Sitting Bones, Sand & What I Learned On My Vacation

Before I left for the fabulous beach at South Padre Island, I told my exercise/yoga partner that she would have to forge ahead without me. I promised to hold my abs in (what’s left of them anyways), and I promised to grind my sitting bones into Mother Earth (as our yoga instructor admonishes us to do).

Now, my exercise buddy Becky and I aren’t entirely sure what our very lovely yoga instructor means by that grinding bones business, but I told my buddy Becky that if it even remotely meant plopping one’s rather large behind into the sand and grabbing some chips and salsa, well then, I had that part covered for the both of us.

So here I am at the beach violating Beach Rule #1 of remaining entirely unplugged during my South Padre week. At least I have been grinding my sitting bones into the sand while finishing two books that have sat on my “Things I Really Want To Read If I Only Had The Time” shelf. I’ve also spent time just sitting and watching things. And, of course, all this watching stuff got me to thinking about other important stuff like all the important things we can learn outside the classroom. And all of that got me to wondering if my principal will let me do all my in-service, professional development type training right here at the beach.

OK, so just maybe I’ve sat out in the sun too long.

Regardless of my sun exposure, I did learn a few things this week. I was going to tell you all about them, but my youngest daughter, (you know the one, the semi-fired VP of Humor Control) didn’t find any of them even mildly amusing. Now while I agree they weren’t necessarily laugh out loud funny, I thought they were insightful, and Jeez Louise, shouldn’t that account for something? My favorite one covered what I learned from watching dogs on the beach. It went something like this…If you make a mess, you really ought to pick it up instead of pretending like it’s not there or trying to hid it in the sand.

See what I mean? I thought it was an amusing little tidbit. I’d share a few more, but it’s time to do some more of that grinding one’s behind thing, along with the chip and salsa thing, and, oh yeah, that reading thing. Besides, I don’t want to get any more of that eye rolling thing from my semi-fired VP.

Signs, Signals & Clues You Can Use

I spent most of last week trying to figure out how far behind I actually am. After analyzing the situation (now doesn’t that sound intellectual?), I decided I’m so far behind that if I were any further behind and in a race, I could probably fool myself into believing that I’m actually ahead because I can’t see anyone or anything in front of me.

Now, after re-reading that passage, I’m beginning to wonder if that made any sense to anyone but me. Just in case it didn’t, suffice it to say if I were in the “Amazing Race,” I’d be on my way home as a big fat loser.

I can only hope this week starts out better than the last one ended. This time I’m going to pay more attention to all those little warning signs that don’t bode well for a hap-hap-happy week.

Richie’s Clues You Can Use
That Signal
It’s Never A Good Sign When…

•You hear your sports editors on deadline quietly whispering in the corner. Although you hope they’re discussing batting averages, time stops when you hear them say, “Do you think we talked to the right person? Look at her picture. Is that the person we talked to? Is it?”

•A yearbook staffer turns in her two pages and says, “It’s done… well, except for that group picture that goes here… oh, and that quote that goes right there… and, uh, I still have to find out who that person is in that picture…and uh…”

•Your newspaper editor starts to begin all her sentences with either “We need to talk…” or “I think I’m going to kill somebody…”

•You check your phone messages and not one of them are from Oprah’s people wanting you to appear on her show, but all of them are from mad moms in various stages of distress who can’t believe the deadline to buy yearbooks has passed. And, YES, the deadline applies to them. And, NO, there aren’t any exceptions. And, YES, you understand how important it is. And, NO, you still can’t make an exception. And, YES, your name really is Richtsmeier not Witchmeyer or any variation thereof.

•Your business manager texts you asking, “Did you forget to give me that money or did I lose it?”

Ratios, Russia & Peaches

(Just a brief note to any naysayers out there–I couldn’t make this stuff up even if I wanted to which, of course, I don’t.)

My daughter, who works at a day care while attending attending Texas Tech, called this past weekend to rhetorically asked if I knew “what moron decided it’s OK to put 18 4-year-olds in a room with one teacher.”

“Why the same moron who has never been locked in a room with 18 4-year-olds, bless their hearts,” I replied.

