Posted tagged ‘middle schoolers’
March 7, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. March 7, 2019
There are some eighth grade students who I have gotten to know in the past two years as I’ve substitute taught in their classrooms and coached them on athletic teams. Some of them I joke around with in “perplexing ways”! That means that I’m able to bring a look of confusion or perplexity to their faces!
Yesterday as I subbed in a social studies class, that I enjoy greatly, I brought uncertainty and pondering to one student’s face, and a realization to another.
In the classroom there was a constant, annoying, ringing sound, almost like a humming, that could be heard in the midst of a silent moment. I wondered what it might be, but then a student sitting next to my desk asked me the question.
“Mr. Wolfe, what’s that sound?”
I paused and listened, sensing that I could lead him on towards perplexity. My face took on a moment of extreme concentration as I pretended I was trying to hear what he was hearing. I shook my head.
“What sound?”
“That sound!”
“I’m not hearing anything.”
“You can’t hear that humming, or whatever it is?”
I listened again like I was a contestant on that old TV game show, “Name That Tune”.
“No!”
Unbelief dotted his face.
“I’ve heard about people like you,” I said. “I know there’s only been a few cases, but they do happen.”
“What are you talking about?”?
“People who’s hearing is as acute and sensitive as a dog’s. It’s called Auditory Canine Syndrome.”
“What?”
“It’s when someone can hear sounds that no one else can.”
“You can’t hear that?”
“Hear what?” I turn to the boy sitting in the chair beside him. He is perceptive enough to go along with “the play”. “Do you hear anything?” He shakes his head no.
Perplexity has landed on Student #1’s face. For a few seconds he thinks he has Auditory Canine Syndrome. I let him swim in the currents of confusion for a few seconds before I confess to our ploy. Yes, we can hear the humming. One class period later I have someone check it out from the maintenance crew. It ends up being something in the heating ventilation system.
And then there was the “realization” that came to another student. The class had watched a video that dealt with the “Trail of Tears”. A study sheet accompanied the video, some questions that could be answered as they watched the 20 minute video, and a few others that they would answer afterwards. With 15 minutes left in class one young man hadn’t answered any question, even the most obvious ones! I walked by and he smiled at me.
“Freddie (not his real name!),” I said. “Your paper has so much open space on it that it resembles South Dakota!”
“Huh?”
“I’m not seeing anything on your paper but open space!”
“Yes, there is! There’s the ink print on it.”
I just give him “the look”. A few minutes later I walk by again. He looks up at me and says, “See! I answered number 1!”
His answer consisted of two words, short words at that!
“Great!” I respond. “Now it looks more like North Dakota!” And I look at him with eyes that express disappointment. He realizes that I believe in him, that I don’t think he’s as dumb as he wants people to think. For a moment he realizes he is underachieving…and then he lets it go!
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 8th grade, adolescents, confuse faces, confusion, eighth graders, middle school, middle school boys, middle schoolers, perplexed, social studies, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching, teaching middle school
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February 22, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. February 22, 2019
“Mr. Wolfe, can I use the restroom?”
“I’m assuming you can. I mean, you’ve got some real issues if you aren’t able to use it!”
“What?” he whispered with confusion.
“If you aren’t able to use the restroom there could be some serious repercussions.”
I point to the white board that explains the difference between asking questions that begin with “Can” versus “May”. On the board I’ve written examples:
CAN= Am I able to…
-“Am I able to eat healthy?”
-Am I able to do the Incline?”
MAY= Do I have permission to…
– “Do I have permission to get a drink of water?”
Understanding invades the inner space of the sixth grader’s mind. “Ohhh!” he exclaims as his eyebrows elevate. “May I use the restroom?”
“Yes, you may!”
Teaching sixth graders good manners and the proper way to act has become a passion of mine…sorta’! Let’s be honest! Good manners to a lot of people is as relevant as my cassette tape collection. Right before I wrote this a girl’s notebook fell off her desk and scattered papers across the classroom floor. A boy who had just returned from the restroom (“Can I go to the…I mean, may I go to the restroom?”) stepped over the papers as if they were wet paint as he returned to his desk…right next to the girl’s!
