Of Success, Encouragement

It's been an eventful week at school. In between teaching reading, writing, and math, we've had class pictures taken, a fire drill, and a safety drill. The kids have written their letters to STARBASE, we've studied poetry all week during our reading time, learned two digit multiplication in math, and one of my 5th grade students made it to Step 4 in Wilson Reading! I am particularly happy for him because he is in a position no one else can claim in our school, ever: he is the only student to make it to Book 4 in the Wilson Reading program before moving into 6th grade. I was happy as well because I've been teaching Wilson Reading for two years, and this is the first time I've had the opportunity to teach past Book 3.

Today, although it was a Friday and not a Monday when I would normally begin a new lesson introducing a new concept, we both approached the yellow Book 4 with a little more delight than usual. He smiled as he opened it, scanning its pages to see what kind of words he'd be learning, and to see how many substeps would be needed to get to the end. Four substeps. The previous books had 5 and 6 substeps. Book 4 has only four.

I gave him a choice for today since he had completed the reading and spelling portions of the Post Test for Book 3 yesterday and passed with flying colors. I told him that today he could read a book of his choice, or we could begin with substep 4.1. He opted for Book Four substep, and so I began reviewing vowel-consonant-silent e words. He did so well on the word chart, sentences, and the paragraph, that he finished with ten minutes left before he had to go on to his next class, which was recess.

Anticipating that we'd have time, I had brought a surprise to class for him. Anyone who knows this child, knows that he likes to draw. Kids who like to draw are endearing to me, and I encourage anyone I see drawing on their notebook paper after they have completed their classswork. Certainly I don't encourage them to draw during class instructional time or when they are supposed to be working on an assignment, but I do encourage them to draw at other, more appropriate times. I've seen too many kids get put off by unintentional words of criticism and discouragement when they attempt to give expression to something in their heart. Most kids stop drawing by the time they get to high school. The ones who continue to pursue their hidden talent are the ones who received some kind of inspiration and encouragement in the way of praise, public recognition, a gift of art materials, or other positive reaction, verbal or otherwise.

I had brought to school a brand new artist sketchbook, some drafting pencils (B and H), a Mars eraser, my personal favorite, and two books that provide easy to follow instructions for drawing 3D pictures by artist Mark Kistler. When he saw the sketchbook and pencils, his eyes lit up.

I remembered when I was his age, and all my doodles and sketches and drawings were done on notebook paper or typing paper. I didn't know of anything else to draw on or with. My parents acknowledged that I liked to draw, and provided me with pencils and crayons, but things like special pencils and sketchbooks were in the category of "things not needed." When you have six siblings, you know what is needed and what is not, and you don't ask your hard working parents to buy things you don't need. I did eventually get my first sketchbook, but I was in college by then, when the whole world of art supplies and materials opened up for me. Next to a bookstore, I still love walking through an art supplies store.

I gave him a lesson on shading values using both the H and the B pencils, letting him try out the two kinds and find out for himself which type he preferred. Then we looked through Commander Kistler's illustration book together, and he pointed to one page and then another saying how he'd like to draw this and that. I let him borrow the book for the week-end so he could practice at home. The sketchbook and pencils he could keep. He was very grateful. I know what he's doing this weekend. That makes me feel good. 

Of Writing Process

I began Monday’s writing lesson with a brainstorming session, asking the kids to recall last week’s STARBASE experience, what they enjoyed the most, what they learned from it all. For many, the rocket building and launching was by far the highlight of the week, but it was quite interesting to see what else they considered most memorable.

As we created a group sized circle map on the board, many favorite sessions were called out: “Eggbert!” called one girl, and the class responded by laughing, each recalling their own experience securing an egg (not hardboiled) with materials provided by the instructor, then watching the space vehicle, carrying their precious padded and taped egg, crash into a rock. There were only a few survivors.

“Launching the rockets!” called out another student. “Do you mean building and launching the rockets or just launching them?” I asked. Several quickly added “Building and launching!”

“What else did you learn about, that you didn’t know much about before STARBASE came?” I asked.

“When he talked about gravity and lift and thrust,” suggested one boy.

“Forces of Flight,” I wrote on the board. “What else?”

“The Sooper Puppy video,” one girl said as she pointed to the picture in her flight log. “The video about drug abuse,” she added.

“Yeah, and those goggles were funny,” another called out.

Their regular teacher asked, “What was so funny about the goggles?”

“They made us feel weird,” a student answered.

“What was the purpose of wearing the goggles,” I asked.

“To learn what it was like to be on drugs,” someone answered.

“How did it make you feel?” their teacher asked.

“It was hard to walk a straight line with them on. Maybe that’s how it feels to be drunk,” one girl suggested.

Another student said, “It made me feel sick.”

“That was the Fatal Vision session,” I said as I wrote it in our brainstorm circle. Then the memories came back quickly and the kids were calling out several at once. Soon, I had Ocean of Air, and Exploring Aeronautics, and Things that Fly written on the board.

Finally, one student said, “The test clickers… I really liked the test clickers.”

The class broke into unanimous agreement. The test clickers, a remote control unit with a series of buttons, enabled students to respond to test questions projected on a screen by aiming and pressing a choice (A,B,C, or D) during the pre- and post-tests. They liked it much better than the pencil and paper multiple choice tests they are accustomed and even better than the computer benchmark tests, which are also multiple choice. The remote unit selectors are probably the closest thing to playing with a video game or making selections when watching television. The teachers liked the concept even more than the students, however, considering it’s value for replacing the time needed for grading papers, and providing immediate feedback of whole class and individual comprehension. My first thought when I saw them in use was “We’ve got to get these in the classroom! ”

“Test clickers,” I added to the cluster taking shape on the board. Soon, the circle was filled with things they enjoyed and learned from their STARBASE experience.

I asked them to consider the things we talked about, and told them to choose three of the events or experiences that they enjoyed the most. They would be writing a letter to the STARBASE people, a thank you letter, but it would be written in the five paragraph expository format they had recently learned to organize.

Their regular teacher and I then reviewed the components of the five paragraph letter: an opening, three middle paragraphs, and a closing. We reminded them that they would be writing one paragraph for each event they enjoyed, and that paragraph would have to relate examples, explanation, and/or narrative, in other words, details to support the main idea.

To help them get started, I showed an overhead of my thank you letter, and read it out loud, pausing here and there to ask a question about why I might have chosen a particular word, or to ask them about the purpose of the last sentence in the paragraph. Then, as a group, we reverse mapped the whole letter onto a pillar map drawn on chart paper. The kids did their part to find the main idea of each paragraph, and then we looked for the details to support the main idea, filling in the spaces provided on the map. Soon, the entire letter was reduced to words and phrases, main ideas and supporting details, all neatly diagrammed into little organizational rectangles.

Their next step will be to make their own pillar maps using what they had selected to write about, and then they will be ready to tackle the letter. Such a long process, but teaching writing to someone who doesn’t know how, or who doesn’t want to, is no easy task. Having something exciting to write about usually helps, and they have something exciting to write about. With daily modeling of the component parts, and group discussions along the way, the students will get their letters written, and the memory of the week with STARBASE will be forever remembered on paper.

Coming Soon: STARBASE experience

I haven't written it yet, but for those who are looking for it, the STARBASE experience is in process. I'm still gathering information that will be used in the final piece.

The excitement generated by last week's activities and observations is still clinging to me, and I don't want to lose the momentum. I don't want the kids to lose it either.

This week, I plan to tap into what they learned and how they felt last week to help them improve their friendly letter writing skills. What a great opportunity for writing a thank you letter to the STARBASE personnel.

I've just written up all my lesson plans for the week, and it is almost 10 p.m. I have clothes to iron that won't get ironed piled up on the rocking chair in my living room, and the ironing board is standing there hopefully, begging for my attention every time I walk through the room. This morning I felt more ambitious about the ironing than I do now, and I'll probably regret it tomorrow morning when I get up and have to iron a pair of pants to wear. 

 

 

Of Skinks and Miniature Schnauzers

There’s a skink in my house. Possibly in this very room. I saw it a few hours ago as it scurried across the carpet of the spare room, so called because it is neither used as a bedroom nor as an office, but as a laundry-computer-office-library-storage room. It is also the room where my dogs sleep, each in their own comfortable, padded, oval-shaped doggy beds. I mention the myriad of uses of this room because it’s important for this recounting. The skink, remember?

