Go Fish

A funny thing happens on the way driving into my day teaching. I decide to operate in an active lexicon. Somewhere on the drive. With or without hors of preparatory work or materials loaded in the back, it still comes to a moment of my truth. I'll just have to figure it out as it goes.

I'm going to talk about "this" day, to talk about the days of teaching and some "tips" I would like to relate some fresh catch from my teaching. Fishermen give you hints and tips and since I'm in my Summer of Aquarium, might as well extend this all the way through and beyond (reminding me of course of the famous 'to infinity and beyond of the Toy Story). But really it's about insights into my own relationship to the days teaching work and then to teaching as a life's work.

I found myself in a rather circuitous conversation awhile ago with my Mom about her cooking. Which she denigrates and asks so many questions about "should she?" When her experience is so much greater of course, that the equivalent might be the feeling produced if I went into see the surgeon and he started to ask me if I could walk him through the procedure because, after all, it's my brain and no one knows it like I do.

Okay..........umm....noticing this. Basically my good mother is conveying in answering my inquiry into whether or not she has cooking confidences..that she isn't confident and feels another should "take over". I'm looking around for said person, she says sounding like Groucho Marx or really Imogene Coco, (Sophia? Grandma called for your cooking lessons...ha ha...an inside joke). I'd place this in the context she kind of takes over that part of our home and it's h to pay if you enter the kitchen domain knife-less which speaks to resenting but I'm leaving all the side points to get to my response, no genius point itself, that in teaching I kind of "had to just do it." Not entirely what is going on. Pretty close though.
What I did was find "me" in the doing of it. I say this to her, about finding the "me," and she's no dummy, but she choses to niggle over my wording and turn this into a debate about "is." Not again. Or rather she takes my phrasing to ultimate fine points to obfuscate.
I'm not that surprised.
But at least in cooking she certainly reminds me of something I need to remember.
But actually in many things I kind of just had to do it, just like she did, or we all do
(have to the mother necessity), and her reminder of that is a kind word to me about my doing that "so well" in areas. I'm not so sure I actually was all that terrifically competent at cooking which she states I am. But did I do it much like I approach art and teaching. To find a comfort with my self.

A thought of teacher or mom as all the answers and no answers... kind of floated by...

So, well , yes, yes in teaching I do believe one relationship I have to it is creating "on my feet". Which of course carries with it the difficulties in speaking to this as time moves on on into a there. Or as my daughter noted this AM, time really is relative in your room.

Sylvia is coming in to work with me this summer. And this is something very helpful in my reflecting on teaching and investing it with meaning.

Traditionally my clocks are off, or broken. The third "new" one they called 'nuklear' that I was "not to touch as a satellite helpfully kept it in perfect time" It has not worked, but it was replacing two other digitized, or was it lazor ones.? So today the time ran perhaps ten minutes ahead. I figure that out by computer checking which is usually running off correct too, but my cell phone was uncharged so relative to that I wasn't sure of the time. This said, we did find recess and bumbled along in "no time" trying to stay on schedule.
One of my tricks perhaps then is to have schedules for those that need it, routine patterns, a degree of ambiguity for those that need it, and utter absurdity for the rest of us.
For Syl today she found Einstein in her mom, for just a infinite second.

It may serve to be less than that whole experience cobbled here, the place I was part of today, but I am going to talk about the threads I pulled out that and wove into "this day" as a kind of exercise. See what I catch of it to say something.

It is very difficult for me to work from a plan. At least in the sense NCLB is presently driving us to use. One so that "others" are assured of "results". That can include a daily minutes budget of time so that one never bird walks ( yes Pacing Calendar is a major time task master), or from a "mandated curriculum" the managed "use of instructional minutes", because it would be my fair contention these canned programs are just written 'saying' they exist to get from a person who they presumed to be too inept or unknowing or inexperienced that can't "go it alone" (it provides cookbook assurances) a "result." Somehow this got wrapped up in science but then for me it gets ridiculous. not science. In lieu of allowing or developing better teaching the systems are proscribing "just barely" teaching. And that's a shame. Really. For the teacher within that prescription or pathology model can't invent and gets less self confident as a teacher and more disempowered as they rely more and more on the ideas and approval and the thinking of another until their own thinking is extinguished. And that is a necessary part of a learner. I'd be very careful with notions that everyone needs to be "on the same page, on the same day". Ever.
In fact no one in life is ever on the same page on the same day in the same second which is all about relativity, and what we do with children should reflect things like that. My neighbor right this second might be on-line writing too, or sleeping or scratching a flea bite, or cleaning or fighting or designing ships in bottles. But when you read this where would that neighbor be and if you read in another time zone how would that then speak to making sure we all pass time the same. It can get rather long if I keep going.....Same pages. We aren't on same pages.
This is the driving force in my teaching world, this Standardization. This is a truth of Spellings. And crew. Good luck with it. Too bad learning isn't remotely like that.

