December 13, 2018 / wanderinglightning / 0 Comments
Terms: (n) words or phrases used to describe something or to express a concept, especially in a particular language or branch of study; expressions, idioms, names, titles, labels, designations, appellations, monikers, descriptors
(n) fixed or limited periods for which something lasts or is intended to last; time, stint, spell, duration, run
(n) periods in the year, alternating with holidays or vacations, during which instruction is given in a school, college, or university, or during which a court holds sessions; semester
(n) stipulated conditions or requirements under which an action may be taken or agreement reached, as, “come to terms”
All I had to say was, “Remember when we didn’t do our words?” The first graders, still drunk on fresh air and playground mayhem, would sober up instantly. That memory would live forever in six-year-old infamy.
On that day of reckoning, they had arrived spoiling for a fight. When I collected them for Lab, I always picked them up on the playground, sometimes literally, like when Espe was chasing a boy through the climbing towers and launched herself from the final platform, crashing into me as she tried to land and turn simultaneously.
They squirmed and spun and jumped down the hall. Maybe they were late getting out to recess. That happened frequently. Or maybe this day, discord waited, inevitable; maybe the unseen stars burned in their galaxies, poorly aligned.
“I don’t want…to do…words,” Espe slowly intoned, stretching disinterestedly in her chair.
“Yeah! Can’t we just read now?” Angus asked plaintively.
“Yes, yes,” Sunny nodded eagerly.
How to read without words. I typically reviewed a few terms in their next book before handing it to them. New vocabulary can be tricky, and downright frustrating – so frustrating that some kids will just throw the book down in defeat. The program’s vocab support step was supposed to ease that aggravation.
“You want to read first, or do words first?”
“READ!” all three voices chimed.
“All right – here you go….” I passed out the tiny picture books with one line of repetitive text per page.
Then I sat back and watched.
They immediately flipped the covers open and dug in. Dug in hard. Lips didn’t just move – words were whispered, harshly, becoming louder as they tried to talk through each unexpected road block. It reminded me of people talking loudly to new English speakers, as if volume were the obstacle.
The boggy ground under our tiny Battle of See-Bull-Run was littered with discarded words. All three digressed into swampy territory until, mired and exasperated, they began calling for help.
“What’s THAT word?”
“I don’t know this one….”
“Ms. Barbara, I can’t read it!”
I helped them laboriously sound out words and fed them the beginnings of answers. Reading took twice as long as usual, and their brains were more than twice as muddy from the relentless effort. We didn’t have any time to write or color. They’d been routed from the field, and I dropped them off to their classroom exhausted.
We forget how much work children do each day at school, how much of life they have not yet experienced and for which they have no words. My grandma, home on the farm, saw her own children’s curiosity and tenacity tested and strengthened daily. She wrote sweet poetry about her days with them, noticing their engagement with the world.
“Mother, won’t you come and see?”
Says the toddler with much glee
As he tugs at my finger and I go along,
Wondering at his hurry. What could be wrong?
Then he drops to his knees at the edge of the grass
And watches with rapture as a worm crawls past.
— from “Mother Won’t You Come and See,” Florence Jensen, 1979
How much these first graders would have preferred to learn from watching that worm’s battle through long grass, instead of hacking through their underbrush of unknown vocabulary.
The next day, I’d held one copy of that same book in front of them. They all moaned.
“Yesterday, I was planning to tell you some of the tricky words in this book, before you started reading. Who can tell me: why do we look at the words before we start?”
Hands shot into the air.
“Sunny.”
“So we will know how to say them.”
“Yes. And? Espe.”
“So we can read our book easier.”
“Perfect.” I looked to my left. “Angus?”
Angus scowled. “I can’t read it.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. “I can’t read.”
“You got stuck on that one word, over and over, didn’t you,” I clarified, nodding.
“It’s not fair! I don’t know that word!”
I looked at him, waited a beat, and smiled broadly. “Exactly right, Angus!”
His surprised face followed me as I turned to the other two. “You’re all right.” I held up the offending book again. “Yesterday, I was going to show you that this word – “ and I opened the book and pointed – “is ‘smooth.’ And this one – “ I turned the page – “is ‘rough.’
“And this one, Angus,” and here I turned the open book to him, so he could face his nemesis. “This is the one that wasn’t fair, huh. This one.” I tapped the horrid word. He nodded miserably. Then I showed it to the girls.
“Jill.” We all nodded solemnly together.
“A person’s name, Jill. And you’re right, Angus – you’ve never seen that name before, have you? So you wouldn’t know that word.”
I sat up taller, showing them how we steel our resolve toward mastery over all the Jills of this world. “So – since that’s not fair,” and I made sure I had eye contact with each one, “THAT’S why I show you the tricky words each day. To make it fair.”
I held up yesterday’s book. “Should I put this one away now?”
