Words from WW Blog

They called me. A sudden staff vacancy with only 5 days until students return…kinda’…they needed someone with a heartbeat who they already know.

So they called me to see if I would be a long-term guest staff person teaching 7th Grade Language Arts virtually for at least the first three weeks. And I started today, sitting in our teaching team meeting lapping up the strange-sounding info like a thirsty German Shepherd.

I knew a few things before I sat down with the millennials today, like how to turn my laptop on and get online…and how to wear a face mask. But this Rin-Tin-Tin is still more comfortable with hard copy and Bic pens. I’m having to adjust. It reminds me, in a different sort of way, of when we moved to Colorado from Michigan and I played basketball for the first time at 6,000 feet. I was sucking air and the basketball felt like a shot put being thrown from my tired arms. It took me a while to adjust to the reaching of “new heights”, so to speak!

I’ve been doing Facebook Live readings on Sunday nights all through the summer, so I’m comfortable being seen by people I can’t see. This is a few more steps toward the edge of the cliff, however. Now I’m going to be kinda’ seeing students, about 20-22 at a time, and asking them to click onto the assignment page and begin working on the questions there. Wait a minute! That means I need to develop an assignment page that they can link into! That means I have to figure out how to get that page idea onto a page and then get it somehow onto their page!

It’s a brave new world that is scarier than all get out. Thankfully, I have teammates who have the patience of Job and they know I’m up for learning new tricks.

Like today, when I was trying to figure out how to drink coffee with a face mask on. Do you think it’s okay to wear a face mask with coffee stains on the outside?

I love my grandkids, and not just because they provide me a wealth of a writing material. They are wrapped-up packages of diverse personalities and unique talents.

Since their mom is a 15 year veteran of elementary school teaching, each one of them has developed pre-mature oratory skills. They are highly proficient in their reading, but…higher still in their ability to interrupt one another…and me in the midst of any sentence.

For example, this morning it took me a full two minutes to ask the simple and brief question “What would you like for breakfast?” It was like taking the Kentucky backroads because of a main road under construction. There are so many twists and turns that one can forget where he was initially heading to.

“What would you like–“

“Granddad, the sprinklers went off this morning even though it rained a–“

“Leo’s asleep on my bed!” (Leo is their new kitten, who catches “catnaps” when he can because of the excessive activity he’s expected to have each day.)

“What would you–“

“Reagan, why is he sleeping on your bed? Why isn’t he in my room?”

“Because you carry him around by his neck and he’s scared of you.

“No, he isn’t!”

“Like I was saying, what–“

“Anybody see my retainer case?”

“It’s right there!”

“Granddad, did you know that Mommy took Leo to the vet yesterday?”

“Yes, I did. So, what would you like for–“

“He got a shot and he didn’t like it.”

“And he hissed at another cat. That would have been so funny!”

“Granddad, did you know that I broke my horse’s neck yesterday?”

“See, Corin! That’s why Leo stays away from you.”

“No, it’s not, Reagan! He loves me and he’s so cute.”

“Do you mean the horse that you bought at the dollar store?”

“Yes, that one who’s head snapped off.”

“I was aware of the snappage. Now, what would you like for–“

“Granddad, when are we going to go to the North Pole?” (The North Pole is a small kid-friendly amusement park a few miles west of Colorado Springs. Carol and I have made it a yearly-tradition to take the grandkids, except 10 month old Joey, for a day of an assorted mix of rides, most of which go around in a circle and make honking noises)

“Next week, I believe. Now, back to my question.”

“Are you wondering what we want for breakfast?”

“Yes, exactly!”

“Just ask us, Granddad! That’s all you have to do. I’ll take a bagel and cream cheese.”

Like I said, Kentucky backroads to finally arrive at the forgotten destination.

Carol and I have been assigned grand-parenting duties for this week and next as our daughter goes back to her school and 3rd Grade classroom. Those old Geritol commercials from Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour now seem relevant. We need energy packs. Not Red Bull energy, mind you, but just something to get us over the hump…er, humps! Like at 9, 11, and 1.

