Observation tomorrow
poetry stations
but only three
there's this thing called
time
you see
it robs you
of every
good intention
and test prep
wrecks havoc
as it tornados
its way through
schedules
leaving intellectual
debris behind
poor kids grasp
for consistency
poor teachers,
exasperated,
know what works, yet
unable to get
it
all
done
and here I am
arguing with
imposter syndrome
struggling
to create an engaging
lesson
because the kids
are
done
Algunas veces, no se me ocurre que no sé una palabra en #español. Puedo estar platicando con alguien y tengo que parar y pensar en lo que quiero decir.
Una vez, estaba leyendo un libro a una clase de segundo grado. Era un libro de no ficción sobre animales #bioluminiscentes. Discutimos diferentes tipos de animals y empecé con la pagína con…–vuelan cuando empieza a oscurecer…estos..puedes ver las lucecitas volando. Son #fireflies en inglés–les expliqué
–¡Sí maestra, son fireflies!–
–Pero ¿comó se dice en español?–
Otra maestra, confundida como yo, empezó a buscar la palabra.
–Ahh, luciérnaga!
Todos empezaron decir la palabra.
–Luciérnaga, luciérnaga, luciérnaga!–
Continuamos con el libro. Siempre tengo momentos cuando no sé lo que no sé.
Sometimes it doesn’t occur to me that I don’t know a word in #Spanish. I can be speaking with someone until I have to stop and think about what I want to say.
Once, I was reading aloud to a second grade class. It was a nonfiction book about bioluminescent animals. We discussed different types of animals and I started with a page about “…they fly when it starts to get dark…they…you can see little lights flying. They’re #fireflies in English,” I explained.
“Yes, teacher, they’re fireflies!”
Another teacher, just as confused as me, began looking up the word.
“Ahh, luciérnaga!”
Everyone started chanting the word.
“Luciérnaga, luciérnaga, luciérnaga!”
We continued with the book. I always have moments where I don’t know what I don’t know.
If you were to have a superpower, what would it be?
I like to think flying, teleportation, or the ability to predict the future might top my list, but no. The ability to go a whole day of teaching without going to the bathroom might top my list. I think most educators have that one built in, so there’s no need to wish for it. I think about weaknesses that come with superpowers and the downside to having something special so I can’t ever answer this question because I take it way too seriously.
However, I do have a superpower.
I can smell weird things. Weird things other people can’t smell. When I was expecting my first kiddo, I smelled cow manure. My husband and I were driving on the highway and I smelled it. Odd though, there aren’t many cattle trucks around here. Sure enough, a few minutes later, we passed one. I smelled it from about a mile away.
Last week I kept getting a whiff of some grandma smelling perfume. At work. I checked my desk. Is it my lotion? Everything I use is unscented. What could it be? Valentine’s Day flowers are long gone. Did a student leave something? I forgot about it until I sat at my desk this morning.
“Do you wear perfume?” I ask work bestie.
“No, the scent gives me headaches. I haven’t worn it in years.”
“Same,” I agree. “But don’t you smell something perfume-y? Like old perfume? Grandma perfume from when we were kids?”
She comes over to my desk and starts sniffing. “Is it your lotion?” she asks.
“No, it’s unscented, but it does have a cosmetic type smell. Wilhelmina, stop messing with me,” I announce.
“Wilhelmina?”
“Yeah, my class ghost, remember?”
We both start sniffing, like those cartoon hound dogs that put their noses across every surface, going up and down every object on and around my desk. The computer monitor and keyboard. The drawers, open and closed. A stack of papers. Dog man book marks still sealed in the packages. I reach for the ones in the acrylic holder and sniff. Nope.
Sniff, sniff, whiff, sniff…
A stack of books. Maybe it’s a book? One by one, she goes through a stack I’m working on, opening them and moving them to the counter as she eliminates each suspect.
“Aha! This one smells funny. It smells like powder. Is it this that you’re smelling?”
I take a whiff…BINGO!
Never suspecting the book, it never occurred to me to sniff through the stack. I move it to the cart of new nonfiction books, far away from me.
It may take a little longer to nail the culprit, but I’ve still got it.
A quarter of a century. How is it that many years already? A quarter of a century of my life spent teaching, mostly. Slightly less than half of my life. Half! Twenty five years of packing up classrooms and now a library. Shoving things in drawers, closets, cabinets, storage closets. The garbage because..can I just go home already?
I pack my car with high hopes. Planning over the summer so it won’t be so much work. I still can’t manage to do it though. Laptop. I’ll need it for my first day back.
A bag-o-books, this fall’s Lone Stars, the best reads for middle schoolers. I packed a stack instead of all thirty and will probably read two. Maybe three since one is more than half finished only because it’s an audiobook and these days listening is easier than reading. I have my own TBR tower at home I’d like to read.
