A Fine Line

So for the last few days I’ve been reminded of how difficult it can be to be a student. I didn’t take a class, get private lessons or a tutor because I always figure, “How hard can it be?” All I wanted to do was put up a shower rod. I had all the tools a handy woman like me would ever need, including my alternative tool supply of butter knives, spatulas and a high heeled shoes. I’ve discovered these to be must-haves after a few decades of trying to complete one respectable DIY project.

I got one of those hotel shower rods that curves out so you think you’re in a huge shower “station” instead of just pirouetting in the tiny casket tub behind the plastic tropical fish curtain. The directions made it seem easy, and it was until I actually started the installation. While it may seem that screwing in two screws would be easy, try it in a wall made of pie crust with cement block behind it. I did learn something. First off, I learned that power drills are hard to hold in place when the screw is three inches long and wobbling around. (The gouge seems a bit better today but I’ll probably lose the fingernail.) I also learned that pounding in a screw, no matter how mad you are, does nothing but make a huge hole in plaster and then you have to pound in a plastic plug thing which goes in fine for about 1/8 “ and then it bends in the shape of a C. To pry that out requires a chisel that you have to buy at Home Depot on the ninth trip over there to either purchase or return something. The chisel gets the plug out, alright, but the way I did it left a new hole about two inches across with a tributary crack about twice that.

While engaged in this endeavor, I thought of how kids must feel when they just can’t catch on to something, if they weren‘t given the right tools or the tools don't work. Imagine not being able to vent in some primeval way when you just can’t seem to understand something everyone else does, no matter how many times you try. This experience was a good reminder and very humbling. It would behoove every parent to take a moment to think of their children when they are feeling overwhelmed, inadequate or just plain stupid.

A word to my students: Any time the work of school starts getting to you, makes you frustrated or angry and you feel like you are going to explode, just let me know. You can walk down the hall, open the doors to the big outside, step onto the playground where you can jump and scream until you feel better.

I will thoroughly understand.

Money a little tight this summer? Have you bought in to the “Staycation” craze yet? In case you’re not familiar with the term, a staycation is a vacation without the transportation. Plane fares and schedules are unpredictable or expensive or both, gas is expensive, food is expensive, let’s just say it’s too expensive to take a break from the high cost of living.

You might hear people on TV or the radio talking about great ideas for substituting a home vacation for, say, a trip to Disneyland. Their recommendations are that the family all wears Mickey Mouse ears, polka dot dresses and black tuxes and exaggerate happy actions for the entire weekend. Make kids wait for a couple hours between rope barricades to jump in the blow-up pool as you yell, “Look out for the alligators!” in attempts to make it a thrill experience.

If the kids were looking forward to their first plane trip, no need to deny them the memorable parts. To simulate the seating, surround your child's middle seat chair with packing boxes. Put a huge stuffed gorilla or something on one of the boxes, so its arm, flubs over the armrest into your child's ribs. Make an aisle by moving all the furniture to form a skinny corridor that goes only to the bathroom in one direction, and a lounge chair you don't let them sit in, in the other. Pile magazines and books up to the ceiling in the bathroom so there is only room to stand in one 12"X12" spot.

Another idea I heard was as a result of a canceled trip to Hawaii. The mom bought a big box of leis off E-Bay, invited family and friends, stuck an apple in a thawed chicken cavity and called it a pig. They suggest following the same model for other locations, as well. Were you going to go to London? Serve every meal with warm tomato slices, removing the salmonella first, tea and toast on a toast rack and don’t forget adding “blimey” or “bloody” to statements throughout the day. Blimey is an expression that translates to “Oh, darn…” and bloody is an adjective as in, “The neighbors are playing ukulele, hula dancing, barbequing a bloody apple plugged chicken on a spit, pretending they’re in bloody Hawaii.”

Teachers have staycations all the time. We did it last year when the sun hadn’t shone for two weeks. We called it Sun Day and played music that mentioned the sun, drew suns, used yellow paper for everything, and wore sun themed or yellow clothing. It did cheer us up, but I think it was just the novelty of painting during language arts time. We used to have Green Bay staycations back in the day when Brett Favre was quarterback. We’d wear green and gold, put tape on the carpet to simulate yard lines, made a kid stand at each end with both bent arms up to be field goals, and had that day’s snack distributor yell out, “Get your snacks, here! Only no cents a bag!” and then she would toss a baggie full of pretzels at someone.

I’m glad to see people getting creative about time at home. This weekend I’m pretending to be on “Design Star” as I attempt to grout, tile, and paint my bathroom. When I’m finished I’ll have three neighbors come over and tell me what they liked and what I sort of screwed up on. They’ll tell me I’m safe this week, but will not have immunity for the next challenge. That makes me want to try all the harder when I move on to adding crown molding to the outside of the house.

There is still a lot of summer left, folks. Enjoy your vacations, staycations, Green Bay-cations, daycations, farm trip haycations, couch potato laycations, or just keep your nose to the grindstone and have what many of us will,

a naycation.

Thiensville, you should have met with even one teacher before your parade. Actually, anyone doing anything ever that involves kids should check with the masters. We’ll tell you what will and what won’t work. Loose candy? Doesn’t work. It’s like a homerun ball sent into the stands. Get ready for pushing, injury, aggression and someone’s eye being put out. No matter how much churching, lecturing or reminding... flying candy and a crowd of kids? Not gonna work. Kids are all alpha dogs when it comes to airborne free stuff. Not all, mind you…there are those kids who shrink off to the sides or cover their faces with blindfold hands in this kind of situation. What the chaos theory of doling does, unfortunately, is to reward the already pushy children or the kids whose parents egg them on to get some of the candy they weren’t able to catch when they were kids. It’s hard to watch yours get nothing when the little brat in front of you has three pieces already.

But, Port Washington? Way to go. You must have had good advisement. Parade participants there just walk up to the kids and hand out the candy. It’s clear; “See this candy? It’s yours, here take it. And you, running up from the back of the crowd with your right arm stuck out, waving your hand like the one who has the answer? Watch yourself so not get a piece.” Now that’s how to run candy distribution.

