The air vent in my room is an endless source of amusement so it's no wonder it called to them. It blasts cold air, whether its January or June, and at 11:10 am it blasts the scent of chicken nuggets and pizza from the lunchroom below. What is a wonder, however, is the whirligig itself. Its construction had no relation to the assignment of analyzing author's use of literary devices in 18th Century ballads. It is made of simple loose leaf notebook paper, masking tape, and was precision-aligned to the flow from the air vents -- a gift left at the end of last period.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Last Period, Friday
Before you ask "How could you not know? How could you not know a whirligig was being constructed in the middle of your class?" I need to explain to you how I teach. Perhaps you run your classroom the same way. First of all, I gather students in a circle around the round red coffee table to do a mini lesson. I might simply talk with them, demonstrate my writing on a doc cam, read aloud to them, or lead a discussion. The mini lesson is 12 to 15 minutes long. Then students scatter off to tables to work on a reading or writing assignment related to the mini lesson or possibly work on an ongoing project. I am either circulating table-to-table to check in with students or I might have a small group pulled aside to work on a skill. Or I might be editing a piece of writing that a student air dropped to me, immersed in my own computer screen. So it's not unusual that a group of students might be clustered together, presumably collaborating on the class assignment, and unless I see blood or hear a loud gaffaw, a chunk of time might go by before I connect with every single student.
The air vent in my room is an endless source of amusement so it's no wonder it called to them. It blasts cold air, whether its January or June, and at 11:10 am it blasts the scent of chicken nuggets and pizza from the lunchroom below. What is a wonder, however, is the whirligig itself. Its construction had no relation to the assignment of analyzing author's use of literary devices in 18th Century ballads. It is made of simple loose leaf notebook paper, masking tape, and was precision-aligned to the flow from the air vents -- a gift left at the end of last period.
The air vent in my room is an endless source of amusement so it's no wonder it called to them. It blasts cold air, whether its January or June, and at 11:10 am it blasts the scent of chicken nuggets and pizza from the lunchroom below. What is a wonder, however, is the whirligig itself. Its construction had no relation to the assignment of analyzing author's use of literary devices in 18th Century ballads. It is made of simple loose leaf notebook paper, masking tape, and was precision-aligned to the flow from the air vents -- a gift left at the end of last period.
Monday, May 30, 2016
First Year Teaching Eighth Grade
What did I know? I had started as an ed tech working with small groups of first graders on reading skills. Go, Dog, Go! And just like that I got my first classroom teaching eighth-graders. They were larger, snarly, and rolled their eyes a lot at me. They were also brilliantly funny and wide open to the world. I fell in love with all of them and have been teaching middle school ever since. This is a poem I wrote this spring for my creative writing course. I was thinking (again) of classroom fans and the memory came back to me. True story.
First Year teaching Eighth Grade
“Gotta go, Mrs. C.”
He popped the screen in the middle of class
character analysis static or dynamic? for Lord of the Flies
Oh, Lord
It was not much of a drop out the window
cartoon running
arms pumping legs in a circular blur
across the road across the field
swallowed by the horizon
I could not hear through the June heat
and the fan
or no one said a word and there was nothing to hear until
someone said it
“Here comes the po-po!”
it was way too rural to say it
but it was said
so I laughed I laughed
There was the cruiser parked outside the office
there were the po-pos
plural
two po-pos all blue clunky hand cuffs
“Please dismiss Anthony to the office.”
Anthony knew. He had known.
I reported that he was not present.
He had fled by foot westward.
He was fifteen in eighth grade wide smile
His brown eyes would not read I tried
He liked lasagna
He was dynamic
I never saw him again.
-Kim Cowperthwaite
First Year teaching Eighth Grade
“Gotta go, Mrs. C.”
He popped the screen in the middle of class
character analysis static or dynamic? for Lord of the Flies
Oh, Lord
It was not much of a drop out the window
cartoon running
arms pumping legs in a circular blur
across the road across the field
swallowed by the horizon
I could not hear through the June heat
and the fan
or no one said a word and there was nothing to hear until
someone said it
“Here comes the po-po!”
it was way too rural to say it
but it was said
so I laughed I laughed
There was the cruiser parked outside the office
there were the po-pos
plural
two po-pos all blue clunky hand cuffs
“Please dismiss Anthony to the office.”
Anthony knew. He had known.
I reported that he was not present.
He had fled by foot westward.
He was fifteen in eighth grade wide smile
His brown eyes would not read I tried
He liked lasagna
He was dynamic
I never saw him again.
-Kim Cowperthwaite
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Time to Pull the Fans Out
It's the same heat as early September that crawls into the classroom in late May. And it's the same fan I pull out to cool the air. The difference is the boy. The boy in September does not touch the fan. In September he appreciates its coolness and sits and watches. He watches the fan oscillate and he watches me because he does not have a read on me yet. If he touches the fan, will I be displeased? Am I strict? Will I make a big deal out of it? Will he get in trouble? I spare him and everyone else the guessing about the fan. Classroom rule: "Don't touch the fan. Just let it be, please. I've had several break over the years because kids have fooled around with them. So don't touch the fan. Okay? Okay." We're all good on that.
Until May. The boy bounds for the fan from recess, claims he is dying. He is sweaty and smells like wet sneakers. He drapes his upper body over the standing fan. The wind billows his T-shirt and whafts his pheromones around the room. The fan's oscillating mechanism clicks and struggles against its motion being stalled by the boy's grip. This is how the last fan broke.
"Off the fan!"
He complies, but not without a last "Waaaaaaaaaaaaa," his mouth stretched in front of the fan's grid which augments and casts his voice around the room to mingle with the pheromones.
Until May. The boy bounds for the fan from recess, claims he is dying. He is sweaty and smells like wet sneakers. He drapes his upper body over the standing fan. The wind billows his T-shirt and whafts his pheromones around the room. The fan's oscillating mechanism clicks and struggles against its motion being stalled by the boy's grip. This is how the last fan broke.
"Off the fan!"
He complies, but not without a last "Waaaaaaaaaaaaa," his mouth stretched in front of the fan's grid which augments and casts his voice around the room to mingle with the pheromones.
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