Then, my daughter, who also works a second job at a grocery store, said her co-workers were discussing the recent Russian crisis…

(Isn’t that great, I thought, young people discussing current events. I got goosebumps just thinking about it.)

Oh, but wait… one of her co-workers, well…

“She thought Russia had invaded Georgia,” my daughter said, “as in the state, not the country.”

Never one to let a teachable moment slip by, I said, “You see why it’s so important to get your college degree?”

“But Mom, I think she is in school,” my daughter said.

“Oh my,” I replied.

I guess that girl thought the Russians needed some peaches, bless her heart.

Climbing the Great Wall & Heads in the Freezer

Although I have never been out of the country, yesterday I sat atop the Great Wall of China and felt the exhilaration that comes from being 24 years old again.

You see, I live vicariously. While some parents live their lives through their children, I experience life through my former students. Not only do I revel in those experiences, I can honestly say I've learned more from my students than I have ever learned from any professional development session or teacher inservice.

Yesterday, I just happened to get an e-mail from one of my favorite former students, Jonathan Magee, and with it was a photograph of him sitting atop the Great Wall of China. What a thrill.

Of course, hearing from Jonathan sent me down a memory lane of former newspaper deadlines and threats of heads in the freezer, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s start with an advanced organizer (don't you love that teacher lingo?) to keep you focused on the topics at hand…

•Teachers say the darnest things
•Kids repeat the darnest things
•I am not Jeffrey Dahmer

When Jonathan was on newspaper staff, we had a particularly rough deadline. I was exasperated and teetering on the outward edges of my sanity when I shouted at the newspaper staff: “If you don’t get this paper done, I’m going to cut off your heads and put them in the freezer and you won’t like it, not one bit.”

Silence.

A few smirks.

“Well, you won’t,” I said, slightly faltering, “like it.”

“Eewww,” one girl said. “That’s just nasty.”

“I think it’s illegal,” another said.

Sleep-deprived and stress-depraved, we all laughed, but from that point on, the staff was not rated by who was in the doghouse, but rather whose head was in the freezer. We even had levels. The higher up you were on the shelf, the more trouble you were in.

Jonathan was so enamored by the entire freezer motif that he actually wanted to shoot mug shots of all staff members, make cut-outs of their heads, fashion a makeshift facsimile of the inside of a freezer and move people’s heads around according to their standing on deadline.

I should have known the freezer thing would come back to haunt me, though. The school had a tradition during football season of honoring the top five seniors in class rank before a home game. The senior selected his or her most influential teacher who then accompanied the student out to the 50-yard line. The announcer would say something nice about the student and read something that the student wrote about the teacher.

Jonathan picked me so there we stood on the 50-yard line with the superintendent of schools standing on one side and a school board member standing on the other.

Throughout the stadium, the announcer’s voice boomed: “Jonathan says that, ‘Richie pushes everyone to do their work to the best of their abilities with an odd combination of friendly coercion and blunt threats of having their head put into a freezer. However….”

My students in the stands laughed; others gasped; Jonathan giggled. After catching a nervous glance from my superintendent, I assured him that he was welcome to come and inspect the freezer in the journalism room, that I hadn’t yet lopped off any heads nor had I stashed any in the freezer.

I dreaded the day when Jonathan graduated.

You see, I had him programmed into my speed dial. Jonathan was one of only two students who I have religiously and regularly baked a cheesecake for from scratch. Really and truly from scratch—not a box in sight. Call it the barter system. I bake you a cheesecake; you fix my computer. I bake you a cheesecake; you tell me why this software program went batty. I bake you a cheesecake; you tell me how to make the printer actually print. I bake you…well, you get the picture.

Jonathan went off to college and later went to study abroad. So much for speed dial. His current e-mail places him in Hong Kong working for the International Herald Tribune and doing—as always—exceptionally well.

While I’m happy for him, there still isn’t a school year that goes by that I don’t miss something about Jonathan. Here’s a short list of things I learned from Jonathan…

•It’s important not to take yourself so seriously. Take time to laugh at yourself.
•Never say anything you wouldn’t want to have repeated on a football field.
•You should probably stay away from sentences that mention any body parts.
• It’s good to occasionally feel that edge of panic and to depend on a kid. It develops a certain sense of empathy since children depend so much on adults.