Another factor to keep in mind is the nature of my dogs. Both are middle-aged miniature schnauzers, one black and one salt & pepper gray. The black one, Max, is six years old. Misty, the grayish one, is ten years old. These facts have little to do with what I am about to write, but I like talking about my dogs. They are adorable.

They love to chase things that run. This fact IS important to the story. And they are both skillful mousers. As a team, when in hot pursuit of a an escaping mouse, each contributes a skill that the other does not have. Not a skill, however, that they sat around and discussed like we might do. I never heard Max grunt, “Look, I’m the better killer. You catch it, let me kill it. Quick, painless. Snap. That’s my job.” And I never heard Misty agree, saying, “Sure, Max. You are better at that than I am. I do like playing with them first, though. They are so small and cute. But you’re right, fast and painless is better for the mouse. I’ll catch them, you kill them.”

Misty, being the eldest of the two, was Max’s substitute mother when he came to us as a 6 week old puppy back in 1999. She raised him with great patience and maternal affection. She taught him his manners. She became his playmate, his disciplinarian, and his leader. But she never could teach him one thing that she is very good at, that is, running off into the woods for hours at a time, returning whenever she feels like it. Max, in that respect, never wanders far from home, preferring instead the company of his real mother. Me. I am so grateful he didn’t pick up that bad habit from Misty. He always comes home when I call him, he doesn’t stray far from home, and he doesn’t come back covered in mud, seeds, and who knows what that muck is he likes to roll in once in awhile, as much and as often as she does. He is my body guard, my companion, my chair snuggler, and my traveling companion when I drive to town.

I tell all this so that I can get to the point of this story, the skink that is still running around this house. If I don’t catch it, it will most certainly die of dehydration, like the green chameleon my son carried all the way from a Florida vacation when he was about ten or so. Despite my warnings that we had no way of keeping a chameleon, he thought he’d like to try it, and everything went well until we got home. I don’t know how it happened, but the lizard-like critter got away. Since none of us were frantically afraid of reptiles, and it was a little reptile, and since we could not easily find a creature that could change its color to match the brownish carpet, the rock-colored fireplace, or the dark- brown barn boards on our living room walls, we didn’t go out of our way looking for it. It was the master of disguise. We would find it when it died, that was my plan. Although, Steven did make a sincere effort to find the animal, feeling guilty that he had brought it home, an unfriendly place by chameleon standards, he could not find it either, and soon forgot about it.

About a week later, we found the creature. It is amazing he lasted that long, actually. It might have been dead for several days, I had no way of knowing. I remember one night we were sitting in the living room, maybe watching tv, maybe reading. It was quiet, so maybe not watching tv. Quiet enough to hear the sound of a dry paper ornament falling to the stone floor of our fireplace. Scratchy, light, empty. I turned to look at the fireplace, from where this whispery sound came, and there on the stone floor lay something brown and shriveled with dried legs and tail. By then I had forgotten about the chameleon, but when I picked up the shell of its body, I realized what it was.

This memory came back to me when I saw the blue-tailed skink, a young one judging from its size, scamper into the middle of my spare room floor, and stop for a moment. Now this room is filled with many things, but no bed. A dresser, two book shelves, a computer center, a file cabinet, a basket of laundry, several canvas bags with books and things in them, two dog beds, a lamp table, a floor lamp, a rocking chair, a swivel chair, a large basket of dog toys, and a video storage case. Too many things for a quick blue-tailed skink torun around and hide behind. Oh, and a closet, which is also filled with things from the floor to the hanging clothes, to the shelf above the clothes. Another convenient hiding place for a little four-inch long, low to the ground, four-legged speed demon. It’s only weakness is that it can’t change colors to blend in with the background, so if I see it, I can catch it. But I can’t see it when it is hiding.

This is where my trusty mouser dogs come in. I call out the alarm they are familiar with. “Skink!” I yell. “Misty, Max! Skink!”

Do they really know that I’m telling them that a skink is in the house? And do they really associate that word with the creature? Possibly. They have chased down a few. When I’m with them, as they chase it, I encourage them, calling, “Get the SKINK!” or “Good dog. SKINK!“ and “There’s the SKINK.” By now, just the word “SKINK!” is all they need to know that there is something fun to chase nearby.

Max is the first one to respond to my excited voice. By the time he arrives in the room, I am already on the floor trying to catch the skink, and it runs under the computer desk. Once it reaches the back wall, it follows to the left, behind the file cabinet, and slips under the door into the closet. I wish it hadn’t done that. I can’t go to bed knowing it’s running around in the closet. But the closet is full of too much I don’t want to go through on a Saturday night. I throw aside the two dog beds that block the closet door, which startles Max and he leaves the room. I call him back while tossing aside blankets and curtains and a bag of clothes I want to give away but haven’t. By then the skink has scurried out onto the main floor again, and this time Max sees it. He makes an attempt, God bless him, to catch the reptile, but it eludes him by running back behind the file cabinet, where dog noses can’t reach.

By this time Misty has arrived amidst the piles of mess that is now in the center of the room. A lamp has been knocked over in the process, and the skink is still running wildly in the dark corners of the room. Misty is valiant as she immediately presses her nose to the floor and heads straight for the closet. She has caught the scent, and tries to find its path, but to no avail. Skinks must not leave much scent behind for she gives up within 30 seconds and walks out of the room despite my saying the code word excitedly several times, “Skink! Misty, SKINK!”

I catch a glimpse of the lizard as it disappears into a small opening where the floor boards come together at a right angle. Max sniffs the area, but it is gone. For now. I am left with a mess in the room, and both dogs have abandoned me, disappointed that they could not find the skink.

As I type this, the skink is still loose. I have no problem with critters on the floor, or even anywhere outside. But thinking about them crawling up the side of the bed and…, no I don’t want to find it in my bed.

Still, I have no plan to catch it. I know it wants out, and it will try to find a way out. We’ve had birds, snakes, bats, mice, spiders, hamsters, and various bugs at one time or another running or flying through our house over the past 24 years, a small price to pay for living in the country, and always we were able to get them out, either in a friendly, let-them-live manner or the desperate you-are-gonna-die manner. Except for the hamsters. They were trying to get out and we had to catch them to put them back in, although my allergic husband more than once fantasied about releasing them into the woods.

It's possible I will be going to bed tonight without catching the skink. Good thing Steve is out on the coast fishing. The dogs are going to sleep with me tonight.

Of STARBASE 2005

This is a multiple choice test question.

Which of the following does not belong with the other three?

A. Star Trek

B. Star Wars

C. Star Gate

D. STARBASE

Most people my age remember the original Star Trek television show, running from 1966 through 1969, which, despite its futuristic settings and plots, portrayed characters resembling those we had come to love in our favorite television westerns of that time (think Gunsmoke 1955-1975; Wagon Train -1957-65; and Rawhide - 1959-66). I loved them all, but Rawhide (and Clint Eastwood‘s character, ramrod Rowdy Yates) was my favorite. I became a Trek fan in 9th grade.

Then there was Star Wars, a space fantasy series that began back in 1977 with episode IV, A New Hope. The adventurous story plot, classic hero/villain characters, and interstellar settings combined with military/naval and cowboy/western action to make a movie that was both entertaining and mystical, carrying a message of hope and promise in the power of the Force. I fell in love with the Star Wars series and eagerly waited for each new release.

If you are a science fiction and fantasy movie aficionado, you recognize Star Gate as a 1994 science fiction big screen movie, about a team of explorers who, after entering a massive, fluid-like interstellar transporter device, are sent to a planet in an unknown star system where they discover a human-like race with a resemblance in dress, language, and architecture to Earth’s ancient Egyptians. The movie starred Kurt Russell and James Spader and was later developed into two television series, Star Gate 1 and Star Gate Atlantis. I enjoyed the movie, but know very little about the tv series.

STARBASE, Science and Technology Academies Reinforcing Basic Aviation and Space Exploration, is a program that started 14 years ago in several states, in response to a need for more science, math, technology, and positive life choices for students in grades 4 - 6. STARBASE is funded by the Department of Defense, and in our state is sponsored by the North Carolina National Guard, based in Charlotte. (Clicking on the link above will take you to the Kansas STARBASE site. I have not been able to link with the North Carolina STARBASE website as of this time.)

Back to the multiple choice question above. Clearly, the correct answer is answer D. Whereas the first three choices are fictional movie and television series titles, the last choice is a real life effort to create more excitement in the areas of science, math, and technology, to promote teamwork, and to help kids understand the dangers of drug use and make positive life choices.

