Meph(istopheles) on the Shelf

The "elf on the shelf" phenomenon both fascinates me and unsettles me.  Saturday, my best friend and I were in Target, and there was a huge end-cap display of the elves and all their accouterments.  There's even a "pet" for the elf and all kinds of clothing and other things to suck money right out of the wallets of well-meaning parents.  It's a whole industry, and apparently a growing one.

I have one of the original shelf-sitter dolls from the 1960s.  I got it on eBay a long time ago.  Mine is no elf, though.  Mine is a red-pointed-tail, horn- wearing devil.  He has pointed ears and a wicked little winking grin.  He is my Mephistopheles.

I used to put him out every year when we studied Doctor Faustus.  He sat safely on my shelf until the work was done; then it was time for him to go back into storage for another year.  For the last two years, though, he's stayed in my locking cabinet.  I've simply been too tired or too rushed to get him out.

This year, after seeing the shelf-elves and hearing one of my colleagues talk about using one of them in her classroom, I felt inspired.  I braved the Fibber McGee's closet that is my locking cabinet and unearthed him.  Then I tucked Meph into the leaves of my giant rubber plant and let him wait.  When the class noticed him, I told him we would have a shelf Meph instead.  He is really much more my style than a simpering elf.  They loved it.

This afternoon, after the last of my students were gone, he migrated to a new spot in the room.  I reckon I can find great amusement in keeping this up until the end of the semester.  Hopefully, the students will find it amusing, too.

The things we do at semester's end.....

Two-Line Scenes with Faustus

Today, I was finally able to use another one of the strategies I learned this summer at the Folger:  two-line scenes.  Although we had originally done this with Hamlet this summer, I combed through the play we're currently reading, Doctor Faustus, and created a set of lines from it.  Some of them were thematically important. We had the famous "face that launched a thousand ships" and "Man, fly!"  We told each other that this was hell, nor were we out of it....  Some of them were just fun. We burned our books, became apes and dogs, and told each other we could not read. I was eager to see how the students would handle it.

They drew their lines, found their partners, and started scrounging around my room for props.  I have two huge boxes of things I use to dress up my Shakespeare bust for the various holidays, and his costumes got pretty thoroughly pillaged.  I had students in fezzes, in boas made of holiday garland, in goofy glasses, and in a hat shaped like a cooked turkey.  They used squeezy stress balls, sets of National Honor Society cords, and foam swords.  They found sound effects and video clips of flame to use on their phones.  It was fabulous.

They commandeered every part of the room, the front, all the furniture, and even the shower curtains I use to hide all the obnoxious nastiness in my classroom.  One group took a mountain trek over the seats of one row of desks.  That same group finished by lassoed a display clothesline with silver-and-gold-star garland to swing away from the "hell" their line indicated they were in.

I had the best time.  I loved watching them create meaning from the random combination of lines.  With the exception of a few words they wanted to look up (fustian, sixpence), they were independent of everything except the text.  All of them engaged.  All of them had wonderful little vignettes.  We all laughed and cheered at every dramatic effort.

When I told them afterward that all the lines had come from the play we were about to read, they were excited.  They were eager to find out where "their" line was going to come into the larger story.  As a preparatory activity, I don't see how it could have gone better.  It gave us a break from the stress and hustle of the semester's end, and it piqued their interest in the text ahead.  They left the classroom smiling and talking about the experience, reliving it on the ubiquitous SnapChat.  What a great activity!

Rainy Mississippi Meditations

I started my day today as I usually do, Froot Loops and coffee and social media.  Stella and Chewie were happily throwing each other to the living room floor.  Much needed rain was falling outside.  It should have been a peaceful moment.

Then I clicked a link to a news story and read the comments.

How long is Mississippi going to insist on being backwards?  Why is it that in every possible pursuit we continually and seemingly enthusiastically race toward the prejudiced, the intolerant, the exclusionary, or the corrupt?

We wonder why people leave and never return.  I have so many loved ones - friends, family members, former students - who have made their lives across the country or across the globe not because they wanted to leave family but because they could not have a future here or simpy be accepted for who and what they are.  Our best and our brightest are the very ones we are driving away.  The ones who could do more and better go.  As long as this continues, what hope is left?

