All Done, Please (Audio piece revised)

                I’m an elementary school music teacher and found out I was pregnant in late August, just as the school year was starting.  I waited until after Christmas break to tell my students.  That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I see every student in the school once a week. That amounts to sharing the news about thirty five times. Before long I felt like a broken record. By the time I got to Friday, those kids probably thought I wasn’t excited at all about the baby.

Telling the kindergarten classes was an eye opening experience to their concept of time. They were excited about my news–when it was time for one class to leave, almost all the kids gave me hugs on the way out, their heads just reaching the level of my belly.  One little girl hugged me and then whispered loudly, “I feeled the baby!”
The next time I saw them was a week later.  The first question was, “Did you have your baby yet?”  They were all astonished to see I was still pregnant.  Anything that takes longer than today seems like a lifetime away to a kindergartener.  In January, trying to explain the concept of “April” or “in four months” was mind-boggling to them.  To them I would pretty much always be pregnant.   

Now it’s the first week of March, and I’m starting to agree with them.

              I feel like I am going to be pregnant FOREVER.  I still have six weeks until my due date.  I am big and round, tired and moody, with heartburn and a daughter in my abdomen who is apparently going for a medal in kickboxing.  I want to wear a sandwich board with the word “FINE” printed on it so everyone will stop asking me how I feel. (If only someone would just say “Looking good” or ask something different like “Any new updates? What’s your baby’s room look like?” but no…) I realized I must have missed officially telling some of the classes that I am pregnant, (absentmindedness is a symptom of pregnancy they say,) so even now some students come in the music room and burst, “Are you PREGNANT?” 

                The last week or so has been particularly tiresome.  Today I had a group of kindergarteners once again.  Someone asked, as usual, if I’d had the baby yet.  I thought to myself, do I LOOK like I’ve had a baby? But I said, “Not yet.  Not for a long time still.”
We sang little songs and danced around the room.  They lined up at the end of our time and I leaned against the wall, winded, waiting for their classroom teacher to pick them up. And then, as they were leaving, one little girl smiled up at me and said, “I can’t wait to see your baby.”  I watched her file out with her classmates, and couldn’t help smiling too.

I am right there with those kindergarteners now.  I wake up every morning and think, I STILL haven’t had this baby?  Six weeks might as well be sixty.  I look in the mirror and the 29 year old in there knows it’ll be worth the wait–the last few months will melt away as soon as I hold my little one in my arms. Yet the inner kindergartener in me can’t remember when I had a waistline, sees pants that won’t stay up, and shoes that are impossible to tie. She is the one I hear the most often, and she says it all: “Can I be done now????”

Wrapping up the Spring Programs

    The programs are over. I am more than relieved. Both of them were successful-the students, teachers and principals were all happy with the result.

Looking back, due to school cancelations and holidays I was not aware of ahead of time, I ended up cutting two vocal songs, a 4^th grade recorder number and a 5^th grade instrument number. I predict that with those songs the program would’ve been about 45 minutes long. As it ended up, it was about 25. That’s short in my opinion—a lot of parents saved seats longer than that amount of time before the show started. But, it was a quality 25 minutes, rather than 45 minutes of the kids not knowing words to songs or forgetting their speaking lines.

    At both schools there were several students who did not show up. This is something I anticipate at each program, but it’s still a little frustrating if some of those students had a speaking part. For this reason, over the past few years I have chosen programs that do not have a set cast—meaning, the lines between songs can stand independently and be spoken by any student. I get a lot more students involved in speaking parts that way, and then, if one doesn’t show up, only one line is missing instead of an entire character. There were only two instances between both shows where I had to do some quick thinking with someone who was missing and the line was absolutely necessary—in one case I simply fed the line to another student, who spoke it into the microphone, and in the other, because it was in the middle of a song, I said it myself.

    Both schools’ programs were identical as far as the music was concerned. However, at Woodland, the evening began with an art show in the cafeteria. Students and parents walked down aisles of tables with artwork—pieces from each class in each grade. From there they came into the gymnasium, and at the appointed time, we had the music program. This was something they had done at the school the year before, so it was already in place. It’s a great idea—a 25 minute music program doesn’t seem quite as short when an art show has been open for the half hour before it began. Next year I plan to approach the art teacher at Monger, my other school, and see if this is something she would be willing to do. She already does an excellent job of hanging artworks in the hall outside the room we share and in the school library, so I have a feeling she’d like participating in an evening show.