Something happens with children, even children who come from wealthy homes, when getting something is involved. Children who ride to school on motorized scooters with Corinthian leather pack packs are capable of acting like complete jerks when anything is given out. This is not just a food issue. You can be handing out anything and there are kids who have to get their paper first, the markers first, their favorite chairs in their favorite spots at their favorite tables. They want the first napkin at snack time and to be first in line no matter whom they have to negotiate with, intimidate or shove. Something happens whenever first is involved. We may have caused that by telling children when they misbehave to “Go to the end of the line!” This automatically makes the front desirable. I digress.

Here’s an idea. Forget the candy. Kids don’t need it. For many, that’s all too clear. If kids can’t be excited just by seeing a parade, you have to decrease the amount of good stuff they get at home. The big argument I get around this from my colleagues is that children look forward to the candy toss, it‘s fun and they enjoy it. The kids that catch something enjoy it. The ones that don’t just take that one-more-brick-of-reasons-to-be-bitter and add it to incident bullet vests to use at some later time--maybe when they are teachers, handing out candy.

Children can get excited by anything. You can have five purple napkins and the rest yellow. The five become the desired. With kids, whatever there is not enough of becomes the objet du désir, like single men to baby boomer women. Parades are fun for kids because they go with people they love to be with, see the streets emptied of cars and full of big color, sound, and something different. It‘s a break from normal.

Take it from teachers; it’s never about what can be caught in an open hand.

So we’re all going to get reusable grocery bags. That’s what I read, anyway. Every household will have the opportunity to feel good about packing the Styrofoam and molded super plastic that fits so tightly around the item, you need a tile saw to open it. If it helps any, I don’t need a new grocery bag. I have two that I continually leave at home full of something else I had to haul.

There’s also the advertising. If you really want people to use things, don’t put a bunch of ads on them. It makes people feel as though they’re being used, which of course we are but as one might argue, in exchange for the bag. How about the ads on the bottom, or the inside? Besides, people don’t go to places because they saw an ad on a bag or a shirt or a shoe or boxer waistbands. People shop at your places because they are handy, high quality and have what we need.

While I am guilty of plastic bag use, I do toss my garbage in them rather than buy a roll of Hefty bags to put the chicken scraps and moldy pasta salad in. My behavior no doubt would change if I had to pay an extra $.75 at the register to get a bag. I’d probably even remember to keep one in my car. Local vendors needn’t worry about losing our business with gas prices as high as they are we’re a captive clientele. It’s the perfect time to start our “green for green” campaign. Money for a bag. Easy.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the gesture and the cause it is directed toward. But, if there is money to spare after getting all of us a bag, I can tell you for a fact that the middle school could use some 21^st Century technology. $5000 would just about get a couple Smartboards. You don’t know what a Smartboard is? Most of your kids probably don’t know either.

My point, exactly.

You know it’s a good gig when someone retires then wants back in a few times. You won’t find that to be a trend in the teaching business. Generally, teachers who sit before the press and make their statements do so with a plane ticket in one hand and a martini in the other. They have agonized over the decision for months; do they sell the house and get an RV with a wet bar and hot tub, or keep the house and build that tatami mat meditation room with plenty of room for the chi to flow through? The same room that will have surround sound, a water feature, lucky bamboo and an indoor home theater built off to the side painted in colors called, Peace or Tranquility.

You could tell from the beginning of the second end of his career that Brett just wasn’t ready. He wasn’t the way all my retiring teacher friends have looked in the past. He was, well…crying. That’s no way to go out. You should go laughing out loud. Now granted, there are some teachers who have done a Favre retirement and gone a few years too early. They keep coming back. They are, for the most part, Hall of Fame teachers but will never be called by a sculptor for their head measurements. Then there are a couple who come back like mothers in law to see if the top of the doorways have been dusted.

All in all, most teachers who retire return only once, just so everyone can see how well rested they look and hear about all the cool stuff they’ve been doing. It’s nice to see them and reaffirm the sometimes hard to believe belief that there is more to life than pre-testing, zipping jackets and convincing kids that we really can see them picking their noses even if they try to hide it with the other hand. These folks are taking cooking classes, traveling, working on projects, volunteering, reading, sleeping, shopping during daylight and going to the dentist without having to take the day off.

So what I would say to Brett is maybe he needs to make his world a little bigger. There has to be more to life than hunting, golf, football and being a kazillionairre. Maybe he should take all that passion and energy and channel it into something new.

Hey, how ‘bout teaching?

Don’t you hate it when you’re sitting on a dais behind a microphone and you mention that you’d like to cut out some guy’s body parts and two hours later the whole cable-watching world hears you say it? Yeah, that’s a bummer. It was shocking. I can’t believe in 2008 that anyone in public life could be so careless as to think the mic in front of him wasn’t hot, video cameras weren’t running, cell photos weren’t clicking or text pads were not being played like Steinways at a Van Cliburn Competition.

What this, and other events like this, reveals is that in the end, we’re all just human. Let the news cycle of apologies begin. The real you dribbled out of your mouths and all over the images we’ve created of you. Now we know. You were too good to be true. Welcome to the real world.

Many things about teaching children in “real world” style confuse me. Which real world are we getting students ready for? The world that exists when the mic is on, or in the grit of the whispered truth? Do we get them ready for the world we want to think we live in, the world we want them to think we live in or some other place? When faced with this teach-for-the-real-world challenge, you think about it more than most.

Most real world stuff is learned by living. We can teach common language of math facts, making change, driving, writing and decoding the majority language but the fact is, there are many real worlds out there. The five-wives-families out west are clear on what the real world is and we just shake our heads and wonder why they can’t see that they have been duped. Why do we reincarnate flag draped Horatio Alger as we applaud the puller of the bootstraps, but seem to dismiss the fact that some jobs in America are understood as being just too hard, too physical, or not worthy of our undeniable coolness? Do we ready kids for a “if they hit you, hit them back“ world, or do we walk Oakland Avenue looking for a peer mediator with an open sign? What happened to the world in which we turn the other cheek? Isn’t that attainable if you try hard enough, or is it just like the nice, small world Disney has given us for just a few bucks a pop? Should kids be told that some day they, too, could be president of the United States standing tall on a platform of virtue with nothing but a flag pin and National Honor Society membership; or do we tell them the truth?

