Making the Weather

We often hear of bad weather, but in reality, no weather is bad. 

It is all delightful, though in different ways. 

Some weather may be bad for farmers or crops, but for man all kinds are good. 

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating. 

As Ruskin says, "There is really no such thing as bad weather, 

only different kinds of good weather." 

~John Lubbock, "Recreation," The Use of Life, 1894

As an undergrad, I had a professor make me memorize the following statement. I wouldn't understand what it truly meant until years later.

A copy of this still hangs in my classroom

Weather forecast for tonight: dark. ~George Carlin

I once knew a teacher who was in their first year and he was beyond stressed. The year was coming to an end and we were all beginning to feel the end of year stress. Kids were talking and upset with this teacher because he wasn't listening to them and they didn't like his class. He was consumed with "covering the material". He had to get through everything.

As the warm May morning was creeping towards lunch, he bent over in class to pick up papers and split his pants. Now if that's not a teachable moment, I don't know what is.  That same day, around the same time, I was standing in line at the cafeteria and a student "accidentally" dropped an entire gallon container of ranch dressing down the front of my pants and onto my dress shoes. The girl looked mortified.  I turned to the kid and smiled and said, "Guess I'll have to use Italian now".

I saw that student of mine later in the day. At this point, the smell of ranch was pretty strong in my room and when the kid entered, I could tell she was going to be upset. I smiled at her and made a joke about how I will never eat salad the same way again (or some version of that). She laughed. And then she cried - in the way only a twelve-year-old can. I pulled her aside and apologized for joking about it and that it was not a big deal at all, that I'd be able to get a new pair of pants. She replied that it wasn't me, it was another teacher. This teacher had split his pants in front of the entire class and when the kids laughed he yelled at them and made them sit quietly and told them if he heard another sound they would all get detention. She was terrified of getting a detention and wasn't sure what was going to happen. At that moment, that Ginott quote came back to me...I decided I would always try to be the "Storm" that my kids needed.

Rainbows apologize for angry skies. ~Sylvia Voirol

I spoke to that teacher after school. I told him I heard what had happened. He went on about how embarrassing it was and he didn't have time for this nonsense with everything he still had to teach and I shared with him another little "teaching philosophy" that I held dear ( I was not sure who had said it at the time, but later learned it was a Maya Angelou reference). I told him, "They will not remember everything you taught them, but they will always remember how you made them feel". He thanked me and told me he needed to get ready for tomorrow's lesson and didn't have time for this. He even asked me what that smell was. When I told him my story, he commented that he couldn't believe that kid wasn't in trouble.

At that moment I realized that you can't change the weather...outside of your classroom. But you absolutely can MAKE the weather in your classroom.

I like to think this is what it's like to walk out of my room at the end of the year.

It Gives Me Hope

"It gives me hope."

Moments

Words will not do this justice, but I feel it necessary to share what I saw a group of middle school students do this past Veteran's Day. Sometimes things happen in our world that make us ponder what we are doing as Americans, yet, there are moments, real moments, those genuine unplanned moments, that make you realize we are all in this together and we live in a pretty awesome place.  

I want to share what happened in our school's cafeteria on November 11th, Veteran's Day, during our 7th grade lunch - a cafeteria full of almost 300 twelve and thirteen year olds; a cafeteria not much different than most middle school cafeterias. However, on this November day, in this modest and humble town of Quakertown, hope was felt.

As our 7th graders were settling  into eating their lunches and starting to talk with their friends in the cafeteria, a few yards away an assembly was ending in our auditorium. Veterans had gathered to hear community members, politicians, and other veterans speak and recognize their many sacrifices and service. The ceremony ended and the Veterans began to appear at the entrance to the cafeteria and began walking through the cafeteria towards the library for a luncheon. What happened next was awesome.

Hope

There was a buzz of excitement in the cafeteria and the 7th graders started to clap and move towards the Veterans. They formed a line and began to cheer, clap, and shake hands with the Veterans. I could hear "thank-you's", see kids taking their phones out to snap selfies with the vets- and I even saw one of my students helping a vet to snap a selfie on his phone, handing them letters, and giving high fives. I also saw so many genuine smiles from both the students and Veterans - and I even saw tears from both as well. This moment continued until every Veteran, well over 75 of them -  men and women from every branch of the service paraded through our cafeteria.

