Maybe the best compliment a middle school girl can give her teacher?

"In most classes I am very shy and don't tend to participate but in your class I love to raise my hand and say something even if I am wrong."

A. felt safe in period six this year, and I am soooooooo happy. I hope she has discovered that making mistakes is no biggie, that she has a voice, and that she has meaningful contributions to make.

The blinds are in!

The blinds are in!!                                ANOTHER CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!

The dust is out!!                               

I see them and                                       FIRST A/C, and now BLINDS!!!!!!!!!!!

I start to shout!

I feel a need

To clean the room

I grab the dustpan

Grab the broom

But no, the email's

Piling up

and meetings ever 

Fill my cup

Appointments

Taking all my time

And grading papers

It's a crime

That blinds so lovely

Show a space

with oh so much

That's out of place

I need a day 

I'll come tomorrow,

A Saturday

(a bit of sorrow)

then realize

that NO I can't

I have to sit 

and watch my aunt

while parents visit

far away

and so no cleaning

is that day

And every time

I think I can

Something pops up

oh man oh man

It's been two weeks

My blinds so new

I can't give them

their proper due

but even though

my room is not

what they deserve

I'm often caught

with dreamy eye

and happy smile

It's been so long, 

It's been a while

since something lovely

and pristine

no kid has marred

so new and clean

has been inside 

this bungalow

(constructed in

19-oh-fo')

and though my room 

does not deserve

the blinds I promise

to preserve

their loveliness

and someday soon

Ill get in here

and clean this room

1. 
   

"Now you are the student, and I am the master..." -Darth Vader

My favorite masked heavy breather perfectly describes a First Day of School I had a few years ago.

From day one I try to establish an open, trusting environment; my goal is to help each student view herself or himself as "gifted and talented" (although not necessarily the kind that comes with a high IQ). 

As students are filling out their first day info cards, one of the questions is "What is something you are good at?"  I explain that we are all good at something--some of us never lose friends; others can cook for a large family; others can sleep through a tornado; some can burp the alphabet. I tell them they aren't allowed to write "I don't know," but to look for abilities that may be overlooked. That year, I said, "Now me? I may be the slowest runner in the land and I can't do the Dougie [that year's current popular dance]. But I can beat you in Scrabble, all day long!" And so forth. 


Sooooo after the final bell of the final class rang, instead of darting out the door to check their phones, one girl smilingly approached me.

"Miss Munnelly, I'm D. You teach people all day, and now it's time for someone to teach YOU. I am going to teach you how to Dougie!"

And she did.

Best first day ever.

Chess in B-5

Seating charts can be tough.

Strategic, like Stratego. ("Jojo needs to sit up close to see the board better, but he's really tall and his head blocks others from seeing.....hmmmm")

Little bombs hide right under your nose, like Battleship. ("I didn't know they went out last year!")

Some classes are easy--you can let the computer randomize the kids for you, or if you want, seat kids so their names amuse you. You can have a Wild West corner and put Colton M.,  B. Weston,  A. Silverthorn, and Wayne H. all in one corner, and you can have the Alex corner and stick all the Alexandras, Alexes, Alexises, Allies, Lexys all together, maybe center them around an Obiyashi for some fun cognitive dissonance. Lately I've wondered about a row of Leys--Ryley, Kyley, Lee, Bailey, Hadley, Kayley, and of course the perennial Ashley.

So. Many. Moves. Some fatal!

But every year, one class will be a chessboard of tricksy dimensions. This year one of my classes has two Queens, and it almost doesn't matter where you put them because they are so strong wherever they are placed. They are powerful in their own ways, taking down Pawns with scorn or eye rolls or mocking laughter. The same class harbors an unpredictable Knight; how he moves from day to day is anyone's guess. He can be a strong ally to the Queens. There are a few Kings in the class, young men who love learning but have limited personal power and sometimes they are vulnerable. I am lucky to have a few Bishops, really super smart self-controlled students who are fantastic and compliant. It helps to move a Bishop next to a Queen or unpredictable Knights. When I set my pieces on the little seating chart boxes that represent their chairs, I have to use quiet kids or the English learners as Pawns to "block" the chatty pieces' volubility (and hey, that sometimes helps a quiet kid come out of her shell or the English learner practice his English more).

My class is in a double horseshoe in order to facilitate students addressing each other and so everyone can see the Almighty Promethean board. But that also means it's easy for Queens to make eye contact with each other, or even with the unpredictable Knight.

