Digital Native, I'm not...

well, you probably can imagine I've been having some computer problems after you read this...thank heavens for digitally enhanced children!

Contemplating my problem of tech,

My computer's now a pain in the neck

The microphone's broke

Soon my project will choke

And my patience resembles a wreck!

Oh, if I had been born post- the eighties,

My brain cells would be more like Bill Gaties',

My fingers would fly and tech problems would die,

but instead I crave vacations in Haiti.

Go native, they say...and it's fun,

I use laptop and cell when they run,

But my brain speed is still "slow"

when the programs don't go,

these problems are more for my son!

Sarah came in and found me typing her words into the computer. She had misplaced her hat and suspected it was still in the cubby in my room. Sarah had been part of my literacy group for little over two weeks, and in a group, she is quiet, unless she didn't want to do something. Then, she'd get mad, calling everything stupid and dumb. But right now, she's not quiet or mad...
"Hey, are you typin' what I said in my book? Hey, are those my words, hey, can I see, can I hear me sayin' 'em?"
I catch up to her by saying, "Why, hello, Hailey? What brought you back down here? Isn't it time to go home? Oh, your hat. Yes, yes, I'm typing up your story. Would you like to hear you reading?"
"Well, can I? I don't know how that dumb micaphone works anyhow."
I explain how it's not the microphone that stores her recording from earlier-that it's stored on the computer. Then, I proceed to play the slideshow I was making, complete with her words, pictures, and voice...
"That's me! That's really me!" she says,
with this smile that tells me
she likes it more than other things she has to do in this
'dumb school.' She calls everything about school dumb or stupid,
but maybe not the 'micaphone,' maybe it's not so dumb,
as she just sits there and listens and asks me to play it again and again,
her sweet simple story,
her sweet little voice,
her.

I await the finality of yesterday
when I forget the promise of today,
like when the most anticipated birthday gift
is opened and exposed to reality's light.
Its end comes when the bristles touch my teeth,
with the look into the mirror's eyes
echoing back
the day's end.
Yesterday I had imagined everything would go as planned,
complete with a neat beginning and end,
and its own predictable yet dramatic plot;
but today's present lacked the vivid details and texture
imagined, offered little surprise or suspense, was more like
junkmail, waiting there,
addressed to me, but of little interest.
The withering promise of today
closes the curtain on yesterday
while it wraps another present of
hopeful tomorrows,
searching for its story.

Hmmmm....long blog entries??

So, I find myself writing long blog entries lately...and I wonder, do people read long blog entries? If I write for me, they might get longer than people are willing to digest...if I focus more on the audience, blog entries may not be as in touch with my experience. I'm just curious, do bloggers out there think about this issue? What do you think?

Making time for Salt and Aliens...

Does anyone really know what time it is,
Does anyone really care...that I'm still here

in the classroom.

Don't ask me why because

I couldn't really tell you, without reciting the laundry list litany

of teacher tasks

unintelligable to the general public. For example,

"fill salt boxes."

Not salt shakers or sandboxes, but salt boxes

where pointer fingers map out

a letter's path to the sound of a smooth and steady teacher voice...

like the driver education teacher's, only ten years earlier:

"that's it, go to the left and turn, like a c, but then you travel up and go straight, now give it a tall back, a little taller, taller...

and there! you've just made a d! Now, shake your salt and get ready

for the next letter."

"Fill the salt boxes" is on the list because of this morning

when Andrew knocked them over
unintentionally. He was getting the pointer down

because he was "teacher of the day." Proudly he took the pointer

out of its pocket, not realizing how long it was,

not realizing the sweep of his arm with the pointer

would reach the work table,

not realizing how quickly the salt

would pour out of 15 salt boxes

onto the floor. "Fill the salt boxes" means explaining to the custodian

why there is salt in the cracks in the floor

and running to the grocery to get more

so that I have it for tomorrow. I could skip the salt boxes

but then there's Sarah

who LOVES the salt boxes the most

and who needs "s" practice

desperately.

