Soapbox: The Way I see Things

Slice of Life Tuesday: Letters to Mrs. Levin

This post is part of the weekly Slice of Life challenge from Two Writing Teachers. Check them out!

Each June, I ask my fifth graders to write me a letter reflecting on what they’ve learned in our years together – what they’ve learned about language arts, and what they’ve learned about life. I ask them to make it heartfelt, sincere, and handwritten. This letter is what I will remember them by.

My tradition is to wait to read them until a summer day when I’m just turning that corner between relief that school is over and sadness over missing my loveys. Then I sit down with my folder full of letters and read them, one at a time.

*It’s a veritable treasure trove! So many hearts, gathered together in one place.*

I’ve been doing this assignment for several years now. Each year, I can predict how the crop will go. There will be some sweet, thoughtful notes. There will be perfunctory letters designed to fulfill the nature of the assignment. Some will astonish me. Without fail, each letter, regardless of length or depth, brings me every child’s essence distilled on paper.

“Do you like the cat?” and “Can you please write back?” Yes, and absolutely yes! All of this, down to the cartoons and doodles and parentheticals, sums up a child I’ve taught for five full years.

I’ll be honest. Sometimes I struggle with this assignment. I don’t take praise well. Compliments make me uncomfortable, and I don’t like the feeling that I’m asking for them or expecting them. So, I feel strange (arrogant, even) asking children to write letters that may wind up with them telling me I’ve done a good job. It feels self-serving. I can’t shake that.

But life is short. It’s important to reflect, to consider our evolution and growth. It’s important to see who helps us along our way, to articulate our gratitude, and to recognize the power that words carry in our relationships. And now that I’ve begun writing the children back, it’s much easier accepting their gifts of love and sincerity knowing I’ll be able to do the same for them in return. It feels good.

*A handmade bracelet in my student’s favorite colors: crafted with love, looked over by a jealous doggo*

This morning, I sat down with my folder of letters, and WOW. The whole experience was…unexpected.

My students expressed themselves with a level of trust, honesty, reflection and vulnerability I had never before experienced. I asked them to write from their hearts, and they responded with such openness that several times throughout the reading I just had to stop. Absorb. Feel. It was ovewhelming.

It shouldn’t have struck me so hard. I mean, c’mon. I’m a teacher. Teachers know it’s our job to reach our kids. It’s our job to make them feel seen and heard, valued and understood.

But I had grown so close to my students. I’m more attached to my students this year than I have in quite a while. They have my heart.

All of this astounds me. How is it possible to spend the last year and a half seeing one another only through a bunch of pixellated boxes, yet still come out of the experience so tight-knit? How is it possible despite not having our hugs and handshakes, not having moments to lay eyes on one another, not being able to build on that in-person energy together?

What is it that allowed us to strengthen our relationships in the face of our limitations? What was so different about what we created this year? Was it because we had to be so purposeful with our time and attention? Was it because adversity brought us closer?

I can’t completely say. But I’m determined to figure that out. And once I do, how much more will be possible once we’re back in person? The very thought is exhilarating.

Now. If you need me, I’ll be with my stationary, my Flair pens, and a folder full of letters. I’ll be spending the next several days telling a group of eleven year-olds how much I love, admire, and appreciate them.

Slice of Life Tuesday: Backwards Journal

This post is part of the weekly Slice of Life challenge from Two Writing Teachers. Check them out!

Before I landed here, among the cicada noise and the soon-to-be-fireflies and the cooling air and the driftings-in of neighbor sounds;

Turn the volume up if you like cicada sounds! (But please let me know if you can’t see this video. WordPress has been weird.)

Before I was in the kitchen, prepping weekly lunches and garden pesto and night-time banana oat snacks and oh, yes…DINNER;

Before I drove back to the gym for the groceries I reminded myself to take out of the gym fridge;

Before I biked home to discover that even though I reminded myself to take the groceries out of the gym fridge, I must somehow have neglected to do so;

Before I struggled my way through a phoned-in half-workout, half-physical therapy session and a mobility class;

I know my coach will have something to say about this form. I’ve got me some work to do!

