Tag: #SOL20

Writing in front of them

When I teach memoir, I like to model my process for my students. For me – and often for them – one of the trickiest part of writing a personal narrative is coming up with the right story, so we often begin with a list of prompts from the New York Times Learning Network . The students and I all respond to these as quickly as we can, skipping anything that doesn’t call up a memory. My students do this in their notebooks; I do it on the board (or screen):

A time I took a risk:
A time I learned something about myself:
A memory from childhood I think about often:
Something that happened to me that still makes me laugh:
Something very few people know about me:
Something I regret:
A time when I felt rejected:
Something I am really proud of:
Something that changed the way I think or look at the world:
How I am different from most people I know:
Some of my fears:
A time I felt truly satisfied:
A time I failed at something:
An object I own that tells a lot about me:

Because I want to model the process from the beginning, I like to come in without preconceived ideas for my list. I’ve been teaching for long enough that I can typically self-censor my stories on a dime – and I tell my students that I’m doing this because I assume they may also have things they wish to keep private. Still, sometimes I surprise myself. Like Wednesday, when, without warning, I wrote “not kissing Torin” next to “something I regret.”

I almost erased it, but some of the students were watching and I didn’t want to draw attention to it. I looked at it again, added the world “don’t” in front of “regret” and brainstormed a few more ideas. No teacher in the universe will be surprised to learn that, when I asked which prompt I should flesh into an essay, the students chose the one about kissing.

So there I was, writing in front of my students about not kissing someone in a bar in Prague almost 30 years ago – which, I suppose, is slightly better than writing about kissing someone in a bar in Prague almost 30 years ago.

I started off a little embarrassed, and I rapidly became very embarrassed. Should I tell them that my friends and I went to an apartment with a man who was standing on the quai as we pulled into the station? Our guidebook said that was a great way to get a deal. Do I tell them about the Russian champagne? Maybe leave that out. I felt obligated to say that my friends were also at the pub that night, dancing and… maybe I shouldn’t mention that Torin was Swedish & very handsome? Dear Heaven *how* did I end up writing about this in front of my students? Why didn’t they choose the nice necklace story from Ireland? or even the time I wrongly accused a student of cheating?

Flustered, I stopped. I was red enough that I probably didn’t need to acknowledge my awkward situation, but I did. “This is not what I expected to be writing about. I’m feeling a little uncomfortable.” I hesitated, “I guess the real question is: why, nearly 30 years later, does this memory stick? What is the point of writing this in an essay?”

That’s when the real work began. “It was my junior year abroad,” I told them. They nodded – as if they know! – and I fumbled forward, “I had a boyfriend in France.” Some eyebrows raised; I was not making this any less awkward and awful. “Maybe I remember this moment because I consciously decided to be loyal?” I wrote that on the board. The 17-year-olds looked unconvinced. They weren’t wrong. “I mean, no one would have known,” I added lamely. No response from my audience. Remind me again why I’m doing this in public?

I stumbled along, writing and thinking aloud, searching for the reason that this particular night stands out for me. My students watched, interested. Finally I hit upon something that felt true, “It was like summer camp inside of summer camp – Spring Break during my junior year abroad – and if I had done this, if I had kissed him, no one would have known or cared – except me. I would have known, and I would have cared. I think maybe that was a moment where I realized how much we are responsible for our own lives, our own values.” I started to scribble – arrows here & there, numbers. This is how I might organize this essay; this is how the details might fall into place.

Moments later my students were hard at work. Despite the fact that school right now is less than ideal, I saw them thinking, writing, sharing with each other. Relieved, my face slowly settling back to its normal colour, I sat down at my computer and considered whether or not this essay was worth actually figuring out. Maybe later, I decided, my embarrassment still too fresh to allow for real focus.

And maybe I’m imagining things, but the essays that particular cohort handed in at the end of the week seemed especially honest. Several of them pulled at my heart. None of them were about kissing or not kissing strangers in bars. Thank heaven.

Many thanks to https://twowritingteachers.org for hosting the weekly Slice of Life.