    I was unable to do so this year, but in the future I plan to videotape the shows to play for the participating classes. I hope it will show them they did something to be proud of and help them continue to be excited about music. Something I also plan to do next year is have a performance during the school day for the rest of the school to come and see. I was able to do this for the Christmas program this year, but again, time constraints made it impossible for the spring concert.

    I have the program date marked with the secretary for next year—it will be the last week of school before spring break. Had that been the case this year, I would’ve had three more weeks in which to get the students ready. (This year’s date was already on the books when I came to the school.) I feel like I made a lot of planning mistakes this year, but they will make next year smoother now that I know what I’m getting myself into.

 

    

All Done, Please (audio piece)

Kindergarten children have an interesting concept of time.  Anything that takes longer than the day they are experiencing seems like a lifetime away.  As a pregnant woman, I’m starting to understand where they are coming from.

                I’m an elementary school music teacher and found out I was pregnant in late August, just as the year was starting.  I’m planning to take my maternity leave starting at Spring Break and return to work in the fall.  I waited until after Christmas break to tell my students about the pregnancy.  Some of them figured it out beforehand, but not the little ones.  That first week back in January I sat with my kindergarteners in a circle and told them that I was going to have a baby.  They were very excited, and every child whose mother or aunt or sister had had a baby recently had to tell me all about it.  I have 3 kindergarten classes, so I went through this 3 times.  When it was time for one class to leave, almost all the kids gave me hugs on the way out, which was hilarious because their head level was right at my “baby” level.  One little girl hugged me and then whispered loudly, “I feeled the baby!”

                The next time I saw the kindergarteners was a week later.  First question in every class was, “Did you have your baby yet?”  They were all astonished to see I was still pregnant.  In January, trying to explain the concept of “April” and “four months away” was mind-boggling to them.  To those kindergarteners I would pretty much always be pregnant.   

                Now that it’s the first week of March, I am starting to agree with them.  I feel like I am going to be pregnant FOREVER.  I still have six weeks until my due date.  I am big and round, tired and moody, with heartburn and a daughter in my abdomen who is apparently going for a medal in kickboxing.  I sometimes dread my job just because of all the well-wishing teachers who are constantly asking me how I’m feeling.  Because I see several classes a week, I have missed officially telling some of them that I am pregnant, so even now some students come in the music room and burst, “Are you PREGNANT?” 

                The last week or so has been particularly tiresome, and I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse.  At the end of today, though, I had a group of kindergarteners once again.  Someone asked if I’d had the baby yet.  I thought to myself, do I LOOK like I’ve had a baby? But I always say, “not yet.  Not for a long time still.”

                We had a nice time in class of singing little songs and dancing around the room.  They lined up at the end of our time to be picked up.  As they were leaving, one little girl smiled up at me and said, “I can’t wait to see your baby.”  It was such a sweet, simple thing to say. 

                I am right there with those kindergarteners now.  I wake up every morning and think, I STILL haven’t had this baby?  Six weeks might as well be sixty.  I look in the mirror and my inner kindergartener cries out, “Can I be done now????”      

Small Can Be Mighty – Persuasive

(sorry this is so late everybody.)

  Go to any high school activities director and you will get a list of ways students can volunteer as a part of a club or special school event.  Go to a church and ask the youth group leader what their teens do to volunteer in the area, and he will give you a list as long as his arm.  During the summer teens can find organizations all over their cities and towns in which to volunteer, from soup kitchens to the local zoo.  These are all wonderful things, but what about younger children? 

                If you’ve ever spent any length of time with a child under the age of 12, you will find that child acting in a selfish way—hoarding all his chocolate chip cookies instead of sharing, running as fast as he can to get the best ball in the bin at recess, trying to get the biggest prize for winning a game.  You don’t need to teach a child these things—it’s human nature.  By the time some of these students reach high school age and the opportunities to volunteer are plentiful, they are no longer interested.  It is important to offer these opportunities to younger children so they learn the value of helping others before the desire to do so is lost. 