As the last of the Veterans made their way through, a gentleman who appeared to be in his late 50's approached me. His eyes appeared glassy and I  could see tears on his cheeks. As he began to speak I could feel myself fighting back tears. He smiled at me and took my hand and said, "I woke up this morning and put on the TV. I watched the news and just felt awful. I knew what today was but I wasn't feeling too good about things. Then this all happened, and I'll tell you what, looking at these kids, talking with these kids...it gives me hope."

As I got back to my room after lunch, I noticed two girls who were visibly upset. I asked them what was wrong and one of the girls replied, "It's just...just that was so awesome. We take so much for granted and if it weren't for all those Veterans, we wouldn't have what we have," and the other girl replied, " I handed one of the Veteran's a letter I had written and he started crying and so did I...he told me he was so happy".

It's moments like this that make me realize as long as there is kindness, there is always hope.

I Could Go On

There’s a special language that exists between a teacher and their students. This language grows and changes over the course of the days, over the course of the year, and over the course of time with our students.  As teachers, we need to learn this language, and sometimes it is learned in the most amazing ways.

The Hero’s Journey

Life is a series of journeys. We never know where these journeys will take us and who we’ll meet along the way. As teachers, we are lucky enough to encounter people at various parts of their journey, one part no more important than the other, but the impact we can have as teachers on that journey can be life altering. This post is the story of one such journey and the languages used to tell of this journey.

The Call to Adventure

People love stories and I thought what better way to engage my students in the study of Greece than by examining their stories and myths. We began the study by looking at an engaging TED-ed Original by Matthew Winkler entitled, “What Makes A Hero”.  video

Over the next few classes we discussed this and looked at what the Ancient Greek considered a hero. My students were then given the task of creating an “epic” poem about a journey they’ve been on, or a legacy they want to leave behind. This would culminate with students sharing their poetry to a global audience during the Second Annual Poetry Summit. What I got from my students was more than I could imagine.  There were dozens of poems and journeys I could write about, but I chose this one because it brought tears to my eyes, and truly shows the power of words.

Treasure

I’ve been blessed this year to have to amazing students in my classroom who have been not only trying to learn the “social studies” part of my classroom, but have been trying to learn English as well. They have taught me much this year, most importantly, that there are no barriers to wanting to learn.

When I presented the task of writing a poem to them, they struggled a bit, but when I gave them the option to write it in Spanish, they beamed. And when I told them they would get to share it with students who were learning to speak Spanish at a school in NJ, they couldn’t believe it. I won’t lie to you and say the first attempt was magical and worthy of recognition. Initially, they googled a famous Spanish poem and began to share that as their own. With the help of the ELL teacher, I was able to communicate a very important lesson on digital citizenship and plagiarism. We encouraged them to talk about the journeys that they had been on. What one student wrote was nothing short of amazing, not because of the literary devices or hidden message, but because of the story it told.

It Touched My Heart

At 12:20 PM Dayana read her poem (1:28) to the world. One of my other students read the English version that ended with the lines "with your help, I could go on". The poem told the story of her journey from Cuba, the struggles she’s encountered, a friendship she developed, and her hope for the future.

After Dayana shared her poem, the students in Raquel Williams’ 8^th grade class shared a poem by Cuban poet Jose Marti Perez. As Dayana listened, I asked her if she understood, and she began to cry. There are no words a teacher can use to describe the feeling you get when you see one of your students cry. When I asked her what was wrong, she just shook her head, smiled, and said “That touched my heart.”

“New Life”

There’s always more to the story, especially in middle school. We talked more, she cried more, I gave her a hug, I cried a bit, and we talked some more. Late in the day, she came by my room, looked in the window and waved and smiled. What was said during that conversations between her, me, and her best friend. If I told you what was said, I’m not sure you’d understand. It was a combination of English, Spanish and that “special” language that only teachers have.