A singular focus -or- What it feels like to go back to teaching

The magical red bucket.

It all started with a red bucket. The very one pictured above.

That's the bucket I took with me to an interview for a teaching job in June last year. I was told to be prepared to present a lesson that I had developed, taught and assessed. I wracked my brain for the most memorable lesson I had used as an English teacher. I even gathered up photos of my old classroom with students reading and interacting and even some samples of old student work. I walked in to that interview confident with that red bucket tucked under my arm!

I got the job.  The boys and I took off for Alaska within weeks of the good news to join Aquaman who was already fishing.

I began reading what my future students had been assigned for the summer. Here's proof - me with the book on board a seiner with Aquaman.

Damn boring, if you want to know the truth.

That was pretty much the last time I came up for air.

In July, I went to a teaching conference. In August, I began planning lessons. I walked into a classroom that looked like this:

And turned it into this:

Yes, the door involves Hello Kitty. 

And a Hello Kitty calendar. I may have a problem.

The lesson I had in that red bucket at my interview is what started off the year.

Since then, I've been buried in literature and professional development and benchmarks. Learning an entirely new pedagogy. Memorizing 150 student names and getting to know them. Grading 150 student essays. Then 150 more student essays. Then hundreds more poems. Uploading and emailing and calling parents. Twelve hour days were standard. If I got in and out under 10 hours, I felt giddy.

At times, delightful reading.
At other times, mind numbing.

There has been no time for my own writing. I've been writing curriculum. I've been writing poetry and essays to use as exemplar models for my students. No personal essays. No blogging.

It is all consuming.

Did I mention the reading? Besides curriculum guides and lesson plans and articles about teaching literature, I also read (or re-read) whatever novels I had to teach. Here's what was on deck this fall:

7th grade:
1) The Giver by Lois Lowry
2) The Maze Runner by James Dashner
3) The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
4) The Pearl by John Steinbeck

8th grade:
1) Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
2) The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
3) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
4) When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
5) Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

For the student book club that I sponsor:
1) Doll Bones by Holly Black
2) Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
3) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
4) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
5) The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Additional Research and Reading:
1) In the Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading, and Learning by Nancie Atwell
2) The Essential Criticism of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men edited by Michael J. Meyer
3) Classics in the Classroom by Carol Jago
4) With Rigor For All: Teaching the Classics to Contemporary Students by Carol Jago
5) Papers Papers Papers: An English Teacher's Survival Guide by Carol Jago
6) Naming the World: A Year of Poems and Lessons by Nancie Atwell
7) Lessons that Change Writers by Nancie Atwell

I'm sure there's more reading that I've forgotten I did.

Did I mention the bulletin boards? That's my favorite part!

Students add quotes from books - a sort of recommendation wall. 

Such a great quote.

August/September. You can't go wrong with Whitman.

October-scary stuff!

November-books teachers are thankful for.

One of my all time favorite books.

Here's why.

December. What'd you expect? I mean really.

I also celebrated a birthday in there, went on a field trip with 100 8th graders, chaperoned a dance, and gave in to student requests to be the faculty sponsor for a student-led book club.

She who wears the crown must be obeyed. Right?

This was the bus ride there.
Notice there isn't one on the way back. 

Did you know you text requests to the DJ now? Fancy!

I have made myself take a break these last two weeks. That means that I only read two books that were related to school and only emailed a handful of times to confirm my new teaching schedule for the spring that will involve a new syllabus, eleven more novels that I must pick for 30+ additional students I will have, and to welcome a new teacher that I will collaborate with.

You know the most surprising part of all?

I am loving being back in the classroom. I missed it. I was gone from it for three years.

Kids can be real bad. Real, read bad. But they can also be real sweet. Real, real sweet. They give you things. Things they think you'll like. So if they see one Hello Kitty item on your desk, get ready. For things like this:

First gift from a student this year. And it was from a boy!
Boys secretly love Hello Kitty.

Did you know there was Hello Kitty canvas art?

