A Fiction in Two Parts; Pt. II

Part 2; the conclusion.

After school, I creep back into the classroom. Mr. Stowe disappeared around the corner in the direction of the principal’s office; I see him in there every afternoon. I should have just enough time to replace the book before he returns. That will be the easy part. The hard part will be facing him and my friends tomorrow. Now I know the teacher’s secret, but I haven’t been able to tell anyone. I don’t know what to make of it myself. The closet door closes with a hush and I turn.

“Thank you for putting Jesse back,” breathes Mr. Stowe, sitting on one of the desks; my lips feel like sandpaper.

“Jesse?” I finally utter stupidly. He nods in the direction of the closet and rises from the desk. He seems taller than usual, or maybe I just feel smaller. “I’m sorry.”

“I hope so. Maybe I can trust you again.” That voice; the solemn whisper seems so familiar, but at the same time I feel like a stranger in my own skin. He continues as though there has been no pause. “That notebook was Jesse’s. She was in my class five years ago.”

I glance back at the closed door of the cabinet though I don’t know why. Half of me wants it to go away, the other half wants to know more. Wanting to fill the silence, I say: “She was really smart.”

“All of my students are.” He smiles, but at the cabinet, not at me. He used to smile at me like that. Will he ever smile at me again? “Do you keep all their reflection journals?”

“Only if they let me. I ask.” His response makes my face burn; I swallow with difficulty.

“Why do you keep them?”

“Why do you think?”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes at his typical teacher response. Something tells me this is anything but. “They remind you of better times?” I ask.

“Not better...”

“Will you want mine?”

He smiles down at me at last. I feel about to burst. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow, after I read your reflection.”

“Which one?” I ask; though I think I know, and the notion fills me with hope.

“The one you’re writing about this afternoon.”

A Fiction in Two Parts; Pt. I

Back in school I wrote a short piece about a teacher I had in elementary school. Actually the teacher in the story is a mashup of two or three teachers I have especially respected. One day maybe I will be the inspiration for a student like they were for me. Thank you to all the teachers out there.

Part 1

           Earlier today, I thought I saw something. From the corner of my eye, some furtive movement while the class silently reflected on the math lesson. Then it happened again, just after literature circle. I couldn't believe my eyes! Our teacher, Mr. Stowe, is not what he seems. I think he may be magic: a wizard! I was finishing my writing journal and I looked up just in time to catch him. He was closing a closet behind his desk. I had never noticed that door before. I dropped my eyes to my journal just as he scanned the room to see if anyone was looking at him. I don’t think he saw me looking. But now I know. And I must find the truth.

           This morning was a perfect example of why I am suspicious. The back of my neck prickles as I recall the lost morning, I think back to other days. It always seemed something wasn't quite right. We come in everyday; breathing the smell of pennies and pine needles. There are always the complaints that we don’t want to be here. One morning, I told my best friend I had a headache. “I’ll ask Mr. Stowe if I can go to the nurse. She’ll call my mom and I’ll go home and sleep.” My friend nodded with a smirk; we both believed it would happen just that way.

And somewhere between Mr. Stowe’s: “Good Morning, Everyone!” (his booming, deep voice quiets the buzz in the room), and the first pieces of his lesson on the wallboard, (that all too familiar squeaky marker…) I no longer see the sunlight lancing warmly into the room. Instead I notice the posters lining the walls. “Living Charts,” Mr. Stowe calls them. We made them together as a class; they remind us of the things we are supposed to do--our rules of the room. We add to them now and again using colored pens: directed splashes of color.  Lunch is upon us before I remember my imagined headache. Where did the morning go? Did it go into that closet of his? Or did he pull something out that made us forget our own priorities? Every time I have seen him access that doorway, we have been at his mercy. Whatever is in there, I must discover it. At lunch I plan.

           Silent reading begins after lunch, and that’s when my friend distracts Mr. Stowe. I am standing near the sink when he moves away from the area behind his desk and grants me my opportunity. I glide noiselessly up to the darkly grained wood and grip its silvery handle, slipping the mysterious panel open as softly as I can. Just a crack is all I can manage before I feel premonitions of impending creaky hinges. I gaze in eagerly. SCREAK!!! Someone’s chair scrapes the floor! I shut the door, spin around, and drop behind the teacher desk as Mr. Stowe looms upward from among the student desks. I catch my breath and regain my desk just as he stops at the front of the room and surveys us predatorily. Pretending to search my own desk, I quickly stash my prize and wipe the back of my neck.

Notebooks! I almost lost my head at the sight: row upon row of spirals, folders, and black composition books. Not at all what I expected, but maybe they contain his secrets, scrawled in spidery runes from ages past. Fighting a chill of anxiety creeping up my spine and a furnace of guilt boiling in my belly, I crack open my teacher’s book, unprepared for what I would find…

To Be Continued.

When I Feel...

“You can feel however you want to feel, as long as you don’t hurt anyone, even yourself.”

My wife and I always said this to our children, because sometimes--in our respective extended families--emotions were suppressed. People were not allowed to feel or to express what they felt for fear of upsetting things or offending people. There is a fine line between being aware of how your thoughts and words will affect those around you, and not being concerned with what others think of you. Expression is important, and so is fair treatment of others.