But teaching is what I am already doing... which is feeding children on many levels. Of a way different kind.

Or that all got kind of yuckily balled up in soup.

My kids read "Yuck Soup", it pays if I just start talking about the day. 'Sarah' has learned the minute you have a "plan", you now do not probably have a lesson for someone in that room. Because you will over ride them. Note I did not say content, I did not say pass me the soda, I did not say anything without years of wading in to work with children to build understandings. I said someone gets the shrift with a firmly adhered to "canned plan".

I took into the morning some thoughts about red onions interestingly. I was bumping around in that soil last night from something on-line which resonated with me. Sometimes I can't get to it though, and I posted something rather unclear. Because I was just thinking about connecting and ............ I'd read something about cutting onions open and destroying them, lotus blossoms and thought of Shrek with his layers like an onion talk....after all an onion is always pretty strong and kind of stinks up our breath, but does flavor our food. You can see where this was taking me....sure...rings. Yes. I do love onion rings. I could eat onion rings as my food for at least the next year. Ever have those onion blossoms fried at the bars? Okay, enough. I play with food, with thoughts, with the meanings. Yes learning is part play. For me.
The genesis of art and lessons often is in my playing around inside of themes and taking in and designing, responding, observing, trying something, looking at results, changing directions, getting challenged, challenging myself, standing up, doing something....evaluating it, looking at the kids, at the kids at the kids and trying again. I have developed this kind of work ethic over my years and it's pretty much a drive. I have this around creating, and my own kids too.

So I was thinking about printing from vegetables. Connecting to art and making.
Red onions would actually make very good prints. As the actual tool to print from.
Thinking of how to make a Red Onion of Doom into the Red Onion of Bloom, kind of got me to that connection. I'd seen a writing lesson that made me think about designing some experiences this week with my children, who are so shy with very beginning English levels and we need to connect some dots. A Feuerstein mediation reference actually.

As I recall the half onions can be printed with inks and perhaps from their own natural color used like rubber stamps. In my childhood I made dyes with the skins, with mom, but I think Sharon had us print with onions, bell peppers, definitely potatoes and we learned a lot from printing. We printed every few lesson in some form, she was a great printmaker. So I kind of was thinking about...printing, rings, layers of meaning.
This was "on my mind" going into school.
That and the sheer numbing of Monday.

Into my summer school trotted my very sedate group of children Monday a few at a time by 8 AM. They got out coloring books and crayongs rather like..."oh ...robotically get out the colors....turn to a page...color". And they ate the cookies we gave and colored bravely on. I clean them up at 8:15AM that on the clock was, say 8:26, but that wasn't normal for us either as four came in on the "late" late bus. I don't know what happened but something did. So we were stalling for our kids to get there. When kids are very young and in 2nd language you have to decide how badly you want to know something. Late bus, why ask?
They looked cheerful arriving, whole, so I said, "Nuts."
We moved on.

Sylvia and I were rather laughing as we've taught them to clean up in the AM to start at a particular time, the 8:15 AM bit. But now I was explaining the clock was slow ten minutes plus the bus was late, then kids needed at least five minutes to have a breakfast cookie and color so all in all if you had enough English to follow "clock", "time" and "on three" which references where the big hand is to clean up you surely weren't going to get go back ten, then allow for another 5. So we laughed and at pretend time 8:30 we cleaned it up to start the day.
(I'm not eiting that paragraph it was exactly what it was like for the children)

Sylvia is working this with me this summer and I'm so enjoying watching her, her observations, interactions with children, her being put "on the spot", her teaching.
I had her teach some dance this morning. She can get very fussy over sudden demands for creativity like this. She's a planner. But she does "stretches" with the kids, and I subtlety said "Axel wants to dance."
Because he said he wanted to dance last Friday. Axel could be your greatest loss without your being careful. And he might be our greatest save this summer. He is someone who takes about an hour avoiding a 5 minute task he can do. I'd noted that last week, telling him it's a "task initiation" issue, which it is probably layered inside him like an onion. Tasks he thinks about or kind of thinks about, are not fun for him then. Or if too teacher centered, or seem to be too compliant in his view, send him into a thing that reminds me of watching preparations to invade.