Is this graded?

“So, um, Miss? I’m just having a little trouble understanding what we’re supposed to do. Is this graded?”

My jaw muscles tense, and I immediately loosen my posture in an attempt to disguise my frustration. I’m about to launch into my “it’s all graded” monologue, when I take a breath. Pause, I tell myself, Listen. We’re only on Day 3 of 22. We barely know each other. 

I’m standing in front of some students; others are watching me online. What are they really asking? They are confused. They want to do well. They want to manage their time and their workload. This question – this common, annoying, awful question – is not a sign that things aren’t going well. It’s just a question. It’s communication.

I launch into my monologue anyway. After all these years, the response track in my mind appears to be stuck in a rut. I try not to go on.

Afterwards, when the kids at home have signed off and the ones at school have gone home, I close my laptop and allow myself to slump in my chair. “Is this graded?”

I can’t even remember all of their names. I probably won’t recognize them on the street next year if – when – we are done with masks. Semesters have become quadmesters, and every day of class feels fleeting and precious. Though we are supposed to deliver only the basics of the curriculum, there is still so much I want for these students. 

I want them to find joy in reading and writing, to remember what it feels like to create, to know that they can affect the world around them, that they *must* affect the world around them. I want them to take risks and to speak loudly. I want them to ask questions and reject the answers. I want them to be curious and to love learning. I want them to know that they are important. I have 18 days left.

Is this graded? Yes. No. I don’t know how to answer. It’s not graded, but it still counts. It’s all graded, but the grades don’t matter. They really don’t. 

I whisper into the classroom, “What matters is you” and I hope that the echoes of that answer will linger until the students return tomorrow.

Back to class

The night before, I chose my clothes, portioned out my lunch and packed my bags. As I left the house, I double checked everything. I headed out early, earlier than almost any other day this school year. My children, knowing how I felt, wished me good luck as I left.

At school, I pulled books out of the book room and speakers out of drawers; everything went into the classroom. I gathered blackout poems and other decorations from last semester’s classroom and brought them into this quadmester’s room. I washed the blackboard and found my coloured chalk. I waited. Nervous? Excited? Yes.

The bell. And then the students. Slowly, masked and distanced, they arrived. Well, half of them. The other half were at home – but no matter! After months of teaching from home, after a quadmester of teaching Spec Ed (which has its own pleasures, but which is very different from classroom teaching), I was in a room with students, and we were about to start an English class.

We wrote. We read a poem. We talked about it and about ourselves. And, like every single year, like every single class, they blew me away with what they saw, what they said, who they are. Sure, I made mistakes – I talked too much (such a weakness), some students couldn’t find the meet link, my written instructions were too long – and for sure the hybrid portion of the day felt odd. “Can you hear me?” I asked the screen of avatars. The screen said yes.

I know it’s a pandemic & I know this will be exhausting & I know things will probably go sideways (and backwards & upside down) But for now, I’m back in the classroom – the chaotically hybrid pandemic classroom, but the classroom nevertheless – and I am happy.

A nighttime visitor

I was reading Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It isn’t a properly scary book – not like scary movies, anyway – though I suppose I wouldn’t know since I don’t watch scary movies – but it is vaguely terrifying. It’s about being a child and, well, let’s call it “menacing”: no jump scares; lots of tense terror. Whatever it was, I could not put it down because I was too afraid to stop reading.

Sometime after midnight, I gave myself a stern talking to – I was a grown woman with children for heaven’s sake. I gave myself a little leeway since my husband was away on a trip, leaving me alone in our bed, but my visiting in-laws were asleep in the guest room right next to my room. They would expect me to wake up tomorrow at a normal hour, and I needed to get some sleep.

I turned another page. And another. I could not look away from the darkness that wormed its way out of the book and into my mind. Eventually, my eyes drooped closed. I had just enough consciousness left to reach up and turn off the reading light.

As my mind slipped fretfully towards slumber, the pocket door that led into our bedroom scraped open. My eyes flew open and the rest of my body shut down: I could no more move than scream. A tall, pale figure came slowly into view, almost stumbled – just there! – hovered for a moment, then turned and glided away, scraping the door closed as it left.