I love this state.  I believe now as much as I have in the past that she could be something great.  Her leadership, though, seems stuck in the 1950s.  I can understand why.  It is undoubtedly very comfortable for them there.  They are undisputed masters of all they survey, fat and sleek and able to slip the hand into the till at their leisure.  Who wouldn't love a system in which all the toys belonged to them alone?

Leaders are called to be more.  They have been called to put the welfare of the state as a whole first, have stood before a God they only pay lipservice to during the elections and sworn oaths to do so.  What they don't seem to recognize or honor is that leadership is full of sacrifice - sacrifice of self for the right, sacrifice of the leader's good for the good of all.  Instead, they have made a private club of it and employed a "let them eat cake" mentality toward the rest.  I wonder if they forget the lessons history has to teach about how well that worked out for the originators....

I suppose the leaders are not alone in their fault, though.  Somehow, some way, the electorate chose to put these people in places of power.  Despite the fact that they never change, we continue to put some of them in office over and over and over....  Maybe they are giving out a temporary boon, a paved road, a cleared "situation," a business favor between "friends."  Maybe we, too, need to stop accepting a short-term grab-and-go and begin to look down the road at what is right for everybody, to do what is right for those who will come after us.

I still believe - foolishly, perhaps - that change is possible.  After all, if nothing else happens, the system will collapse on itself and change will happen in that way.  I'd like to think instead that my fellow Mississippians will come together and try to gain control of this before it has to be broken completely and reset to allow for proper healing.  I think we may be very close to that point.

Not Just for Shakespeare

Today began a unit on Modern literature.  We started looking at Eliot's "The Hollow Men" as a way into the characteristics of the period.  They have been working on Prufrock for a week by themselves.  We will pick up on it tomorrow together, and we'll move from Eliot to discussion of As I Lay Dying and Their Eyes Were Watching God.

I love Eliot.  I always have.  It was probably an early warning sign of future English-teacherdom that I was buying Dover Thrift Editions of his works during my own high school days.

I do understand how challenging he is.  He operated at "god level" when it came to weaving allusions with stream of consciousness and vivid imagery.  Even most of my bravest students are daunted when it comes to dealing with him for the first time.  (Those that aren't...well...lots of them are now English teachers, too...)

As I was preparing copies of the poem for TPCASTT annotation, a thought occurred.  What if I tried the Folger 3-D tactic with "The Hollow Men"?  I was curious as to whether or not the strategy would be as successful with helping my students to shape meaning for themselves with this complex poetry.  It had worked so well with the Seven Ages of Man speech at the beginning of the year.  I piddled and pondered, and finally, I decided to see what would happen.

I did use part of a PowerPoint of Doom this time because I wanted to remind them of the general feelings of despair, distrust, and brokenness that inform Modern literature.  I slipped through it quickly, presented the format of a TPCASTT, and had them make quick notes on their initial reaction to the title.  Then we read through the entire poem with each student taking a line.

They took to the activity with no hesitation, prompting each other if someone got lost.  When we got to part V with its "here we go round the prickly pear" portion, some of them actually caught on and put the tune to it.  One student missed his cue for his line, and he laughed.  "I was singing the song in my head.  Sorry."  The final lines drew a big reaction from everyone, "Hey!  I've heard that before...."  Suddenly, there was a connection with something that had been more or less threatening and unintelligible.

Because I was doing this on the fly and time was short, I asked them to get with partners immediately after that and "see what they noticed."

They started putting big chunks of it together, and I eavesdropped on their conversations.

"They're scarecrows, right?  I see 'heads stuffed with straw.'"

"They aren't real scarecrows.  I think they're supposed to be like people?"

"Everything in this poem is dead.  Look.  'Stone....cactus....dry....'"

I couldn't hide my glee.  It had worked.  One student saw me smiling and eyed me suspiciously.

"What?  Ms. Waters, did I say something silly?"

"Not at all.  Not.  At.  All.  You were dead on.  Keep going."

And they did.

We talked through parts of it today, and they were a little amazed at how much they had understood with just one brief dip into the work.  I saw smiles.  I saw confidence growing.  I saw the same group who had almost without exception raised their hands when I'd asked who didn't feel comfortable dealing with poetry at the beginning of the class suddenly eagerly pointing out things that were dry or purposeless.

Tomorrow, we will start with the portion of the read-through where each person takes an entire sentence as a review before finishing it and moving on to Prufrock.  I can't wait to see how much more they can extract.  The benefits of what I learned this summer at the Folger just keep coming.