As human beings, we are going to have some very extreme thoughts, things we would never in a million years want others to know about, actions that we would never actually go through with (how many times have you said you wanted to kill that driver ahead of you in traffic and how many times have you actually done it?)

Allowing ourselves to feel the way we feel is important. If you are constantly pushing your feelings down without at least reflecting on them briefly, you are doing yourself a disservice. Suppression and repression are what lead to anger management issues, self-loathing and sudden violent temper tantrums. We need to remind ourselves that it is okay to be angry, sad, disappointed just as much as it is important to feel happy, excited and joyful.

We have these emotions for a reason, and we are still reasoning beings. Just because we picture in our heads the obnoxious politician being run over by his own bus, we know that would not solve anything. The sudden movie in our heads is just a passing flash; life goes on and we can write an angry letter, peel some potatoes with a very sharp knife or just snap our fingers at it and dismiss the inconvenience from our consciousness (okay, I wish it were that easy.)

The point here--getting back to it--is to give our children (and ourselves) the tools to handle life’s challenges. And part of that is the emotions we feel. When I was in school, we had an assignment to write our own children’s book. We could do whatever topic we wished, whatever format we liked but it had to conform to children’s literary standards.

I created a book out of construction paper using circles, triangles, squares and other shapes to convey simple scenes with one line of text at the bottom of each page. It was similar to a poem in structure with each back to back set of pages showing a before and after. For example, the first page would go something like:

Turning the page over would then show this:

The idea was to show a situation and the response from a child’s perspective. My thinking was to provide a talking point for parents and their children to discuss potentially difficult topics. But in class, some suggested that it gave the children permission to feel unsure about things, that not everything had to have a conclusion and that was okay.

I began to think about this again recently. Here is a more light-hearted sample:

Wait for it…

What do you think?

What do you do when faced with things that are frustrating or disappointing or downright infuriating?

Tell me how you feel in the comments.

Drive Time

By David

My youngest son is taking driver training and practicing his skills in the family vehicle. Helping him to put the training book rules into practice is a challenge sometimes; it has required me to do some intentional thinking about how I drive. What are my driving habits? What do I do--subconsciously--as I navigate the streets?

I used to play a boardgame called “Car Wars,” (pictured above) a game of cars with mounted guns trying to outmaneuver other, similarly armed, cars. The game provided a template you set next to your piece; decide how sharply you want to turn and the template showed where your vehicle ended up afterward. Obstacles, and other cars, were easy to see (not always easy to avoid.)

Out on the real streets things are not so cut and dry. Analyzing my own driving habits led me to a pair of recurring actions: I check the rearview mirrors almost constantly--for lane orientation and blind spots--and I spin the steering wheel back at the halfway point in a turn to avoid overcorrecting. I shared these habits with my son, I don’t know if it was the last one, but lately his turns have improved.

Often, we clash over the book (information in the driving manual and what he has learned in the class) and the street (experience with other drivers) The rules don’t always interact well with the traffic on the road. For example, he stops 5-6 feet away from an intersection. Now, I think he should be pulling forward closer to the corner for better visibility, but he does not. Was this instructed to prevent new drivers from stopping too short? It can make for some frightening situations when a tree or other obstruction prevents seeing traffic more than half a block away: either he pulls out without a clear picture of what is coming, or he hesitates too long and misses a window into traffic.

Note: Despite my above questions, we are happy with the driving school we chose. We picked this particular one as it only hires police officers to instruct classes. It is important to start them out on the right track. (And to my children’s credit, they have not had any tickets or accidents so far--two of them have been driving for eight years, combined time.)

Thinking about how I drive led to a discussion at home about “metathinking.” Literally, thinking about thinking. How do we analyze what we know or the way we do things in order to teach others? Breaking processes down into their component parts to make them understandable and comprehensive. The math sentence 2+2=4 seems easy until you think of what is involved in getting to that point. You have to know what a number is, that it means quantity (visually, it is much easier to explain this concept; teaching it verbally requires teaching vocabulary as well.). You have to be able to read the sentence, which means you must know that the symbol “2” means “two,” which means a “pair” of things. Likewise, you have to know the symbols for “plus” and “equals” and the meaning of those terms. You need to know your numbers at least up to four. That is a lot of background just to get to something so simple, don’t you think?

Now, what if the person you are teaching learns differently than you do? You have to be able to present it in a way they will understand and process the information to get the most out of your instruction. How do you approach helping someone to understand and learn something you know? Do you think about such details, or am I overthinking it? (Mega-meta-thinking)

Summer Reading?

I have seen several reading lists recently and it made me think about the concept itself. Kids can be very quick to get “bored” in the summer. Personally, I hate this term; it seems like a weak excuse to put the onus on another to entertain you when you can’t bother to find something to do. Also, after the summer teachers must spend the beginning of a school year refreshing students memories on the previous year’s lessons.

So a reading list can provide ideas for things to do, it can serve as a source of entertainment, and it can help keep the brain active so its easier to get back into school after Summer break.

