The End of Our Adventure

A proud Kinley displays her President's Award on the last day of school.

I had been dreading and looking forward to this day, all at the same time. The last day of school meant the end of my time as Kinley's classroom teacher, and it meant the end of feeling torn about my job as a teacher and my role as a mom.  It meant the end of Kinley's time in elementary school and the end of my waiting to award her the Principal's Award.  But dread it or not, there it was.

I had come up with a rather idyllic idea of what the day would be like.  I had thought we would spend the entire day smiling at each other, giving hugs and knowing glances, relishing our last day as daughter-student and mommy-teacher.  We would shed a few tears when I made my speech about her during the awards program.  We would take some pictures together.  We would walk down the hallway one last time together during the traditional 5th grade walk, trying to hold it together as the entire student body looked on.

My vision did not include a fight before we ever got to school that morning.  But alas.  Since she didn't know she was getting any awards, she didn't know that my vision included her dressed in a cute little award-getting outfit.  When I told her at breakfast that I thought she should change out of her jean shorts and T-shirt, she got mad and stormed out of the room, muttering under her breath.

Her snit continued for the rest of the morning, including the drive to school (which in my vision was supposed to be a time for mutual quiet reflection on two years of a mostly wonderful experience, preferably with a few, I-love-you-Mommys and I'm-going-to-miss-you-so-much-next-year-Mommys thrown in for good measure). 

So much for my vision.

I met with my colleagues before school and whined about my broken dream, and in the meantime, Kinley must have decided to get over it.  By the time school started at 9:15, all was well again.

At Mayflower Mill we give out Principal's Awards each term to students who exhibit respect and responsibility, and Kinley had received this award in the past from other teachers.  But I had been hesitant to give her this award for fear that others would think I was showing favoritism to my daughter.  During her first year with me I had come up with a solution.  I would give her this most-coveted award on the last day of her 5th grade year.  I would make a speech explaining why I had waited so long, and we'd both cry and hug each other and the whole room would erupt in spontaneous applause and think, "How sweet!  Poor Kinley survived and so did Gina.  Hasn't this been lovely after all?  Wasn't this truly the best choice?"  It would be perfect.

And actually, it went pretty much that way.  There were a few moments of trepidation when my principal declared to the teachers that speeches before awards should be cut so that our awards convocation wouldn't go over the allotted time.  But I decided that she would probably look the other way if I made my little speech, and besides, I had my dream to think about.  The audience was supposed to be applauding and smiling and thinking about how sweet it all was, not being mad at me for disobeying my principal's orders.

You can see for yourself how it went here.

As it turned out, BOTH kids were awarded the Principal's Award on the last day!  Knox got his for growing the most in reading.

And the Principal's Award wasn't all!  Kinley also received the President's Award for scoring at least one Pass+ in ISTEP+ and maintaining a 3.5 GPA in 4th and 5th grade.  Another total surprise to all of us was the PE Award from Mr. Z!  I was so proud of her.

Kinley walks up to get her President's Award from Mrs. Higgins.

At the end of the day, just before the 5th grade walk, I snapped a picture of Kinley and all of her 5th grade classmates.  What a great group of kids.  

Just before the 5th graders took their last walk down the hallway to the bus, Kinley stood in the middle of her classmates, most of whom will be with her next year at Southwestern Middle School.

Then came the 5th grade walk.  Each year all the 5th grade teachers walk down the hallway with their students, so I huddled up with mine as usual.  But this time, one of those kids was my own.

I led my 5th graders down the hallway with Kinley close behind.

As the buses departed and the crowds dispersed, I had a brainstorm!  I wanted a picture of Kinley with all of her teachers from her years at Mayflower Mill.  And lucky for me, they were all standing nearby!

 

(From left to right)  Mrs. Metzger (K), Mrs. Rooze (2nd grade), me (4th and 5th grades), Mrs Higgins (principal), Mrs. Harshbarger (3rd grade), Mr. Zinselmeier (PE), Kinley, Mrs. Garrett (1st grade), Mrs. Perry (art), and Mrs. Baber (computer lab)

And that's it.  The day may not have started as I had planned, but it ended up even better with Kinley surrounded by the people who shaped her into the person she is today.  Dedicated teachers who guided her and advised her and comforted her and disciplined her and loved her.  Dear friends who helped to keep me sane throughout these two years.