The real world stuff is more complicated than it sounds. Here’s to the teachers, spending many unpaid hours this summer preparing for a new school year. A year during which they will be out there every day juggling worlds, meeting deadlines, satisfying administrators, keeping records, assessing, reassessing, reporting in triplicate, teaching reading, writing, math, science, social studies, dental hygiene, character education, health, computer skills, problem solving, coping skills, fire safety, history, citizenship, penmanship, spelling, social skills, work skills, study skills, decision making, and communicating in the language of every family they serve…thinking somehow it is all possible. What makes good teachers so inspirational is even though they understand the real world, they keep trying anyway.

Ensuring that your child knows what to do during school recess periods can affect his peer group and social life more than you may know. Teaching simple rules and activities will make inclusion more likely, make your child more confident and guaranty you will have less free time than you thought you might this summer. Suck it up, put on your tennis shoes and get out in the yard.

1. Jump Rope: It’s not as easy as it seems. For children who haven’t been shown the ropes, it can be extremely frustrating to not know how to turn or jump the classroom rope. Although it sounds improbable, there are children who don’t get that they have to lift their feet up when the rope comes down in front of them. They just stand and let it smack their ankles. Back up a bit. Teach kids first how to hop. Second, work on reaction time. Try yelling, “Hop!” wait, “Hop!” wait, “Hop!” and see how long it takes for words to make it to feet. If it takes more than a second, it’s too early to add the rope. In that case, get some of those cds of children’s songs inviting kids to join along in the actions. When they get the concept of anticipation, bring out the clothesline again.

2. Another timing related activity is catching a ball. If you toss your child a ball and it bounces off his chest, it should be obvious he doesn’t get it. Show him how to physically get body and hands in front of the ball to at least make some contact. Start with a beach ball. Stand about four inches away and basically hand the ball to your child. Move back about three inches and do the same. Do this until your child is out of direct reach and you have to toss it. When there is a successful catch from ten feet away, move to phase two. Get a Styrofoam ball slightly smaller than the beach ball. Stick a really skinny dowel or pointer in it and hold that end. Create its path to your child’s waiting hands. Think back on the good old days when you flew that spoonful of olive green baby food into lips not sure they wanted to open. It will take time, but be lavish with the praise.

“Great! You’re facing the right way!”

“I love the way you are picking your hands up when the ball comes flying at you.”

“Fantastic, now uncover your eyes and see if you can do it again.”

3. Spend some time at the playground your child will actually be playing on in fall. Teach him or her how to climb, slide, hang and swing. Believe it or not, there are kids who will sit on the swing and just wait, dangle legged. You have to show her how to move her limbs to get it started. You have to make sure your child can begin independently. Also, she needs to know not to let go and do the dare devil fly forward into the dirt to end her ride. Slow down, get off, keep teachers uninvolved. Don’t teach her how to spin around really fast after twisting the chains, either. Can’t do that in school. It will put someone’s eye out.

4. Teach your child how to hang upside down from the lower bars. The girls, especially, seem to love this. They do this all the time. Have her approach the bar, pull herself up to a sitting position and then coach her as to how to drop down and hang from the crook of the knees. If she can spin around the bar while hanging from one knee and then end up in a sitting position, she’ll be a total star. Boys think this is sissy stuff and will voice it. Make them try it. It's hilarious.

5. The slide. Kids have to go up the ladders one at a time, hanging on to the rail with both hands. When at the top, no leaning over and screaming at friends. That scares the teachers. Just sit and go. Don’t stop to talk half way down, congregate at the top or remain at the bottom for more than just a second or they'll have footprints on their backs from the kid who came down right after them. Imagine there is always someone waiting.

6. Simple skills and rules for team sports. If you don’t know them, Google. If your child is a hot head (and you know it by now) encourage him not to play team games until he can handle people disagreeing with him or his side losing. Tell kids to establish or review the rules of the game before the actual game. Make sure they know people have different ways of playing, and that screaming in another person’s face isn’t a way to negotiate.

Maybe the Olympics will inspire enthusiasm for sports with something other than a football, a beer and a plate of nachos.

(Brett, if you’re reading this…please come back. It’s not too late.)

Here’s some stuff to practice with your kindergarten children to get them ready for the “big school”. Start now and maybe the transition will be easier for everyone. First of all, tell them not to worry about where they are supposed to line up on the first day. We'll find them. Believe me, we need every body for our 3^rd Friday student count upon which all federal funding depends. Have your child bring all supplies on the first day. That way, there will be no worries about what you need to send and if the teacher is going to remind your little sweetie yet again that the 20 sharpened pencils were due on day 1. Be sure a name is on everything that it's supposed to be on, like P.E. shoes.

Speaking of names, be sure your child knows his real name and how to say the first and last. The office list that teachers get has your child’s legal name so if you’ve called Jennifer, “Neffy” for her whole life, she may not know we’ve been yelling at her for the last three minutes. Knowing how to spell it would be helpful too, even if the writing part isn’t quite right. Teachers will thank you.

Oh, and self-dressing. It's a pain for teachers to have to tie shoes, button buttons, zip zippers, push on boots, pull on mittens and buckle snowpants. I figured it out once and with a class of 20, there are about 200 things children would have you do before they went out, if you let them get away with it. That's a lot to ask of a teacher. Imagine yourself at work. It’s the end of the day. Everyone lines up at the door but they are just standing there, looking down at open jacket zippers and Allen Edmond laces. You tell them to hurry up because you have a cocktail party to go to. You then realize that it’s on you to prepare them for the endlessly disappointing Wisconsin weather, so you start with the first in line and twenty minutes later bid the last a fond farewell. Every day.

The desire for girls to wear beautiful necklaces, hair adornments, bracelets and rings is understandable. We get it. However, they function as accessories only for a few minutes. Then they morph and become toys, lost, broken, fought over, tangled or taken away desk drawer items.

Children are often afraid of the lunch room. It’s big and noisy and full of unmet people. Here are some ideas you can give your child to use in potentially sticky situations. If some other kid asks for their dessert, tell them to say, “Sure, but I just sneezed on it.”  If a bathroom stop is necessary but the supervisors say no, tell your child to start jumping up and down with hands together down and in front of them as though they were trying to stop what is soon to happen. Repeating, "I really gotta go!" over and over will add the extra urgency to break through even the most veteran school personnell. We've all learned what happens when you insist a child can wait.

 Send a bag lunch for the first couple weeks. It’s much easier. Child goes in, sits down, eats, tosses the trash and leaves. That way they’ll have time to watch what to do when they eat hot lunch around October when you get sick of packing healthy good impression food lunches.

