Students, Do This

 Our eighth grade teachers started the year with an email etiquette unit.  I have never been more thankful for their teaching than I was the other day.  Look at this beautiful email I received from a student:

It completely made my day.  You bet I forwarded it to the eighth grade teachers with my thanks.

Students, Don't Do This

I am teaching two electives this school year.  I am not happy about it, because hey, I'm a librarian.  However, I have made the situation be as good as it can be.  Lots of us are doing things we don't want to do during Coronatimes. 

It has been many years since I was a classroom teacher.  MANY.  I am not used to the grading, grading, grading grind.  

This is the timeline of recent interactions with a student.

Wednesday 9/16--discussion post assigned

Friday 9/18--discussion post due

Wednesday 9/16 to October 6--silence.  crickets. nothing.

Today, halleluiah! Student completes assignment:

Five hours later, 7:30 PM  the student emails me to let me know he has finished the assignment AND

WHERE IS HIS GRADE?!?!?!

OMG REALLY?!?!?! I am so not used to this.

My response to him, 14 minutes after his email to me:

Omgosh, I want to have a very candid discussion with this child about his expectations.  The petty side of me wants him to know that it will be done during school hours WHEN I HAVE TIME.  

Coronavirus Catch-up (pt. 2)

Sunday, March 1st was uneventful.  I worked on laundry and met via Facetime with a couple piano students.  March 2-6 was our spring bookfair, and I knew that would be a busy, busy week.  Luckily, we had Tuesday March 3 off for primary Election Day, and I knew I'd be able to catch up on sleep and house stuff that day.
It was a crazy-busy week back to school.  I arrived at work extra early Monday morning to finish setting up the bookfair and be ready to open when students arrived.  I didn't see many teachers that day, but we had a couple hundred students through the bookfair.  Wednesday through Friday weren't really different at school--busy with lots of students.  My principal saw me Wednesday morning and welcomed me back (he hadn't see me Monday); he joked about my bringing back the Coronavirus, and I jokingly said back to him, "I'd be the hero of this school if I got us a couple weeks off!" We had one snow day and a couple delays this winter, so a little break would be welcomed by staff and students.  How funny it was at the moment and how NOT funny it is now. The news from Italy continued to be dire, and people really started asking me about our trip and what it was like there.
Sunday morning, March 8, we got a phone call from my spouse's Board of Directors chair, who let us know a parent had questioned him why we didn't self-quarantine.  We knew nothing about self-quarantining, but quickly went on the CDC and Health Dept website to read the information there.  YES, we needed to self-quarantine.  Or did we? The guidelines were not clear.  I immediately texted and emailed my school administration, and over the next four hours, I was told to stay home indefinitely; come to school--it was fine; stay home for a day so they could sort it out; not problem, come to school.  The last thing I heard Sunday night was from the school nurse, who heard from her nurse manager that I was fine to come to work.  So I went to work.

The wording above is what is currently posted on the CDC website; it is not what it said on Sunday, March 8th. The Virginia Health Dept put out this notice on Sunday, March 8,  It "recommends" that we stay home for 14 days.  I absolutely would have felt devastated if I had been sick and didn't know it or passed the virus on to others.  Thank God that did not happen! By the grace of God that did not happen.  Everything was so cavalier that first week of March; we were not taking things seriously at all.
I went to work Monday morning, March 9th, still needing to pack up the bookfair and do the final deposit for the week. I was also rehearsing with the chorus for their assessments later that week.  About an hour into the school day, the nurse pulled me out of the chorus room and told me I had to go home until the end of my 14-day return period, which would be Saturday, March 14.  We immediately grabbed the closest administrator, who gave me one hour to finish out what I needed to do in my office and go home.  First, in tears, I had to tell the chorus teacher I couldn't be her accompanist, completely abandoning her the week of her assessments.  I called my spouse and told them the news and finished packing up my school life.  I drove home in tears and started my home confinement. 
At first, I was so embarrassed--I thought that if word got out it would look bad for my school and my district.  I didn't tell anyone for days, even though the school nurse said that everything was changing so quickly and that I did the right thing letting administration know as soon as I realized. But as these days went by, everything continued to change so quickly that my little self-quarantine was such a little particle.  Thankfully, I still felt healthy and had no symptoms.  My assistant principal and school nurse checked in by text every single day, which was comforting.
In my next post I'll write about that week of home-confinement and the news we were receiving from around the world.