And I'm so very grateful.

Year Two Begins!

Another year has begun, and the kids who were fourth graders in my class last year are this year’s fifth graders.  Since my class consists of half 5^th graders who’ve already had me for a year and half 4^th graders coming in for the first time, I depend on my 5^th graders to help the new students learn my expectations.  But there are many summers that I worry about whether or not they’ll be able to rise to the occasion.  Usually an amazing transformation takes place over summer vacation, and last year’s silly, unsure followers become this year’s serious, confident leaders.

And, of course, this year my daughter is one of those leaders.  Our first day of school in August this year marked the beginning of our second year together as mother/teacher and daughter/student in a public school classroom.  To add to the fun, my son Knox has started kindergarten, so I get to have a single school year with both my children at school with me each day.



As I said in one summer post, I had been looking forward to paying my students for their summer work.  Kinley had accomplished very little in spite of her myriad of cultural experiences, and I couldn’t wait to make a point to her by passing out piles of Boyd Bucks to the kids who’d worked diligently all summer writing book summaries and journal entries, solving math problems and working on cursive handwriting.  I had daydreamed about passing out the money for weeks, slowly and deliberately calling student names and totals.  In my mind, it would go something like this.

“Justin – nine hundred Boyd Bucks!  How wonderful!  Way to go!  Kaycee – three thousand Boyd Bucks!  My goodness!  Weren’t you a busy beaver?  And you’re only a fourth grader!  And your mom isn’t even the teacher!  Abbey – eight hundred dollars!  Nice job, especially for someone moving in from the regular classroom!  Xander – twelve hundred Boyd Bucks!  My, my, my!  And I heard that your mom didn’t even have to yell at you once all summer to get your work done!  Geoffrey – two thousand Boyd Bucks!  And look at your thorough math work here!  No skipping steps for you!  All of your work is neatly shown! 

And now, who’s next?  Oh, yes.  It’s time for my daughter, Kinley Boyd.  Let’s see Kinley, how much have you earned?  You visited all the best museums of London, the National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert, the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Museum of Natural History…TWICE.  So surely you must have written up summaries of each of those to earn a hundred Boyd Bucks each.   And then, of course, surely you finished your math workbook since your mom hauled the dadgum thing across the Atlantic for you!  Let’s see.  What did you get?  Two hundred Boyd Bucks. Really?  Is that all?  You must be terribly embarrassed that all these kids who DIDN’T have their teacher with them all summer long still managed to complete so many activities!  I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Insert evil laughter here.)”

It didn’t go quite as I had imagined, though.  As it turned out, Kinley wasn’t alone in her underachievement.  One incoming 4^th grader took it all very seriously and earned a whopping $1,200, but most kids who brought in work had completed enough activities to earn only $400-$600.  Kinley really did earn only $200, but several of my 27 students had nothing to show for the summer.   And so (to my chagrin) Kinley actually seemed relatively conscientious.

Shoot.  There went my, “I told you so.”

A Misstep in our Mother-Daughter Dance

It's been a whole semester since Kinley and I started this little dance that has us spending each and every school day together.  And, generally, our dance has been surprisingly graceful.  Most of the time we waltz through our day hardly even realizing that our situation is unusual.  As was evident in my last post, though, we have experienced the occasional stumble. Here's another example.

I should have known better.  I should have listened to the little voice in the back of my head whispering, "Don't do it!"  I should have just put her to bed.

But I didn't.  I let her stay up until 9:30 to watch Dancing with the Stars.  And then I paid for it the next day in class.

Kinley and I have a deal that she can sleep in my bed whenever her daddy is out of town.  Since Josh was in San Francisco that night, I had a 9-year-old snuggle partner for the evening.  When she turned on the TV at 8:15, I didn't give it a thought since she never watches network TV in the evenings.  It didn't occur to me that she'd actually find something we'd both want to see.  It's not like we'd been watching the entire season of DWTS.  Heck, we'd never even seen a single episode in its entirety!

So when she stopped surfing on channel 6 and we both got sucked in, I wasn't that worried.  But then we REALLY got sucked in, and she convinced me to let her stay up to see the end of the episode.  I mean, who can resist sparkly dresses and Jennifer Grey's new nose, right?