Now, for the reason that I, in a roundabout manner, have brought up the subject of STARBASE: the STARBASE people, former teachers, and active National Guard personnel, came to my school, B. Everett Jordan Elementary school, this week, and I want to write about the many fine things this program, and its instructors, has to offer. A previous entry (Sept 20) is a record of one event, when the Black Hawk helicopter and crew landed near our school the first day to kick off the program.

Because this will be a lengthy write up, with pictures, I will add the details to my next entry. This entry is what writers refer to as "the hook." I hope it does its job.

Return to the Ant Habitat

For anyone who has been visiting this blog since its origin back on August 2nd, you may be wondering what happened to the ants. After all, this originally was about my ant habitat, and the life of the ants, their tunnels, and their habits. For a couple of weeks, I wrote frequently about the progress and, sometimes, lack of progress of my Harvester Ants. I took pictures of them, daily at one point, as their tunnels seemed to grow over night, except I knew they were constantly at work to create them. I observed them taking what seemed to be naps or breaks from time to time, and was thrilled to discover that they actually had a favorite place to sleep at night in a large communal area that I named the sanctuary of safety.

After school began in the middle of August, my time spent researching and surfing the net declined as other areas of interest, namely planning, scheduling, preparing materials for lessons, and perusing resources for lesson ideas and plans, took more of my time. It's not that I lost interest in the ants, but they fell into a lower level of importance in my life, I am ashamed to admit.

I check on them every day. I open the habitat each morning and let air into it. Lately, most of the ants are to be found at the top of the habitat, hardly moving at all. Not dead or asleep, but moving without purpose. This morning when I opened the ant habitat, I kept it open for nearly a minute and not one ant tried to escape. There seemed to be no interest in escaping, unlike the ants they were when I first got them... speedily racing to the surface the moment they felt the fresh air enter their tunnels.

No, these ants are no longer lively, no longer digging tunnels, no longer interested in doing anything, it seems. Even the ants which have died in the tunnels do not receive their proper carrying to the surface as the ones which died in the earlier days. In fact, yesterday I noticed two curled up dead ants, one at the surface and one in a tunnel. Today, the one at the surface was in pieces, spread out over the blue gel mounds near the tunnel openings. I wondered if the ants had torn it up because it was something to do, or because they needed it to be in pieces for burial, or maybe they ate it? My ants are cannibals? I don't know.

I can only surmise that the life they have had in the small and limited confines of this wonderful blue gel, invented for the NASA spaceflight that took place about two years ago, is not the most desirable of habitats for a life form as sophisticated as the ant, especially a species most noted for their tunneling. The joy and excitement I felt during those first two weeks of observing the ants has most definitely plummeted, and now, each morning when I check on them, I am reminded that I kept them trapped all this time. I find no relief in knowing that they were caught and trapped prior to my picking them up, and if I hadn't bought them for my own studies and observation, someone else would have.

This I have learned about myself: although I enjoy reading about life and living things on the earth, in the sky, or beneath the sea, I would never have made a good biologist. I don't enjoy keeping the animals in confinement. I understand that it's easier to observe an animal when you can control its meanderings, keep it close by for the convenience of the observations, but here's what I know to be true:

I would rather study the ant, beetle, cicada, bee, spider, preying mantis, or whatever insect crosses under or over my path at the time it crosses my path, and at the place at which our paths cross. There will be no more capturing of living animals in my classroom, no more holding them in an unnatural environment for my own curiosity. Even if it could be used as a teaching tool. I will leave this area of studies to other teachers more inclined and less affected.

I should have known, before I even bought the ant habitat, that this was not something I could follow through to the end without feeling. Now, it is a matter of waiting for the imprisoned harvester ants to die. They can never be released. They are non-native to this area. I am reminded of a ninth grade frog dissection in which I found myself wanting to participate but unable to do the deed which was required of me. I could not pierce the brain of a living, breathing, kicking, squirming frog. Oh, I tried. But I could not bring myself to do it. I had to remain a passive, note-taking observer while another student pierced its brain. I felt sick about it afterward. Even as the frog was dissected, its heart beat. Being told it felt no pain did not lessen my guilt in the process. It seemed immoral to me.

Each day I look upon "my ants" and wonder why they continue to live. The book that came with the habitat said they would probably live a few weeks, possibly a month. It's been almost two months, and they are still living, yet not alive. Not thriving nor bustling. I ask myself if I should let them continue to live miserably in this unnatural environment until they die off one by one, or end it quickly and mercifully in the freezer?

Of Riding in a Black Hawk Helicopter

Ask me how my day was today!

Usually when someone asks me how my day went, I say what most of us say. “Pretty good,” or “Like a day at school,” or even, “It was a long day, and I‘m tired.” Depending on the kind of day I had, and who is asking, I may or may not elaborate any further.

Today I had one of those days that begs for elaboration… I want someone to ask me “How was your day today, Bea?”

Let me tell you!

The highlight of the day had to be the Black Hawk helicopter ride. Yes, I was at school, it was about 2:00, when I, and seven other teachers, our principal and assistant principal boarded the Black Hawk with its pilot and three other crewmen. For about twenty or so minutes, we flew around the Graham, Mebane, and Saxapahaw communities. It had to be the most exciting thing to happen in our school. Ever. It was absolutely the most fun ride. I took about fifty pictures while we were flying, mostly pictures of the land below us, but also pictures of the teachers smiling fearlessly across from and beside me during take-off. We all agreed that it was awesome, and as teachers who are always looking for a better word to describe an experience because “awesome” is often overused, we couldn’t come up with anything that more aptly described the total experience. It was AWESOME!

What made it so awesome? I think it was a combination of the fine National Guard pilot and his crew, the fearless teachers who flew together, and the unusual point of view.

I am certain that the National Guard pilot and crew made it especially memorable. In fact, they pretty much made the whole experience extraordinary. First of all, they had spent half the day with our students, beginning with the arrival of the Black Hawk helicopter at about noon. As soon as the announcement was made that the helicopter was in the area, all the fourth and fifth graders and their teachers ran out to the ball field next to our school to watch it land. Once the blades stopped turning, the crew waved us on, and our kids lined up to see the helicopter from a very close point of view: from inside. Two of the crew helped kids climb into the Black Hawk and buckle up their seat belts which looked more like harnesses. Eight kids at a time buckled up and smiled for their picture to be taken (by me!). This the crew did for nearly the next two hours, smiling, laughing, and talking with the kids, answering their questions with humor and understanding, and posing patiently in the relentless hot sun for class pictures. They did not stop buckling kids into their seats, helping them get back down again, and posing for whole class pictures, until all 463 students had passed through their helicopter. When I commented to one of them how many students they had worked with today in such a short time, he said “We are very efficient!” I’ll say. To these four soldiers, whom we will probably never meet again because our paths may not cross, soldiers who could as well be sent to Iraq or some other far away place and put in harm’s way, I say thank you for making this day special for our children, and God bless you and keep you safe, and may His face shine upon you!

The teachers made it awesome as well. We knew we’d be flying, but none of us knew when. In fact, we didn’t know until about an hour before the flight that we were going up. Only one teacher seemed to have any reservations, but being the stout hearted person she is, she did not back down. She told us she was terribly afraid of heights, but one of our STAR BASE commanders had promised her she would be fine in the air. During take off, we all grasped each other, more for assurance that we were in this together rather than out of fear. The smiles and grins I saw on the faces across from me proved that they were feeling like little kids again. Just like me. There were a couple of moments when the helicopter seemed to drop in altitude a little too quickly, and those butterflies shook us up a bit, but for the rest of the ride, we were just giddy with excitement and disbelief. I don’t know that any of us really had time to think about the dangers involved, and we all put those thoughts far away from our conscious thinking. Sharing the BlackHawk ride with each other like that means we will always have that memory. Four of the teachers who went up with us today are new to our school, having started just this August, placing even more value on this shared experience, of which we will certainly be talking about at the lunch table for a very long time. We’ve seen each other in the classroom teaching, at Staff meetings, Committee meetings, and teacher workshops, but I have never seen such expressions of thrill, joy, and fear all at once as I did in that Black Hawk during take off.