PD

My administrator showed up outside my door two weeks ago and asked/told me to co-lead a PD session with one of my colleagues to be a part of our staff development day .  She and I started putting things together the best we could.  We tweaked and edited.

Then, two days before we were to present, the great grumbling began. There is nothing like knowing you're going to have to stand up in front of a room full of your peers who are angry at having to be there.  As time ticked away, I had a migraine.  Both of us had nightmares about technology failure, general rebellion, the usual meeting horrors.

Friday finally came, and by that point, I just wanted it all to be done.  We presented for our first group, and I gradually saw the grumpy faces smooth out some.  They asked some questions, tried out some of the strategies and apps we were presenting.  We gave away candy and Dollar Tree door prizes as a part of the demonstration of some of the tools.  When we finished up, they walked out with smiles.

Fifteen minutes later, we did a second session, and much the same pattern repeated.  I wanted to collapse when it was all over, but we made it through.

While I didn't volunteer to do the PD Friday, I still tried to do something I would want to attend.  My biggest fear was that the other teachers would think Jayne and I were saying, "Oh my GOD.  We are SO FANCY.  Be like us."  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  She and I just put together things we'd found to be helpful and told them how we'd used them.

I don't know if they will ever use anything Jayne and I put together for them, but I hope at least they weren't still angry at having to come.  I am the Queen of Not Liking Meetings.  I understand.  Too often, our PD winds up being an overpaid and condescending consultant or someone who has a PowerPoint and reads every line.  Teachers have so little time and so much that needs to be done that I think we are grudging of every second.  We don't mind coming to something that helps us do better for our students, but when a presentation is clearly a way for someone to practice the time-honored art of Covering One's Backside or Padding One's Bank Account, we don't tend to respond well.

What happened Friday is what I believe good PD should look like:  peers sharing.  We could all share things that have been tested out with our kids on our campus.  We could all point out apps that had been run with our technology filters in place and our WiFi connection providing the hookup.  We could avoid the problems that come with being the first person to do something.  Together, we could be stronger.

It would be nice to think Friday was a first step in this process.  I suppose only time will tell.

The Day the Newspaper Went Live

For an entire nine weeks, my little staff and I have been anxiously working toward this day, the day the newspaper would finally "go live" and be publicized.

Today's date has been in bright red at the top of my whiteboard for four weeks.  For a publication that exists only online, this process was less about ad sales and formatting.  As a complete restart, we had to find, pay for, and set up our software.  Our staff had to learn how to follow AP formatting.  We had to go on interviews, take and edit photos, decide on polls, and then get all of that uploaded into the website.

Our trip to the MSPA Fall Workshop was a huge booster shot of ideas and enthusiasm.  We needed it for the final push to publication.

My staff has been relentless in their dedication.  I was so worried that a staff of seven would be too small, but when I look at what they have created, I realize how ridiculous that fear was.

Yesterday, we were all working furiously to finish the last tasks. During our class period, everyone was focused on getting a last editorial review and resizing feature images.  During my planning period, a few members and I hung posters all over campus announcing our return.  I was signing up for a new Instagram account for the paper at 10:30 and editing even thirty minutes later. Stories were being uploaded right up to midnight, and I did final brushups over my fruit loops this morning.

As I dressed in my spirit shirt and jeans, I had to admit I felt a little nervous.  Would everyone be able to appreciate just how much work my staff had done?  Would they find our site appealing and informative?

Had we done it "right"?

All day long, students, staff members, and community members came by, made comments on the site, shared it on Facebook, or emailed to tell us that they liked what they saw.   The students were over the moon, and I was right there with them.

It's hard to believe we have come from literally nothing to this point in so short a time.  I hope that we can look back at these first steps when we come to the end of the year and appreciate even more growth.  I am so very proud of my little group.  We made it through the first storm.  In the words of Frankenstein....

Check us out online at http://mhswildcat.com.

All the Alumni

Last Thursday morning at 2:30, I flailed my hand at my screeching phone, turned on my bedside lamp, and sat up on the edge of the bed.  It was time to get up to go to the MSPA Fall Workshop.

After fairly large applications of caffeine and a hot shower, I was awake enough to find my way to town and to campus, pulling into my familiar parking spot in an eerily empty lot.  My phone was already sending me Remind notifications from my eager staffers who were on campus and looking for me.

