Today whirled by. I'm regularly smacked in the face with how long administrative tasks take me. I spent all day scoring the writing papers. They're supposed to take less than 10 minutes a piece, but that's for people who've been at this type of thing for twenty years. I was scoring conventions, content and form for 65 essays. I'm at the point where I have to look at an essay three times. It's easy to grade the really fantastic and the truly craptastic. The shades are gray are where it gets tricky. And, I probably graded harshly. Then, there was making the folders, filling out each form, and posting the grades in the state-wide network. Good times. I celebrated entering the last score by vacuuming. That's excitement, folks.
But, I did learn some things I want to target in my writing lessons. Few tackled the why and so what aspect of their solution. They are firmly grounded in the what and how. I'm reading a book about teaching complex thinking (that's the PC way of saying "higher-level thinking skills"-- you don't want to insult "knowledge" with calling "evaluation" better). Metacognition fascinates me, and I need to figure out how to get my kids to think. Most of them get agitated if a problem can't be solved instantaneously... if the answer isn't a direct quote from a book. I frustrate some of my kids. Of course, abstract thinking becomes possible around 11 years old, and most of my students are 12 and 13. I need to give them a break; they're new to this.
I'm loving what I'm teaching right now. It's fun and engaging. Yet, there's still a region of my soul that's panicky and weepy, nagging me with the question, "is this it?' So, I read, I pray, I write, I run. I think the ache stems from self-centeredness but something more fundamental too. We are made in the image of God; that's weighty, powerful stuff. And, here I am learning how to sew and engage 30 7th graders for 90 minute blocks. It's as if I'm geared to focus on the mundanity rather than the glory. "The world/ is a holy vision, had we clarity/ to see it-- a clarity that men/ depend on men to make" (Wendell Berry). It takes art and friends for me to renew the awe of the holy vision that rests in the routine moments.
All this rooting around in existential angst to say, I need to manufacture some adventure in my boring life. There's nothing wrong with the quotidian, but one can still drown in it. So, I'm planning my spring break (Washington, DC, I think) and my half marathon (edge to edge on Vancouver Island). The picture at the top is from my last visit to Tofino. I'm considering these two adventures my 30th birthday parties. One's a month before and one's a month after. Perfect parties. Since I have so few friends in this neck of the woods, the mountain will move to Mohammed.
My sister, a big fan of mental and physical toughness, never allows me to wallow for long. She asks me my plan and goals. So, ha, I beat you to your punch... kind of. On New Year's, she told me that I needed to start planning my birthday fete. These extravaganzas might even be big enough to impress her. Ha.
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