The Bluebonnets have come and gone. Their seed pods are beginning to dry, preparing to spew seeds for another generation down the line. And the Indian Paintbrush have come and gone, too. At their peak, a dusty orange-pink lined my 30 mile drive to school, taking my breath away at the beginning of every day.
And now we have the annual onslaught of yellow.
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Keeping kids engaged in learning is hard, harder when the subject is math, and worse when so many of them lack fundamental skills. So you do what you can, and you smile when you stumble on something that works.
On this day, we had a block of time at the end of class for the kids to work on some independent practice problems. There would be an exit ticket that they would have to turn in (as evidence that they were doing something with the time they were given). And the block of time was generously long, because most of the students were in a different part of the building taking a standardized English test.
It was quiet in the classroom — blissfully quiet for this normally raucous period. We had just finished talking about greatest common factors, and now the kids were working the exit tickets.
Overheard from two students sitting at a table not too far away:…
“…what you do is pull out the GCF like this…”
He pointed to his paper. The two of them were bent over the table. Then the other one started to ask a question.
“But what’s this here?”
He paused momentarily and then said, “Ohhh.”
He picked up his pencil and began writing on his own paper. The first student continues with his. The two of them fell silent. Not long after that, I looked up, and I saw them comparing answers.
These exit tickets have been effective. Actually, they aren’t really exit tickets but rather smallish sets of problems — short enough not to feel like an assignment, long enough to keep them working, varied enough that they don’t have to slog thru one problem on end before they get to claim victory. And they get to work together in groups of their own choosing.
On a bad day, these groups can turn into loud, unfocused chit-chat sessions in which no one gets credit for the exit ticket, because no work got done. But on a good day, like this one, they actually do math and talk about it to each other. You got that? They talk about math to each other… well, on a good day they do.
This was one of those.
He stood at the whiteboard staring at the solutions I had taped there for all of them to consult as they wrestled with adding and subtracting rational expressions. He was leaning in a bit, focusing intently. Then he pulled up his head and turned.
“Ohhhh,” he said. “That’s how it works!”
He headed back to his seat, preparing to explain his discovery to his table partner.
“What did you find?” I asked as he walked by.
“You know how you don’t see it,” he asked, “and then you see it?”
“So you see it?” I asked.
“I see it,” he said.
First there are the Bluebonnets. Then come the Indian Paintbrush. Then, if it’s a good year, the Winecups start rising out of the greenery as yellow begins to spread across Central Texas.
Yellow. It starts with Texas Star. And then comes Indian Blanket. And then quickly in a cascading profusion of shapes and sizes, come the hoards of yellow composites.
This was the way of things on a morning last week: Englemann’s Daisy growing in front with the morning sun rising above the house just before we left for work.
Not a bad way to start the day.
“Mister,” she said from the back of the room, trying to get my attention above the hubbub of the five minutes between periods. “Mister!”
“Yes?” I said from where I was standing with my seating roster.
“I know how old you are, Mister.”
I stopped taking attendance.
“How old am I?”
“I found you on a white pages site,” she said. “You are sixty.”
I smiled and nodded. “I am sixty.”
They had finally outed me.
“Mister,” she said the next day as I was passing out papers.
“Yes?” I said.
“Did you work out when you were young?”
“What?” I walked toward her desk. “Did I work out!?”
“You don’t look sixty, Mister” she said. “You must have worked out when you were young.”
I started to say something about running. But the girl sitting next to her smiled a slight smile. She had a better theory.
“He must use some kind of creme!” she said. She could barely say it without laughing, which they all immediately did.
“Wear your black jeans, baby,” Trudy said from across the house, gently reminding me that we had to leave soon.
I clicked SEND to submit the final assignment of my alternative certification class and got up to change, uncharacteristically making no fuss about the fact that Trudy was wearing blue jeans yet had instructed me to dress otherwise.
“You look good in your black jeans,” she had said. How could I object?
We left late. Gregg and Kelley texted to let us know that they were there. Trudy texted back to confess that we were 14 minutes out. I hung my head in shame. You see, Gregg and Kelley are on time like clockwork, and we … well, we are not.