Since it was Homecoming week, mischief had been afoot in the community, and as we were waiting for our bus to arrive in front of the building, two police cars pulled up to make sure we weren't a problem.  We talked to the officers briefly; it turned out one of them was a former student of mine.

This was to be a recurring theme....

The eight of us boarded the bus, and we headed out for the three-and-a-half hour trip north to the University of Mississippi campus.  The students had brought blankets and pillows, and I think they were all asleep before we ever got to the highway.  I popped in headphones, and Bob Dylan and I dozed as the miles slipped away.

When we got to Ole Miss, we were driving through campus looking for the place where the workshop was being held, and before the bus had even parked, I saw another of my former students walking down the sidewalk heading to class.  We circled around, and I got to talk with her.

We got into the workshop, and after the first session, we had boxed lunches in the famous Grove.  My phone buzzed, and yet another of my formers was headed to see us after her classes.  She and I walked through the bookstore and had a good visit before our schedules separated us again.

As much as I got paper-sponsor-wise at the conference, part of my enjoyment of the day was in seeing all those former students in their different phases of life:  undergrad, grad school, and active career.  It was a great reminder of where those students on the bus with me were headed soon.

Those encounters are rejuvenating, too, because sometimes the struggle to overcome the "thousand natural shocks that [education] is heir to" obscures those fabulous futures.  As they say in so many cliched sports situations, "eye on the prize."  There are victories.  Press on.

The $15 Chair

As a high school teacher, I've never really thought about having furniture in my classroom.  However, when we renovated the English wing breakroom, I started thinking about how nice it would be to have a small wingback chair to sit in whenever I am evaluating presentations and for visitors to sit in when they come to my class for observations.

So the hunt was on.

For a town with a large number of thrift shops, it was impossible to find a wingback chair here.  Either they were already sold and waiting on pickup to go to their new homes or they were priced way beyond my low-end teacher budget. 

Finally, my best friend and I went to West Point for the Prairie Arts festival, an annual trip for us.  We always stop at this mega-awesome thrift shop there, and I found this chair.  It and several other pieces of vintage furniture were tucked behind some much glossier and slicker-looking new stuff, but when I saw its distinctive silhouette rising above the low backs of the faux leather couches, I made a bee-line for it. 

When I turned the tag over, I had a moment of true teacher joy:  $14.99.  I lifted it up right there and carried it up to the checkout lest some other predatory educator (or grad student) be looking for the same kind of bargain. 

It's not pretty, but man alive, it's awesome to sit down in from time to time.  It has made the times when my students come up and use my document camera or present my favorite lesson moments.  :)

My "New"spaper Wall

Whiteboard/wall space is extremely limited in my classroom because of all the lovely windows I have, so I have to try to find "workarounds."  I use a small whiteboard underneath my document camera whenever I need to write things during class, and I portion out my space carefully on the big boards that do hang on my wall. 

Newspaper needed more space, though, so I went back to Lowe's and got one more sheet of markerboard wainscotting.  After a theatrical farce trying to get it cut, I brought it back to school today, wrapped the raw edges in black duct tape with little skulls (or, as I think of them, baby Yorricks), and hung them on the front of my locking metal cabinet with command strips.

(Just a sidenote about command strips.  My whole teaching universe would collapse, literally and physically, if it weren't for command.  Thank you, 3M people, for an awesome product.)

I am pretty pleased with the result.  The staff has moved right in, and I think we will be more organized.  Not bad for $10 and a few minutes spent playing with duct tape.....

Newspaper

This year, we are trying to resurrect our school newspaper.  Several years have passed since we had one, and a school our size really should offer our students the chance to be a part of a newspaper staff.  The original problem was a conflict with block schedule, but by the time that was gone, the teacher who had been our sponsor for years was ready to retire, so the program was never restarted.

I've been trying to find someone who would be interested in taking it on, but everyone declined, politely or otherwise.  This year, I decided that if nobody else would do it, I would try it myself.

Lord Jesus, what I've gotten myself into.....

I have no training for being a newspaper adviser other than my own high school journalism career.  I was editor of our paper my senior year, but those days are dim memories of the "been there, done that, bought the t-shirt (literally)" kind.

So I'm learning as I go.

