The Pencil Collection

About twenty years ago I decided to start collecting pencils. It seemed like an appropriate enough hobby for two reasons: 1) Teachers encounter a lot of pencils on a typical work day, and there was a wide variety of designs out there. 2) Pencils seemed very much like a writer kind of thing to collect. If I was out traveling or passing through any kind of store or touristy gift shop that kept a small display of souvenir pencils by the cash register, I’d pick one up. If I had friends of family going on vacation, I’d ask them to keep an eye out. The collection began growing exponentially as my students became more aware of it and took an interest, sometimes gifting me with new pencils upon returning from vacations, sometimes just handing them over if they got one as some kind of a prize, and even a few times taking the time to come up with original designs made of everything from Play-Doh dots to sparkly ribbons to multi-colored Sharpie scribbles.

It’s been a few years since I last counted them, but I know the collection now numbers well over 500. Digging through it is a historical study not unlike reading the rings from the cross section of a tree: There are two encouraging me to participate in the census, identical except for having dates a decade apart. I found one in buried in there this summer promoting a website that doesn’t exist anymore. I have some reminding me what a big scary deal people made Y2K out to be, or that the St. Louis Rams once played in Los Angeles.

I have pencils printed to advertise every imaginable business, tourist attraction, organization, or cause. I couldn't honestly guess how many different languages or countries are represented. I’ll admit I don’t remember where most of them came from, but many are still notable for different reasons. Some with unique novelty toppers tend to stand out: The double-decker London bus, the Stratosphere hotel, the Scooby Doo snow globe, the Koosh ball. There are a lot I have personal connections to, like the one my parents bought me in Thailand, several from my school, one that expresses the value of pi out to sixty digits, and one from the school where I did my student teaching which was closed several years ago. There’s one encased in a plastic tube that allegedly smells like root beer; I can neither confirm nor deny the validity of this because I’ve never broken the seal. I’ve never been to New York City, but based on my pencil collection I suspect souvenirs are probably easy to find there.

Several of them bring back memories from many directions, but even with all of the history and connections I have in that pile, it’s easy to pick out a favorite: It’s a pale yellow pencil with the words “dry clean only” printed on one side and “100% wool” printed on the other, with a fuzzy, chubby sheep for a topper. My sister Erin gave it to me. Sheep were kind of her thing.

While I was writing this, it occurred to me there was actually a third reason I had started the collection: Back about that time the Internet was really just catching on in the mainstream, and it seemed possible that someday the good old ubiquitous wood & graphite pencil we all grew up with could very possibly go the way of the inkwell and quill or chalk and slate in a paperless society. Now in a world with more schools bringing in dozens if not hundreds of iPads for their students, and the advent of devices like the Apple Watch, such a thing seems all the more possible. Usually I love living in a time my younger self would have considered science fiction. But all the same, I hope we don’t work our way out of using pencils anytime soon.

Everything You Need to Know About Teaching 3rd Grade

I’m on the verge of completing the first week of my second third grade tenure (see what I did there, with the counting?), and I think it’s safe to say I’m already a huge expert on all of this once again. To be fair, a lot of it I already knew. But it’s been several, several years since the last time I could call myself a third grade teacher -- we’re talking Clinton presidency -- so a lot of this is stuff I needed to be reminded about. If you’ve never taught 3rd grade before, here’s pretty much all you need to know:

*Crayons, markers, and colored pencils are everything. The simple act of coloring is purely hypnotic for them; coloring with markers borders on the transcendent. The typical third grader is ready to deconstruct their entire personal infrastructure if it means finding the exact crayon they’re searching for. If there is ever an apocalypse and only third graders survive it, I have no doubt that crayons and markers will immediately be recognized as international currency.

*The directions presented by the teacher are generally viewed as casual suggestions. Speaking from the teacher perspective, if you want directions to be followed, you need to a) get the attention of everyone in the class, b) say your directions, c) rephrase them a minimum of seven different ways, and d) simply accept there will be several instances in the subsequent thirty minutes when you will be asked to repeat everything you just finished saying.

*Every joke you make is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard, because they haven’t been around very long and they only know about seven jokes.

*It’s been close to a decade since I’ve been able to read aloud to my class, and I have missed it dearly. Turns out I am still absolutely AMAZING at it. Seriously. I could sell tickets, and they’d be scalped for three times their face value in the bathrooms.

*When you call on third graders in class, some of them will craft their answers as lengthy, almost literary, prose. They are probably the ones you don’t want to call on too frequently, but they will always have their hands in the air.

*Third graders shed teeth like trees drop leaves in late autumn. I had two kids in the health office for this before lunch on the first day.

*Each one of those tiny people -- the goofy ones, the shy ones, the quiet smilers, the needy huggers, the entire cross section of humanity that walks through that doorway in the morning? Each of them represents the absolute center of someone else’s emotional existence. And they all deserve to be treated as such.

Introversion from the Inside

This morning someone I work with posted a link on my Facebook page, something to do with “things you should know about introverts” or something along those lines, asking me how accurate it was. I’ve been meaning to write a definitive post on introversion for months now, ever since I read Susan Cain’s revelation of a book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, which reorganized all of the filters through which I’d been viewing my own life and in the best possible ways. But writing a post was hard to think about because there’s so much for me to say on the subject. So instead of one post I decided to start a new blog label and just contribute thoughts to the topic in the long term instead. And since I was asked about the following points, I might as well start here. Things you should know about introverts (or at least the one writing this):

We need to recharge alone. Absolutely. Even if that just means stepping into a different room to be alone for a few minutes. I can be at my sister’s with a houseful of family members I love and trust, but will often take a few minutes to go sit in the sun room and just hang out with one of the dogs instead to get centered. It’s not a deliberately planned thing -- it’s just how I react.

