In this age of computers, no one has time for more traditional skills. Need a signature? Sign electronically. Sheets of paper? No need. Go Paperless. All the while, the lost art of penmanship and hand-written manuscripts are going the way of the Edsel. How sad for a teacher that loves to teach penmanship and writing. Those skills are just not valued or considered necessary anymore.
Growing up, there was nothing as intoxicating as the smell and feel of real books. Opening a new book, I always put my nose between the pages and breathe in. Each book smells just a bit different and all have a feel you get to know as you spend time reading stories and gathering information. Pages in my Bible have the soft and delicate parchment feel, while my teaching manuals are so heavy I need to wonder why any book publisher felt the need to make them so. Some novels are so heavy, I prop them on pillows to read late into the night as the words carry me into another place and time. Words hold power like that.
My 1st graders don’t have current text books. Someone found it more prudent to use online programs and hands-on kits to teach Language Arts and Science. Needing and wanting a tangible book, I scoured the cast offs before school started and hit the jackpot. One more year, I can use a reading series appropriate for littles, even if it was printed in the early 200’s. The colorful pages full of stories and poems are enchanting. My students find them pretty interesting, too. I also scored Science and Social Studies books. My own private stash.
Yesterday, with dangerous levels of particulates in the air from the California fires, I spent one entire day with my class.
OY VEY.
By 1:15 pm, they were ready for a recess, so I showed an exercise video on the Promethean board. This is a large, television like screen covering part of my desert mural of six mustangs and local mountains. This screen does everything you could imagine. I can even write on it with my finger. It projects work from my desk onto the screen for the children to view and follow. It also projects my lap top images and videos. This exercise video was 7 minutes of high intensity exercises by a guy that was a cross of the Incredible Hulk and Superman.
While I sat in my chair trying to catch my breath for just a moment, my 19 kiddos did jumping jacks, push ups, and lunges. They never missed a step. It was a mass release of energy that I should have filmed. Outdoor recess is necessary for these kids. Yesterday, there was no fresh air for anyone in our desert home. Thank you, California fires.
Because our time together was extended by almost 1.5 hours, my plans lacked an activity for the last hour of the day. A grand day to break into the science books with a book for everyone. Brand new, although dated in the early 2000’s, it was apparent past teachers didn’t like science, or just didn’t have time. These books hadn’t seen much use.
There is so much to be learned by watching a class of 1st graders with new books. They stroked the paper, thick and rick. They looked at every picture of living things in the book. They had questions about the subject, Living and Non-Living Things. How rich and simple to hold a discussion with 6 year old’s about what makes something alive. One of those amazing and sweet moments I’ll take away as I journey back into the land of retirement.
The message was so pure and simple. Living things grow and change. Non-Living things do not. It was then I passed around my class roster with the sweetest kinder pictures of my littles. It was from this roster I first came to know them before school had even started. I looked at that roster many times a day while dreaming of all the fun we were to have over our year together. Looking at those pictures now, these children are certainly living organisms, because they’ve grown and changed. Some of the children could see and appreciate that, while others thought they looked exactly the same. What a moment salvaged from a day that ran out of work before the school minutes ended. Teachable moments are the best and not always written out on a lesson plan.
My littles are starting to write now. I did remind them that I am a real writer. I still feel I’m a fake when I say those words. A REAL writer. I still prefer the pencil and my daily journal, where ALL the stories of my life are jotted on blank pages. Dates, names, and all the juicy details are scrawled out in Number 2 graphite. Never to be copied or distributed on the web, they are just words that flow out of my fingers at the end of very long days. Yes, I’m a REAL writer loving written words as much as I love teaching them. For, we all know, writing IS life. A fifth grader once told me that.
Today, I begin the laborious task of administering THE TEST by computer. I’m not looking forward to it. Testing will take the entire day, covering Math and Language Arts. THE TEST is read aloud to the children. In the old day, that would have been my job. Now, it is just heard through headphones. I’m just the monkey in the room making sure the computers keep working. The old days were certainly more fun.
With pencils in my pocket and sunshine in my brain I’m off to the land of littles. It’s my last September 14th as Mrs. Hurt, 1st Grade teacher. The weather has changed to fall at last and with any luck at all, we’ll get recess today. Who knows, I just might sneak a swing under the desert sky if the smoke stays away.
Whatever you do today, consider journaling. Nothing to write about, you say? Then start out writing down three things for which you are grateful. And then, increase that by three more. The next day, do the same and write the “WHY” of your grateful nature on the pages. It just flows from there. In a year, you’ll be amazed as you look back at the journey. Writing has such healing powers. How far I have come since September 24, 2020. It’s all there for you to see. I kind of which some of it was in pencil.
More tomorrow.