The moment of truth comes, of course, during the game itself. Sometimes kids have friendships with pieces I didn't suspect would block progress, and sometimes the seating is genius. Sometimes my game is limited by Individual Education Plans that say "Preferential Seating," and that leaves some pieces anchored all year.

Anyway, I just finished the chessboard for this tricksy class.  Truth will tell. I just wish I were a better chess player. 

The Top Ten Cool and Groovy after Two Entire Weeks

The cool and the groovy about 2016/2017 thus far--best launch yet!!!!

1. I still have A/C! Hurrah!

2. No energy-sapping children! When I compare this year to last, I realize how tough a few of them really truly were, how much of my "teacher juice" was used in reining in the man-sized nonstop talker who never did his work during advisory and period 6, or the Trio of Terror that formed period 7 (I got them down to the Deadly Duo after a parent conference with one, but the other two? It was mostly my will against theirs. My will won, most days. Most. All days? The bell would ring and I would think, "Just in time!")

Oh, is the bell ringing already???

3. My day ends with a delightfully sweet class! Last year I ended with my largest and chattiest and Most Likely To Be Seen in the Counseling Office (see above).

No more--I've got sweetie pies, now!

4. My seminar class isn't cliquey! And, they have already earned donuts. This year may be expensive for me...(I buy donuts after a class earns four stars. Stars are earned when 100% of the class turns in their assignment.)


5. All of our new hires are really strong, great teachers! I often spend my preps in my colleagues' rooms as I grade my papers there. I steal all sorts of great ideas as well as see what else my kiddos' day looks like. I can also do a lil cross-discipline application when I know what's up. Annnnd I get to see my students' behavior with other teachers. That alone can be revelatory. I like my new history parter, too. I used to be considered the structured, organized 8th grade history teacher. This guy makes me look like improvisational.  Hoping to learn from this kid--he's sharp.

Trying to be the best I can be by surrounding myself with greatness

6. The weather hasn't been super nasty! Last week was gross, but not as gross as some days of yore that I recall. Most days this week, I didn't use the A/C.

Perfect.

7. The blind guy came! Not the man with no sight, but the guy who measures our windows so we can get new blinds!! Yay! Mine are dingy and dirty. Some slats are bent, and one has a hole in it. Now that presents a puzzler: how did that hole arise??? I  have been at my site so long that I remember when the current blinds were installed (yes, I've been teaching since 1932)...I never saw a kid stab a hole, and I'm an attentive teacher. I will never know.

Hopefully installation will go smoothly

8. My printer got fixed!! Joy!

I hit print as soon as the repair lady left the room

9. One class only has 24 kids in it! It's my ideal number. The others are still sizable (34 in the other 4), but how fun to have one little one. And the books I recommended to them? They are all reading and enjoying them!! The Elephant Man, Bull Run, The Outsiders, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men... they are all hushed and focused during our advisory reading time. In fact, one girl tore out her John Green novel with a gleeful, "Yay! We get to read!" I'm in heaven.

Yummy

10. Now you KNOW I love my A/C, but it really is obnoxiously loud. When it's on, half the class can't hear the other half, and I can't hear them. The decibels are ridiculous. But the custodian called in a work order....it's going to be fixed!!!!

This school year is just off to a magical start.

Seeing What We Do Not See: Not for Nothing

His parents and grandparents found out he had flunked out of high school at the moment they waited for him to walk across the stage--and he didn't.

He went on to a life of alcohol, low paying jobs, broken relationships.

Around age 48, he got sober and he realized that if he ever ever ever wanted to rise in the work world, he'd need a diploma, so he went back to school at night - he had a family that needed him to.

Grossmont Adult School

At age 50, Phillip Esquibel told this story during his address at his graduation from Grossmont Adult School--his parents were cheering for him, but I swear they weren't louder than I was. (They were glad, but I was crying like a baby. And for the record, some babies cry A  LOT--those are the babies to whom I am comparing my crying output.)

I was at his graduation because a student I'd never even had on my roster asked me to come.

I'd met M in an after-school program our 8th grade history department had dreamed up after we realized that most of the Fs in our classes were because kids didn't seem to have one of the two fundamentals a person needs to succeed--adequate personal drive or an adult able/willing to MAKE them take care of business. We decided I'd be that adult, forcing them to come after school, making them stay an hour doing history work. They could "graduate" from our prison of love and responsibility once their habits or grades seemed established (we had only one or two kids exit). I didn't get paid for this, and we didn't have any help beyond the counselor who called the parents and talked to them about this intervention as if it were not an option. We had such limited success and it took so much of my energy that we only did it this one year.