And so there I was the next day.  Stuck in a classroom with 22 kids staring uncomfortably at my daughter who was weeping hysterically at the injustice of life as a student in her mother's classroom.  She'd had to pay a 20 Boyd Buck fine for forgetting to put her completed homework papers in the basket and another 10 Boyd Buck fine for forgetting to put her name on both papers. 

And that $30 was apparently more than she could handle on only 9 1/2 hours of sleep.  The poor Homework Checkers who'd had to collect her fines were huddling in a corner, apparently afraid that I might blame them for making my daughter fall to pieces before 9:30AM.

Thanks a lot, Jennifer Grey.

THE Movie

It happened.  We had to show THE movie.  THE movie that all TSC elementary schools are required to show to 4^th graders.  THE movie about it.

No.  Not that it.  The other it.  The one that only happens to girls.

"Just Around the Corner."  That's the name of THE movie.  It's all about how your body is going to start changing and things that girls need to know about are going to start happening.  I've seen it every year for 10 years.  But never with my own daughter in the room staring slack-jawed.

It's not like she doesn't know any of the information.  (We don't even close bathroom doors at our house.)  It's just that she's never had to hear it from a talking head surrounded by 50 of her closest girlfriends.  And her mother.  And her mother's colleagues.

Bless her heart.

Every year around this time we teachers segregate the boys and girls into two different classrooms and show THE movies.  They both have the same title, but there's a different one for boys and girls.  Older siblings who've already been through 4^th grade have warned younger ones, so word gets around the classroom that, as one older brother told his younger sister, "You're gonna need a barf bag, Maddie, 'cause that movie's GROSS."

Kinley was dreading it, but she watched from her desk without giggling (since I'd threatened the girls in my class within an inch of their lives).  Then afterwards, the school nurse passed out slips of paper to every girl.  "If you all write down something, even if it's just your name," she explained, "no one will know who has really written a question and you won't have to be embarrassed to ask something that you really want to know about."

I saw Kinley start to write furiously.  And it was all I could do not to peek at her slip when I walked around the room picking them up from the girls, but I somehow managed to restrain myself.  The nurse answered the questions with kindness and patience, and then the girls were sent back to their classrooms.

That afternoon, as we were driving home, I gingerly broached the subject. 

            Me:  What did you think of the movie today?

            Kinley:  The nurse didn't answer all of the questions.

            Me:  I know.  Some of them were similar to others that had already been asked and she told you that some of them were more appropriate to be asked in private.  Did she answer yours?

            Kinley: Yeah.

            Me (trying to sound nonchalant):  Oh.  What did you ask?

            Kinley:  Are you gonna post it on your blog?

           
             Shoot.  Busted.

           
            Me:  Well, do you have any other questions?
            Kinley:  No, not really.  The nurse said we could talk to our parents about this.  Does Daddy really know about all this stuff?

            Me:  Yes, he does.

            Kinley:  Really?  How?

            Me:  Well, he probably had to watch movies about it, too.    And, he's been married to me             for a long time.  So if you have any questions, you can always ask him, too.

            Kinley:  Oh.

Who knew that after watching THE movie, the realization that her daddy is in the loop about female pubescence would be the most significant revelation of the day?  Well, at least she got through it without a barf bag.

Kinley Gains Perspective

Each morning in Room 17 at Mayflower Mill Elementary, I sit with my class in a circle for Morning Meeting.  I've been doing this with my classes for 10 years, and it really helps to build a sense of community within the classroom.  The idea was first presented to me by my mother-in-law who was teaching 5th grade at the time, and she had read about it in a book titled The Responsive Classroom.

I have four main goals with Morning Meeting: 
1)  to help the students get to know everyone, not just their best friends,
2)  to help the students learn to take care of each other so that they all feel good about being in the class,
3)  to allow the students to share experiences and ideas together, and
4)  to have fun together.

Each day we begin by going around the circle and greeting each other.  I've spent weeks teaching the children the proper way to shake hands (no limp fish, grasp the palm instead of the fingers, shake from your elbow not your shoulder, be firm but gentle, etc.), the importance of eye contact, and what to do if you forget a name.  These are all life skills that extend far beyond the confines of Room 17 (and, by the way, they're skills that not even all the adults I encounter have mastered).