Finally, the view of the world below, or at least our part of the world, took our breath away. I probably speak for all of those on board, we have never seen Alamance County from the air. Some of us have flown before in airplanes, or little tourist helicopter rides, but to fly over the cities and towns in which one lives is something most people never get to do in their lifetime. We saw a bird’s eye view of our school, nestled in amongst the surrounding pine, oak, and poplar woods, and our tiny yellow school buses lined up neatly in the parking lot. When I recognized our school, our parking lot, and our buses, I thought, “That’s my school down there! That’s where I work!” I felt so proud to be part of this school and community. When the pilot flew us over Graham, I said, “There’s the Court House!” (although no one could hear me because we wore ear plugs to protect us from the sound of the whirling chopper blades). It stands quite stately in the center of Graham, directing all traffic north and south, east and west. I had become so accustomed to the small, quaint, country appeal of Graham, that I had not realized how spread out and flat everything there looks from the air. Still, it is my county and my county seat, and I smiled when I saw it. There were little doll-house sized neighborhoods lined with neat, curved streets, and water towers guarding community baseball fields. We saw the busy interstate streaming with vehicular life below us as it flowed from city to far away city. Also, there were enormous, flat-top buildings planted off the main roads that I had not known existed, and great swatches of plowed fields marked by tractor tracks and pick up truck trails. Hundreds and hundreds of acres of wooded land rolled and stretched out below us, broken here and there by a pond, or a road, or a field with one crop or another. I spied someone’s deer stand in the middle of one unplanted field. The Haw River wound this way and that, like a massive brown snake on a rocky path, marked in familiar areas by bridges and nearby golf courses. There were a few moments when we looked puzzled at each other. Where were we? The pilot flew for some time over open country, but we could not tell where we were. We shrugged our shoulders and gave in to not knowing. We simply sat back and enjoyed the spectacular view.

The ride in the Black Hawk helicopter was not the only exciting event of the day, but it is definitely going down in my memory album as the most exciting event of the past decade. How could I ever forget the patience and politeness of our young National Guard helicopter crew as they worked with our students, the laughter of my excited colleagues as we flew over our school, and the extraordinary opportunity to view our county from the air? This is one day I will talk about to my students in all the years to come.

The teachers gave me their permission to use the pictures above. You'd think we were on a ride at Disney Land or Carowinds. Look close and you can see the orange ear plugs we had to wear. Unforgettable.

 

Forgiven, the Poem

“Forgiven”

 

"Daughter," said He,

His eyes filled with tears.

"Father," I whispered,

Overcoming my fears.

"I knew you'd come back,"

He said as He held me.

"I'm sorry I left you..."

But He wouldn't let me

Speak the words

I wanted to say.

That's how my Father

Forgave me that day."

 

I wrote this poem back in November 2002. I had meant to include it with the painting, Forgiven, that I displayed in my blog (9-11-05), but the text I had written that day was already lengthy enough, and so I decided not to include it. In that entry (tenth paragraph), I explain the meaning of the painting, and why I painted it.

I don’t want to say too much about it here because words often detract from the meaning of a created thing.

Art is a two way experience. The one who created the piece experiences a process of discovery that culminates in the finished piece. The one who looks upon it or listens to it experiences some kind of personal interpretation, which may or may not be similar to what the artist had intended. Each person, the creator and the viewer, brings their past experiences, beliefs, feelings, hopes, and disappointments to the finished piece, forming yet another experience.

It is a genuine communication between souls. The artist has an experience of the heart and soul, and responds to it by producing something that can be experienced by the physical senses. In this way, the artist communicates to the other outside of herself, hoping to convey a single thought, word, idea, or concept. In this case, she takes the broad meaning of forgiveness and paints it in layers of color and shape, line and shadow, and emotion and memory. And hope. There is hope in everypiece. Hope that the message is received, understood, shared.

I cannot speak for other artists, although, I have spoken with many over the years. There is a purpose to their seeking even if they are unable to identify it at the time they are questioned. Sometimes it is about money, and financial reward, but more often, it is not about the money at all. Most of the time it is about saying something, capturing a moment, a feeling that inhabits us from time to time, too fleeting to grasp completely, too abstract to express in words.

What I Am Waiting For

The school year is proceeding with all its surprises and turns as well as the expected daily events. Two days a week, I have to be present in the cafeteria for breakfast duty. I am not complaining. It's just a fact for me that twice a week, I and another teacher work the cafeteria, keeping order, making sure the kids get their breakfast, eat, and get to class by 8:05 and no later. This year the breakfast time seems more pleasant because the kids are following, for the most part, the posted cafeteria rules, which include no talking in line.

It is also a time for seeing the cutest little faces, helping them open their cartons of juice or milk, consoling them when they are having a bad start for the day, hearing some funny or cute thing they might say when we ask them how they are doing.

One little girl stood in the line the other day, waiting quietly, as if someone had agreed to go into the kitchen to get her something. Recognizing her as a kinder, I asked her what she was waiting for. She said "French toast." I looked at the food items in the serving area, and saw only muffins and cereal and juice and milk. No french toast. "There's no french toast today, honey," I explained. "Uh-huh," she said nodding her pony-tailed head. "My mommy said today was french toast. I'm waiting for them to bring it out." The other kids continued to file past us, looking curiously at us as they walked by with their trays of muffins and cereal and juice and milk. "Did someone say they were getting you some french toast?" I asked her. She looked at me for a moment, then shook her head in resignation. "See," I pointed to the available choices in the serving trays. "You can have cereal or muffins, with juice and milk. That's all. We'll have french toast another day, okay?" She said okay, and decided she didn't want to eat after all, returning to her classroom looking disappointed. That day was her second day of school. Heck of a way to start the school year in kindergarten. No french toast for breakfast.

But I understood completely the desire for something that you are pretty sure is going to be available, and you wait for it with all the sincerity and surety that it will happen. Yet, as the moments pass by, you realize that maybe you misunderstood the signals, or someone told you wrong, or maybe, just maybe, you haven't waited long enough, that you have to wait a little longer. Or even a lot longer.

So I ask myself, not meaning to have it answered here, but just sending it out into the cosmos of life, what am I waiting for? What is it that I am wanting so much that I find myself searching for it every day? What is this expectation in my heart that pushes me forward day after day, hoping I will find it?

I am waiting for something. Sometimes I think I know what it is, and other times, I'm not quite as sure. Sometimes the restlessness is so intense that I can't stand it, and I know that I'm close to finding it, and other times, I am more patient and content just to recognize that I am in the "Waiting" zone.

It is too late to continue where this is going. I may have to consider this question at another time.

 

Being Forgiven and Forgiveness

 

"Forgiven"

Today's sermon was about being forgiven and forgiveness. It's nearly impossible to do the latter without having already experienced the former. Forgiving someone for something they did or said to us in the past is one of the most difficult Christian concepts to put into real-world action. I'm not even talking about the attack our country bore four years ago on this date, although that was one of the most atrocious and evil attacks we have ever experienced in our homeland and among our people. People in other countries have suffered even worse ongoing atrocities and evil with governments oppressing and suppressing their citizens, killing their people by the hundreds and thousands, and burying them in mass graves. We don't usually find out about it until a year, three years, ten years, or more have passed. We are horrified when we learn the truth.

But that is not the kind of real-world action I am talking about, because those bigger global issues are at various stages of retaliation or resolution and involve our world religious and political leaders, and our military men. It involves us when we read about it, see it on the news, and talk about it amongst our friends and family, and we criticize and say how we think the government ought to do things because our tax money helps pay for these things. Even more, it involves those whose sons and husbands, daughters, and wives, mothers and fathers have been sent to deal with it in a very direct and life-threatening way. We pray for world peace and we pray for our leaders.

The kind of real-world action I am talking about takes place at the individual level, where one person ends and another person begins. Where love is expressed or betrayed. Where relationships of trust are built, commitments made, and hearts given. Where some children learn very young that adults take care of them and will not hurt them, and where other children learn that sometimes adults hurt them even as they take care of them.

These are sad, embittered people who remember when they were innocent and alive. They remember that the adults in their life did not take care of them, did not love them, did not protect them, did not nurture them. This is the kind of real-world action I am talking about: when we are called to forgive someone from the past,whether they are alive or not, for what they did to us, or did not do, when we were children.

I do not speak as much for myself as I do for someone else I know and love. Forgiveness for her, as for most of us, does not come easy. She wants to forgive, and she admits she has tried to, but forgetting is the part that won't let her. She can't forget.

