Breaking the fast #SOL23 30/31

I just got home from school. It’s 9:31pm. Why so late? Tonight, for the first time, our school celebrated Iftar together.

For those of you who don’t know, as I did not until recently, Iftar is the fast-breaking meal that Muslims eat immediately after sundown during Ramadan. People break their fast with dates and water – after neither eating nor drinking (even water) from sunup to sundown – then they pray, then eat their meal.

This year, students asked if we could organize a communal Iftar because Muslims often break their fast in community. I was raised Christian – in the middle of the Bible Belt in the southern part of the US, no less – so I knew very little about Muslim traditions, but the students at the school where I currently teach are generous with their knowledge. We talked through what Iftar would look like, checked with the Principal, and off we went.

One student really drove things, and another teacher did the work of clearing the path for her. Soon they had chosen a date, organized catering, and started selling tickets. To make sure that all families – even very large families or newcomers who might not yet have a strong financial footing – felt welcome, the school found funds to cover some of the cost of the meal.

This evening, the cafeteria buzzed as teenagers covered the tables with red tablecloths and white runners. One student’s mother helped out. They strewed traditional candies along the runners and filled “vases” from the science department (“They’re not beakers, Miss, really!”) with water and white flowers. They decorated the hallway and laid out the dates. Soon, a father showed up, and students started shuttling in the meals – rice and skewers and salad. The imam arrived, along with his wife and young children. Before we knew it, the cafeteria contained a community – from babies to grandparents, Muslim and non-Muslim, students and teachers and their families – well over 100 people in all.

Those who were fasting broke their fast and prayed; those of us who were not fasting or praying finished setting out the food. Everyone came together to eat and the room filled with talk and laughter.

As we cleaned up afterward, I could feel the joy: our first annual Iftar – and another way to celebrate the community our students create.

It was supposed to be funny #SOL23 28/31

“It was supposed to be funny.”

That’s what I told my grade 12 students on Monday when I shared one of my recent blog posts – the one with the squirrel pictures. I pointed out the title and the photographs. “I started with funny, but I ended with sappy.” This was my writer’s dilemma: “So what I’m looking for are ideas for how to revise this to make it funnier – or even just a little funny.”

Cue uncomfortable shifting in their seats. Critique the teacher’s work? Not likely.

Undaunted, I continued. “OK, R has volunteered to be the leader,” R nodded, “so he’s going to tell us our first step.”

“Um, ok, um…” he shuffled the papers in front of him, trying to figure out the next step. “Oh! You need to read it out loud.”

I did. I had planned two class periods (minus our daily reading and writing time) for the students to share their work and offer suggestions. I was following the Feedback Protocol developed by Peggy Silva and shared with me by Xan Woods and, not surprisingly, when I told students that they would read their work out loud to their peers panic had ensued. Telling them that someone else could read the piece out loud for them was not the balm they had anticipated. So I’d pulled out my next trick and asked them help me with my writing.

You can imagine the wary looks I got. I explained about the Slice of Life challenge and how I had been writing every day for almost a month. EVERY DAY? They were half impressed, half worried about my state of mind. Those latter concerns were heightened because now I was offering – no, asking – to have them help me. As I read aloud, I found a mistake in my *published* piece. “Oops, I need to fix that,” I said – and I didn’t die or anything. I just fixed it.

“Ok, R. What’s next?” I asked.

“We have to read it again, then offer you ‘warm’ feedback.”

Because I know this is hard, every time we use the Feedback Protocol, I give students a script (also developed by Xan & easily modified to fit our needs) in addition to the general how-to. Now, we continued through the script. The students had plenty of nice things to say about my piece, and they were able to be pretty specific with their compliments. Then came time for cool feedback.

“Oh, I feel bad about saying this.”
“Miss, are you sure you want to hear this?”
“I just feel kind of mean.”

I reassured the students that I had asked for this feedback, that I wanted to do better. “Look,” I said, “I really wanted this to be funny. I know you can help. You are 100% funnier than I am.”

As they spoke, I took notes in front of them. The more I wrote down their comments, the more confidence they gained. After a few minutes, time for cool feedback was over. I thanked them and reflected on what I had heard and what changes I thought I would make.

Just like that. Like it was no big deal.

Then it was their turn. Tentatively, they moved into their groups. On the first day, only one student from each group was able to receive feedback. As the class left, the mood was less tense, maybe curious.

