I’m not sure what it’s a sign of, although based on the boy who made the comment I’m forced to believe that it’s the sign of true genius. At the very least, it’s multitasking at its finest.
Here’s the situation:
We’re taking the 4th grade math TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test. In case you don’t have school age children attending public school, or you aren’t in Texas, this is the mother of all math tests. Everything we’ve done this year has been preparing us to take (and hopefully pass) this test.
I’m not going to go into the whole “Teaching to the Test” thing right now, because it is a sore spot for me. Suffice it to say, I don’t, but the test is important all the same.
For most of my students this was a four to five hour test. We’re about two hours into the test, when Zuco raises his hand.
Now, this is a testing situation and nothing like an ordinary day in my class. There is supposed to be as little distraction from the test as possible. Students are not permitted to get out of their seats without permission. Not for any reason.
So, when Zuco raised his hand I got up, grabbed my tissue box, walked over to his seat, squatted down to his level and waited for the question.
What I usually hear is not an interrogative statement, but rather a declarative statement phrased with a very subtle interrogative inflection, “I don’t get this.”
According to TAKS LAW 101, I’m only allowed to say the following, “I can only help you with questions about the directions, why don’t you read the question again and see if that helps.” 9.999 time out of 10 I usually see that spark of understanding in the child’s eyes once they have reread the question.
However, Zuco’s lack of eye contact and somewhat distant demeanor were, at first, a bit disconcerting. "Mr. A," he said never taking his eyes off his outstretched hand, "I know I’m supposed to be taking this math test and all, but I just can’t get my mind to stop thinking about it.”
“About what?” I said. Even as I heard my lips utter the words my heart jumped up into my throat as if to somehow grab the thoughtlessly misspoken phrase and pull it back into my mouth…but it was too late.
“It’s just that I can’t stop thinking about how much my hand and a robot hand have in common. I mean they’re almost the same thin…” and my hand shot up and cut him off in mid ramble.
Choking down a huge grin, I somehow managed to whisper, “Why don’t you and I discuss this after we’ve all finished taking the test?”
I’m not going to be a bit surprised if Zuco ends up inventing some kind of superhuman robot hand someday. The kind of robot hand that turns the world of prosthetics upside-down.
But knowing Zuco, it will probably happen while he’s doing open-heart surgery.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Monday, April 10, 2006
A Dancing Communion
We attend Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas. It is no longer a Southern Baptist church. We pulled out of the Southern Baptist Convention a few years ago when the dangerously fundamental faction of the Southern Baptist Convention reared it ugly head, again, and started trying to mandate yet another of its idiotic ideologies.
As a result of our no longer being a Southern Baptist church, I enjoy adding the line, “We’re not that kind of Baptist,” to any conversation in which I happen to tell someone what church I am a member of. While, “We’re not that kind of Baptist,” isn’t Wilshire’s official mantra, for me it says a lot about the church I choose to be a part of. Especially when I get to say it to someone who happens to be Southern Baptist. I guess that’s the evil preacher’s kid in me.
Anyway, we’re not that kind of Baptist, however, we do observe communion, or Lord’s Supper as we sometimes call it, in a similar fashion. In case you’re not familiar with Baptist communion, in a nutshell, here’s how it usually works:
The minister stands at the communion table at the front of the sanctuary and leads communion. What is actually said and done varies from church to church, and minister to minister. Then ushers move to the communion table, take plates with the communion wafers and pass them to the people in the pews. When everyone has their communion wafer the minister, quoting Jesus, says something like, “This is my body, do this in remembrance of me,” and congregates eat their wafers.
And the whole thing is repeated with the wine. (but really juice…we may not be that kind of Baptist, but we’re still Baptist!) But this time the pastor says, “This is my blood, do this in remembrance of me.”
I had never taken communion any other way until I was well into my teens. Truth be known, I had no idea that there was any other way for a good portion of my life.
Baptists do not observe communion every Sunday. We could if we wanted to, but I like the fact that whenever we have communion it is a special Sunday. It’s usually a very worshipful experience for me.
However, last week’s communion wasn’t worshipful like it usually is. It wasn’t because of any kind of funky mood that I was in, but believe me my mood has caused more than one Lord’s Supper Sunday morning to come and go without my feeling or experiencing much of anything.
This Sunday it was due to an odd, almost scientific happening.
The plates, you see, that are used to carry the wafers and juice are highly polished silver. I mean they’re practically using mirrors as trays to carry both the body and the blood of Christ to the congregation.