I saw the empty stares of a few others around her, blind to her plight, so I went to help. “I noticed your neighbor here just stepped over and didn’t attempt to help.”
He knew I was referring to him. “I didn’t see it!” he exclaimed as his defense.
“You stepped over it, like it was a mud puddle on the sidewalk.”
Back to honesty, however, there are a number of adults- kids in grown up bodies- who either never learned manners, or don’t really give a crap! Politeness got stuffed in a box and put in the basement about the time reality TV made its entrance.
A few days ago I was standing in the school hallway talking to two teachers as a student- actually a 7th grader!- walked right between us.
“Excuse me!” I bellowed after him.
“Huh, what?” He looked stunned and frightened, although it could have been the lighting.
“You walked right between us as we were having a conversation.”
“Huh?”
“When people are having a conversation it’s not polite to walk right between them.”
“Ohhh!” This was new information for this kid, a new kind of education and the opening bell hadn’t even sounded.
Perhaps my generation was raised by parents who placed a higher value on good manners. They seemed to make learning good manners an essential part of developing good character and keeping order in the universe.
My mom would say, “Keep your mouth closed as you’re chewing!” I’m not sure why, but she made it seem like the right thing to do. Open-mouthed chewers probably didn’t get good jobs and had to go to night school, so we kept the lips tight as we ground up the pork chop between our teeth.
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking to you dad! Be patient!”
Having patience seemed to be tied to politeness and we struggled with that growing up. In today’s world patience gets buddied up with whining and irritation. Most sixth graders think having patience means not being able to eat their fruit roll-up until they take the wrapper off. It’s like the sixth grade student last year whose shoes were untied. “Tie your shoes!” I commanded him.
“Why? They’re just going to come untied again!”
I wanted to say “Well, why zip your pants up? You’re just going to unzip them again next time to need to take a whiz!”
BUT… he was wearing sweat pants!
Probably hadn’t learned the word “May” either!
Categories: children, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, marriage, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: being polite, chewing with your mouth open, courteous, etiquette, good manners, manners, middle school, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, patience, politeness, sixth grade, sixth graders
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February 21, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. February 21, 2019
Sixth graders have a warped understanding of a variety of things. Like the kid who is concerned about his hair looking awesome, but unaware that the hoodie jacket he’s been wearing for the last month smells putrid! That kind of warped!
Also, most of them would not do well in a game of Trivial Pursuit. If you asked a class of sixth graders what kind of cheese you would find on the moon a few of them would say “Swiss! Because of all of those craters!”
After all, it was a European cow that jumped over the moon!
Today at the end of each class I asked a trivia question and gave out a prize to the answer that was closest to being correct. Cell phones were required to be facedown!
Q. What is the distance in miles from Anchorage, Alaska to Key West, Florida?
A few hands shoot up instantly! Usually the first ones to provide an answer are not candidates for the school quiz bowl team.
I motion for a boy, whose hand is waving back and forth like Kansas wheat ready to be picked.
“Two miles!”
The girl beside him giggles, so I call on her next.
“A million miles!”
“It’s somewhere between those two,” I clarify. Several faces are transformed from genius to confused when I say that.
The answers keep coming. “Two hundred miles”, “a thousand”, “twenty-five thousand.” Finally, a young lady, who has been hanging back patiently, raises her hand and I call on her.
“Five thousand?”
“Close enough! The answer is 5,019!” I throw her a snack sized bag of Skittles.
I hear the whines of unfairness echoing as they exit the classroom. “I was going to say that!!”
On to the next class.
Q. How many words are in Webster’s International Dictionary?
“Call on me first!” urges a blonde-haired boy who usually causes his teachers to grind their teeth. I give him the okay and he opens the bidding.
“5,000!”
A clueless young lady counters with “6,000!”
Another. “7,000!”
I say, “Is this The Price Is Right or something?”
One self-assured young man offers an answer with boldness, like he’s buying a Honus Wagner baseball card. “25,000!” He looks around as if a camera is about to take his picture for the Society page in Sunday’s newspaper.
The guesses continue and range from 1,000 to 95,000. The class is dumbfounded when I tell them the answer is 476,000, an unfathomable figure for a few of them who haven’t progressed that far past their first grade primer book!