“YES!” They hated Jill for how she’d made them feel and never wanted to see her again. I unceremoniously dropped it into a book bin.
“So today, I have a new book: A Surprise. I wonder what the surprise could be? Before you start, let’s look at some of the words you will read.”
Negotiating at our tiny treaty table, three little heads bobbed and nodded, leaning forward, ready for their vocabulary review.
December 8, 2018 / wanderinglightning / 0 Comments
Gladiator: (n) in ancient Rome, a man trained to fight with weapons against other men or wild animals in an arena
Violet nibbled her goldfish crackers with long, slender fingers, trying to follow along in her book, while Javier periodically whacked Alejandro on the head. Supposedly friends, Javier struggled to allow Alejandro to read to the group, drumming on the table, drumming on Alejandro’s arm, and talking over his reading.
“Javier.” I’d tried tapping his book to divert his attention. I’d tried shaking my head, putting a finger to my lips, redirecting attention toward Alejandro, giving looks. I’d asked him to “make a different choice,” which he had ignored.
“Hands – to – yourself.”
He only escalated. He talked louder. Then he began singing – until, confused, Alejandro stopped reading, looking up at Javier dancing and singing in our tiny cubicle and wanting to smile and join in…but he wasn’t feeling it.
“Javier – if you can’t be respectful in Lab, I’ll have to talk with your teacher about whether or not you can be here with us.”
He ignored me. Alejandro looked back and forth between us, holding his open book with both hands.
“Javier, I need you to stop, or we’re done.”
Zero response.
“Okay – we’re done. Pack up, guys.”
“What? Lab is done?” Violet was incredulous.
“I can’t teach this way. Let’s go.” I stood up, waiting for them to join me. “Alejandro, I’m sorry, I wanted to hear you read. Next time.”
After reassurance, Violet hurried off to her playground mediation job with the younger kids at recess. Javier had bolted back to class, so I walked slowly with Alejandro. “You just keep focusing on what you need to do, for yourself, for your own reading. You’re doing great; keep it up.”
He looked up at me long enough to ask his deepest concern: “Will we still get stickers?”
“Of course. You remind me. We’ll put them on your treasure maps tomorrow.”
Stickers. I’d heard Alejandro liked to act the bruiser himself, posturing at lunch and recess, talking tough. I hadn’t seen it yet, and hoped he would decide to be his own man and not just follow bad behavior down a long, dark tunnel. I doubted I could bandaid this child’s fragile self-esteem with stickers for long.
Oh, Javier. How to discipline a child who refuses to recognize any authority? How to connect with a child who pretends he doesn’t care about anything?
At lunch duty, I meandered through the lunchroom nodding at kids who wanted to go get their milk, or a drink of water, or just go to the bathroom. But in my mind’s eye, I was looking in a mirror, back 45 years, to a kid who scoffed at adults in “authority” – because what had authority ever done for me? It hadn’t kept me safe, hadn’t heard my cries for help, and hadn’t been remotely smart enough to pick up what I was laying down as clearly as a kid can and still survive the horrible experiences that some kids go through.
I thought about Javier’s Lab dance, superimposing him into the movie “Gladiator” and hearing him as Russell Crowe’s character Maximus bellowing, “Are you not ENTERTAINED?!”
The lunchroom floor was sticky with trails and splashes of red juice from canned strawberries.
I let myself imagine the Roman Coliseum, the roaring, incoherent crowd, the dirt arena fouled with all manner of body fluids and gore, the hot sun beating down on fighters soaked in sweat and blood and fear – and rage.
I walked over to a little girl with her hand raised who asked if she could clean up and put away her tray now. I didn’t know her name. So many of them were still anonymous to me. I let myself remember being an unheard child. I had felt unknown. I pushed my memory to rekindle the horror and fury of hopelessness, a fury that fueled unnatural strength and fearlessness. I didn’t care what anyone said to me, did to me. I raged like a fire, and burned everyone around me. I didn’t care if I burned your world to the ground.
For the first lunch, I had devised a plan with the other para’s – divide and conquer. Three teachers’ classes, second and third graders, all ate together, piling onto the tables not taken by the ECE preschoolers. The chaotic scene was only somewhat improved since Miranda’s last lunch duty. I had talked each of the para’s into taking a class, once finished with lunch, herding them to a different corner of the lunchroom to line up and wait for their teacher.
I could see the para’s struggling to maintain focus on dividing the kids into manageable groups. Other children called for attention, whether by throwing food at each other or pushing each other or wanting to read a joke to them from the side of their small milk carton. Yet each week, a faint but strengthening core of ordered expectation was growing as the kids started to remember our new drill.