I cannot even speak for her, because I did not experience her pain, but I can speak of what I know about forgiveness and of being forgiven, for I was forgiven.

Human nature is not to forgive. My pastor told us this morning that his nature is to retaliate when someone attacks him or hurts him.

I am that way. When someone verbally assaults me, I want to attack back. If you are good to me, I am good to you. If you show me disrespect, I may show you the same. If you hit me, I will probably hit you back. That is our human nature to respond in this way. Christ calls on us to act differently, especially toward our aggressor. He tells us to forgive others who trespass against us (Matthew 6:9-13), who owe us (Matthew 18:21-35), and who have done us harm (Luke 23:32-34).

I am not going to preach here. I just know that there is One who forgives us all when we go to Him with our hearts broken and open, bleeding, and weak. We give up all that put us in this dark and broken place, all that holds us back, weights us down, all that wounds us, and suffocates us. We fall at His feet, so to speak, as He hangs on the cross, and we realize that our sin put Him there, and His act of dying was/is an act of love. He suffered so that He could experience our human suffering, and so that we could experience His divine love, His divine forgiveness. Yet not for His glory alone, but that we would forgive others who hurt us, even those who would kill us. That is our mission: to forgive others. It is an aspect of love.

                      

The painting above is called "Forgiven." It is how I felt when I was forgiven, when I realized the very personal nature of Jesus Christ, of his humanity and his divinity. The little girl represents the manner in which I approached him, as a child, though I was grown when this awareness came to me. The surrounding area of reds and purples signify the chaos that grew around me when I left my faith by the wayside and tried to follow the ways of others, and how, there in the warmth of the yellow light, his Light, I saw him standing there waiting for me, as he had been all along. I knew there was only one right thing to do: tell him I was sorry for leaving him. After all, I had been the one to leave him, he had never left me.

He called me Beloved. I was forgiven.

In my heart this happened. It changed my life, the way I respond to others, the way I respond to my own wants and needs. It is as real as me walking into the classroom every day and teaching children. It is not a fantasy, nor a dream. The painting is only a paper and watercolor representation of what really happened.

I may not be able to convince another person to forgive the ones who have not loved her enough, or who have taken too much from her. I can only tell her that I love her, I hear what she is saying, and I know that Jesus waits with open arms to take her in as well, to free her of all the pain, the memories, the lost childhood, and to give back to her a life to be lived in fullness. There is love in being forgiven, there is a home in being forgiven, there is life in being forgiven. A forgiven heart can turn around and forgive another.

I would say to her, "Go to him, then. Let him hold you in his arms like a father. Cry there, and tell him what is heavy in your heart. Make your heart so empty that nothing but his love can fill it. No one cando this like he can. Hear what he has to say to you, what he has in store for you. Hear him call you "Beloved." You are his. He has called you by name. Let that bring peace to your troubled heart and soul, my sister, for there is nothing on this earth that can do that for you."

1 But now, this is what the LORD says”
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.

Isaiah 43:1-2

Discovering the Inner Me, and Good Drugs!

The procedure went well enough. To make a long story short, the doctor was late getting there due to a previous surgery, so I had to wait on the stretcher bed, all prepped, with IV in one arm and blood pressure cuff on the other, until two thirty-ish. Good thing I had come prepared with a book to read.

When the doctor finally showed up at 2:40, everything happened very quickly. I could tell the instant the sedative was administered through the IV, feeling a very pleasant sensation in my brain. Very nice! Could I take some home with me please? Made me forget all about the nasty sodium phosphate I had had to drink. Made me forget about a lot of things. The last thing I was aware of was the tv monitor in front and above me. I remember saying "Will I be able to watch you work?" And the doctor said, "If you can stay awake." 

The next thing I remember is waking up and looking at the monitor again. I could see the inside of my intestine! and I saw the device clipping or cutting at a thing on the intestinal wall. It looked completely harmless. So that's what a polyp looks like, I thought. It wasn't that big! and where's the loopy cutter thing I had seen in the video on the internet? What was all that sloshing... oh he is probably rinsing it out ... and then he cut another little bump, the instrument opening and closing over the bump like an alligator mouth. It pulled, and blood, oh, look it's bleeding. Just a little. Not much. Is it supposed to bleed, I wondered? I thought you would cauterize it, but maybe there's different techniques to removing different sized polyps. And what is that thing? And where are you now, I wondered? What are you doing? I was very interested in what was going on inside of me, and wondered at how I didn't feel a thing. My eyes blinked dryly several times, but I refused to stop watching.

Then I heard the doctor's voice saying, "Well, that's it."

 "You're done?" I asked. "That didn't take long at all." I vaguely remember being wheeled back to the curtained room, and after that I really started waking up.

A nurse kept checking my blood pressure, and when it finally came back to a normal number, she told me I could get  dressed. My husband showed up to help me dress, making sure I didn't fall over, but as long as I stood straight up I was okay. A kind young man dressed in a blue jacket came by with a wheelchair to take me to the lobby. My husband got the car, and by 4:30 we were on our way home. "Where do you want to go eat?" he asked.  I couldn't stop thinking about that great broasted chicken sandwich that Hursey's Barbecue in Graham makes. "Let's go to Hursey's," I suggested. "I want one of those chicken sandwiches. I might eat one and order one to go."

So we did, and I did, and on the way home we stopped at the grocery store for a few necessary food items. I bought some chocolate eclairs for an evening dessert. As we passed Thompson Funeral Home, we were reminded of the passing of one of our friends' aunts this week. The visitation was today, and there were people already in the parking lot at 5:50. Still feeling tired, and uncertain about the need for facilities, I decided not to go to the visitation, but my husband went to give our regards and support to the family.

About 6:15 or so, the phone rang. It was my doctor calling to tell me how well everything went. I told him I had tried to stay awake to watch the whole thing, and he laughed. "You slept through the first half, but then you woke right up in the middle. After that, you were the back seat driver the rest of the way."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You watched the monitor, oohing and aahing, and said, 'What's that?' and 'What are you doing now?' and 'Oh, that's what they look like!' and 'Now what are you doing?'"

"I was talking? I said those things out loud?"

"You were like a kid in the car, 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet?' Most people just sleep right through the whole thing." He laughed again. "You handled it well, and I'll call you next week with the lab results."

What else did I say? I wondered after I hung up the phone.

I took a nap while my husband was at the funeral home for the family visitation, and felt normal by the time he got home.

It wasn't a bad experience after all. The worst part was drinking that nasty sodium phosphate stuff.

 

 

Of Liquid Fasting and Sodium Phosphate

Today is the day.

I will eat today. I don’t know what time exactly, probably after 3:00, but as soon as I leave the hospital, I will direct my driver husband to the nearest slow foods restaurant, possibly Golden Corral where I can choose from a wide selection of meats, vegetables, salads, and desserts. In that order. I have some making up to do.

My last meal was Wednesday night at 6:30 pm. It is now 9:30 a.m., Friday. When I awoke this morning, I was surprised that my stomach wasn’t growling angrily in protest of being denied food. Actually, it felt nice and calm. I got up to face a leisurely morning, a gift of time. Most Fridays, I am in the classroom by 7:10 or so, but this morning, having The Procedure scheduled for some time after 12:00, I had a preparation regimen to continue, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. Still, there was the peaceful pace of a Saturday-like morning, and there was time to make a journal entry. I would take advantage of the “free” time I had been given.

The preparation regimen begins the day before the procedure. A liquid fast of clear liquids is the menu for the day. Beginning with breakfast, clear liquids, including tea and coffee with no milk or dairy creamer (sweetening is okay); clear boullion or broth; Kool-Aid, Sodas, and clear, pulp-free juices are allowed. Not a great choice, but it would keep me going throughout the day, and keep me hydrated, the most important thing to be mindful of when one has to cleanse one’s bowels. I know, too graphic. I’ll try not to mention that again.

Lunch menu is the same. So is dinner. Clear liquids. And guess what you have to drink after you take the first dose of sodium phosphate? Several glasses of water or clear liquids. That was my day yesterday, and I got through it pretty easy enough. I didn't have to take the first dose of sodium phosphate until 3:00, and I knew I could get home in time for that.

My fears over how I would get through Thursday’s class schedule, without dying from hunger from the smells of a hot lunch permeating the halls, were dismissed on Wednesday. That’s when I found out that I had to attend a writing workshop on Thursday. I wouldn’t even be in the classroom! An unexpected reprieve.