It's been a long time since I had to seat-of-the-pants it like I'm doing with this.  I am constantly ordering books, looking up resources online, finding strategies, and asking for help.  I feel like my usual juggling act has had about five more balls added quite unexpectedly.  I worry about keeping them all in the air.

There's something a little exhilarating about it, too, though.  I am learning so much, and I enjoy few things as much as I do getting new knowledge that I can apply to the world around me.  As I've been learning about the style and structure of the various parts of news stories, I have become me aware of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways the sources I get my news from are using their genre and, in some cases, bending their genre to their own purposes.  I catch myself evaluating leads right now since that's one of the focuses my students have in their current article.

I also enjoy watching my students discover how much they are capable of.  One of the hardest things for me to do is sit down and let them do, but I know it's absolutely critical to get out of their way in a class like this.  Part of me, the Type-A part, itches to sit down and "just get things started" with the new SNOsites website we have.   That's not the right thing to do, though.  My job is to establish a framework and help them fill it in.

And they're doing such a fabulous job of it.  Every day when we meet, I am amazed by how focused they are, with how independent they are becoming in looking for information, doing interviews, using equipment, and finding solutions.  One of my reporters was complimented by my head principal for the insightfulness and thoroughness of the questions the reporter had asked during an interview.  I was so proud, not because it reflected anything to do with me, but because the student is discovering talents he wasn't even aware he had.  It's an amazing thing to be a part of.  I feel genuinely privileged.
I don't know that our publication will ever win awards.  I would like for us to reach a level of competency and enthusiasm that would make us produce work of quality.  I would like for us to be of use to our school and the surrounding community.  I'd like for us to recognize the full spectrum of activity at MHS.

Most of all, though, I want to keep watching this tiny little staff do wonderful things.  It much more than compensates for all the scrambling to gather materials and knowledge.

Three Cold Tater Tots

Today was one of the longest teaching days I've had in awhile.  In addition to my regular circus show at the high school, I also taught my first night class in some twelve years.  I'd forgotten how grueling they were.

Part of the problem is that I have been worrying about the class for two weeks now.  I even had nightmares last night in which I couldn't find the classroom, couldn't work the technology, had forgotten everything about literature I ever knew.  I have been fortifying myself with caffeine all day to remain functional, and my body is even now shaking because of how "done" it is with that strategy.

Nothing that one is stressed out over that much is ever going to go well, probably.

My first impression was how much I missed my little classroom.  I get so used to having everything I need at my fingertips, on a shelf, in a drawer, that being transplanted somewhere else was a huge adjustment.  Not since my days at Aichi University have I done the traveling bag-o-stuff teacher routine.  Even there, I was usually close to my office, so if I found myself in need of something, I could just run back.  Tonight, I felt a little like a castaway, just me and my little raft of supplies staying afloat.

And I think my raft had a bit of a leak.

Even though I had planned, I didn't have nearly enough to fill the long night class.  My pacing was all off.  We finished too early, and now I feel like I failed somehow.  The funny thing is, I'm sure the students were as happy as only a night class student let out early can be.  I'm surprised they didn't all grow wings and simply fly away in beatific joy.

I sat in the classroom after everyone was gone and worked on the plans for next week.  It won't happen again, folks.  Two teachers and a small army of assistants couldn't get all the way through what I've got set up for next Monday.

I turned out all the lights, shut down all the computers, and walked through the beginnings of a heavy rain to my car.  The drive home was an adventure due to road work which had erased all the stripes on two lanes of interstate and interspersed it all with cones and unexpected surface height shifts.   The rain that had been drizzling at the college came down enough to slow traffic to a crawl. When I finally got home, I was exhausted and discouraged.  I grabbed the Sonic bag that had held my ersatz dinner, and inside were three sad, cold tater tots.  I sat with the door open, rain spattering on the arm rest, and ate them one by one.

Next Monday won't be like this.  There won't be a lackluster lesson (we have THREE pieces of literature to look at next week spanning THREE separate literary movements, I-thank-you-very-much).  I won't have a cup of Sonic fried chicken as my main evening meal.  I will have a teacher kit that boggles the mind on hand.  There will be PowerPoints, handouts, guiding questions, and yes, maybe even drama.

But never again, Scarlett O'Hara hand clenched and God as my witness, will there be an empty classroom too early and three sad cold tater tots in the bag at the end of the day.