I stationed myself near the doors, calling out the class names and directing traffic toward the corners with my extended arms. “Ms. Rachel’s class,” I motioned, “Ms. Holly’s class,” the other side, “and Ms. Lauren’s class.” The final corner. “Ms, Rachel’s class, Ms. Holly’s class, and Ms. Lauren’s class.” Over and over, I moved slowly like a windmill, slowly grinding the rebellion out of the room as we split their ranks and gained control. Then one by one, the teachers appeared and led their classes from the food fight arena.
We like the kids with spunk. Spunk is rebellion made palatable to the masses. We enjoy their sweet-edged naughtiness, their self-limited pushback, the way they’re ultimately seeking a balance between autonomy and approval. We like them in the school arena because we know that these little gladiators are going to ultimately fall when pressed with the swordpoint of authority. Spunky kids are easy, pleasers in pretend armor who help us believe we aren’t destroying their spirits by teaching them to behave.
“Get in line,” I heard myself saying with no small degree of disbelief at the end of second lunch. “If you can get in line, I can dismiss you for recess.” If you will just fall into line, I can allow you to go release your frustrations and pent-up energy. But only for a very limited amount of time. And only in school-sanctioned forms of play. Which you need to accept without giving any of us any attitude.
Javier was ready to read at the end of the day when I stopped by his classroom. We walked down the hall together.
“We need to talk for a minute about how Lab went today. I want to understand how you were feeling, what you were thinking.” I looked at him and just waited.
“I didn’t want to read that easy book.”
“Yes, I got that.” I looked at him a second. “What were you feeling?”
Javier concentrated hard on this one, before saying very openly, “I don’t know. I didn’t want to read the book, but…I don’t know what I was feeling.”
Just then, a girl he knew saw us heading toward the Lab. “Javier, do you go to Literacy Lab?” she scoffed.
“No!”
“Yes you do! You go to Literacy Fellows!”
“No I don’t!”
We sat in our cozy seats for our reading time. Javier shook his hair back, as if trying to settle his mind.
“Do you think,” I asked tentatively, “that you might have been feeling…embarrassed?”
“I don’t know, maybe.” He looked around. A couple kids I didn’t recognize walked by in the hall. “No, I wasn’t embarrassed. I wasn’t anything.”
“That’s fair.” He flapped his book back and forth against the chair. “Javier, have you ever heard the term, ‘pick your battles’?”
And so at the end of the day, we talked about what you would fight and die for, and what you really would not, and how to start recognizing the difference. That there is a difference. That you don’t have to come out like a gladiator, fighting to the death, every time.
And then we read “I Survived Pompeii,” totally relaxed, reading about impending disaster side by side in our cozy reading chairs.
December 7, 2018 / wanderinglightning / 0 Comments
Collaborate: (v) the act of working together with someone to produce or create something,
band (together), concert, concur, conjoin, conspire, join, league, team (up), unite
(v) traitorously cooperate with an enemy
Harrison was in a great mood as we approached Thanksgiving break. As his group colored their drawing pages, he announced, “I’m going to be…uh,” and then a wide grin, “the first person to WANT! to go INTO A BLACK HOLE!”
Marker poised at the white board, I clarified, “So you want to be an astronaut?”
“No; a teacher.”
BA-DUM-CHING! You could almost hear the vaudevillian drum and cymbal. Speaking truth, Harrison, I thought.
“My first day of teaching, I will have long hair, and I’m going to wear a dress.” When Harrison made his most provocative comments, he switched from roaring like a crowd of one into a voice of utmost affectation, best spoken wearing an ascot and a velvet dinner jacket. Or long hair and a dress.
“Cool,” I added. Teacher, I wrote on the board.
“I know how to spell it.”
“I’m gonna have a flower shop. And I’m gonna wear a flowered shirt, and my nametag will be shaped like a flower, and it will have my name, Poppy, right on it – because my name’s a flower!” Poppy had it all figured out. She was busy drawing the details of her life.
“How did you get a name Poppy? For being a flower-seller? Is that a Mexican name?” Hailey asked, genuinely amazed that her lab pal had a name that bespoke destiny.
“I’mpuertorican,” said Poppy, as fast as a human tongue can rattle off its proud credentials. She bore Hailey no irritation or ill-will at what must have been continual correction of others’ assumptions.
“Is that by Costa Rica?” Hailey asked.
“Not really,” Poppy said, reaching for her next colored pencil.
I had made them coloring pages for this last day before the holiday. “I Can Be A _____” followed by the deliberate intention, “when I go to COLLEGE!” They had three drawing boxes: yourself now, yourself as an adult doing what you want for a career, and then an image of what you think college will look like.
This project wasn’t fully my idea. The tutoring program was quite a Fellowship of the College Ring. We were charged with promoting the idea and expectation that these students would go on to college. My job was to normalize that forward course.
The pragmatist in me knew the kids needed college if they wanted to ever leave financial desperation behind. And I knew they wouldn’t all make it.