Indeed, yesterday I was sitting at a workshop, relatively passive, listening and learning, and away from any odors of cooking foods. I had a can of soda, two bottles of apple juice, and two bottles of water in my bag. I had also brought some chicken boullion cubes to which I could add hot water for lunch. It was a worthwhile workshop. I took notes as ideas of how to implement what I was learning came to me. During the lunch break, I told my co-teacher I’d had some ideas of how to present it to our kids, and she told me she did, too. I can’t wait to find some time to meet with her and get this writing approach started in our grade level. It won’t be before Monday, though.

I followed my doctor’s instructions to the “T”, calling his office before 3:00 to find out what time the procedure was scheduled for on Friday. I was told to be there by 12:15, but really I should arrive 30 minutes earlier to complete registration paperwork.

I drove straight home, wanting to get started on the regimen as soon as possible, to get it over with. I drank the first dosage on time.

I suppose the chemists and doctors involved in creating this laxative solution have made it as palatable as possible, however, it is still very hard to swallow. Saltier than country ham, sweeter than pancake syrup, it had a slight lemon-ginger taste that did little to help it get past the back of my tongue, which almost refused to relax and let it all pass. I told my husband it was like drinking a half-glass of water mixed with 6 or more alka-seltzer tablets dissolved, but without the bubbles of carbonation. I couldn’t drink it all at once like I can that night-time blue cold medicine that takes care of every cold symptom and helps you sleep. I had to ingest it in big sips, followed by a swig of cold water. The only good thing about having to drink it is that after you drink the last dose (there are two), it is done.

I won’t go into the details of how the stuff works, but one must be close to toilet facilities. The label says it should work within 30 minutes to 6 hours. Ten minutes is more like it. Since I hadn’t eaten all day, it all went very easily. The roughest part about the evening was watching the food commercials during Big Brother. Foods that normally don’t get my attention suddenly became very appealing. Hunger pangs were mild, some growling occurred, no more than you would experience had you skipped a meal. I noted that the hunger I felt at 10:00pm was no worse than the hunger I had felt at 10 a.m. that morning. In fact, it is 10 a.m Friday, and the hunger is no worse than it was yesterday morning at the same time.

I kept myself very busy after I got home so I wouldn’t be preoccupied with the hunger thing. Since my bathrooms and kitchen floors needed washing, I set myself to cleaning both bathroom floors, the dining room, and kitchen floor. This is a process that takes about two hours from start to finish if I follow through on removing all pieces of furniture and accessories, including floor vent covers. Only the kitchen floor needed waxing after the washing as the other floors are no-wax, and they look great after a good mopping. After awhile, I told my husband it was okay to go ahead and fix himself something to eat. I didn’t mind if he ate in front of me. He re-heated some leftover pizza (which smelled unusually appetizing to me) while I gave myself a manicure. Staying busy is very important when you can’t eat food. I hear boredom is the worst of triggers to snacking and over-eating.

I took the second dose of sodium phosphate this morning at 9:15 a.m., and now it is just a matter of drinking clear liquids and getting ready. I took a shower, washed and conditioned my hair, and washed a load of clothes this morning. I’m almost ready to go.

I have no idea what to expect except what was told to me by the doctor, and from what I have read on the internet. I will be sedated, and I will be able to return to normal activities within 24 hours. Good thing tomorrow is Saturday. Today, I can sleep and eat, and sleep again.

There are risks, but they are rare. I don’t know for sure if insurance will cover the expense. Was told that I did not need prior approval for the procedure, and that I would find out what’s covered after the insurance received results of the procedure. A Mayo Clinic article on the net said it could cost $800 to $1600, and additional fees may apply. I really don’t care at this point what it costs because two younger siblings have had polyps removed in the past, but there may be others who have not informed me of their health conditions over the years.

So far, the worst part has been drinking that sodium phosphate solution, and the hunger.

Mom Called, Teachers and Subs

She called me last night around 11:30. She is okay, and she is in Georgia. Of course, that could change today. She plans to return to Alabama, to her camper near the Gulf Shores. I couldn't reach her this week because her friend's phone expired, but she has a new one now. I told her how worried I was because she hadn't called, and asked for her landlord's name and number in case it should happen again. If I can't reach her in the future, then I can call them to check on her. They have a landline.

Apparently, that part of Alabama did not get hit too bad despite it's near vicinity to Mobile.

It's Labor Day, and I have the day off. I'll meet a friend for lunch, shop for a baby gift, give myself a manicure, and start in on my plans for the classroom next week. Actually, I have two weeks to plan for because I'll be absent on Friday, my usual day of planning for the next week.

I've called a substitute for that day. I don't like doing that, planning for a sub, because it's more work to plan for someone else to do my job than it is for me to do it.

Subs are not babysitters. They have a teaching role to fill in the classroom, and the subs we repeatedly call year after year are reliable. They are often retired teachers themselves. Others are people wanting to work in the classroom without having all the responsibility of planning and testing. For some, it's a good way to supplement family income, work steadily, and work when they want to. Many subs are so in demand that they work as many days as full-time certified teachers. But subs do not have to plan the lesson. Understandably, that is the teacher's job.

Even planning for one day is extra work for the teacher who will miss a day of teaching, but if you want a sub, that is what you have to do. Think about it this way: you have several jobs to do during the day. If you are a Clipboard personality, you will make a list of some kind for what you plan to do. Just a brief list, something you can glance at to remind you of the items you need to take care of. Some people will check them off as they do them.

A teacher has to do more than make a list. She has several subjects to cover during a day, and within each subject, there is a concept to teach, review, or practice. There are pages to read, questions to ask, a worksheet handout or two, activities for students, and so on. She, or he, has a planning book in which to write her plans in a very brief format. Just enough info to let her know what the objective for the lesson is, any text page numbers, handouts, overheads will be needed, and a title or brief description of an activity the kids will do to practice the learned concept, and finally, a closure statement or question. All this info is printed in a little square block of about 1 - 1 1/2 square. We learn to write very small. This is done for every lesson, for every subject. For each day. A glance at the little block in her planning book lets the teacher know exactly what to do and when to do it. She doesn't need to see all the details written down before her because she already knows in her head, she visualizes, what she will be doing with the kids each hour throughout the day. The block in her planning book is like a jobs list, but with more details.

This is what the sub sees when he or she comes into the classroom. Sometimes, a teacher will talk to the sub on the phone the week or day before if her absence was planned. And sometimes not, if she is suddenly sick, and someone calls for her. A sub needs more written information than the planning book provides, although it is a good guide as to how the whole day will look, how the whole week will look.

A sub needs specific instructions regarding the assignments, the teaching of the concept, especially when you are working with a structured program. Teachers have to write far more for someone else to teach their lesson than they would have written for themselves. But that is the nature of the job. This is not a complaint, not a rant. These are just the facts, the way of things. It’s what we do.

This is why we have our list of subs to call, with favorites highlighted. I have a list of six I prefer to call. If we really want a particular sub, we will call them well in advance of the day needed. When you can’t plan ahead, like when you are sick, you make do with the first person you can reach. Hopefully, you are able to reach your first choice of subs, but often that is not the case. Sometimes, calling a stranger who has never subbed for you before is a boon. You discover that they are a really great sub, so you add them to your list of preferred subs. Life is full of surprises, especially at school.

However, the general rule I try to follow is this: don't get sick! In my six years of teaching, I have been blessed in this department. My mother has always been on the healthy side. I think I inherited that from her. I don't want to ruin the record by being boastful, so enough said.

Still, there are other times when a teacher needs a sub, like when she attends a workshop on a school day. Most workshops we attend are on school days. I like going to workshops. They expand upon what I already know and do, and they help me be a better teacher in every way. Workshops are necessary and desirable for a teacher.

Some workshops are far away, in another county, but most are local. Some run over a series of several days because of the training involved, and others are only two hours long, and are held after school. Some are held on weekends, in which case a teacher is giving up her after-school (family) time to attend it, and some are held during school hours.

Some of the best teacher workshops are held over the summer. (I went to the most fun environmental/science workshop over the summer with several teachers from my school held. It was held at the Pisgah Forest Institute in Brevard, North Carolina. For five days we learned about practical ways to bring science, with an environmental slant, into the classroom. I could devote an entire blog page just for that topic, and I will, but not today.)

This wondering wanderer has wandered enough. I didn’t realize I’d be writing my thoughts about substitute teachers today, but that’s where it went.

