Growing Taller

Oh, I can barely say the words.  In fact when I try to eek them out, my lips curl up under my teeth and refuse to enunciate the two words that are every teacher's dark cloud of dread.  Inside recess.  My very insides twist at those two little words.  It has been raining for so many days straight that animals are pairing up just in case.

Yesterday afternoon was another god forsaken day of inside recess.  During inside recess my little ones can do puzzles, read, create stuff from the recyclable paper box, play with building blocks, write in their journals, play board games, or watch a movie.  My class has a favorite movie.  It's the home DVD of the musical my class puts on every spring.  The kids sing and "rehearse their moves" along with the DVD.  It's cute and, hey, they're singing and dancing.

After a peaceful lunch full of adult conversation, I walked down the hall toward my classroom and heard music.  Loud music.  Loud familiar music.  I turned into the first grade pod and sure enough, the musical was blaring out of my classroom.  I stepped into my class and stopped in my tracks.  Although the bell had rung, my children, all of my children, were still busy at play.  And the DVD was so loud I had to plug my ears as I approached the T.V. to shut the darn thing off.

Oh man, I was peeved.  I'd trained my students to clean up when the bell rang.  I'd trained them to be ready for instruction as soon as my shadow darkened the door.  And yet, here they were STILL PLAYING!  They know better than this.  I'd taught them better than this.  Fuming on the inside, I remained cool on the outside.

One of my students, a blond pixie with a smattering of freckles across her nose, innocently asked "Mrs. McCauley, what are you doing here?"  What am I doing here?  What am I doing here?  Oh children, this isn't going to end well for you.

In my calmest, best attempt at faking Zen voice, I said "The bell rang.  Recess is over.  It's read aloud time and we're not ready."

The pixie, with absolute shock on her face, exclaimed "The bell rang?  When did the bell ring?  We didn't hear it."  This was followed by twenty students scrambling to clean up as quickly as possible.

"I'm not surprised you didn't hear the bell.  You had the TV up way too loud."  I scolded, opening up the read aloud book, a clear demonstration that I wasn't going to waste a minute more.

At this age, my little ones will do anything, anything to avoid disappointing the teacher.  It bothers them tremendously.  Especially when my disappointment is unjust.

The pixie continued "But Mrs. McCauley, we couldn't find a yard duty teacher to help us and we're not tall enough to reach the volume button on the T.V."

I couldn't help it.  My face broke into a grin.  "Oh, I see.  I'm glad there's more to the story.  I'm sorry.  Let me show you how to control the volume with the remote so that you'll know what to do next time."  Their faces beamed back at me, glad that justice had been restored.  As the rain drummed on the roof, we enjoyed a peaceful afternoon of thinking and working together.

This morning I peeked out of my bedroom window, praying the clouds would hold off, hoping sunlight would cut through.  It was still raining.  It was the day of the trimester writing assessment.  Of course it was raining.  I'd deliberately scheduled my writing assessment around all of the holidays and in fact planned to do it right after recess, so that all of their wiggles would be left on the playground.  No such luck.  Not today.

And yet, I did not fear.  We'd been sinking our teeth into the narratives of Patricia Polacco and Cynthia Rylant.  We'd talked about the characteristics of a personal narrative and they'd each brought in a photo of a special place to write about.  They've been incorporating vivid verbs, metaphors, and similes into their writing on a regular basis.  And, let me tell you, these kids can write.  They love writing.  They are constantly writing notes, songs, poems, reports, whatever they can get their hands on.  Teaching writing this year has been so much fun!  They are playing with words like never before, finding their voices, echoing great authors.

So here we were, the day of the writing assessment.  They'd been counting the days until they got to write.  After inside recess, two of my little girls rushed up to me, waving papers in their hands.  "Look, Mrs. McCauley, we wrote personal narratives at recess."  I smiled.  They were ready.  I read the prompt and gave the directions.   Then they orally shared their story with a partner.  I listened in on their stories.  Stories of finding crabs at the beach, winning a trophy at a go cart race, going to a baseball game with Dad.  My feathers puffed up like a proud peacock.

They moved to their desks and began to write.  All heads were down, pencils scrawling.  Everyone was hard at work.

A few minutes later, one of my most skilled writers, told me she was done.  I looked at her writing.  All two sentences of it.  That's right, two measly sentences.  I encouraged her to use the remaining thirty five minutes to make her story better.  She included a few more details and turned out an acceptable story.  As I walked around the room I noticed more acceptable stories.  Acceptable, but not great.  Stories full of simple words strung together into simple sentences.

I was peeved.  I'd taught my students to think of themselves as writers.  I'd taught them to be writers.  And yet, here they were STILL PLAYING with passive, flavorless words!  They know better than this.  I'd taught them better than this.

Where was the thoughtful word choice they'd shown the past few weeks?  Where were those metaphors and similes that showcased their unique writing voice?  Where were those ideas on infusing feeling into their narrative?

The thing with first graders is that their learning comes in waves.  The idea washes up, recedes, washes up a little further, recedes, and washes up a little further until finally it's high tide and the idea or concept has taken up residence in their mind.  Practically, that means what they know one day, they might be unsure of the next, only to understand it fully the third day.  It is a constant rising and falling.

As I took a closer look at their writing, I saw evidence of attempts to grasp powerful words, to paint a picture for the audience.  Sure their writing would meet the benchmark, but in my mind, it fell short.  Oh, my dear little ones were on their tiptoes, stretching for words to convey meaning.  Today they were just a little beyond their reach.

Wouldn't it be convenient if I could just grab a remote control and say "Next time, push this button and it will make your writing all better."?  Even my youngest writers know that good writing doesn't work that way.  There is no magic button.

There is grappling with word choice.  There is mulling over thoughts.  There is choosing order.  There is searching for big, beautiful words that speak to the audience.  There is erasing until it sounds just right.  And there is reaching.  Reaching until they are tall enough writers to grab onto all of those things.