After greeting, we then have time for five children per day to share something that's on their minds.  Often they share details about their weekends or the latest adventures of their pets.  But sometimes they share about the death of a grandparent or their concern about an upcoming event in their lives.  I've spent weeks teaching them the proper ways to respond, both to fun comments and to serious ones.

So when Kinley signed up to share recently, I wasn't surprised.  I was curious about what she was planning to share (surely she wouldn't reveal some embarrassing family tidbit!), but I decided to wait and see rather than call her up to my desk for a preview.

Since she hadn't been the first child to sign up to share, she had to listen to two other classmates share before it was her turn.  One child shared about how he had spent his weekend and another shared about winning a soccer game.  When Kinley's turn came, she had decided to tell her classmates that our family will be spending the summer of 2011 in London where Josh will be teaching in a Purdue-sponsored study-abroad program. 

All eyes turned to me.  This was interesting to me since my students are usually very good about remembering to give eye contact to the speaker.  But, admittedly, the speaker isn't usually the child of the teacher.  Rather than giving their full attention to Kinley or even raising their hands to ask her a question, they all wanted to see what I had to say on the subject.  I smiled and then asked, "Are there any questions for Kinley?"  After all, the rest of the students don't have their parents present at Morning Meeting to steal their moments in the spotlight.

Immediately, several hands popped up.  One student asked, "Will you get to see the Eiffel Tower?"  Kinley stared at the child for a beat, and then said with only slight snarkiness, "Well, the Eiffel Tower is in Paris, not London.  And besides, I've already seen it."

Another student asked, "How long are you going to be there?"  Yet another asked, "Is your whole family going?"  After the maximum three questions per speaker had been asked and answered, I called on the next child who had signed up to share.

This child said excitedly, "I'm going to Michigan this weekend!"  The children politely asked three questions and listened intently to the answers.  Morning Meeting ended, and we went about the rest of our learning day.

On the drive home that afternoon, Kinley appeared thoughtful.  After a few silent moments, she said, "You know what, Mom?  For some people, going to Michigan for the weekend is a really big deal."

I had no idea that she'd been processing this all day, and so it took me a moment to respond.  I thought about how Kinley had gotten her first passport before she was a year old and had been to Hawaii, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Malaysia before she was five.  She had lived in Italy instead of attending the second semester of kindergarten, had seen five continents, and had visited every Disney park in the world except for one (Tokyo Disneyland). 

But these trips, which to any other child would seem spectacular, were, to her, commonplace.  Routine.  Normal.  Suddenly, after one Morning Meeting, it was starting to become clear to her just how unusual her experiences were.  She wasn't feeling superior.  She wasn't looking down her nose at her classmate.  It was just that it was finally dawning on her that she was different.

I adjusted my rearview mirror so that I could see her in the back seat.  I said, "Yes, honey.  You're right.  Isn't that interesting?   You get to go on short weekend trips to Chicago and Nashville and other U.S. destinations all the time, but for some people, that's huge."

She looked pensive.  I could tell she was still processing.  I thought about asking her more questions but decided to let her think it through herself.  I readjusted the mirror and continued our drive.  She didn't say anything else, and I let it drop. 

No doubt this wouldn't be the last time in her life that she would notice a difference between her own life experiences and those of her peers.  Nor, I'm sure, will it be the last time that my daughter opens her mouth in my classroom and I have no idea what's going to come out.

Challenger and Challenges

Our class recently took a field trip to the Brownsburg Challenger Center in Brownsburg, Indiana.  This amazing facility leads school and civic groups in simulated space missions to develop teamwork and communication skills.  Before we go, the students learn about NASA missions (my step-father even comes in and talks about his years working for NASA on all of the Apollo missions), about the moon, and about the tragedy after which the center is named.  They learn about the jobs that will be avalaible to them on the mission and about the skills those jobs require.  Each child gets to work half of the day in the "Spacecraft" and half of the day in "Mission Control."  It's one of the top two learning experiences outside the classroom that my students have during their two years in my class, and I've been taking students there since my first year as the teacher of the Gifted and Talented class.

But I'd never done it as a parent of one of the participants before.