Today, after reading time, the groups re-formed quickly. Essays appeared out of notebooks and folders. No one had lost their papers. Around the room, students huddled together around papers, their pencils scratching down notes or writing in margins. Laughter, questions, talking… was this the same group that couldn’t quite remember everyone’s names just a week ago? Were these the same students who looked stunned yesterday when I told them they would read their work out loud?

Yes, yes these are the same students, I promise. As class came to an end, I asked how they felt about the protocol. “So good,” said someone. “Really useful,” said another.

“Excellent,” I said, then added, “Revisions are due Friday.” Good natured groans sounded around the room. As they kids left for their next class, I overheard someone say, “that was really good, wasn’t it? Like, really good.”

Ah yes, pedagogy for the win.

The Hard Way #SOL23 22/31

The students in grade 9 were seriously squirrely. I moved around the classroom, reading aloud from a children’s version of Jack and the Beanstalk, trying to teach plot development and elements of a narrative through a familiar structure (fairy tale) in a (potentially unfamiliar) story, but the minute I moved away from a set of desks, chatter began behind me. Phones came out. Once, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wad of paper fly at someone’s head. Nothing mean, mind you, but the students were obviously bored.

Harumph. This was a good lesson. I knew it. A) I’d done it before and B) I knew these kids well enough to know that they needed practice before they would be able to analyse a story on their own. On the other hand, I had to admit that it wasn’t working. At all.

We slogged through the plot analysis. I did the character voices. I highlighted vocabulary that would help them effectively discuss texts. I had them create their own diagrams. Nothing. The low-level “behaviour” continued and an oppressive sense of fatigue permeated the room. At the end of class, I asked what was up? They hesitated; I prodded – was this too easy?

YES, they said. Yes. Too easy, too boring, too baby-ish.

Harumph again. At home that evening, I stared at my lesson plans. Clearly they needed to change. But how? Well, I thought, if they think they can do something harder (internally I rolled my eyes), I’ll give them something harder. I wish I could tell you that I was doing this because I thought it was right, but the truth is I kind of wanted them to realize that they needed guidance.

I chose two short stories and found excellent versions online, pdfs that offered support for students who needed it (vocabulary, questions, pauses for reflection) and extensions for others. I deleted the lesson I had planned for the next day, the careful scaffolding of ideas and thinking, and moved straight to the big ideas in the unit. I didn’t bother with the extra vocabulary glossing I would have usually done. “Too easy,” I grumbled. “Well, this will be hard enough to fix that.”

The next day I explained the assignment briefly, handed out the stories and stood back, ready to watch the students struggle a little. They didn’t – at least not really. They formed small groups, found audio versions to support their reading, read out loud to each other or read silently. They used the vocabulary and questions provided as support. One student read quickly to the end of his story, then called me over, irate: “Seriously? Is this the end? Why would they leave us on a cliffhanger?”

I protested, “It’s not a cliffhanger. You know exactly what happened.”

“Wolves,” he spat, turned back to the story, and started writing. I almost laughed out loud.

As I watched them working, I knew the joke was on me. The day before had been all about me, even though I would have told you it was about them. I had done this; I had done that; they had done very little. Today, given a desirable challenge (how many other students rushed to get to the ending that had so infuriated their peer?), they were (mostly) hard at work, leaning on each other and moving at the pace they chose. They laughed and gasped and, sure, they didn’t actually finish the assignment, but they were engaged. So now I knew: this class needed more challenge and less scaffold and I needed to revise the rest of the lesson plans for the week. I guess sometimes I still have to learn things the hard way.

Say my name #SOL23 21/31

“Ok, it’s 9:25. Who wants to do the Land Acknowledgement?”

Around the classroom, grade 12 students shift in their seats. No one meets my eye. A few more kids slip in and find spots while I wait. Eventually, someone raises their hand. They choose to read the printed acknowledgement out loud rather than offer their own. We review the meaning of “stewardship” and then it’s time for a quick book talk – Their Eyes Were Watching God – but before we shift into independent reading, A says, “Wait! We have to do names.”

Students begin to chuckle. “Right!” I smack my forehead dramatically, “Names. Surely we can do better than yesterday?” Yesterday was a disaster – it took three tries before anyone could name everyone and apparently no one – including me – was pronouncing one student’s name correctly. (And this after I had practiced!) Eventually she gave up on us, even though we really were trying. Today goes a little better. We get through everyone twice before we move to reading.