A final thought: a teacher couldn’t do her job without someone to take her place. We do get sick, our children get sick, our husbands are in the hospital, we have to go to the doctor’s once in awhile, we have to have surgeries, and malfunctioning parts removed. Subs are on call for that (subbing, not removing malfunctioning parts). Teachers have babies, subs help us out for weeks and months at a time for that, too. Teachers have parents who suddenly become ill and need their adult child to come home temporarily. Subs help us there. We get hurt and break bones, suffer from diseases that require treatment, and you get the picture. Teachers don’t like getting sick, I think, more because of the disruption it causes in their teaching routine, than because of the disruption it will cause in their lives. Certainly, I’m not speaking for all teachers, but I hear it a lot. They are a dedicated bunch.

I am grateful for the subs who have answered my call, and for those who will answer my call this year. I haven’t been disappointed in any of those who have subbed for me thus far. I have only been disappointed when I called them and they couldn’t fit me in because they were already committed to sub for another teacher that same day.

So now you know how I spent part of my Labor Day: writing a blog entry!

A Missing Mother?

I don't know where my mother is.

She could be safe somewhere near the Gulf Shores, near Bon Secour, in Alabama. But I don't know for sure because she hasn't called to tell me. I don't even know how bad the storm hit that area last Monday. I saw some video on the news of the hurricane's affect in Mobile, and it looked fearsome. My mother's camper is on a campground about 20-25 miles southeast of Mobile. I can only hope that she is safe and dry.

I called her and left three messages on her cell phone, but could only leave messages to return my call. A friend at church suggested the possibility that the cell towers could be down, and she is unable to make a call, or even to receive her messages. Not being acquainted with cell phones, I hadn't thought about that.

Still, I am hoping for a call soon. She doesn't normally call me every week, but since she moved to Alabama, I had asked her to call me once a week to let me know how she was doing or I would worry and send out the Search Crew. She agreed to call, and for the past three weeks, she has called me faithfully.

I guess I shouldn't worry, though. I did talk to her last Monday or Tuesday, I can't remember which day. She did say she was going back to Alabama the next day. I haven't heard from her since.

She doesn't have a mailing address, nor a PO Box yet. She was planning on getting a post office box this week, but so far, I've not heard anything by phone or mail. I'm not quite ready to call the Baldwin County Sheriff's Department, but if I haven't heard from her by Tuesday, I will do just that.

She'll be embarassed, but she'll understand. She would do the same for me.

“Be patient, and watch me work.”

I had just got home from church today. I was glad when our pastor announced that our church is not only sending Health Kits, but also volunteers to help prepare them, and money. In that way, we can help. It seems so little, but with proper coordination of relief efforts, those people will eventually receive the outpouring of love and caring that far away communities are sending.

Our pastor told us that 300 people from the stricken areas will be arriving in the Triad soon, and will be sent to the area hospitals to be screened for health and medical needs. Area churches are being asked to appeal to citizens who have vacant rental homes, apartments, mobile homes, and such in which to settle a family. Many of the displaced will return to their homes in a few months but many more will likely remain in our state, and seek employment, and send their kids to school here. They will need the kindness and generosity of North Carolinians to begin their new lives.

When I got home, the first thing I did was to turn on Headline News to see the latest developments. Immediately, there were two stories being shown, one of a woman and her husband returning to what was left of their home, and the other of a family and their miniature horses.

Of the former, a reporter accompanied the couple to the home site, the neighborhood littered with splintered trees and house parts. The woman found a part of a chair, and lifted it up from the mud. As she picked through the debris, certain items were recognized. “That was in our bedroom,” she said holding what looked like a broken crystal candle-holder. She could not bear it any longer, and began sobbing. The reporter could not stand apart from the sorrow and loss he witnessed that day. As he tried to express his own feelings about being there in the middle of the torn land, he could not find the words. He waved the camera away. A reporter, a man of words for every event and occasion, standing low and lost, just like the couple kneeling on the ground, sifting through the rubble for what was their life. That was the first stab to my heart.

The next story showed a man and his wife standing in their yard. They had weathered the storm. Their home was broken, but enough was left standing that they could live there. I don’t remember where they lived, Louisiana or Mississippi, but as the camera panned their yard, a dead horse lay on the ground. It was one of two miniature horses that did not survive the hurricane winds. They have seven miniature horses that did survive, but now they have a greater problem: there is no hay to feed their little horses. They will lose them all if no hay or feed is found. The man was in tears as he expressed his sorrow over the dead horses and the hungry ones who survived. That was the second stab.

I may be a thousand miles away, but I hear what they are crying for. They cry for what they have lost, and for the help they may have never needed before, but need now. They want someone to hear their stories. The reporter with no words for the woman's sorrow and the man who lost his horses are just two of many thousands of stories that are to be told. I cried.

As I walked down the hall, heart heavy with all the suffering and the sorrow, I raised my arms in a plea. When I pray, my words are very simple. “Lord, what do we do? It’s so much.”

And then, through the tears, came the calm, quiet whisper in my mind, the answer to my prayer.

“Be patient, and watch me work.”

Then I remembered what our church was doing, and what thousands of other churches across the country are doing, and what thousands of other individuals are doing in the cities with the losses. The National Guard is helping now, American Red Cross and other organizations are there, and I realized it was true. He is already at work through His people. It will take time. We must be patient. Watch Him work!

Of Hurricane Relief and Of Doing Something

Certainly, there is nothing on our minds this week more than the crises facing thousands in and around New Orleans. Many of us who want to help, are thinking “how can we help?” The urgency of the needs of people stranded at the Superdome, and those isolated in what is left of their water filled homes in all affected areas, strikes us in a personal way, for all we in North Carolina can complain about is that gas prices are higher than ever, leaving us feeling completely guilty because we can get in our cars and drive to the grocery store, knowing there will be groceries to buy when we get there. We have clean running water for drinking and cooking, we take showers whenever we want to, and we can flush our toilets because they work just fine. Our pets are safely sleeping on the floor at our feet, and our children are tucked in their warm and dry beds. We retired each evening this week in our own homes, and watched the replay of the hurricane devastation and its aftermath, shaking our heads, feeling sorry for the victims, praying for them, but doing little else.

It's time to do something. Many will do something. They will donate to the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Humane Society, Feed the Children and other organizations set up to give aid to countries and communities at times like these. Many will look to their churches or organizations linked by their churches like the United Methodist Committee on Relief, Church World Service, and Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Fund, B'nai B'rith International, and United Jewish Communities for taking their monetary donations and sending it where it is needed, (clicking on any of these links will take you to their homepages if you would like to help). Still others, all across our nation, will open their homes to strangers, feeding and clothing them until they can start over on their own. The latter I think will be the more humane.

Helping others out in their hour of need is often a very personal matter. One doesn’t have to discuss with others the degree to which she helps. I know many good folks who prefer to remain anonymous when they help out with a financial or material gift. I myself prefer anonymity when making monetary gifts. I know my church will be involved, and it is through my church that I will give because I know that 100% of the donations will go to those devastated by the hurricane.

It’s really a shame to watch the news and know that our great country leaps into action to help disaster victims on the other side of the world, but when our own people suffer, relief efforts are begun late, leaving people dying in their wheelchairs. I don’t understand why or how that happened, but it’s painful to watch and listen to the stories of the poorest and the least protected as they make their appeal for food, water, and shelter while standing in water up to their ankles and or knees. It’s been four days of waiting, and help from the National Guard started arriving Friday. I am sorry for those people in the Gulf who have lost their homes and family members, their cars, their pets, their entire neighborhoods, their schools, stores, nursing homes, and so on. Sorry that something wasn’t in place to help them before it happened.

It’s not like we didn’t know it could happen. Just last year I saw a documentary, on PBS I think, that showed a very realistic computer generated graphic simulation of what could happen if a tidal wave or a huge hurricane should ever hit the New Orleans area directly. The devastation was much worse than what we see with Hurricane Katrina. However, even the documentary spoke about the city preparing for such a disaster, and evacuation was one of the preparations. But my question is, why wasn’t a relief/rescue/assistance plan set into action before the hurricane hit? The sophistication of hurricane tracking these days allows for pretty accurate predictions for timing and location of landfall. I watched for a few days prior to landfall as the hurricane developed and meteorologists were predicting its path and strength with certain accuracy. Seems like our government could have begun mobilizing sources of water and food, blankets, beds, tents, port-a-potties, anything to serve the basic needs of those having to survive without electricity and clean water. It’s more than disappointing to know this happened in a country as well stocked and well organized as ours.

