Love from a distance

Today, I was babysitting my nephew and hanging out with my dad. While Daegan napped, I got on to do some work on the computer and was pleasantly surprised when my sister in Chicago signed on to Skype. We talked for a while, and then she sent me the message "James would like to see you." Apparently, my nephew recognized the Skype message sounds and was eager to see who mommy was talking to. He uses Skype to talk to grandma regularly and his dad when he's away.

I jumped on my dad's computer, which has a camera, and was rewarded by a very excited nephew when my face appeared on the screen. He clapped and laughed. Then he kept looking at his mom like, "Do you see this? That's my aunt!"

Every time I talked, he would laugh and laugh. He grabbed his blankie and started playing, "Where'd the baby go" with me via the internet. I was marveling at the miracle of technology that I could play such an old game with my nephew from such a distance. He's too young to talk, so the telephone is no fun, but being able to see each other's faces is such a gift. About the time I'm thinking what a miracle this is, I make kissy noises at him (I'm known in our family as the kissy aunt because since they were born, I have smothered the boys in kisses. They both love it now and lean in for more kisses.) He leaned in towards the computer screen for kisses. A meltdown quickly followed when he realized he couldn't actually receive my kisses. His mommy tried to substitute her own, but it didn't work. His frustration grew to heartbreak, and we had to say good-bye and sign off. Technology is a miracle, but it still can't make kissy aunt truly appear in his living room.

Baby Pics

As I was going through my Snapfish account the other day, I found a whole collection of childhood pictures of my sisters and me that I had scanned in as part of a mother's day present a few years ago. I couldn't help noticing how much the next generation of Bennett babies resembles the previous.

Aunt Arvilla (left) Daegan (right)

Aunt Patricia (left) Daegan (right)

Mommy Leslee (left) Daegan (right)

Practical Magic

I feel like I spend many of my days dealing in the business of broken hearts. Sometimes it's a true love shattered at 12. Sometimes it's a student who's been called an awful name. Sometimes it's a parent recently deported. I often find myself without the right words or tools to fix these hearts. I offer what love I can, and hope it's enough to get them through that day.

Tonight I found myself at my sister's, pouring out my own recent heartbreak. During the course of the evening, we started reminiscing about childhood. A story came up about my youngest sister. She had a few unique habits that still reduce her older sisters to hysterical laughter. For instance, she loved to get Mom's cinnamon tic-tacs, eat them until they got too hot for her two-year-old mouth, and then spit them out. More times than we could count there would be a trail of half-eaten candy down the hallway.

One of her other habits had to do with injuries. She loved band-aids, loved wearing them, putting them on her dolls, and decorating with them. Our other sister reminded me that we always had to have the plain ones because Mom couldn't afford to keep the cartoon ones in stock.

My mom also had this really amazing spray that had an anesthetic in it. It was a miracle on cuts, burns, and scrapes. We called it the "magic spray." Often, our youngest sister would pretend to be injured. Mom or I would put her up on the counter, where we would notice nothing was wrong. She would be crying real tears and insist on the "magic spray." We learned to grab the bottle, make the hissing sound with our mouths, put on a beloved band-aid, and kiss the "injured" spot. She would wipe her tears away, kiss us on the cheek, say a quick "I love you", and return to playing.

For a brief moment, I wished there was a "magic spray" for our grown-up injuries. They seem to cut deeper and take longer to heal. But even as we told the story, I received a sweet text message from a close friend, and my sister continued to make me laugh. I suddenly realized with relief that the magic was never in the spray.

Tough Love

Since school began, my students have been writing in their writer's notebooks constantly. At the beginning of the year, we compared it to a sketch pad where they can collect ideas for longer writing. Today, they began the selection process of choosing what America's Choice calls a seed piece that can develop into a longer story. I know from listening to another teacher who did this last year that they will get very frustrated at how much time and effort they will spend on this one story. So, I pointed out the plants in our classroom and explained that they had once been tiny little seeds, but that with love, water, and sun they had grown into bigger, beautiful plants. I told them their seed pieces would be that way. We would work and work on them until they were these long, beautiful stories that we could publish into a class book.

