Everything I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten

(I can post no pictures of students until I get permission)

I spent the entire day with my daughter and her kindergarten class. The fact that I made it the full day must have shocked the principal who said I would be running out of there at 9:30 when I arrived at 8:20.

I had four different outfits I could wear and three different pair of shoes. I had my pink shoes and pink pullover for in the pink Monday. I had my amazing living color scientist lab coat. I would wear it when I did the alka rockets. Under my coat and tie and dress slacks I had my super B shirt and tights and my orange tennis shoes and flashing wand to surprise them with the super hero after lunch.
Instead of dazzling them, they dazzled me. I never got out of my first outfit.

I had several activities planned. All kinds of things with numbers - I spent an hour the night before punching circles in four different colors. I brought a leaf blower with which I could unroll a tissue roll over them. Then they would have to collect as many squares as was their class number. Then they would add numbers together and then decompose them. I had ooblek they could mix and squeeze in their hands. I had alka rockets they could cut out and construct. By the end of the day I only got to the alka rockets. They and Mary kept me busy doing other things.

I had my management plan. I had students pass out three stars (from my star maker hole punch). They were to keep them and others they earned until the end of the day. If they did not follow procedure a star would be taken. If two were taken they had to sit out that activity. If all stars were taken they would go to the principal's office. It was a great idea but the little hands could not keep up with the little stars.

In short very little I had planned worked or even got a chance to work. Some would see that as a dismal failure. Some would say her class was horrible and did not let the teacher(s) teach.  Au contraire.

In only one day I learned the names and personalities of twenty-one students. Yes they moved around a lot. Yes they were squirmy in their seats. Yes they were a little too talkative at times. Yes they did not hang on every word of hers or mine. Yes they did not follow every instruction the first time.

But they were basically very concerned about learning and trying to do what they needed to be successful. They did not hit each other. They did not throw things. They did not try to destroy property. All that was on the floor at the end of day was some paper and a few crayons - no blood.

During the day, they listened to a story from Ms. Banks; they wrote in their journals to the prompt I am thank you for ________. They worked in centers with four ipads (three that my mom, Pat Banks, gave in dad's memory and with her love, one from my brother, David Banks, and ipad covers from Dr. Scott Nelson in Cleveland, MS where Mary grew up). They worked on work puzzles and stories in all kinds of learning centers around the room.

I asked students to draw what they thought a rocket looked like.

And to top it off we launched alka rockets at the end of the day. They chanted pour, pour, pour as I put in the water, drop, drop, drop as I put in the half alka seltzer tablet, seal, seal, seal, as I snapped on the film canister lid, and count, count, count as they counted off the time to launch.


Mary will learn how to be an even more effective classroom teacher and classroom manager. Some of this she will learn from seasoned veterans. Most of this she will learn from her 21 (started with 24) students who need someone to show them they care about them as people and as learners. I will forever have those little faces and big hearts on my mind.

Thank you, Ms. Banks and class, for letting me spend a day in kindergarten.





 

Undercover Giants

This is my friend. She is one of the janitors at school and is one of the few people greet my Happy Mondays with a smile. When I miss a day for a professional development, she is the first to tell me that she missed me. She is one of the undercover giants in my life. Quietly and meekly she does her job with pride and no complaint and helps make my day with her glad to be her attitude. She told me that she listened outside my classroom and wished I was her teacher. 

                                                   Here are some other undercover giants.

These guys quickly volunteered to bring the fish tank (with 10 fish swimming around in it) to my classroom world. Methodically and carefully without loosing a drop of water they walked in synchronicity across the parking lot up a small rise through three sets of doors and placed it at its happy home.

Another giant who helped me organize my supply closet, offered prayers of caring during a very difficult school year last year, and replies to my day Happy Day with enthusiasm.

Gandalf the wizard lizard, named by my students after a nomination and vote process. He greets me each day and fits in well with my diverse classroom community.

Two students last year who drop by to help me find my desktop and who share a smile.

Two of the first students of 100 to finish the drawing and folding of a DNA polymer.

One of my undercover giants who quietly helps another student with their work after she finished first.

If your were on offense on the opposing team, these are the two outside linebackers you would face. I taught both of them and they recruited their teammates to help unload my truck from two MSTA presentations. This was after football practice at 5:00!