Imagine my surprise when, seven years later, M came to visit the DP teacher's lounge at lunchtime with an invitation for me to come watch her get her GED at Grossmont Adult School. My heart leaped up that she had gone on to TCB on her own, coming to the realization (at age 20) that this was better done sooner than later. (NB: she invited me, not her regular teachers, to the event, although many of them were sitting right there as she asked me. I felt she had given me a crown or a Major Award in singling me out. It was awkward, but while embarrassed, I felt honored and touched to my core.)

This Major Award is also awkward and embarrassing. 

I had never been to an adult school graduation and had no idea what to expect. It wasn't like other graduations I'd been to. It was small, for one thing; there were far more graduates than guests, even though guest seating was limited and some had to stand. The air somehow smelled a little bit like privation and the crowd was weathered and worn after the long day's work. Love was there, and all kinds of pride. The teachers in particular stood out to me, relentlessly positive, faces beaming, full of the stories that their students had told them of broken pasts healed, language and learning obstacles surmounted, wasted time redeemed, aimlessness turned to purpose, goals achieved, new goals set. The students themselves were full of hope and encouragement; one grad's mortarboard's glittered message: "I'm a g-ma--if I can, U can!"

Much nicer than the glitter of the grandma graduating--but the idea is the same.
BTW, the g-ma looked to be around 50 years old; that told part of her story.

It was the best graduation I've ever been to, better than the Harvard commencement address in Latin (which was hilarious because the student kept slipping into commonly used Latin words and phrases and into Pig Latin so the non-Latin speakers understood his gist) or the 1997 address by Madeleine Albright.

A great speech, sure, but Phillip's made me cry.

It was a validation of the human spirit, of the old saying that you're never too old to start, or it's not how you start but how you finish and dozens more old sayings about tenacity.

And watching beautiful M shake hands, taking pictures of her like mad, I wondered if it was also a validation of that long ago program that we'd jettisoned.

Beautiful M shakes hands, ready for the next step in Life

Or maybe it was a testimony to time given, to high expectations, to the influence of relentless attention, to the power of relationship. September is coming, and while I do love my summers and, like a proper Beach Boy look forward to my Endless Summer, I can pick up my new teacher year with a renewed sense of faith in the power of Love, knowing that while we teachers do not usually get to see the direct outcome of our efforts or caring, we do not love in vain.

It's the Final Countdowwwwwn! Beach chairs, hard work, and carbonated rewards

Every September, I tell the kids that students who score 103% in my class in June are exempt from taking the final. 

Every test, I remind kids that the final is given after textbooks are turned in, AND that the final comes out of the questions on their tests; I remind them that our test correction sessions are very valuable for their future June selves. 

Every assignment, I give a bonus point to students who really did a fine job. This is how people are able to earn more than 100%.

Every June, I give a comprehensive final that covers everything from Jamestown all the way up to wherever we land; this year, it's the end of the Civil War (no assassination, no Reconstruction, no Jim Crow: where did the time go?). 

Every June, the students who have achieved that dizzying number (ok, so it's really 102.5% because I believe in rounding up) sit in lawn chairs outside the classroom, drinking the soda of their choice (which I supply), munching on snacks (which they bring), playing with their electronics, listening to music, signing yearbooks, chatting, and basically feeling care-free and special as a reward for their commitment and fine work in my class over the school year.  Mathematically speaking, even if they scored a zero on the 50 point final, they'd still have an A- in the course.  Scholastically speaking, dang.

Every year, I am delighted to celebrate their outstanding achievement with their names in my window. 

This is how it looks in my brain. The reality contains considerably more blacktop and zero grass. 

Every year, it's a pain to round up beach chairs from the teachers and search for the sodas they like (inevitably, someone wants a @#$! Cactus Cooler or a !@#$ Welch's Grape Soda--WHERE CAN I BUY JUST ONE CAN OF THESE?), but I don't really mind....it's the least I can do for the kids who've done the most. 

Slump vs Pump

It's March and I feel slumpy, classroom slumpy.  I suppose it doesn't help that, out of curiosity, I find out that I could retire with some nice benefits in seven years.

