Freeze Flame!

There is no justice.

This week in Jackson's classroom the temperature ran into the 90's. No joke, 91 degrees in a classroom while end of year testing was taking place. Kids were sweltering, stifled by the heat escaping from the vents. Windows were opened, but were of little use as the temperature outside was barely cooler than it was indoors, and heavy with humidity. Jackson has been a champ, still wearing a long sleeve shirt and tie every day even though it's been warm enough to teach in swim wear.

Over at Northern Vance, temperatures in my classroom have plummeted into the 60's. High-powered air conditioning has sent my students into a learning coma. You know, the kind of coma that forces their arms are inside of their T-shirts, huddling against their desks trying to muster any form of body heat in order to survive. I've become a layering queen, arriving to school looking like I'm ready to teach in the tundra. By looking at my wardrobe you would have no indication that the temperature outdoors is regularly in the 80's. I even keep an extra sweater at school and lend it to students as they try to stay focused on the class and not on the cold.

For those of you who know us well, the irony of this situation is cruel. I am perpetually cold, running about 10 degrees cooler than the normal human. Jackson is a human heater, radiating warmth reminiscent of the sun, or at least a distant star.

We battle our temperature demons by day and in the evening I wrap myself up in a blanket (usually a stylish snuggie given to me by my adorable mother-in-law, Norma), while Jackson stands under the air conditioner as we stabilize our temperatures and prepare to face another day.

Race to the Finish

Sorry we haven't updated our blog for a couple weeks. The world around us is abuzz with end-of-school fever, and it's making our lives busier than usual.

Tomorrow our kids will begin their end of year testing. It's basically the tests to determine whether or not they get promoted to the next grade (or in some cases, graduate). Our superiors have been talking about this week since the first day of school, emphasizing its importance to us (the teachers) and to the students at every opportunity. In a way it kind of reminds me of the tests that the kids had to take in the movie "Lean on Me" with Morgan Freeman. The state is watching very closely, and a lot is riding on these kids to pass. Sometimes I pretend that I'm in the movie "Lean on Me" and go through my workday with an awesome old school hip-hop soundtrack. Speaking of which, they ought to make a movie about Celeste and I being teachers. They could call it "Double Trouble" with a tagline like "The students of Vance County thought they could run the show. Till they met..." I'm going to talk to some people about that. I think it's magic in the making.

In other news, Celeste and I have been gearing up for some major traveling. We're going to the mountains of NC over Memorial Day weekend to do some mountain biking and to see the Biltmore Mansion (which, if you haven't seen or heard of, just take a look: http://biltmore.com/ It's incredible).

Of course, this trip will pale in comparison to our version of European Vacation, for which we depart in exactly one month from today. We're starting to finalize our plans, buy our necessary items (like cool matching fanny packs, Hawaiian shirts, straw hats, etc.), and study our history to make this trip as memorable as possible. Right now our itinerary calls for Ireland, London, Paris, and Spain. We'll see everything from Buckingham Palace to Notre Dame, and we'll do everything from float the Seine River to swim in the Mediterranean. And all this is just the cake. The icing on top is that we're still collecting paychecks through the summer - we're just not working.

Well, that about does it for this week. Check back next week for more fun stuff and an update on "Double Trouble"'s productions plans.

Cheers!

Field Trip to DC!

This week I finally made good on my promise to take my kids on a field trip to our nation’s capital. I first made the promise on the first day of school, when I didn’t really know what the heck I was saying. I was just trying to invest my students. Throughout the year, I kept telling them that yes, the trip was still going to happen, even though I hadn’t started the process of approval or planning. It’s amazing how many lies I’ve told my kids over the year. No major ones; mostly just ones to keep them at bay or to catch their attention.


But on Thursday, the one-time lie became a truth. With approval from the principal and superintendent, I took a group of 80 students to Washington D.C. We left at 4:45 in the morning, leaving from the Henderson Middle School parking lot and arriving at the Washington Monument at about 8:30 in the morning. The kids (many of whom had never been to DC, and some of whom had never been out of the state of North Carolina) were immediately dazzled by the size of the structure. Standing at the Washington Monument, they could see the Capitol building to the east and the Lincoln Memorial to the west. It was at this point that the long drive and the stressful hours of preparation paid off. The kids were beaming. They were so excited to get a glimpse of the world, and to be out of Henderson, North Carolina.


From there we walked down to the World War II Memorial, then alongside the reflecting pool until we reached the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where we stopped for a group picture. It was also at this point where I showed the kids the engraved block of limestone that marks the spot where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The kids were fascinated with this, and with the Lincoln Memorial in general. Of all the characters they’ve learned about this year, Lincoln and King were their favorites.





We then made our way over to the Vietnam War Memorial, the black wall that lists the names of the 58,000 soldiers who were killed or went MIA during that tragic 9-year war. Before leaving for the trip, I dedicated a lesson to the Vietnam Memorial, to let the kids know about how controversial it was back in the early 1980’s, and how many Americans were passionately opposed to its construction. I walked my kids through its history, getting them to think critically about why there was such controversy. By the end of the lesson, I was impressed with their answers. One went something like this:

“Well, the point of a memorial is to remember something or honor something. But for a lot of people the Vietnam War was a terrible thing, so why would you want to remember it?”

-Antonio Castillo, 14

After that lesson, they even understood the symbolism of the dark wall compared to the bright and gleaming monuments that surround it. Of all the monuments and memorials in Washington, it is the only one that is a black or charcoal color, while the rest proudly boast a clean marble, or something close to it.

We then walked over to the Smithsonian Museum of Air & Space where we had lunch and let the kids browse the exhibits. It was a long walk, and some of the kids started to complain of hunger and fatigue. Then, when we finally did arrive, we didn’t have long to do soak in the museum, as our buses arrived shortly after our arrival there, ready to take us back to HMS.

As I rode home on the bus that day, reading and daydreaming, I wondered if the kids enjoyed themselves. I wondered if the trip was worth all the work and stress and money I had to personally put into it. I would have been devastated if they spoke ill of it the next day, telling their friends who didn’t go that they wish they, too, had remained behind. But the next day, to my great relief, the halls were buzzing with stories and experiences and praise for the field trip that I had worked so hard to engineer. People were sharing photos and looking at each others’ cameras and laughing and generally having a good time. That right there made the difference, and I’m already in the process of planning next year’s trip.