“The average adult knows between 20 and 30 thousand words,” I inform them.
One boy replies, “Mine’s at least that!”, and he might be right. He looks like someone who takes the vocabulary quiz in each issue of Reader’s Digest.
Most sixth graders know more about video games, Harry Potter, and electronic devices than I will ever know. Trivia, however…no!
Of course, if I was asked a trivia question on any one of those three things my answer would be about as close as Key West is to Anchorage!
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: middle school, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, sixth grade, sixth graders, social studies, trivia, Trivial Pursuit, vocabulary
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February 6, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. February 6, 2019
Ughh! It happens! Jimmy decides to be extra annoying in class, perhaps because I’m a substitute teacher for the day or because it’s one of his dominant characteristics…either way I have to use the dreaded two words.
Lunch detention!
It means that the next day he will be spending time with me in the classroom where I’ll be consuming my cottage cheese and cucumber. It may be more painful for me than it it for him. It means he won’t get to hang out with his buddies for 30 minutes. For me it means I’ll be restricted to my classroom, unable to make a restroom visit, and sitting in uncomfortable silence with 8th Grade boys who think I’m unreasonable and the devil incarnate!
They don’t connect their actions with consequences. After all, should they be expected to do their part in promoting an environment where students learn? Shouldn’t they be allowed to muddy the waters of knowledge and make things challenging for their teacher? Isn’t that their right, their God-given privilege?
Oops! I’m starting to sound bitter!
Okay! I am a little bit! I’m spending another 30 minutes with two students who already have antagonized me for 57 minutes! It’s like having a root canal and then asking if the dentist can do another one right after that!
And so we sit in the classroom together trying to make believe that the others aren’t really present. Each bite of my cottage cheese feels lumpy and unappetizing in my mouth. I might as well be eating grits with no hint of seasoning or butter.
We talk about their offenses. They have a different view of things. I’m the problem. They believe I have a vendetta against them. It’s kinda’ like the driver saying, “Yes, I switched lanes. It’s not my fault that a car was already there!”
One of the lunch detainees has a hint of repentance. The other remains defiant, convinced that a great injustice has been done. I have a feeling that his grades are an indication that not much has been done…for a few weeks!
8th graders are on the verge of high school, which means most of them are on the verge of irrational behavior as well! As their middle school days weird down they seem to get more wound up! Teachers leave each school day shaking their heads and chewing their fingernails. It is the circle of life…middle school life that is!
Lunch ends and Abbott and Costello leave without smiling. Their comedy act has been interrupted and they are not happy. But, after all, 8th grade has just as much drama to it as humor and, in their opinion, I have no sense of humor whatsoever!
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 8th grade, dentention, education, educators, eighth grade, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, school lunch detention, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teachers
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January 26, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. January 26, 2019
The definition of the word “dysfunctional” is “7th Grade!”
Okay! Actually, the definition is “not operating normally or properly.” Otherwise known as “7th Grade!”
Just view a class of 7th graders. About 40% of them are dealing with a mouth full of metal. Several of them got in line twice when height was being handed out, while a few overslept and missed the gift of inches. There are a few who are on task with whatever is assigned to them, while others’ focus can simply be distracted by air! Some are physically changing from kids into adults, bypassing adolescence completely, while others seem to still be passengers on a Frontier Airlines maturity flight, grounded in the land of childhood!
I’m never bored as I view 7th graders. There is always something going on. Maybe that’s why one of the main characters in my first novel is a 7th grader with thick glasses and a lack of friends. I see him multiple times each time I substitute teach.
Yesterday I had a 7th grader who walked around with a facial tissue sticking out of one of his nostrils. Weird, huh? Not for him! Goes with his personality! I finally informed him that it was kind of gross for others to look at and he apologized. He’s the kind of 7th grader who often forgets that there is a zipper on the front of his pants. On Thursday he asked to go to the restroom and then didn’t come back for half an hour. Not because he was doing anything bad, just because he had some constipation issues. He apologized to me when he came back and started to go into detail! I put the stop sign up!