I also knew that most American colleges offered a standard bullet list of unsurprising core curriculum designed to offer a general educational foundation – what we used to call “high school.” They’d get maybe a year’s worth of specialized courses specific to their chosen major. If they actually wanted an education, they had to shoot for that elusive fit of interest and program and school and financial aid and location and personal support – the Holy Grail of Higher Ed. I felt like a fraud, a liar, and a traitor.
When my own kids graduated from college, each hit a wall. The adrenaline rush of four years was over, the campus living was over, and after the parties came the looming, depressingly rhetorical question: that’s it?
They’d expected more. Because I’d lied to them.
I told them college was their ticket to a better life, better than the scrimping working-class poverty in which I’d raised them. I told them college would be better than high school, that they’d get to study what they actually cared about, that their education would finally be personal to their dreams and life goals. I told them it would all be worth it.
That isn’t exactly what happened.
At the expensive private college on the East Coast, my daughter was harassed by a professor who thought she was some little rich girl sleeping off a night of partying when she fell asleep in class after working her two jobs the night before. At the small state college back home, her sister struggled with her hostile major professor enough to question her choices and dread each semester. My son cycled through three different universities, looking for anyone who might actually care that he attended, that a significant other had attempted suicide before either of them was 20, that he was paying his own way and working hard and just needed someone to walk him through getting an extension on a project due to being completely freaked out and overwhelmed by that experience.
These were honor students in high school. My daughters earned merit scholarships. It should have been so easy for them all, considering they were all labeled “gifted and talented.”
So had I. I had been all those things. And it didn’t stop me from dropping out in the middle of my first semester of college, full-ride scholarship be damned. No one cared when I pulled out of the University Honors Program and my double majors. No one cared when I let go of all that scholarship money. No one questioned me or counseled me or slowed me as I broke and ran.
No one cared.
I’ve wondered if maybe someone at a smaller school, or a private school, might have cared. But my daughters’ experiences make me doubt that. My son’s experience makes me pretty sure.
If you’re smart and say what you think, especially when you disagree or want something better, you risk alienating people in power. If you are personally overwhelmed in college, you’re seen as unstable instead of being seen for what you really are: young.
All of our educational woes were due to being young. Why be part of the American educational system if you do not have understanding for or compassion for or any interest in supporting and encouraging young people? Thousands of jobs exist that pay better and need smart, cynical people to make hard-edged decisions. Please – go get one. Because our children and budding adults deserve so much more than cold comfort. I deserved better than that. My children did, too.
And now, this generation of sweet grade schoolers were supposed to be looking to college as the answer. “When I go to college, I want to be a…animal saver! What’s that word?” Hailey asked.
“A veterinarian? An animal doctor? Or do you want to save them like save endangered species?”
“Like save endangered species…do they go save rhinos and monkeys?”
“Yeah, so that would be a wildlife biologist…a zoologist….” Hailey gave me an awesome squinty face of absolute disapproval. “No?”
“No, not those.”
“Do you just want me to spell ‘animal saver’?”
“Yeah!”
So Hailey wrote, “I want to be a animal saver when I go to college.” You tell ‘em, Hailey.
________________________
Before we left for the holiday, the staff had professional development training about how to use a certain online curriculum, plus a discussion about how to refer kids for additional support services in hopes of staving off a referral to special ed. The Literacy Fellows were instructed to attend the referral portion, which meant we sat in on the ice breakers and team-building activities.
“Does anybody have a Shout Out?” the administrator asked. Teachers offered praise and appreciation to the pera’s and to teammates who had been particularly helpful. We Fellows applauded along with the rest, even though we didn’t really know most of the staff being named.
Then Commanding Teacher spoke up. “I’d like to recognize Ms. Barbara for ‘Collaboration.’ I have a student with some trust issues, and even before she began taking literacy groups, she started building a relationship with that student. It’s been working.”
Everyone applauded as the administrator brought me a long thin red pin for my ID lanyard. I didn’t know what to say, shocked that my efforts had even mattered, let alone been noticed, or, unbelievably, valued. I attached the pin and looked down: “COLLABORATION.”
A few minutes later, as I grabbed a drink from the snack table, two other teachers who sent kids to me for Lab waved me over. “We were just saying – you’re doing such a great job with our students.”
“Yeah – we’re so glad you’re here.”
It all felt so strange. I did not expect to be included. I did not expect to be welcomed into the camaraderie of those brothers and sisters in arms. Walking past watercolor turkeys on brown paper lining the halls, I felt thankful for the unexpected opportunity that had come my way, to step back into the educational system that I had railed against my entire life. I admitted to myself that I was thankful my children went to college; they’d never been unable to get a job. In fact, the East Coaster got that editorial gig in publishing, just like she’d hoped. The mountain college daughter is getting a second bachelor’s now, heading into medicine. And the son who reeled from college to college – he’s the one going to law school.
