Educatorial

The brain break today involved chopsticks and superballs, a throwback to my graduate school days. Back then, I shared an office with 3 other MA candidates at ODU. We were all teaching Freshman Composition, and we had a lot of ways to avoid grading the awful essays we assigned. In addition to going out to lunch and drinking beer and shooting pool, when we were actually in the office, we often ordered takeout. 

It was one sleepy afternoon, after a heavy Chinese meal, when I plucked a superball from the junk bowl on my desk with an extra pair of chopsticks and bounced off the tile floor, trying to catch it. My colleagues, at first amused by my ridiculous attempts, were both amazed and delighted when I managed to pluck the ball from the air. 

After that, everyone was armed with chopsticks, and our superball collection grew every time we passed a gum machine with a quarter. It turned out that catching superballs with chopsticks was not a one-off, and we experimented with different game rules for Chopball, as we called it, throughout the semester, as well as gifting each other several sets of fancy chopsticks from Pier 1. For years I always had a tin of high-bounce balls and a bunch of chopsticks, but also for years, I have not owned either.

Until this week! Something reminded me of those Chopball days, and I was inspired to order a couple dozen superballs and sets of chopsticks. For under 20 bucks, I was up and running, but without a consistent game framework. Over the weekend, it occurred to me that we could adapt the rules of "Rob the Nest" and that is what we did. The quick little game was a big success, and I'll definitely add it to my collection.

Who says grad school doesn't prepare you for life?

Self-Care

It is mental health awareness month, and this morning's homeroom lesson was on stigmas: what they are and how to avoid them, especially where mental health issues are concerned. Our conversation turned to the recent tragedy in NYC where a man with a history of mental health issues was behaving erratically on a subway and one of his fellow passengers put him in a chokehold. It was a lot for sixth graders, but they were thoughtful and respectful.

Even so, I was relieved that we had also planned to plant some seeds this morning. It was an activity I had been promising for a couple of weeks and I finally had it pulled together today. The kids were excited as we filled small paper cups with soil, and they chose from pumpkin, sunflower, cilantro, beans, and peas. Then they wrote their names on popsicle stick markers, and we watered the cups and placed them on the windowsill in the strong spring sunlight.

In the final moments of the class, we all kind of stood there looking at our plants and perhaps reflecting on that simple act of placing seed in soil.

"I think this was good for our mental health," one student said, and I couldn't have agreed with him any more.

Mindfulness Exercise

"I ordered some pink pickleballs, because I like yours so much," I told my brother Bill today. We were in the middle of a match at the time.

"We can play with the pink one," he said. "I have it with me."

"That's okay," I answered. "I don't even know what made me think of that."

He missed his next serve and cussed. "I need to stay focused!" he said. "I was thinking about the pink pickleball and a whole story I was going to tell you." He shook his head.

I knew exactly what he meant. I, too, have found how easy it is to lose focus on the game! I will see someone I think I know, or notice something on the next court, or wonder what I'm going to make for dinner, and with my mind off the task at hand? I will make a dumb, unforced error.

"I just don't remember the same problem when I was younger," I laughed and then noted, "Yet another reason this game is good for us: it forces us to be present!"

Hangry

"I'm starving!" Heidi stomped down the stairs and grabbed a bag of popcorn. "Tracey never feeds me anything!" she said to our friend Lauren.

Lauren laughed knowingly. "What are y'all having for dinner?" she asked.

"Fried shrimp and salad," I reported, "and there are chocolate chip cookies in the oven."

Lauren turned to Heidi. "You are so neglected!"

KO-ed

"How many times have you been knocked out?" I overheard one student as another the other day.

"Knocked out?" his friend replied. "Do you mean actually unconscious?"

The other kid shrugged. "Yeah. That's what it is."

"Um, never," said his buddy.

The other kid looked bemused. 

I stepped over to them with a bit of concern to investigate. "How many times have you been knocked out?" I asked.

"Just twice," he replied, and he seemed relieved that someone understood that such things happen from time to time. "Once I went over the handlebars of my bike and landed on my head, and the other time I was skateboarding and I crashed into a pole," he willingly elaborated. 

His friend and I nodded thoughtfully.

"You know that doesn't happen a lot," his friend said.

Again, there was confusion in his face. Then he turned to me with a help me out kind of a look. "How many times have you been knocked out?" he asked, perhaps confident that a person of my age must have hit her head a little too hard a few times.

"Never," I told him.

He sighed in disappointment.

"Dude!" his friend said. "You probably should be a little more careful."

School Rules

As the warm-up for a lesson on Freeverse Poetry, I asked students if they could be free from one school rule, which rule would they choose. Predictably, many wanted to be able to use their phones at will, but none could justify their desire academically. Some wanted to carry their backpacks, some to eat in class, and others to chew gum.

To this last group, I simply said, "Look under the table."

"Ewwwww!" was the common reply, because their illicit gum-chewing peers have left wads on the underside of almost all of the tables. Jerks!

One kid wanted to bring her dog to school, which is a sentiment I could behind, but not as enthusiastically as I could support the suggestion that we should allow cussing. "Hell yeah!" I agreed, before taking it all back.

"You know I really love the rules," I told each class.

"That's easy for you!" one kid responded. "You get to enforce them."

Slow on the Uptake

I've been reading Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls, and it wasn't until Eddie, the frail, young heir to the larger-than-life, red-haired, and bearded Duke Kincaid, died, and his eldest sister Mary and her husband Philip came to town to take over the business that I got it. 

The story is set in rural Virginia during Prohibition, and it just so happened that Mary's mother was briefly married to the Duke's older brother before he died, and then later Mary and her mother were sent away by the Duke so he could marry his second wife, Annie. 

Now Annie is the mother of the main character, the Duke's second daughter, and rumor had it that the Duke killed Annie for infidelity, and shortly after that, he married, Jane, Eddie's mother.

Do you see what I missed?

Maybe the fact that one of the epigraphs is a quote from Queen Elizabeth I is a hint I should have caught. Or perhaps knowing the Duke's given name was Henry? Or that his next wife after Jane died was Katherine? 

Don't worry, though, I've got it now, and spoiler alert! I don't think Mary is long for this world.