I tried to rationalize with one student who lacks motivation. He didn’t want to complete an assignment and I asked him if he walks home after school? “Yes!”
“So do you ever get halfway home and say ‘I don’t want to walk the rest of the way!’?”
“No! That’d be stupid!”
“Think of this assignment as kinda’ being like that.”
“It’s not!”
A girl and a boy were having a disagreement about something like how much white board markers cost and I bring a chuckle to their neighboring classmates when I say to the girl, “You’re like Drama!” and to the boy “And you’re the sequel!”
A couple of students talk to me non-stop like a fire hydrant that has been opened up. I appreciate the conversation, although I don’t need to know the veterinarian experiences of her 12 year old Tabby!
There’s seventh graders who didn’t get the memo that they’re in seventh grade…three grades either way. Some who are still living the world of fourth graders and others who think they deserve to be escorted to the high school prom.
BUT, whereas there are folks who take the “fun” out of the dysfunction, seventh graders put it back in…in triplicate! It’s how they are and who they are!
Categories: children, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 7th Grade, 7th Graders, adolescence, adolescent, Dysfunctional, middle school, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, Seventh Grade, seventh grade boys, seventh grade girls, seventh graders, substitute teacher, substitute teaching
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December 1, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. December 1, 2018
It’s been a week!
A week of sixth graders, that is! One of the sixth grade social studies teachers asked me to teach the full week for him as he recovered from a procedure done on one of his knees. Five days of teaching the future Einsteins, Feinsteins, and Non-Steins; smart ones and smart alecks!
Some names stood out to me after each 57 minute class period. They were the warts in the midst of a beautiful experience; the ones that the teacher can’t trust with a pair of scissors because they may cut the hair of the young lady sitting beside them…without her knowing! They are the ones who in hearing the words “You may work with a partner on this!” view it as giving permission to cause chaos, the ones who intimately know what the inside of their assistant principal’s office looks like!
So…I remember THEIR names! If I had an acronym of the phrase “Problem Child” I could put a name with almost every letter…Pete, Robert, Octavius, Bubba, etc.
The interesting thing is that I COULDN’T remember the names of younger brothers and sisters of students I’ve had in classes the last two years. After five days of having them I still can’t think of their first names. I’d ask a question and a hand would pop up from a boy with dark hair.
“Jill’s little brother!” I’d say, acknowledging him. He looked hurt and befuddled, as if his eighth grade sister had a more prominent place in life than him.
Question: “What does longitude measure?” Up comes the hand of a girl with a never-ending smile.
“Little Smith!” I bellow as I look at her. Her smile continues because she sees it as a badge of honor. Her sister, now a high school freshman, had told her stories about Mr. Wolfe. In fact, she was the one who made my last name sound French by pronouncing it “Wolf-ay”!
There were four or five other younger brothers and sisters whose first names escaped my memory. Of course, when I was growing up some of my older brother’s friends called me “Little Charlie” or, after being immersed in their high school Spanish class, “Carlos Pequeno!”
It was the first Spanish word I learned! I guess I’m a bit partial towards younger siblings. I’m the youngest of three, the one who got the hand-me-downs, like my brother’s bicycle all beaten and battered and shirts with mustard stains dotting the fabric.
If I have these sixth graders again I’ll graduate to calling them by their last name. That would be progress towards knowing their whole personality. The disturbing thing is that I only know the first names of the problem children, and I’ll make sure my youngest daughter (Our “Little”) has a list of names NOT to give any future grandchildren.
As one boy asked me, “Mr. Wolfe, do you remember my name?”
“Yes!” I respond, pausing for effect. “Starts with an ‘A’ and ends with a ‘G’!” He looks at me ready to correct my thinking, but I break in before he can say it.
“Annoying!”
He smiles, and, although he began the week filling out one of the letters on my acronym, we kinda’ like each other! I wonder if he has any younger siblings?
