Slice of Life 2021 Day 11: In Awe

I saw the cover of the book
and snorted
and huffed
and rolled my eyes

because

who needs an entire book
to tell them
to look around
in wonder
and awe
at the world around them

who needs 192 pages
on a Kindle
to tell them
to look up at the sky

and then i thought,

uh-oh.

there are people in this world
who need an entire book
to tell them
to watch for signs of spring

so maybe
i should buy them a copy

or better yet

i will find someone
who needs this book
and take their hand
and lead them outside
and grasp their chin

and point it to the stars

Slice of Life 2021 Day 10: In Memoriam

Today marks Day 10 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and beyond!

I was saddened to learn of the death of Norton Juster. Here’s my little tribute.

Dear Mr. Juster,

My name is Lainie. I’m a fan.

I first read “Phantom Tollbooth” when I was a fifth grader. Your book changed my world.

Mr. Juster, I had always been a reader growing up. I worked voraciously through Beverly Cleary, through Judy Blume, through Roald Dahl. And I’d always enjoyed reading, and I’d always imagined the worlds that authors brought me, and I always enjoyed the time I spent with the characters.

But Milo. And the adventures he had in the Lands Beyond.

Mr. Juster, you wrote a book that was CLEVER. And SMART. A book that spoke directly to me. A book that was written just for me. You never made any assumptions about me as a kid. You never shrugged your shoulders and dumbed things down because you were just writing a kids’ book. No, you put all of your wit and energy and wonder between those pages, and you did it in a way that refused to underestimate me, as so many of the adults in my life often did.

You wrote the book I needed. A book I deserved. And in return, I’ve given that book to countless other kids who need that book, kids who need to see cleverness and joy in print. I know they won’t get all the jokes. I know that some of the ideas will be over their heads. I just make my kids promise me they’ll read the book again when they’re grown-ups so they can go back for all the fun stuff they missed the first time.

Mr. Juster, you were the grown-up so many children need in their lives. For that, you will be sorely missed.

With Gratitude,
Lainie
P.S. I also think your book “The Dot and the Line” was way underrated, and I hope people discover it. I just had to put that out into the world. I’m also posting this video of the story in case folks want to follow their curiosity.

Slice of Life 2021 Day 9: Signs of Spring, Redux

Today marks Day 9 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and beyond!

As we approach March 13, the last day we were with our students, the day we hurriedly sent them packing without any true sense of what we were shifting into or out of, I’m feeling…some kind of way. I know lots of us are. It hits me in different ways, or from different directions. This time, it hit me when I was out on a walk yesterday and I caught a spot of yellow peeking up from the earth.

I’m not sure
I remember
looking for
signs of spring
last year

not sure that
I took
my annual spin
around the block

which is sad
when you think about it
because watching for
the crocuses
the hyacinth
the snowdrop
means

you know what’s coming up

Saw these while walking the dog yesterday. Buttercups, maybe?

Slice of Life 2021 Day 8: Why the Soapbox?

Today marks Day 8 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and beyond!

My blog is called “Ed Soapbox” for a reason.

Soapboxes. Ideas we feel SO STRONGLY, we just need a box to stand on and shout it out to the world. And friends, I have a LOT of them. Especially when it comes to teaching and learning.

My position calls for me to do a lot of talking and meeting with my colleagues, and they know it is VERY easy for me to step up on my soapbox about any number of things. All it takes is just a little something to wind me up and set me in motion. I’m guessing it’s pretty entertaining to watch, just because I get so keyed up about things. I try to restrain myself, because I don’t want to be the one yammering on or get preachy. I can recognize an eye roll when I see it.

Still. Here is an incomplete list of all the things you don’t want to get me started on:

<< clears throat >>
<< takes a sip of water >>
<< steps on up >>
<< inhales deeply >>

Why emotional learning is 90% of what we do
Why gifted kids need each other
Why we need to talk about people who don’t look or live like us
Why expectations that leadership has of teachers creates classrooms where everyone’s afraid
Why teachers need the freedom to teach as they see fit
Why people are much better at math than they give themselves credit for
Why kids need to read what they want and write what they want
Why we need to consider poor behavior as a lack of skills rather than discipline
Why kids need to understand themselves better
Why we need to let go of control sometimes in our classroom
Why we need to listen more
Why we need to stop judging parents of kids who don’t behave
Why kids seem to show a lack of remorse for poor choices
Why kids need to understand place value so darn much
Why teachers need to open their doors more
Why teachers need to close their doors sometime
Why schools work just like giant classrooms

See? All I had to do was turn on the tap and get it flowing. You can’t see it, but I’m sitting up straight, my shoulders are tensed and my blood is PUMPING. And I’m just getting STARTED.