Coronavirus Catch-up (pt. 1)

Unbelievable.  That's what the past few weeks have been.  I hope this blog survives the decades and can be useful to someone looking for information on this time in history.

On Feb 21, I flew to Rome, Italy for a week.  It was long-planned, and I used all my personal days plus an unpaid day of leave to go.  It was a great week! We had been to Rome before, so this visit, we got to do lots of less-touristy stuff.  Everything was amazing and awesome and so memorable.  Unfortunately, the COVID-19 virus had planted itself in northern Italy and was quickly escalating.  We had registered our visit with the American embassy in Italy and were regularly receiving email updates from the State Department.  I saw this graph (below) on March 11th and it is still astounding to me.

When we got to Italy, there were 17 cases, and when we left a week later, there were well over 800.  ONE WEEK.  A week later and there were 4,000 people infected.

While we were in Rome, people were cautious.  We saw lots of people with masks and using hand sanitizer.  It wasn't a busy time in Rome anyway, and the touristy places we went were busy but not anything like what you'd experience in the summer.  Coronavirus was definitely on people's minds, but we knew we were being careful and diligent with hand-washing, etc. And there weren't any cases in Rome then.

Towards mid-week, friends in the US emailed and texted to let us know that the news coming out of Italy was dire.  We assured them we were fine and taking precautions. On Feb. 26, we got an update that Italy remained at Level 2, and no travel bans were in effect.

Then we got a more seriously worded email from the embassy, discouraging travel to the entire country, whereas before, it was only the northern regions.  Our last day in Rome, Friday the 28th of February, we got an email that the threat level was raised to Level 3, meaning avoid non-essential travel.  

We were leaving the next morning, Saturday, Feb 29, and really, nothing in Rome had changed at all. The CDC, though, raised the threat level to Level 4, and the warnings made my heart race a bit.

We were glad we were leaving that day.  As we were checking out of the hotel, the desk clerks told us to tell people in the US that everything was fine in Rome, that they didn't need to cancel reservations.  Looking back, this just makes me shake my head.  They (just like us now) had no idea what was to come.

We heard from lots of family members and friends who were getting all the bad news about Italy and worried about us.  We got on our flight from Rome to Atlanta and had no trouble at all.  Landing in Atlanta, we saw warnings about Ebola as we passed through customs and passport control.  There was nothing at all about Italy or Coronavirus.  We did get asked if we'd been to China in the past 14 days. Then we flew from Atlanta to DC and were asked no questions. We commented to each other several times how there was no screening whatsoever for symptoms of Coronavirus. (Since I'm writing this two weeks after returning, I can say that as of yesterday, many passengers still were not being screened as they came into the US.)

Cover Art

I process a lot of books.  I read a lot of books.  Things stick in my head.  So when I found the third book this year that looked alike, I had to stop.  Cover artists... WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? 

Not surprisingly...

Got this email from a vendor today:

Not surprisingly, I'm not going to be calling you.

Happy, happy summer!

A couple of things have happened in the last two weeks that have made me smile--school stuff, which I try to take a little break from during the summer, but not really.  I'm always thinking about stuff for next year.  Who am I kidding!?

First, we have a Teachers Are Reading bookclub, and I changed the format of it this year, and a bunch of new people signed up.  One of them is our PE teacher.  She just finished Ghost by Jason Reynolds, and I got this message from her on Facebook:

It just makes my heart sing to get a message like this. I keep envisioning all the ways this teacher will be able to connect with her students about this and other books.  YES!

And then on Monday, we had our first day of summer school, and our chorus teacher (who recently got her admin certification) is the administrator.  She is starting off every day with the students before they go to their math/English/coding lessons.  And she asked about a book to read aloud to the kids, and I suggested two from our statewide readers' choice award list.  After school Monday, I got this message from her:

She was a little nervous about reading aloud to middle schoolers, but I assured her they would love it.  AND THEY DID!  YES again!

Reason #812 Why I Love Middle Schoolers

Today is our library assistant's birthday, so we have a banner up and are celebrating low-key.  A group of eighth grade boys who comes in every few days to get a lollipop from her just came in and I told one of them it was her birthday.  He quickly gathered his friends together and started singing Happy Birthday.

One of them was like, "Dude, it's a library!"

And they finished the song in whisper voices.

Should I report this?