 And just yesterday this student came in my last block and gave a complete makeover to my desktop and drawers.

And this former student who brought her dad's van der graff last year brought it again this year (on three hours notice) so the new classes could enjoy.

Each day I wonder how I might also be an undercover giant for my students. They set the bar high.

The Rajun Cajuns Welcomed Me With Open Hearts and Minds

           

People that know me best say I have never met a stranger. Never was it more true than in the Cajun Prairie of Louisiana last week – Wednesday night to Saturday.

In an earlier post I was elated to get an invitation to come and be Super B to help motivate teachers. It was not until I was making the four-hour drive after school on Wednesday that I started being concerned. Would it really be possible for me a veteran of 25 years from eight different schools in two states to motivate the deeply rooted Cajuns?

I was even more unsettled when I met my host, Jackie, upon arrival. She immediately began to show me all the shelf space in her house dedicated to her mother and father and seven siblings. And each room had at least three to four paintings by her grandmother. Here I am a sojourner for a blink of time in every place I have been, and I have been asked to help them get over anxiety about the new evaluation instrument – Value Added Model (VAM).

When we left toward Morse Elementary where a three-hour professional development for three schools, Morse, Elliston and Mermentau Elementary would take place, I had all of my Super B clothes in disguise like Clark Kent. I had my accessories – orange boots and orange gloves and goggles packed in a bag that I stashed in the bathroom for a quick change. And as I looked to get my signature neon orange, strobe light wand, I suddenly realized we had left it back at the “bed and breakfast.”

I set my best MacGyver brain into gear. I asked the host assistant principal if there were any pvc pipe around and we looked and found two pieces that we connected. Then I asked for some orange duck tape. He found a very little and some black. I was set. After Jackie introduced me I was to exit to the bathroom and had five minutes to get ready to make my debut. She said she would summon a super hero to rescue the damsels in distress. Frantically I was taping my new magic wand. I put a little orange on top to look like fire and I taped all six feet on the pole in black. Just as I heard her summoning the super hero, I finished.

This is what I did.

It was hoot afterward as the teachers stood in line to get a picture with me to put in their classroom so they would always have a superhero at the ready.

I needed not to worry for I have never met a stranger nor a place where I could not shine a little light.

Afterwards, I got the native Jackie tour of the Cajun prairie to include:

·      the little houses around the graves

·      the diminished prairie from 2.4 million acres in the 1800s to only about 10,000 now

·      the wonderful eateries and other interesting places and relatives by blood and by roots

The little light I might have shown and the slight relief of the damsels in distress I might have offered were greatly outshone by the light and passion they rekindled in me.

There is nothing like being a teacher and lifelong sojourner and learner. I never know what I might learn next or whom I might meet or what place might yet inspire me.

            The red wolves or bisons or whooping cranes or prairie chickens may never return to the Cajun Prairie again but I hope I do.

Take Nothing for Granted

I am in a good place in my life now. As a colleague said, it is our time. That is those of us who get out of the box. One principal, like most others, did not know what to do with me. He gave me a great compliment in a faculty meeting when he said, "Mr. Banks does not just get out of the box, he blows the box up!"

Now I am like Farrugut, "Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!" Let us turn those classroom boxes into bridges to the larger world!

Here are two of my latest attempts to get out of the box of the classroom and into others and the larger community.

(Thanks to my good friend and colleague, Jackie Hanisee, for the namage)

Grant One to the Madison County Junior Auxiallary: PORTAL (Pushing our Reach Through Alka-Rocket Launch)

Grant Two to MAST (Mississippi Academy for Mathematics and Science): Take Me To Your Liter

Comments are welcome though use words not a shotgun. Thank you.

Pushing the Limits of STEM via Rocketry

This is a rough draft of a grant proposal I am working on for Vernier. Send comments.
 
S.T.R.E.A.M.(Science Technology Rhetoric Engineering Arts and Math)

Plan: Take one simple technology of a film canister and cardstock and cardboard and go through the steps of STREAM

Warm-up: Drama Circles (attachment)

Experiment: Design and launch an alka rocket to reach its maximum height.