Seven years? That's nothing.     Seven years? That's eternity--when you are feeling slumpy. 

I tell a colleague how I am feeling. What is wrong with me? "You are feeling your age!" she said brightly. "You are tired of the yearly troubles. I'm leaving when I turn 55." She is turning 50 this month. 

Well. There are yearly troubles. (My biggest complaint is that my district has NO PLAN to implement for students who can't read at grade level. Somehow they are supposed to just learn by being around others who can? Is reading osmotic? Doesn't W., who reads at the 3rd grade level,  need some actual instruction and practice? Doesn't J., who reads independently at the 4th grade level, deserve better? Why are there three Fs in my class? Hm, I invite you to look at their reading levels.) But this feels different.

Friday comes and I attend the Lamb's Players performance of "The Miracle Worker." I'm completely familiar with the story to the point that when we enter the theater and see the water pump where Helen will connect finger spelling with objects ("Everything has a name!" says Annie. "If I can just teach her one word..."), my eyes get misty. The set is inspired--all gray shapes except for the dining table, Annie's bed, and the pump, because shapes are the way Helen experiences the world's layout. At one point, Annie is reading aloud from her mentor, Dr. Anagnos: "Obedience is the key to education..." and I chuckle, because as a middle school teacher there seems to be so much resistance.

The play continues with Annie as frustrated as can be with her pupil's lack of progress and stubborn resistance. Yet giving up is the furthest thing from Annie's mind. She speaks of the mind as being the world, of the gift it is, of the privilege of helping another person open to it. My face has silent tears running down.

When the light breaks on Helen's face--when W-A-T-E-R marries the cool liquid on her fingers--my heart sings. When Helen bangs the pump to know what it is, I smile. When Helen touches Annie who spells out T-E-A-C-H-E-R, my slump packs its unwelcome bags and leaves.

Let there be light

Mean Girls (and Boys)

Taxpayer, did I fail you today? What is it you pay me to do, anyway?

Sometimes a puppy or piglet or what have you is born and the mother rejects it. Usually it's the runt, but sometimes the little one is rejected for no reason humans can fathom.

Kids do this, too; they will gang up to reject another kid for reasons no adult can understand.

I spent one period in a give and take with a class that I called out as being mean to a student (who was absent, of course). They protested belligerently:
"The student (we'll call her JoJo) posts troubling images on Instagram. "
"The student ignores me when I say hello."
"The student suddenly changed her style and is dressing strangely."

I parried.
"JoJo is pursuing negative attention, because being ignored is the worst feeling ever."
"She has learned that your greeting is sarcastic and has an undercurrent of mockery."
"She is trying to re-invent herself since you persisted in rejecting her true self."

Their protests persisted, but one brave young man raised his hand. "This is my first year here, and I learned that trying to make friends can be a big mistake. I have good friends now, but it was really hard to be rejected." I sensed the lump in his throat before I see his eyes tear up, so I quickly interrupted and turned my head, dragging the kids' attention away from him, knowing (unfortunately) how deadly public tears can be for a young man. "So what T is saying is that this meanness isn't directed at just JoJo. That doesn't make me feel better. Remember when I told you in September that I would soon love each person in here? Well I do now, and imagine how it feels to find out that someone I love is being wounded by people I love!" My eyes filled with tears, but I kept them from rolling out.

"What would you think of a person who enjoyed poking needles into a newborn baby? That's essentially what you are doing. We all have souls that are as tender as newborns, and your meannesses are needles poking her soul."

One kid raised his hand: "My first year in this neighborhood was when I was in 5th grade. I said hello to JoJo, but the other kids said not to because JoJo was weird. I kind of listened to them." His confession and indictment shift the conversation to the practical--the kids start to ask how they are supposed to treat her. But they say it begrudgingly, self-righteously. It is clear they still think she is bringing this upon herself.

What grows is what we water. If JoJo's Instagrams are too weird to like, I suggest, find a comment she has made and validate it. If JoJo says hello, respond. Compliment her about something true and real about her, like a good hair day or a nice nail polish choice. Being nice does not mean you have to marry her or eat lunch every day. Think about how it would feel to be her.

We had gone as an 8th grade class to the Museum of Tolerance just last month, and one well-liked student wrote an unprompted vow (her word) to be an ally to others, an agent of goodness. In the middle of this exchange with the class, I pointed right at her: "I call upon you to fulfill your vow to be an ally to this human being!" Her eyes widened. She nodded once, solemnly.