The thing about college is not just the college degree – it’s crossing that threshold. It may be a lackluster, mediocre educational system; but now by god it’s your lackluster, mediocre educational system. It’s yours to return to any time you’d like, because now you have access. That’s how you actually work the system. You learn the system.
And like we were taught in our middling, unremarkable, undistinguished American public schools, once you learn the system – work the problem.
December 6, 2018 / wanderinglightning / 0 Comments
Joey: (n) a young kangaroo or other marsupial; a baby or young child
“What’s that for?” asked Angus, a freckled first-grader with a shock of strawberry blond hair cut into a fade-hawk, meaning he sported military sidewalls and a thick central mane of untameable thatch. Stripes had been shaved in above his temples.
“That’s Joey,” I answered, reaching for the pumpkin-orange stuffed animal perched on the low filing cabinet in the corner of my cubicle. “He’s a kangaroo, from Australia. He came all that way to be our Lab buddy.”
“Can I hold him?” Angus asked tentatively.
“Sure,” I said, handing him the toy kangaroo. Angus gave Joey a gentle hug, his eyes filling with worry.
“Sometimes, I get mad…and I hurt people,” Angus confessed quietly.
I gave him a sympathetic expression, saying nothing.
Sunny added, “Angus sometimes needs his book.” She nodded knowledgeably.
Esperanza chimed in, her low, monotone voice like an upbeat Eeyore perfectly pitched to explain, “It helps him calm down.” Angus looked appreciatively at his classmates.
“Just like Joey,” I said, smiling at Angus. “He sits here, by our ‘Better Choices’ compass. Do you remember what we will use that for?”
Angus shook his head slowly. “Nuh-uh.”
“If you are having a wiggly day, or a mad day, I might ask you to make a better choice, like write your words, or sit straight and strong. And Joey – “ I touched the top of the kangaroo’s head – “can help you make your choice.”
“Can we just hold him sometimes?” Espe asked.
“Of course. Joey likes hugs.”
“Can I hold him?” Sunny asked. Angus handed over the toy. Sunny gave him a squeeze.
“Can I hold Joey?” Espe asked. Sunny handed him to Espe. She smiled at him, cradling him on her lap and holding his soft paws in her fingers. Then she handed him back to Angus, who stood and carried him to the filing cabinet and set him on top.
I had been inspired by a teacher from my own children’s grade school days. In her room, she had a cuddle couch filled with stuffed animals and soft pillows. “Because some days are hard,” she had explained. This forgiving space existed in the Gifted and Talented class’s room. The teacher had been well-versed in the needs of “gifted” students, including comfort for an emotional immaturity that often lagged well behind their intellectual maturity.
It seemed to me that many children carried emotional burdens far too mature for their age. All kids want to do is fit in, be one of the pack. But that’s harder for some than for others.
My heart has always held a special place for the outsiders. Oddballs. Misfits. Angus was certainly one of these. Wherever his anger came from, gifts or curses, I, too, knew that big feeling in such a small body; it was scary, overwhelming.
“If you have a hard day, and I ask you to make a better choice, are you in trouble?” I asked the group now. Angus looked at his classmates, who immediately answered, “Nooo,” so he joined in.
“Right. We have our compass to help you make a new choice. And we have Joey.” I smiled at them. “And I’ll help you, too.”
Suddenly, Angus leaped to his feet and burst out, “You’re the nicest teacher I ever had! Can I give you a hug?!”
I opened my arms, and immediately my tiny doppelganger with his terrible haircut was holding on for dear life, clutching me around the waist and burying his small head under my ribs. I felt him in my gut, the hug and his feelings. As I looked down, he looked up. “Thanks,” he smiled. Then he sat down in his chair, and we had our lesson.
Next came the fourth and fifth graders. I predicted Violet, Alejandro, and Javier might roll their eyes and ask why we had a baby toy in our space.
“Oh, what’s that?” Violet asked, delighted.
“It’s like a stuffed rabbit,” Alejandro explained.
“That’s not a rabbit – it’s a kangaroo,” Javier corrected.
“Exactly right, Javier,” I said. “His name is Joey.”
“Can I hold Jonny?” Violet asked.
“Joey,” Alejandro and Javier both said.
“Can I hold him?”
I handed the toy to Violet, who seemed quite pleased with the little orange kangaroo. She hugged him with genuine affection and patted his paws together, then handed him back to me as we prepared to start our lesson.
“Where’d he come from?” Javier asked.
“Australia,” I answered.
He rolled his head in feigned exasperation. “No, really?”
“Sometimes, it can be frustrating to work so hard on reading and writing. It’s not always easy….”
“I think it’s easy,” said Javier.