Hello Kitty as an Elf. No better combination.

And they'll make you things. Like this:

Just because. 

Our Of Mice and Men book cover - student rendition.

Favorite student quote from The Outsiders.

And they'll do annoying things like take a selfie of you and themselves with your phone while you're busy with another student.

And you'll marvel at how they can be so frustrating and so smart and so clueless and so wonderful all at the same time.

I think they might actually be learning something with me. So I'll just keep swimming - trying to keep my head above water. Maybe I'll eventually be able to do more than tread water. Maybe I'll learn a few new strokes and be able to look around at the shore by the time June rolls around again.

But until then? You won't be hearing much from me. Which was really the whole point to this post - to let you know why I'm M.I.A. on this here blog. It's for something I care a lot about. And it's all part of a big plan Aquaman and I hatched many years ago so that I would have the summers off with the boys and we could all go to Alaska and join him while he fished for the summer. It might actually be happening, that plan. Fingers crossed.

Feelin' Like a Momma

Here are some of the things I said yesterday, on Mother's Day.

"For just one day, could you not fight?"
"Stop it."
"I mean it."
"If you can't behave before we even leave the house, we won't leave the house!"
"I'm about to just send y'all to bed."

It was a hard day.  For one, Aquaman is out of town.  For two, it was also his birthday.  So he was waiting for his next boat trip in Louisiana, turning 41 without me and his boys.  Lucky.  Cause yesterday was no picnic.

It started out well enough.  As I watched CBS Sunday Morning in my bed (I have a lifelong love affair with CBS Sunday Morning), sweet boys greeted me with gifts:  both of Pioneer Woman's cookbooks (my newest love affair) and a Hello Kitty iPad cover (another lifelong love affair of mine).  These gifts were evidently what one boy (recruited over the phone by Aquaman) had been hiding from me for days, despite my best efforts to ruin the surprise.

As I left for work early in the week, I brought in the mail that included various envelopes and a box addressed to Aquaman.  I carefully set them on the couch to await my return later that evening.  When I came in the door that night, all three boys were sitting slack-jawed watching TV, remnants of their after-school junk food binge everywhere, and the mail was scattered on the floor - minus the box.

"Where's the box that came in the mail?" I asked the room in general.

"What box?" one boy replied.

"The one that was right here.  On the couch.  It was for Daddy."  I was getting irritated.

Hawkins scanned the room.  "It's here somewhere."

"Where?" I asked.  Silence.

"Okay!  Stop watching TV and listen to me!"  My voice boomed.  Three sets of boy eyes focused on me.  "First of all, the mail should not be scattered all over the floor.  Second of all, y'all need to pick up all the wrappers and plates and cups.  And third of all, where's the goddamn box that I left right here?"

Pause.  "I haven't seen it!" Hayden protested.
"I don't know!" Hawkins yelled.  "It was just here!"
"I have it," Reid admitted quietly.  No further explanation was forthcoming.

"What the hell for?  Go get it!" I ordered.  

And as I followed him into his room, I couldn't help but feel sorry for myself for living in a house full of boys that made it impossible for me to set anything down anywhere with any guarantee of it staying there, unmolested, for any length of time.   I watched as Reid proceeded to pull his sleeping bag off of his blanket off of his laundry basket and only then did it dawn on me:  this had something to do with Mother's Day.  And I was ruining it.

At the same moment, Reid managed to choke out, "Daddy told me to take care of it!"  And I looked up to see tears coming down his cheeks.  "You're not supposed to see it."

"Oh."  The only thing this crappy mom could muster.  Shit.  Holy hell.  Moher of pearl.  I suck.

I managed to recover, sitting down on Reid's bed and pulling him onto my lap - which his big, bad, 11-year-old self hardly EVER lets me do anymore.   "I'm so sorry, Reid.  Sometimes you just have to look me in the eye and tell me, 'Mom, you need to stop and listen to me.'  Don't be afraid to tell me anything.  Just be honest."

"I was," he sniffed.

