Letters from Lisa

If you’re looking for some relaxing white noise, complete with neat visual slide shows, try out iSerenity.com. You can choose from the likes of thunder and lightning, rainforest, wind, whale calls, chimes, and birdsong, all staples of “natural sounds” CDs, or you can go a bit closer to home and try number 2 pencil, vacuum, airplane, restaurant, fan, or NYC street. A few of the “environments”, as they call them, remind me of the background noise on the foreign language tapes my French teacher played for us in high school. They’re all interesting enough to try once. I might try an experiment and play the “library” or “number 2 pencil” in class today — see if it inspires focused academic work!

Is it July yet? Specifically, July 14th? Because that is when I’m leaving for Australia, and that is where most of my free brainpower is focused these days. I’m planning a trip thruogh Essential DownUnder Travel and I’m very excited about the possibilities. Right now, though, they are still just that — possibilities. All I have booked so far are my international flights and one flight from Sydney to Cairns, which is where I’m meeting up with the Earthwatch researchers for my 2 week stay on the Great Barrier Reef.

Things I’d love to do in Australia:

Cairns
Besides the Great Barrier Reef, which I’m planning to snorkel and tour and all that sort of thing…

Kuranda Village - I’m attracted mostly by the scenic railway, though the marketplace sounds great too!

Northern Territory
Kakadu National Park and nearby Arnhem Land, which is Aboriginal territory. I’m mainly interested in wildlife and Aboriginal culture.

Red Center
Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park — also known as Ayer’s Rock and the Olgas. Uluru is an Aboriginal sacred site and the biggest monolith in the world. It is supposed to be spectacular. The color changes depending upon weather and time of day, but it always looks desert red in the guidebook pictures.

Sydney
I’d love to climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge. I wonder if it’s really worth devoting so much time to, though.

If it’s not too expensive - see a performance at the Sydney Opera House. I think La Boheme is on when I’ll be there in August.

Mouse Soup is a wonderful little book about a mouse who tells stories to avoid being eaten for dinner… I read and re-read this book as a child. I recently read it to my 6 year old cousin and have it readily available in my classroom… just love it.

I read the Rough Face Girl at least once a year to my students… it’s a beautiful Native American version of the Cinderella story, with a more spiritual bent.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar — great for teaching science concepts, and has a nice simple story structure.

What sells me on Where The Wild Things Are is the rich dream-imagination of the child helping him to work through an issue in his waking life. The illustrations are perfect. I have a calendar from this book on my wall at home!

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day — Perfect for reading out loud. Everybody’s been in a mood like this, and children really identify with it!

I have so many others… so there will be more entries of favorites in the future!

I’m currently working on a manual for teachers who are interested in adapting a piece of literature into a theater production and then performing it. I’m on my second production this year (not counting Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which I adapted into this year’s elementary school musical). Here is an exerpt of what I’ve been working on.

Proficient readers are able to juggle the multiple tasks of fluent decoding and comprehension as they interact with text. Writing, rehearsing and producing a theater production will develop your students’ skills in an authentic, motivating context while providing opportunity for direct teaching, guided practice, independent work and assessment.

Reading comprehension

Character development:
• Your students will construct a biography of each character in the book, from the prominent hero to the old man from Chapter 3 who says one line and is never heard from again.
• They will determine relationships between characters and track how those relationships change over time.
• Characters great and small will be examined for their personality traits and motivations.

As your students bring the books’ characters to life onstage, they will be challenged to portray them accurately. For example, a child might want his timid, withdrawn character to angrily confront his enemy, but realize that this would be “out of character”. In several of my productions, students have engaged in serious debates about why certain characters act the way they do. They are also able to recognize more easily when characters are lying, putting up a front, or attempting to manipulate the situation.

Setting:
• To construct the appropriate sets and collect necessary props, students must visualize the setting, both in terms of time and place.
• Students will determine where each event takes place and how the setting influences what happens in the scene.
• If the setting changes or evolves over the course of the book, students will adjust the scenery accordingly.

Students tend to want to skip long paragraphs of description and jump right into the action of dialogue. However, when they are motivated to design scenery that looks “right”, they will want to hear those descriptions again.