“I think it’s easy,” said Alejandro, mimicking Javier’s exact tone.
Violet didn’t say anything.
“So – if you start to feel sad, or frustrated, or you need to make a better choice while you’re here,” I looked around at them all, “then you can hug Joey if you want. It makes some people feel better.”
We started our reading lesson. Alejandro, who read well below Javier’s level, copied Javier’s hurried whisper and quick page turns. He looked over at Javier constantly, as if they were in a competition. But at some point, he forgot to compete, and started reading the text by mistake. He turned pages more and more slowly. He continued reading after Javier had finished and was pestering Violet, who read even slower.
“Respect,” I admonished Javier. “Let people read at their own pace.”
Alejandro looked their way briefly, then looked toward the corner, and finally at me. “Can I hold Joey?” he asked softly. I nodded. In a couple quick steps he had retrieved the stuffed kangaroo and was back in his seat, finishing his book, holding Joey gently in the crook of one arm.
After the big kids and after lunch duty and after I ate at least part of my lunch, it was time for group with the kindergarteners. With “bubbles and hugs,” meaning bulging cheeks and arms wrapped across their chests in their no-talking-no-touching hall-walking behavior, they arrived into the lab – and then burst into squeals of delight.
“What is that?”
“Can I hold it?”
“I want to hold it!”
“What’s its name?”
“Sit for story time,” I motioned to the tiny excited faces. I pulled the kangaroo from its perch on the filing cabinet. “This is Joey,” and I held Joey out so they could touch him. “He’s a baby kangaroo. He is our new Lab buddy.”
“Hi, Joey!” squeaked Marisol. “He’s smy-wing at us!”
“Hi, Joey!” called out the other three.
“Is Joey really a kangaroo?”
“Really a toy kangaroo for us to be friends with.”
A slower, more thoughtful voice asked, “Can I hug Joey?”
“Yes you may,” I said, handing the stuffed toy to Micah. Micah was the slow talker in our group, but would also take his time figuring out each word in his beginner reader books. He held Joey gently and carefully.
“He’s soft,” he told us quietly, with the beginning of a smile.
“Can I hold Joey, Micah?” Micah handed the kangaroo to Katherine. She hugged the toy tightly and grinned. “He IS soft!”
“Can I hode Joey, Kaffwin?” Katherine handed the kangaroo to tiny Marisol. “Hi, Joey! You my fwend, Joey. I wuv you, Joey.” She hugged him again.
Now it was Brandi’s turn. Brandi was the tallest kindergartener. Originally, I had wondered if she was a year older, but she was not, even though her voice was deeper, her sneer was practiced, and she corrected me when I complimented her on her fancy denim vest with torn-off sleeves: “It’s not a vest, it’s a jean jacket.” Brandi was the toughest chick in kindergarten.
I watched her watch Marisol cuddling Joey. I saw her hands start to move from her lap up to the top of the table. Finally, she couldn’t keep her cool facade any longer.
“Can I hold Joey, Marisol?” She shot me a glance, but I just half-smiled nonchalantly, communicating hey, no big deal, everyone else asked for the kangaroo, whataya gonna do, eh Brandi?
Brandi held the kangaroo close. She hugged him to her heart. She held him quietly for a long time, while the others got out crayons and coloring pages and chattered and giggled and told stories. Then she whispered to the top of his furry head, “I love you Joey.”
December 5, 2018 / wanderinglightning / 0 Comments
Survive: (v) continue to live or exist, especially in spite of danger or hardship; pull through, get through, hold out, hold on, make it, keep it together, remain, endure, persevere, abide, carry on, persist, be extant or undestroyed
Some kids seem to rebel just for the sake of rebellion; but in my experience, that’s never true. Not my nascent teaching experience – my life experience. It will be the same kids, over and over. They’re trying to tell you something. There are no rebels without a cause.
When we made our passports, all the groups dug in deep, especially the older students. They talked about their drawings, and their dreams. Into such tiny boxes on a skinny strip of paper went so much detail.
“Let’s clean up to go back to class,” I announced, looking at the clock. Violet and Alejandro dropped pencils into the plastic bin, tucking their writing books into the group box on the shelf.
Javier wasn’t having it. He continued to color the background of his passport drawing.
“Javier, time to go. You can work on it again tomorrow.” Javier completely ignored me, seemingly oblivious to all but the colored pencil’s rapid rhythm in his hand. Violet and Alejandro waited at the door.
“Javier, people are waiting on you.”
His frustration exceeded the situation, “AAHH!” he growled suddenly, fiercely pushing back from the table, colored pencils rolling over the edge and onto the floor. He stalked to the line at the doorway, wadding up his passport and dropping it into the trash.
I walked them back to class. Javier jumped and spun in the hall, pretending to shoot baskets, providing color commentary to his imaginary game. Violet and Alejandro alternated telling me anecdotes.
