Neither here nor there

Straight from the classroom to the airport, there was some prime people watching time for me with my 3 hour layover in Atlanta. I've been out of airports for about 5 weeks, probably the longest stretch this close to sea level in the last eight years. I'd forgotten to appreciate the wonder/hassle of flying. Every walk of humanity passed me in the Hartsfield airport from the well-to do families with thousand dollar strollers and kids wrapped in J. Crew head to toe, and a bleached-out sixty-something woman, clad in mismatched sweats, using a Walmart bag as her carry-on luggage. The wonder of covering a couple of hundred miles in the time it takes my sixth graders to write an essay - that isn't lost on me, even as I approach the million miler status. I'd forgotten to appreciate the hassle of unpacking a couple of thousand dollars of electronics while undressing and submitting myself to scrutiny, and I'd forgotten to appreciate the hassle of spending two hours in a seat that might barely contain one of those essay-writing sixth graders. Out of the classroom and into the air, chasing the mighty greenback and doing all I can to secure our future. Next year may or may not offer me a classroom to do my bidding, so I guess I'll restock my sealed ziptop bag of 3 or fewer ounce sized liquid and gel grooming products.

Gettin' my groove back...

Eight years out of the classroom can be a long time, but didn't really step out of the loop pedagogically. In fact, some of my presentations the last few years have been on the most trendy educational topics such as Differentiated Instruction and Response to Intervention. My chops were in reasonably good shape when I unexpectedly landed back in a classroom in October, but I still felt a bit rusty. My lessons felt shallow and ineffective, rushed and meaningless to the kids. I fretted over this considerably. Was I fraudulently doling out advice to teachers, just spinning tales like a stereotypical consultant? When I reentered the classroom I promised myself not to be the martyr, the super-teacher, the rebel, or the overachiever. I swore that below the radar was exactly where I wanted to be. And I still do. But in my desire to lay low I thought I'd march to the tempo and tune of the "learning calendar." This cyclical, shallow, fragmented, one-size-fits all prescription for best practices is anything but. I'm not interested in rebel, martyr, or overachiever, but I need to do what I know is right. With the collaboration of my co-teacher and the blessings of my administrator I've been striking out with lessons I planned myself. I have been teaching them thoroughly and I taking all the time that the kids need to do it, and I've been seeing results. The kids are smiling and feeling more successes, and for me...it feels good to think that maybe I've still got it.

Like Herding Cats

It's the subject without a specific product, the content area that is critical to all others, the skill without which we could not learn from recorded history, take in bible verse, or reproduce recipes from generations ago. It's fundamental to everything we do, yet it is perhaps the most difficult to teach.

Reading happens mostly inside your head. I could ask you to write about your reading, or I could ask you to tell me about your reading, but any determination of your skill as a reader is tainted by your ability to represent that information in written or spoken form. Do I really know if you are drawing pictures in your mind? Or if you were wondering what the author was speaking? Connecting the words to your prior experiences, other texts or the world at large? Are you actively questioning while you read, and making predictions for the coming paragraphs? I can ask you to do any of these things as an exercise, an opportunity to explore some possible strategies to comprehension, but how often do we accomplished readers really do these things while we read?

I love to read, and my relationship with whatever book I'm enjoying is intimate and personal. I wouldn't have wanted to stop reading to represent my visualization or to apply sticky notes when I read Roots in three days flat (when I was 11). I didn't need to do any of those classroom strategies to comprehend the story. I was swept away by the hope and horror in that family's narrative.

So, how best to teach this subject? A question that reaches across the ages. No matter what bill of goods is sold by any textbook publisher, curriculum developer, or know-it-all-but-I've-never-even-taught consultant, this isn't something you really can easily teach once we've gotten past the B goes /b/ level. It can and should be cultivated, nurtured, encouraged, modeled, and observed, but sometimes I worry that all we try to do to teach it may have the exact opposite affect.

Y am I up this early???