Anyway I gave Axel the notion to deal "as musician" and so "one and two and three and four and start". I could see him thinking that one over. I had a new idea to frame this. You are in charge, count it out. Swing babe.
This I have to build into his self talk.
I think. At least he knows we can name it.....try things.... it is not the pity or fear of it that cannot be named. So there. Let's see what we can do. Axel likes praise, attention, negative isn't as bad as nothing. So he needs another kind of hearing/work from me. Over just do this canned workbook. When he mentioned the dance I logged it in my head to find that in pretty short order and give him something he does like.
School should give us things we ask for, like, need and it should be able to do that without a cookbook saying "do this" at 8:57 on Monday on July 23rd. My brother's birthday.

And so I prompted Syl who started teaching a cute line style Achy Breaky, a little Tex Mex showing them three patterns, the Grapevine and two others which she named and they used in a couple combinations. Great job. Great job Sylvia. She's got tomorrow's ready I see tonight.Watch that get screwed up, never plan too much ahead. During her comprehension work on sea otters I watched her adoring fans, my students love a young fresh face.
Listening, yes. Things like this help me. I'm enjoying my daughter.
I've enjoyed her everyday of her life. But as mother-daughter teacher teaming it's an experience of living beyond price. Right now in the bedroom I hear her practicing on her guitar a song to teach tomorrow. I'm A Snail. Even better the spiral curriculum of our lives. Mom time, no time.

I'm A Snail

Well I can't run
And I can't jump
And I can't fly
But I can slide
Cause I'm a snail
I have a tail
I have a head
I have antennae
Cause I'm a snail

No puedo correr
No puedo brincar
No puedo volar
puedo resbalar
Soy caracol
Soy caracol
Soy caracol
no me gusta el sol

Sylvia's nickname is the four eyed snail...from this song.
It's her song. It was affirming for her when she faced she has no vision in one eye, serious chest deformity (that got fixed) and a dad who decided to sing to her...you are special, you can do this. She wrote a snail report in 8th grade. And she realized today where her song came from kind of, a pretty boring kid's sight word book her Dad made real from our life in Greenfield teaching years ago. Even before she was born. Kind of a spiral song in a life really.

Another of her priceless gems of my morning was her utter shock that kids we had not seen successful in the tradition workbooky and 'write to this prompt' format were succeeding brilliantly. Which I'll insert in a bit as I observed it. That was kind of like "an assessment" of them. Observe if the children have success, and then generalize it into their other learning situations, that's generally where I have to go..sustaining and feeding for life learning..but to return to the morning. ....


By then I'd sat around with the beginning of my idea from the "red onion", which was now transformed into spirals to make "coral reefs" as gardens. From construction. Then into kelp beds.
To be done when we got through the morning "routine."

So this sprouted from an onion , into an idea into spirals by way of the computer where my searching went from 'red onion' to 'red onion dyes' to 'egg dyes from red onions', to 'Greek weddings' to 'The fish as symbol of', to 'Buddhism' to...of course spirals to spiral curriculum, of course as I thought about the coral reef art project So you see, or should I say the sea...exactly.....an adult playing in her day. Insignificant, just a little bit of a day.
What were you doing in your day? Fun?)

I do believe kids like routines and they delight when these routines prove capable of expansion and extension, and better yet they like to take over the routines and lead and transform them, and also find the routine can change.
Do you know change is the common thing??? And yet so much of the time we clunk along teaching fear of that.