All because of this fierce belief I have in children, in my fellow teachers, in my families, in education itself.

So yes, I know that it’s fun to watch Lainie sometimes as she goes on a rip and tear. I’ll admit it’s kinda entertaining. I’d rather be the subject of an eye roll than lose the intensity of these beliefs.

<< steps back down >>

Sunday Sit-Down #8: If Only I Knew

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. It’s also Day 7 of the Slice of Life challenge.

Some Sundays I reflect on my upbringing and its effect on my attitudes towards race, culture and gender. Others, I think on turning points in my racial autobiography. And some Sundays, it’s..harder.

This is one of those Sundays, where I’m left with more questions than answers.

Growing up, especially in high school, there was racism and homophobia all around me. I certainly was around a whole host of offensive comments, jokes and gestures. I’m certainly guilty of laughing and playing along. So…how on earth did I let myself not notice the effect it had on those around me?

I could have been so much better.
I wish I could have been better.
I wish the times could have been better.

I especially wonder about the homophobia our world was steeped in.
I think about now, with my sons in high school and college, with so much more openness about identity. I wonder how different high school would have been, had it been now.

I can think of at least a dozen or so kids I hung out with who are now “out” in one way or another. We’d spent Saturday nights together, relaxed in the student lounge in off periods, chatted for hours on the phone – heck, I even went out and to dances with some.

I remember in particular one late-night call with a guy friend of mine. He was struggling, nearly crying, confessing to me that he had a great weight on his shoulders, that he was carrying around something that he wanted, wished he could tell me, but he couldn’t. He told me that if he said it, he didn’t know what would happen, or what he would do.

Forty-five minutes passed. An hour. At the time, I thought maybe he had been contemplating suicide. So very long I spent on the phone, trying to convince him that whatever he could say to me was OK. That I was his friend, and I could support him no matter what. He even got close a few times before breaking down again and saying he couldn’t tell me.

Turns out, he’s gay.
He just couldn’t come out.

It’s hard not to put modern sensibilities on that conversation. How on earth did that possibility not come to me? Why wouldn’t I have figured that out? What would have happened if I just asked him, point blank?

I could completely blame myself for my blindness. But the truth is, at the time I was in high school, NOBODY was talking about it. At least, nobody straight. My guess is that some folks were out to one another, but that they intensely guarded the circle in the name of self-preservation.

Now, I wonder. How different would high school have been if my friends were allowed to live full, open lives as teenagers? If they had been able to talk openly about their latest crushes, or go to dances with who they actually liked, or just simply…be themselves?

I’ll never know.
I can spend my life wistful, wondering.
Or I can support the people in my life…now.

Slice of Life 2021 Day 6: What You Think About

I’m writing each day in March as part of the Slice of Life Challenge. Enjoy!

What you think about
when you’re a teacher
isn’t the grade book
the test score
or paper work

What you think about
when you’re a teacher
isn’t the holy cow! units
the whiz-bang lessons
or even the crashers and burners

What you think about
when you’re a teacher
isn’t the tweets and mentions
the thank yous
or attagirls and you-got-thises

What you think about
when you’re a teacher
is the

one who
you haven’t reached [yet]
you think about
you carry home in your back pocket

so
you keep trying
working
coaxing
assuring

that everyone is broken
but no one needs fixing
and we all need to be seen
and met in place
and reminded we are perfect and whole

What matters
is the day
that the
one
will hear you

even if believing comes later

Slice of Life 2021 Day 5: Throw a Girl a Bone

Today marks Day 5 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and hopefully beyond!

Dog bone gifted to me by a colleague who made my DAY

Sometimes
When the monkeys on the back
Outnumber
The feathers in the cap
Or when the proverbial
Whack-a-mole
Feels out of what
And we feel
Unseen
Unheard
Alone
Adrift
Someone tosses us
A wide-ribboned line
To remind us that
Yes
We are still tethered
Bound
Tied
IntoAmongWith
One another

I’m not the only one whose day was made!


Slice of Life 2021 Day 4: Kid Wisdom

Today marks Day 4 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and maybe beyond!

As I alluded to in yesterday’s post, I used my own writing as a mentor text for my fourth graders. The goal is to use student writing as the literature from which we conduct reading discussions. The REAL goal is to farm out the strategy, if it works. Who knows? Maybe we can have whole classes – whole SCHOOLS worth of children who see themselves as writers, who delight in creating literature that’s just as worthy of analysis as something they’d pick up off the bookshelf.

But I get ahead of myself.