The past two weeks of school have been busy with library orientation for all grades.  Seventh and eighth graders noticed the,  changes in the library that happened over the summer right away so that was fun.  And of course, the sixth graders were completely overwhelmed with the transition to middle school.
When I talked to them about the books they'd encounter in middle school, I said that they might encounter books with curse words in them.  AND books with ROMANCE!  (Insert groans and eye rolling here.) And I let the kids know that if anything made them uncomfortable, they should just return the book and choose something else.
One little girl asked me if she should report those things to me.  Alarmed, I said, "NO! I'm reporting it to you right now! Don't report it to anybody!" Gotta love those sixth graders . . .

National Book Festival 2017

This year was my second year attending the NBF at the Washington Convention Center.  When it moved locations, I was disappointed to hear that it wouldn't be held on the national lawn anymore, so I boycotted for a year. But I have to say, last Saturday was an UGLY day in DC--humid and rainy all day.  It was a pleasure to be inside, getting to meet authors and seeing friends as we waited in lines snaking around the convention center.

I stuck with middle grades authors, while my sister and nephew transversed children's authors up to YA. Here are the highlights of the day:

The ride to DC was miserable.

Meg Medina signing her Yacqui Delgado book for me.

Melissa de la Cruz signing Alex and Eliza for my niece.

Jack Gantos using a fancy Montblanc fountain pen to sign books.

Kelly Barnhill, author of thisyear's Newbery Award winner.

One of my favorite authors, Nicola Yoon.

My sister took and tweeted this photo of Angie Thomas, and the LOC retweeted it!

Condoleezza Rice passing by with her entourage.

My sister got this pic of Jesmyn Ward, who is more YA than MG.

My nephew with Lincoln Peirce (pronounced Purse!).

A special student

It's just not right that I haven't blogged in so long.  Everything has been good, and I get caught up in the day-to-day things and forget to reflect on it all.

Our school district created its own Battle of the Books program for middle schoolers, and most of the winter months were spent preparing for the competition day.  Interested students met weekly with me during lunch, where we'd discuss the books, do practice questions, make lists of key words, etc. It was a fun part of the day for me.  We started with dozens of kids at the sixth grade level, a nice handful at seventh, and a few at eighth.  The good news is that most of them stuck with it until it was time to pick a team, which made it pretty difficult!

One of our seventh graders (one of my favorites-shhhhh!) has such a great sense of humor.  She routinely cracks us up.  During her sixth grade year, I was obsessed with the baby eagles that had been born in Washington, D.C., and I would live stream the eagle cam during lunches.  As the babies grew, we would watch them eat and well, sometimes, poop.  If you have never seen an eagle poop, I highly recommend trying to catch it. The eaglets lifted up their behinds and would shoot poop out of the nest.  We were able to see it a couple of times, and well, you know middle schoolers--we loved it.  Right then this student decided that our unofficial team name would be the "Pooping Eaglets."

This year, one of our books mentioned a band named "The Mystery Pissers" and this, of course, became our unofficial name, thanks to this same student.  What a delight she is! When I mentioned this in a note to the student on the back of a photo, she said, "Now I'll never be able to show this to my mom!  She doesn't get my humor!"

Last year, as a sixth graders, this student posed for pictures with the team, and as I pulled out my phone to take their pictures, she immediately threw herself on me, yelling "selfie!"  This year, our group picture featured her free-falling to the floor just as I snapped the photo.

I wish I could show the whole photo--every one of the other students were looking at the camera.  Her timing was perfect!

Getting Ready for an Author Visit!

In a few weeks, middle grades author Alan Gratz will spend a week in my district, visiting five different schools.  He will be with us on Thursday, October 20, and our whole school is getting ready for him!

Most of the teachers are reading either part of one of his books or the whole thing, which is so awesome.  Prisoner B-3087 was a favorite of our sixth and seventh graders last year, so many of them are already familiar with his work.

A few of the teachers said they didn't have time (or the inclination, sigh...) to do a read-aloud, so I offered to do a "quick and dirty" author visit preparation class for their students.  I think it's gone pretty well so far--tomorrow I'll be doing it with eighth graders, who are the true test!

I start the class off by booktalking Prisoner B and Code of Honor, and briefly mentioning The Brooklyn Nine and the League of Seven series.  Then we watch a quick YouTube video that Alan posted of his office at home.  He specifically mentions that he'll be seeing the kids soon a couple of times, so it's a great intro to him.

After that, I introduce the stations I've designed for the kids to get to know him, his books, and his website.

