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.

Advance Team

A neighbor reminded Heidi this morning that portions of the Tidal Basin are blocked off for the major seawall restoration project going on down there. On Thursday, we are supposed to take 75 kids for a scavenger hunt of the memorials that are on the banks of the basin, so Heidi was understandably alarmed. Even when neither I nor our team leader could find any information about closures that might impact our activity, we decided it might be a good idea to go and check it out ourselves. 

We left school right at the last bell and headed home to pick up Lucy. Traffic was light going into the city, and we were parked and ready to walk by 3:30. The day was cool and a few dark clouds spat a little bit of rain here and there, and the monuments themselves were not crowded. We were able to circumnavigate the whole basin without any trouble. Although there was some kind of boom surrounding the intake channel, some temporary fencing, and a few detours, everything on the hunt is still findable. 

After a quick two miles, we were back in the car and headed home. "Well, I'm sorry I made us come down here since there was nothing to be concerned about," Heidi apologized.

"Don't be," I replied. "It was a very nice walk, and it was kind of fun to be on a high-priority recognizance mission!"

A is for Alphabiography Again

This is the last post of my 7th completed Alphabiography Challenge. Over the years I've done my writing in alphabetical order, reverse alphabetical order, and random order. One year, I challenged myself to find quotations as the life lessons, and in 2017, I wrote the ABCs of our new puppy, Lucy. 

This year the twist I chose was to find song lyrics to serve for each life lesson, and with a certain symmetry, I began and (almost) ended with the same song, "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac. It was a fun month.

Life Lesson: A B C, It's easy as 1 2 3,  as simple as do re mi, A B C, 1 2 3, baby you and me. ~The Jackson 5 "ABC"

X is for X-roads

Every six months or so we have to change our passwords for our school accounts. It's been my practice for a while to pick a phrase that is hard to guess but easy for me to remember, and over the years my choices have definitely reflected my headspace: a few I have selected are thisisbullshit, bekindalways, and most recently rimtorim2025. 

But when I received the notification a couple of weeks ago that my password would expire in days, I ignored the warning, uncertain about the content of my next login. The prompt has come as I have been struggling with whether or not it is time to retire. 

As many things as I love about teaching, I can't do it forever. The job is well-known to be an enormous time suck, and balancing work and life (never that easy for me) has become much harder as I get older. Add to that a new curriculum, the addition of intensified classes, mandatory professional development on the science of reading, and an IB reauthorization, all happening next year, and it seems like this might be the time for a graceful exit.

And yet.

I have been a teacher for 31 years, literally half of my life. Teacher is a huge part of my identity, and to be honest, my world, and I am really, really good at it.

And, as many personal projects and activities as I have put on hold for lack of time and energy, sometimes lately I look around my house and wonder if my life will shrink to fit within its walls. Who will I talk to? Who will I spend time with? Those social interactions will no longer be built into my days, and as an introvert, seeking them out is not necessarily in my nature. Who will I be and what will I do if not teach sixth-grade English?

Recently it occurred to me that working full time makes it hard to consider the answers to such questions, and it will only be when I am forced by circumstances to consider them that I will find the answers. Of course that means retiring.

But back to my new password. After much consideration, I chose 4mynextact, and I think that kind of says it all.

Life Lesson: I've been afraid of changing 'cause I built my life around you. ~Fleetwood Mac "Landslide"

Z is for Zeit und Gedächtnis

One of my earliest memories is of a time when my parents and I were going to my aunt and uncle's for a cookout. My mom had baked a pie for us to bring along, but in the jumble of packing up a toddler and getting out the door, they left it on the kitchen counter. We were only a few blocks from home when they realized the oversight, and I remember the urgency in their voices. My mom made a quick right turn and then another and slowed to a stop in a place I had never seen. My dad jumped out of the car and ran down a hill. A minute later he returned with the pie. This dramatic crisis and its miraculous resolution have stayed with me ever since.

To this day I'm not quite sure where the shortcut my dad took is located, even though I have looked for it, most often when I find myself on that three-mile stretch of Rte 29 between my aunt and uncle's old place and the community of garden rowhouses where we lived. But I thought about that pie today when Heidi and I took 2-year-old Oliva out for a pizza lunch. 

We walked from her parents' townhouse over to a nearby restaurant, and on the way back we decided to take a different route. Our pathway took us on a little trail behind some of the buildings in their community, and Liv was interested in the crows and squirrels and flowers. She was absolutely stunned when we rounded a corner and entered their little courtyard. Clearly, she was clueless as to where we were, and the surprise made her giggle in delight.

I laughed, too, and I wondered for a moment if maybe that memory might still be with her in 60 years.

Life Lesson: Toast to the ones here today. Toast to the ones that we lost on the way, 'cause the drinks bring back all the memories, and the memories bring back, memories bring back you. ~Maroon 5 "Memories"