The bathrooms are crazy places. They are generally not in the direct purview of adults so can become a bit intimidating to the little ones. A trick older kids like to pull is to go in the stall, lock the door and then crawl under the door so when other kids come in they just stand there. It’s a hoot, apparently. Teach your child how to check for feet, and then if the situation is dire, how to crawl under the door and unlock it. Then tell ‘em to be sure to wash their hands and tell their friends to do the same. Thanks for that.

Washing hands. Children love the soap dispenser and love playing with the bubbly froth they can work up with half a cup of liquid gold on them. This extends the amount of time they spend in the bathroom quite considerably and may easily end with a teacher’s head breaking through the calm of the moment yelling something about looking for you for the last fifteen minutes. Oh, and if they ask to go to the bathroom when they don’t need to, teachers eventually recommend that parents have your bladder checked, so just go when necessary. Teachers know all the ways kids try to get out of doing work.

Hopefully, this first installment of advice won’t just make things worse. I also know enough to fully understand the Whackamo game land in which precocious children live. The time it took you to read this blog may actually have made the information in it obsolete.

I tried.

Is that the new Shorewood brand? You hear about McCain’s brand, Obama’s brand, Paris Hilton’s brand, and hundreds of others. It’s the new in word for style I guess, and it has become a well worn noun on cable news. When I was considering moving here in 1989, Shorewood intoxicated me, tossing back her hair of peace, quiet and quaintness. She wore a small town calm and most importantly, was just out of reach of the big scary city. The brand included excellent schools, high quality arts programs, lousy football teams, excellent swim programs, a great dump and a village that treated residents like they were special.

What I didn't realize then, was that each elementary school in Shorewood had its own brand. Lake Bluff was the sort of liberal, easy going, friendly, progressive, casual yet very successful school. Atwater had a get down to business brand, the more conservative school, a little stiffer, test aware, score conscious and very successful, as well. When I visited each school shopping for my daughter’s future, I felt the difference. One school sent me on a tour with a staff member who emphasized high test scores, escorted me around the building, answered questions along the way and introduced me to the principal who was sitting on the far side of his very wide, important desk. The other gave me the option of just walking around, looking where I wanted, and asking questions as they came up of anyone who was near. There was no mention of where students cruised in the “drive-to-test-score distinction“.

The Shorewood school siblings have been undeniably affected by politics. Leaving no child behind has made its mark, like when you push really hard on your skin with a pencil. There is an undercurrent working now, to pull process under product. It is influencing the way teachers teach, what they teach, and how much time is spent teaching it. As it is now, there are two things taught in the morning in elementary schools. Language Arts and Math. The emphasis has had to be on keeping these scores high, raising reading levels and performing math efficiently on timed and standardized tests. Even with children at 96%, we neurotically wonder, “Hmmm…What can we do about that last 4%? “

There aren’t many differences between the schools now.Teachers with any crazy ideas about doing things differently should think twice after they see where compulsory education is heading.  But time will go by and everything old will become new again. Documentation and data collection that keeps creativity down now, will someday be dismissed as overkill and classrooms will again be places of wonder, like they were when they began, kept constantly bedazzling by teachers wearing John Dewey T-shirts.

Shorewood has now, a weird dilemma. There are those all the way up the chain who do believe our teaching methods and assessments can be flexible. There are best practice groupies-- following trends, research findings, scholarly works and looking for gaps. "Differentiation" is hot now. It could also be called good teaching. It requires us to see kids as individuals, determine how they learn and help them reflect that learning most effectively. Teaching to individuals assumes we will meet them where they are academically and move them forward as much as is possible and natural, without freaking out because they are not where they are "supposed" to be. They would still have to be tested old style like everyone else. If in the end students are placed in AP classes, put in “accelerated learner” programs, declared at risk or determined to be in need of support by specialists, it may be smarter and of more service to focus on successful test taking. The brand now?  It is still one that includes quality arts and academic programs, the swim team remains strong and scores are high. Our brand now is a bit up in the air, floating between the past and the future. From the inside, it looks like there will have to be some redefinition in order to fit the big feet of yesterday into the little slippers of today’s budget. You’ll be able to watch it happen. When your children start talking more about tests than about school, you’ll know it's done.

I had a dream last night that I got to my classroom, opened the door and prepared to set things up for the new year. The carpets were clean, countertops shining and all the furniture stacked in the middle of the room awaiting my designer’s touch. This year, maybe I would put the reading table where the loft is over in the corner. I eyed the space and thought it would work perfectly; a corner spot with protection behind me, panoramic view ahead. The children would have their backs to the rest of the class so they could focus solely on whatever gems were coming out of my mouth that morning.

Something seemed weird, though, and it took me a minute to figure it out. The purple painted wooden loft that children loved to play under and on was gone! The second loft was gone, as well. All the beautiful wooden furniture that I’d dragged in to make the classroom more appealing, comfortable and home-like, had been removed. My grandmother’s old dresser with the smooth finish and heavy drawers was gone; my mother’s wooden kitchen set, the overstuffed chairs the kids love to read in and all the cozy couches had been dragged out by the look of the floor. The walls too were bare. Gone were the E-Bayed fabrics from all around the world, the Japanese obi, the African mud cloth and Mexican weavings. I was upset, although the pain was eased a bit by eating ice cream with the “young Elvis” impersonator who appeared on “America’s Got Talent”, a show I admit to watching because there were no documentaries on. Then, as many children’s stories end…I woke up and realized it was all a dream.

While this dream was no doubt spawned by a pastiche of home improvement websites, reality TV, cleaning cabinets out in the classroom that day and planning next spring’s rummage sale, there was a basis in truth for it. We did have a fire inspection during this past school year. Things didn't go well for me. Let's just say my classroom has made it onto a power point presentation. We have been told that in order to abide by fire safety codes we have to get rid of all soft items in the classroom. That would mean couches, pillows, chairs, stuffed animals, curtains, and wall hangings, although nothing was said about the hundreds of pounds of paper stacked in every room and on every shelf. The inspector advised that it would be good for kids to sit on the hard chairs anyway, like he did when he was in school. It would keep them awake. Character built from the butt up, I guess. It was also stated that in most classrooms only 20% of wall surfaces could have paper of any kind on them. That leaves a lot of purple, green and yellow tinted paint showing. Not showing so much would be posters, kids’ work, paintings, drawings, stories and any other thumb tackable items put up to inform or inspire. Children will have to sit on hard, school issued chairs and look at pictures of George Washington, the alphabet strip, and the fire drill route poster. Don't be surprised if things look a little different next year. Oh, one more thing he told us. Absolutely nothing could be hanging from the ceiling. The ceiling patterned with shiny steel water sprinklers, installed at extra cost, so the room would be completely and immediately soaked…

in case of fire.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about words and how the use of them can be rather chess game-ish. If you know what you want and how to best say it to the people you want to hear you, points can be made and taken by your target audience. For example, the report card comments I wrote about last time. You can say what you want, transfer the information but avoid the drama some wording incites. If one can word report cards, work reviews, recommendations to make the sale of their ideas, I figured the same skills might work in the area of real estate, which as you know is going through quite the unnatural disaster.