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: acronym, learning names, little brothers, little sisters, middle school, middle school boys, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, names, nicknames, sixth grade, sixth graders, social studies, teaching sixth graders, younger brothers, younger sisters
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November 11, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. November 11, 2018
I love coaching kids and adolescents! Just love it! Yesterday I finished my 18th year as boy’s basketball coach at Timberview Middle School in Colorado Springs. With a new league this year our season got bumped forward to October and November. (Now I begin high school tryouts tomorrow where I’ll be coaching JV Boys)
I enjoy coaching moments and conversations that leave my players smiling and chuckling. They are spontaneous and sometimes non-sensical!
Like yesterday! I kneeled in front of one of my players who was sitting in the midst of the bench personnel. We were getting beat by about 15 points by the team that had gone undefeated as 7th graders and now as 8th graders. It was our fifth game of the day, after losing to them in the winner’s bracket final, coming back and winning the loser’s bracket, and now having to play them again in the final game.
The player I kneeled in front of is a bespectacled 4’10” 8th Grader. I said, “I need you to grow 6 inches…right now!” He stared back at me slightly smiling. “Okay! I guess that’s not going to happen, so just go on in for Josh!” He went to the scorer’s table and I moved to the next player on the bench, a boy about 5’10”.
“I need you to grow 6 inches…right now!” His eyes darted from side to side considering the possibilities as I paused. “Okay! Guess that’s not going to happen, so go on in for Tyler.”
I moved on to the third player. Kneeling in front of him and looking him in the eye, “I need you to grow six inches right now…okay, just kidding!”
A little later. “You need to be close to him on defense! Pretend it’s your girlfriend!”
“Coach, I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“No wonder! You keep your distance from her! She thinks you don’t like her!”
Confused look!
I channel Coach Don Fackler from time to time. Don mentored me in coaching back…like 25 years ago. I loved that guy! He passed away suddenly about 15 years ago and it’s the one funeral that I flew from Colorado back to Michigan to attend.
As Don would say I now find myself saying, “You’re all discombobulated! Get organized! I need my point guard to figure out when we’re all discombobulated and pull it back together.”
Here I come again! “There is nothing in that right corner of the court that is worth dribbling towards. You planning on going somewhere?”
“No, Coach!”
“Cause you keep heading for the Exit sign, son!”
Bad shot selection comment! “Hey! Have you hit a three-pointer yet?”
“No, Coach!”
“That’s right! You’re 0 for November! So let’s consider a better shot!”
“Sorry, Coach!”
Left-hand gone missing!
“What’s that thing attached to the left side of your shoulder?”
“My arm?” replies a confused looking player.
“Why not discover that it has a purpose, okay?”
“Yes, Coach!”
“I would rather you miss a left-handed layup than make a right-handed layup that announces to everyone that you don’t have a lefthand!”
And then yesterday I subbed for a player who made a couple of mistakes. I kneeled in front of him and said, “You made some mistakes, okay! But that’s not why I subbed for you! Your body language is spelling defeat. Everyone makes mistakes, but when you start moping on the court…you might as well be sitting here!” I talked to the player’s parents after the game and they thanked me for letting him know that.
I love these kids! I love coaching them, guiding them, helping them to figure things out not just on the court, but in the situations of life.
At the end of our tournament yesterday we gathered together with our runner-up trophy and had our team picture taken by parents and our school administrator. I noticed that the 4’10” player was holding the trophy in the midst of the front row. He was smiling from ear-to-ear, but the trophy was hiding his face.
“Paul, would you grow that six inches I asked for so we can see your face over the top of the trophy?”
Eleven players and three managers couldn’t keep from smiling on that one!
Love that kid!
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Basketball, basketball coach, basketball coaching, basketball officiating, discombobulated, Don Fackler, influencers, influencing kids, middle school, middle school boys, middle school coaching, middle school sports, middle schoolers, Timberview Middle School
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November 3, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. November 3, 2018
It has been a full week of substitute teaching- one day of 7th Grade Language Arts and then the last four days in 8th Grade Social Studies. I love teaching in a class for a number of days in a row. Next week I’ll have the same 8th Grade Social Studies for four more days.
8th Graders crack me up! They are as diverse as “Jelly Belly” jelly beans, but also with many similarities. They want to be liked and kinda’ cool without having to announce to everyone that they ARE cool! Most come to class not expecting to receive anything but homework and in-class assignments. So I like to do the unexpected with them!