This conversation went on for over forty minutes. I do not know if many behaviors will change, JoJo's or the rest of the students'. I do not know if JoJo can recover from FOUR YEARS (5th, 6th, 7th, 8th) of belittlement and rejection.

But the vow girl stayed after class to share how she had been rejected in elementary school and knows how it feels, and confessed she'd been mean to JoJo but felt terrible about it. And you know what? I believe she will fulfill her promise, and just that one person might help to turn the mean tide.

Taxpayer, if you expect me to stick to the state standards every day, I let you down. But if you pay me to create better American citizens, I gave it my best shot.

Roll, firedrills, dead fish, and a tender psyche

The bell rings.

In a perfect world with a perfect teacher, this is the time roll is taken.

But the world isn't perfect, and neither am I. Class begins, I launch the lesson, and then--the fire alarm! I did not know (or I have forgotten) there was a drill today! Or is this real?

The law says we have to have one a month

It doesn't matter. I send the students out the door, grab the red backpack containing our first aid and fire drill paperwork, and realize too late that, oh no, I don't have the paperwork AND I don't know who is absent. I fumble around inside the backpack, searching, finally realizing I'll just have to go out there and try to piece this together with my kids' help; I'm the last to arrive at our gathering spot.

We make our middle schoolers sit down for counting ease

When I'm out there, I count and recount students. "Can you think of anyone not here?" I implore the students. I send a paper up to the admin with my best guesses, the last to send the official red paper (except mine is white and unofficial).

After the drill, I search for my boss to apologize. He is angry. Let me write that again, properly: ANGRY.  I tell him I don't have a good excuse but that I feel badly and it won't happen again, offering my hand in forgiveness. He places his in mine and it is as cold and lifeless as the dead fish that cold and lifeless handshakes are often compared to. He can't even look at me, he is so furious. I have made him look bad in front of his boss.

I wake up.  Cheesy, but true. I begin to ponder the dream's significance.

Truth be told, I am quite bad about taking roll even when I am awake. It is one of those secretarial details that I find interferes with my launch into class. It has to be done six times a day because our school receives funding dependent upon the body count--the bodies don't have to be conscious, so far as I can tell, fyi. I have found a way around this which I don't care to share with the wide world; suffice it to say that apparently my psyche has some anxieties about taking roll. And maybe my psyche harbors anxieties about pleasing my boss, or about dead fish. But the bigger question is:

WHY AM I HAVING SCHOOL DREAMS DURING THANKSGIVING VACATION?

Bad Teacher/Good Teacher

When it's summer, I am able to settle in and get a lot of deep planning done, weeks worth of lessons, and it is a good thing, because there isn't much spare time once that very first bell rings. We catapult into the year. How fast does an object hurled into the school year travel?

that gray round thing is me

d = 1/2at^2 + Vit  (I remember that from 10th grade physics with Mr. Owen. Just showing off, it's not relevant.) All I know is that I start to run out of my deep plans toward the end of October. Weekends begin to clog with paper, so deep planning, since I taught the same subjects last year, gets short shrift ("Shrift" means "confession," the kind Roman Catholics do. I learned that from Mrs. Gross in 9th grade as we read "Romeo & Juliet"--minimally relevant.). It's not good, but it's reality.

This morning snuck up on me and as I was posting the day's agenda on the whiteboard, I blanked. I vaguely remembered telling my English seminar class that "we will do That on Friday." What was That? I couldn't recall, so I threw together a clever little constructed response lesson about an e.e. cummings poem. (Mrs. Kirby taught us the poem in 11th grade. I didn't like her, but loved the poem; moderately relevant.)

"Loneliness" by e.e. cummings

Bell rings, kids sail in, some with their psych evaluations in hand, ready to turn in, triggering my memory--NOW I REMEMBER. OK, so I was SUPPOSED to go home Thursday night and figure out a way to coordinate their psychiatric evaluations of the confessor of Poe's Tell-Tale Heart. They were to be expert witnesses to the court, proving either that the accused was not guilty by reason of insanity, or that the accused knew exactly what he was doing when he killed his roommate with the creepy eye (Incidentally, Mrs. Kirby again. I really did not like her, probably because she did not like me.).

So 35 kids, 35 assignments completed (which is wonderful in and of itself). I wing it: "If you decided he's crazy, sit to my right. Sane, sit to my left." And because my God is merciful unto me, almost exactly half of them sit on either side of me! Unless you teach, you may not comprehend the amazingness of that moment. Remember, I did not have a back-up plan. OK, now what, Lord?