Y’all. It is mid-March. And yes, we are a semestered school, and yes the beginning of this term was riddled with weather days, but we’ve still been together as a class for six weeks. I try to say students’ names all the time (mostly because I think it’s polite and friendly, but also because it’s a research-supported way to give people a sense of belonging and increase engagement), but lately (ok, yes, post-pandemic) it seems like quite a few students don’t bother to learn the names of their peers unless they were already friends before the class started. I’m not ok with that.

I have checked in with the teenager in my home; he admits to only knowing some of the names of his classmates. In fact, he is perplexed by my question. “They don’t usually make us work with other people,” he says. When I ask, “But how do you meet people?” because he is in grade 9 and therefore at a new school and therefore has made new friends, he says, “I already have a group of friends I’m happy with” then gives me a look and goes back to his phone. I push and ask how he met his new friends this year, but he only grunts at me. Minutes later he looks up and says, “that’s actually a good question,” but he doesn’t have an answer.

Unfortunately for my students, I’ve come back from March Break with a fire in my belly: I’m determined to help them connect – and if they can’t or won’t or don’t want to connect, I’m determined to at least give them practice in the skills they will need to do this later on. Yesterday, I told them about this article that argues that we should not allow cellphones in school *and* that we need to “rewire classrooms for connectedness.” So I’ve asked students to keep their phones away and I’m insisting we learn each other’s names. I get the sense that some of them think that this is cute but ultimately useless, but so far no one has said no.

Today, once it seems like many people know most names, I tell the students about the next step in my scheme: I want them to learn something about the other people in the class. In the front row, the same student who had reminded me that we needed to practice names, shakes his head as he opens his book. “Good luck, Miss,” he sighs. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need it.

Planning #SOL23 19/31

In grad school we once read an article titled “A Little Too Little and a Lot Too Much.” Of course I immediately fell in love with the phrase. While the author was writing about action research, I have found that this can easily describe almost any number of things in my life.

Today, the phrase skipped through my mind, taunting me, as I planned for this week’s classes. I love planning classes (well, mostly), so when a colleague swung by this morning for help thinking through a media unit, I was all in. We narrowed here, widened there and talked until the core of the unit was much more clear. My colleague found text after text; I asked questions to help her deepen her thinking. I loved how our thinking moved from specific to theoretical and back again. I delighted in the way we thought of concrete examples and ways to ground the work. It was fantastic.

After that, I turned to planning my own classes. The Reading class was surprisingly quick to plan. Now that I have a research-based plan (I’m using Dr. Jessica Toste’s free resource WordConnections), I feel much more confident about where we’re going. Next came Grade 12 English. Here, I had already laid the unit out day by day – we’re somewhere in the middle – so today I needed to create visuals to support the information I want to share about how to do academic research. Luckily, I find it wildly interesting to consider what will be most effective in catching and keeping students’ attention.

(Ahem, I find it so interesting that I just wrote two paragraphs about all the things I consider, consciously or subconsciously, as I decide how to communicate a topic. It’s a lot. Then I realized that this wasn’t the point of this post. I had gotten lost in getting lost in planning. Sigh. I’ve decided to include them at the bottom of the post because it might be interesting for you real teaching nerds out there, but most people will probably find themselves going a little cross-eyed with boredom.)

Soon, I was deep in planning mode, imagining what various students might need or want and considering the best ways to help each student learn. When I surfaced again, I realized two things: 1) I had spent far too long planning and 2) planning is one of my happy places. I didn’t mind being “a lot too much” about creating this lesson.

It’s a good thing, too, because my next realization was the time: I had “a little too little” time to do anything like an equally thorough job planning for my Grade 9 class. Fear not! I’m not slighting them or anything – I absolutely know what we’re doing tomorrow. It’s just that I’ve used it before, and I didn’t have the time to tweak it for this semester’s kids.

No problem. I’m used to a little too little and a lot too much. I’ll use what I learn from tomorrow’s classes to help me plan for Tuesday.

*How I plan a slide show or other information delivery:

I call to mind a few different faces from the class. With these people firmly in mind, I consider what I know they know, what I know they don’t know, and where I still have questions. I look things up to see how other places break down these steps. I wonder about lagging skills from the pandemic. What will they need to be able to do this research successfully? What will students need to practice? Where might kids need an off-ramp to think on their own or to pause if that’s all they can do today? What assumptions am I making? Who am I forgetting to consider? Eventually, I determine how many links I need in the chain of ideas to make sure everything holds together.