Plot
• What happens? Why does it happen? Your students will identify the main events in the storyline and place them appropriately in the script to demonstrate the problem and resolution.
• The script will be written to reflect the proper sequence of events, taking into account the causes and effects.
• Students will summarize each scene for its inclusion in the Playbill.

Your script will undergo several revisions as students discover that they are missing crucial moments or that narration is required to explain background information or transitions. They may also suggest “missing scenes” that are explained in a few lines of description in the book, but that might be important to dramatise for an audience unfamiliar with the plot.

Themes and Higher-Order Reading Skills:
• Re-writing dialogue and narration in their own words will prompt students to make inferences about the text. Being able to watch a visual enactment of the plot can also support more advanced, between-the-lines comprehension.
• Students will seek the theme or message of the story as they establish what their show is “about”.
• Students will reflect on the genre of the book as they transfer the written page to spoken lines and actions.
• Students will discuss (and sometimes hotly debate) the tone of the book. For example, is it humorous? Silly? Serious?
• Students will consider the audience for whom the book (and their show) is written.

Adapting a book into a play empowers students to become “co-authors” of the story, and to consider what the original author had in mind when making choices about characters, setting and plot. Defining the audience clearly will help students to make appropriate choices and develop a sense of responsibility for their finished product.

When I was in elementary school, the single most difficult challenge for me was friendships. Or, to put it bluntly, the lack thereof. I didn’t have many. Some years, I didn’t have any. I’d make a great friend, and then her family would move to Japan or choose private school. I had a “best friend” who went to the school across town, and the thought of that sustained me through some pretty lonely times. Even so, it didn’t make up for the fact that I was eating lunch alone and wandering the perimeter of the playground at recess, rather than interacting with other human souls.

Now that I’m an elementary school teacher, I see the friendship issue with additional wrinkles and edges. I still think it’s one of the most pressing issues faced by children — to come to terms with their social environment and connect with others who are like, or unlike themselves — but I don’t see friendship as essentially mysterious or as a privilege governed by a nasty mob of vicious teasers and snobs (which is how I saw it as a child). I do think there is a group mentality that sometimes creates a difficult atmosphere for children to develop fully as social beings, but this mentality can be guided and shaped by the atmosphere and values of the school itself.

Of course there are some things that help more, and help less:

1. My top peeve: Telling the lonely child that s/he is better, smarter, prettier, more talented, or a nicer person than the other kids, and that’s why s/he is being excluded or picked on. “They’re just jealous” doesn’t exactly promote better relations between people. Neither does “They’re just nasty (spoiled, mean, insert pejorative adjective here) kids and you should stay away from them”. It isn’t realistic. It’s almost impossible for children to avoid one another in a school setting. Also, giving the child an unwarranted sense of moral superiority is likely to teach the child an ineffective strategy for dealing with conflict as adults (not to mention it’s self-deceptive and can lead to other problems later).

2. Forcing the idea that the children must all be “friends”. Do you like everyone you meet equally? Think of a person you really dislike — now think whether you’d like them better if you were forced to invite them to your parties or call them your “friend”. You’d probably resent the person for being around and spoiling your good time, and resent whoever put you in that situation to begin with.

The truth is, we all have acquaintances, casual friends, and close friends, and that’s perfectly fine. We can all think of people who really rub us the wrong way, and the ways in which we have to manage our feelings if that person happens to work closely with us or is around us most of the day. For children, school is like work — and their peers are like coworkers. They aren’t going to love all of their coworkers any more than we adults do. Trying to force them to be friends with every single peer is a mistake.

On the other hand, we CAN compel children to be good coworkers. You wouldn’t work in a hostile, nasty, physically threatening office environment, and children shouldn’t, either. There should be standards of conduct that promote friendliness and respect. This is different than forcing them to be friends.