Press Passes

I made these today.  I am probably twelve times as excited about them as any of the students will be, but hey.  Take your joy where you find it, right?

34-second Tour

Today, a huge tree fell on a power line, and we wound up having to dismiss early since we had no electricity. While I was waiting for campus to clear, I shot this.  Maybe the lovely Punch Brothers music will keep you from having vertigo....

34-second tour of my classroom #flipagram made with @flipagram . http://flipagram.com/f/aSvKxsfeZ7

Shakespeare in Action

Yesterday, at long last, all the preliminaries were over.  The handbook was covered and tested.  The syllabi were out of the way.  The classroom procedures were established.  It was time for the activity I’d been waiting a month to try.

I gave the students a copy of the “Twelve Ages of Man” speech from Twelfth Night.  Just as the group of teachers had done in the summer academy, the class and I read it together chorally, and I asked them to make notes.

I have to admit being a little nervous about this approach.  It’s worlds different from the way I have traditionally addressed Shakespeare.  Instead of defining all the potentially-problematic words and presenting tons of scaffolding related to history or culture, I was letting the language stand on its own.  The students didn’t even know which character had said it. 

As I walked around, I was thoroughly pleased to see all the students busily marking up their passages, and their notes were insightful and on-track.  No one was fussing.  No one was throwing up hands in frustration.  At this point, I successfully managed to resist the urge to jump up and down in the back of the classroom and clap my hands in glee.  Dignity, people.  Always dignity…. (And if you’ve never seen Singin’ in the Rain, you might not get the full measure of meaning for that quote….)

We read it again with each student reading to a strong mark of punctuation, just as our teacher group had all done when we were reading Hamlet together in DC.  Since reading aloud is a key fear for most of my students, I watched carefully to see how they received it.  Nobody even hesitated, even my shy ones. 

Another round of annotation followed, this time with them being asked to break up the passage into meaning groups or big ideas.  When we talked about it as a class, they all knew that the main theme was the passage of time and the stages of life, and they’d all identified what they were.  I hadn’t helped them.  I hadn’t provided a single translation.  I hadn’t done the endless background PowerPoint of doom illustrating what a “pantaloon” was.  They still got it.

That’s when it hit me.  They.  Still. Got.  It.

Since we have only 50 minute periods, we were reaching the end of our time when I had each group “pick-a-stick” from a numbered collection of popsicle sticks I keep for these things, and whatever number they drew became their “age” to act out in a one-minute pantomime the following day.  I expected eye-rolling or hesitation, but without exception, every student began eagerly talking to his or her partner about what they could do, making lists of props, and looking around my room for things they could use.  As the bell rang, they bustled out full of energy and ideas, already practicing gestures.

Today, we did a final quick review with each person reading just one line before passing it on to the next reader.  Then they put their scenes together, and the creative interpretation of Shakespeare’s words flowed.  One group used a balled-up wad of paper and a quickly bundled hoodie to construct an infant who was then “fed” from a bottle of blue Powerade.  Another group had a black-jacketed death stalking a cane-wielding “old woman” and gently pulling her down.  A third had a group member turn herself into the scales of Justice who passed an owl figurine from my giant collection to another student who drew a beard and mustache on her own face in an action of total commitment to the role.  I have known for years that my students are capable of wonderful things when they do creative assignments, but with as little preparation time as they had, it struck me again how good they are at it and how much fun they had while doing it.

After the acting, I passed out my “fancy” new whiteboards and told each group to pick three of the ages and give pros and cons for each.  After they’d had time to confer, I used the Folger website to pull up the close-up images of the Seven Ages window that had fascinated me so during my time in the Reading Room and the students looked at the individual characters  and related their pros and cons for each as we examined it.  I concluded by asking them to come a consensus as a group about to which “age” seniors belong.  The answers were as diverse as the people.  Some saw themselves as soldiers fighting for fame and honor.  Some saw themselves as lovers.  One group said infants; just beside them, a group claimed to be justices, the pinnacle of knowledge. 

When the bell claimed them again, they headed out the door full of discussion about who was right, swapping evidence and justifications, and my little teacher heart was absolutely full.  Without more than a minimum of assistance - perhaps the defining of two words - they had gotten there all on their own and, most importantly to me, they had made a connection.  I’d seen the looks of dismay yesterday when Shakespeare’s name was mentioned.  All of that was gone as they left.  They’d had a good encounter with the Bard.  He’d been a source of laughter and relevance for them instead of some monolithic obstacle.