At the end of my instruction, the students moved on to their work period where they began sifting through their writing. One of our more difficult students that all the teachers have been struggling with began setting his paper up correctly without instruction, but called me over. When I got close, he so softly asked, "Miss, can we really do that?" Confused, I asked, "Do what?" He responded, "Plant seeds and love them until they grow into something else?" I answered him with an eager, "Of course! I'll get seeds this weekend!" So, thanks to this tough boy, my class will be planting seeds they can watch grow and develop as their narratives do the same.

Uh-Oh

So I live in a colorful neighborhood. For the most part the people are nice and say hello, but everyone minds her own business. However, it is not unusual for a trip to Quick Trip or our local Dillons to lead to an encounter with a memorable personality or two.

My sister just got back home from a trip to Walgreens to return the Redbox movie we'd just finished watching. When she got there, a young family was already using the machine, attempting to rent a movie or two for the evening. The couple was trying to figure out the machine while their young daughters were playing under and around them.

Their play was interrupted by the sounds of emergency vehicle sirens. Apparently there were quite a few, mostly likely an accident close by. The four-year-old stopped what she was doing, looked up and said, "Uh-oh, police. We'd better go." Hmm...

Fire Drill!

So, Thursday was our first fire drill of the year. I received an email about 5 minutes before it was going to happen. Of course, I hadn't even thought to review those procedures with the kids. I flashed back in my mind to the madness that was a fire drill last year. I took a deep breath and looked around the room for the green shirts that told me who was in leadership this year. I chose a guy and a girl to be our class captains for the fire drill. I told the students that when the alarm went off, we would line up single-file, move quickly down the hall, down the staircase and out to the recess field. The girls were to line up behind the girl captain and the boys behind the boy captain.

When the alarm sounded, I was looking down at my textbook. By the time I looked up, I had two lines in my room, each behind the appropriate captain. The boys filed out, immediately followed by the girls. I was beaming! I stayed behind as hall captain to make sure the whole hall cleared out. I was extremely impressed at how the whole grade walked single file, doing exactly as their teachers asked.

I followed the last group out the door and walked by the new principal quietly watching it all. I reached for my radio and realized I had forgotten my new responsibility. Strike one. I looked out at the field and felt instant panic. I did not see my captains or my class anywhere! I quickly looked over the 7th grade area again. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I saw four arms frantically waving. It was my captains waiting for me. All 28 kids were lined up, just as I'd asked...right in the middle of the 6th grade area. I laughed and invited them to join me in the 7th grade area. Those 6th grade teachers sure knew how to train them last year!

Who isn't advanced anyway?

So, it's back to school, and I've spent the last two weeks getting to know my classes in their two different personalities: individual and as a whole class. And any teacher knows, a class definitely has a personality all its own. I have three very different classes. One is an on-grade level class, with some ESL support needed. Another class is what we call a class-within-a-class, which means students with special needs have been integrated into a regular ed class, with both a general ed teacher and a special ed teacher. Finally, I have an advanced skills class with the highest scores I've had the opportunity to teach in seven years of teaching.

On the first day, I made a really big deal about my advanced skills class being advanced and that I would be a difficult teacher, but that they would learn to love the class as much as I did. They left beaming.

Three days later, I was at the 7th grade back to school assembly. A 7th grader asked if I taught 8th grade because she didn't recognize me. I explained that I was the other 7th grade language arts teacher. One of my students smiled big and said, "She's the advanced skills teacher." I do in fact have this student in advanced skills, so I nodded and moved on.

At the end of the day through a discussion with the other language arts teacher, a good friend of mine, I discovered that my students all thought that I taught advanced skills all day and that she taught on-grade level all day. They were getting upset when a schedule change moved them from my class to hers, thinking they were being moved out of advanced skills. While I quickly realized that we needed to make sure that all of our kids felt special and realized that her class was just as smart as ours, I couldn't help but smile when I realized that my children with special needs were proudly coming to Ms. Bennett's class for advanced skills each day. May they never know any differently.