Before I planned out how I was going to run my errands via bike and chuck my oops-I-forgot-to-get-important-groceries groceries in the gym fridge so they didn’t go bad on a sweltering day;

Before I wasted an inordinate amount of time on social media wondering why on earth I haven’t been motivated to write more;

Before I finished the book that kept me company for the two and a half hours I was in line;

This…was a summer read. Entertaining, quick, fun.

Before I finally got through with the paperwork for my new Real ID driver’s license;

Before I trucked back home to get a second “proof of address;”

Before the clerk discovered that one of my “proofs of address” (yes, the one I originally brought) didn’t actually have my address or even name on it;

Before my hero son saved the day and brought me a second “proof of address” while I was waiting in said line;

Before the woman taking care of waiters-in-line told me all my papers were okay, but I needed a second “proof of address;”

Before I gasped amazed, agog at the line ahead;

This was actually *after* I had moved up!

Before I packed my backpack ready for a long wait with a trusty book, a GAMES magazine, chewing gum, a writer’s notebook, and my morning chai;

Before I walked my slow, addle-brained, high-strung but wise-beyond-her-many-years doggo;

I lay, eyes open-ish, eyes closed-ish, gathering my wits about me, wondering what my day today might have in store, what kind of story the hours would tell.

Slice of Life Tuesday: A New Little Word

This post is part of the Weekly Slice of Life challenge from Two Writing Teachers. Check them out!

I’ve been waiting for this.

It’s the realization that my One Little Word, first set at gather and then at dissonance, has finally shifted.

Dissonance is fine and healthy for a while. It helps me grow and push myself in new directions. It’s good to be dissatisfied, to want better.

But living in dissonance is all-consuming. It leaves me fatigued, wondering how long I can manage the push-pull I feel morally, physically, philisophically, wondering what sort of mom I am, what sort of teacher I am, what sort of human I am.

It’s why I’m glad and grateful to feel that tension begin to ease. Those reins, coiled around my wrists and held in a white-knuckled grip, are finally beginning to slacken. As they do, I can slowly unwind, unbind, feel the circulation and color coming back to my hands, shake out my fingers, roll my shoulders, exhale, feel myself stretch, lengthen…

unfurl.

Yes. My new One Little Word. Unfurl.

The act of spreading out from a rolled-up or cramped-up position or state. The act of stretching out to occupy new spaces, or opening up to the wind or the elements. Figuratively. Literally.

For a few months, I’ve harbored the hope that summer would bring unfurl as my next One Little Word.

I’ve needed this.

Even without COVID, it was a tough year – the kind that cracks my foundation, that drives me to check out just how many years there are until retirement (don’t worry, friends, it’s still a long while). The kind of year that teachers can handle once in a career. Once. Maybe twice, but never in a row.

So the possibility that I wouldn’t experience this release, the prospect of going back to school as pulled as I was, well…that was scary.

What’s turned it around for me? The moments in sunshine? The long walks with friends? The dozens of library books checked out, read, checked out, read? A vision of the next hours, days, weeks, of relative freedom?

I can’t really say. What I can say is that I feel the turning of a corner. I feel a greater distance between myself and this past year. Soon, I’ll start to miss my sticky notes, my Flair pens, my colleagues, my students, my work. It gives me hope that I can re-emerge next year content, energized, aligned with purpose. Stretched. Grown. Unfurled.

Slice of Life Tuesday: Beach Thoughts

This post is part of the Weekly Slice of Life challenge from Two Writing Teachers. Check them out!

Last week was the first in a long time that I didn’t post a Tuesday Slice of Life post. I meant to, honest. But I was surrounded by THIS:

And by THIS:

So really. Who could blame me? I spent whole days sitting right there on the beach doing nothing. And I wanted to think about nothing, but let’s be honest. I can let my poetbrain shift into idle, but I can’t park it completely. Here were some musings from lakeside (really, bayside, but I digress).

