After School
First Day 2018
A lot of new things this year: first, we have homeroom classes for the first time since I’ve been teaching at this school, which is about eleven years now. The new schedule takes some of the time after lunch (or rather, all the time after lunch) and moves it to the beginning of the day. It’s odd: I have several students in my homeroom that I don’t teach at all for the rest of the day. Then I have two students in my homeroom class as well as one of my English I classes and my journalism class.
Another big change: I have not two but three English I Honors classes this year. That means about 80 well-adjusted, well-behaved, hard-working students, and that’s a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing for the obvious reasons: there will be few if any behavior issues, and they’re all fairly motivated. The curse is connected to this: they’ll almost all do their work, which means an increased workload. I control how many assignments I give, so I control my ultimate workload. Still, what I’ve done in the past works, and I’m inclined to do the same thing even if it means more work.
The kids had a good first day as well. E’s worries about school turned out to be for naught: he loves his teachers already, and this evening he declared that his school is surely the best school in the world. L’s worries about the uniform disappeared as soon as she saw everyone else in a uniform — she suddenly didn’t feel like she looked so stupid.
The Show Begins Tomorrow
The first day of a new school year is like the moment the curtain rises on a play that is often improvisational and responsive to the audience's reaction. Each year, I reinvent myself as a teacher a little bit, especially during those first days when I'm setting a tone for the year. Always looking for that sweet spot between commander-in-chief and coach, I waver between the "don't smile before Christmas" type of teacher and the warm-and-welcoming-almost-a-friend type of teacher. Neither is sufficient in and of itself, and I really like the coach mentality more than the authoritarian mentality, but kids will be kids, and sometimes, I have some really emotionally damaged students who add a whole new dimension and need that forceful approach -- if only for a second, like a splash of cold water to get their attention -- so I waver between the two in the beginning.
And yet it always depends on the class: some groups come in and I see immediately that Joey in the back is going to be a living terror if I don't make sure I set the right tone (which might not be the authoritarian despite the initial impression that he needs a "strong hand"); other groups come in and I see, though not immediately, that there aren't any students set on hijacking the class, and I breathe a bit easier. Still, that hint of "I can become the strictest, meanest teacher in the world if I need to" must be there, around the edges, because you never know what's going to happen in October when the honeymoon is over.
So the night before, I sit thinking about who exactly I'll become tomorrow. I know who I'll end up being: I have enough experience that I can get to the coach stage fairly quickly once I've established that I know how to drop the hammer, but those first few days -- I never really know.
The magic begins tomorrow, too. I'll see wave after wave of totally foreign faces and look at attendance sheets that are just a bunch of names, and by the end of the first quarter, I'll be able to predict how each student is going to react to a given assignment. By the end of the semester, I'll even know what words a given student might use.
Getting Ready
We’ve been getting ready — getting the Boy’s room ready for the reality that he’s a little boy and deserves a little boy’s room (as opposed to a hand-me-down toddler’s room, which he had), getting the Girl’s desk (and room, but mainly the desk) ready for the new school year and all the work that comes with being in middle school.
The room took 200% longer than we thought it would: instead of three days, it took ten. Through it all, the Girl helped like a real adult — very little fussing, very little complaining.
“L, come on — it’s time to work,” I would say, and she would simply reply, “Okay.”
Her desk looks as new as E’s room. She’d created a real mess of it — fingernail polish from playing, magic marker from art endeavors, and mysterious stains from who knows what. With the help of a paint scraper and a lot of muscle, she got it looking almost new.
“I had a couple of accidents,” she began explaining, and I thought she’d perhaps cut herself with the paint scraper, but in fact, she had simply removed a bit of the finish from the desk.
As should be the case, not all the work was work — some of it was quite fun.
Lake Jocassee, Addendum
The Boy took a few pictures during our last camping trip.
Clover
Return to Bristol
We spent the morning and early afternoon in Bristol today. It's the first time we've been there with both kids. One of the highlights of the day for me was to take them to my old elementary school. I showed them the spaceship that I and my friends used to fight so many battles, and L took the helm while the Boy tried his hand at attacking.
Afterward, a little walk downtown. The Girl was fascinated with the idea of State Street -- one foot in Virginia, the other in Tennessee. I was just happy to find Uncle Sam's Loan Office (i.e., pawn shop) was still open. I must have gone in there 100 times as a kid to look at their guitars, hoping beyond hope that they'd have some mispriced gem that I could snatch up.
Flood 2018
Yesterday, it looked like this.
Today, it rained again and looked like this.
I haven't seen it like this since 2013.
Lake Jocassee, Day 4
Lake Jocassee, Day 3
I don't remember how the idea came about, but somehow we got into our heads to get up in time to watch the sun rise over the lake. We knew that either the small beach or the rock (or both) would provide an excellent view, so we got up just as the sky was brightening and headed to the beach. L, deep asleep and unresponsive to most everything, stayed behind.
We first went to the beach, but that was a mistake: a small rise on the other side of the lake blocked the view of the sun breaking over the horizon so that by the time it was visible over the rise, it was relatively high in the sky. It took some work in Lightroom to make the shot look like a sunrise when in fact, it looked like this.
We decided that we should check out the rock outcropping with the idea that we might try again the next day. It was clearly the better location of the two.
The Boy was with us, but he wasn't really interested in the sunrise. He wanted to fish. I'd mentioned the previous day that early morning efforts lead to greater fishing success, so when he heard us talking about going out to watch the sunrise, he was eager to take his fishing pole with him.
I talked him into heading out onto the rock outcropping and he cast his line. I positioned myself so the sun was just out of the frame and clicked off a picture. I didn't really think anything of it, didn't really think it would be an image of much more significance than all the other pictures I took, but when I got it home and in Lightroom, I had one of those rare experiences as an amateur photographer: I thought, "I took that picture?!"
Definitely, it's in my top five all-time best pictures.
Morning we spent on the small beach. We weren't the only ones with that idea, though.
That could have been a bad thing, but camping brings out a certain type of family, generally speaking, and we all were getting along famously soon enough. One of the families had small, child-size kayaks, and we asked if E could try it out.
He was instantly hooked. "We have to get one of these."
He enjoyed kayaking with adults as well, but not nearly as much. That independence, once he got a taste of it, was incomparable.
Finally, as we were getting dinner ready, the Boy noticed a young man in a neighboring tent site.
"Mommy, can I go play with him? He looks bored." We went over what he should say, had a little practice session with him ("Hi, my name is E. Would you like to play?"), and sent him on his way.
