The kids are back from special, and it’s our “chill out time.” Soft music plays, the lights are low and everyone does the quiet thing they need to do to get ready for the rest of the day. Some kids are coloring, some are reading, some are resting.

A 7 year old asks me if I want to learn how to make an origami Peter Pan hat he invented. He looks at me with wide expectant eyes.

“Yes. Yes of course I do.”

Yes is the only right answer.

He reaches for the closest paper from my table, a piece of purple from our poetry work. But, I ask him to use orange because every time copies come, there’s more orange paper stuck between the copy sets. We have a lot of orange paper.

He’s fine with orange, but I wonder if I should have offered green. It is Peter Pan, after all.

I have to concentrate to keep up with the directions, but I do it.

“Fold in half.
Fold in half again.
Fold three down in a triangle shape this way.
Fold the other piece down the other way.
Puff it out, and it’s a Peter Pan hat!”

We put our hats on our heads, and pose for a picture.

“What a cool hat you figured out!” I tell him.

He smiles, shakes his head. “The funny thing is, Ms. Gabriel, I just accidentally made this! I wasn’t even trying to make a Peter Pan origami hat!”

Across my table another student looks up and says, “That looks just like the origami boat I know how to make.”

The timer goes off, it’s been 5 minutes already, and now it’s time for math!

March Eve

This blank page will visit me every day next month
tomorrow
and I will remember what my students feel
when they stare at their blank page
so blank

Today we generated ideas for next week’s poetry
and one boy wrote
stuff
stuff
stuff
like he was an advertisement for a tired second-grader
resistant
not to writing but to directions

I wrote a terrible poem today with my class
but they liked it
with smiles and laughter
chatter chatter chatter
which just goes to show you
that the writer often doesn’t know
what the reader will like

In reading today, my student teacher asked
How do you feel when you read?
What emotions do books give you?
I watched as kids wrote the words
calm, happy, funny
I listened to one student say
That doesn’t make any sense, there are no emotions
inside
a book!
Which just goes to show you
that the reader often doesn’t know either

So tomorrow there won’t be school
Saturday
Saturday
Saturday
But I will still feel what my students feel when they
stare at
the
blank
page

and then,
then I will write
stuff

I can’t stop thinking about this comment I saw –
let it go, I know
but
This curriculum coach I don’t even know
wrote something I must be misunderstanding
in a facebook group I don’t even like
and like what
is
going
on
with teaching, right?
She said, and I quote,
“Our goal is…
not asking students to write
but showing them how.”
and now
I’d say I don’t have the words
but I actually have a lot of
words
for cowards
who don’t know what they are talking about
but tell people what to do
who let ships sink saying
they believe in something that isn’t true
who put kids last
last!
explaining how
their misguided data is skewed

On the other hand
I’m glad that the goal isn’t for students to write
that would be like, so,
like,
hard
to fit in
I’ve got worksheets to cover
Skills to
explain
calls for my kids to respond to
in unison
not to mention the grammar
and fill in the blanks
my days are packed, man
just like those
assessments

Don’t tell anyone that I um
secretly teach
kids who write poetry just when they speak
they make stories with blocks, legos, and play
run mini book making factories
throughout the day
my underground workshop is hard to
fit in
but it’s kinda my job
to keep teaching
even when
cowards on Facebook
spew official
advice
luckily it’s not really my job anymore
to pretend to be nice

We’ve been trying to practice transitioning from morning recess to writing with a little writing warm up.

Our notebooks are supposed to be on our desks before we even go out to recess, a pencil too.

“Or a pen!” My second-graders like to remind me every time I say the word pencil. Choices are important.

Today I asked them to write “In December, I am…” at the top of their page, and then to draw 3 things they are doing in December.

“I don’t know what I am in December.” Someone said to another teacher working with them later.

Me neither, buddy. Me neither.

But I drew my examples. I labeled them with captions:

In December I am reading books every day.
In December I am walking Finn in the freezing, freezing cold.
In December I am sitting, resting near the candlelight.

I thought to myself how funny it is that teaching writing is both telling the truth and lying at the same time.

In December I am reading books every day, yes. I am trying for at least a picture book a day this month at school. Plus, we are trying to finish Wild Robot. Two days in, and I’m doing great! 4 books already, and Wild Robot time too. But I haven’t sat on my couch and read a book for me in a very, very long time.