We were sitting in the balcony when I noticed the reflection of a circle dancing on the ceiling of the sanctuary. The first thing I saw was a kind of a glare bouncing off the plate that the usher was bringing in my direction. Then I looked up to see the circular pattern on the ceiling.
After getting my communion wafer, I watched the pattern from his plate glide back and forth along the ceiling as he served the last couple of rows in the balcony.
It wasn’t until I was watching the usher, or rather the reflection from his plate, leave the balcony that I saw the rest of the ceiling. Everywhere I looked dancing circles of reflecting light adorned the sanctuary’s ceiling. They were swaying, and rocking to their own silent tune as they gracefully moved around the ceiling.
Eventually, the ushers stacked all the plates back into two piles on the communion table. All that was left was two motionless overlapping circles making a giant venn diagram on the ceiling.
I sat there staring at these now motionless circles resting peacefully on the ceiling. I couldn’t stop thinking about these circles. Circles that, only moments before, had been doing their secret dance across the ceiling. It was the same dance they do every communion Sunday, I assume, but this time they had an audience.
That’s when my thinking started to shift from the circles of light to the apostles and the Lord’s Supper. I don’t really know what caused the shift in my focus. Maybe the light, maybe the dancing, maybe the complicated simplicity of the circles. Whatever it was, I sat there thinking about these guys who were, unbeknownst to them, sharing a last meal with my Lord and Savior.
What was going through their minds?
What did they think was going on?
Did any of them really understand who Jesus was?
The trays holding the tiny cups of juice, juice that symbolizes Christ’s blood, didn’t make any circles on the ceiling. My best guess is that the juice and the cups absorb light rather than reflect it.
Whatever the reason, I wasn’t able to sink my thoughts into the dancing circles a second time that morning.
No, last week’s communion wasn’t worshipful like it usually is…and I’m kind of glad.
As a result of our no longer being a Southern Baptist church, I enjoy adding the line, “We’re not that kind of Baptist,” to any conversation in which I happen to tell someone what church I am a member of. While, “We’re not that kind of Baptist,” isn’t Wilshire’s official mantra, for me it says a lot about the church I choose to be a part of. Especially when I get to say it to someone who happens to be Southern Baptist. I guess that’s the evil preacher’s kid in me.
Anyway, we’re not that kind of Baptist, however, we do observe communion, or Lord’s Supper as we sometimes call it, in a similar fashion. In case you’re not familiar with Baptist communion, in a nutshell, here’s how it usually works:
The minister stands at the communion table at the front of the sanctuary and leads communion. What is actually said and done varies from church to church, and minister to minister. Then ushers move to the communion table, take plates with the communion wafers and pass them to the people in the pews. When everyone has their communion wafer the minister, quoting Jesus, says something like, “This is my body, do this in remembrance of me,” and congregates eat their wafers.
And the whole thing is repeated with the wine. (but really juice…we may not be that kind of Baptist, but we’re still Baptist!) But this time the pastor says, “This is my blood, do this in remembrance of me.”
I had never taken communion any other way until I was well into my teens. Truth be known, I had no idea that there was any other way for a good portion of my life.
Baptists do not observe communion every Sunday. We could if we wanted to, but I like the fact that whenever we have communion it is a special Sunday. It’s usually a very worshipful experience for me.
However, last week’s communion wasn’t worshipful like it usually is. It wasn’t because of any kind of funky mood that I was in, but believe me my mood has caused more than one Lord’s Supper Sunday morning to come and go without my feeling or experiencing much of anything.
This Sunday it was due to an odd, almost scientific happening.
The plates, you see, that are used to carry the wafers and juice are highly polished silver. I mean they’re practically using mirrors as trays to carry both the body and the blood of Christ to the congregation.
We were sitting in the balcony when I noticed the reflection of a circle dancing on the ceiling of the sanctuary. The first thing I saw was a kind of a glare bouncing off the plate that the usher was bringing in my direction. Then I looked up to see the circular pattern on the ceiling.
After getting my communion wafer, I watched the pattern from his plate glide back and forth along the ceiling as he served the last couple of rows in the balcony.
It wasn’t until I was watching the usher, or rather the reflection from his plate, leave the balcony that I saw the rest of the ceiling. Everywhere I looked dancing circles of reflecting light adorned the sanctuary’s ceiling. They were swaying, and rocking to their own silent tune as they gracefully moved around the ceiling.