Next on the list--"make Alien soup." This for Tyler,

who loves to talk about anything alien, loves to be an alien,

and who mixed up all the magnetic letters

and said,

"It's Alien Soup!" as he made nonsense words

on the cookie tray. "Look! B-L-A-S-H...Blash! I put lots of

blash in my alien soup!" Tyler, with his pie-round eyes,

kept making words, unaware

that the bell had rung, and an idea popped into my head

and on to my "to do list:"

I need to make a game

just for Tyler, Alien Soup, a set of letters and a bowl

all his own so he can be

the Alien Soup chef

and serve us all "prill gwesp soup" for breakfast.

I look at the clock with its bent minute hand,

looking as tired as I feel,

scolding me with the evidence: 5:o0pm with my list

only partially done.

And then I see Tyler at the door.

"Hi, Mrs. King. I'm not an alien right now, because

my dad picked me up at the after school program

and he said he wanted to pick up

the real Tyler just this once, so I said okay.

Can I show him Alien Soup?"

And he does, and his dad sits down in a postage stamp-sized chair

and helps his son make alien soup.

I sit down on the other side of the room, pretending

to be doing something important,

while I listen to "luf," "geb," and "twok,"

and smile.

Does anyone really know what time it is?

Does anyone really care?

I do.

It's time

for Tyler to show his dad

that it's okay to be an alien once in awhile,

and it's time for me to realize that

my list makes perfect sense

to me

and my kids.

So, pass the salt, please,

I gotta fill a salt box, and the soup may just need a touch.

But even so...

It's the best soup on the menu.

Spelling Bee

So far, I've written about working with younger students in our school. Today I started working with a group of spirited, intelligent sixth graders who will compete for a spot on the school's spelling bee team. I experienced a moment of contrast as I worked with children in a different developmental phase.

Spelling Practice…

They pour in
Spilling onto tables and chairs
with limbs and tongues
Wriggling, dangling
like misplaced participles craving
their home, and I
am there as witness
to this act.

There is professed comfort
as if they fit well in their skins,
yet I can see places where
they gap or hang—I hear
their nervous giggles
as one knee shifts
and touches another.
We are gathered here to practice spelling words
for the upper grade spelling bee, to sort through
the word lists, finding those syllables
they still don’t know in an air
thick with knowing—to publicly analyze
how letters go together, systematically,
while privately wondering
if anything goes together at all.
They are walking, talking verbs,
actively seeking meaning to everything
with little comprehension of themselves,
and for twenty minutes, I, the
Spelling Bee coach, tell them
the rules of the game:

Repeat the word,
ask for a definition, a sentence, the language of origin,
look for clues in its verbal appearance,
look for anything at all that will help you
confront it, perhaps you’ve met a similar word before,
consider its base word, prefix or suffix,
let yourself be alone in your head with the word,
with yourself, with your own voice massaging its parts,
like shoulders and thighs, then surprise yourself
with what is there in your brain already, vibrating,
like jello on a train.

You are both young and not young,
Old and not old,
On a quest for knowledge that, on the surface
is comprised of hard-to-spell words, but beneath
is made of a room full of intimate strangers, wondering
who they are in the mix,
where are they going, and with whom,
looking for
definition, clues,
anything to help them make their way,
drowning in the unknown, then
coming again up to the surface, and asking, “Mrs. King,
how do you spell

“adolescence?”

Let Me Do it!

It's called 'turtle talk,' slowing down the mouth

so sounds can be heard and identified...

and I teach kids how to do it with my friend,

"Super Turtle." Super turtle comes out slowly, and shares his heroic

sound-it-out skills...c-a-t, f-r-o-g, and --

"Let me do it!" Tyler interrupted.

The boy with a mouthful of missing teeth

proceeds to take the turtle off my hand, putting it on his own.

"H-i ! I a-m Th-u-p-er Th-ur-t-le!" and then Tyler

goes through all the picture cards, stacked so neatly for the orderly

adults, and finds the one he wants...

"Th-r-u-ck, Thruck! I can drive fast, cuz I'm Super Turtle!"

Then he takes the turtle off and gives it back to me, and he's gone...

moving on to block towers and duplo dinosaurs, leaving us to admire

a jumble of pictures--and Super Turtle,

who let Tyler do it! Who let Tyler teach US,

all by himself.