Inquiry questions:

Before launch:

1. What makes  rockets soar?

2. How were rockets used from ancient times to the present?

3. What are some stories or books or movies about rockets?

4. What are some songs or paintings about rockets?

5. What are other ways historically and in the present where people have pushed the limits?

6. When have you pushed the limits in your life professionally or personally? What were the results?

After launch:
 
1. What is the best alka seltzer to water ratio to give the most pop (gas)?

2. What it the best design to get the most altitude?

3. What is the gas produced in the reaction?

4. What chemical elements are in alka seltzer?

5. What are the products and reactants in the canister?

Response:

Write a story, a song, draw picture, a lab design, a chemical equation, a mathematical expression that depicts the alka rocket launch. Present to the class.

Extensions: 

Design a two liter bottle rocket that will be launched vertically that will stay in the air a maximum amount of time.

Design a two liter bottle rocket with a aerosol can top on the rocket top that will be launched at an angle. A tennis ball will be placed on the aerosol can and a garbage can down range will be the target for the golf ball.

Thank you is not nearly enough

What is it about my students that make them do such good things for me? All I can say is thank you and that is not nearly enough.

When I started this year and gave my tough love speech, I did not know what it would lead to. I told them that I loved teaching and learning but I did not love kids being rude and disrespectful. I told them folks had taken advantage of my kindness during my first two years at Madison Central; therefore, I went to the doctor and told her to take out the kind part of my brain.

However, the truth is the surgery was unsuccessful. Admittedly, I give the kids a hard time and sometimes call them losers and thugs. I often take letters away from RESPECT when they are talking when I am talking or when someone else is talking. Each letter removed in a five-day period knocks off ten points from a class participation grade.

I jump on them when they walk into my room from another class and tease them unmercifully sometimes.

However, I think they know, as do my blood children that I do not mess with and aggravate folks about whom I do not care.

Maybe that is why Amena showed up to class this week with a big surprise. It was a plasma lamp. 

What she did not know was that one given to me several years ago by a special physics class was stolen. What she did not know was I absolutely love gifts small or large. Hers was huge to me. It was affirmation that I am doing what I need to be doing in the classroom. And you already should know - maybe not by chance - it was on Red, Yellow, Black and White Wednesday when I and others celebrate diversity.

Thank you, Amena. Thank you, students, for helping make me the teacher and person I need to be. Know get let’s get back to work.

Because I could not stop for death . . .

He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

 As we are much too busy, Emily reminds us that Death will kindly stop for us. This is what happened for me on Saturday.

First, I need to say that funerals can be life changing events for me. When I was at my aunt's funeral about eight years ago, I decided that I would not be in a pine box without first having the joys of a motorcycle (many of my family and friends think I am hastening the process). Getting my first motorcycle and the next three (all blue) have opened up new vistas and adventures for me that I will continue to treasure.

The most recent funeral for my good buddy's father-in-law, Dr. Bernard Patrick, was at St. Collum's Episcopal Church, a beautiful modern sanctuary with a majestic yet simple traditional service. One of the granddaughters gave a remembrance that had ever one in stitches. My buddy Rob continued that spirit and then went eloquently into the life and spirit of his lovely wife's dad. It seems strange to say I enjoyed a funeral but, nevertheless, I did. Dr. Patrick lived a full life and as the priest said, relationships live on forever. I feel like I know Dr. Patrick much better and will embrace that in my journey.

During the funeral service, I had another possible life-changing moment that involves service to others. However, I am going to let it gestate awhile before I share it publicly.

One of the granddaughers, who is attending Evergreen University in Olympia, Washington to record music, wrote a piece that is very poignant. I got to meet her when I asked permission to include it on my blog. She also shared with me the Library of Congress Storycorp project in which I hope to participate. I quote in for my students and colleagues and friends to ponder:

Here is what she wrote: It's weird when you watch your hero;s strength fade. When you see them as physically and mentally invincible and something so unexpected weakens them. Well I won't let that something win. His legend will live on. All of his accomplishments, talents, knowledge, wisdom, and over-told-witty jokes, will be carried throughout the generations in stories and memories. He really did live life to the fullest, that's one thing I strive to do everyday. I just started college; it's been rough. But one thing that has kept my head high is remembering our late night "deep" talks about our virtues. I love you, Grandfather,. I hope I can live up to your standard.
-Rachel (age 18)

Thank your heroes.