3. Something that is helpful: letting kids know that their social pool in school is not the be-all and end-all of social life forever. As adults we have lots of opportunities to make friends in different places. If we ever get into a job situation we don’t like because we’re not getting along with others, we can change jobs and be around people who are better matches for us. If we’re tired of a social scene, we can find a new one. Kids don’t have nearly as much opportunity to do that — they end up stuck in artificially small social zones that feel like the entire world. But they aren’t! They’re eventually going to get out of school and gain control over their social lives. We just have to help them get to that point.

If you happen to know me personally, then you know that I actually have three careers. One is teaching. Another is writing. And the third is being the Headache Queen.

I got my first migraine when I was in high school. I was babysitting on Friday night when it came on suddenly. Thankfully the kids were already in bed, and I was able to lie down in their darkened living room in quiet while waiting for the Tylenol to kick in. (I was an amateur then… didn’t know about Excedrin.) I was quite peeved, actually, since at the time my family didn’t have cable, and I looked forward to babysitting so that I could flip around to all the channels I didn’t normally get. Ah, the life of a teenager.

I’d always had a lot of random headaches, but as I got older I noticed that I was getting more of the severe variety. The worst ever was after sitting up close to a 3-D IMAX movie (if memory serves, the culprit was Fantasia 2000… hardly worth it). I had to lie down in the backseat while my friend drove home. I had strong, bright flashes of light in front of my eyes — hallucinatory afterimages from the movie. Luckily that has not happened since, but that was pretty scary.

The key to preventing a migraine, for me, appears to be treating it immediately, while it’s just an annoying headache and not a full-blown event. However, I have this stubborn inability to take headache medicine when I need it. For example, just this afternoon I was complaining to a co-worker that I had a headache, and she said, “I’d offer you something but I know you’re not going to take it!”

It’s about 7 hours later, and I still have that headache. It’s not a migraine, but it is getting there. The Headache Queen reigns supreme.

I’m in the process of finalizing my summer travel plans. I’m supposed to call the travel agent back tomorrow afternoon, after I figure out what I’d like to attempt to cram in experience during my time in Australia.

First I’m going to be participating in an Earthwatch project on hawksbill turtles in the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef has been my dream destination for a long time (along with the Galapagos Islands) and I’m thrilled to be staying on for two weeks. Even better, I’ll have a close personal experience with wildlife in a way that few tourists ever get to.

So Cairns is going to be the first stop. Although my time in Cairns is primarily going to be centered around Earthwatch, I hope to do some sightseeing around there. I’ve heard there’s a great scenic railway and tours that go up to Daintree Rainforest. I might be too exhausted after my long trip to do any of that when I first arrive there, but maybe before I leave for other destinations after Earthwatch ends, I’ll try to get out a bit.

Most likely my next stop will be Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park. Uluru, or Ayers Rock as it’s often known to non-Aboriginal people, is a sacred and beautiful geographical site in the heart of the Outback. I’ll hopefully have two days there to walk around the perimeter of the site and perhaps join a tour.

After that it’s most likely on to Melbourne, followed by a 3-day finale in Sydney.

All in all, I’m going to be in Australia from July 14 - August 12. A very full month, considering the number of stops I have planned! I thought my Scandinavia trip last summer had a lot of stops… now that looks like a short stroll in comparison. I’m just thrilled to be going at all, even though there are so many more things I’d love to do in Australia if I had more time.

Put it this way — I’ll NEVER have enough time to do all the traveling I want to do, unless it becomes part of my job somehow!

A small update on the hermit crabs: Incredibly, they survived. All 3 of them. I spent the first day back afraid to delve into the tank to investigate, until one of the kids volunteered to look. Then I felt obligated to stand by in case he dug up anything disgusting or decaying. I try not to be squeamish, usually (when I worked with Earthwatch I stuck my hands into old, decaying turtle nests to bring up hatched — and unhatched — eggs) but for some reason this freaked me out. For a while I was pretty sour on the whole idea of having a class pet, and after devoting a huge bulletin board full of writing projects to the topic, I thought we’d have to rip everything down. But no — apparently we’ve got some resilient little guys. (Girls?)