A few years ago when I took my class of 4th and 5th graders, one of my students was working alone in the clean room of the spacecraft.  This glass-enclosed room inside the spacecraft is where the students on the REMOTE team construct and "launch" a lunar probe.  Since the probe is sensitive, the REMOTE officers must wear protective gear and work in isolation from the rest of the class.  That particular year I had a very small class, and so one student was working on the probe in the clean room by herself.  She had a counterpart in Mission Control, and they were to communicate via headsets.  The problem began when the student in the clean room didn't notice the first direction on the flip chart:  "Put on your headset."  The poor girl wandered around inside the clean room aimlessly for 10 minutes wondering what to do next, eventually bursting into tears before Commander Krebs of the Challenger Center staff stepped in and reminded her to read her flip chart directions carefully.

Now, it was bad enough that the child was frustrated and that the other REM officer in Mission Control was trying fruitlessly to communicate with his Spacecraft counterpart over the headset.  But to make matters even worse, the parent of the child in the Spacecraft was standing outside the glass doors crying, too!  The poor mom was having a terrible time watching her frustrated, teary daughter, knowing that she couldn't intervene and come to her rescue.  I remember thinking, "Great day in the morning.  It's just a simulation!  Your kid is going to have to learn to be independent sometime!  Quit stepping in every time she has to think for herself!"

And now, several years later, here I was in a similar position.  Only this time, I'm the teacher as well as the parent.

Kinley was on the MEDICAL team and began her day in Mission Control.  I usually float back and forth during the day between the two rooms, observing my students and interacting with the parents who are watching from the back of the rooms.  But I had promised Kinley that I would hang out in the room where she was working.  When Commander Santner of the Challenger Center gave the instructions to, "Pick up your manuals and begin," Kinley sat there looking clueless.  She was looking around the room, checking out what everyone else was doing, and chewing her fingers (a habit she gets from her father).

I stared in disbelief.  "You've GOT to be kidding me," I thought.  "What is she DOING?  Why isn't she getting started?  Doesn't she realize that the MEDICAL team in the Spacecraft is waiting to receive instructions from her?  Didn't she hear the instructions from the Mission Commander?  Is she just going to sit there making me look bad all day???"

Half and hour before, when our class first arrived, Commander Santner had taken all of my 10 parent chaperones on a tour of the facility.  She had told them very specifically NOT to intervene during the mission, even if they saw the children struggling.  Learning to make decisions and take action while under stress is a valuable lesson, and at some point during the day, the kids would probably not know what to do.  But Commander Santner assured the parents that with communication and teamwork, the kids would be able to meet their goals and "Return to the Moon".

I knew this, so I knew I couldn't say anything to push Kinley in the right direction.  So I did the natural, logical thing and started sending mental vibes across the room.  "Pick up the manual.  Pick up the manual.  PICK UP THE STINKING MANUAL!!!"

Nothing.  Just more daydreaming and finger chewing.

So then I tried the "Teacher Proximity/Parent Evil Eye" combo.  Maybe if I stood near her and glared, she'd figure out that she needed to be taking this more seriously.

Instead, she smiled at me and waved wildly. 

Finally, Commander Santner noticed that the MEDICAL team wasn't yet illuminated on the mission status board, indicating that no action had yet been taken by the MED officer in Mission Control.  As she walked toward Kinley to help her get with the program, I decided I should probably spend the rest of the morning in the Spacecraft, far removed from my daughter's cluelessness.

In the end, Kinley finally instructed the MED team in the Spacecraft to begin scanning each officer's "radiation exposure badges" and then to begin "visual response tests."  She finished her shift in Mission Control and then got to work a shift in the Spacecraft (while I retreated to Mission Control). 

Our "Return to the Moon" ended in success.

But the next time I take my class, I'll have much more sympathy for the teary mom outside the clean room.

                                          Comander Santner intervenes after my "Vibe-Sending"
                                           and "Teacher Proximity/Parent Evil Eye" attempts fail.

                                          Kinley and her classmates enter the Spacecraft through
                                          the airlock.

                                          Commander Krebs helps Kinley figure out what she's
                                          supposed to be doing in the Spacecraft (and later gives
                                          me the you've-got-to-let-her-figure-it-out-on-her-own
                                          speech.)  I LOVE this woman!

                                          Kinley checks the COM officer's radiation exposure
                                          in the Spacecraft.

                                      The class debriefs after a successful "Return to the Moon."