At the intersection of hallways, a small boy spotted Javier with a big grin. Javier stopped his game and immediately hugged the child, a boy I knew as a bit of a wild man in the lunchroom. “He’s my little cousin, Prince.” Prince was black. I wondered if Javier was testing me, to see if I was such a racist white person I couldn’t tell the difference between Black and Hispanic. I Iet that thought go; families come in all colors and combinations, and that may well include Javier and Prince. The word “cousin” also means many things to many people, not least of which is “close as family.”
When we met up at the end of the day for one-on-one reading, Javier showed me the “I Survived” book he had brought. “I Survived” is a series of chapter books that are just about right for his actual reading level, not the low level shown on his records from his last tests. He blew off those tests, according to his teacher. Those low test scores had dropped him into a category that flagged his move into middle school next year. Those low test scores had earned him a seat in Literacy Lab.
“‘I Survived the Attacks of September 11, 2001.’ I remember that day.” I looked at the cover of his book, a softly painted image of a kid looking up a New York street at the iconic scene, two tall towers billowing smoke in the moments before they came crashing to the ground.
“Were you there?” he asked incredulously.
“Not in New York. Not that day. But I’ve been to New York since. Where those two big buildings stood, now there are two massive holes in the ground.” Javier looked at the cover of his book a moment. “Most grown-ups remember that day, though. They made the holes into a memorial, so we’ll always remember.”
Javier pulled up two chairs in the comfy reading area, a cushioned teacher’s chair for me, a tall stool for himself, and read part of the story of the Twin Towers attack, about a boy and his firefighter father and all the friends from the fire station they lost that day. I alternated between watching the words on the page and sneaking peeks at him, his face, his expression as he read. Serious. He was taking this story very seriously. He understood what he was reading.
Javier read until the bell rang for the end of school. He continued until he finished the page, where the boy asked his father, “Where’s the building?” And his father, seeing the unusual ash falling from the sky, answered, “It’s here, all around us.”
I hadn’t said anything about his behavior in group, about not following directions or his outburst or throwing away his passport. I hadn’t mentioned his hallway antics, either. We were just getting to know each other. Here was a smart kid applying himself sporadically, to art but not to writing, to sports but not to tests. I wondered what motivated his choices, and what might harness his energy. The books he had in his classroom book bin included several “I Survived” stories. Why did a book need to include a traumatic escape from disaster to appeal to this child?
When Javier’s group returned to Lab the next day, I announced time to finish our passports, as promised, before we moved on. Violet and Alejandro got their folders and pulled out their passports; Violet carried the colored pencils to the table. “Javier,” I directed, handing him his folder.
“I don’t…,” he began. I shook his folder slightly at him. He sighed and took his folder grudgingly, plopping down into a chair and opening it.
“What the…what?” he stammered. “But I threw it away!”
There was his passport, rescued from destruction. He’d dropped it into the recycle bin, not the sticky trash can; I wondered how lucky a toss that had been, or if just possibly it might have been a good shot, instead. A cry for help, we call that in social work.
He looked at me with soft, open eyes. “Thanks.” I got to see his genuine appreciation. I got to see him, Javier, the kid, for just one fleeting moment.
“Welcome,” I smiled.
Two deep wells, those eyes. At the 9/11 memorial site, the empty foundations of the towers each have a smooth, low, stone wall surrounding them. A metal overlay across the top of the wall, back-lit, has cutouts that resemble the windows of tall buildings. But those oddly shaped, imperfect windows are actually the names of the people who died. Each one shines, a window of light into the darkness. Behind this image of what once was, inside the entombed craters, water pours down flat walls, down to a smooth pool, and a sizable hole left open in the middle. Into this hole the waters pour, nonstop, the eternal weeping of tears that can never bring back the lives in the windows, the light in all those eyes.
People often go unseen, just stereotypes and behavior issues to which we turn a blind eye. Maybe we don’t want to see, don’t want to watch the slow-motion trainwreck before us. It can look a lot like a plane intentionally flown into a building, and we just cannot understand what would drive someone to destroy themselves and anyone they can take down with them.
But that’s not the moment on which to focus. Look for the days and weeks and months and years and generations leading up to that moment. Just pick a moment, any earlier moment, and see if you can see any small light shining from those oddly shaped windows. Or you can walk on down the street, trying to decipher the unusual ash slowly drifting down from the sky, breathing into your lungs the disaster of lives lost. It’s here, all around us.
December 1, 2018 / wanderinglightning / 0 Comments
Vision: (n) the faculty of being able to see; eyesight, sight, observation, view, perspective
(n) an experience of seeing someone or something in a dream or trance, or as a supernatural apparition; hallucination, illusion, mirage
(v) imagine
“My dad came from Mexico.”