Once I have the content (and order sorted), I turn to layout and design issues. How many words on a slide before my audience’s attention will flag? What needs to be hyperlinked and what needs to be explained in the document? Where will images help these particular students remember? Where will they distract? And then there’s font: no cursive fonts or curlicues because some students who don’t speak English as a first language can’t easily access it; careful with colours because at least one student is colour blind; make sure the font is big enough to be legible from the back, dark enough to be easily read, maybe go with gray rather than black to reduce contrast a bit… Obviously I don’t think through each of these questions one by one like going down a list, but I do pay attention.

Parking #SOL23 17/31

I used to drive a school bus. Yup, you read that right. When I taught in Washington DC the school was so small that PE requirements were fulfilled through after school teams and young teachers got our commercial drivers license so we could drive the teams we coached.

Most of the school’s bright blue fleet was short buses, but Amy and I coached the (giant) middle school soccer team, so we drove the full-sized bus all over the DC area. We regularly garnered startled second looks from drivers as they passed us on the highway, but that didn’t bother us: we knew we were more than competent. Mel, Head custodian and general fixer of everything (who was also in charge of the buses) knew it, too, which is why he trusted Amy and me to park the size bus after all the kids had been picked up.

Because the school was in the middle of one of DC’s downtown neighborhoods, there was only one nearby space that could accommodate the big bus. The operation required two people and a lot of nerve. We negotiated narrow one-way streets until we arrived perpendicular to a long alleyway. Here, we maneuvered our blue behemoth in a fifteenish-point turn, then threaded our way between two buildings, the sides of the bus mere inches from the brick walls on either side. About a third of the way up the alley, a pipe snaked up the side of the building on the right; a few feet further on, a meter jutted out of the building on the left. There was no room for error.

Once we made it through the alley, we emerged into the relative freedom of a very small parking lot, where we slid the bus into a spot right against a wall. Finishing was always exhilarating.

Which explains why I blushed with pleasure tonight as a group of us left the restaurant and the woman at the next table touched my arm and said, “I watched you park your minivan. It was amazing.” I looked out the window, suddenly realizing that everyone inside had been able to see me parallel park in a very tight spot, then I grinned, “well, I used to drive a school bus.”

Need a hug?

Two days before Winter Break, I asked a student to switch seats to mitigate disruptive behaviour. Instead, angry, they ran out of the room and left the school. The next day ice and snow closed schools, so we didn’t see each other again until January.

This gave me plenty of time to reflect. In my twenty-some-odd years of teaching, I’ve only rarely experienced something like this. I know enough to know that it’s not usually about the teacher, but I also know enough to know that there are always things I could have done differently and better. Without beating myself up, I thought long and hard about what had happened.

The first day back, the student was in class. I let everyone go a minute early, knowing that this student rarely left quickly. As they packed, I sat next to them and quietly apologized for my role in their distress. They ducked their head and looked away, “No. it was me. I’m really sorry.” We talked briefly, me explaining that I could have noticed their distress, them explaining that there was a lot going on.

After that moment, they came to class a little more often and showed up during exam days for extra help so they could pass English. Every interaction felt a tiny bit more relaxed.

Then the semester ended, and the student was no longer in my class. Last week, I popped over to the public library (right next door to the school – so convenient), and saw this student, this child, standing, clearly forlorn, a large bag dangling from one hand. When I greeted them, I noticed their red eyes. I asked about the bag – they didn’t say much. I asked if they were ok.

“People are mean,” they whispered, and tears welled in their eyes. I said yes, sometimes they really are. I asked if I could help. No. I asked if teachers or students were being mean. Students. Silence. The tears spilled over.

I leaned in and touched their shoulder gently. “I wish I could give you a hug,” I said.

“You can,” they replied, and looked up.

I’ll stop there.

These days, teachers cannot hug students. Just this week, the Ontario College of Teachers’ newsletter included “hugging” as one of the several reasons a teacher’s license was suspended. Even touching the child’s arm was possibly a bridge too far. We do not hug students.

On the other hand, the child was crying. They had been bullied and spent much of the class in the office as a result. They did not see school as a safe space, but they were starting see me as safe.

