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?”

Austism Amazes...

Today I was visited by the boy with brown eyes,
wise, deepsoul eyes that gaze inward while looking out,
inward into a world where
things are in rows, and everything is in order,
a place where the air is completely still and
breathing is silent.
He enters my classroom with a flitting stare,
looking for something, searching the air
for yesterday--
but it's today and nothing's the same
nothing's at all the same today,
what with the fire drill--LOUD! too LOUD!
searching eyes desperate, agitated, until--
he sees the dog puppet there on the shelf,
the one that sang a song,
yesterday--
"put it on, put it on, put it on!"
And I do, and he feeds him pieces of a plastic pizza
and I have the dog pretend to chomp the pizza,
and he feeds him all the pieces, one after the other,
and everything is NOW and important
to this brown eyed face.
Yesterday and Today are
connected now,
NOW is real,
NOW is part of his world,
thanks to a dog puppet and
a toy plastic pizza,
and
those
soulful
brown
eyes.