“My dad too.”
“When he married my mom, then he didn’t have to go back to Mexico any more. He got to stay.”
“One time I visited my relatives in Mexico; they were nice.”
When we made our passports, we began telling origin stories, where we come from. I had originally envisioned our craft project as symbolic of a Passport to College and New Ideas. But like many passports, it had become an interwoven tale of where we come from and where we wanted to go. I had cleverly torn blue carnival tickets from a roll and stapled them to their passports under the catch-phrase, “Reading Is My Ticket,” as in, ticket to learning, ticket to upward mobility. I hadn’t thought through my own role very well, however.
Even with my slick sales pitch for the Literacy Lab, it was evident to the kids themselves that they had a lot of hard work ahead of them if reading was going to be their ticket to anything beyond a driver’s license and an entry-level job. Most of them knew their test scores, their defined reading levels. The price of their ticket was already fairly steep.
Sometimes I become so enthralled with my own vision that I forget to take a clear-eyed look around. When I get into that state of mind, I think I must appear quite near-sighted to people around me. A bit dreamy. Unrealistic.
In fact, quite the opposite is true. And…the unrealistic dreamer is true. They’re both true.
When I was a kid, I got to take gymnastics one year, before it became too far to drive from our farm and too expensive to continue. For that year, I was following in the iron-toed footsteps of the tiny Olympian heroes of my day – Olga Korbut from the Soviet Union, and later the Romanian star Nadia Comaneci, she of the perfect 10s. I learned to walk on my hands, vault over a pommel horse, hang from rings, and swing nearly a loop around the lower of the uneven parallel bars. And best of all, I learned to traverse the balance beam.
I loved the balance beam. With the wiry strength of a rambunctious 7-year-old and the fearlessness of a circus high-wire performer, I followed where Olga led, toes pointed with each steady step forward, lifting onto the balls of my feet and simultaneously pirouetting then solidly down onto the bar again, now facing in reverse, arms outstretched to the sides or one forward, one back, fingers pointed like a dancer on a cliff’s edge. I learned to dip-step, one foot scooping down from the beam and back up, then the other, a pretty little prance so joyful it made me smile. With a spotter, I practiced tucking into a somersault along the beam, regaining my feet in one smooth motion and standing tall, then lifting my arms like a salute – before taking a cartwheel off the end.
On the balance beam, you have to envision yourself graceful and acrobatic, a dancer on a narrow ledge high above the mundane world. You must believe you can flip and spin in that tiny orbit. You must trust your slender footing, and then you have to leap – and immediately land, leap and land again. The beam is hard and unforgiving if you miss, but reassuringly solid when your feet alight, toes gripping, legs steadying, arms like wings. You must believe you can fly, and then, you must cartwheel into space and hit the earth like a meteor. Rock solid. Stick the landing like a mountain. Thrust out your chest with pride, chin held high because you dared to believe in yourself, and then you dared to return to the mortal world without apology.
Hailey struggled the day we made our Passports to New Ideas. She struggled with her belief in herself. I saw her lip quiver.
“Hailey?” I asked very quietly, crouching next to her as Harrison and Poppy put their drawing materials away on the shelf, chattering happily.
“Reading is not my…it’s not my…,” and her lip quivered again.
“What is reading like for you, Hailey?” My voice was as soft as I could make it, my eyes searching for hers under her mop of bangs.
She looked up, then down at her passport. “A hard job.”
I nodded. I nodded until she looked up and saw me nodding. “Then that’s what you can write. ‘Reading is my hard job.’ Right there.” And she did.
“Do you want this?” I asked, holding up her carnival ticket. She nodded. “Where do you want me to staple it?”
She pointed to the same place everyone else’s tickets were attached. I clicked the stapler. Reading Is My – blue ticket. Her ticket opened like a lift-the-flap toddler’s book, revealing words only she and I knew were there.
“Good for you, Hailey: that’s honest. That was brave, to say what’s true for you. Good for you.” She gave me a bashful half-smile.
Sometimes we need a vision held over our truth, a reminder that we, too, can believe in ourselves. We need an Olympic hero, a strong coach to spot us, to strengthen us, to cheer us. What we get might be a starry-eyed dreamer with a love of dancing on the edge of possibility; but isn’t that someone who understands what a hard job is?
“What’s that line on your glasses? Are they cracked?” Harrison asked, staring intently into my bifocals.
“Yeah, in a way. But it’s on purpose. I have two ways to see with my glasses – one way up here, and another down here.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?” I stood up tall, and reached a hand as gracefully as I could toward Hailey, inviting her to join me. “Ready?”
She smiled and stood, and we all walked proudly back to their classroom. “Because we are Literacy Lab students,” I’ve taught them. We work hard, believing in ourselves, taking those leaps of faith.