                Elementary schools can have a big influence in this area.  All too often, though, children are only encouraged to “volunteer” to fundraise for the school itself instead of local causes around the area.  While many of these fundraisers provide things for the schools such as library books and gym equipment, schools should take the time to include events in their calendars that help the community at large.  For example, many schools all over the country participate in Empty Bowls meals.  Empty Bowls is an event where students make and decorate ceramic bowls as part of school art projects, then the school puts on a soup and bread meal for parents and local citizens.  Empty Bowls suggests a donation of $10 per meal.  The people coming to the meal select a bowl to eat out of, and then take the bowl with them as a reminder of the event.  This project could be simplified for very young students, having them decorate a plastic bowl.  Empty Bowls encourages whoever puts on one of their events to include hunger education as part of the event.  The school can designate which hunger organization will receive their proceeds, and Empty Bowls charges no fee for using their name or idea. 

                Churches seem a readily available place where children could volunteer, but again, it seems that most children are not given the opportunity until they are in middle school.  Granger Community Church in Granger, Indiana, encourages families to volunteer together.  They have a Second Saturday ministry in which volunteers of all ages can come to the church the second Saturday of the month in the mornings and are taken by bus to places all over the area—from helping at the church to local food banks.  The church has no age stipulation.  Once a year the church has a Food Drop in which church members purchase and then distribute several semi-trucks full of food around the area.  Hundreds of children can be seen at this event—carrying boxes and going with their parents door to door to give people much needed food and toiletries. 

                Finally, it is the parents’ job to teach children the importance of helping others.  This can be done in very simple ways.  Christmastime is ideal: a child can choose a toy and donate it to Toys for Tots.  Several families could come together and sponsor a local family.  During the rest of the year children can do simple things such as draw a picture for someone in a nursing home or hospital, or bake cookies for someone who has been ill. 

                If parents, local schools and churches can teach these ideas early, then you will reap children like ten year old Emily Bullington, who heard about starving people in Kenya and started a lemonade stand to do something to help.  She has raised over $2000 so far, setting up her now-famous stand all over Arkansas.  Her goal is $8000.   Her story is inspiring, and it begins with a church and a supportive family.  More children can be like Emily, if only we as parents, as a community, will convince them they can make a difference. 

sentences

Here are my sentences of the week, both from op-ed articles:

 

In one of those ironies that make life interesting, the University of Colorado, which dismissed controversial professor Ward Churchill because of doubts about his academic qualifications, has appointed a president who doesn’t have any.

 

So instead of a nomination for, say, “The Bucket List,” a film that everyone I know has loved and which has a positive message about getting old and sick (and which critics attacked, naturally, as too “sentimental”), we get a nomination for “The Savages,” a movie about getting old and sick that is so depressing, you want to jump off a building.

Empty Bowls Project

    A couple of weeks ago I came across an article that talked about a school doing a hunger fund raiser entitled Empty Bowls. I thought it was an isolated idea, and then saw another article this week about a similar thing, but a different school. I went to Google and typed in “Empty Bowls,” and, wah-lah! It’s a whole organization! In 1990 a high school art teacher had her students create and decorate ceramic bowls. The students then had a fundraiser—a meal of soup and bread where people purchased one of the ceramic bowls in which to eat the meal. The patrons were able to take the bowls home as reminders, and the money raised went to feed hungry people. The project grew from there.

    The article I read this week took place in an elementary school. I share a room with one of my school’s art teachers, and she has done ceramic bowls with kids from kindergarten through sixth grade, so I know it’s something any age school child could participate in. What I like about this project is that it also encourages the arts—students make something beautiful that serves as a vessel for food, but also as a reminder. It’s nice to find a project that someone outside of a classroom teacher can organize and initiate.

Pretzel sticks

    I found an article on my feeds that reminded me of my popcorn story. Some 4^th graders at an elementary school in Burlington, Vermont, were given their daily snack in a brown bag. The snack was pretzel sticks. When the kids opened their bags, however, they found a wide range in the amount of pretzels—some had up to 50, some had none, with the rest having the range in between. Kids were interviewed afterward. One girl who got 15 ate them all, claiming the kids with none were too far away from her to share with and she didn’t want to get out of her seat. A boy who didn’t get any in his bag got some pretzels from the girl next to him, which he was grateful for, because he said “she had a million.”