I see the reading list as an opportunity to catch up on reading goals. I had many books I wished to read either because I had heard good things about them or because I was familiar with the subject material or the author. A big one for me is any book which is referenced in other media or in pop culture; I want to know where it comes from so I can appreciate the reference better.

So I thought I would create a short list of books I thought everyone should read at least once. These are the books that really affected me, or gave me a comfortable impression, or a book I continue to reread once a year because they are just that entertaining. The list is almost entirely fantasy, but that is a lot of what I read.

World War Z, Max Brooks

This one drew me in because it was about zombies, but what captivated me was the depth of real human nature and engaging political analysis (not as dry as it may sound.) This one could serve as a documentary of any global natural disaster.

Red Sands, Paul B. Thompson and Tonya R. Carter
Arabian themed fantasy tale; light toned and fun. I have replaced this title in my library three times and I just can't explain adequately why this book draws me to read it at least once a year.

Empire Strikes Back, Donald F Glut

Even though my favorite movie is Return of the Jedi, this novelization is very well written; Don Glut paints pictures with language.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

An incredibly funny classic of Science Fiction, this has been translated to live action at least twice, but you have to read it to really appreciate the humor.

Coraline, Neil Gaiman

I used this novella as my read aloud lesson when I student-taught 6th Grade. It is captivating, thrilling and fun.

Dragonlance Chronicles, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

A post-apocalyptic fantasy world with governments and religions in upheaval, idealistic characters (some of which actually die; the second book is a tearful read) and a very touching sense of humor.

Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

THE epic fantasy series. If you have only seen the movies, you are missing some amazing language, mythology and story structure.

Belgariad, David Eddings

A five book, epic fantasy “trilogy;” this series actually covers the growth of its hero from child to man, contains fantasy “races” that are human and distinguished by their cultures (not bearded, short or pointy-eared), it also has a unique magic philosophy that really sets it apart.

The Sleeping Dragon, Joel Rosenberg

A fantasy story that challenges many of the cliches and has many mature topics regarding social behaviors.

As I said, it is a short list. I may add to it from time to time.

Better yet, give me some suggestions in the comments below! What books really affected you? Tell me why, if you want, or just give me a title and/or author. Thanks!

No Dodgeball in P.E. Okay. No Square Dancing?

 Students are not allowed to play dodgeball in physical education anymore. I understand that; I don’t agree with it, but I get it. Some will take the notion of throwing a ball at another person too far and people will get hurt, it will turn the class into an opportunity to fulfill someone’s vendetta against another, and the resulting adrenaline rush will take it even higher. Put aside the ridiculous idea of punishing everyone for the misguided actions of some, of making rules so that we don’t need to monitor what’s going on. Put discipline and guidance on autopilot by simply outlawing an activity which might need constant attention and clear expectations.

But square dancing?

Okay, maybe this wasn’t the result of someone swinging their partner into a wall, or dosey-do-ing a little too vigorously, but why? Square dancing is a great opportunity for learning. Focus student energy on moving in time with the caller’s mark.  The combination of two types of engagement (kinetic and audial) serves to greater cement ideas in our brain. Exercising the body and processing verbal instruction is a terrific lesson.

And if student engagement with the music is an issue, the rhythm and cadence of square dancing is not far removed from current musical styles. I think there is even a song on top 40 radio with a chorus that says: “Swing your partner, round and round.”

And there is no winner or loser. This is truly an activity where everyone deserves an award for participation: something I do not always agree with. In competition, the first competitor should be ourselves. But there is nothing wrong with being a winner. as long as you do not call someone else a loser.

You should feel happy because you accomplished something which took effort and determination. You should NOT try to compound that feeling by taunting those who didn’t quite make it.

Not everyone is going to succeed at everything they do, and we shouldn’t expect that: losing is learning. In loss, we have the opportunity to reflect on what went wrong, change it the next time, or do something else entirely. Take chess, for example. We learn more from losing than we do in victory.

And, to end on a cinematic note, one of my favorite movies made a great point about superiority complexes.

We all have different talents and abilities. Not everyone can be super at everything. “Because when everyone is super: no one will be.”

Did I mention I was (am) a nerd? Did I need to?

I grew up watching a healthy (read: insane) amount of tv and movies. At age 6, I can remember running, screaming out of the theater during The Towering Inferno. (As a parent myself, I would not take my kindergartner to a movie like that, but I am not putting down my parents. Those were different times and I turned out well, in general.) My parents made up for it three years later when they took me to the drive-in to see Star Wars. I don’t hate the prequels, but the original trilogy has a special place in my heart.

Sunday mornings as a toddler I spent looking at the comics while my Papaw sipped his coffee and Nana pored over the editorials. (These were the same Grandparents responsible for giving me my first Dungeons and Dragons set--the blue, Holmes edition--best grandparents ever!)

Beyond the sunday funnies, I read anything and everything I could get my hands on. By the time I reached High school I had already read the novels being required by the English teachers. Teachers loved me, students hated me; the life of a nerd in the 80’s. Did I mention I was (am) a nerd? Did I need to? Enough about me.
See you again next week!