10 Years
Results For "Month: September 2019"
Soccer and Painting
Morning: the Boy’s team played its second game. Last week, they won 8-0. This week, there was a stronger team on the other end of the field. We won 2-0, and the Boy got one of the two goals: the goalie didn’t pick up the ball, and the Boy took advantage of the mistake.
In the afternoon, we worked to do a little painting around Papa’s new addition.
A good Saturday, overall.
Drawings
The Boy has taken to drawing again. And being the generous soul that he is, the kind soul that he is — so much a more generous, a kinder soul than I — he regularly draws things for his friends at school.
Today he explained he was drawing a soccer ball for a friend at school who loves soccer.
“Is he a good friend?” I asked because I had certain concerns.
“Well, we don’t really talk. Just when we’re playing soccer. You know, stuff like ‘Let’s get the ball!’ and things like that,” he explained. That didn’t sound like the closest friend in the world. More like a soccer-field acquaintance.
And so I imagined a nightmare scenario of E, so thrilled with his drawing and happy to give something to someone that he imagines will bring only joy, giving this boy this drawing and the boy being completely nonchalant about it. Or worse, asking something like “Why’d you do this?” Or worse still, throwing it away in front of the Boy.
And then I imagined the conversation later, the confusion and pain the Boy might feel. “I would never do anything like that to someone,” he would protest. “Why would anyone do that?”
Why, indeed?
I don’t know that this will happen; I don’t know that, if it does, the Boy will even bring it up. But I do know that I can’t always be there to step in and block a painful situation, that I can’t always steer him away from people that seem callous or hateful, that I can’t always stop the pain before it starts, so I let it go at that. We’ll see tomorrow how his friend took the gift.
The Swan
Written in seventh period.
A just made my day — “The Swan!” she cried, recognizing the music playing. Everyone around her looked at her as if she were crazy. “The Swan! Camille Saint-Saëns!” Still, everyone looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language, which in a way, she was. How many eighth graders in 2019 even know who Camille Saint-Saëns is, let alone could recognize his work.
I find that, like poetry, classical music requires too much thinking for the modern ear. Motifs appear and then don’t reappear for many measures. Motifs are so long sometimes that it’s difficult to determine that they’re even part of a repeating pattern. The modern attention span is just not long enough to handle it.
Motivation
Written in seventh period
What motivates me? That depends on what we’re talking about. What motivates me to go to work? Honestly, at its most basic level, it’s the desire to make sure I’m providing for my family. We have to pay for someplace to live, some food to eat, and the like.
But just about any job could provide that: there are plenty of jobs that pay as much as what I earn as a teacher that I could have selected, I guess; there are plenty of jobs that pay more–some, much more–than I what I earn as a teacher, so the next question would have to be, “What motivates me to be a teacher?” Part of it is that I just like working with kids. It keeps me in touch with new ideas. And the behavior is part of it as well: when an adult acts like a child, I find it much more infuriating and difficult to put up with than when a child acts like a child. When kids are petty, they’re just being kids–they’ll outgrow it. When adults are being petty, there’s a likely chance that that’s just how they are–they won’t outgrow it. I can’t put up with that. I would not be able to keep my mouth shut, and when someone did something foolishly immature, it would grate on my nerves.
Long Week
Written in seventh period
This has been an absolutely endless week. When Monday lasts a week in and of itself, it’s no surprise that by the time Wednesday rolls around we all feel like it must be Saturday. Add to it the simple and dumb fact that I stayed up longer than I really needed to last night means I am utterly and completely exhausted, yawning endlessly and wondering if I can make it to this evening without falling asleep.
Not having to put E to bed tonight will certainly help. I do love how he cuddles up to me when it’s bedtime, but on a night like tonight, “Snuggle Time” as he loves to call it would prove deadly: I’d fall asleep and then spend the rest of the evening in a daze.
I look at my students now and none of them seem like they could possibly be as tired as I am. A just types away, gnawing on her lanyard without a trace sleepiness in her eyes. R is so calm and simply focused — typing, typing, typing. L’s cracking a smile as she types, suggesting that she’s alert enough to write something amusing and then recognize it as such. Everyone looks like their thirteen or fourteen and filled with energy. At nearly forty-seven, I feel like my battery is always hovering at around 14% — just enough to get you through the rest of the day but nothing more.
