I am enjoying a lovely morning on the deck; the wind gently rustles the leaves above me, the birds chirp and flit about. It is a bit on the cool side, 56°F, but it will warm up, eventually. I am the eternal optimist, besides I have coffee to keep me warm. The wind chime emits an occasional ‘ding.’
It’s quiet this morning. Ivy is beside me, at my feet, or was until she heard something and stalked off to investigate. B is in Ohio with her mom and dad. W is at off-season sports camp, and O is sleeping. I hope that she’ll sleep for a couple of hours and get the rest she needs. We were supposed to follow this afternoon, but we will not. We’ll need to figure another time to head over and visit. We need to.
Today is the first day of June. It’s a new month, a new season, and it’s full of possibilities.Summer vacation begins Friday for my students. They are so excited, I can hardly keep a lid on them; four of them have already left early for their summer vacation, and the rest are busy learning and working. I aim to keep it that way through Wednesday afternoon, mainly for my own sanity and mental well-being. Thursday, then Friday will be here before I know it and I’ll be signing yearbooks and asking my students what they plan to do with their 79 days of summer vacation.
“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense.” Winston Churchill
It’s a new month, a new season, and it’s full of possibilities. Nevertheless, before I begin to think about what summer will be like, I need to go back and think about the year. The year was a challenge – full of triumphs and pitfalls in and out of the classroom. In the classroom, I had a new ELA curricula, based on the Common Core standards. I cringe when I say Common Core because it is sort of vilified these days. Folks in and out of education have turned Common Core into education’s current piñata – people just love beating on it. Unfortunately, it has not yet yielded any candy. It will be several years before educators know for sure if it is effective. But, I can tell you with absolute certainty there is a difference between my student’s learning from last year and my current students. This year’s students have developed into readers with a purpose, deeper thinkers, and stronger writers who can support their ideas with evidence from the text and their learning. However, they did not start that way. It was rough at the beginning of the year, but they have adapted and grown academically. They’ve also grown as people, too. They are ready for the next step, eighth grade.
Every year we attend the Memorial Day parade as a family. Sometimes we go to the parade at home, and other times we go to the one in Versailles – our home away from home. We usually ride our bikes to the cemetery and find a spot to watch the parade as it winds to an end and the participants file into the cemetery for the official Memorial Day ceremony. This year I walked, the kids and B rode their bikes.
There are veterans, politicians, firemen, police, bands, scouts, and other community organizations that march in the parade. There are the old, middle-aged, and young. They are dressed in red, white, and blue. They carry flags, wave at the crowd, and smile. One year I marched with the cub scouts. Sometimes it’s hot, sometimes it’s cool, sometimes it’s just right, but Monday it was between too hot and just right; depending if you were in the shade or not. The parade route is a lot longer than you think, but it is nothing compared to the sacrifice our veterans have made for their country.
“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
It’s that time of the year, again. There are two weeks left before summer vacation. Nine school days. Summer vacation would’ve been sooner, but we had the brutal winter with sub-zero temperatures and excruciating wind chills. Four school days closed twice for two days and days were moved from June to January to make up. There is nothing like summer vacation days in January. My students are working hard and last week it was clear they knew exactly how many days remained; some even knew down to the hour and minute.
looking closely you can read it – OBJECTS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR
I looked at my calendar last week and was stupefied that May was so close. It felt like the wording on the passenger-side side-view mirror: OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR. I suppose it is a lesson, which I need to heed more often. I have a habit of letting things creep up on me; it is along the same lines as not reading the fine print or asking for directions. I asked myself how it happened, but I already knew the answer. Ferris Beuller said it best, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop look around once in a while you could miss it.” Life does move fast and sometimes the only thing you can do is look around.
I’ve been looking around a lot lately. My seventh grade ELA students finished their Mask and Identity unit and we are now on The Road to Perseverance unit to finish the year. There are four units – one for each quarter. The bad weather days in January messed up the schedule and we finished the third unit in the fourth quarter and started the final unit a few days late, hence my ‘closer than they appear’ observation. It has been a good year. The students have been great and I will miss them, but I won’t miss all of them because I found out after Easter that I’ll be moving with them to eighth grade. After fourteen years in seventh grade, I finally was promoted!
I am a little late on this week’s photo challenge, by now it’s last week’s photo challenge. I’ve been overwhelmed with many things since my last post, but mostly family, for the past week, or rather the past couple of months.
School and my students have kept me hopping, too. The kids have been wonderful. There is another story in this, it’s just waiting to be written or for time to sit down and write, actually there are several stories.
It’s been a tough time in our home. My sister-in-law last week passed away last week. I think her passing was hardest on my wife, she is, after all the little sister. It was hard on all of us, but I think B took it especially hard. She’s been helping and has been there for her sister since she became ill in mid-February. In a way, I’ve been there, too even though I’ve been here, and there and seemingly everywhere.
It seems that as a family we gather only now for big occasions – we are scattered across the land. There are the holidays, but they seem so rushed and then there are funerals. So far there have been two in B’s family – separated by over a decade. We gather somberly almost on cue. The kids and I drove home last Saturday afternoon and evening. The wake was last Sunday and the funeral and burial followed on Monday. We had a gathering afterwards, it was lovely and a perfect ending for a sad day. The two days could not have been more different – Sunday was clear bright and sunny and Monday the exact opposite – sad, gloomy, grey with overcast and rain.