Getting out of bed is the hardest part, but there are far fewer excuses available at 4:30 in the morning. At the end of the day the I'm-tired-I-have-to-cook-clean-launder-grade-plan-rehearse excuse is too easy to come by. The only other thing I would be doing is sleeping, and how much of a difference would one hour of sleep really make?

The cold weather plan is the YMCA, a ten minute drive from the house. Ten there, ten back, thirty on some torturous cardiovascular machine, and another ab-blasting ten balancing one ball under my back and another, heavier one above my head. On warmer mornings I much prefer the five mile morning trail to coffee and back.

Having endured a routine like this for three-plus years, I guess I should see some remarkable results. My dress size is still well into the two digits, and other numbers and measurements shall not be uttered, much less published electronically. This isn't part of a resolution or a gimmick. I just genuinely feel better if I get the old sack of bones moving every day. My step is lighter, my head is clearer, and my mood is better. So Y not?

Brrrring back Summer

In order to go for a walk we have to wear puffy jackets, ear muffs, gloves and scarves. Yuck! My girl is adorable in this getup, looking like an authentic ski bunny, but she didn't always take to these layers. She's not really a native Floridian, but she was merely 18 months old when we made the move south. As a toddler she threw fits when we kept replacing the socks she pulled off, and at around age 4, during a winter New York visit, I remember her laughing hysterically at the notion of an undershirt. Yes, we wore these. Under our Shirts. And sometimes we wore long underwear or kept flannel pajamas on under our jeans. Living up north and attending college even further up north, I feel like I've done my time. Four or five nights with a hard freeze in Florida? We're not equipped for this. My long underwear is long discarded, and I have only a scant few sweaters in my repertoire. The jacket seems like a good idea in the 28 degree early morning, but it's just a burden in the 50 something midday sun. Frosty air and a zero percent chance of a snow day? Hardly worth the hassle.

The best of the best

In life, we are sometimes blessed to have a friend like this. A friend who can smooth the bumps in life. A friend with whom we don't need to pretend to be anyone but who we really are, who knows what we're thinking before we say anything, and who knows just what we need to hear, even if we didn't know we needed to hear it. That's the way it is for my girl and KF, her bestie. When our world nearly came crashing to an end in May, she called KF from the hospital, and they were there, almost as soon as she closed her phone. K was there, along with her mom and her husband, and they stayed well past visiting hours...waiting with us for the miracle that gave husband and daddy back to us. K and I walked the halls and found distractions. Her mom and husband sat with me in a dim waiting room, steadfast in their determination to see E back to vitality, daring anything but the best outcome for him. Friends like this.

KF is practically a member of our family. She's the kind of friend who doesn't need to ask where things are in the kitchen cabinets, at home in our home. We always keep K favorites on hand. This girl lives with the motto that everything tastes better covered with ranch and washed down with diet coke. We've shared many tables together, from her discovery of the joys of lox, to her first Jewish deli in New York City, to a Maggiano's feast, her love of food and conversation is a great addition to every meal. She has traveled with us, from younger day Disney trips to last summer's New York excursion, sharing the tiny space of a hotel room for four. She laughs at our family's inside jokes, yet always treats the adults with well-mannered respect.

Today as my daughter felt her heart break a little with the pain of being so far from her boyfriend, she held fast to her K. Somewhere between the loud harmonizing, silly monkey faces, text messages, late-night giggling, and diet coke they comfort each other. Someday they will stand up for one another as they graduate, complete college, marry, and begin lives and families of their own. I can begin to imagine the young women they may become. And I'll bet anything they'll be there for one another, smoothing the bumps in life.

My resolutions, more or less

"A New Year's Resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other..."

1. More home-cooked, less restaurant
2. More exercising, less excuses
3. More outdoors, less indoors
4. More being, less doing
5. More engaging, less worrying
6. More play, less serious
7. More writing, less procrastinating
8. More understanding, less judging
9. More self-appreciation, less self-deprecation
10.More now, less woulda' coulda'