Station 1: Prisoner B readers' theatre

Station 2: Code of Honor readers' theatre

Station 3: League of Seven interview (segment)

Station 7: I Have/Who Has question game

Stations 4-6

• Station 1: Prisoner B-3087 readers' theatre (six characters)
• Station 2: Code of Honor readers' theatre (four characters)
• Station 3: League of Seven/steampunk info--author interview segment
• Station 4: Alan Gratz biography--website scavenger hunt and number game
• Station 5: Alan Gratz's first six books--website scavenger hunt and word search
• Station 6: AlanGratz's newest six books--website scavenger hunt and word search
• Station 7: Author Biography (from website)--I Have/Who Has questions
• Station 8: Listening station--Prisoner B on audible.com (segment)

The students have free choice of which stations they'd like to do, the only restriction being that they can't do the two word searches right in a row.  The kids are dying to check out his books after each class, so I take that as a great sign that our visit will be successful! 

I hope to run my creation by Alan when he's with us, and if I get permission, I will make it available on TpT for free.  Or you can contact me here and I'm happy to share.

Checkout Desk Upgrade

Beginning my third year in the middle school, just about everything is cleaned out and organized just the way we need it, so I've turned my attention to some of the things I don't usually notice.

The school banner strung up with paperclips and a brass rod?  Still hanging, but in a better spot with a much nicer looking set up.  Did that really take me three years to even notice?!

I saw an idea on Pinterest a few months ago and put it into motion last week.  I had a full day of no classes (shhhh!!!!) so this was a great project and it has an immediate "Wow!" factor whenever someone enters the library.

Thanks to my scrapbooking tool the Silhouette Cameo, I was able to cut out the letters for all these words.  I spent a lot of time just playing with fonts, sizes, and colors.  I only wish I had a "before" picture--I always forget to do that! The before was a plain wooden checkout desk that was totally blah.  I used black bulletin board paper for the background and either cardstock or regular copy paper for the letters.

It's mostly been adults who have noticed the change, or at least commented on it.  I'd like to think that the kids notice, too; they just don't say anything (typical middle schoolers!).

National Book Festival 2016

After the book festival moved indoors, I took a couple years off.  I just couldn't believe that it would be as good as when it was held on the National Mall.  What can I say...I was wrong! There is definitely something to be said for air conditioning, indoor bathrooms, tables and chairs, real food, and no weather worries.

Getting to the book festival, I felt like such a grown-up.  I took the train from my town to Union Station, got on the connector bus from there to the Convention Center, and took an Uber (my first!) from the Festival to a friend's house where we were having bookclub that night.

First of all, that convention center is HUGE! Somewhere there is an auditorium that holds 2,500, because that's where Stephen King spoke.  I didn't have a ticket to that event, so I didn't even look for it.  But it's there somewhere, as are lots of other rooms where authors spoke.

As usual, my focus was the author signing area, which was in the basement of the convention center.  Have I said yet how huge that place is?! There were 20+ lines for authors, and there was still plenty of room everywhere.

Here were some of my favorite moments:

My nephew poses with two books with similar titles. I met both authors!

Edwidge Danticat, author of Untwine.

Ali Benjamin, author of The Thing about Jellyfish

My nephew with Kwame Alexander.

My new favorite, Jason Reynolds.

Extreme close-up of Jason Reynolds.

me with Shannon Hale.

Raina Telgemeier, graphic novelist, signed over 1,800 books in 70 minutes!

Pam Munoz Ryan, author of Echo.

Mid-summer check in

I cannot believe how quickly July is flying by.  Here we are with only a week left this month. Things have been going well--the TV has remained off during the day, and I have been taking breakfast on the patio each morning.  Well, except for one day... there was an unwelcome visitor on the back steps:

This snake, which was incredibly long--slithered himself across the back porch, down the side, and back under the stairs.  He (she?) is a black rat snake, which is the "good kind of snake to have," they tell me.  Cosmo (the dog) went outside ahead of me, and when I stepped onto the porch, he was not even a foot away from the snake, very curious about this new-to-him creature. The snake wasn't aggressive, and I lured Cosmo away with a treat.

My niece and nephew stayed with us this past week, and we had a super time.  My nephew went to soccer camp all day for five days (who wants to play soccer for 7 hours a day!?!?!), while my niece and I had a sewing camp.  I taught her how to use her machine and to follow a pattern, She made a few items and we had a fun week.

Summer Routines

Summer for me started two days ago, and I wanted to get off on the right foot.  My dog and I went for a nice walk first thing in the morning, then I sat down to my usual breakfast (yogurt and granola) plus a couple leftover muffins.