It was good to see the family, even on such a gloomy occasion. it was best for the cousins – there are my two, B’s other sister’s two boys and her brother’s children – two boys and a girl. All of the cousins are out of college and working, except one who is in college. But they all visited, W trying to be older and O, being O. I think B’s sister would have been glad we gathered, shared, and laughed. It was good for all of us to remember, and perhaps forget – even for a moment – some of the pressing issues weighing on us all.
Afterwards, W and I packed the car, loaded Ivy, and drove home. We both had school the following day. O stayed behind with mom and her aunt and grandma. W and I stopped at the cemetery on our way out of town. I took in all of the markers, the monuments to lives gone before me.
Greenlawn Cemetery – Versailles, Ohio
It’s Friday morning, four full days have passed since we laid my sister-in-law to rest. It’s Good Friday, a perfect day to reflect on those who have passed before us. There is no school today. W and I will be loading the car and driving back to Ohio this morning. It’s gonna be a great day, but I can’t sit and wait for it to happen. Making the day Count, one day at a time, thinking and remembering.
I missed writing last weekend. Truly. We went away for the weekend – we went north to the cottage. I had a lot to say, or so I thought. Somehow, time got away from me and I didn’t write. In fact, I didn’t even open my laptop. I existed solely on my iPad and phone; and did precious little on them. It was time to restore – a time to rest and relax.
It was our last long weekend of winter and we wanted to head up north for one last snowy weekend. The kids could ski, snowboard, and play in the snow. I know we had a lot of snow here, but it is different up north. B and I could relax and just breathe. We did all that, but the kids didn’t ski or snowboard: they did play in the snow and had fun outside, even Ivy got into the mix playing in the snow. We had a fire Saturday night and I cooked. Just as dinner was ready, we sat down to play cards. Then, some of our lake friends joined us; and we played a very spirited card game. The rules are somewhat confusing, but it is a favorite of our friends and we’ve enjoyed playing it at their cottage. I am not sure what it is called, it probably has several names, but it is a lot of fun. The card game involves a separate deck for each player but there is a place to play on everyone’s hand. Each player plays on their hand but the goal is to get rid of your cards and play them in the middle on the group’s cards. You get points for playing in the middle and the winner is declared when they have cleared their own cards. The game moves quickly and players have to be paying attention. Regardless, it was a lot of fun and when it was over, and we had a winner, we sat down to dinner and the Winter Olympics.
Sunday night’s sunset – it was warm enough to sit on the deck in the sunshine, but we had to be wrapped up!
Night and Day 2002 – courtesy of sunthingspecial.com
This morning the sun rose at 6:40 AM, it’ll set this evening at 6:49 PM. It’s a cycle that has been repeated for as long as earth has existed and will continue long after I’m gone, my kids are gone, and their kids, too. It’s a cycle that continues without any help from man (or woman); it just happens and it will always happen. But, that doesn‘t keep me from thinking about it or forcing my students to think about it. I am the king of things kids don’t think about. That’s my job, and I love every minute of it.
Last week was gone in an instant and the week before it, too. Next week looms ahead full of opportunity and challenge. Time waits for no one. The sun rises, the sun sets, no matter what. It’s a cycle. Last year, I challenged my geography students to observe the world around them and a couple reminded me in the hall last week about the Sunshine Report. Last year’s geography students began each Wednesday morning looking at the sun’s angle, recording the sunrise and sunset, and we’ll do it again this year, but differently. Just as my students learn in my classroom, I too, learn from them: from good lessons that could be better, lessons that were awful, and lessons that should never be tried again. I learned from those students and this year’s group will teach me something different, something new. I can hardly wait. Continue reading Sunshine Report – Equinox Edition→
It’s Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end of summer, and I am home instead of up North. I should be there, we should be there; there is work to be done, boats to be pulled out of the water, and a dock to be pulled out, too and so many more chores – summer is over and winter is coming. We planned to be there but it didn’t happen. We didn’t leave. Usually, for labor Day weekend we leave Friday evening and come back Monday afternoon. But, with W’s football schedule we’d planned to leave Saturday after his practice session. That meant we could take in the varsity game Friday night; it was a big game against the defending state champion who had beaten us the past two years in a row.
Last week was the first full week of school; it was exhausting – mentally, physically, and emotionally. I was drained and with one look in W’s eyes, I could see it had been a long week for him, too. Going back to school (or work) after a vacation is difficult but the weather changed to make it even worse. The week began with a heat wave and ended with a spectacular storm Friday night. If it hadn’t been for the storm, I’d be sitting at the table and looking out at the lake, instead I am home sitting at the dining room looking out at the neighborhood. Continue reading Endless summer→
School started Monday and the kids, my students, arrived Thursday. It was a good week, no, correction, it was an excellent week and it was over before I really knew it.
the first day – “Who do you want to be?” assembly
All things have a beginning and an end – there is a season for all things. I was unwinding Thursday after school trying to piece together all of the papers, memos, reminders and notes I had made during the day and I was tuned into my iPhone listening to a playlist headlined by “Long Cool Woman” by the Hollies. I don’t really listen to music anymore, like I did as a kid, rather I hear the music, the beat, and using it to block out other noise. Continue reading A season for everything→