Even though I love to teach Shakespeare and look forward to it all year long, today he became something for “everyday use.”  I don’t have to keep him in a special box and bring him out only for fancy occasions or my mega-Hamlet unit.  I can have the joy of watching my students discover him in small doses.  Maybe he can become their solace, too, or at least less of an object of dread or discomfort.

How liberating for all of us.

The First Days

If you're wondering where the posts have been lately, I think this image sums it up.  The first few days of school are something else, full of procedure and change.  They tend to leave me feeling as though a speeding bus clipped me.  That being said, we had a really good opening of school this year.  Everything went very smoothly. We had Open House this afternoon, and that concludes the preliminaries.  

My classes look really good this year.  I'm especially excited about my newspaper staff.  It's a really tiny group, but they have already come up with so many good ideas.  Their enthusiasm is contagious.  I can't wait to see what our product looks like when we can get all the pieces in place.

Tomorrow will be the first day past the class meetings and the handbook review and the schedule changes.  I have been waiting patiently for it.  I'm going to try an activity from the Folger Summer Academy with my AP students.  Fingers crossed.....

Voices from the Past

This is my second year to do a beginning of the year bulletin board containing advice from my former students to my current ones.  I like the way it connects the past and the present.

Dollar Tree Is a Teacher's Best Friend

Today's Dollar Tree MVP item is the plastic party tablecloth.  A basic black one became the foundation for a pair of bulletin boards I had to get ready in a hurry, but I found they have exciting new patterned ones, too, which I scooped up for later use.

(What do you mean normal people are not excited by bulletin boards or tablecloths?  I don't understand you....)

What We Were....

A colleague brought this by.  She found it in a cabinet in her room.  Newspaper is my great mountain to climb this year.  I'm excited, but I know this year is going to be a seat-of-the-pants journey.  This gives me a goal to shoot for.  Someday, I hope we will have another one to put beside this.

The Way It Starts

I am mentoring a new English IV teacher this year, a true first-year, brand-new, just-out-of-the-box teacher.  As a part of that process, I have been trying to pass on things I've been given or learned over the years.  Some of these things are "hard copies," a copy of the text book, a sample syllabus, a few extra supplies, activities and resources that have worked for me in the past.  Some of these things are far more intangible, information that the copy room will be jammed from the crack of dawn to the time they run us out with sharp sticks tomorrow, the strange and mystical power of a shower curtain hung on Command hooks stuck to the front of a bookcase to hide mountains of chaos, the locations of the cafeteria, counselors, and mail room, the fact that our administrative secretary and our facilities manager are all-knowing and almighty magicians who keep our little universe upright and spinning.

This evening, after a quick tour of campus, I asked my fledgling if there were any other questions, and when I asked it, my own first year in K-12 suddenly loomed large in my mind.  There was so much that I didn't know that I was even unaware of my own spectacular ignorance.  

(And that's probably just as well.  Had I known how clueless I was, I probably would have run away as fast as the ancient Evil Jeep would have permitted.)

I was fortunate to have had two wonderful veteran teachers who took me under their wings and made sure I didn't just crawl into the space under my desk and hide there giggling hysterically.  I was doubly fortunate to have parents who were classroom teachers as well.  Even with all their assistance, learning took time.  I didn't know we had a photocopier on campus until nearly Christmas....  (Look.  It was a really, *really* hectic semester, okay?) 

As helpful as the veteran teachers I had access to were, there were so many things I had to figure out for myself.  Since I came to it alternate route from adult collegiate English as a Second Language instruction, I was caught more than a little flat-footed when I transitioned into a high school classroom quite literally two days before the opening of the school year.  Suddenly, I was surrounded by a sea of procedure with which I was totally unfamiliar, shorthand names for locations and people everyone assumed I knew, and enough new K-12 education acronyms and jargon to fill a dictionary. Vast quantities of my knowledge that first year had to come from trial and error.  I wonder how many afternoons I walked into one of my mentors' classrooms with a look of confusion on my face and a question on my lips.