Today, I read my students’ written responses to my work. I set them up with a 4-quadrant response chart before our class discussion. Reading their work, and then hearing them TALK about my writing? Friends, if you haven’t listened to other people talking about your writing, YOU. ARE. MISSING. OUT. I’m highlighting a few questions and ideas from my perceptive kiddos:

Something I don’t understand…
“Why is Lainie’s friend so mean? Why can’t Story be nicer?”
“Why should Story give Lainie a smirk if she already said ‘suit yourself?’ “

A question I have…
“Why does Lainie hate writing narrative fiction?”
“Maybe she is talking to her writing and doesn’t like it but STORY wants her to try again?”

Oh! This seems important…
“Story is telling Lainie she can’t tell her students to do one thing and do something else herself.”
“The friend is encouraging her.”
“Story is named…STORY.”

It’s interesting that…
“A lot of people don’t like writing things they can’t get wrapped up in.”
“Lainie always tries to encourage others but doesn’t try to encourage herself.”
“Lainie tells her students to do things she doesn’t want to do herself.”
“She is standing up for what she likes and doesn’t like.”

I want to let this wisdom stand, so I won’t belabor the point with a lot of extra chatter. But I will share TWO things:

  1. My favorite moment came when the students realized that Story smirked because she had tricked me into writing fiction. That’s when the kids were REALLY able to infer the “tough love” relationship I have with her.
  2. I mean, LOOK at what these kids observed and wrote. They have my NUMBER.

Now. If you need me. I’ll be sitting here, heart aflutter, waiting for what’s next around the bend. I can’t wait – and neither can my loveys!

Slice of Life 2021 Day 3: Story Has Her Say

Today marks the third day of March, the third day of the Slice of Life blogging challenge. I’ve committed to write each and every day during the month of March and – who knows? – maybe even longer. Join me! This entry was inspired by the conversation I had with my students this week after sharing a snippet of fiction I wrote. That writing is linked at the bottom as Part 1 of this series.

“You know they called you mean, right?”

Story stopped scrolling through her Instagram long enough to look up. “What?”

“My students. They read about you and me in the coffee shop, and they thought you were being mean to me.” Lainie shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t help what they say about you.”

Story rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. You can’t help what they think of me? You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“It’s true,” an indignant Lainie huffed. “I say it all the time. ‘You can always write what you want, but you can’t control what happens with your work once you release it out into the world.’ “

“Yeah, yeah,” her companion snapped. “All of that trusting in art and all that blah blah.” She paused a beat. “But aren’t you ALSO the one who says that ‘as authors, we have the power to do anything we want as long as we make it readable and believable?’

“So what’s your point, Story?”

“You know the point.”

“Of course I do. I’m the author. I know EVERYTHING about my story.” Lainie added triumphantly, “I say THAT to my kids, too.”

“Then give the whole story. I bet you didn’t even let them read the second and third installments of our conversations, did you? I look much better in those. Instead I just end up looking like the bad guy.”

“I’m perfectly fine with that,” Lainie replied.

“Well, I’m not. And you can tell those kids I’m not mean. I’m honest. I’m the friend who tells you what you need to hear. If I’m rough around the edges, well, that’s just how you see me. So if you don’t start taking all the advice you keep doling out about this ‘power of a writer’ nonsense, I’m going straight to your students and telling on you.”

A silence settled between them. The barks of a neighborhood dog and the rumble of a passing truck outside filled the space. Lainie couldn’t speak. She had too much stuck in her craw. She’s got me again, Lainie thought. How does she always know how to get me?

“I suppose,” Lainie begrudged, “that I could tell the kids that sometimes I get stuck.”

“And?” Story asked expectantly.

“And that sometimes I know I just need a good talking-to to get me going.”

“And?”

“And maybe I should let kids read the rest of the story.”

“And?“

Heavens, Lainie sighed. She’s going to make me say it, isn’t she? “And I’m grateful for the way you come to remind me that I need to be less of a scaredy-pants about pushing myself in writing.” Lainie waited for Story’s response. “Happy now?”

Story held her gaze for an extra moment before returning to her newsfeed. “Guess the kids will be the judge of that.”

Now, if YOU want the rest of the story, you’re welcome to dig in to our “conversations:”
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Slice of Life Challenge 2021 Day 2: She’s Listing!

Today marks the second day of March, the second day of the Slice of Life blogging challenge. I’ve committed to write each and every day during the month of March and – who knows? – maybe even longer. Join me!

Sometimes
when we see a
trusty old gal
smooth sailing
we think wow
how does she do it

little do they know

she’s listing
eversoslightly listing

keeping balance
rocking toandfro
listing one way

then the other

finding the tipping point and

listing right on back

to
fro
to
fro
to
fro