My lips had gone numb; so had my fingertips. I remained paralyzed in the bed, listening for some indication that what I had just seen was real, afraid that what I’d just seen was real. After seconds, minutes, hours had passed, I raised a trembling hand to the chain above my head and pulled. The light came on, though it now seemed nearly powerless against the dark. My hand groped towards the bedside table. I found the book and opened it again.

I read all the way to the end. I cannot remember when I was finally able to sleep, when the characters were as safe as they were going to be, when pure exhaustion overtook my fear.

I stumbled down to the kitchen the next morning. Everyone was chipper, everything was bright: Grandpa Jim’s beard practically glowed white; Grandma Shirley hummed and sang while she made breakfast. Hollow-eyed, I watched, wondering if I should say anything about last night’s visitation. Would they believe me? Had I imagined it?

As we settled in to eat, Grandpa Jim started to talk, “A funny thing happened to me last night.” My head snapped up; my sense were wildly alert. Had he seen it, too? “I got up to go to the bathroom, got turned around and walked right into your bedroom before I realized it. I’m just glad I didn’t wake you up.” He returned to his granola and I stared at him for a full minute before I burst into hysterical laughter.

Not a ghost; just a grandpa.

I’ve never forgotten the book. You could do worse than to read The Ocean at the End of Lane as Halloween approaches – or anytime, really.

Many thanks to TwoWritingTeachers.org for hosting this weekly gathering of writers.

Tritina: Fall

The more I become a teacher who writes, the more I realize how important writing is to my teaching. When I started this blog, writing expanded my ability to reflect on my teaching practice. When I wrote, I saw details more clearly. What had once been fuzzy, partly-formed thoughts or observations became more firmly fixed. I still held my ideas gently because I wanted room to grow and change, but they became more clear – kind of like dew on a spider web.

Next, writing (and especially publishing) forced me to confront the complexity of what I was asking my students to do. For the first while after I started sharing my writing, I continued to assign mostly analytical essays, but the more I wrote, the more I realized the importance of practice, of revision, and of voice. Obviously I *knew* all of those things, but I hadn’t lived them for a while. The more I wrote, the more I realized how much more space I needed to offer my students in their own writing lives. These days we write all kinds of things and I strive to offer assignments rooted in purpose and audience.

Recently, I’ve been trying my hand at poetry. For me, this feels like the ultimate writing challenge. I mean, sure, I can write a good email and tell a good story, but POETRY? That’s for *real* writers. Like any good English teacher, I have poems I love, but secretly I’ll tell you that I find some completely confounding. And yet… I teach poetry, and I *want* to teach poetry. My blogging buddy Glenda Funke said once (in a comment? a message? I can’t find it, but I remember it) that writing poetry really helped her understand it and teach it. I believed her, but I wasn’t ready to do it. And then… well, I’ve been messing around with it during the pandemic, using poetry to let myself play, let myself write badly, let myself get frustrated and work it out. I start things and abandon them, then come creeping back. I hack away at it, and I have to admit that it’s kind of fun. So, in honour of my students, who regularly share with me work that they hate, that’s half-finished, that’s outside of their comfort zone, who turn in word after word, line after line, paragraph after paragraph , I’m going to write and share poems. (Not every week – don’t get excited.)

Today, inspired (as I often am) by Ethical ELA’s monthly Open Write, I have tried a Tritina.

Fall

Mid-October and still no killing frost.
The tomatoes still strive towards red,
heedless of the Fall.

Around the vine, leaves fall
As the trees, preparing for the inevitable frost
shed yellow, orange, gold, red.

Earlier and earlier every evening the red
sun descends toward the horizon, its fall
portending what is to come: frost.

Nightly, I beg the frost to allow one more shimmer of red before white death falls.

Thank you to https://twowritingteachers.org/ for hosting this weekly blog share

The man in the bushes

I had just turned the corner off of my street when I heard the cries. I was listening to an audiobook, so it took me a moment to get oriented: What, exactly, was I hearing? Where were the cries coming from? I looked around, confused, and only then thought to take out my earbuds. 