I sternly admonish them that we are no longer 8th graders, but a room full of experienced and respected doctors, presenting evidence as expert witnesses, and that we will address each other as such. In a flash of inspiration, I run to my closet and pull out the black choir robe I use for our history court simulations. The kids yell, "Hammer!" and I turn around and respond, "Gavel!" as I wield it. They cheer lustily.

Gavel is kind of like teachers in a nonteacher family

I invite them to share their reasoning with each other and we ping-pong back and forth. It. is. wonderful. They use textual support, from the obvious ("Normal people do not kill someone because of their weird eye") to the subtle ("The suspect never names the victim beyond 'the old man;' I think is a way for him to emotionally distance himself from the victim whom he claims to have loved").

I wait for them to flag, but the arms keep waving, decidedly un-doctorlike. One student forgets our name protocol and refers to something "C." said earlier. A chorus of "Who is 'C'?" erupts, and the student corrects himself, "I mean, Dr. S," and the class, appeased, lets him proceed.

I try to stop it to collect their papers but the hands are insistent and the reasons keep coming. "Tearing up floorboards and hiding the crime shows he has a clear understanding of consequences." "Well, what kind of person enjoys watching the terror of a person he supposedly loves? A crazy person!" I count to myself how many kids have voluntarily shared their text-based opinions: 28. THAT IS ANOTHER WONDER. I pause the flow to ask the perennially quietest people if they have anything to share, and they do, no stammering, no shrugging, no weak "I agree with Dr. S" comments--they each have something to add.

The bell rings, the kids want to know how I rule. I hem and haw, because honestly, both sides have done a magnificent job using the author's words to make their respective cases. I realllllly don't relish choosing a side. Suddenly, the normally diplomatic K. commands, "ADJUDICATE!" My jaw drops open.

Have you ever in your life heard a thirteen year old use that word? (First time for me. Never learned it in school.)

I smile...."On Monday." The class wails in mock anguish.

I am writing this so that I will remember what I'm supposed to do on Monday: must remember to adjudicate.

On my to-do list

Launching 2015-2016

The first week has passed, and with it, these events:

1) The debut of Friedrich, B-5's air conditioner. He manages to keep my classroom below 80°, no small feat when the room is made out of cardboard, surrounded by blacktop, is stuffed with 36 people, and it's close to 100° outside.  I am no longer slick and shiny and moments away from heat exhaustion when I leave school. I love you, Friedrich.

2) I have no heavy burdens this year in terms of behavior. Last year The Powers That Be saw fit to give me my third most challenging classroom combination right before lunch. Everyone was friends with everyone, and everyone thought everyone was hugely entertaining, and only about three students had a record of academic success. Through sheer force of teacher will and mother prayers (yes, I had my praying mom lift this class up on the daily), things held together most days and there were even some success stories. But this year everyone seems willing to learn and to come ride my crazy academic pony with no hard coaxing (or threats). Is this the power of Friedrich? An exceptional group of kidlets? I don't care, I'll take it.

3) I had a special delivery of amazing cookies on the first Friday--spectacularly delicious. I think my favorite were the Reese's Pieces/peanut butter cup/Butterfinger kind, but the Almond Joy white chocolate and Oreo cookie's n cream gave them a run. A former student (on my wall of fame for other reasons, but I shall add "Gourmet Baker" to the list of accomplishments) had them sent to me and my hips. All of us are grateful.

4) As the bell finished ringing period 7 on Friday, R. stayed to make sure all the chairs were on the tables so the custodian could vacuum, generally straightening books as he went along.

"Do you need help with anything, Miss M?" R. asked.

Smiling at his middle school boyishness, I looked around at the classroom: "Not today, but how kind of you to offer. I so appreciate that."

"Because I want you to know that even if I didn't have your class at the end of the day, I'd still come over here to help you after school."

And that, friends, is why I know I have the best job in the world.

How to Exponentially Increase Attention, Learning, Energy, and Morale of both Students and Teacher

AIR CONDITIONING:
Among God's many blessings
You are the coolest.

This is Friedrich, everybody.

In Summmmmmmmer!!!

So it's summmmmer!!! I've been busy doing summer things. What might that mean?

FUN THINGS!!

