More questions than answers~

What sets teaching apart from most jobs, besides motherhood, is the amount of questions teachers get asked during the day. I can think of few jobs designed to be so question oriented. Kids are supposed to ask questions. Teachers encourage this.

"Are there any questions?" we prompt.

We tell students that there is no such thing as a stupid question.

"How are you going to learn if you don't ask?" we say.

And I love questions--both asking and answering them.

I encourage my students to be curious. "I hope you always have more questions, than answers," I say. "Being inquisitive is what leads to new discoveries."

Today after reading about natural resources, we discussed wind power. One boy asked about the turbines. How heavy were they? Did they have to be light so the wind would turn them?

This brought on a discussion of aerodynamics and force and airborne things. I ended up demonstrating Bernoulli's principle. Later the boy who posed the question asked if he could do some research on the computer. I love that kind of curiosity.

But then there are all the other questions. The ones I seem to answer over and over until I want to bang my head against my desk.

All of these questions have been addressed many times, answered in detail, explained as part of the class routine to be followed from day one. Why do they persist in asking again and again as if my answer will change?

Student: Do we have to write in cursive?
Me: What do I always say?

Student: I'm done. Where do I put my paper?"
Me: Where do you always put your papers?

Student: Can I use the other side of my paper if I need more space?
Me: (silence) I stare with raised eyebrows.

I get asked umpteen thousand nonsense questions every day. I answer with questions of my own. Kids need to be reminded to stop and think, to look around, to remember. To see that they can answer most of their own questions with a little common sense and thought.

I've taped a sign to my desk-- a rule. "Ask 3 before you ask me. I'm not the only human resource in this room I tell them. Ask others first."

Student: Mrs. D, where are the scissors? (This from a child who is sitting between two friends who are using scissors.)
Me: Who did you ask before you asked me?

Sometimes not answering is best. But woe to the poor kid who places the straw on my back with a question I've asked "ten thousand times already."
~~~~~
It is not every question that deserves an answer. Publius Syrus

For Alice~ She's home!!!!!!!

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes it's all about knowing that loved ones and friends stand behind you, knowing that support is there on the down days, the worry days, the days when you feel off-center, out of sync, bedraggled emotionally, and in pain, but knowing all the while that you're not alone. You're not alone... Alice is an online friend--she lives in Hawaii-- who belongs to the writer's workshop that I do. We've only "met" online, but those who have online friendships know that they can be just as strong as those in-person relationships. Alice was hit by a car while walking, and is in the rehab phase of things. She's working to regain mobility after a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a broken nose. It's scary to realize how, in the blink of an eye, life can lurch and our plans for a time are displaced by survival and healing. We...

Killing time~

I'd woken feeling stuffy headed, slightly allergy-ish, puffy-eyed, and a tad grumpy. Lots to do, little time in which to do it, school issues keeping me in a state of angst, I considered not going to David's game. But it was Saturday, the game fairly close to home-- Salem State College-- an hour or so north through Boston to the town of Salem, famous for the 1692 witch trials that saw 19 suspected witches, many of them social outcasts, hang on Gallows Hill. A change of pace was what I needed whether I wanted it or not, so I went. I squeezed in a walk around the block that enclosed Salem State's O'Keefe Center while waiting for the game to begin. Just to kill time. I get so few chances to do that. Others walking, too, passed with no eye contact, no greetings, just sharing the same planet. Two were coming toward me. Still unfocused in the distance . . . one was tall, the other short . . . two men . . . loose clothing . . . like army clothes, camouflage . . . beard and lon...

Missing Becky~

Becky~ August 19, 1991 to April 26, 2010 She was so loved, this gentle pet of mine. And how she loved us back. I've been alone in my house before, of course. Those days when my husband took the kids out for the day, being able to vacuum without a baby in one arm and a toddler, riding the vacuum cleaner like it was a bronco, was solitary pleasure. Later there were quiet days as the kids were at camp and my husband at work. And then came the bittersweet aloneness when kids left home for college and a life apart. Still, I'd always liked being alone, knowing it was short lived. This morning, after my husband pulled out of the driveway with a day full of plans, I stood in the living room feeling alone in a way I never had before. An unfamiliar emptiness and silence surrounded me. Yesterday we put our 18-year-old cat, Becky, to sleep. The decision to do so was surprisingly easy. The vet had told us Becky would let us know when it was time, and somehow she did. But ...

~Upstream and Down~

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