With home sales being what they are I started thinking about how I could advertise my extremely modest (cheapest house in Shorewood) house to potential buyers. Just as in writing report cards, one must think of target audiences. I think for this particular home, that just might be the green people. Here’s how to make a recycled silk purse out of a Styrofoam pig’s ear.

The first thing one notices when approaching my front door is that there is no doorbell. There wasn’t one in 1989 when I bought the place, either. I just never got around to doing the wiring. Although it doesn’t send the friendliest of greetings, this could be added to the list of ways my green home saves electricity. There is also no backyard lighting, no dishwasher, garbage disposal or garage door opener. Well, there’s no garage either. The security lighting is in the eyes of my dogs who would be all too willing to give an intruder a very hard time. Washing dishes can be very calming and will be offered as a retreat from the fast pace of life. The sink will be described as a “water feature”, moistening the chi as it flows out the back door. The garbage disposal could be the old composting box in the backyard. My neighbor left it when she moved. Having no garage means I can’t accumulate much and tend to recycle things when spaces start to fill. This is another big plus.

I’ve always been eco-friendly and have a chemical free lawn. You probably have to pay extra for those these days. I’ve never put weed killer, Milorganite, fertilizer or green spray paint on the grass. Ignoring suburban responsibilities of garden manicuring and grass coaxing has rendered me a truly natural green space. I do have a gas mower, but only mow when the neighbors do so the pollution comes in one big long belch, rather than one every day of the week.

So how do I sell a four room, doorbell missing, garbage disposal lacking, dish washer free, garage-less little runt of a house? Call it green. Why, it’s practically usonium, in the Wright sense of the word. Hey, if you’re in the market for a house next year, keep me in mind. Live here and feel the power of the size 5 carbon footprint. Brag about how little energy you use, how calm you feel and how solicitors never ring your bell even when they see the “No Soliciting” sign right at eye height.

So, if you’re trying to sell your house this summer and it’s lacking some luster, some perks, some pazazz, I suggest you turn it all into attempts to be more green. Tell them you removed all the air conditioning, outdoor lighting, backyard pool and heated sidewalks to show you are a steward of the environment. Who knows?

 Somebody just might buy it.

Okay, so you have your child’s report card. You open the envelope and unfold. The letters or numbers don’t say much, so you go to what you know--the comments. Comments fall into several categories. First there are the generic phrases teachers write when they don‘t really have anything else to say, but do want to mark the end of a year with the child of the parents now reading. These include:

“Have a nice summer.”

“It has been a pleasure having Theodore in my class.”

“Way to go, Theodore!”

“Well done.” and the ever popular

“Good job!”

Then there are the comments that have dual meanings, one for the parent and one for the teacher:

“Betty is full of energy.” This means energy doesn’t quite cover it. It’s not necessarily a bad thing unless it is followed by,” Betty may find a yoga or tai chi class calming. Here is a rec. dept. summer schedule.”

“Tad likes to multi-task.” This means Tad is a gadfly. You took his chair away in October and he never even noticed.

“Rosie is very social. “ The next thought might be, “She talks all day long. I gave her a journal and encouraged her to sit, relax, and record her personal thoughts and feelings without any sounds involved, but she made an origami cell phone out of it instead.”

“I am concerned about Fred’s hearing.” While this sounds caring, the truth is hearing tests are done early in the year and you know Fred’s hearing is fine. He is just incredibly and unbearably loud ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!

Occasionally you hear of teachers who interject revenge comments. This, I am assuming, is cathartic and comes after many months of tongue biting, phone calls, emails, conferences and meetings. Some of these include:

“Buford is challenged daily by the structure of the classroom.”

“Buford starts with the same letter as bully.”

“Buford needs a small country to run.

Overall, if I were to write a report card for report cards it would go as follows.

The strength of the report card is that it is a form of communication among adults about a child whose welfare they all care deeply about. It may open conversations. It may make parents aware of talents or strengths they haven’t seen yet such as those related to work/study or leadership skills. This makes for positive interaction with, or at least positive feelings toward the child and his or her own school experience. The challenge a report card faces is to characterize a human being with a letter or number. Interpretation is subjective therefore flawed; you know, emotions make things so squishy. On the other hand objectivity is hard and unyielding, and the objective giver becomes nothing more than a scorekeeper. I know this report card of a report card would probably get a wide variety of responses depending on how much the reader agreed with me. That is the nature of the things.

So what’s the point? The point is, the final progress report is one of many ways to put together a picture of how your child is “doing”. There are many pieces to this changing puzzle, particularly in early childhood. Don’t take six or seven year olds grade letters or numbers as though they are the final word, final description or final judgment. Time and maturity can work miracles. My final report card comment about progress reports?

“…must try harder to work up to potential."

If there’s one thing Shorewood students have down, it’s how to react in the event of a tornado warning. Yesterday was perhaps the weirdest last day I’ve had here in Shorewood. Everyone was ending the year, the sixth graders were having their ceremonies, people were having their parties, parents were there to say good-bye to that year’s teacher and it all came to a sort of fast, then eerily quiet, to a fool me twice type animation throughout the halls.

Last time, or was it the time before, some of the kids were cooling off under the spray of a hose and came in dripping water onto the linoleum floors the rest of us were already huddled along. When the warning was over, it was dismissal and then it was vaudeville. Bodies were dropping, getting back up and sliding around the corner to the safe footing of a dry hallway.