Sometimes going to the beach
is a matter of collection:
heart-shaped rocks
sun for February days
sounds and sounds and sounds

and on this day
I collect thoughts

watching the older sister,
waist-deep in the water
clenched hands outstretched
beckoning her brother to play
rock or no rock? just guess!
(I don’t really care)
no! really. rock or no rock? you pick
(shrugs, turns his back, walks away)

and out of sheer commitment to the bit
she opens a fist to no one
and shouts
the left hand? okay!…look at that! you were right!

then that same sister
in full view
of brother
and parent
kicks over the brother’s rock pile
with an oops
and a laugh
and a smile
and in the same motion
bends to pick up his flip-flops
and bring them over
for him
in what I can only describe
as the world’s most
most perfect demonstration
of what it’s like
to have a sibling

Just for you: 30 seconds of sounds and sounds and sounds

Tuesday Slice of Life: Two Sides of the Same SweeTART

This post is part of the Weekly Slice of Life challenge from Two Writing Teachers. Check them out!

It’s summer break now (let us pause for a moment of celebration).

I’m supposed to be taking it easy.
I’m also supposed to be getting my house back in order.
To get back into shape.
To carve out time for writing.
To meditate.
To enjoy life.
To check out and read scads and scads of books.

“So, Lainie, what delightful writing projects have you taken on now that summer unfurls before you, vast and wide?”

….ummm….well….you know how sometimes energy needs to be stored as potential energy before it can be released as kinetic energy? Kind of like how you’ve got to draw back and hold tension before you release the rubber band or the arrow? Consider me in that…potential energy phase.

I do have one thing that caught me as a writer. A student gave me a box of SweeTARTS.

Did you know that they’ve started to put words on SweeTARTS? And that the words are connected to one another?

That piqued my curiosity. I’ve long been a fan of words that are two sides of the same coin. As in, you can look at a penny and see Lincoln, or you can look at a penny and see the Lincoln Memorial. They look different, but they’re the same thing. A fellow storyteller, Yvonne Healy, taught me to advise student tellers that fear and excitement are just that – two sides of the same coin.

So naturally I wanted to explore this idea through the candy box. What “two sides of the same coin” ideas would pop up for me in artificially-flavored sugary goodness? What to do the corporate minds at the SweeTARTs factory have in store? Could they impress me?

I’d have to dig in to the candy and find out. But here’s the thing. I couldn’t just open a box of candy and waste it. And to tell the truth, I can maybe tolerate a few SweeTARTS before my teeth begin to hurt. Thankfully, my 20-year-old was on the task. He helped me sort through and find all the different word pairs on the SweeTARTS as I listed them. He also helped me eat said SweeTARTS. Talk about taking one for the team!

Some of the word pairings were pretty expected, nothing surprising:

humble-proud
strong-gentle
rock-pop
global-local
witty-silly
grit-strong
head-heart

But there were also several that, happily, surprised me. These are the ones that struck me as “two sides of the same coin.” It’s proof that there, somewhere buried in an office cubicle or around a meeting table or in some departmental Zoom meeting, there are sparks of creativity and wit at the corporate level:

funny-fierce
math-art
sassy-savvy
wild-wise

Now.

If you need me, you might find me writing. Or maybe not.
I might be walking the dog.
Or reading a book.
Or rearranging the kitchen drawers.
Or spending quality time behind a barbell.
Or trying a new cookie recipe.
Or
or
or…

Slice of Life Tuesday: Told You So

This post is part of the Weekly Slice of Life challenge from Two Writing Teachers. Check them out!

Last week, I had the joy of seeing my third-grade colleagues put on storytelling festivals with their students. As a culmination of their fairy tale unit, children told their stories to one another. I love to listen to kids, love to hear students I know – just KNOW! – will shine through this medium. Even better, I love to watch their teachers, seeing children’s talents and strengths from a different direction.

A Zoom festival, because sometimes that’s how you get it done

I’m so grateful to my colleagues for getting brave about tracing a new path with this unit. I’m so grateful to the students for getting brave in their telling. And I’m grateful that storytelling, true to form, has revealed surprises that (to me, at least) have always hidden in plain sight.

Today’s poem is for them.

