response to a book I had read, after dinner and carefully crafted my reply. When I clicked the post button, I got a message that I had been logged out of the site because of inactivity. 

You guessed it! I lost all my work.

Maybe I'll be a bit more empathetic with the kids in the future.

Whither the Weather

I woke up to a crack of lightning and then a boom of thunder. Outside it was pouring; at 7 am we were having the first thunderstorm of the season. I rolled over and checked the weather, expecting the forecast to be for rain all day. I was pleasantly surprised to see on the hour-by-hour prediction that sunshine was expected by midday, and I was just about to swipe the app closed when I noticed Alpharetta on the map. 

I had been looking at the weather in Atlanta, a location I have bookmarked because my sister lives there. Navigating to our actual weather I saw that it was indeed likely to rain all day. I sighed and checked in on Rejkyavik, where my oldest nephew is. It was only 32 degrees up there, but there were clear skies on a long spring day where the sun would not set until 9:40 this evening.

Clocked Out

I started the day strong. Around 10:30, Treat and I headed over to a big box home improvement store where we picked up 10 bags of raised soil, along with a few other plants and such. 

Back at the garden, we carried the bags from the car to our plot, a fair distance to be sure. Then we finished building the raised beds, including sawing some old composter boards in half and pounding them into the ground. We dumped all the soil and compost and manure into the improved beds and then filled and hauled over several wheel barrel-fulls of mulch. Then we acidified the soil in one of the beds and planted a couple of blueberry bushes.

When we were done, we still needed a bit more topsoil, and I promised Treat I'd take him to lunch and out to another big box place that carried the tiered herb pot he needed. It was nearly 4 by the time we made it back to the car with our final flatbed cart loaded with bags of dirt. 

"Do you want to lift them together?" I asked Treat.

"Why don't we do it fire brigade style?" he joked. "I'll just toss them to you and you can put 'em in the car."

"I think I've reached the end of my usefulness for today," I said. "How about if I just put these two pots of herbs in?"

"Sure," he agreed and loaded the bags in the car. What an excellent nephew!

Rescue Me!

It was a crazy schedule today and a rainy Friday to boot. As part of the extra homeroom time we had because of the drama assembly, the sixth grade showed the first episode of a mini-series dramatization of the Thai soccer team that got stuck in the cave a few years ago. Students had recently read an article about the incident, so there was a curriculum connection, but the day was kind of shot after all that novelty of scheduling.

There was also some foul language and mature themes in the video, so at lunch, we teachers debated the wisdom of following the plan to show more episodes next week when we have another irregular schedule.

"I hate to be a dick," I said, "but I thought it was kind of shitty. I might have to stab myself in the neck if we watch any more." My colleagues laughed because I was citing some of the inappropriate parts of the show.

Later in the afternoon, I sat with the same group looking out at the rain. "I don't know about you guys," I started, "but if I were planning to visit a cave, I would think twice. You know there's got to be an intern out there begging her bosses to issue a weather advisory!"

"Wow!" one of the other teachers remarked. "That show really did make an impression on you!"

Don't Tread on Me

I'm having a hard time seeing the bright side of being a part of a bureaucratic community this week. After working so hard to make my garden compliant because of the new compost rules (Read all about it here! Or don't.) I spent a lot of time this week jumping through the hoops that comprise our teacher-evaluation system. 

As such, I have read a book I'm not particularly interested in and rushed through a webinar that I was, just to meet an arbitrary deadline for "floating" professional learning hours. I will also spend a large chunk of my weekend documenting my own competence, because it's up to teachers to not only do everything we should in the classroom, but prove it, too.

Even so, that's a battle that I'm tired of complaining about, and I was doing pretty well in spite of that old irritant until I looked out our window yesterday evening. "Where's the other car?" I asked Heidi, but the question was rhetorical, for it was clearly missing and I knew she had no idea where it was. We had to assume it had been towed for some violation of our hoa's parking policy. 

Thirty minutes later, after searching around, first for the new portal and then for my login info and finally for the towing company contact number, I was connected to a gruff voice who informed me that, yes, our car was there and had been since 3:09 am. It would cost 250.00 to retrieve and another 50 bucks a day until we picked it up.

"I'm pretty sure there's a hang tag on it," I said with an edge in my own voice, but she assured me that there was not.

"Maybe I knocked it off when I put the phone hanger up," Heidi mused, but I was enraged by yet another stupid policy that would cost me time and money and which benefits me not at all. 

I think it's time for me to move to a farm in Maine where I can make my own damn rules.

Cause or Effect?

Today was one of the few "anchor days" we have actually had this year. These are the Wednesday of a five-day week, so called because they balance block scheduling by slotting in every class in a single day. "I don't know how I ever did it," is a common sentiment heard around the lunch table about this compressed schedule, because for years, this was our default.

Now, because of holidays and other disruptions, we really have anchor days very infrequently. Perhaps it's the compression of the schedule that throws us off, or it could be that it's so novel to the students and so they behave in unexpected ways.

That was certainly true for me today. The kids seemed more boisterous and a lot less focused than usual. That situation, coupled with the abridged class times made the day a bit challenging. Even so, I got very little sympathy from my colleagues at lunch.

"The kids are nuts today!" I reported as I took my seat.

"Pretty sure they are nuts every day," my colleague laughed. "It is fourth quarter!"