A pink Keurig needs a deep clean (and a break). I dug out a broken down box from the recycling bin to carry it out. Somehow it’s dripping residual coffee from yesterday’s second cup.
The Wonder Woman spiral notebook with a pile of papers jammed in its middle gets stuffed inside the box too. Good thing the cover is plastic and I don’t care if the papers get coffee all over them. I’ll go through each one to figure out what to do with them. Keeping things fresh so I don’t forget-when days start blurring together-about what it was that needed doing but could wait until fall.
These days, years, I bring less home. Twenty five years and I’m still the last one out. You’d think I’d have this moving out thing figured out. Everything that needed doing got done. Another wave of a spiraling timeline makes me dizzy. Some day I’ll pack it up for good. I look over the clean space, uncluttered counters (mostly), tables, desks, and unplugged computers. Desk supplies hibernate in dark drawers along with framed photos.
I turn in my badge and keys. My much younger self winks back at me. Have a good summer, she says. We’ll catch up again soon!
I can’t remember the occasion. Were we nearing winter break? Or did I merely want to show her my appreciation? This was before teacher appreciation day became the norm, at least at my school. However, I desperately wanted to give Mrs. Nafzger a gift.
Shopping around the house, I found a cheap gold velvet ring box and a hefty service station pen my dad brought home. I loved that pen and it was the fanciest complimentary pen I ever saw. It was burgundy with a gold pocket clip, the brand lettered in calligraphy. It read Alexander with a large square-trimmed letter A at the bottom of the clip. Blue ink. Smooth.
Learning cursive, I practiced at home, feeling special. By the end of the year, we’d all reach a milestone: cursive handwriting, one of my favorite subjects. She had to have this pen. I imagined how she’d use it to write her perfectly looped and connected letters to write Nice Work! atop one of my spelling papers.
I had a pack of orange flavored Hubba-Bubba bubblegum, (when you blew bubbles with that gum, it didn’t stick to your face) and I stuffed two pieces into the box. Not a ring, but presentation is important.
I wrote her a note in my best cursive handwriting. The pen was Scotch-taped to the box. It didn’t stick well to the velvet box. She accepted it with a smile. Later, I felt embarrassed because it was a stupid gift. Who gives someone two pieces of bubble gum and a free pen from a gas station?
The next day, stopped at my desk and placed an envelope in front of me, my name was written in cursive on the front. I flipped it over and carefully tugged it open. On real stationery, I read a heartfelt handwritten note thanking me for the gift, telling me how orange was her favorite flavor and how she enjoyed using the pen. It was the first thank you note I ever received, penned in her own beautiful cursive handwriting. I kept that note and read it often.
Thank you, Mrs. Nafzger!
Spring brings opportunities for growth and metaphorical lessons blossom this time of the year. As a kid, we drank down milk (chocolate for me) that accompanied our lunches and teachers reminded us to save our empty cartons. We must have forgotten frequently or the teacher stashed away said cartons, but the dreaded day came when it was time for sowing seeds.
I don’t remember much about the lessons, but I remember washing out and drying the cartons, opening the opposite end of the drinking side, and adding soil. Next came the seeds and a sprinkling of water. Lopsided red and white milk cartons lined classroom window sills with the occasional brown and white ones. A few of us didn’t like regular milk.
Sure enough, within days, someone announces the first sprout emerging from the carton-pot. We all gathered around, taking a look at the tiny green specimen boldly pushing its boundaries wondering whose would be next. Sprout they did. First one, and it seemed within minutes, another, another, and another. The race was on with observing leaves and measuring height. The first one to sprout raced to the top, leading the class in all of its spring time glory, a mini-beanstalk, not nearly as big as Jack’s. Would there be a mini-giant running after him?
I read too many books of imaginary little people and giants and magic beans.
Looking in my milk carton, the same soil sat there. Day after day, I willed something to grow. I followed the directions. I added the soil and pushed down the seeds, lightly topping them off with soil. I watered it like we were instructed. I placed it on the window sill with the others. Excited with all of the new shoots, classmates hurriedly crowded around the window sill to see whose plant led the class in height, or number of leaves, or even a second shoot.
Lucky.
There mine sat, a little carton of soil with nothing growing. I don’t remember any teacher giving me advice, allowing me to plant another seed, or encouraging me to pair up with someone else. No lessons on why some seeds germinate and others don’t. I quickly observed my dirt, went back to my seat and drew a little box, covered with brown crayon. My green crayon was much taller, the brown one getting worn down each day. Why couldn’t I use both like everyone else?
