No More Waffling

It's been 24 hours since I notified my principal of my intention to retire, and I still can't talk out loud about it without getting choked up. 

Count on teachers to recognize the value of verbal processing and wait time, though. Every colleague I've told has said they were happy for me and sad for our school. Then they waited until I was composed enough to talk about why I decided to retire now and what might be next for me. Each of these conversations has helped reinforce my certainty that this choice is right-timing for me.

Even so, like every day in the past couple of months that I have been wrestling with this decision there came a moment when I was sure I should change my mind. "I guess I can still go tell the principal that I've changed my mind," I observed to a friend.

"I won't let you do that to yourself," he said firmly. "You've made the right choice."

Fortunately, I was convinced, because he was big enough to stop me!

A Sketch, Not a Portrait

"I wrote about you!" a student told me today.

"I can't wait to read it!" I answered.

She is sometimes the best teacher I really like doing fun stuff with her sometime she helps me with my assignments which is really helpful and they get hard but I can always try by myself but I can’t so I ask her I love when I do jolly ranchers challenge and sometimes I get it right she does sit at her desk and then make a funny joke she has one rule about save the tape which nobody listens to her she yells at a lot of people when they don’t do the work she have a lot of toys that I play with 

 Lesson : if you have a favorite teacher have fun with them

Donut Delay

"Can I have a donut?" Heidi asked this morning as we were mapping out our day. One of our errands involved picking up several dozen Krispy Kremes as a prize for the scavenger hunt last Thursday.

"Sure," I said, "but we're not going right away. I want to stop by Bill and Emily's first. We haven't seen them in forever."

"Can't we get the donuts before that?" she proposed. "I haven't had breakfast yet."

"The donuts are in the opposite direction," I explained. "It doesn't really make sense. I'll make you breakfast before we go, though."

"What if Bill wants a donut, too?" she replied. "Then we'll have to go first. I'm going to text him right now."

So we went to get the donuts immediately.

Before Coffee

I was wide awake at 6:30 this morning and so was Lucy. We are watching our neighbor's dog Lady this weekend, but she won't stay anywhere but home, so Lucy and I headed over there to let her out. The three of us ambled through the complex: up the grassy hill, and down the stairs, and both dogs took the opportunity to relieve themselves. 

I was swinging at least three pounds of poop in plastic bags and eager to offload it in the nearest trash can. Lady had other ideas, though. Her business done, she was ready to return home for breakfast, and when Lucy and I pivoted toward the pool, she put on the brakes, lowered her head, and slipped her collar. 

What followed was a madcap chase through the community-- Lady dashing ahead and waiting until we were nearly there, then feinting left and breaking right to elude capture. I still had all that poop and after a quick detour to toss it in the trash, I turned around and Lady was gone. 

Convinced she would meet me at her house, I descended the steps and rounded the corner only to find a deserted stoop. Exasperated, but not really worried, it was still before 7AM and we were the only ones about, I retraced my steps and circled around the other way. There she waited at the mailboxes, looking for all the world as if she could not believe it took us so long to get there. True to form, she trotted ahead, still avoiding collar and leash, leading us to her door.

Good Grief

Today was our school music department's end-of-the-year trip, and so roughly a third to a half of students were absent from any given class. Still, the work must continue; with only two weeks left in the year, it is crunch time for these kids to finish their last summative writing piece. 

And so I took advantage of the smaller numbers and planned a few more one-to-one interactions for the class. My idea was that if students heard me talking to a classmate about writing choices and strategies, they could apply what we said to their own writing. And so I quickly touched base with each of them, reviewing their subject and focus, and offering specific tips for writing their lead anecdote.

"So!" I clapped my hands at the end. "Is everyone set to start writing? Does everyone know what to do?"

I scanned the room,  alarmed by the blank faces. 

"Uh, maybe?" someone offered.

"Maybe!" I said. "What did we just talk about?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted.

"I don't think anyone's listening to you," chimed in another student. "I think--"

I held up my hand. "Take a beat before you speak," I warned her. "Are you sure you want to finish that thought?"

"Uh, no. No, I don't," she agreed. "I was listening," she added self-righteously.

I redirected the class's attention to the outline they were working on. "Keep going," I told them, "and let me know if you have any questions. I'll check in as you write."

But really? I suppose I understand if they tune me out when I'm talking to someone else, but for them to not hear me when I'm talking to them directly about the assignment they are currently working on? That caught me off guard.

"I think it just went in one ear and out the next," said one of my co-teachers later as we processed the events of the day.

"I don't think it went in at all," replied the other one. "I think it just bounced off!"

Monumental

We had some time in homeroom this morning before the sixth-grade field trip down to the National Mall so we played an online quiz game. This particular platform had a readymade quiz on Washington D.C. landmarks which was perfect for our group, and so it was game on!

What followed were 28 easy questions about monuments and memorials which are no more than a few miles from our school. It was a fun competition, though, and when we were through one of the students said exactly what I was thinking.

"Wow! I can't believe how much amazing stuff we have so close to us!"

Accommodating Accommodations

"Who needs a dictionary for a math test!" one of the students in my testing group exploded this morning as I handed him his.

His classmates laughed, and I shrugged. 

I wasn't angry; I understood his anxiety and dread as he was settling in for a four-hour testing session. Based on their level of language acquisition, many of the other students in the group also received dictionaries.

"Somebody somewhere thinks it might help you on the test if you had that," I told everyone. "You don't have to use it, but you sure can."

He scoffed and tossed it aside.

A couple hours later he raised his hand and pointed to his screen. "I don't understand this question," he whispered. 

"I can't help you," I said, "but you do have that dictionary."

He sighed, but a little while later I saw him open the dictionary. I hope it helped.