    Kids are really in tune with injustice. As a teacher, it often drives me nuts. When I was a kid, every time we lined up someone was being accused of “cutting.” Now, apparently the term is “budging.” Since kids go in and out of my room all day, I hear, “Mrs. S, _______ budged!” at least three or four times a day. The thing that I think is incredible is that kids will announce this about a student who is nowhere near them—someone who budged a friend three people back, or someone five people up ahead. Never mind everyone is going to the same place and will end up there within seconds of each other…

    I can just see those 4^th graders with the pretzels. What a great way for kids to understand the REAL unfairness in the world, and maybe look at the world as a place a little bigger than their place in line.

Analytical sentence examples

Hi Everyone,

 I got both of these examples out of the magazine called “The Week.”  The first one is from an article about what’s happened to Hillary Clinton’s campaign:

“While [Hillary] ran as a ‘pseudo-incumbent,’ with no theme or message other than ‘We’re back,’ Obama ran as the candidate of ‘change,’ and organized doggedly in every state, large and small.”

The second was an article about why human beings kiss–not very analytical, but oh well! 

“Men tend to think kissing should lead to sex no matter what. Women, on the other hand, use kissing as a way of assessing men’s worthiness through biochemical signals and hints about his emotional makeup.”

JMS

Wrap-Class Personalities

    Things are a week closer to the program, and I’m actually seeing all of my classes this week (yay!) Any of you who are teachers out there know that each class has a personality. Sometimes only a couple kids can influence the personality, for good or evil. I saw the 5^th grade class with Head Boy and Tooth Boy for the first time since that incident. They were awful! They sat in their chairs, wouldn’t sing, wouldn’t get enthusiastic about anything. Wouldn’t you know, they were the first class I saw of the day, and they totally deflated me. The worst part about it was, I could see those two or three kids painting this blanket of “I’m too cool to sing” over everyone else. Very discouraging.

    Then today I had 4^th graders come in ready to have a good time. They are far from afraid to let their voices be heard. I asked them to sing their guts out, and that’s what I got! Granted, it wasn’t the most melodious sound in the world, but I could HEAR THEM. I complimented them up and down about it—here’s hoping they will keep it up.

    One consolation—after a few emails back and forth with the teacher I’m doing the program with at Woodland, I see he’s having the same problems I am—delays and canceled school messing up his plans, lethargic 5^th graders (is it a disease or something?) and feeling crunched for time. I think we are both chalking this program up to a more of a learning experience than anything else.

    Lessons I’ve learned so far:

1. Plan a spring program as close to spring break as possible, so you get the maximum amount of practice time with the kids.
2. PLAN ON MISSING CLASSES BECAUSE OF DELAYS AND CANCELLATIONS.
3. Get kids singing as soon as possible. (This sounds like a “duh,” but I had them work on motions first, and I think it was a mistake.)
4. Don’t add extra stuff to the program (i.e. recorder songs) until you have a year of performances under your belt.

Three weeks and counting…

Popcorn on the Floor – Final Draft

    Social Studies held little or no interest for me in 7^th grade. That didn’t mean I didn’t work hard—I always tried to be a good student—but I didn’t care what India’s main export was or how trade in Europe could effect how much my parents pay for things. People didn’t have enough food to eat in Somalia—what could I do about it? I had frizzy hair and never said the right thing in front of boys—THOSE were problems.

    Mr. Moser was my social studies teacher. He was sarcastic and somewhat overweight, and had no trouble laughing at us when we acted like idiots (which was a lot of the time.) In true 7^th grade fashion, there were times I hated him, and times I thought he was great—often in the same day.

    I have only one solid memory of the subject I cared so little about, but it impacted me enough to stick with me eighteen years later.

    ”All right, kids, get the desks against the wall. Put your chairs in a circle.”

    Mr. Moser pulled out two sizes of cups—one about the size of a large fast food restaurant drink, and one about the size of a sippy cup. Then he pulled out a large bag of popped popcorn. We started getting excited. “Sorry folks, this isn’t for eating.” Groans.