We are going to upgrade them to a larger tank hopefully tomorrow, so that they can crawl around in ample living space. A few of the kids have expressed an interest in building a “playground” for them. I think it’s a great idea, as long as we don’t build anything that gives them an escape route from the tank. When they’re a little bigger, we’ll have to worry about them scaling the walls of the tank! Meanwhile, today I had to declare the tank off limits for a while because the kids were so zealous about spraying them that they managed to create a mini-monsoon season, drenching all of the sand. We want to grow hermit crabs, not mold. As my co-worker patiently explained, “They’re crabs… not fish.”

Background on this story: Jake has run away from home to find his birth mother. Along the way he encounters Spencer, a tough girl who at first taunts and bothers him and then ends up joining him on his travels. They have managed to get into New York City and are now stranded in the Port Authority.

Spencer twirled a piece of hair between her fingers and giggled. “Let’s walk the tracks!” she exclaimed, grabbing my arm and yanking me towards an escalator. An old lady with a huge black suitcase on wheels barked, “Watch it!” as I grabbed the railing to avoid a collision.

“Watch it yourself, lady!” I shouted, but she was halfway down the escalator and didn’t hear. I pulled Spencer away from the crowd of people gathering to get on and hissed, “You are seriously even stupider than I thought.”

Spencer rolled her eyes. “You just think it’s stupid cause you’ve never done it!” she insisted.

“Oh, right. You have?” I shot back.

She pulled out several long strands of licorice from her bag and chomped on them, then grinned and offered me the bitten-off ends.

“You are nasty,” I grimaced. She laughed and continued chewing. “You’re like a cow!”

“Chomp chomp!” Spencer stuffed a whole strand in her mouth at once.

“Whatever,” I grumbled. “Look. This isn’t Disney World, okay? I’ve got serious business. If you’re gonna come along, you can’t be messing me up. Okay?”

“Jee-sus,” Spencer snapped. She actually sounded angry. I looked at her face. If it hadn’t been for the bruises on her face and the cut lip, she could have been someone’s little sister. “Don’t do that!”

“What?”

“Don’t look at me like that. Psycho!” She pulled up the sleeve of her ratty sweatshirt to scratch her arm, then glared at me. “You don’t want me to come with you. So, whatever. Go find your mom. I won’t be messing you up.” She suddenly shoved me backwards, and I went sprawling before grabbing onto the rail to steady myself. “Hello? I said go!”

“Okay,” I said, but I didn’t go. I waited. She didn’t go, either. I fiddled with my headphones. She straightened up like she was going to walk, then sighed and leaned back on the railing again. I watched the people going by — ladies with strollers and big shopping bags, clutching their kids’ hands. I’d hold my kid tight, too, in a place like this. You could totally get lost.

“I want more candy,” I announced. “I’m going back up to the top floor.”

“I’m outta licorice,” Spencer said. “I… well, I don’t have any money.” She grabbed her black hat, which had been crumpled into a ball in her pocket, and jammed it over her hair. As she was stuffing her arms back into her filthy red jacket, I stepped forward.

“I’ll get extra,” I said.

She smiled.

“Just not black,” I said.

She kept smiling. She was really something when she smiled.

I have the class pets — three hermit crabs named Navy, Swirly, and Phillip — at home with me on this vacation week. They’re in a tank on my bedroom floor, wrapped in a blanket to increase warmth. (The average house temperature tends to be sup-tropical, to put it mildly.) I’ve been concerned that I haven’t seen much movement from them, but this morning I realized they’ve been tunneling under the sand. Maybe they’re trying to dig their way out?

Of the three, only Navy was one of our original pets. The other, Rainbow Pincher (so named because he pinched one of the kids) died a few weeks ago. We went through a Pythonesque routine for a day (”he’s dead…” “no he isn’t, he’s resting…” “look, he moved!” “no, that was you moving the desk!” etc.) and then buried him in the garden outside the school.

I really hope these little guys make it back to school on Monday in one piece. I’d hate to start off post-vacation with more funerals. This, I suppose, is one peril of having a class pet.

Growing up, there weren’t any signs that I would even want pets that weren’t cuddly and furry. I’ve always wanted a cat or dog, or as a last resort, a bunny or guinea pig. I didn’t become interested in other animals until I was already in graduate school.
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