I decided that I will take breakfast outside every morning that I can, enjoying the flowers and birds and morning breezes.  This was a great way to begin the day.  Of course, the second day of vacation, it rained, and I had to eat breakfast inside.  But my dog and I got our walk in just before the shower came through.

My second "summer resolution" is that the TV will stay off between 9 am and 5 pm.  I don't need to know what Kelly Ripa is up to every day, and Hoda and Kathie Lee will be fine without me.  Already I am more productive.  Today I transplanted a spider plant, yesterday I made two banana breads... so this is definitely a good thing.  And it will give me more time to read, which is something I need to keep up with in the summer, as our middle school librarians' committee is busy picking books for our upcoming Cafe Book Program.  There is a ton of reading that goes into this program, so having quiet time away from the computer and TV is a must.

I made a To-Do list of things I want to accomplish this summer, and since we're not really traveling much, it's the perfect summer to accomplish stuff that I don't have time for during the school year.  I have fabric to make curtains for the basement, and an idea to make an over-the-door flag holder for our outside flags, and several other projects.  I am a list person, and I love crossing things off!

And there's also time for this in the summer--flowers! My patio containers are doing great, and the marigolds I planted rescued just in time are finally looking healthy.  On the side of the house I don't really visit a lot is this beautiful hydrangea, and I make sure I take a look at it every day in the summer--so gorgeous!!

GAFE--I'm all in

Image source: http://www.gafeinaction.com.au/

When I first heard the acronym GAFE (Google Apps for Education), I felt a little turned off.  After all, a GAFFE is a mistake or blunder.  Why would we want something named that?!?! But now that I'm more familiar with all the wonderful educational uses of Google tools, I'm not so bothered by it. What else could we call it?

• Teachers Discovering Google Apps (TeDiGoAp)
• Google Simplifies Teachers' Lives (GSTL)
• Students Love Google (SLG)
• Google Dynasty (GoD)
• Google Tools Take Over Education (GoToTOE) -- this one's my favorite!

None of these are any good! I guess we'll stick with GAFE.  I have to admit it--I usually have feelings of disdain when thinking of big companies taking over our lives.  Think Disney and Times Square... Monsanto and farming...  Pearson and testing... and initially I may have felt this way about Google.  But the truth is, the things that Google is designing for teachers and students have changed my life! And in a good way.  I am in, Google Dynasty (GoD), I am all in.

Anyway, none of this really answers the question posed to us for class this week.  Since this is an established blog of 13 years (!), I have a pretty good idea that I use it as an online journal.  When funny things happen (which is what most of the posts are about) or when terrible things happen (like when I left my old job for my new one), I want to remember them.  I'm pretty amazed when I look back posts from long ago and remember all the details because they've been written down.

So many times as teachers, we tell funny stories about our students and say to each other, "We should write this stuff down!" or "We should write a book!" That's what my blog is--a remembrance of those important events that have made us laugh or cry.

My next post will be about seventh graders laughing at me today because I called a MacBook a MacIntosh.  Literally--they giggled to each other and looked at me and laughed! I had to inform them that the first computer I used was a MacIntosh, and that's what they used to be called! Boy, do I sound old.  :(

Emo?

This is a new word to me.  It's a Middle School thing, I suppose.

Here's the definition from Urban Dictionary:

Genre of softcore punk music that integrates unenthusiastic melodramatic 17 year olds who don't smile, high pitched overwrought lyrics and inaudible guitar riffs with tight wool sweaters, tighter jeans, itchy scarfs (even in the summer), ripped chucks with favorite bands signature, black square rimmed glasses, and ebony greasy unwashed hair that is required to cover at least 3/5 ths of the face at an angle.

Here's a student who actually let me take her picture next to a not-so-random magazine in our library...
I tried to protect her identity by blurring out her facial features.  But really, how great are Middle Schoolers?!?!

Spring is here!

There is a lovely Memorial Garden outside the library.  Every afternoon when I leave school, I take a short walk around and look at all the pretty perennials that others worked so hard to cultivate.  All I do is trim the weeds and cut back dead stuff after it blooms.  The garden is just lovely, and one of the paras walked me through it last year to tell me about some of the flowers that were planted in memory of staff members who had died, and some plants in honor of other staff members.  I told her that we needed to make a map of all the plants and what their significance was--we should do that before those memories fade.

I love the mixture of colors!

Clematis

Iris

Iris close-up

We have a whole row of these, but I don't know what they are called.