The truth is, the federal government cannot take care of everything all of the time. That is why it is important for neighbors to help neighbors. Churches are always the first to jump in and help people in regions overwhelmed by natural disasters. It is the most important commandment of our Christian faith, and of other faiths as well, to love one’s neighbor, in times of distress and sorrow. Loving means more than having good feelings toward a friend or even an enemy. It means taking care of someone who is unable to take care of themselves, for whatever reason. It even means taking care of someone who has offended us.

Americans will pitch in and help the stricken people of the Gulf Coastal communities, but certainly the folks waiting in New Orleans need it now. Their situation is dire, they are dying from health related conditions or illnesses. Many folks need medication, babies need their formula, everyone else needs food. They are outraged. I would be too if I were having to deal with the unhealthy, filthy conditions they are now living in.

The kind of help these people need is more than a tent and a truck load of food, even more than ice and a week's supply of fresh water. They need a place to live, a place to start over. We can see from the pictures on the internet and on the news that the residents of the coastal areas of the Gulf have lost everything. There are no homes left for them to go back to, the streets of their cities are covered in mountains of splintered and broken wood, cars, boats, and all their furnishings and possessions. Sending them off to a shelter in another city is only a temporary solution. Helpful, but temporary.

What the stranded and homeless need is for Americans to open their homes and hearts, to bring these broken families into their homes. They'll need to be fed, they'll need to recover from all that has happened, from all that they have lost. I'm thinking many churches are already doing this at local levels.

We have got to start taking better care of our neighbors. I don't know how many churches exist in our country, but I wonder if every church adopted one family (bigger churches could adopt two families), pitched in and provided a home and necessary furnishings, food, etc, that the whole of displaced persons sheltered in the Superdome could be taken care of in a caring, neighborly way. Eventually, that family could get back on their feet.

For some, it might be an improvement compared to what they had before Katrina took away their homes. We have all heard that those citizens who had money were able to high tail it out of the area when they heard the evacuation orders. I'm even sure that some started for safer havens before the order was given. If my family were living there, we would have been one of those evacuating families. We would have loaded our dogs and all the clothes and food we could pack into the car, picked up our son, and headed north.

Look at who was left behind: the poor, the elderly, the sick, the crippled... the helpless. These are the people Jesus commands us to take care of: the least of these. Who can be more in the "least" category than the people who were already downtrodden, broken, lost, alone, forgotten, neglected, hungry, and sick? Does it matter if they didn't have jobs before the hurricane happened? For some it does. Does it matter if they were on welfare before the hurricane? For some it does. Does it matter that many of the victims of Hurricane Katrina lived at poverty level, and didn't have much to lose, but it was all that they had? It does matter to a lot of folk. Are we only going to put out our hands in giving to those who are like us?

It shouldn't matter to a Christian. Christians have many favorite Old and New Testament stories to recall in times of trial to help them struggle through life's tragedies and challenges. One of these stories is the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Replace the character of the robbers who set upon the man and stripped him of his clothes, robbed him, beat him, and left him laying on the road half dead, with the character of Hurricane Katrina, who literally did this to the people in its path. Of the various passers-by who saw the man laying on the road, injured and bleeding, helpless and homeless, only the Samaritan took pity and gave aid to the half-dead stranger. He didn't just provide water and bind up his wounds. He took him to an Inn, and gave money for the man's expected care and needs. At the end of the story, Jesus tells the young man who questioned him to "Go and do likewise." It is asked of us now. It is asked of me. Will I respond as the Good Samaritan?

I hope to hear stories of charity in the wake of this most destructive storm a year from now. I hope to hear stories of courage and perseverance, for that is what we are made of. I hope to hear stories of recovery and regeneration, renewal and rebuilding, not only in the physical, architectural sense, but also in the personal, communal, and spiritual sense as well. I hope to hear that Americans, Christian or Non-Christian, reached out to help "the least of these" in our own country.

Of Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences, and Ants

The ants found themselves in a disturbing situation today. One of my more curious students was holding the ant habitat in his hands, carefully looking them over for a few minutes, like he usually does when he first comes into my classroom. Accustomed to him doing this, I fixed my attention on the other kids in the classroom, and talked about a writing prompt we had just begun the day before. From the corner of my eye I caught a movement that was too animated to ignore, and turned my head to see what the student was doing. I couldn’t move toward him fast enough.

He was turning the ant farm over and over again like a wheel, spinning it slowly, watching the ants adjust to the change of orientation with each turn. I noticed a ball of gel rolling about at the bottom of the habitat. That’s when I realized it was upside down completely, and the ants were tumbling about within the tunnels.

I refrained from yelling, for this student would have had a significant emotional reaction, and he would have been angry with himself far greater than was appropriate or necessary. I approached him quickly, but calmly, saying his name, and “No, don’t turn the habitat upside down like that. The ants don’t like it when you do that. It makes them…” I started to say, but he finished it for me. “Crazy. It makes them crazy.”

“I was going to say dizzy, but crazy might be a good word to describe it. Just don’t do that anymore, okay?” He apologized immediately, and said he didn’t know. I hadn’t told him not to do it. It was true. I had only told him to handle it carefully, and not to open it. I think he had a misunderstanding of the word carefully.

He let me take the habitat and put it safely back in the shadows of the highest bookshelf above my desk. His breathing had become more rapid. I could tell he was starting to get upset because he had done something wrong, but I assured him with the tone of my voice, that the ants would be okay this time. I knew he wouldn’t do it again now that he knew. He agreed, and his breaths slowed down to a more normal rate.

The other students in the room were very calm and kind about it. We don’t talk about learning disabilities in the classroom, but the kids seem to know and understand when one of them doesn’t grasp something that‘s being taught. They don’t laugh at each other when one of them makes a mistake. I think they have this awareness because they know each of us is weak at something. Every one of us. We try to help them find out what their talents are, whatever area it may be found in.

However, we do talk about their strengths. We encourage them to do better in what they are good at, whether it is academic, physical, creative, social, or a combination of areas. We understand that kids have different learning styles. Some are auditory learners (learn best through listening, like to read out loud), some are visual learners (need to see lots of images and printed materials), and some are tactile/kinesthetic learners (learn better with hands-on approach, need lots of activity and exploration). We attempt to include in our daily activities something for each of these learning styles to better reach them all.

Teachers know that their kids may have extraordinary, intuitive skills in intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. Or a student might be musically inclined, or kinesthetically gifted. Certainly there are the brilliant math students and the amazing spellers, and some kids have a memory for facts and figures. The multiple intelligences theory of Howard Gardner is embraced by those of us who teach in the classroom because we recognize the varied abilities of kids at the same age. Parents, too, see it among their own off-spring. One child is an artist, another a writer, another a musician, another a math genius, each talented in their own way although they all grew up in the same house with the same parents.

The student who was turning the habitat upside down was studying the effects of his action upon the ants, without any concern for the welfare of the ants. Even a child with mental limitations that label him educably and mentally disabled has a level of intelligence that allows him to learn, and a talent for something.

This boy likes to read about insects and other animals. When you tell him the name of an insect, he remembers it as well as anyone with an interest in bugs. One day, last year, I found him bent over, intently staring at the lower part of a tree trunk while all the other students were listening and watching a man, dressed in colonial times-clothing, loaded and fired his musket. I wondered what the student was looking at, and sure enough, there was the largest preying mantis I had ever seen crawling around the trunk. The student never tried to hurt it, or pick it up, or disturb it in any way. In fact, when I told him I would take a picture of it for him, he was quite happy, and continued watching the insect as it slowly made its way up the trunk. I know of other boys his age, who have little regard for other living creatures, particular the six-legged kind, who would have knocked it off the trunk and stepped on it just because they could.

The school year is off to a great start, and I and my colleagues are beginning to feel the magnitude of what we must accomplish in one year. For now, testing pressures are weeks away, but we know it is something we must do. Our focus for now is on the kids’ learning, and learning how to learn. We are thinking about the questions we ask our kids, pushing for the deeper, higher level thinking we want them to become accustomed to. To do that, we must ask questions of ourselves regarding the world and our place in it, and the universe around us.

And since it is getting late and I don’t have time to continue along this line of thinking, I’m going to close this entry with a link to Venus and Jupiter, which can be seen tonight. I didn’t see it, but maybe you did?