Early on with autistic students as my guides I learned not to lock firmly into a routine but to lock into the 'notion of a routine' that will be 'varied' based on what's going on, what the teacher remembers, what surprises she has and what we might stop to notice. I usually have found "it" there on the apple carpet. So talking about today within that same spirit de vie is my point. I'm saying I'm inventing with kids to model invention.
And we know good teachers do this all the time.

Today we met on that apple carpet and I took attendance. I'm notorious for being late with that and the "lunch count". They are required in the office at a time (their time) it's not running in my spaces. In the office they find this hard. It's not on purpose on my part really. Their best spin on this is I'm a ditz.
I'm saying names and good morning and noticing the kids, this, that, as a way to share our names and greet, affirm. Hello. I like that myself actually. Opps, forgot the folder.


This morning a couple kids were out....but mostly happy kids in the room, more comfy, today. Warming. I'd put new kids names in the job chart as I do Monday if I remember. Give about ten "official" jobs a week, umm, some include: attendance runner called "office", line leader called "Line Leader," Songs leader, Paper passer. (Need cuter names.) Every child knows this aspect like a holy grail. Get the door if your name is not in the "door" job slot and see how it goes. It's rather clear having a job counts for kids.

Over many years, as an aside, I decided to kid empower, play dumb, let them decide systems, check , organize, file and do. They "revealed this" to me as it was either important to them, or something within their capabilities blooming...let's just say I have a different relationship to this than many at my site.

And it can get out of hand...the other night at Oscar's Jack reminding us of my 6th grade EMPOWERING in which a group of girls taking on the entrepreneurial lessons of my model economy took orders school-wide for mall goods and then methodically stole from the local mall-though we stopped this when I overhead their recess chat-and the kids did learn a great deal cleaning the mess up and still years later a few are close to me....in many ways a win thing. One dear one of these girls gave me two years ago a 40 buck WalMart gift card for my class, she is in the service and now raising her gorgeous daughter...a baby.
Jack also recalled how one boy fourteen years ago in that class (who was a dynamic dymaxion Bucky Fuller model maker) got mad over my maternity leave and my being gone. So Renan damaged every teacher car by breaking off and selling the emblems. It was my first job eight weeks LATER to unravel that mess coming back. As Jack told this tale of my empowering I reminded Jack and Oscar that that kid Renan has graduated UCLA in engineering. And my car he left alone.

And he told of my empowering gone too far, again ... how several years ago I did not notice my 14 year old Peter (yes he was years over the age allowed in 6th) running a fight promotion between two of my students, selling tickets schoolwide to the El Raton fights...but I did not know/see/hear/get it/notice until the fight brought the school to the side parking lot.
Then I stopped it. Money to the charity on the corner in the hundreds.
I catch the stuff, okay, just a bit later.......he used all of these examples (there are too many to list) to say I'm really great at kid EMPoWErMENT.
This is true, just sometimes they can go a bit wrong. They are kids. It's life. I'll tell one on myself........... One sweet-heart tiny 6th grade waif.....collecting a very good bit of cash with a margarine plastic tub on her weekend marked "Katrina Relief"....... the bittersweet there was she was very desperate for money. And she did try to think of what to do, and her mom was really a "Lucy", so I think she kind of thought like I do in terms of schemes to survive. Really the backstory for her was her dad was losing legs to diabetes, no income, a 16 year old sister with twins born seriously premature, just 7 or 8 other kids in that loving house plus babies. Aptment. The child was screaming...help me. "I need money...help."
Opps wandering into other days..my day.

So in my room I do try to give some shared responsibility, with this comes the very up side of seeing children grow. With this once in awhile comes a funny story or a peer in your face about what your "kid" has done "now". Better than doing nothing. Really.

(Going to myself bounce in and out of time here, had a "hunch" and checked my aquarium....sure enough one of my fish died. So for awhile its been water changing and grinding the why, why, why...which gets kind of practical.... like is it ph, was the filter working, overfeeding, too many fish...??????)It reads too high ammonium.And I'm not sure but I think I need to filter this. Maybe. The thing that gets me besides liking this baby fishy so very much, is that I really should have changed out some water yesterday. Was "not thinking.")

