To start with, a Momentum Update: Okay, the file organizing I wanted to get done this past month didn’t happen, for two legitimate reasons. Reason #1: March was not the greatest month. I’m not complaining about the prolonged winter conditions so much like many people are these days since I come down on the side of trusting it will all end soon, and having something to look forward to is a huge motivational factor for me. But other things happened in the mix of life that I am decidedly not happy about, and sorting through computer files became too trivial to take seriously. Reason #2: There was no real accountability for me to get the files organized other than I kind of wanted to, so I didn’t get it done. What’s going to happen? A monetary fine? Not so much. People are going to point and make fun of me with degrading comments wherever I go? Like I’m not used to that. More time wasted while I look for files that are only sort of easy to find? That’s kind of where I am already. So ultimately, no accountability.
But my plan for April has huge accountability built into it. Long story short -- the idea of a party at my house has recently evolved throughout several randomly connected Facebook postings, and now it’s taking place close to the end of the month. With potentially dozens of people coming to my house (many for the first time since the significant bit of redecorating I had done over the summer) there’s pressure for me to have the place looking its best. So my April goal: Clean the house from top to bottom so anyone who comes and sees it by the end of the month, and probably a two-week window following the party, would be fooled into thinking it always looks like nice before it all goes wrong again.
Anyway. Today’s post isn’t exactly a “Take Out the Trash Day” collection of topics, but it is a two-for-one deal, so let’s move on. I know this is being published on March 31 so it’s a day early, and today is Easter Sunday so very few people will probably notice that this post is even going up, but this is one of those years when April Fool’s Day lands on a school day so I’ll be teaching instead of blogging that day. Instead of once again rehashing the story of my epic prank from so many years ago (though if you’d really like to read about it you could always click right HERE), I thought we could play a fun little game and came up with a list of ten things about me that might be true or might be April Fool’s Day jokes. The one clue I’ll give is that more than one item on this list is actually true, but it’s up to you to determine how many of them aren't and which ones you’ll believe:
1) I’ve never seen any of the “Godfather” movies.
2) I was once tear-gassed during a riot.
3) I’ve never been drunk in my life.
4) I own a Barbie.
5) I once had the same student in my class during four different school years.
6) I haven’t been able to fully extend the ring finger on my right hand since breaking my wrist at six years old.
7) My writing has been published in five different newspapers, including the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
8) I’ve never been the Best Man in a wedding, but I was once the Best Dude and listed as such in the wedding program.
9) Complete strangers have asked for my autograph and sincerely meant it.
10) My music library contains over 15,000 songs, but none of them are by the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan or Michael Jackson.
So... what’s real and what isn’t? Any April Fools out there falling for the jokes?
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
My Life as a Talk Show Host
It occurred to me while falling asleep last night that David Letterman and I could probably step into each other's jobs fairly easily:
1 - Every show he starts off with the same introduction and a brief monologue, usually discussing current events. Every morning I start my day when the 9:30 bell rings, and spend about five minutes joking with my students about current events (the AT&T commercials with the little kids, video game release dates we're excited about, what we did on our weekends, etc.) before bringing my students to their specialist classes.
2 - Dave starts off each show with a lot of the same comedy bits getting mixed into the rotation: Visiting the Hello Deli, Small Town News, the Top Ten list, etc. Each of my math lessons starts out with the students being assigned something from the same pool of introductory activities: Math Boxes from the books, working through a multi-step story problem I've prepared on a half-sheet of paper, converting fractions to decimal values, solving 24 puzzles, etc.
3 - When Dave steps away from his show, people generally expect him to do or say something funny. Not more than two days ago, my principal claimed I almost made her break up laughing while she was presenting information during a school board meeting just because of my facial expression. I promise you I was just standing there and listening.
4 - Dave has frequent musical guests. I commonly have students quietly singing or humming to themselves without even realizing they're doing it until other people point it out to them. I also have a lot of instances of someone "accidentally" giving their recorder a quick toot in the hallway on the way to music class.
5 - Dave's interviews follow a fairly set structure: introduction, playful banter, plugging the guest's latest project, etc. My lessons also follow a fairly set structure: introducing the learning goal and essential vocabulary, leading the students into discovering a new concept, turning them loose on practicing said concept or providing them with extra practice, giving them time to play review games and presenting them with some follow-up practice.
6 - Dave has something of a reputation for being grumpy. My sense of humor has parallels to that, even being described as "caustic" by my eleventh grade journalism teacher. Back then I had to look up the word to understand precisely what she meant. I took it as a compliment.