When we walked into the restaurant, Trudy told the greeter that we were meeting friends. They nodded and smiled, and we made our way to the back. I could see Gregg sitting at a table. We got closer, and I could see Kelley, too. I waved to catch their attention, but…
“There’s someone else there,” I said to Trudy.
She didn’t say anything. When walked onto the patio, I discovered why. The fair and industrious Trudy had pulled off a surprise party. I had been working on my assignment as she ran party errands all morning (after running a 5K race), and I had been oblivious to her machinations.
Laura and Carl were there. And Lou and Peg were there. They turned as we walked in with wide smiles on their faces. And soon, Range and Deepa arrived. And then Ronnie walked in, having just arrived from Houston. And then Zelda and Steve. And then Lisa. And then Della and Daniel. And later, as we were snacking on snacks and gorging on birthday cake (two of them!), Harish and Elizabeth called from out east.
A good time was had by all, but I must say, I got to enjoy it the most.
Thank you, baby!
Friday was a good day at school. How could it not be? It was my birthday, and although I’ve been coy with my students about my age, I let every period know that it was my birthday. And of course, because the teacher was in a good mood, the students were, too.
In fourth period, I asked a group of students how to say Happy Birthday in Spanish. Their eyes lit up, as they got their chance to teach the teacher.
“Feliz cumpleaños!” they told me.
I dutifully repeated back the phrase. And then I quietly added, “Today’s my birthday.”
Their eyes lit up. “Your birthday!?” they shouted so everyone in the room looked over. And one of them held up her finger and waved it in the air.
“One, two, three…” she said.
And all the students proceeded to sing me Happy Birthday.
It was the highlight of a good day.
There once was an old sailor my grandfather knew
Who had so many things which he wanted to do
That, whenever he thought it was time to begin,
He couldn’t because of the state he was in.
— A.A. Milne, The Old Sailor
Time to finish that final assignment on the day after an auspicious birthday, which was one excuse not to finish. Time to finish that last assignment, having returned from lunch with Bill, which was another excuse not to finish. Time to… Ok, let us not emulate the old sailor again…
—To Lorna, who (like many others) will know the book cover and the two hidden behind it.
Sitting in the sun on a bench with Mockingbirds singing up and down the street and all around the neighborhood and Izzy semi-slumbering in the dappled shade, her eyes contagiously sleepy, I keep turning around.
I turn to look down the street at the Chinkapin Oak (Quercus muehlenbergii) that I planted in Mary’s yard last spring. It’s a conservative tree, like the Pecan in Alex’s backyard, neither of them quite convinced that winter is finally done, both holding out for more time, unlike the Monterey Oak (Quercus polymorphs in Carol’s yard that I started from an acorn several years ago and planted just last weekend. That young oak has decided spring has sprung.
And then there are the new Burr Oaks (Quercus macrocarpa) that I collected last fall, the macrocarpal acorns bulging in both my sweater pockets as I came home from a walk. Two weeks ago, those Burr Oaks started pushing up sprouts from the mulch at the top of the milk cartons in which I planted them, and most of them now divided and transplanted into slightly bigger containers of various shapes and sizes. They have a lot of growing to do, those Burr Oaks do, and they are tough trees, so I suppose they figure there is no time to waste, no need to wait.
I turn around to look to Mary’s house, and I think these things.
The Mockingbirds and now singing Wrens and crying Bluejays and Cedar Waxwings squealing in the breeze, the dog, an intrepid butterfly, and the first yellow Texas Star are all convinced that winter is gone. The sun on my cheek makes it feel so. Perhaps the Pecan tree will relent tomorrow.
Tomorrow! I must stop this. Tomorrow I have a test. So I must leave the bench and the birds and the sun and the trees and go back inside to study.
Could it be?
Yes it could!
Something’s comin’ — something good.
Oh I can’t wait.
And it just so happens that I don’t have to wait, because Spring Break is here!
© jumpingfish by David Hasan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License