Back to my day......with another caveat. One real way I see a similarity between a classroom and fish tank is in the desired goal of doing the right things to sustain life.
Within this protected place I would like to think I'm teaching for living and self sustaining and hope in my tank things get in balance so that the water as well as the other fish don't die or kill one another. It might be different in the Animal Kingdom, something I have been considering. but here, in my aquarium a death is mourned, swimming celebrated, beauty admired, sharing is god, life is desired and I hope promoted. And when that isn't happening I have to figure out why and do something about it.

Frankly this piece is about this. Teachers do. So children can and will.
I've got to bait this hook though a bit with my rather brilliant and teasing morning.
I wrote life is brilliant on the bathroom wall in May and my girls who helped me clean the room outed me as the grafittiest. "Oh Mom, of course it's you, who else here would write that." Yes, life is brilliant and I wrote it on a bathroom wall, in pen.

One of my concerns with this group is 2nd language related. I have exactly 4 weeks to make a difference. Have fun. Make joy.
ENJOY. And in what way? And its summer.

I want and they need the fun and play of learning and making.
I want and they need to put the experience in their hands as much as we can.
I do want the experience to be a rich one for every child and I do want a child who has not been able to "do it" to find a path through.

Take Griselda. So far his summer "help me" and "do it for me" are her two mainstays. Not able to reveal competency she feeds dependency. And as others do, she learns to find safety in failing, and letting the adult in sympathy take over. I'd parallel to my mom's cooking thing here but....well...Anyway she had a very good day. A very active one. Because we decided to change what we did and how we did it trusting instincts around learning.
My premise is I trust them to go the way they need to go.

We started the morning pointing out who has an "official job". Sylvia went back with Mariana to read out the calendar. We got a nice thing going with numbers in Spanish, English, French. I'm trying to actually bridge to cognates here at some point they'll see that if they haven't already to assist them with English. I might play with cardinal and ordinal. I used to have literally a cardinal and cardinal cap and for ordinal I used something....must think of that... to count with. Understanding the two systems or the reasons for the two names. As I bounce around in this play, I would hope I'm modeling richness of thought, the connectivity and complexity and the delight in play with numbers, routines......opps, sorry.
I like to bounce this way. Group activity. Warm up, like in dance....

So after this..we have the Flag Salute. The Pledge.
I'm required to do this by laws. So I HAD this neat eagle a child gave me named Stegal. But his wings were broken off last year in the dreaded "Stegal gets broken but we don't tell her" A dreadful Incident. In which everyone "learned" that we "tell". Perhaps looking back that was a mistake. Anyway I now have two Beanie Babies they sold at the Drugstore for July 4th in red, white and blue. One is a Rooster the other is a Bear. The flag saluter gets them as a signal to hold up , right piano side hands on heart, we salute. It's interesting how the language of the pledge said in their voices reveals what they understand. What they will grow to understand.

Blah, blah...I sang "Today is Monday" with the kids a very crazy sign language song that teaches days of the week and foods, an Eric Carle book and tape I love, and that was fun. Then with a Piggie Pull(their names are on Piggies that are bookmarks) three kids choose songs we have learned to sing. I've taught them Patriotic Songs, Put on A Happy Face, A Your're Adorable...in sign. Need to add one this week. Fishing Blues. They always pick "Yankee Doodle" a song I think is yuck, because I have to march and they like to see me sweat and they KNOW I do not like it. They also always pick "This Land Is Your Land" because I outright say it is my favorite. Sylvia says this breaks down by gender with boys pulling for Yankee Doodle but in other years the boys were the ones to cut me a break. Today I did those two and "God Bless America". It's a really long song. The boys loved the "gottcha" Yankee Doodle. The child who picked God Bless America likes this song, sometimes he likes to tell me something he wants to do. And I like that. He knows I 'hear him', that matters to me/him. The boys were pressuring him to make another pick so I said something like "great pick" here we go...and off we went. Each month I teach a set of songs starting with patriotic ones. I'm mandated to do these pieces connected to America, but do add in the signs and a kind of active fuller way of connecting them to meaning. I provide song folders and after a month or so singing have kids both sign but also read songs. In a 1st grade year this blossoms as the year goes along the song providing a foothold into text. We might highlight interesting vocabulary, explain it, review it. Not necessary maybe for all, but very reassuring for all. Reassurance is an important piece in teaching.