Tooth Fairy
“What should I do with my tooth?” the Girl asked. She’s had to have three baby teeth pulled because they just weren’t coming out correctly. This last one was the final to come out before she gets her braces on, something she’s not really looking forward to.
“Why not put it under your pillow for the Tooth Fairy,” I suggested.
She looked at me, furrowed her brow, screwed up her lips, marched over and said, “Right.”
“Well, why not? Get a little money. She gets another tooth. It’s win-win.”
Again, “Right.”
“What do you mean, ‘Right’?” I tried to keep from smiling, but I could feel the edges of my lips creeping upward.
“I know it was you guys,” she proclaimed.
“Oh, really?”
I’ve been waiting for this conversation for years now, wondering when she would admit that she knew K and I were the Tooth Fairy and Santa.
“Yes, I saw you!”
“And how do you know it wasn’t the Tooth Fairy. She could be a shapeshifter.” I was wondering if she would come back with, “Those don’t exist, either!” but instead, she just insisted again that she’d seen me.
Then the bombshell: “E doesn’t even believe in Santa!”
Open House
Written in sevneth period.
Last night we had open house here at Hughes. In some ways, I really don’t enjoy that, but that’s only because of how long it makes the day. It’s a small price for what actually occurs. I got to meet several students’ parents, and while it’s no different in some ways from Meet the Teacher night, the real difference lies in me: I know the kids now. They’re not just names on a roster. I know how they act, how they think (to a degree), what makes them laugh, how well they do with this or that skill. They’re no longer just names on a paper but people with whom I work. An odd thought: my students as my coworkers. Not an odd thought–an unconventional thought.
Tuesday
After all day at school yesterday, I was not all that eager to head back this morning. I left yesterday morning at 7:15 in the morning; I returned home at 8:00 in the evening. At 7:15 I was leaving again. “I feel like it should be Wednesday, ” K, who had just as long a day, said this morning as I art the tea to steep and she prepared everyone’s lunch. “More like Thursday,” I thought.
The day as almost always flew by. With my planning periods at the start of the day, my five classes pop by one after the other. Soon I’m picking up the Boy, and then we’re off to soccer practice.
In a way, there’s nothing special about the day. The trick to a life well-loved is to find the special in such tiring days.
Open House
We have Meet the Teacher night before the school year gets started, but all the students are still just unknown names on rosters. By the time tonight rolls around, when parents come to ramble through the school and follow their children’s schedules, I have faces to go with the names. And personalities. And fears. And excitements.
I got a chance to talk to C’s parents. She’s new to the school, having changed schools just at the start of the final year of middle school. A tough time to make that switch. “She’s having a tough time,” her mother confided in me. She misses her friends; she misses her teachers; she misses not having such a strict dress code — all the worries of a thirteen-year-old, I suppose.
I got a chance to talk to I’s mother and tell her what a powerful leader she can be in class. “She was making sure everyone in the class stayed on task today, really taking a strong leadership role,” I told her. Both I and her mother smiled.
I got a chance to talk to A’s parents. A is, in his mother’s words, “a diamond in the rough.” All parents see their kids like that, I know, but I think that’s really an accurate description of A. He displays flashes of brilliance in his comments and performance at times, but they’re often couched in moments of apparent apathy. Or insecurity. It’s hard to tell with eighth-graders. I think it’s hard for them to tell sometimes.
I and K with the rest of the 100%-ers
I got to meet K’s mother. K is in the same class as I. They’re real gems. K has made it to the 100% club every week (i.e., 100% positive behavior as recorded in Class Dojo). Her mom saw that and whipped out her phone. “I’m getting a picture of this!” K laughed and tugged on her arm. “No! No! This needs a picture!” If only every child could have a parent that supportive.
I didn’t get to meet other parents, parents I really wanted to talk to because of genuine concerns that are growing. Sure, I can call them, perhaps email them, but talking to them in person is always so much more productive. I try not to judge — maybe they had to work or had prior commitments — but I can’t help but see a correlation.