Probably, it is this way for most of us.  Maybe there are teaching prodigies who walk in on the first day and know exactly how to handle every aspect of the profession with careless ease, but I have never met one.  Despite my best efforts, my mentee is going to have to puzzle out the things that work best for her by herself.  While I can expose her to ideas and to things I have found useful in my own practice, she will have to find what fits her teaching persona, her students and their needs.  All I can really do is try to smooth the way with the little things, offer resources and strategies, answer as many questions as she has whenever they arise, and keep telling her that "all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well" (even though sometimes it really doesn't feel that way during the week of homecoming.  Or state testing. Or just prior to a major holiday.  Or approaching the full moon....).

Rest assured, when we parted this afternoon, she knew exactly where the copier was.....

Positively

I came back from the Folger Summer Academy full of fire and ideas.  It was like a tent revival for English teachers, I guess, or an encounter with what Prometheus stole from the Olympian hearth.  I felt real enthusiasm for getting back in the classroom and for trying some new approaches to teaching works I've loved for a long time.

Then the first day of PD hit me.  

It wasn't bad, I suppose.  In fact, we had a really good keynote speaker this year, someone who was sensible, moving, and meaningful, someone without a sales agenda. He was genuinely inspirational. It also seemed like everyone from the mayor on down the line was trying very hard to keep the meeting stripped down to those essential bits we simply must have every year.  I guess I just don't do meetings well. I never have.  The seats in the auditorium, while new, simply weren't built for my height, and the longer I sit in them, the more pain I'm in.  

The list of procedural things I have to get through seems to be growing exponentially whenever I look at it.  As I looked at checklists, additional duties, new policies, and detailed descriptions, I felt a definite snag in the flight of my joy for the new year. Due to a lack of sleep last night, stress today, and an overloud PA system, I wound up with the inevitable headache.  

Our last meeting came to a close, I tottered up the stairs to my classroom, took a big migraine pill, and laminated some stuff while waiting for its lingering fuzziness to abate before trying to get myself from school to home. When I finally got settled in my comfortable chair with a bowl of mini ravioli (don't judge, yo), an episode of the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice mini-series on Amazon Prime streaming, and my sweet cat Dillon curled around my neck on the back of the recliner, my thoughts cleared and I developed a new resolution.  This year *is* going to be a good one.  All the little bits of busywork that surround education in the modern age aren't going to destroy the desire I replenished this summer to help my students dive into literature and writing and discover.  

I keep thinking about what Dr. Sandy Mack said about the humanities during our session with him at the Folger:  "Science teaches us how the world works; the humanities teach us how to be human."  That task, that effort, is too important to let these little speed bumps discourage me from its pursuit.  Thursday, the students are going to arrive, and all the things I'm so excited about sharing with them are going to be in my hands like so many jewels.  I'm not going to let the other stuff keep me from being happy about sharing those riches and watching the students learn just how beautiful they really are.  I love my profession; I love the place in which I practice it; I love the students who go on these annual journeys with me.  Everything else is unimportant.

With that in mind, tomorrow, I'm sitting down front where my knees don't have to be compressed by the seatbacks of a row ahead of me; I'm packing a snack, a diet Mountain Dew, and a migraine pill in case of emergency or feeling like poo; I'm putting some origami paper in my notebook to keep my hands busy, and I'm going to get back on track for a joyous opening of school.

Shakespeare Is Ready

This bust of Shakespeare was given to me by a wonderfully sweet class many years ago.  It is one of my most prized possessions, one of those things I'd grab if I had to run out of building in case of disaster or fire.  I dress him up seasonally.  Right now, he's wearing the hat I bought at the Folger Shakespeare Library this summer and my Reader badge from my time there during the Summer Academy.  In the words of Muddy Waters, Shakespeare is as "ready as anybody can be."

A New Year Begins

Several people have told me I need to keep a blog about teaching.  This is my humble attempt at writing on the topic.  I haven't been very faithful to blogging for awhile, but since this is the beginning of a new school year, it strikes me now would also be a good time to start this new form of reflection about my practice.

What you can expect from this blog:

1)  Random snippets of my day
2)  Ideas and activities that have worked for me
3)  Ideas and activities from which the wheels came off completely
4)  Resources I've found
5)  Pictures of stuff in my classroom
6)  Whatever else seems to fit or is shiny enough to catch my attention at the time.

We'll see how it goes, people.  We'll just see how it goes.