Fine fine...a day goes by.
We read Big books, Found a snail appear and reappearing and I was mulling in my mind this notion of a "Coral Garden"and the rings of an onion.
As I read the big book called "I Am A Snail" started re-recognizing a song Jack has sung for years to his/my classes and I got such a laugh. A kind of "I know what you did" and coming in tonight late he verifies this. He wrote this song directly from this simple book, but his tune is terrific as a hook. Made a song for our new baby.
And in it kids act out the motions. He tells me the kids would learn to sing it, then go point the words and read it complete with "a pointer". Remember that well actually from Greenfield. Sharing this with my daughter as I hear her in the bedroom getting the song ready to take into the class tomorrow is very deja vu.....opps probably because I already wrote it here. Spirals you know, theme of the piece actually.

This is what we call building a "theme" in a room and I was thinking of hooking it back to ocean through ...snails...shells...spirals...this art project to cut spirals today. So in reading my three books of sight word recognition stuff we were of course practicing sight words but I was connecting the dots to snails. Because I decided to see a thread weaving in and out of the morning. And this is really what I mean by an active doing stance. Because as kids were connecting and being involved, so many of my thoughts about what to "next" do were prioritizing, finding form, stepping into a shape. Visualizing that simple ordinary week in my teaching. It kind of fell into place. And it is artistic when it's done well, and fun, empowering, and ......just right.



As Sylvia read and shared about sea otters, as I was visioning. This is what teaching is for me...kind of in the spot visioning. I do want these children use more oral English, connect to meaning. They've got to do this to do the other things like memorize the sight words and write sentences and read. So we were moving through some interesting pieces.

Snails, spirals.

I'd hit Wiki on Spirals by now. This is a beautiful page incidentally, so I encourage you to go look, but am going to lift a few images for right now, here. Started thinking about the evolution through time of my teaching and this song of I'm a Snail which Jack does bring to the room each year to sing, the snail and it's place in my classroom...and the spiral curriculum.
As a literal spiral.
And thinking about actually doing over saying. Teach me to fish over talk about fish, also from an early morning computer connection and my wanting to make a spiral coral garden.
And then I thought. Well, they can cut spirals in different colors of construction and put these on blue paper. It will be filled with these popping out rings which came from my red onion and then spiraled out.

Cutaway of a nautilus shell showing the chambers arranged in a spiral

So on to the fun.

Archimedean Spherical Spiral

I think you had to be there. The children cut the loveliest spirals. And glued them in the coolest Spiral coral-like gardens. I realized tomorrow we can cut fish to weave into the popping spirals as hidden fish.Watch Rainbow Fish the video. Syl wanted to watch the Coral reef again so we will do that.
Reading Rainbow, Coral Reef.... Those fish we will do with chalk coloring the construction shapes of tropical fish. i know they;'ll love trying out our chalk. One child that Sylvia called 'a superman of fine motor' cut very small rings so his spiral when pulled apart it almost reached ceiling to floor.
We looked and found spirals in the shells and I saw one boy look up...he saw something connect and joy, I saw it too.
I love those moments. I really do.


Tomorrow we will spiral cut with that objective of fun in mind and hang those spirals up as a kind of kelp bed in the back in which to thread out giant antique crayon fish. Our giant fish went well today too. We are crayoning very darkly fish, tropical fish in patterns, covered with india Ink, did five today, wiped off with oils. Your fish seen anew. It changes everything about your design. This is a transformation piece. This was also a key understanding today. So as we ran to get our lunches and get on buses lots was going and lots was being discovered, many ideas were in play as we made math in the way we see.

And that was a morning in my life.
It was great.

or as Sylvia said as we drove away, "Why is it the kids who want your attention are the ones you don't want to give it?"
All I could say was "Change you."



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I realize the utter hubris that might be heard but actually in this I'm not so sure I can state it less self. I can change and alter myself in relationship to the children, their responding, with my eyes on the goals. And that's what I can do.. It might also be worth contending that for exactly the reason I teach as I do, scripts are really being put in place.

All I do know is that if we model what we want to produce it would seem a child might have a basis for belief or for confidence in an adult who can do what they say. A notable turn off for many kids is that dichotomy. In my case it would be then lessons need to have the flexibility to grow from the needs as they are seen in real time, grab insights , suggestion, direction and then it was time for me to drive home.To tell you.