I have one of those kids this year whom it’s really hard to get mad at because: 1) He’s funny, and 2) He just can’t help it. Really. When someone says something, and he reacts, you can almost see the marionette strings being yanked as he does one of those double-take head shakes like in the cartoons. He’s just thought of something to say…so out it comes. He has this almost stream of consciousness patter going sometimes, and it is as fascinating to watch and listen to as it is disruptive. Today I called on him for an answer, partly because I wanted to yank his strings and bring him back to reality, and partly because I could see that he had the right answer on his sheet. So I thought it was win-win. No dice, cheese slice. “Tyrell? How about number four?” “Umm. Ok. I got this one. Let’s see…(pretends to peruse paper carefully; even pretending to put in a monacle or something, and scrunching up his face in concentration and stroking his invisible goatee) Ok… That’s a compound sentence. That it is. Like a compound bow. Man, those things shoot far. I saw once…” “D’oh! Tyrell. That’s a simple
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I don’t know about you guys (remember the old Electric Company intro: “Hey You Guys!”), but I’m having trouble finding any sort of groove so far in 2012. The kids are all dopey and spacey (I know; how can you tell?), nothing much is happening around school, my student servant doesn’t even have much to do right now, things are just feeling …weird. … They seem to be enjoying The Giver though. I have a Q/A each day before the reading quiz, and the questions have been coming fast and furious. “They don’t know what elephants are? What are they, stupid?” “Are all the kids adopted?” “So you don’t get to pick who you marry?” (Ask Depeesha over there in the third row.) “Why do they call it a family unit?” (What? They’ve never seen the Coneheads?) ‘Why aren’t there any cars?” (THAT sounds like utopia to me.) “Why is this book weird?” (I know you are, but what am I?) … Regarding the discussion beginning over there on the right side: Mrs. M, I really want to read that book. I went to their web site and read their brief excerpts, which were no more than one sentence teasers.
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We’re about eight chapters into The Giver. They can’t cope. Just like always. Usually I don’t do a lot of ”prereading prep” when we do novels. I prefer to dive right in and sort of explain/let them figure things out along the way. I think too much prep biases them or raises expectations or whatever. I think the book can usually explain itself with a little help from me. When we read The Giver, I suspend regular KBARR reading/responding (“and there was much rejoicing”), and instead they read/respond to the class novel (“and there was much sadness”). I read their paragraph-or-so responses each day during the warm up. Then we do a Q/A session, where I tell them that I will answer any and all questions about the previous night’s reading. Then the reading quiz. What follows is the first eight chapters of The Giver in the form of questions my crew had while reading said eight chapters. See if you can follow the plot just by the questions they ask. “Ok. So. They don’t know what animals are?” “What’s a Birthmother?” (Umm…duh?) “Do they not have cars?” “Where is this place?” “What if you don’t know how to ride a
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OK, I’m finally going to finish the bomb shelter story. Maybe. After we finished The Giver, we had a couple of days before Christmas to sort of debrief and discuss. We talked about “the end justifying the means” and such, and if it is OK to sacrifice one innocent to save multiple others. (Here’s Part I.) Then I busted out something I hadn’t used in years; the old bomb shelter exercise. I got it out of an old 70′s touchy-feely teaching book. I had to give some background about “duck and cover” and Mutually Assured Destruction and that sort of thing (good groundwork for The Martian Chronicles later on), and they laughed about hiding under their desks from nuclear weapons, and then… “So now the missiles are coming in two minutes. Your bomb shelter has enough room and supplies for you, your family, and six other people. But there are 10 people pounding on your door begging to be let in. You have to leave four outside to die.” I give them the same group of ten supplicants I got from the old book: a) An accountant, 31 years old, b) his wife who is 6 months pregnant, c) a
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Has it really been that long? Is vacation almost over? I know there are some districts out there that get three weeks for winter break, but we go back on Monday. I haven’t even touched any of the piles I left behind in the classroom. In fact, since I took the day off that last Friday before break, I never did my annual Christmas clothes-gathering. Since I ride my bike to school every day, and because I go so early when it’s usually cold, I always wear several layers of sweaters and thermals and whatnot. Also, if it’s raining, I have rain gear layers and boots and etc. So over the course of the year, I end up amassing quite a collection of sweaters and spare shirts and jackets and school pants. In fact, by Thanksgiving, if I don’t make a conscious effort, I end up with nothing to wear out on weekends, but jeans and t-shirts. So usually every year on the last-day-before-Christmas-break, I tow my bike trailer and load up all my laundry, along with whatever else I think I might need over the break, as well as that year’s candles and caramels and coffee mugs and snickerdoodles.
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(Friday Flashback – Last Year) “Mrs. G” has been teaching in our district for over 40 years. She’s been at our school since it opened in 1980. She’s taught English, art, social studies, music, and much more. She is literally an immovable object, and doesn’t need to rise from her chair to strike fear (well, not exactly fear any more, but…) into 8th graders’ hearts. She doesn’t care what people (parents, admins, other teachers) think of her, and speaks her mind whether it’s “appropriate” or not. She currently teaches 8th grade US history, and has been going toe to toe with a particularly pesky student I had last year. Now, this “Steve” sends me e-mails about how the posts he’s reading in the discussion forums on our Moodle don’t have enough thought behind them, and he has a real brain. But he’s a loud-mouthed pain in the rear, whose parents it seems, are wrapped around his finger. I was probably the only teacher he got along with…until Mrs. G. He’s still a pain, and though, like me she recognizes and likes the Steve underneath, she’s not afeared of giving what she gets. So… Food is not allowed in our classooms. [...]
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