Finding Joy

Ever since this school year began I have been in a perpetual state of exhaustion. It's no secret that this has been a difficult school year for me. But despite being tired and overwhelmed 95% of the time, I'm trying really hard to find those small victories, moments of joy that I might miss if I'm  doing nothing but complaining all the time.

So here were some moments of joy from my school day yesterday:

Moment #1

6th graders turned in the book reviews they'd been working on all week and many of the students wanted to share them with the class. One student read her book review for one of my favorite books, The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex. After she read her review, we proceeded to have a class discussion about how we (those who have read and loved the book) wish we could have our very own J.Lo (the alien, not the singer) because he is just so adorable. Then another student attempted to explain why J.Lo's best line in the whole book, ("Can I come into the out now?") actually makes sense as he proceeded to explain why it works grammatically.



Moment #2
Due to complicated circumstances that I prefer not to spend time explaining, I lost my prep period yesterday, which normally would cause me to grumble for the rest of the day, but by the end of the period, I ended up being happier for losing my prep than if I had taken it. The short version of why I lost my prep was because I had to watch one of the 8th grade classes because they weren't able to go to their special.

I have one 8th grade class for English, but I don't see the other 8th grade class at all. The class I don't see at all is the one that I ended up watching. They were asked to bring something to work on and use that period as a study hall. Since getting my 6th graders to work independently and quietly this year is like trying to herd cats, I was pleasantly surprised when the 8th graders came in, sat down and started working on their math or social studies or other work that they had due. They were talking, but they were productive and the noise level was not detrimental to others' learning. At one point in the class period I stood up, looked around and said, "Can I just tell you how much I appreciate what you're doing right now? Everyone is working and even though you're talking, it is productive noise. I haven't been able to experience that very much this year."

At one point during the period, one of the students jokingly picked up a novel as he was perusing the books in my classroom, started to read it and said, "I'm not reading this. It has too many words in it." So I told him I have quite the selection of picture books if those were more his speed (and a cacophony of 8th grade boys proceeded to say, "Oooh! Burn!" as seems to be the 8th grade comeback of choice these days). He spent the next fifteen minutes contentedly looking through picture books when I said to him and the rest of the class, "Do you guys want me to read you a picture book?" A few said yes and gathered around the floor, but many continued their math or social studies work and the productive noise didn't transform into a hush as I had hoped. Still, I pressed on, reading both  I Want My Hat Back and This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen to the five students on the floor who legitimately wanted me to read them a picture book. But I soon discovered that as I continued to read, the students who were doing their work reduced their noise level and many of them even halted their own work to find out what happened to the bear and the fish's hats.

One student's astute/entertaining observations from the two books:

• Wait Mrs. Shaum! *Spoiler alert* Did the bear eat the squirrel too? We know he ate the rabbit, but what happened to the squirrel? (I never actually thought about that. Maybe he did eat the squirrel too!)
• Hold on! Wait! How can the hat stay on the fish? Wouldn't it just float away? (Apparently a talking fish is enough to suspend belief but the physics of a fish wearing a hat in water isn't).

After I read the two Klassen books, the student who was "burned" by my suggestion that he read some picture books wanted to read one to the class. So I gave up my chair, parked myself on the floor with the other 8th graders and listened to him read The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Hutchet Bishop. It was probably the most enjoyable class I've had all year.


Moment #3

In my homeroom yesterday, which is a class that has been a challenge to get through to this year, after finishing the last page of Wonder by RJ Palacio, one student asked, "Can we give the book a standing ovation?" And they did. 

If you've read the book, then you know why this is such a significant gesture. This was not just an appreciative response to a great book. It was also symbolic to the main character Auggie's journey throughout the story. Do I need to give them a comprehension test to see if they paid attention to the story? Nope. That moment right there told me all I need to know.

"I forgot that I might see so many beautiful things"

My students and I have been reading Wonder by RJ Palacio as our class read aloud since January. This week we came to a very pivotal moment in the story that brings out a lot of emotions, within the characters and also within the reader. Communities of readers are built on moments like these.