I could still hear the cries – they weren’t from my book – but as near as I could tell, I was alone on the street. The cries again, now with yelling. Words like “hospital” and “neck.” My heart raced; I pulled out my phone as I looked around. There! There – in the bushes, well-concealed in the branches and fallen leaves – a man. He lay on the ground, moaning, crying, screaming.

I walked towards him, “Are you ok?” He was obviously not ok. He was dirty and I could smell him even from a distance. He was thrashing and moaning and the words I could make out were words of fear and pain. “Are you ok?” I called again, but I was already dialing 911. “Don’t rob me!” he screamed.

“Police, fire or emergency?” The voice on the other end of the line was all efficiency. I hesitated, stumbled over my words, “Um… I’m not sure. There’s a man. He’s on the ground. He’s in the bushes. He’s not okay. He needs help. He’s screaming and talking about his neck and a hospital.”

The operator took my location, a description, my name. He informed me that “someone” was on their way. He told me I did not have to remain at the scene and that I should not go near the person. 

I assured him that I had no intention of going near the man on the ground. The man in the bushes. The dirty, smelly, hurting, crying person. I looked around – it would be easy to miss this man, hidden as he was; it would be easy to drive by, not see him and keep going – I told the operator that I would stay where I was until someone arrived. “He needs help,” I repeated, and we hung up.

When I was 16, my great-grandmother fell down the stairs and my father called 911. We  waited and waited for the ambulance to arrive at our suburban home. Years later, I called 911 when my sister cut herself badly and then fainted. Again, the interminable wait for the EMT. Now, I waited again, pacing the sidewalk near a stranger. 

The man in the bushes settled down. He moaned occasionally, but he was no longer screaming or crying out. By now I realized that he likely did not have a home and that he probably wasn’t sober. By now I knew that it was simple chance that I had heard him over my story. By now I knew that no one else was going to stop for him. 

When I was pregnant with my first child, I got a call at my work: my brother-in-law was in the hospital. Someone had found him on the sidewalk the night before, his head bloody, his mind confused. It was late winter and he, ever hot-blooded, wasn’t dressed warmly. The person who found him might well have walked by – just another drunk kid who’d partied too much – but they didn’t. It turned out that a new medication had caused him to black out; he couldn’t even remember why he’d left the house. When he fell, he cut his head, but the passerby had no way of knowing that. By morning D’Arcy was coherent, remembered where I worked, remembered that I was pregnant, warned the nurse to start by telling me that he was fine so that I wouldn’t be upset.

Now,I paced the sidewalk, occasionally glancing through the brush, checking that the man was calm-ish. After ten minutes, I stopped pacing and sat down on the curb. I texted my friends to tell them what was happening. “I just feel like no one should be left alone like this.” They offered to come wait with me.

Time dragged by. Ah! There was a police car! But surely I should be looking for an ambulance? The car turned down the street, driving away from me, from us. I guessed that maybe it was in the neighbourhood for something else. Moments later, another police car passed right by me, even as I stood up and waved. I started to get frustrated. A minute later both cars came back around the block and this time I waved them down. Sure enough, they were responding to my call. 

As the two officers got out of their cars, I tried to explain quickly. “He’s over here. He’s calmer now, but he was quite agitated.” I imagine that they looked like the veteran teacher who knows what to expect from a student almost instantaneously, even as she tries to give the child the benefit of the doubt. In my mind, they looked like people with a job to do, people who would be as thorough and compassionate as they could. I realize that they looked the way I expected them to.

My eyes moved between the man lying in the bushes and the two men in front of me. I wondered why the dispatcher had sent police instead of an ambulance. I wondered what I would have done if the man in the bushes were Black or Indigenous. I realized that I would stay. I wondered if I should stay, given that the man was White. I wondered what it would mean to the officers if I stayed to watch, if I pulled out my phone to film. I wondered what had happened that a man was lying in the bushes, moaning and crying, that the response was the police.