Normally, at the end of the day you have a chance to say goodbye, hand out report cards, graciously accept gifts and hand made cards, reminisce about the year and give teary hugs as the children leave. This year was different. We were told another big storm was on its way and to get home as soon as possible. Report card names were read, grabbed and ran out the door with their parents or friends. Gifts were stacked up on the desks and proper thanks were not even attempted. Heartfelt words across cards made by children had to go unread until the next day. Quick waves out the door, some exchanges of facial expressions that meant we’ve had a great year and an odd unfinished feeling sat there with my partner teacher and me as we looked at each other and shook our heads.

What we would have liked to have said while all our students and parents were there was thank you. Thank you for your humor, your flexibility, your care, your questions, your encouragement, your willingness to get involved and for your beautiful children.

What we would have liked to have said to the kids is that they are incredible. They truly became a family; it was a family with strength and weakness, tempers and forgiveness, love and caring. It was a family that was better for all of us, and when one of us was not there it just didn’t feel the same. The child moving away did not get a proper goodbye from her friends and I feel badly about that, although it was heartbreaking the day before with another.

I’m sure I can speak for many teachers when I say that the children we have the pleasure of living and working with are proof to us that we may not end up homeless, without Medicare in a world full of adults unable to move anything but their thumbs.

As I come to the end of this year, for some reason I find myself thinking of ways to prank the teachers I am sending my kids to in fall. Harmless ways, like telling them there are 8 continents or 27 letters in the alphabet but the last one is silent. That got me to thinking about all the things we were taught and continue to teach in some places, that are just rong. For example, the sun does not come up in the east. The sun is always up. This kind of oops teaching has long term ramifications. I still remember when I was in my 20s and walking along the lakefront with a friend very, very early in the morning. It was “sunrise” as the first saboteurs called it. “Wow”, she said in her best 70s sigh. “I wonder what that looks like to the people in Michigan.” Okay, point made.

It iis warmer in summer because the Earth is closer to the sun, right? Nah-ah. That is a belief that people gradulate from college with under their mortar board. Maybe the tilt thing is thought to be too complicated to teach, but I figure if kids can play “Wipe Out” on Guitar Master, they can get that the Earth tilts toward the sun through a Shorewood summer.

This leads me onward to the sugar makes kids hyper theory. I know this has been kicked around a lot, but I tend to agree with those studies that conclude that’s a bunch of malarkey. Maybe even malarkey with jimmies. After watching children eat sugar for three decades, I find that the event around the eating of the sugar is far more excitement making than the food additive. I know that fun can be stopped on a dime in the midst of ice-cream and chocolate syrup if say someone starts smearing ice cream on someone else’s face or throwing chocolate chips around the room. Oh, the hyper can be sucked out of a party for sure. Children all supposedly high on sugar have been able to sit and read, process, make their ways to the bathrooms and write touching poetry. I’ve heard that Sylvia Plath was a chocoholic. That sure didn’t perk her up much.

When two vowels go walking the first one doesn’t always do the talking. So aside from how weird it sounds to a six year old that their teacher just looked at them straight faced and told them that letters walk and talk, it’s hard to argue with the wording of a petition filed by the words guess, friend, could, pageant and niece. Right at their heels are the words right, love, have, are, were and house. An e at the end of a word doesn’t necessarily make the tongueless vowel “say its name”, they insist.

I think it might be fun to teach a curriculum based on misconceptions and exceptions to rules. I could dedicate it to my late father from the lone star state who convinced me when I was a kid that Texas…

is a country.

The key to managing larger class sizes is the willingness and ability to let go of your power. I know this is an issue in Shorewood and all over the country. While there is a general gut agreement that lower class sizes must be better, there is this thing called a budget which, when other things have been cut, comes at class size caps like Edward Scissorhands. But before we cut class size, I suppose we could cut other things. Remember though, once things go you don’t often see them return. Kind of like when you dump a boyfriend and insist you can still be friends. You never see him again.

There is a lot of fat we can cut in this community, though. We could cut out the separate buildings for the kindergartens and spread the kindergarten kids throughout the "big schools" where the rest of the kids are.  Each class would get a couple. Children would embrace the newcomers and treat them like siblings, teaching them letters and numbers, counseling them on how to behave. They would feel a bit more compelled to be good role models, because no one wants an undisciplined five year old running around while you’re trying to take a timed math test or reenact the questionable discovery of America. Money would be saved through this method because closing the building would mean no heating bills, no custodial service billing, no more staffing. Now that’s a money saving idea.

Another way we could come at this budget thing would be to cut Spanish classes and instead, make all the teachers teach subject area content in Spanish for half an hour every other day. Let’s say, at 2:30. The whole building would speak in Spanish for that time slot from P.E. to instrumental music lessons even though it’s hard to speak at all when your lips are jammed into a metal mouthpiece trying to perfect that tuba embouchure. Sorry, musicians. Maybe you can play music that supports our efforts to internationalize. You can never get enough of “The Macarena” or “Lady of Spain“. You P.E. teachers should know that flamenco dancing is very thigh slimming and folk dances just make everybody smile. It’s a small world, after all.

Hey, I’m not out of ideas yet. Building improvements could be done under the auspices of the art department. Let’s embrace a looser definition of “improvement” and turn our art classes into interior design opportunities. Even the youngest of children can grout. Children in Japan are expected to clean their buildings from sweeping to mopping to wiping off surfaces and windows. No wonder they do better than we do in standardized testing. They have richer experiences. High School kids can work on the grounds as part of environmental education, agricultural science, botany, biology and toward a degree in topiary sculpture art. There could be a course called “Living Green” which would require students to recycle, compost, reuse and to get their classmates to wear stuff made from old backpacks and spiral notebooks. Think “Project Runway” and then think of all the money that can be saved.

At this time of year, there would be a community unification period during which classrooms would be packed up and carried out to line the halls of each building. Parents can arrive to pick up their children a bit early, and with vacuum cleaners to get those carpets cleaned. During registration in the summer, the new parents would be invited to haul the stuff back in. So you see, business office, there are many ways to save. If we think hard enough, we could probably get rid of almost every job in the district.