Eventually, the ushers stacked all the plates back into two piles on the communion table. All that was left was two motionless overlapping circles making a giant venn diagram on the ceiling.
I sat there staring at these now motionless circles resting peacefully on the ceiling. I couldn’t stop thinking about these circles. Circles that, only moments before, had been doing their secret dance across the ceiling. It was the same dance they do every communion Sunday, I assume, but this time they had an audience.
That’s when my thinking started to shift from the circles of light to the apostles and the Lord’s Supper. I don’t really know what caused the shift in my focus. Maybe the light, maybe the dancing, maybe the complicated simplicity of the circles. Whatever it was, I sat there thinking about these guys who were, unbeknownst to them, sharing a last meal with my Lord and Savior.
What was going through their minds?
What did they think was going on?
Did any of them really understand who Jesus was?
The trays holding the tiny cups of juice, juice that symbolizes Christ’s blood, didn’t make any circles on the ceiling. My best guess is that the juice and the cups absorb light rather than reflect it.
Whatever the reason, I wasn’t able to sink my thoughts into the dancing circles a second time that morning.
No, last week’s communion wasn’t worshipful like it usually is…and I’m kind of glad.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
"Just Add Water" - A Lesson with MRE's
One of my students brought an MRE, or Meal, Ready-to-Eat, to class yesterday. I don’t mind telling you I was more than a little intrigued. A couple of years ago I watched something (I think on PBS) about MRE’s and I have wanted very much to give one a try ever since.
Here is the explanation of an MRE that I got off the web:
The Meal, Ready-To-Eat (MRE) is designed to sustain an individual engaged in heavy activity such as military training or during actual military operations when normal food service facilities are not available. The MRE is a totally self-contained operational ration consisting of a full meal packed in a flexible meal bag.
So there I am, a class full of hungry looking 3rd and 4th graders with a MRE in my hand. What would you have done?
We broke it open, baby!
Ours was menu no. 2, Barbeque Pork Rib.
We pulled out the different components, spread them out on the table and started looking for directions. At first, I thought this was going to be a major pain. However, I was quickly impressed with not only its simplicity, but how truly self-contained the whole meal was. The only thing we had to provide was water, but if push came to shove, the only things you had to have water for were the two beverages. The rest could be eaten cold and dry.
Here’s what we had:
· Pork Rib
· Clam Chowder
· Cheese Spread
· Wheat Snack Bread
· Cookie
· Powdered Beverage (a lot like Gatorade)
· Hot Beverage (coffee)
· Hot Sauce (Tabasco)
· Accessory Packet (salt, pepper, sugar, coffee creamer, and hand towel)
· Spoon
· Flameless Heater * this was really amazing
Each food item was vacuum-sealed in its own little bag. And then there was the flameless heater. It’s inside a long pouch and it generates some kind of chemical reaction with water to create heat. You open one end of the pouch, put whatever you are cooking in the pouch with the heater, add less than a cup of water and presto, you’ve got an oven! And I’m here to tell you it gets really hot!
We added the water, and in a few moments we could not only see steam coming from the bag, but we could hear and smell things cooking as well. I was quite impressed.
The pork rib looked like something you might get on a McRibb sandwich at McDonald’s, but it smelled and tasted much better. I cut it into half-inch bites and used toothpicks to serve the class. Only about 6 students turned it down and everyone who tried it wanted more.
My teaching partner and I split the clam chowder, because none of the students really wanted any…BIG SHOCK! As far as clam chowder goes, it wasn’t the worst I’ve ever had, but it did taste a little fishy.
We all shared the wheat snack bread and the cookie as well. The bread reminded me, and several of the students, of a big communion wafer. The cookie was a molasses cookie and it was pretty dense, if you know what I mean. However, I can imagine if I was fighting somewhere like oh, say, Iraq…a dense cookie might just hit the spot.
I’m standing there wondering how I can get some more of these little goodies for things like lunch each day, when I notice the nutrition label. The pork ribs alone had 100 calories from fat! I may not be as nutrition savvy as I should be, but I think that’s high. After doing a little research, I discovered that MRE’s are designed to have 1300 calories per meal. That’s when I changed my mind about the whole MRE for lunch thing.
In the end, we all got to experience something new, be sufficiently impressed by a three-course dinner that came in a watertight pouch that weighed about a pound, and have a hands-on nutrition lesson. Then we all went back to our seats and wrote about what we had just experienced/learned…so I got to take a grade!