For the 8th Graders on one day we closed class with a quest to find who could create the most stupid question with the answer being “Cream Cheese”. Call it “Dumbed-Down Jeopardy!” The winning stupidest question received a roll of Smarties!
On another day this week a few students were finishing their classroom work early.
“Mr. Wolfe, I’m done. What can I do now?”
“You can study for the test you’ll be taking next Wednesday.” (To tell an 8th Grader that he can study for a test that is a week away is like telling him that he can start preparing for the Graduate Record Exam to get accepted into Grad School.)
A non-verbal facial expression communicates that my idea is lame!
“Or you could read a book.”
“I don’t have a book with me.”
“I’ll take care of that!” Twenty seconds later I come back to his table and put a dictionary in front of him. “Here.”
Confused eyes dart back and forth. “It’s a dictionary!”
“Yes, it is! A mind is a terrible thing to waste…especially the mind of an intelligent 8th grade student like you. Here’s what I want you to do! Start with the “J’s”! I think we may be “J-deficient” in our vocabulary, so expand your understanding for the next few minutes and tell me one word that is like a new discovery for you…okay?” I help him find “J” just in case!
His mouth is wide open and nothing is coming out of it. The other two students at his table who are still working on the classroom assignment are snickering.
Two minutes later another student falsely believes that he’s going to camp-out for the rest of the class period and pop Sweet Tarts as he does nothing.
“All done?”
“Yes, Mr. Wolfe.”
“Okay, well…you can study for the test or read a book that you have.”
“Ahhh, I don’t have a book and I’ve done all the studying I need.”
“Well, that is awesome about the studying aspect of things, but since you’re so advanced I have something else for you to read.”
“Ahhh!”
“I’ll be right back!” A few seconds later I return with the Geographical Dictionary. “Here you go! Start with the ‘K’s’! I don’t think there are many places that we’re familiar with that begin with the letter ‘K’!”
“Huh?”
“An 8th Grade mind is a terrible thing to waste!”
Later on in the day a couple of other students discovered the treasures in “Q” and “X”.
“Mr. Wolfe!” says the boy who is immersed in the letter ‘X’.
“Yes!”
“The word ‘xylo’ indicates something made of wood.”
“Really!”
“Yes! Like xylophone has the different keys made of wood.”
“Wow! I didn’t know that!” He seemed excited by the fact that he shared something with an old guy that wasn’t known.”
The next day another student asked if she could READ the dictionary! And I stood there with my mouth wide open!
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Humor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 8th grade, classroom, dictionary, Geographical Dictionary, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, school classroom, social studies, stupid questions, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, Webster's Dictionary
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October 13, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. October 13, 2018
“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…” (James 1:19, NIV)
Yesterday I substitute taught for a 7th Grade Language Arts teacher. The lesson plan for each class consisted of taking attendance and then taking the class to the school library (now called the LMC, which stands for Learning Media Center). The school librarian would then tell the students about a few new books the LMC has and they would spend the rest of the class period silently reading.
Tough day! What did I do? Read some and did some rewriting on my book manuscript…plus, made sure the students were reading, not goofing around- a task that required considerable energy!
Libraries are not the same as they were…45 years ago. When I went to the Briggs Public Library in Ironton, Ohio you could hear a pin drop…and that pin better not drop again! It was quiet, studious, a fine place to locate one of the back wrenching volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and do research on such interesting subjects as the Hoover Dam, mollusks, and the North Pole.
Libraries today are gathering places, social settings in the midst of books and magazines, and gaming rooms. A place in Colorado Springs where I do much of my book writing is called Library 21C. It’s a great place…as long as you have earbuds! A few weeks ago I was sitting in one of the seats at the long window counter on the lower level. A man three seats away was doing a job interview on his cell phone. Good Lord! The librarian at Briggs Public would have grabbed him by his ear lobe and marched him to the door.
Things are different! Silence is no longer golden! It’s been devalued!
One of the 7th Grade girls, who is energized by the social aspect of life, didn’t seem to be reading the book in front of her yesterday.
I’d scan the room and when my radar caught sight of her she would suddenly look down at her book. Thirty minutes into the class’s silent reading and she was on page 2. I walked over to her and said, “Hey! Let’s get busy!”