I looked directly at one of the men in front of me and said, ‘I’m sure you see this all the time, but he deserves help, too.” He met my eye and nodded. I would like to believe I held his gaze long enough that my plea became a moral imperative. Then I left, though I no longer knew which of my choices had been the right ones. 

Join us weekly at twowritingteachers.org

I’m on the phone

Photo by Alex Andrews on Pexels.com

The cellphone lights up on my desk. I glance at it: my colleague from down the hall has a question. I type in “I’m on the phone” while I continue to “mmmhmmm” my way through a conversation with a parent.

I don’t have any students assigned to me this quadmester. My colleagues are muddling their way through a convoluted teaching schedule that involves teaching one class for 225 minutes per day (plus a 75 minute at-home work period) for one week during which half the students come one day while the other half are online; then the two cohorts switch. As if that weren’t enough, teachers must deliver both synchronous and asynchronous instruction for the students at home while remaining masked and socially distant from the students in the room. Then the next week they do the same thing with a different class. And then they start again. While all of that is happening, I have been assigned to Spec Ed, and I am on the phone.

We have about 225 students at our school who have IEPs. Usually, we send forms – thorough, if impersonal – home to parents to ask for input; I would guess we average about a 25% rate of return, maybe a little more. Usually, we meet face-to-face with every student. We sit with them for five or ten minutes and look at their IEP, showing them what accommodations they have, asking what works, what needs tweaking. Usually, the Spec Ed room is full of kids coming in to pick up a Chromebook, get some extra explanation, figure out how to study more effectively. Usually, I interact with my partner, EAs, other teachers and guidance counselors every day. I squeeze in the occasional phone call and respond to email as quickly as I can, but usually my focus is on the students in front of me. Usually Spec Ed is the kind of job that asks me to juggle a knife, a fire stick and a teddy bear while standing on a beach ball. But 2020, as we all know, is not a usual year. So I am on the phone.

My partner and I are calling every family and every student about their IEP. We call on the days when the students are in the cohort that is working from home. We cross our fingers that we aren’t interrupting their parents’ workday, that we aren’t waking the student up. We leave messages, send emails and, most of all, we talk on the phone.

This is a completely different way to support students. I am simultaneously lonely and overstimulated. I find myself exhausted from listening – really listening – to the way each family and each child is experiencing our education system during this crisis. They are thoughtful about their needs, their child’s needs. They are alert to what changes have happened this year, how their students have responded, what might come next. They are hopeful and fearful and mostly they just want things to be good enough. Mostly they are hoping to muddle through. Almost always they are surprised, delighted, impressed that we are calling – as if this is entirely unexpected amidst the chaos of the school year. Most of the parents are kind. Most of the kids are upbeat. Almost everyone understands that we are part of a team that works best when we work together.

Of course, it takes time to build those teams, and right now I’m spending that time on the phone. I jot down notes as I listen, little memory jogs to help me remember what information to email teachers, when to call my administrator, when to give Guidance a heads’ up. I give out my email, my phone number again and again. I say, “don’t hesitate to call as soon as you sense a problem; this year classes are moving very quickly.” I say, “If you’ve tried to get in touch and I haven’t gotten back to you, please send me a gentle reminder. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed.”

I’m overwhelmed. I long to be in the classroom, juggling through the chaos of the class schedule created for us. I long to be reading and writing and talking with students as I try to convince them that their voice matters. I miss the physical presence of people in a room, of my colleagues and my students. I imagine that sharing their overwhelm will feel better, more present, than these voices on the other end of the phone.

But I am on the phone. And I am convinced that their voice matters. “I know this year looks different; please call or email right away if you’re struggling. We can work together to fix just about anything.” I listen for the silent nod on the other end of the line. I say goodbye. I hang up.

Then I turn to the computer and pull up another IEP. I read through the assessments, the accommodations, the transitions. I find the student’s timetable. Deep breath. I look at the student’s picture, call up a memory of the child from years past, hold tight to that connection, and then I pick up the phone. “Hello, this is Amanda Potts, calling from Canterbury High School. I’m your child’s Learning Support Teacher this year. Is this a good time to talk about their IEP?”