Every day for the past few months staff at Lake Bluff School has been passing through the changing doors that open to the parking lot. We used to have to come down a ramp, stand at the door on the right, ring a doorbell and open the door on the left. When we entered the 21st century, we swiped our way in on the left and pulled open the door. Better. All the while, however, even though a sign said wheelchair accessible it really wasn't and everyone knew it. Anyone in a wheelchair has a devil of a time trying to get in and get out on their own. But one day something had changed. An automatic door had finally been installed but it became clear that there were just a couple things the installers forgot to think about…

Picture this; you are in your wheelchair going into the only door that doesn’t have steps either before or after it. It is the door to the parking lot and accessible only after rolling down a ramp that leads to a bit of a pit with locked glass doors. You are surrounded on three sides by wall, door and steps, which leave you only a few feet for maneuvering your ride. You see the handicapped equipped sign and think you’ll be able to get in. Not so fast. Before you can get in, you have to have someone in the office release the lock on the door. In order to do this you have to ring a doorbell which is to the right of the double doors. You roll over to it, but it’s up so high you can’t reach it unless you get out of your chair and reach. Problem number 1. Well let’s say you were traveling with a meter stick that day and you poked the doorbell so it rang. The person in the office unlocked the door and you realize it’s not the door on the right where the doorbell is, but the door on the left that you need. You back your chair up, turn it, get situated in front of the door on the left, and push the bright blue handicapped entry pad which is on the left. The whole time, the person in the office must be laying on the lock open button which buzzes very loudly the entire time between unlock and the opening of the door.

So you’ve gone to the right, reached up, moved to the left, pushed the button and sounded the buzzer. Now the door begins to swing open, but instead of swinging in, it is coming toward you. It grazes your legs as you hightail it out of the way and roll in the only direction you can. To the right. As you go back to the left to enter, it begins to close and you’re hoping you can wheel over the threshold fast enough to not get hit in the back with the closing door.

I know this is what happens because I took some of the kids in my class, put one in a wheelchair and tried it out. The children were absolutely confused about how someone on their own would be able to get in the school quickly. They watched the boy reach for the doorbell, unable to. They yelled at him to get out of the way when the door started swinging open. They knew he was about to get hit in the back with the closing door and jumped in to push him onto the linoleum welcome mat of the school interior.

Anyone who was installing the door should have either known or found out how best to accommodate those in chairs. The teachers who work with many of the children who come to school in chairs work only 25 feet away from that entrance and could have offered excellent advice as to how the door should be installed. If nothing else, they could have gotten the wheelchair from the health room and tried it out before settling on their plans, like the kids and I did. They would have seen their mistakes right away.

I didn’t mention that even if things went swell and the roller got into the building, the mechanism that is supposed to open the door on exit doesn't work either. You push it, hear a click as though the door is disengaging and sit there waiting. I push it every day as I leave. Click, stand, wait, shake my head. That door has become a source of anger, frustration, and a often a reason to laugh at the series of unfortunate thinking that must have preceded its placement.

There were three people working on it this week and we all hoped the list of reasons why it didn’t work would be shortened. Maybe they were moving it to the other side so riders could wheel in without parallel parking type shifting around. Maybe they lowered the doorbell to the office so people in chairs could actually reach it. Maybe they moved the open door button to the same side as the doorbell. Last I checked, nothing changed. I’ll be leaving for work soon, and check it again. If it is fixed, you’ll be the first to know. If not, go check out the monument to the importance of planning ahead.

The kids in our class brought in over 500 pounds of food for a school food drive. That’s a lot of food, by the way. Picture an upright piano made of canned goods, shaped with bags of beans, rice and flour. My partner teacher and I thought it would be fun to throw out a 500-pound goal, thinking there was no way we could ever reach it. Not with 8 oz. cans of soup and such. After suggesting we would sponsor a Friday night party should the goal be met, things started happening. Every few days we would weigh the food that came in and add that weight to the original figure. As the days went on things looked good for us, we were in the 200s and felt quite sure Friday would remain “flop-on-the-couch” Friday, for us teachers anyway.

Then, the parents must have started plotting because for the next few days entire shrink wrapped cartons of canned goods, five pound bags of dried goods, Sam’s Club sized cans of stewed tomatoes and dusty back of cupboard items poured in like the endless buckets full of water carried and dumped in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice“. Children were giving one another pep talks and pumping up the group to bring in more food. They attempted to arrange a 6pm meeting at Pick ‘n Save with parents who they would try to talk into buying just a few additional cans.

The last day of the drive finally came and our total was 490 pounds. That was a relief. No party, no twelve-hour day. We teachers were lucky and we knew it. Ironically, however, just before the last minute of the last day of the food drive a voice came through the old wooden speaker box announcing that the collection would be extended one more day, and that students had until Monday to bring in food and wasn‘t that great. My partner and I looked at one another and I mouthed,”Oh, crap.”

An assembly was held during which our students very proudly pushed in their new total, 509 pounds of food. We needed an additional cart for all of our donations. The class had done well, they knew it, and that was definitely a source of pride. They had worked together and accomplished a goal.

Well, we had the party last night and as the parents dropped the children off they thanked us for the gesture, for the excitement their children were feeling, and for the two free hours about to be enjoyed. Some of them expressed to us that we may have a few screws loose and joked that they would be back to pick their kids up the next morning. Funny.

We had a lot of fun in the end, did the limbo, had a bubble blowing contest, ice cream and dance party. One of the kids from the high school who shaved his head to collect money for the Cancer Society stopped by. He came in and spoke to the class before he had his head shaved, explaining to them how he was donating his hair for a cause, that it was something he could do to help if even just a little. Now he was back and had a head like a spiky mountain ridge, red and “tight” as one child who was “down with the language,” described. Spiky juggled for the kids and celebrated with us for a bit… a young group of children who contributed to their community being entertained by a wonderful young man who had done the same. Talk about a feel-good moment.

I was proud to have been this high school boy’s teacher many years ago, and proud to be the teacher of these little bubble gum snapping, limbo dancing, ice cream eating, goofy acting kids now.

Job well done, all of you.

I remember being told once that middle school students were given so many hours of homework because they were being groomed to attend schools like Harvard and Yale. Not that they would all go to them, but they would be prepared to if “Extreme Home Makeover” ever dropped by to raze their home and throw in an ivy league scholarship with the new double stove and bed made of pancake flippers.