I told you so,
told you the telling
would tell
all I hoped it would,

I told you so,
that all you have to do
is
tell a story
and your wiggly ones
and your prickly ones
and your hard-to-reach ones
would sit,
rapt,
engaged in jargonspeak

I told you so,
that all you have to do
is
let them tell a story
and your mouthy ones
and your sticky readers
and your tricky writers
would find themselves,
would find voice
and voices
and reveal stories
and story structure
and plots and subplots
and complex sentences

I told you so,
that all of those things
we hope come out of pens
or keyboards
pour forth
from mouths,
through bodies
into ears and hearts

I told you so,
that storytelling
would bring you surprises:
children gathered
from the fringes
and held
to new light,
sparkling

Slice of Life: Love Those Writers

Yesterday.

Yesterday was a pretty good day.

It was the day my first article as a contributing author got published on my very favorite teacher site, Two Writing Teachers.

And it was also the day that I asked my students to reflect on their experiences in writing workshop this year. I told them of my respect and admiration for them as humans, as writers. I told them how amazing it was to enjoy the process of writing alongside them this year. I told them that we’re going to have the chance to continue this work together next year, and I want their experience next year to honor their strengths and needs.

Here are the questions I asked:

How did you grow as a writer this year?
What did you learn from reading one another’s writing?
Describe your ideal writing workshop.
Looking ahead to next year, how would YOU like to grow as a writer?

I first used breakout rooms on Zoom (sigh. Always ZOOM) to let the kids discuss answers to these questions, to gather ideas and perspectives. I then gave kids a solid 20 minutes to complete the questions on Google Forms. And by 20 minutes, I MEANT 20 minutes. I told students they were not allowed to submit their survey before I gave the OK. If they reached a stopping point, they could stop, or think, or daydream, but I wanted the survey open for other thoughts that “trickled in” over the course of that 20 minutes.

I’m glad I did.*

My students brought it. And why shouldn’t they have? They’ve been bringing it every day we’ve been together.

As I read through their responses, I saw so many common threads, so many take-aways. I’m sharing a couple of highlights because they make me so happy.

On what we want writing workshop to look like, kids envisioned:
-Calm. Quiet. Peace.
-Solitude when needed.
-Collaboration when needed.
-Pens and paper and clipboards and fuzzy pillows and seating options.
-Freedom.

Word cloud showing how we envision writing workshop. Thanks, edwordle, for the resource!

On what we learned from sharing our work:
-We never gave enough credit to the skills of other writers.
-Other people have very different writing styles.
-Reading other people’s work made us want to write better.
-We’re better at giving and receiving feedback

Word cloud showing what we’ve gotten out of the experience.

On how I can help them learn and grow, students envision that I’ll be:
-Teaching specific writing skills
-Offering feedback
-Giving them the “push” they want and need in zones of discomfort
-Showing them text that mirrors the aspects they want to use in writing

This is just the tip of the iceberg, friends. I asked my kids to stop, to imagine, to dream about what writing workshop could be. They’ve given me so much to think about over the summer. And while summer canNOT come fast enough, I’m already looking forward to next year.

*(If we’re being 100% real, YES. There were plenty of kids who probably filled out the survey in four minutes and pretended to work longer. This is a COVID year. And it’s June. And Zoom. I’ll take what I can get.)

Today’s post is part of the weekly Slice of Life Challenge. Check them out!

“I Feel Like a Real Writer” – Guest Post

Friends, I’m so excited to tell you that I am now a contributing author on the Two Writing Teachers website. This community has helped me grow so much as a writer, a teacher and as a person. Honestly, I could gush for quite a while about how transformative the experience has been. Suffice it to say, I’m humbled and honored to be a part of it.

So, here’s a teaser for my first article:

Teaching writing to gifted students isn’t the smooth, easy path some might suppose. Gifted kids often present a range of academic and affective needs. How can we encourage joyful and confident writing in this special population?

Want to read the rest? Head on over to Two Writing Teachers. Enjoy, and keep on visiting that site. There’s a lot to learn, and amazing folks to learn from!

Sunday Sitdown #15: Sugarland, and Regrets

Each Sunday, I’m working my way through my experiences with race. I’ll share stories and memories from throughout my life. I know I’ll encounter moments of growth that I wish I could relive. I’ll also have to think back on choices that I wish I could remake. Come join me each week.

My first teaching job. Sugarland Elementary, Sterling Virginia.

