Don't get me wrong--

I get a little down in September and it's NOT because I don't love what I do.

It's because I love my summers. Long mornings, being fit once again, naps, BOOKS. I get down because all that disappears AND because I start all over again.

Come June, the kids and I have become a strange learning family. We have all kinds of shorthand and inside jokes. They know when I am joking around and when I am deadly serious. They can read my face and body language. They ask about my family and they bring me chocolate and cookies. And I can read them, as well.

Come September,  I am playing to a tough crowd. I crack all sorts of hiLARious jokes and they are scared to laugh--I'm serious--they will snigger into their hands because "what if this crazy teacher lady isn't trying to make us laugh and we get in trouble?" I forget how difficult it is to cleanly launch a class on a successful learning trajectory, how tough it is to teach them that we often enjoy our learning, but Fun is not the point--LEARNING is the point.

It's all good by October.  The cookies start coming, and they learn they can joke back and we laugh with abandon as long as we stay en pointe.

Here's to a new year with kids who catch on quickly!

"Mommy! Mommy!"

Have a nightmare when you are little, and you wake up, run to your parents' bedroom and get some immediate comfort there. I had this year's first school dream--nightmare, really--last night, with no Mommy in sight. Glad the alarm went off, because while I was persevering in my dream, it was NO FUN. (Understatement.)

I'd been last-minute transferred to another site;

Of course no rosters;

Thrown into a classroom that wasn't kid-ready, or me-ready;

After the bell had rung.

Next door was a band room that kept the door open.

On the other side of my room was a huge room that kids could just slip into unnoticed because I had no rosters and didn't know who my kids were.

I was desperately obeying the First Rule of Middle School Teaching: "Stay calm." But there was no way I could obey The Second Rule of Middle School Teaching, "Be over prepared," because, well, last-minute transfer to a crazy room after the bell.

I suppose it could have been worse. I mean, at least I had my clothes on, right??

Dun dun dunnnnn...!!!

What happens to a school when the head custodian and the head secretary both retire at the same time, leaving rookies all sophomore administrators?

• The custodian noticed my pathetic three dollar garage sale lectern. "I'll build you one." He did, and man, that thing's gonna last forever.

• The secretary would call in my subs for me. I don't even know how to do that.

• The custodian would offer to carry my loads of work for me.

• The secretary would iron the table cloths for the school and clean the teachers' refrigerator.

• The custodian knew where every piece of furniture was hidden on campus and could fix or replace a broken piece after one email.

• The secretary would house, give direction, and encouragement to the worst "academic offender" that our former principal was committed to working with and shopped with the students our school supported to go to out annual D.C/NYC. trip, making sure they had cameras (pre-cell phone days!).

• The custodian personally fought--and won--the infamous 2012 Rat War of Outer Bungalowia. 

• The secretary personally helped the financial secretary prepare delicious food for the staff in the legendary year of Waffle Wednesdays, 2013. (A subsequent school-wide weight loss challenge has ended that beloved tradition. Now I cry a little inside, every Wednesday.)

• The custodian would turn on the heat in our non-insulated bungalows on chilly mornings. (And he never told the teachers, but I found out he would prepare the avocados for our guacamole for our frequent staff potlucks before the end of that tradition because of the subsequent weight loss challenge.)

• The secretary would hear my joys, burdens, dreads, and general silliness with love. She said I reminded her of her own daughter, and she has been my school mom.

They take with them decades of knowledge and unconscious competence. Both have done their best to leave well-marked trails for their successors, but all I can say in response to my interior Saturday morning cartoon "Dun dun dunnnnn!" cliff hanger music is we shall see.

(Personally? My school parents are leaving and I am sad.)

Get the Kleenex--Promotion 2014

Every year I fall in love, and every year I'm left.

They have flown away to high school.

All of the promotion speeches are terrific--I especially appreciate the way N. expresses his initial fears of entering the sixth grade, something like "I was apprehensive, given my diminutive stature and what I'd heard about the social hierarchy...I was a baby gazelle, easy prey to lions that shaved twice a day...."  Oh my gosh! His speech is hilarious and inspirational, and yes, that's really how he writes. His delivery is natural and wreathed in smiles, but my eyes get all teary.

The promotion music is fabulous. A. confidently strums her guitar--I didn't know she plays the guitar! And then she confidently sings. I didn't know she sings!--and my teary eyes don't get a break.

I get into a compliment war with K.'s mom. "You taught her so much and have enabled her to get this far!" "She only came this far because you have supported her at home!" "But the lessons you gave her will shape and affect her entire career!" "And her drive and work ethic were right there from day one, because of your fine parenting!" (We hug it out. Truce.)