By 2:00 we’re into the downhill coast, guilt for laying on the couch has long since become a scene in the rearview mirror. By then we give a grandparent edict, proclaiming a mandatory 30 minute quiet time. It’s like receiving a gift of chocolate mousse cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory.

But if this was a track meet and our 5, 9, and 12 year old grandkids were in lanes 1,2, and 3, the grandparents occupying lanes 4 and 5 would be smoked!

My venti-sized cup of Starbucks Pike Place get me through the first laps off the morning. I feel sharp and witty and maybe to play with their new kitten, Leo. Fixing bagels and cream cheese for their breakfast is non-taxing.

About 9:30, however, the first squabble of the day occurs over any one of a variety of issues: hair ties, the unjust decision of not letting one of them have ice cream, the life threatening restriction on their use of technology (Read video games!), and mediating the conflict over a 12 year old boy not wanting to play Barbie’s with his 5 year old sister.

It’s like working at the Customer Service/Returns counter at Walmart, every return or request presenting the possibility of unhappy consumers and bad Yelp reviews.

Carol and I feel the drain, brain drain and senior citizen slowness. It’s why some restaurants have senior menus. They know it takes us longer to raise the fork from the plate all the way to our lips, and so they scale down the sizes to allow multi-generational families to all get done with their meals at the same time. (I guess that sounded like one of those conspiracy theories, didn’t it?)

And then there’s Kid’s Bop on satellite radio! By the time we pull into the driveway or whatever we’re going, my hearing has been numbed and the hair on my arms is standing up as a result of the constant high-pitched shrieking voices singing song after song that all sound the same. By the time I exit the car I’m longing to hear a voice like Tennessee Ernie Ford or George Beverly Shea, nice and soothingly deep. Of course, both of those have passed on to the place where there are no more squeals and the music is always angelic.

I’d better close now since my heating pad needs to be warmed up again, and I need to visit the bathroom for about the twentieth time today.

It’s usually the time of the year when the excitement of welcoming a new batch of kids into a teacher’s classroom is evident. Educators get all giddy and jiggly with laughter. They anticipate the variety of personalities that will descend upon them and how they will influence and impact these young minds.

But this coming school year looks to be like the discovery of a new dark, suspicious-looking planet that has an ominous-sounding music echoing out of its fog. In most schools the teaching staff has the feel of being more like a special ops squad. Think Alien!

My oldest daughter is one of those first-responder teachers (3rd grade) and, I guess, I’m sorta’ one of them since I’ll still substitute teach and coach snotty-nosed middle schoolers this year. Our daughter began teacher meetings this past Wednesday, even though students don’t arrive until August 17. Let’s see…do the math…that’s 13 days of teacher meetings and preparation for an educational environment that may change half-a-dozen times before students enter the classroom.

At my middle school, whose principal is awesome, the game plan has become more like a football team that uses the option offense. There’s about five possible ways this next play can go, so the teachers are being trained in the new most valued skill: flexibility. In other words, always be ready to go in a different direction.

Into this educational tussle, add face masks, rearranged classrooms, kids who sneeze a lot, middle schoolers who are very social and often times clueless about their surroundings, students who may choose to suddenly stay at home, teachers who may already have compromised immune systems, and many of them who have their own kids to worry about, and most people realize that it is a first responder situation for a forest fire with changing wind patterns.

Geez! And I didn’t even mention the handful of parents that teachers have to deal with each year who are convinced their child is the greatest thing since sliced bread, or the those few students who make the educator realize there is something more painful to deal with than a root canal.

In my opinion, teachers are the new heroes, the new frontline workers facing the new adversary. And this school year, they will also be the new learners, receiving a new kind of education that they never received in college classes for education majors.

Perhaps we need a “Teacher Appreciation Year”, not just a “Teacher Appreciation Week”!