The cellphone lights up on my desk. I type “I’m on number 8. You?” and continue to “mmmhmmm” my way through a conversation with a parent.

https://twowritingteachers.org

Almost ready

I’m exhausted. I haven’t blogged for the last two weeks. I have plenty to say but no time to say it. I’ve put my entire classroom library into boxes and put all of the boxes onto shelves in the book room. I’ve cleaned classrooms and shelved more books than I could keep track of. I’ve thrown out papers and binder and, yes, books. Old books. Damaged books. Doesn’t matter because, as it turns out, we’re not allowed to hand out *any* books. For a week? two? the semester? No one knows. We are now teaching bookless.

I’ve been making up words.

With two colleagues, I’ve created a course shell, a course outline, and a Google Drive full of mentor texts to help English teachers make sense of how to teach for 225 minutes a day to groups that are in school every other day of every other week for a “quadmester.” I’ve copied and pasted and searched and linked and categorized until my eyes nearly crossed.

I’ve tried to connect to the internet, changed my password, moved to a new room, sent in call tickets to support staff. I’ve done the required PD in the early morning and late at night, sitting at the kitchen counter, grateful that my internet works.

I’ve argued about class novels and talked about racism. I’ve asked questions, said no, said yes, and said, “I have no idea” over and over. I’ve suggested changes. I’ve encouraged people to be kind to themselves. I’ve encouraged people to lean in to discomfort. I’ve publicly said, “We’ve got this” and privately fretted that we don’t have it at all. Then I’ve changed my mind. And changed it again.

I’ve limited my children to two hours of internet a day except when they took an online class that lasted 1.5 hours per day and taught them how to program, aka use the internet more than two hours per day. I’ve told them to play outside and said, “it’s just rain; you won’t melt” even as I opened the door and greeted them with towels. I’ve prepared them for classes that may or may not end up outdoors or indoors or on line for who knows how many hours per day.

I’ve baked banana muffins.

I’ve shamelessly taken advantage of my spouse who took two weeks off so that I could prepare for a school year unlike any other. He has magically produced three meals a day, done the laundry and managed to landscape our backyard. He has not complained though he has taken refuge in board games.

I have given up checking the news, drinking alcohol and eating ice cream, then changed my mind within a day or an hour or a minute when yet another new announcement arrived and all of the rules changed again. I’ve avoided social media and the news; I’ve allowed social media and the news to swallow me whole.

I’ve walked every day. I’ve laughed and cried and talked and raged and read and written. I’ve picked up the phone and sobbed; I’ve ignored calls from those I love because I couldn’t bear to utter even one more word about school. I’ve recorded a podcast. I’ve recorded a podcast that didn’t record. I’ve said things I wish were not recorded.

I’m exhausted, but I’m ready. Half of the grade 9s came today; the other half come tomorrow. By Thursday, classes will start. The IEP system isn’t working; there are no paper towels in the girls’ restroom; the class lists are still changing; no one knows when teachers get bathroom breaks; we still cannot hand out books.

And despite it all, what I want more than anything is to see the students. What I want most is to look at them and say, “Welcome! I’m so glad you’re here! I’ve been waiting for you!”

2020-2021 is going to be a year like no other. I’m exhausted and incredibly excited for the changes that it will bring.

Behind closed doors

Every month Ethical ELA offers a 5-day “Open Write” for teachers. Various teachers and writers “host” and share one way to write poetry. I often lurk there, but have only written a few times. Today Mo Daley & Tracie McCormick shared the monotetra, a form developed by Michael Walker. When they challenged us to write from headlines and ideas in the news, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about.

Last night, I lost sleep after reading an article that said “The Ont Ministry of Ed says teachers who stand at the front of the class, keeping two metres away from their students, don’t need PPE.” I kept tossing and turning, trying to figure out how in the world I’m supposed to teach effectively while remaining two metres away from my students. And yes, I know I teach high school, but, no, I don’t stand in front of them and lecture. I literally woke up at 2 in the morning thinking that maybe I could conference from behind a plexiglass screen.