And despite the fact that my future in the classroom is uncertain right now, and despite my perpetual exhaustion since our Spring Forward on Sunday, it's weeks like this one that reaffirm my vocation and tug at me, reminding me why I'm here in the first place.

Besides the emotional catharsis of reading Wonder together, a couple other reaffirming moments happened in the classroom this week:

Moment #1
Earlier this week I had a dream that one of my students was single-handedly responsible for getting one of my favorite authors/illustrators, Adam Rex, to visit our school. When I told her about this dream the next day, she had this look on her face like she was blown away that she could manage to not only infiltrate my dreams, but that she was also able to carry out such an amazing feat as to get a rock star author like Adam Rex to visit our school. Her reaction to this new knowledge was, "Really? I was in your dream? And I got Adam Rex to come here? I could do that. Do you want me to do that? I'm on it."

Then the next day, this same student approached me and said, "Guess what Mrs. Shaum? You were in MY dream last night. Adam Rex did come to our school and for some reason you were wearing a big curly rainbow wig. But then you got mad because he poured caramel sauce over himself since he didn't want to repeat himself by doing chocolate syrup again, but he got it all over the carpet in the classroom so you were not very happy."

So Adam Rex, I apologize if you get a random email from a 6th grader in Michigan. My dream, accompanied by her own, apparently gave her a mission she feels the need to carry out.

Moment #2
Today the 6th grade Skyped with my friend Kellie who works for Walden Pond Press. When I finally met Kellie in person at NCTE in November, we spent a wonderful dinner together and the one thing that really struck me when she talked about WPP's books is how enthusiastic she was about the titles her imprint puts out for kids. I immediately had the idea that what better way to get kids to want to read WPP's books than to have someone directly from the publisher book talk them.

My instinct was not wrong. Kellie book talked four titles today and by the end of the day, this was the waiting list:

Notice that one of the books has a shorter waiting list than the others. Why is that? Because I was the one who book talked that one. So clearly Kellie is a rock star book talker, but also, I was able to reaffirm that it helps if teachers branch out and find other people and methods to get kids excited about books instead of doing the same thing over and over again. I mean, I've had The Fourth Stall in my classroom library all year, but it wasn't until Kellie book talked it that I had kids clamoring for it. When I talked to the kids after Kellie's Skype visit, a large number of them said, just as I did, that she was an amazing speaker and that she knew how to get kids excited about books. That was music to my ears.



*Title quote from the song "Beautiful Things" by Andain, which is also quoted in Wonder.

a WONDER-ful breakthrough

I'm still amazed at the ways in which the book Wonder by RJ Palacio touches the lives of everyone who reads it.

I'm currently reading this book to both of my sixth grade literature classes, and while one class BEGS me to read everyday, the other class has remained stoic in their emotions about it. They listen attentively and answer questions with pinpoint accuracy during class discussions, but I have yet to really get any sort of emotional response from them.

Until today...

Today was the day I have been dreading because, you see, this was the day where we came to a pivotal part of the story that just happens to be really sad. Like "can't see to read through your tears" sad. And while I've read this book four times already, I still managed to let loose a torrent of tears while reading it in front of both sixth grade classes. My eager class who always begs me to read the book remained stoic in their emotions (or they were just really good at hiding them) while I sat there blubbering through the words on the page. But something magical happened in my usually stoic class: as I struggled to read my way through the sad part, I heard an accompaniment of sniffles and snorts to backup my own tears, along with a few students who got up out of their seats to grab tissues.

It was a moment I will always remember with this class because they allowed themselves to be vulnerable when most of them have spent a great deal of time building up their middle school armor of dispassion and indifference. The only time they generally show emotion is to declare something unjust, unfair, or just plain dumb. Who would've thought that a fictional fifth-grade boy named August Pullman could get them to open their heart and affix it directly to their sleeve.