Not too bad for a “Just add Water” kind of lesson!
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Jigger and Saw
I like patterns. Visual patterns as well as audio patterns. My wife and daughter are forever gently laying their hands on my hands to stop my fingers from tapping with the beat of whatever song happens to be playing. Often times their gentle hands are magically transformed into high-pitched, shrieking voices crying out for the insanity to stop. The funny thing is that I usually have no idea I’m even tapping. It’s just something I do. Part of my brain hears something in the beat of the music that, for some reason, it desperately needs to imitate.
Whatever the reason, I find myself tapping along with the beat of songs, or really any kind of beat that I happen to come across. I recently had to have an MRI and I don’t mind telling you I was a bit worried about laying on a bed, my face covered with a cage and sliding headfirst into a long tube.
As it turned out, it wasn’t all that bad. There were these loud, rhythmic sounds making a constant pattern that I found very soothing. At one point I said to the technician, “Look, I’m finding it really hard to stay awake. Is it okay if I fall asleep?” He seemed a little confused by the question, but said, “If you can, go right ahead.” About half an hour later, I woke myself up snoring.
I’m telling you I really like patterns!
You would think a person like me, who really enjoys patterns, would be the shining star of any and every dance floor. Not so! The term “two left feet” doesn’t even begin to describe me dancing. If you’re a bad dancer, then you hope that you get to dance somewhere near me in order to not look so bad. When it comes to dancing, my fascination with patterns turns ugly and I look something like Elaine from Seinfeld.
I don’t know what it is. I can hear the rhythm, I can feel the beat, but I just can’t get my body to move in conjunction with what I’m hearing. It’s really strange…both the situation and my dancing.
The same thing goes with the words in the songs. Case in point; Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville had parts that were a bit hard for me to decipher. In fact, I sang one three-word phrase from the song wrong for more than 10 years!
In my defense, Margaritaville came out in about 1977-1978, when I was in the sixth or seventh grade. Having a Southern Baptist minister for a father meant that I had no idea what a margarita was. Truth be known, I also thought he was singing, “Wasting away,” instead of “Wasted away,” so I just thought he was singing about hanging out and being lazy in some crazy town with a strange name. But I liked the song all the same.
So there I am, a young naïve boy listening to this song all about drinking margaritas and having no idea what in the world it was talking about. Combine that with the fact that I was listening more to the syllabic patterns than the actual words and it’s easy to see how I made this mistake.
This is the line in question:
But this is what I heard:
So it’s the 1970’s. I hear this song, confuse the lyrics and permanently cement the wrong words “jigger and saw” in my mind. I even heard this song sung by a couple of kids at school in a talent show, but I still heard jigger and saw instead of shaker of salt.
(I realize you couldn’t get away with singing a song like this in a school talent show today, but come on, it was the 70’s!)
Jump ahead to the mid 1980’s. I’m driving somewhere with Gordon, my brother, when this song comes on the radio. We’re both singing along and having a blast. Then we get to the part where I sing jigger and saw. Gordon almost runs into a ditch he’s laughing so hard. I, on the other hand, am saying, “What? What? What’s so funny?”
Remember, I’ve been singing this song wrong for at least 10 years. By this time it made perfect sense to me. I mean, I had no idea what a jigger and saw were, but I had no idea what a margarita was either…I just assumed they went together.
Rest assured, that Gordon and I laughed plenty that night.
Jump ahead to 1988. While I knew what the correct words were, in the back of my mind I still heard the words, jigger and saw. Anytime I heard the song I just had to consciously change the words from jigger and saw to shaker of salt. And I had somehow managed to make it through my entire college career without my jigger and saw word change secret becoming common knowledge…until...
I’m out with my future wife at the classic burger joint, Snuffers, here in Dallas when Margaritaville starts playing. I start laughing and, suffering from a momentary lapse of good judgment, decide to explain the whole thing. I think I even sang it wrong a few times in an attempt to stress how much shaker of salt and jigger and saw really do sound alike.
To this day we can’t hear that song without busting out laughing. I’ve tried to explain it to our daughter, but I think it’s just one more thing on her list of stuff that proves her dad is strange.
Next time you hear Margaritaville, by Jimmy Buffet, try singing Jigger and Saw in place of Shaker of Salt and see if it doesn’t sound right.
Whatever the reason, I find myself tapping along with the beat of songs, or really any kind of beat that I happen to come across. I recently had to have an MRI and I don’t mind telling you I was a bit worried about laying on a bed, my face covered with a cage and sliding headfirst into a long tube.
