breath as she stormed out of the lunchroom.
The lunchroom is a difficult place for Jen. She
desperately wants to be like everyone else, but
if everything is not clean and orderly, she won’t
sit down. Sometimes she gets frustrated and
angry like she did on Monday.
On Tuesday, as my lunch stayed cold in the
staff fridge, Jen and I worked on solving the
problem of where to put her lunchbox after
lunch was over so it did not get contaminated
with germs. Jen has many worries.
“What about in the lunch bins with the other
kids’ lunchboxes?” I inquired.
“Gross!”
“What about on the floor next to the bins?”
She squinched up her face and looked at me as
if I were crazy. That wouldn’t work. Didn’t I get
that the floor was unacceptable?
Finally, I found a place where she could hang
her lunchbox. We had a plan. Jen ate her lunch
and went to recess with the other kids. I gulped
down mine as the 35-minute lunch period
ticked away.
What do I teach? I teach problem solving.
Last Tuesday, my students were working
on personal narratives that I hoped would
turn into memoir. It was one of their first
efforts. I had mostly focused on stamina and
organization, so their stories were not focused
on craft yet.
Tuesday was a crafting day. “Paint a picture for
me. Show me your setting. Use sensory images
as you write.” The room filled with glazed-over
eyes and the look of boredom. I was failing.
“Can you smell it, see it, taste it, hear it, feel
it?” A few eyes lit up. With hushed excitement
I said, “Come here,” as if it were totally urgent.
My students gathered on the carpet. I projected
a page from Cynthia Rylant’s amazing memoir
When I Was Young in the Mountains, which I
had read aloud a few days earlier. I pointed to
the line “Mr. and Mrs. Crawford looked alike
and always smelled of sweet milk.”
“See that line? That is a sensory image. That is
what you can add to your writing today.” Heads
nodded. I could sense that I almost had them.
Finally, I said, “Close your eyes for a minute.
Sense the classroom. What can your feel? What
can you smell? Can you taste anything?”
Hands popped up around the room. They
shared some of their senses right then. “Great!
Keep those images in your brain. Sense it, feel
it, know it. This is how I want you to write
today. Add a sensory image to your work. Bring
your reader into your story. Quickly, tiptoe
back to your seat and get started.” The sound of
quiet feet, notebooks opening, pencils writing.
What do I teach? I teach people to
experience their world and share their
experience with others.
Last Tuesday, I was going to teach about
geography and map reading. I was going to
teach about the compass rose, the map legend,
the scale of a map and other conventions.
I didn’t. As we explored the symbols on the
map and looked for capitals, highways, rivers,
and mountains, we discovered the symbol
for “desert.” The map showed us that Tucson
is right in the middle of a desert. Kids were
curious. “How can a city of that size be in the
middle of all the desert?” Charlene asked.
“I don’t know,” was my honest reply. “What
do you think it is like there?” Voices echoed
throughout the room.
“Hot.”
“Dry.”
“Sandy.”
Teacher of the Year biographies: bit.ly/2015ToY
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