While those old icons of scholarship, privilege and connection may motivate some educators to maintain a great lesson plan book, I’m starting to wonder if this is really what our broader society values. As I watch this lampoon of a campaign for nominee of the Democratic Party, I’m learning a lot about Americans in the “heartland”. I’m watching Hillary Clinton hide her Wellesley class ring so the beam from the Miller Lite sign doesn’t draw attention to it while she’s throwing down a beer and a shot. She’s with her people, now.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, insists on making grandiose speeches flowered with high and mighty multi-syllabic adjectives to intellectually motivate voters to sign on for the long term stay of change. He thinks he’s so smart…How can we possibly trust someone who clarifies the kind of lettuce he wants? What does someone who can’t even bowl a 50 know about running a country? He can’t know what we want him to do if he doesn’t know how to drink a shot off the stomach of a constituent. What’s he thinking?

I don’t know about you, but what I’m looking for in a president is someone who can hang with the people; someone who rolls the holes in his socks over the toes and keeps on going. I will cast my vote for someone who acts the way I did when I was 22- a real thinker.

If we really want to educate students so that someday they can be president of the United States, we need to drop the pretense and hit the brass tacks with themes of the common man. There are some things that presidential hopefuls need to know before landing behind the desk that anchors the oval office.

-Government surplus stores carry flag pins big enough to be picked up on digital, but small enough to make it clear that the wearing is obligatory. Pins must always be worn on the left lapel, right side up and in the face.

-When in public, especially with the real people such as non-college educated white males, express a desire to engage in real sports like football. If the sport doesn’t involve beer or mud, don’t even bother. No one’s buyin’ it.

-When you go to your assigned diner along the way, just order the special. Say, “Hey, what’s the special today?” Then eat it. All. If there is no special, look at the dish of some old codger sitting nearby and say, “I’ll have what he’s got. It looks great.” Then leave the old guy alone. He doesn’t want to talk to you.

-Don’t sip shots. It looks stupid.

-Don’t neatly roll up the sleeves on your white or light blue shirt when speaking to people who earn less than $40,000 a year. If you want credibility, wear an “I Closed Wolski’s” or “Wall Drug” t-shirt.

-Spill stuff on your tie or pants suit once in awhile if you want to look like one of us.

-Don’t quote the New York Times. Referencing Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the WWA will get you a lot more attention.

These are tips that ought to be part of every high school and college political science class syllabus. The most important thing for young politicians to know is that we don’t like snobs here in the U.S. of A. We’re not going to do what some book cracking, memory stick carrying, wine leg checking, snail dipping teacher’s pet tells us.

So teachers, be careful. Don’t make elitists out of your students. During their next debate about the death penalty, bring out a couple pies to throw. Show “The Beverly Hillbillies” at the graduation rehearsal and call everybody Jethro. As they cross the stage, give out the diplomas, shake their hands and make them drink a shot. Leave the ceremony knowing you’ve done your best to prepare them for the highest office in the land, giving the country exactly what it is crying for.

A people’s president.

May’s the month for me, May’s the month for me!

National Prayer and Eggs and Asthma, Sleep and Al-ler-gy

National Pet, yah you bet, I love May you see!

               DANCE AROUND THE KITCHEN

Barbecue and Fireworks, Arthritis, Salad, gee

Teacher, Goodwill, Bike, May’s the one I like

Photo, Baby, Car Keep-ing, there’s Speech and Strawber-ry

What a month, a busy month, May’s the month for me!

                          KEEP DANCING

Blood Pressure and Hearing, Phy.Ed., Sports and PTA

Celebrate with us, there’s room what they hey

Carpets and Cartoon Ap-pre-ci-a-tion have their day

Why is that? What’s for fat? Not the month of May!

                 GET UP, WE'RE ALMOST DONE

Family Week and Me-dic A-lert happen at this time

Freedom Shrine and more, couldn’t find a rhyme

If you’ve fungal in-fec-tion we’ll spot it on a dime

Cuz we’re aware that it’s there, isn’t May divine?

Dads get shafted. For the past few days in many classrooms around the country, children have been working on Mother’s Day presents. Kids are being prodded to think of all the wonderful things their mothers do for them besides “making food“. I think elementary teachers throughout the years have painted themselves in corners and are now the default gift and centerpiece providers for all American households. I would like to know where this started, but since that first turkey went home there has been year after year of stuffed paper, traced hand or paper bag versions of birds to plop on the Thanksgiving table. One holiday taken care of. Around winter break you’ll see classroom made art pieces going home to celebrate the birthday of winter apparently. Lots of snowmen, mittens and fir trees that with a few hands-full of tinsel would represent, well you know. Another holiday covered and we’re not even to the new year. We make sure that children have gifts for parents, holiday decorations for the house and whoever invented Grandparents’ Day got us to have children cheer up their one day as well. Check, check, check.

I’ve tried to stay out of the gift providing business, but the pressure is daunting. You see that everyone else has had their classes making stuff and you wonder if your children will be the only ones on the block who didn’t get to carry anything home made of bags, sticks, sticky tape and construction paper. You wonder if they are taking a hit to psyche, or at some point will come back with a handgun, point it at you and ask, “WHY DIDN'T WE EVER MAKE DANCING LEPRECHAUNS?”

I think holidays can be taken care of at home. Mother’s Day is a great chance for Dad to meet with the kids, talk about the virtues possessed by his wife, decide what she might like and lead the children to make or purchase it. Older children can be encouraged to write or make something at home in their rooms. If high school kids can rig up bombs without parents knowing it, I think they can sneak in art supplies, paper and writing implements.

If we’re not careful, December will be devoted to dads as we celebrate Half Father's Day. We’ll provide gifts, and do it the way we do for kids with summer birthdays. It would catch on eventually. No Father Left Behind. But in what other profession do bosses feel obligated to provide supplies, ideas and time for employees to make anniversary gifts, Valentine cards or dinner party place settings for their families? This is one of those areas, like pajama day, where it’s hard to think of teaching as a profession after spending couple weeks making paper mache horns of plenty filled with things kids think they should be thankful for.

I left this piece for a couple days and came back to bring it to an end. In that time, I started noticing all the things my daughter brought home from school for me. There is the coiled clay vase with her fingerprints all over it, the paper flowers, and the one I’ve had on my walls for years; the portrait of me with circle eyeballs sprouting lashes out of the top, the U mouth with horizontal lines ending each end, and the beautiful L nose with two dots inside. “I Love You” it read. That picture has pulled me out of many a dark day. I’ve reached the whole of my ambivalence. To the teacher who helped her make it, I’d like to say thank you and

Happy Mother’s Day.