Another friend of mine from high school has recently connected with me via Facebook. For several days we have been sending let's catch up on the past four decades notes back and forth. It turns out that, after all this time, my friend has been living just 2 hours further west on I-90. Who knew?!

He asked a curious question about my work in the latest note: How old are the kids you teach writing? They are so all wired into their phones and texting. Is it hard to get past this? 

My response: I tell them that I ask them to put the media away, especially the phones, because my thumbs start to itch when I see them texting and my phone is off. I text a lot. It is convenient and often efficient. Generally the students are quite surprised that I text. Ms. Popoff!!! You really text?! 

It's true. In spite of my age and obvious corniness, I am a relentless texter. Students are extremely dependent on their phones and IPods. Instead of passing notes, they text. They also think we adults don't see what they are doing or are too old to understand. I like breaking their presumption with my reality. And then, sometimes the best way to engage the students in the poem is to ask them to "translate" it into text language. There is a different code for our kids to use to individualize and keep us out of their business. I guess mine was Pig Latin, though I never knew why it was called that.

Kids have to have their own code, their own connection, in all things, language, art, music, clothing, hair styles. Most outgrow rebellion, although I don't know that I have done so very well.

I can understand middle and high schoolers being self-focused but I often wonder why my college students are not more involved in politics. I think my peers' awareness has just a little bit to do with the fact that my generation, including my friend with whom I have been reunited, sat in front of a television to endure the Draft Lottery that would seal the fate of so many. It could literally be the difference between life and death. Sometimes I tell the story of the first Lottery and what it meant to all of my generation, as well as our parents. Perhaps it is that the Civil Rights era now seems like a successful mission to many who want to believe the myth of Post-Racial America. Perhaps I just ran with a unique crowd.

As I stated to my friend, we were unusual young people. The majority of our crew were artists in some medium or another and continued that journey into adulthood. Some of us are also educators in some capacity. We were movie addicts, we made art, we attended a lot of music events, we spent afternoons voluntarily at the Everson Museum of Art in downtown Syracuse. We had long hair then, both genders. Some of us still do.

And we are the first of the electronic age that morphed from television. We have cell phones and computers. We tweet. And we reunite on Facebook to look back at another generation that wants so much to be relevant and connect. A poem is no obstacle to me in that... 

The Buttermilk Torture - Middleschool Instruction at Its Best

I have been immersed in middleschool energy since January. There are those who do not appreciate this age group but I love this age for many reasons. And I love how I can goof on them in ways that give the students new perspectives. That is my job. I am asking students to look at the world, to look at language, to look at themselves in expansive ways that may be outside of the norm. Adolescence is an age in which individuals are very self-focused so using that focus as a tool to open eyes to a broader view is very exciting.

Yesterday, as a part of study of the wonderful memoir poem, "Knoxville, Tennessee" by Nikki Giovanni, I stopped at the grocery store at 7:20 a.m. to find foods referenced in the poem. Okra was not available fresh so I decided I would use the internet for photos instead. I had to bother two produce department staff for a bunch of collard greens. I found disposable cups and a quart of buttermilk for taste tests.

Ah...the taste tests. What drama! The faces as the cups were raised to lips to sample the half-teaspoon of the liquid were priceless. The retching, the hands grasping their own necks, the groans, it was all predictable and humorous. This is not an adventurous age for culinary experimentation but they did indulge me. There were those who were more polite about the experience. Each class also had at least one kid with a huge smile declaring, "Hey, I like it!" Brownie points for those young gourmands!

I have been working with this poem for nearly 3 years at all grade levels. We have wonderful conversations about family traditions, about church hats, about our favorite foods, etc. My personal favorite conversation is always about the origins of okra and how it got to the North American continent. I speak to the imaginations and empathy of students to consider the courage and tenacity of that one person kidnapped hundreds of years ago from their native African soil who managed to cling to a pod of okra all the way through the horrid ordeal of the Middle Passage to bring that one element of home and life before identity was stolen from them. I thank my mother for giving me the taste for this vegetable and I thank whomever it was who brought it west to plant in new soil so that now, I can pick those small pods from the bin at the store and prepare them for my dinner.

I do not thank my grandmother for making me drink buttermilk on a hot summer night when I was very young. I don't love it. But I do love asking students to experience its taste and select similes and adjectives that reflect their opinions. "Nasty," "disgusting," "old cheese" are common. I had to laugh as I asked the one student who said, "It takes like sweaty armpits" just when it was that he had that experience. He caught my humor, thankfully. He did not ask for seconds on the buttermilk though.

And, since every teacher I work with gives me a new tool or perspective on my work, I thank my colleague who keeps a bag of Dum-Dum lollipops in her drawer as rewards when earned. I will never do the buttermilk sampling again without that vital tool!

When Teachers Are Engaged, All Are Engaged

I am nearly done with 2 weeks in classes of 3rd graders and what a blast it has been, although I am really whooped. With three or four contact sessions per class, four self-contacted special ed. classes and seven standard classes, I have taught nearly 230 students in 10 school days. Each class has a completely different temperament. This is particularly noticeable with the classes of students with special needs. What this work demands is an ability to be very flexible and to be able to assess needs and capabilities very quickly in order to adapt to the class for a lesson that will keep the students engaged.

Over the years, I have heard many teaching artists comment on the difference between the teacher who contributes to the process or activity, the teacher who models lifelong learning and enthusiasm for what the artist or visitor brings to their classroom vs. the teacher who thinks that our presence in their room is the gift of down time, paper-marking time, email time. Anything but teaching time. When the host teacher is involved with my lesson, it is always a better experience for us all. Students will mimic what they see. Even if the teacher is sitting with them as I teach but that teacher is marking papers, the students see a lack of attention and replicate it. In some cases, they may even shuffle papers from their desks and doodle as well.

Basically, my work is not just what I do with the students but the methods and activities that I have developed for teachers to use when I am gone. The teachers who recognize that this is an opportunity to add elements to their own pedagogy, as well as to share skills with me, are the teachers I most enjoy and who probably most appreciate my work with their students. I learn from the teachers with whom I teach every day. They give me new approaches for everything that I have to do in schools. I hope that I bring them the value that I intend to share.

I have always seen my work in the classroom as a three-way learning experience, when it is at its best. I had many such experiences these last 2 weeks and I look forward to next year, when I will hopefully be invited to return to the school with even more to bring to students and teachers both.