Month: October 2020
In some ways, the same as it’s always been.
Friends, friends, friends — no, make that family.
Yet not the same at all. We have all curtailed our outings and meetings to virtually nothing and many of those that remain have become virtual.
So Halloween lite.
We stayed home today because of potential high winds due to the remnants of Zeta. Since we’re all so used to it, switching to online learning was a snap for everyone. K pointed out the now-obvious: they’ll be more willing to do this in the future with less risk because they know we can do elearning.
No more snow days. More wind/rain/inclement weather elearning days.
Unfortunately, the neighbor up the street with the trashy Halloween decorations suffered little damage to his display…
We go to school five days a week now, and this has advantages and disadvantages.
First, I get all my friends back. A and O are my two best friends, and because of Covid, I didn’t have them in class since we went to school in different groups. Today, though, we go five days a week, and we don’t have two groups anymore. We talked about the surprise I’m going to do for their mom. I’m going to take a Dobby mask and try to surprise her and maybe spook her a little bit with a fake knife.
Next, I feel better having a big group of twenty people. I think that everyone in one class should be together and not split up into two groups.
However, I have to wear a mask all day, and this is a disadvantage. A mask is uncomfortable because it rubs on your mouth, and it itches. Even though it’s uncomfortable, I have to do it because covid is bad, and we have to stop the spread. Masks help stop the spread.
I think that it’s very much better than two groups because I get so many people to be with.
We’ve gotten into some lazy food habits, which means some unhealthy food habits. We’re in the process of turning them around.
One thing has to do with snacking. The Girl is often very hungry again later in the evening, even if she’s eaten a full dinner. Teens tend to be that way. She’s been eating a few chicken nuggets from Aldi as her evening snack a couple of times a week for some time now.
Today, she learned how to make her own chicken fingers from fresh chicken. Completely healthy? Probably not. Better than what she was eating? Definitely.
Looking at a picture of K from 2004, just after our wedding.
“It’s a shame I wasn’t aware of how my own shadow was falling in the frame,” I thought.
But it’s fixable.
Today was the first of three days of tryouts for club teams. L will be trying out for two clubs: Excell Sports, where she played last year, and Carolina One, which gave her the cold shoulder last year.
Today was day one at Excell.
Her coach from last year was there. "L's really improved," he said.
The owner and head coach of Excell, Shane, talked to L and me after tryouts.
"Everyone was impressed with your hitting," he said. "Last year, you were a baby giraffe: you had these long arms and legs and didn't know what to do with them. You know what to do with them now."
Yesterday, we went over a new poem: Billy Collins’s “Forgetfulness.”
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
Collins is famous for poems in which a witty, whimsical tone belies a deeper, subtler idea. He’s perfect for teaching kids what I call the two levels of poetry: what’s happening in the poem and what the poem is about. His work also often shows a clear tonal shift, and that’s something I want my students to be able to sense.
Yet eighth-grade students often miss the whimsy in his poems. They read something like this without cracking a smile. They even watch an animated version of it without reaction:
So we have to walk through it carefully.
This year, I started by focusing on the fifth stanza:
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
“Everyone has heard the phrase ‘it’s on the tip of your tongue,’ right?” I asked. Of course they had. But I had to lead them into “lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.” We mapped it out:
“Have you ever heard anyone say some memory is ‘lurking in the corner of my spleen’?” I asked. And everyone laughed. “That’s what the poet was getting at!”
Once they got it, they saw the other instances of whimsy in the poem:
It’s not the first time students have struggled to see the humor in Collins’s poetry. When we do “The Lanyard” next week, the same thing will happen. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s an age thing: that type of whimsy just goes right over their inexperienced heads.