The special day arrived when we took them home as gifts. Mother’s Day gifts. This is for my mother? A lopsided repurposed chocolate milk carton full of barren dirt? My mother deserves so much more. Kids proudly walked out of school lugging book bags and lunch boxes, their plants proudly waving goodby to the rest of us as they were escorted home.
We did this for a few years. Each year, whatever I planted either barely sprouted or didn’t bother to grow. Later, I learned to stop at the trash can, making my annual deposit and walking home empty handed while everyone else took plants home. Did they re-pot them when they arrived? How long did they last?
I never knew and I never asked, but I did try my best.
**********************************************************************************
Teacher me would have started the container gardening lesson with The Empty Pot, by Demi. Of course, I’m older than the book, but no matter. I used it with a class today and reminded everyone that sometimes, not all seeds will sprout. If that’s the case, they can try again. I just want them to do their best.
I have a trio of girls who pop in most days at 1:50. Friday, I worked the realistic fiction section. New books arrived and shelf space is tight. Plus, there are titles older than the girls that must go. They asked about the plethora of books spilling over the book cart.
“What do you do with them?”
I explained the process of offering them to other libraries in our district. After that, I offer them to classroom teachers. Some go to our Pop Up Library for summer reading. These three are voracious readers.
“Mind if we take a peek?”
“Go right ahead.”
The pull of the puzzle they had been working on was stronger. “Maybe Monday. We have plenty of books checked out right now.”
We discussed books that were mis-labeled. “Yeah, Mrs. Garza, just look at that cover. It definitely belongs in the romance section.” They continue with the puzzle. I continue pulling books for consideration. Do they stay? Do they go? What’s the copyright date? When was the last time they were checked out? I set aside the mis-labeled books. I’ll get to them later.
Today, I went through the pile. I happened to be working on them when a student from the yearbook class needed help identifying students for the yearbook’s library page. Sure enough, it’s the trio. I confirmed names and made sure each name matched the correct person. Almost on cue, they walked in and I had them check the photo. The yearbook student finished up and went back to class.
“Can we make Taylor Swift bracelets today?” They all nod in agreement.
I’m keeping them posted on the books in question from Friday. I hold up one book with an old-ish looking cover. “Last call. Any of you want to read this?”
“I’ll take it,” one replies.
“It’s on the old side,” I warn.
“It’s okay. If it’s a romance, I’ll probably like it.”
I hand check it out and hand it over. I pull it up to investigate more details about the book, And Both Were Young. “Wait, did you see it’s by Madeleine L’Engle? She’s the author of…”
“A Wrinkle in Time! I loved that book.”
“Really? I’ve broken up with that book so many times. I couldn’t get past the Mrs. Whatsit and all the others. The Mrs. for the characters drove me crazy. Of course, it’s a form of respect for adults, so that’s how people were addressed even if they weren’t your teachers, but I just couldn’t ever finish that book. And the tuna fish sandwich. They make tuna fish sandwiches in the story and I can just smell it, why couldn’t it be a pbj?”
“Mrs. Garza, you didn’t read it just because of a tuna fish sandwich?”
“Well, yeah, I guess so. I tried reading it so many times because people said how great it was. I tried reading it to my fourth graders years ago. They zoned out, so we didn’t finish it. I took my daughter to watch the movie, the one with Oprah, and she wanted a copy of the book. We got one with an updated cover. I started reading it to her and then she just took off with it and finished it on her own. To this day I have yet to read it.”
“You should try again.”
“I think I will. Let me know how that one is when you’re done though.”
They continue with their bracelet making. I pitch another romance book and check it out to another girl. Then I take a look at all of Madeleine L’Engle’s books.
I will try again, maybe over a tuna fish sandwich.
Someone left a yellow mustache on the floor.
Are you chewing on your power cord? And it’s plugged in?! Do you want a permanent Joker-style grin burned into your flesh? Take it out. Now.
Do you still have the book that was due in September?
Yes.
Where is it?
In my backpack.
Go get it.
I don’t have it.
You just said…
I’m still reading it.
But you’ve had it since September.
It’s lost.
Did I tell you about the student who kept leaning back and forth in his chair and broke his face? Put all four legs of the chair on the floor and leave them there, please.
Yes, you have to pay for the books at the book fair.
No food in here, please, the cockroaches are big and they’ll take your food.
(Lights flicker, or something randomly falls) That’s Wilhelmina, my class ghost. She can do whatever she wants. She follows me to every school.
I have an alien implant in my pinkie toe, I just can’t tell you which one.
(Student pokes around the cart of new, unprocessed books behind the circ. desk.) Put your name on a Post-It note and put it on the book you want. You get first dibs!
Nerds Beget Nerds 