We don’t hate being around people, but we probably hate crowds. Being introverted is NOT being antisocial. I can absolutely dread the idea of Open House night at school, but I usually come away from it in a good mood and feeling positive about the coming year after meeting the families I’ll be working with, and that was very much the case this year. Crowds aren’t always evil -- I could spend an entire day walking around the state fair by myself and vanish into the mass of the other 200,000 people there that day and be perfectly content if not downright peaceful in knowing I was invisible to all of the people passing by. But to find myself stuck in a large meeting at our district’s staff development center, especially in the middle room that’s usually broken into four components but is occasionally opened up to accommodate a larger group? I immediately retreat inward to avoid that much concentrated stimulation.

We don’t mind silence. No. Personally I’d rather have music on, but silence has plenty of merit to it as well.

Just because we’re introverted doesn’t mean we’re shy. Agreed. This distinction largely has to do with trust -- who are the people around us we know well enough and trust enough to let them see who we really are? Example: For my part, I like (or at least get along with) everyone I work with, and I feel lucky I can make that claim. But there’s a difference between liking someone and trusting them enough to allow them inside your circle, and I don’t mean trust in the sense that I’m not worried they’re going to sneak into my room and steal my iPad if I forget to lock it up (although I never do). In this instance, trust means I know them well enough and am comfortable enough with them to trust they accept everything that makes me who I am. There are close to one hundred people on the staff at my school. I probably trust about ten of them in this very intimate way. If you have to wonder if you're in that circle for me, you probably aren’t. But that doesn't mean I don't like you.

We can turn on an extroverted personality when necessary, but it is especially draining. Mostly true. This reflects back to an idea I’ve brought up a few times on the blog, about how most people have personalities that are compilations of different situational projections of who they feel they need to be at a given moment. I see my teacher self as a completely different person than my writer self, although those two projections probably reflect my truest natures in very different ways. I’ve always said that if someone really wants to know who I am at my core they would have to read one of my manuscripts or see me when I’m teaching. (Anyone who has done both of those things probably knows me better than I’m comfortable thinking about.) Several years ago I was one of the groomsmen for one of my best friend’s wedding, and not just a groomsmen but “the Best Dude.” Yes, you read that right, not Best Man but Best Dude. Long story but it’s true, and I could produce the wedding program that has me listed as such to prove it. Anyway. This responsibility meant traveling to another state to spend a weekend as a peripheral focal point surrounded by people I didn’t know, which would normally be one strong form of Introvert Hell. But I got through it and had a great time, because of one secret strategy I intentionally used: Any time I was with someone I didn’t know, I brought out the teacher self. Anyone who has seen me in the classroom knows he’s the conditional extrovert. Which is why I'm usually dead tired when I get home. And why my hotel room during the wedding weekend was such a treasured sanctuary.

We aren’t judging you. No, at least to no greater degree than everyone judges everyone else anyway.

We secretly love it when you cancel plans. This is the best of both worlds, almost like winning the lottery. On one hand, we don’t have to go out and be around people when we’d rather be at home, alone, decompressing. On the other hand, we had already committed to plans so we still get the credit for being social without having to actually do anything. The rare exception would be if you back out of something we were really excited about and are were willing to brave the situation to take in the experience, and you cancel at the last minute for less than valid reasons.

We can get wrapped up in our own thoughts. Um, yes? I’m literally thinking about four different things as I write this.

We can be pretty bad at connecting. The list I was given provided this description: “You know when you have had a really bad day and you just want to call up a friend and chat? Yeah, I’m bad at that. I tend to wait for extroverts to reach out and include me, so when the time comes that I need support, I can be a bit lost.” This is absolutely me. I don’t avoid connecting because I feel I’m above it, but because I assume any time I do will be seen as me trying to insert myself into someone else’s life and infringing on their time, which I would never, ever do unless I was absolutely sure they actively wanted me to. This can be a bad thing because I will hardly ever reach out to anyone if I need any kind of tangible or emotional support, even if I'll usually jump at the chance to provide it for others. But the accidental consequence of this has also led to me becoming fairly self-reliant.

We don’t like to hang around. This is conditional. That small group of people I trust? I could hang around with them indefinitely. But as soon as a meeting is over and the exit door is open, I’m a memory. I'm not one to subject myself to any more small talk than is absolutely required.

We have strong opinions. I was sitting in a performance review meeting with a former principal a long time ago, and she mentioned I had a tendency to leave big conversational gaps between questions she asked me and the answers I gave. I thought I was about to get smacked down for this because she thought I seemed hesitant or distracted, but she said it was a quality she appreciated because it showed I was taking the time to consider what she’d said and think about how I would respond. Introverts think a lot, often to the degree it’s easy and convenient to tag it as overthinking, a label I’ll often apply to myself. But I don’t think considered and carefully constructed opinions are a necessarily a bad thing.

And if you don't want to take my word for it, look at that blog archive on the right side of the window and click on some of the posts listed there. You couldn't ask for any more evidence of a ridiculous amount of overthinking than that.