RESPONSIBILITIES

   Well, there are some very fun things.
   1. Hawaii for the first time
   2. Catalina Island
   3. The beach



             Some are less fun.
             1. Blood test at Kaiser
             2. Tune up
             3. You get the idea.



    For teachers, there is always a weird tension about summer; as an educator, what's it for?

A. For taking care of all the things I neglect during the school year? (Hello, messy sock drawer.)
B. For having all the fun I was denied every Saturday for 36 Saturdays? (Hello, travel, friends, books.)
C. To relax and get recharged? (Hello, work outs, afternoon naps, evening jacuzzis.)
D. For professional development? (Hello, big ugly giant new writing unit for our school by Lucy Calkins.)

The answer should be all of the above. But that last one....

Toward May, a student monitor came into B-5 and plunked down the huge Lucy Calkins series of writing units thingy on a table. Rationale? The Boss told us it's what his boss wants us to do; not very compelling, if you ask me. We had one (optional) day of professional development about it. I (opted) out. And now The Boss has a new boss. So do I still need to read all this?

It really is big and ugly, isn't it?

I have been guilting about these units all summer. (Yes, I just coined a new word. It's all part of my summer's work.)

In June, I opened one of the four books that comprise it. "Ick, I can't read this now. It's JUNE. I'm packing for Hawaii. This is too heavy."

In July, I opened it again. "Ick, I can't read this now. I am too busy with guests and to-do lists and Harper Lee's first novel that was released second and books for three book clubs and Catalina. I'll read it later."

It's August...
I
am
running
out
of
excuses
and time.

But do I want to use my last precious days of summer reading a unit that The Boss's new boss might not even care about?

Vote now!!

Bill Gates, Star Trek, Charlie McCarthy, an Avocado, and Tegretol

I thought if I ever stopped teaching it would be because of someone wonderful--"Oh, yes, well, ha ha, my mother always said it was just as easy to marry a filthy rich man as it was a poor working sap--meet my new husband, Thurston Howell Rockefeller-Gates Spielberg-Bono!"

Or because I hit a magic number of years that the retirement people say will leave me protected from eating cat food in the twilight years--"Eh? Speak up, sonny-- when you are 117 it's a little hard to hear--oh, glad you are coming to my retirement party..."

Or because of something awful--"She's dead, Jim..."

But you never think of the in-between awful stuff that doesn't quite kill you. As it happens, I have this evil condition that, if unchecked, makes it impossibly painful to say my Ms, Bs, or Ps. (Try teaching about the Missouri Compromise with that problem...) For a week and a half I was talking like a ventriloquist. If unchecked, it makes it incredibly hard to eat. I was reduced to cutting up peanut butter toast and sliding it into my face like a letter into the mailbox and chewing gently, swallowing fearfully. With an unchecked condition, I didn't want to move my face for fear of disturbing the volatile Angry Nerve.

But think about it: all I do at work is talk and smile and eat. (Yes, I eat at work, don't judge.)

Can I tell you that the kids didn't seem to care about the ventriloquy? About my frozen smile? They went right on learning. They empathized. They wished me well at the end of class. And maybe some didn't even notice, so self-oriented are some middle schoolers.

One a co-worker was so worried about me not getting proper nutrition that I had a little gift bag one morning: a delicious cold chocolate protein shake...a banana...an avocado...some applesauce...and a spoon. Soft foods for me to slide into the mail slot, to get past the Angry Nerve. And a little John Lennon quote to feed my soul: "It will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end." I cried a little, the good kind of crying.

And now that I have the right med dosage to appease the Angry Nerve, I can go back to my wondering what will really take me out of the classroom.

Middle v High

When I first imagined becoming a teacher, I saw me in a high school. I saw only English lovers in my class, all engaged, competent, and sharing, laughing and loving each other. (I suppose this was a lot like my English class, part of the reason I wanted to teach high school English to begin with.)

I was first hired for middle school history. I was surprised at how funny the kids are, how they don't hold grudges, how fervent and affectionate and loyal and adorable they are. I liked them so much I decided to stay. And then I was "declared in excess," "pink slipped." That is the public school version of being fired. It happens either because there really are too many teachers and the one with the least seniority goes, or because the administration wants to get rid of a teacher but because of seniority, has to dig deep in order to do so, "declaring in excess" all the teachers up to the target. I was last hired and there was a teacher high above me whom they wanted out. It was inevitable.