In December I am walking Finn in the freezing, freezing cold, yes. But not as much as I should. He’s antsy, I’m busy. It’s freezing, freezing cold out there.

In December I am sitting, resting near the candlelight. If you can call my artificial Christmas tree, pre-strung with LED lights, “candlelight.” But, I didn’t want to make my example about a specific holiday. Sometimes I do light a candle… but, do you count it as resting if you are working near the Christmas tree?

It’s storytelling time in second-grade. We are reading and writing imaginative stories, asking “What lessons can we learn from the characters in stories.”

Today I asked the kids what story they love.

“I don’t know what story specifically,” my favorite answer began, “I just know I love beautiful stories.”

Me too, buddy. Me too.

We warmed up in math with a problem to do on the number line. If I am 47 this month, and the other second-grade teacher is 26, what is the difference in our ages? I made the problem up, the number line work is solid. But it doesn’t mean I loved the answer.

“21!” They figured out.

“And that’s how old I am!” My student teacher said.

Tonight I made myself stop making my “What lessons can we learn from characters?” chart, and start packing up to go home. It was dark, late, my animals needed dinner, and I had not been successful drawing a stick figure squirrel character for the Snow Thief character’s lesson.

“The kids will do a much better job drawing the characters sketches,” I reminded myself. “Why was I taking that away from them anyway?”

I walked toward my classroom door, made sure I had everything I needed. I was ready to turn off all my little lamps with my remote. I’m so proud about remembering to do that every day.

I had to pause as I passed the Storyteller Fireplace. Our bear was sitting, waiting for tomorrow’s stories I guess.

“Goodnight Fireplace, goodnight bear.” I thought.

And then I wondered why I wasn’t stopping to take pictures of all the things in my classroom so I could go home and write a book called “Goodnight Classroom.”

Which I guess would make me the quiet old lady, whispering, “hush.”

If I’m the character in this story, I so hope there is a different lesson I might learn from my day.

Finally out to our second recess, the air chilly and the sun warm, I take a deep breath.

There’s no time to do all the things, and I find myself rushing through so much all day long.

Even though I know rushing doesn’t help.
Even though I know that slowing down is the only way to get more done.
Even though I know it doesn’t serve any of the students I serve.

We don’t need more binders of must dos or more scripts, I think. We need more pauses. The line between a perky pace and a frantic one is too small to measure already. The less we do each day, the better the day. And somehow, the more we learn. I know there is research about this, but I also see it every day.

Usually we live a few “If you give a mouse a cookie” books each day. They start with “If your teacher takes attendance one minute later than usual…” or maybe “If morning meeting starts 3 minutes late and you have to practice coming to the circle quietly a few times …”

Today we had an “If you are ready to start math 2 minutes late, you will have to talk about it. If you have to talk about it, you will start math 5 minutes late but your teacher will still want to have all the math, so you will be getting ready for recess 5 minutes late. If you are getting ready for recess 5 minutes late, some of your friends will hurry but others will not and you will be 10 minutes late to recess. If you are 10 minutes late to recess, you won’t have time to have all 15 minutes of recess.”

I’m not saying it is as fun of a story as the Mouse and the cookie.

I watch the kids outside, running and chasing and smiling in that chilly warm sun and turn around to one of my kids who is fixing her sweatshirt.

“I love recess because…” she says as she pulls her sweatshirt over her short sleeves, “because you can meet more of the kids and also because you can have fun!”

I like recess too.

We stay out for the whole 15 minutes.

I put the water on to boil.
I wonder.
Can I write a slice of life
before the water boils?

There’s a lot of typing and deleting.

I check the water, and the answer is no.

No, I cannot write
before the water boils.

I pour what’s left of a box of rotini in,
set the timer for 10 minutes.

How about now? Can I write?

I mean, what else would you need to know?

It’s after 7:00, and I’ve walked the dog.

I’ve put a handful of rotini into a small pot. One kid is at their father’s, the other is at work, and the oldest is away at college.

This morning around 6:00, I took the dog out and I thought, “maybe I’ll write quickly while I have my coffee.”

“Six words,” I thought. “I could do a six word slice.”

I brainstormed a sad six word story: “But when would she write, though?”

The answer is, 13 hours later.

In November, I will be co-presenting at NCTE, all about The Sometimes Secret Writing Lives of Teachers.

Currently my writing life is so secret, I can’t even find it.