7 - Dave has Paul Shaffer for a sidekick. In each class I have at least one kid who is so attention-starved, the only way I'm ever going to get she/he to stay focused on what's going on is to play off of them with a few jokes so that "look at me" need is met.
8 - We both receive salaries in the tens of millions of dollars. However since I'll be dropping the school patrol co-advisor position next year, I won't be able to make that claim anymore.
1 - Every show he starts off with the same introduction and a brief monologue, usually discussing current events. Every morning I start my day when the 9:30 bell rings, and spend about five minutes joking with my students about current events (the AT&T commercials with the little kids, video game release dates we're excited about, what we did on our weekends, etc.) before bringing my students to their specialist classes.
2 - Dave starts off each show with a lot of the same comedy bits getting mixed into the rotation: Visiting the Hello Deli, Small Town News, the Top Ten list, etc. Each of my math lessons starts out with the students being assigned something from the same pool of introductory activities: Math Boxes from the books, working through a multi-step story problem I've prepared on a half-sheet of paper, converting fractions to decimal values, solving 24 puzzles, etc.
3 - When Dave steps away from his show, people generally expect him to do or say something funny. Not more than two days ago, my principal claimed I almost made her break up laughing while she was presenting information during a school board meeting just because of my facial expression. I promise you I was just standing there and listening.
4 - Dave has frequent musical guests. I commonly have students quietly singing or humming to themselves without even realizing they're doing it until other people point it out to them. I also have a lot of instances of someone "accidentally" giving their recorder a quick toot in the hallway on the way to music class.
5 - Dave's interviews follow a fairly set structure: introduction, playful banter, plugging the guest's latest project, etc. My lessons also follow a fairly set structure: introducing the learning goal and essential vocabulary, leading the students into discovering a new concept, turning them loose on practicing said concept or providing them with extra practice, giving them time to play review games and presenting them with some follow-up practice.
6 - Dave has something of a reputation for being grumpy. My sense of humor has parallels to that, even being described as "caustic" by my eleventh grade journalism teacher. Back then I had to look up the word to understand precisely what she meant. I took it as a compliment.
7 - Dave has Paul Shaffer for a sidekick. In each class I have at least one kid who is so attention-starved, the only way I'm ever going to get she/he to stay focused on what's going on is to play off of them with a few jokes so that "look at me" need is met.
8 - We both receive salaries in the tens of millions of dollars. However since I'll be dropping the school patrol co-advisor position next year, I won't be able to make that claim anymore.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Shaking off the Dust
About a year and a half ago, a friend of mine who’s been fairly supportive of my writing took it upon herself to read one of my manuscripts to her homeroom class. It was a good fit at the time: A ghost story written for a target audience the age her students were, read right around the same time as Halloween. Some observant students noticed she wasn’t reading a bound paperback but a collection of printed pages, and soon she revealed to them that it was an unpublished manuscript by “a local author,” or some equivalent vague phrase. I’d asked her to keep my identify a secret until she was done since I didn’t want their perception of the book filtered through the perspective of knowing it was written by one of the teachers in their school. She told them by the end, and I even went to her classroom to do some Q and A afterward, which was probably more interesting for me than it was for them.
I’m bringing this up because I believe something similar is about to happen again. One of our specialist blocks is called “Character Education,” during which the students are given experiences that will hopefully encourage them to develop a stronger sense of character as they grow up. One of the more common activities is when the paraprofessional guiding the block reads a book to the class. Unless I’m mistaken, the next book the kids are about to hear is another manuscript of mine.
As self-serving as that might seem to have her read something I did, it wasn’t really my first choice. I have a number of favorite books that would be great Character Ed. reads, but as our para previewed some we weren’t having any luck finding a title that would work. I asked around to get some ideas from other people, but we still couldn’t find a fit. The problem was timing: Since the third trimester began today, there’s only so much time left in the school year, and both our para and I felt it was important that whatever book the students would be hearing was something they’d have time to hear to its conclusion. Running out of ideas, I suggested one of mine that I knew there’d be time for and would be a fit as far as content. After reading most of it she agreed it met the criteria we were looking for. She planned on finishing it over break, and unless she had a serious change of heart since I spoke to her about it last, I’d expect she’s going to begin reading it either this week or next.
Personally, I’m kind of torn on this. From one point of view, I’m hopeful she’s going to read it and I’d be excited to know all three of our 5th grade classes will be hearing it. A copy of a different manuscript has been getting passed around between a couple dozen students this year, and even more have been asking to read it or something else I’ve written. I’m happy they’ll get a chance to hear this now, and I think it could be good closure on the year to share this with them since they’ll get to see a different side of me other than just Mr. Math Class Guy. I’d also like to think that having them see someone they already know from a completely different perspective would be an added level of character education.