I got the job maybe a couple of weeks before the start of the school year, when the district opened up a new classroom. There was nothing in my classroom. No paper. No paper clips. No chalk. No erasers. No nothing. Luckily my newfound colleagues helped me scrabble together enough to start the school year with my loveys.

Sugarland School served a working-class neighborhood which, in turn, was home to a large population of students of color.

There’s a lot that my liberal education, my lived experiences with folks who were different from me, and my coursework in multicultural studies prepared me for. I knew to value and celebrate our differences, to provide books, resources and activities that reflect a multitude of faces and life stories. I knew that I needed to expect big things out of ALL my students no matter what.

But there are things that I didn’t know, things that I wish I recognized. Maybe it was the oblivion of youth that clouded my vision. Maybe I wasn’t as evolved in my understandings as I am now. Had I had today’s wisdom, I would have done better with the kid who made himself dinner each night because his dad worked four jobs to support him. I would have found better ways to support the child who missed kindergarten in his native El Salvador. I would have made the classroom safer for the kid who drew pictures of himself dying so that he could come back as an American. And somehow, all of these kids managed to turn out OK despite the mistakes I made.

But when I think of the damage that schools do to children of color, particularly Black girls, I cannot help but think of Essence.

Essence, whose mom struggled with addiction.
Essence, whose grandma raised her.
Essence, who came each day brimming with the turbulence of life.
Essence, with whom I engaged in regular power struggles.
Essence, who ended her academic year with me labeled.
Essence, who lost her own difficult struggle in 2016.

And in my young teacher’s mind, I was holding her to high expectations. I was treating her with love and compassion. I was doing for her what I hoped to do for all my students: inspire them to be the best versions of themselves.

But oh. In my moments of clarity and honesty, I know that I did damage. I did not provide this child with the room and space to feel truly safe. I did not support her and her family in a way that was culturally responsive, and I didn’t take into account her immense lived trauma.

I’m not looking to have folks respond with, “but you’re a great teacher! you HAVE made a difference.”

I would say an awkward “thank you” in response. Yes, I will acknowledge my deep connection with many kids. But the purpose of this post – the purpose of this series – is to recount my experiences with race, and to claim those moments and choices I wish I could take back. My time with Essence is one of them.

And Essence, had I been your teacher now, I can only hope that I’ve developed enough wisdom and perspective to give you the support, the validation and the true compassion you so deeply deserved.

Assigned Writing: A Poem

This May, I’m committing myself to writing student-assigned topics. Some of them might be cut-and-dried, some of them might be bears. And some of them will reveal themselves in the writing.

Today’s assignment: Write a poem.
(I’m not going to lie. I may have juggled things today so I could use it as an excuse for poetry writing.)

You know,

On days when you are adrift
in the sea
with nothing
but that horizon-perfect circle

you might catch
out of the corner of your eye
bobbing out there in the waves
a leaf,
a stem
with a timid bloom on top

and you wonder
what on earth
is a flower doing
way out here in the ocean
but you pick it anyway
and it gives you something to hold on to
in the middle of all this nothing

and then the current turns you around
and look there,
another leaf
another stem
another flower
was it there before?
and how did i ever miss it?

and the more flowers you pick
the more flowers you find
and the more stems you gather

until you realize

you are not in the ocean at all
but standing, planted
in a garden
of your own creation.

This week was a doozie. I felt adrift in many directions.

And then a colleague brought me some cake. And friends, I know that food doesn’t solve problems. I know that cake doesn’t make everything better.

But it does make SOME things better, sometimes. And on that rough morning, those bites of sweetness were a simple reminder that the love we put into the world sometimes does, indeed, come back in our direction.

And then a former parent reached out to me to tell me what her grown-up kid was up to (once a lovey, always a lovey).

And then my irises, sent to me by my dad, emerged to bring me a yearly reminder of him.

And then I sat with some friends for bubble tea and validation.

And then someone thought of me at the grocery store.

And then I got to see reluctant third graders roll their pride into a ball and play puppets like no one was watching.

And all of a sudden, I had a whole bouquet of wonderful, right there in my hands. More than I can even count.

Strange, isn’t it, how life works.