So, what do you think? Should I have given them a hug? What would you have done? What would you want for your child? Does your answer change if I am NOT a middle-aged white woman? Does it change based on the child’s gender? Or are teachers – acting in loco parentis – allowed to treat all children in our care with, well, care? Can we comfort them when they ask for comfort?

I know my answer. What’s yours?

Reboot

The email arrived after lunch: “Attention grade 9 Period 1 teachers… mark DECEMBER 20TH on your calendars!”

That’s me. I opened it.

Turns out, I need to mark December 20th – a mere week away – on my calendar because the grade 9 students will have an activity that day.

Y’all. I had plans. We have eight days left before the Winter Break. One of those is full of assemblies and merry-making, so seven teaching days. Since we finished our review unit today, that left just enough time to shoehorn in a tiny tightly-scheduled unit. But to make it work, we need all the days. I’d already cut all the corners that could be cut and still make it function. I stared at the calendar for a few minutes, but losing a day meant losing the unit.

I could whine or complain, but there’s really no use: the December 20th activities will be just what the grade 9s need – and even if they weren’t, I couldn’t change them. So, to paraphrase Maya Angelou, if you can’t change something, change your… lesson plans.

Luckily, I had already confirmed that my afternoon class was going to watch today’s FIFA semi-final whether I let them or not; rather than have fully three-quarters of the class skip and/or watch on their cell phones under their desks, we had agreed to watch the match as a class. So I turned on the game, sat down next to the student teacher, and introduced him to one of teaching’s many hard truths: we had to change all of our plans. By tomorrow morning.

First, we considered the big questions that have been coming up in our class and how we’ve addressed them through various texts. Pretty much since September, students have been voicing questions that boil down to how we come to believe our beliefs and how we know what’s true (though they haven’t phrase the questions quite so cogently.) Mr. K and I spent some time working through various ways to help 14-year-olds complicate their thinking about this. How will we help students approach the topic? Whose perspectives will be centred by our choices? Which things that seem perfect may actually be problematic? When will we let students choose their own exploration? How will we support this? And how will this change fit with the 11 days we have left in the course after the holidays?

Slowly, steadily, we talked through the new plans. By the time Argentina scored their second goal, we had the outline of a plan – an introduction, a story, an activity. When the bell rang for the end of the school day, we had a few resources. By the time you read this, I will probably have most of the rest of the week fleshed out.

Unless, of course, I get another email. Then, we’ll reboot again.

Phone home

A few weeks ago, Jessica – who blogs over at Where There’s Joy – wrote about making a positive phone call home. Oh, I thought, I love making these. In fact, earlier this semester I called home for a young person who often struggles but who had a really wonderful Thursday. I waited until Friday afternoon & called home. On the phone, their father was quietly delighted; by the time the student made it home, their father was over the moon. The student was still happy Monday afternoon when they got to class. “What did you even say to him? Can you call home every Friday?” It was wonderful.

Today, however, I steeled myself for the not-so-positive phone call home. I should probably use a moniker that is more, well, positive, but these are the calls I make when I find myself worrying about a student. Frankly, even with the worry, I often put them off. I hem and haw and tell myself “tomorrow will be different” or “they’re probably at work.” I hesitate, face to face with systemic inequity and cultural differences: what does it mean for me, a white authority figure, to call home when the student’s racial or cultural identity is significantly different from my own? What do I need to understand before I call? What are the results that I might not anticipate? I waver.

Eventually, my inner teacher voice gets louder. “If it were my child,” I think, “I would want to know.” Then, more powerfully, “These parents know and love their child. What if we were a team?” The team thing gets me every time. As soon as I know that I am truly calling to ask the parent to help me figure out how to best support their child’s success, I am ready to pick up the phone.

Which is how I found myself on the phone this afternoon, laughing with the mother of a child who has been increasingly belligerent over the past ten days or so. She was almost relieved that I had called, she said: she knows her child struggles with some parts of school, and she knows his IEP is woefully inadequate, so she had been waiting for a phone call ever since he transitioned to high school. No one had called, and she had started to wonder if we were aware of him at all. Last night things had gone a little sideways at their house – the way things do when kids are growing and rules have to be enforced – and he had come to school frustrated. Knowing that we were both seeing the same things, that each space was feeding into the other, assuaged some of our fears. “How is he in class?” she worried. “What helps calm things down at home?” I asked. We shared ideas and observations, parenting woes and commonalities until, suddenly, we were laughing because sometimes helping teens grow can be exasperating and ridiculous, all at the same time. Somehow we recognized that this is just a moment in time, and it, too, shall pass.