As it turned out, it wasn’t all that bad. There were these loud, rhythmic sounds making a constant pattern that I found very soothing. At one point I said to the technician, “Look, I’m finding it really hard to stay awake. Is it okay if I fall asleep?” He seemed a little confused by the question, but said, “If you can, go right ahead.” About half an hour later, I woke myself up snoring.
I’m telling you I really like patterns!
You would think a person like me, who really enjoys patterns, would be the shining star of any and every dance floor. Not so! The term “two left feet” doesn’t even begin to describe me dancing. If you’re a bad dancer, then you hope that you get to dance somewhere near me in order to not look so bad. When it comes to dancing, my fascination with patterns turns ugly and I look something like Elaine from Seinfeld.
I don’t know what it is. I can hear the rhythm, I can feel the beat, but I just can’t get my body to move in conjunction with what I’m hearing. It’s really strange…both the situation and my dancing.
The same thing goes with the words in the songs. Case in point; Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville had parts that were a bit hard for me to decipher. In fact, I sang one three-word phrase from the song wrong for more than 10 years!
In my defense, Margaritaville came out in about 1977-1978, when I was in the sixth or seventh grade. Having a Southern Baptist minister for a father meant that I had no idea what a margarita was. Truth be known, I also thought he was singing, “Wasting away,” instead of “Wasted away,” so I just thought he was singing about hanging out and being lazy in some crazy town with a strange name. But I liked the song all the same.
So there I am, a young naïve boy listening to this song all about drinking margaritas and having no idea what in the world it was talking about. Combine that with the fact that I was listening more to the syllabic patterns than the actual words and it’s easy to see how I made this mistake.
This is the line in question:
Wasted away again in Margaritaville,
Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt.
Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt.
But this is what I heard:
Wasted away again in Margaritaville,
Searchin' for my lost jigger and saw.
Searchin' for my lost jigger and saw.
So it’s the 1970’s. I hear this song, confuse the lyrics and permanently cement the wrong words “jigger and saw” in my mind. I even heard this song sung by a couple of kids at school in a talent show, but I still heard jigger and saw instead of shaker of salt.
(I realize you couldn’t get away with singing a song like this in a school talent show today, but come on, it was the 70’s!)
Jump ahead to the mid 1980’s. I’m driving somewhere with Gordon, my brother, when this song comes on the radio. We’re both singing along and having a blast. Then we get to the part where I sing jigger and saw. Gordon almost runs into a ditch he’s laughing so hard. I, on the other hand, am saying, “What? What? What’s so funny?”
Remember, I’ve been singing this song wrong for at least 10 years. By this time it made perfect sense to me. I mean, I had no idea what a jigger and saw were, but I had no idea what a margarita was either…I just assumed they went together.
Rest assured, that Gordon and I laughed plenty that night.
Jump ahead to 1988. While I knew what the correct words were, in the back of my mind I still heard the words, jigger and saw. Anytime I heard the song I just had to consciously change the words from jigger and saw to shaker of salt. And I had somehow managed to make it through my entire college career without my jigger and saw word change secret becoming common knowledge…until...
I’m out with my future wife at the classic burger joint, Snuffers, here in Dallas when Margaritaville starts playing. I start laughing and, suffering from a momentary lapse of good judgment, decide to explain the whole thing. I think I even sang it wrong a few times in an attempt to stress how much shaker of salt and jigger and saw really do sound alike.
To this day we can’t hear that song without busting out laughing. I’ve tried to explain it to our daughter, but I think it’s just one more thing on her list of stuff that proves her dad is strange.
Next time you hear Margaritaville, by Jimmy Buffet, try singing Jigger and Saw in place of Shaker of Salt and see if it doesn’t sound right.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Sometimes You Gotta Keep'um Guessing
I wrote about my ever-changing name badge back here when I was Batman. What’s funny is there are a few of the younger students who think I really am Batman. But I don’t think believing a teacher at your school is Batman should cause any seriously detrimental side effects as they get older. At least I don’t think it will…I guess we’ll find out.
Anyway, as you can see by the picture, I’m on to a new secret identity. My daughter and her friend told me that they thought I should become Napoleon Dynamite. I liked the idea and so that’s who I am.
I also decided that until school is out for summer, I’m going to change my name badge identity at least once a week, maybe more. I mean come on; it’s only eight more weeks.
Sometimes you gotta keep’um guessing.
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