J's dad says, "You are much prettier without your beard." I don't know how to respond until he reminds me that he'd first met me at Open House when I was dressed up in honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, complete with pirate whiskers. Now J. has to move to Okinawa--dad's military orders. J. is not glad about this, so our hug has some sorrow, and J. does not promise to come visit as so many of them do. I try to give him the bright, you'll-get-out-there-and-it'll-be-awesome smile (one of dozens of smile types a teacher uses), but we both have trouble...

They are resplendent. I do not exaggerate when I say that this was the best year yet. One proof? Every year I pass out sweaters to enforce our school dress code. Not one sweater this year. I'm telling ya. The boys are sharp and the girls look like butterflies.

They finish strong and classy and are utterly beautiful. There is no question that I love me some summer, but instead of the usual mad and delirious whoops of joy, I leave campus with some seriously damp eyes.

A Haiku Series Advocating Student Diplomacy in the Face of Missing Class

Based on a true evening email exchange between myself and a student:

STUDENT:
I have been absent--
Did I miss anything that was
important today?

TEACHER:
Can you find a way
to ask without implying
my class wastes your time?

I am off to bed.
In response to your question,
the answer is "yes."
 ---------------

Of course, sometimes I tell these offenders that Beyonce performed for our class. Or that we all took naps. And when the kid gives me the "C'mon, tell me what really happened" face I tell them the truth: I taught my guts out and they can get notes from another kid and hope another person can explain to them what they've missed. 

Sometimes students expect a private tutoring session. Am I a bad teacher for refusing to do that? For refusing to try to encapsulate what took me 55 minutes of extraordinary effort to teach? To recreate for an audience of one what I orchestrated the day before for an audience of 159 in five classes? 

I obviously don't think so. It wasn't the student's fault she was sick, but those sorts of losses are not the kind we can just restore with five minutes and a pat on the head. The losses are real. The book can tell the kids the basics.  The book cannot recreate our conversation, our inquiries, our interactions. The book does not crack dumb jokes or pose useful analogies to help kids make connections the way I do. The book cannot explain what it means the way I do in a class. Insofar as explaining after school something that a student didn't understand in class, that's fine with me, and I am eager to do so--unless the said kid was busy not paying attention. 


Here's another teacher who was moved to write a poem:

Did I Miss Anything?

Tom Wayman

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours
     Everything. I gave an exam worth
     40 percent of the grade for this term
     and assigned some reading due today
     on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
     worth 50 percent
Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose
     Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
     a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
     or other heavenly being appeared
     and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
     to attain divine wisdom in this life and
     the hereafter
     This is the last time the class will meet
     before we disperse to bring the good news to all people
          on earth.
Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?
     Everything. Contained in this classroom
     is a microcosm of human experience
     assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
     This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
          gathered
     but it was one place
     And you weren’t here

From Did I Miss Anything? Selected Poems 1973-1993, 1993
Harbour Publishing

Copyright 1993 Tom Wayman.
All rights reserved.

"Are You Really Reading This, Thomas Jefferson?"

As a kid, I had the feeling most teachers didn't really read what I wrote. They passed out hundreds of "worksheets" and who could stay on top of all that paper?

In high school, the English teachers (or was it the school?) employed what they called "readers," college students who would read the papers, correct them, and even assign suggested grades. I knew my teacher at least read mine, anyway, because she'd often write a different grade on top, once with the little note, "I don't know why this reader consistently underrates your work." Smiley face for me.

I had a half-hearted (perhaps broken-hearted, but that's another story) Spanish teacher who assigned work for us to do each day, but collected the whole lot on one day. Now I most assuredly did NOT do one bit of that homework until the night before it was due when I frantically ripped some paper out of my spiral notebook and began typing out those jillion ejercicios. But after doing a few, it occurred to me that this lazy man was not going to read all of pages. I began skipping numbers:

1.
2.
3.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
11.
12.

And sometimes an ejercicio called for me to do 1-12, but I only hammered out 1-10. I probably shaved off about 15% of the actual assignments on the calculated gamble that this fellow wasn't going to check my work.

I began typing nonsense sentences, sprinkling them throughout the ejercicios: 
 9. El viejo quiero una banana para su perro ("The old man wants a banana for his dog")....  
13. "Hay una banana en mi cuarto, a veces en el piso" (There is a banana in my room, sometimes on the floor).

(I wrote many sentences about bananas. I don't know why; it was a fun word to type, perhaps.)

And then this very bold sentence I'd put in more than once: ¿Ud. esta leyendo esta tarea? No creo que Ud. esta leyendo esta tarea ("Are you reading this homework? I don't think you are reading this homework").