Before the call ended, I reminded her – and myself – of some of the wonderful things her child does in class: he’s whip smart and always willing to speak up. He cares deeply and is making friends. Even though he has had some tough moments lately, he often comes to class early and chats with me. Recently, he mentioned one of her accomplishments. As we began to sign off, I added, “You know, he’s really proud of you. He’s told me all about [the accomplishment].” Her voice caught, “Thank you. After last night, after these last few weeks… I guess I didn’t know.” I laid out our next steps one more time, and we said goodbye.

“I’ll call again and let you know how it’s going,” I said.
“I’m looking forward to it,” she replied.

And you know what? So am I.

Remind me of that the next time I’m hesitating to call home.

What we discussed

My friend’s tweet caught my attention this morning as I stared down another school day: pictures of her students thinking and writing about the juxtaposition of the Queen’s funeral and Powley Day. She and her colleagues had worked together to devise a wonderfully thoughtful series of prompts about this, prompts designed to help them think about equity and Indigeneity and the importance of historical thinking. Their lesson went well; the students did some powerful learning. Even as I admired the elegance of the work, I felt a quick stab of jealousy, then a sense of deflation: I had failed to talk about either topic with my classes. Not only that, teachers had been explicitly told that we had to address both of them. One direction came from the Ministry of Education, requiring a moment of silence; the other from our school board, requiring sharing information about Powley Day.

I exhaled, warm breath across my hot tea, and wondered how I had missed this. Then I remembered. We hadn’t discussed any of this because my Monday morning class opened with a discussion of murder. There had been a fight – maybe gangs? – and a knife. Two people were badly injured; one person died. I say “people”, but my students said “kids” or “guys”. No one involved attended our school, but somehow many of the students in the classroom knew or knew of several of the young people involved in the fight. There was a video. They had seen it. The fight had taken place near-ish to the school. Some students had been near the fight. Someone’s family was close to the family of one of the kids involved.

The details are all still pretty confusing for me – after all, I learned about this at 9:30 on a Monday morning, and all of my information was coming from 14 year olds. Or, as one student piped up, “I’m still 13, Miss!” The conversation swerved through the classroom, pausing at stops I could have predicted – should we watch videos of someone’s death? – to stops that took my breath away – “If you’re in that sort of situation, don’t call the cops. They could say you were involved. Just get away.” Over and over I reminded students that we had time to talk, that we wouldn’t rush this, that they needed to listen to each other, slow down, take turns. One boy – Mr. 13 – said, “Wait! This is just like that book some of us are reading. ‘No snitching. Always get revenge.’” Heads nodded seriously: they didn’t need to have read the book; they know the rules. I made a mental note to get out more copies of Long Way Down (and sent another blessing in Jason Reynolds’ direction – that book. Just… wow.). Someone wondered how a kid not much older than them might end up killing someone. I brought up Romeo and Juliet – Tybalt, Mercutio, Romeo. Young men, hot tempers, knives… Someone had read that last year – yes, they said, yes, this has been happening for so long.

Slowly, slowly the conversation settled. Someone asked, almost plaintively, “but what are we supposed to do?” Someone else replied, “Make sure this doesn’t happen again.” Someone snorted, “Of course it will happen again.” Someone said softly, “Make sure it doesn’t happen to us.” Quiet descended. They looked at me.

And what could I say? Only the truth: “I don’t know what to do next.” I offered options. I suggested playing the same quiet reading music I play every day and, well, getting lost in another world. That’s what they chose. Books came out. No one fussed. One student, then another, called me over to say, “Miss, I have seen worse: or “Miss, in my country…” I heard stories that I will not share. They were reassuring themselves that things would be ok. Ten minutes passed and we all kept reading. Eventually I noticed people starting to shift their weight, and we went on with class.

All day, each class wondered and worried about the fight, the boys involved, the police. All day, we created the calm we could. As the last bell rang, I knew I had done enough; we had found our way through. Monday was over. Tuesday would come.

So, no, we didn’t talk about the Queen or Powley Day – heck, my first period barely touched on any lesson I had planned. And I know that’s ok. And yet, I need to remind myself that social media – even that of people we admire wholeheartedly – can be insidious. I know this; we all know it. Next step: remember this lesson first thing on a Tuesday morning when Monday has been so hard.