However, I’m going to have to leave the room while it’s being read. I would be too distracted to sit at my desk and hear it, thinking about things I could revise or knowing what jokes or emotional markers are coming up and waiting for the reactions, then second-guessing myself when it doesn’t get the reaction I’d hope for and so on. And I would do this, because the manuscript she’s going to read, “Following Infinity,” is the one I’ve decided is my favorite of everything I’ve written. Whenever the self-doubt creeps in (frequently) and I start feeling like some pretender who just pretentiously babbles on about being a writer, this is the manuscript I can dig out and look at and think, “Okay yeah, but I did, in fact, write THIS. So maybe I’ve got some game after all.” This manuscript is so internal for me that I can reread it now and feel memories from the events of story almost as if they really took place. Even though it still needs some polishing before I ever try sending it back into the world (which I’d suspect is going to be my big project this summer), I am as proud of it as anything else I’ve ever written.
So I guess I’m writing this tonight just to put out there that this is going to be happening, probably. I expect I’m going to have some reactions to it along the way and perhaps I’ll be writing about some of that here just to process what I’m thinking and feeling about it. I’m looking forward to being in the middle of having that book read to a group of people who’ve become important to me, many of whom will be genuinely interested in hearing the story. It should be interesting.
And if it turns out that she’s found a different title to read, well, so be it. A big part of being a writer involves shaking off disappointment. No matter what happens, I’m still proud of it.
I’m bringing this up because I believe something similar is about to happen again. One of our specialist blocks is called “Character Education,” during which the students are given experiences that will hopefully encourage them to develop a stronger sense of character as they grow up. One of the more common activities is when the paraprofessional guiding the block reads a book to the class. Unless I’m mistaken, the next book the kids are about to hear is another manuscript of mine.
As self-serving as that might seem to have her read something I did, it wasn’t really my first choice. I have a number of favorite books that would be great Character Ed. reads, but as our para previewed some we weren’t having any luck finding a title that would work. I asked around to get some ideas from other people, but we still couldn’t find a fit. The problem was timing: Since the third trimester began today, there’s only so much time left in the school year, and both our para and I felt it was important that whatever book the students would be hearing was something they’d have time to hear to its conclusion. Running out of ideas, I suggested one of mine that I knew there’d be time for and would be a fit as far as content. After reading most of it she agreed it met the criteria we were looking for. She planned on finishing it over break, and unless she had a serious change of heart since I spoke to her about it last, I’d expect she’s going to begin reading it either this week or next.
Personally, I’m kind of torn on this. From one point of view, I’m hopeful she’s going to read it and I’d be excited to know all three of our 5th grade classes will be hearing it. A copy of a different manuscript has been getting passed around between a couple dozen students this year, and even more have been asking to read it or something else I’ve written. I’m happy they’ll get a chance to hear this now, and I think it could be good closure on the year to share this with them since they’ll get to see a different side of me other than just Mr. Math Class Guy. I’d also like to think that having them see someone they already know from a completely different perspective would be an added level of character education.
However, I’m going to have to leave the room while it’s being read. I would be too distracted to sit at my desk and hear it, thinking about things I could revise or knowing what jokes or emotional markers are coming up and waiting for the reactions, then second-guessing myself when it doesn’t get the reaction I’d hope for and so on. And I would do this, because the manuscript she’s going to read, “Following Infinity,” is the one I’ve decided is my favorite of everything I’ve written. Whenever the self-doubt creeps in (frequently) and I start feeling like some pretender who just pretentiously babbles on about being a writer, this is the manuscript I can dig out and look at and think, “Okay yeah, but I did, in fact, write THIS. So maybe I’ve got some game after all.” This manuscript is so internal for me that I can reread it now and feel memories from the events of story almost as if they really took place. Even though it still needs some polishing before I ever try sending it back into the world (which I’d suspect is going to be my big project this summer), I am as proud of it as anything else I’ve ever written.
So I guess I’m writing this tonight just to put out there that this is going to be happening, probably. I expect I’m going to have some reactions to it along the way and perhaps I’ll be writing about some of that here just to process what I’m thinking and feeling about it. I’m looking forward to being in the middle of having that book read to a group of people who’ve become important to me, many of whom will be genuinely interested in hearing the story. It should be interesting.
And if it turns out that she’s found a different title to read, well, so be it. A big part of being a writer involves shaking off disappointment. No matter what happens, I’m still proud of it.
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