And when I got my ejercicios back, there was the large red A- with an arrow pointing to the raggedy spiral notebook margin I hadn't bothered to cut. Clearly he'd counted the number of ejercicios and was fooled by the dignity the typewriter lent them. Clearly the raggedy notebook margin was the reason for the minus part of the grade.

Clearly this has impacted me as an educator.

I am compelled to actually read what the kids write, to comment on their thoughts, to circle errors and question their answers. Over the years, I find expressions of my same doubts: "Are you really reading this?" And I respond: "Of course not." Sometimes a student writes asides or doodles little cartoons, and I add to the art and write my own asides. "Miss M was here, paying attention to your work," my additions report.

This commitment makes me testy when kids turn in half-hearted work. But is my annoyance directed at the right target? Have other teachers taught them that their work is merely checked for completion, not content? Didn't I have a history of dodging work when I could? Kids soon learn that I truly read their papers, so it isn't until December that I get really truly annoyed when someone turns in hasty, shallow, poor work that promptly receives a pathetic score.

Anyway, with super smart kids, their "Are you really reading this?" queries can be a bit more subtle:

D. sends out a test. Miss M. passes again!

And the answer is, was, and ever shall be: "YES. I am dignifying your thoughts and analyses with thoughts and analyses of my own. This is a dialogue. I care about the time you spent doing work I asked you to do because I believe it will help you better grasp this skill, content, or idea. I grade your work because I sometimes never received essays back from teachers and I suspected my time and efforts went into a trashcan, leaving only a checkmark in a gradebook, and I promised I'd never disdain a student's work that way. Even as I begrudge the time it takes me, I grade your work because I want to dignify your work with my time. I grade your work because I care about you."

That's the truth.

Pigasus, Pasta, Pennies, and Student Strategy

We hate cancer.  We love competition.

So we love The Olive Garden's Pasta for Pennies competition at our school. The period 1 classroom that brings in the most money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society wins an Olive Garden lunch.

Money goes to research to get rid of this horrible disease

While I have huge reservations about "giving to get" charitable drives, there is no denying that the competition makes it far more about winning than eating. Hm, is that much better? OK, then, there is no denying that the drive to win makes for some wonderful team building.

Our class leaps ahead of Mrs G's class by $40 on the first day. I mention that if each kid in class brings in $10, we'd have $360 (stupid California class sizes); I remind them that I pitch in, too. The kids whine that Mrs W's class always wins. I point to the two first place pennants from The Olive Garden hanging by the door. "By 'always wins' do you mean 'always comes in second to Miss M's class?' " The kids perk up.

That afternoon, our collection box returns from the money counters in ASB decorated as a pig, er, Pegasus, er, Pigasus with a unicorn horn:

AB, NT, and RT show off their amazing creation

So the race is on. Mrs G, a new teacher, gains the lead. My students decide the way to win is to withhold some of the money we bring in; they decide to put only one third of the donations into Pigasus and the rest into this special jar my daddy had bought for me:

I don't keep this on display. But it came in handy for this activity.

We watch as Mrs W takes the lead; the class groans--they had her in 6th grade and know she has very persuasive techniques to make sure kids bring in money! Some kids in another class contribute to Pigasus. We learn that Mrs G's class has a hidden stash too, and our "spies" press in to discover the estimated amount. Some other classes find out about our hidden stash, but do not seem to know how much we have. At some point, the ASB box decorators make Pigasus's nose 3D. (I have no photographic proof....but trust me, it's a thing of beauty.)

The jar is too small to hold all of our rolled coin, loose change, and bills, so we hide the rolled coin and bills in a project on display, a project shaped like a bald eagle; it feels patriotic somehow. The students vote to stop putting more than five or so dollars daily into Pigasus and hoard almost all of it for Friday, turn in day.

Friday, yesterday--Pigasus is almost full. His top won't close properly. His legs buckle. He is taken to the ASB to have his innards counted.

After lunch, five ASB kids--all my first period students--come in. "We have good news and bad news!" N says sadly (but with dancing eyes and a persistent grin), "The pig's legs didn't make it....but the pig did! We won by $200!" It's actually kind of a pain for me, because I have to race out to La Mesa during my prep period and then deal with my fourth period kids drooling over bread sticks they can't have, but Mrs W has offered to help me serve, and frankly, my period 1 kids are so delightful that I absolutely look forward to lunch with them all.

The formal announcement is made over the intercom, period 7, right before the end of school. My period 7 graciously cheers and whoops as if it were they who had won. That's what I love about our school--we are good sports, and in the end, the more we raise, the more research we fund. That's a win-win in my book.