“What?”
I glanced at her book. “You’re on page 2!”
“No, page 3!”
“Okay! Page 3 and we’ve been here so long you should have read the book and written a book report on it already!”
Her eyes opened wide. “We have to do a book report!”
“No, no, no! I was exaggerating, but if you had really been reading you’d be further along than page 3.”
“I can’t think!”
“Why?”
“It’s too quiet in here!”
“What?”
“It’s too quiet! I can’t concentrate when it’s too quiet!”
“Are you serious?”
She nodded, and I realized that we were realizing- Okay, maybe I was realizing!- one of our generational differences. I read while I’m sitting in the swing on our back deck, or in my study, or at bedtime…all places where quiet and peace can follow me. This young lady operates in a world of chatter, instant communication that could better be named instant distraction, and noise.
Noise has replaced silence as the new golden. Silence is now an indication that something’s wrong. Silence also indicates that we’re listening, and in a noisy world we no longer listen very well.
And so what do I do in the midst of a culture that now values loudness and multiple mouths speaking at the same time? What do I do? I put my earbuds in and listen to the rhythmic noise of music to block out the noise of the other voices. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it is my new silence.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Briggs Public Library, chatter, Encyclopedia Brittanica, language arts, library, middle school, middle school girls, middle schoolers, noise, quick to listen, quiet, quiet moments, quiet time, Seventh Grade, seventh grade boys, seventh graders, silence, silence is golden
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October 10, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. October 10, 2018
At the middle school where I coach and substitute teach there are a few students who are like fertilizer. When you have them in class you can feel the gray hair growing in abundance!
They are the students who don’t function well in a structured classroom situation, or relate well to teachers and authority figures. They are the ones that consume 90% of a teacher’s attention during a class period, but refuse to do more than 50% of the assigned work.
It’s not that they’re bad kids and prepping to be juvenile delinquents. They just don’t have a problem with being the problems!
When I substitute teach in a class where there is a student who falls into this category I don’t go easy on him or her. I’ve sent a few to the office or had them join me for lunch that day away from their peer group. BUT…I always seek to greet them in the hallway in a welcoming manner. In other words, no matter what their transgression has been they’re still kids to be valued. The educational journey with some students just has a few more bends and curves in it than the rest! Some students don’t slide easily from A all the way to Z!
In the last few weeks I’ve noticed some of these students who scowl each morning as they arrive at school…hanging around after school! When the 80% of the student body who aren’t involved in after-school activities has exited the building and headed quickly away as soon as that dismissal bell sounds, these few students DON’T leave! An hour after school, if they can avoid notice, they’re still roaming the hallways or hanging out somewhere on the building perimeter. For kids who dread entering the building at 7:30 in the morning they seem to have a hard time exiting by 3:00.
They hang around.
I’ve gotten to know some of them, their histories and stories. The story is never the same. It would make for a good read if all of the personal episodes were combined together. There are students from single-parent families and students who would be going home to an empty house. There are students who live in two different households, one week with dad and one week with mom; and there are students whose parents would prefer that they stay at school for as long as they are allowed so that the parent doesn’t have to deal with them at home.
School has become their safe place and their place of consistency. In a good way it doesn’t change. It can be counted on when the rest of their lives are in chaos.
The teachers that they seem to enjoy terrorizing during class periods after 3:00 become the trusted adults that they gravitate to. A teacher that one of the “hang arounders” wouldn’t add two plus two for in class suddenly becomes the teacher the student is willing to run errands for, wipe down classroom tables, and share a snack with.
I don’t have any substantiated research data for this statement, just a feeling…an inkling…that school is where they feel valued and safe, that school is the place they can count on in their worlds where they’ve been disappointed and discarded too many times.
And so they hang around for an hour, an hour and a half, not wanting to leave and, oddly enough, in a few hours not wanting to come back.
Well…come back for class, that is! There’s work to do, new gray hairs to create!
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: difficult students, discipline problems, latchkey kids, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, problem child, safe places, safe zones, single parent homes, split families, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching, undisciplined kids
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Words from WW Blog 