Thursday, the second day of summer break: Hurray! Although puttering around the house probably doesn't deserve a blog entry, I will record the mundane but gratifying activites of the last few days. Yesterday, for instance, I started the Big Shredding Project. I'm embarrassed to say that I was simply incapable of grading each and every written task generated daily by 6 writing classses for an entire school year. Let's see, 180 students writing something every day, multiply that times 180 school days. . . you understand why I couldn't do it all. Yes, I graded more papers and projects than I care to remember, but many classroom tasks became, let's hope, only a learning experience for the students. (Heaven forbid that doing these activities would only be for learning!) Now, at last, I can get rid of those huge, intimidating stacks of papers throughout my office that look at me accusingly and seem to say, "How incompetent of you, that you can't read and evaluate all of us." They are Guilt personified. I am unbelievably happy to get them out of my sight once and for all. I wish I could just throw them in a trash bag, unshredded, but I worry that someone's mother works at the Sanitation Department and may see DeJuan's "guiding questions" on MacBeth or illustration of Grendel and contact the Supt. The roar of the shredder warms my heart.
In addition, I've been doing SAT's on-line, which I enjoy much more than my own students' work because 1) the SAT essays are anonymous, and I can assign a rubricked grade to each one and move on, 2) I don't have to write comments (and everyone knows that classroom teachers spend hours writing marginal comments to justify the grade, more than to instruct the student), and 3)many of the essays contain excellent critical thinking and give me "aha!" moments as I read, which is rewarding.
Cleaning up the house, little by little, has been a third task. I won't bore you with the details of that.
On Tuesday night, the night before the first day of vacation, I dreamed about Pete, our friend who died in April. It was one of those powerfully real dreams, very intense, and I felt the sorrow of the loss as though it had just happened. I was sobbing hard in the dream, feeling the pain. He was a dear friend. Now that school is over, my mind has deleted all the files of daily school-related garbage that cluttered it and created space to allow the important buried thoughts to revive and expand. Last night, Wednesday night, I dreamed that Liberto and I had gone out for dinner with David, our other friend who died a year ago. This dream wasn't as intense and ended strangely when the bedroom lights were turned on, as Liberto got up early to go to the gym before going to work.
Backtracking a little, on Monday and Tuesday, we had the last two Teacher Work days. Our assignment was to clean out the classrooms, move the desks into the halls, haul away any junk, and scrub all surfaces. Many teachers were complaining that this wasn't in their job description, that they'd back surgery, knee surgery, hip surgery, ligament surgery, all types of surgeries, and shouldn't be doing the heavy lifting. But no one was willing to put that in writing on group email. We had a check-off sheet of duties that had to be inspected and signed off on. (Add background song "You're in the Army now"). During the second of two working lunches, the principal said that next year, she is going to pay closer attention to teachers' attire, that many were not dressing professionally, and that she would start sending teachers home who weren't dressed right. Can you imagine? "Ms. Grundy, you have to go home now because your shirt is unacceptable." There's such a scarcity of subs that they usually can't find enough of them to cover classes most days. Where will they find more to cover dress-code-violating teachers?I'm pretty sure that's one area where I pass muster. While many of the teachers, especially the women, dress as though they're coming from the gym or the beach, I always look reasonably professional in a collared, long-sleeved shirt and tailored slacks in the winter, and a skirt and top in the spring. We're always ragging on the students and writing them up for being out of dress code, so perhaps she's right that teachers should set an example. Of course, maybe I'm too hasty in believing I dress well enough; she suggested we check the school website for confirmation. Naturally, it'll turn out that my appearance doesn't measure up.
This morning I was reading my favorite columnist Leonard Pitts. He discussed the decline of newspaper readership and the recent huge downsizings of major newspapers. The recession has played a part too, not just the decline of American literacy. He was suggesting that all newspapers should re-invent themselves rather than succumb, by creating web-based versions that supplant rather than supplement the hard copy versions of the paper. The on-line newspapers would all distinguish themselves by focusing almost entirely on local issues, everything from politics and schools to jobs, people, and real estate. Hmmmm...I'm one of the last remaining people on earth who like the old-fashioned, hard copy of the newspaper. It's easier to bring into bed with you or outside onto the patio. It's okay to spill coffee on it or have the cat walk across it while you're reading. Most important, it's easier on the eyes. And you know me, I love the internet; I'm not so elderly and old-fashioned that I can't get with this new-fangled technology. I just want the morning newspaper in its old-fashioned form.
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