So this morning when I saw the prompt, well, my sleepless night spilled into daytime cynicism. At first, I was horrified that my poem was so DARK. Then I thought, heck, it’s playfully dark – right? At any rate, now I have a great poem to show my students where the speaker of the poem and the author of the poem are not necessarily one and the same. Plus, I can teach them the monotetra and possibly link that to our media studies… but only if I bring my own PPE.

Behind Closed Doors: The Ministry of Education talks about teachers during COVID19

Teachers are a dime a dozen.
They get sick, we bring some more in.
There’s no reason for their dudgeon.
Bring some more in; bring some more in.

Who says they need those PPEs
to keep them safe from this disease?
No teacher gets those guarantees.
They’re employees; they’re employees.

And while we meet safely online,
we’ll tell the teachers they’re “front line”,
that classroom teaching is designed
to help mankind, to help mankind.

Tell them that, though school is scary,
online classes were temporary.
Now we know teachers are very…um
necessary (yes!), necessary.

PPEs are too expensive.
Teachers mustn’t be apprehensive:
If we provide them no defences,
It’s inoffensive; it’s inoffensive.

The parents must return to work 
So we’ll explain that teachers shirk
And PPEs are simply perks
Get back to work! Get back to work!

Convince the parents they’ve been had.
Remind them that the Spring was bad.
You were not scared, you moms and dads.
Not scared, but mad; not scared, but mad.

Workers need to be productive.
Children need to be instructed.
Our plan is purely reconstructive
Don’t obstruct it; don’t obstruct it.

Th’economy must be maintained
We knew those teachers would complain.
Did they expect us to explain?
Their loss; our gain. Their loss; our gain.

And if a few good teachers die?
We’ll sigh on screen, we’ll dab our eye,
Then we will find a new supply.
And who will cry? And who will cry?

Many thanks to twowritingteachers.org for hosting the weekly Slice of Life

Cross words

My 9 year old and I are snuggled tightly together in a small armchair designed for one. His bare back warms me as he unconsciously presses his body into mine. Toes, knees, legs, back, shoulders tangle around me. Only his hands are his own, and they are holding my phone. His stormy face bends towards it, and his dark eyebrows draw together in concentration: he is helping me with the New York Times crossword puzzle.

Armchair decidedly for one

We should be outside. We’ve rented a cottage for a week with friends, and everyone else is taking advantage of a beautiful day at a quiet lake. But my boy got angry earlier, and his anger is a monster that swallows his words and hardens his body. When he is angry, he often will not speak and sometimes will not even move. He curls up, hides under a soft dark blanket and refuses to engage with the world or any of the people in it. Today, this meant that he could neither explain his anger nor participate and tidying the cottage after lunch. Tidying is not negotiable, so today he got in trouble, then he screamed, and then he cried.

He stomped off to settle himself down a little bit outside, and then he returned for the sure fix: a snuggle. “Crossword?” He pleaded, oral language still almost too much for him. We have declared this week device free, but three days ago, after another frustration, he sat with me while I worked the crossword. To everyone’s shock, he loved it. Today the only crossword in this cottage is on my phone, and I relent. We snuggle together, reading the clues and guessing. “Christmas ____” is easy, and he loves the clue “suds maker.” Slowly the grid fills.

I would never have guessed that these horizontal and vertical lines, these interlinked squares with so many possibilities and so few right answers, would calm him. His breathing slows; his face lights up when he gets an answer; his body relaxes. With each completed box he puts words in their place. Slowly his world becomes more orderly. We finish the whole puzzle in less than 30 minutes.

Now he can tell me what made him upset. It was nothing, really – a typical sibling spat, easily solved. But cross words and compromises are tough for my boy. I know this, though I can’t fix it. We agree on a non-verbal cue he can use next time to ask for extra time before we try to talk to be honest, I don’t think it will work, but it’s worth a try. And I think I’ll invest in a book of crosswords.