"Yeah, but only after I'd gotten all upset...Anyway, it's fine.  I don't know what's in it.  Are you okay?"           

"I guess,"  he slid off my lap and began re-burying the box.  "There's another package coming, so don't freak out over that one, okay?"

"I won't," I promised.  And I didn't.  I simply delivered it to him later that week and he buried it deep in his dirty clothes with the other box.

So I gave him an extra squeeze when they presented me with these gifts.  I also got some handmade things:  Hawkins knitted a yellow scarf and two little bracelets and Hayden made a lovely personalized bookmark and glass pendant necklace in art class at school.

But the sweetness ended there.  Aquaman had arranged for a gift card to be left at one of our favorite restaurants downtown, Spoons Cafe.  That way, the boys could take me out to eat and not worry about the bill.  Only, because it was Mother's Day, it was way too crowded.  So we decided to postpone it and instead ended up at Taco Bell.

Yes, they all need haircuts.  Don't you think I know that?

It was actually quite tasty (Their Cherry Limeade Sparkler rivals Sonic's Cherry Limeade. No Lie.) but that's where the boys quit pretending to be well-behaved for the day.  We then ended up at Wal-Mart - a mistake on any day with three boys.  After that, we went home for a nap and then returned downtown to try again at the restaurant for their famous pie.  But they closed early.  So we ended up at Fuddruckers.  Not the most refined of eating choices for the day, but I got a break from cooking.

With so much togetherness, I was more than ready for bedtime.  This always involves me repeating multiple directives of this variety:

"Get ready for bed."
"Brush your teeth."
"Take your medicine."
"I'm not going to read to y'all if you act like this."
"Don't forget to brush your tongue."
"Pajamas."
"Leave the dog alone."
"No more magic tricks.  It's bedtime."
"Anything that needs washed better be in the laundry room."
"You should put some more cream on that - it looks bad."  

I'm eventually wound like a top and ready to explode.  I managed to hold it together, kiss their sweet heads good night, and retreat to my bedroom.  About an hour later, I heard a bedroom door open.  "God damn it!" I was thinking.  "If one of them is STILL up, I swear to God..."  And then I heard it.  The gag, the pause and the inevitable splat on the tile floor.  Someone was throwing up.  In the bathroom.  But not in the toilet.

I raced down the hall to find the boy, bewildered, standing there blinking, with another heave on its way.  "Turn around!  Face the toilet!" I screamed.  He obeyed.  But for some reason, he didn't kneel down.  He stood at full height.  Vomit has a reach, my friends.  A real reach.

"Kneel down!" I screamed.  "Get as close to the toilet as you can."  Only after he complied was I calm enough to offer some encouraging words.  "It's going to be allright.  You're okay."

As he continued, I retrieved paper towels and cleaner and went about the work of mopping up Fuddruckers Revisited.  The boy immediately felt better, rinsed with water and began brushing his teeth when I heard his twin ask, "Mom?  Is the toilet clean?"

Oh shit.  "Almost.  WHY?"

He burst in and I backed away, along with his brother.  Round Two.  This boy kneeled the first time.  "It's okay," I offered.  "You're allright."

His brother escaped back to his bed.  Round Two eventually ended and I managed to get all traces of vomit off of the walls, toilet and floors, kiss them both on their cold, clammy foreheads and close the door to the Vomitorium.

And I felt like a Momma.  And then I went to sleep.    

Boys can be sweet.

I got a really great late Valentine's Day present this weekend.

I took the twins downtown to Goodies Texas, the newest shop on the square.  How can it get any better?  They make their own chocolate AND they have cool toys.  Genius.

I waited outside with well-behaved puppy Bailey while they made their purchases with their allowance.  And they came out looking all shy and smiley and handed me a paper bag.

"What's this?" I asked them.
"A really late Valentine's Day present," Hayden said.

Inside was this awesome Hello Kitty mug.  I adore Hello Kitty.  All pink and girly.  From my boys.

Sigh.