I ended up being picked up by a high school. My English class was filled with English lovers...AND:

     English haters-

     English apathetics-

     silent kids-

     eye-rollers-

     the chronically bored-

     those too cool for school-

     shruggers.

Their ability levels ran the gamut. They sat slumped in their chairs, sleep heavy on their eyes. Some kids had writing that was positively hieroglyphic. I lasted one year there before my mom talked me into taking some time off to explore other career options.

I'm back in a middle school and oh so glad. But after a decade or so, a person can get curious and want to check out the color of other people's lawns. So today I checked out a high school. I liked it...a  lot. I liked the kids and that it looked like the teachers' efforts were directed toward helping students understand, not just repeating/reprimanding/redirecting. Yes, there was a ton of passivity, but after 16 years in Middle School Land,  also known as Squirrel Country, it was almost refreshing.

But then we noticed the conditions. The school is huuuuuge. There are so many teachers that they don't really know each other. There is competition for juniors and seniors. The toughest kids? Good luck. Stakes are super high. There is little collaboration. There is a ton of politics.

I head back to my little middle school tomorrow. Z will hail me with a happy smile. I'll have to tell O. to settle down. I'll likely have to interrupt some silent cross-room mouthed conversations between S. and J. BUT....I'll wave to every colleague, ask specific questions about their family, be blessed to know that everyone loves all the kids, eat lunch with good people. I will be home. I am not settling. The grass is always greener where you water it, and we positively have sprinklers at our school.

He looks incredibly great, actually...I'm not kidding.

An op-ed piece     By   SUSAN PINKER* in

                                          

                                                         
                                                                              says:

"As extensive research shows, just one year with a gifted teacher in middle school makes it far less likely that a student will get pregnant in high school, and much more likely that she will go to college, earn a decent salary, live in a good neighborhood and save for retirement."

                               .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

The other day my father went the Natural History Museum. After looking up his last name to give him a ticket, the young docent, K., asked, "Do you have a sister named Lola? She was my favorite teacher all through school..."

[Ed.: OK, I could either frame this as "My dad looks good for his 77 years," "I look awful for my half century," or "Students have absolutely no idea that 13 years isn't really that long." (Personally, I think my daddy looks fantastic.)]

"...yes, she made me love history so that I even got a history degree--lots of my friends did, too."

Teachers don't get to revisit students and distill and analyze their positive and negative influence on their students and their lives' outcomes.  That "extensive research" can't really show causality.  Could I measure my efficacy by counting who got pregnant in high school, who graduated from college, who saves for retirement? Is it my personal fault if a kid drops out? There is NO WAY to find out one's influence without asking the students, is there? 

And self -reporting is, as they say, less than reliable.

How can "They" know what would have happened if a kid had this type of teacher, or that kind? How could they know that maybe K. would have become a ROCKET SCIENTIST or a BRAIN SURGEON if she hadn't gotten derailed by the thrills of 8th grade history class where we sang some cheesy songs, took Cornell notes throughout the year, and reenacted the Battle of Gettysburg in twenty minutes? 

Maybe I RUINED HER. Maybe K. was going to find the cure for cancer. Maybe she would have been an engineer and be making all kinds of money, rather than handing my extremely youthful-looking dad a ticket in a local non-profit museum.

But maybe I saved her life. Maybe she was thinking about finding the cure for cancer, but now she will live a beautiful, fulfilling life helping others connect with the past, present, and future. Maybe she would have been miserable in any other field.

I reread that NYT paragraph and find it overwhelming. That much responsibility...that's crazy, people. We place these middle schoolers into cinderblock classrooms (which I find absolutely horrifying--the cinderblock classrooms, not the placing of the kids) and for 55 minutes, five days a week, one middle school teacher can have that great of an impact??? How can anyone be calm about this??? How can we not be more serious, wise and intentional about teacher recruitment, training, and retention??? how? how? HOW???

When I was in middle and high school, taking those career aptitude tests, one of the questions was about how important it was for me to influence people. For me, the answer was super duper important. I really wanted to (and still hope to) make a positive difference in this world--but I didn't think I could actually influence someone's sex life or retirement savings.

That's like, dude, more influence than Oprah. 



I've always felt the responsibility to be a heavy one, an honorable one. But dear Lord, this little paragraph means I want to make sure that YOU love them through me. Help me to be Your arms. Help me to speak Your words. Help me to love them the way You do. Amen.

*from "Can Students have too much TECH, JAN. 30, 2015