    Mr. Moser divvied us up into pairs. Each pair was assigned a country. Some were in Africa, some were in Europe, there was of course the United States, maybe India or Australia—about twelve in all, seemingly randomly selected. “The large cup represents so many pounds of food, the small cup represents this amount of food,” he explained. He went to each country and passed out cups, saying things like, “Okay, you guys are India, right? India needs two large cups and one small cup to feed its population.” All the way around to each group. Here are your cups, this is how much food you need.

    Then he began to pass out the popcorn. To India, he gave enough popcorn to fill one big cup. “Hey, wait a sec,” Missy, a particularly apt pupil in the India pair, said. “You didn’t give us enough.”

    ”Ah ha…” murmured Mr. Moser mysteriously as he went on to the next group.

    Imagine Missy’s surprise when the United States group, who only needed a large cup and a little cup to feed its population, was given four big cups of popcorn! And wouldn’t you know, the most cocky, arrogant boy in class, Ricky, was part of the United States group. He laughed over his hoard greedily, and his partner, little Jeff Nobody, laughed nervously along.

    Mr. Moser finished and everyone looked around. Every group except maybe one was off—either they had more popcorn than they needed or not enough. “Okay, kids. You have ten minutes. At the end of the ten minutes you need to have enough popcorn to feed your country. It is up to you to figure out how to get what you need. I’m not going to interfere, so don’t come crying to me for help. You figure it out. Go!”

    We all sat there for a minute or so kind of stupidly. My country, Italy, had one small cup more than we needed. I knew I was lucky. Missy looked around for a minute, then started walking around to the groups with more than they needed, asking for their extra. Others who were in the same situation started to do the same. When someone came to our group, my partner and I gave away our little cup—we didn’t care as long as we had what we needed—but after that we severely guarded our necessary store.

    It was a good thing we did, too! People went to the United States group almost immediately. Lots of them. And Ricky loved the attention. “I’m not just going to give it away,” he said. “What’s in it for me?” Some girls tried to sweet talk him, and for Judy, who was cute, cute, cute, it worked. Not so much for the others, especially the other boys. Suddenly, Clint, who was Somalia, ran up and lunged, and got a big cup out of Jeff’s hands.

    ”Hey!” Jeff cried, feebly grabbing for the cup.

    A lot of the popcorn landed on the floor, but a lot of it landed in Clint’s cup too. We all looked at Mr. Moser, but he just shrugged and said, “Five minutes.” A few people grabbed handfuls of the fallen popcorn and ran back to their spots. Ricky was one of these.

    After that things got a little nuts. Other people tried to steal from other groups—and not just the big countries like the U.S., but even countries who barely had any to begin with. My partner and I stayed out of this. A couple of people tried to catch us off guard, but we were ready. We weren’t going to lose our popcorn stash. Popcorn was all over the floor, crunching under people’s feet, being ground into the carpet—people were yelling and arguing, hoarding or begging.

    ”TIME’S UP! Go back to your spots.” It took awhile for this to happen. There were several red faces. Missy was pouting because Judy’s cups were full and she was still short.

    Mr. Moser went around to each group to see what they ended up with. More groups had what they needed than when we started, but only two or three. One country who had started out with enough now didn’t have enough because they had been “robbed.” About four countries ended up with “starving people.” Of course, Mr. Moser reveled in this, “Well, India, you lose. Somalia, close, but you lose,” etc. He turned around and surveyed all the popcorn on the floor.

    Suddenly, he got surprisingly serious. “Kids, I passed out enough popcorn for everyone to have enough. And yet, look. India is starving. Somalia. Morocco. But here’s the kicker: there was enough out there for everyone, plus two large cups extra. Why didn’t everyone get enough?”

    ”Because Ricky wouldn’t share,” Missy snapped, and everyone laughed.

    ”Ricky’s not far from the real deal,” Mr. Moser replied calmly. “This is what I want you guys to get: there is enough food in the world for everyone. Enough with extra to spare. But it takes people who are willing to share. If they don’t…people die.”

I can still see all that popcorn on the floor. Wasted food. Wasted resources. Wasted lives. I pass Mr. Moser’s image to you. You and I can make a difference—even if it’s only one cup at a time.