Almost Heaven

Quart-sized pots of several native varieties and organic herbs line the kitchen baseboard of my old friend’s new town house in Harrisonburg, just inside the sun-drenched kitchen. This is the beginning of a collection that will become, by morning, a teeming hatchback also carrying Geraniums, ageratum, lantana, and impatiens back to my patio pots, herb ladder, and garden beds in Arlington.

Visits with several generations of old friends and a leisurely brunch with my brother take me back to the youthful years of my life here in the Shenandoah Valley. I treasure those innocent times lived at a slower pace, immersed in fresh air and mountain breezes. A drive up to my childhood home on Summit Avenue renews the glorious views in my mind’s eye. I’m taking it all in this weekend.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live here as an adult. Or what I would be like now, if I’d never left this area to go to college, live in Toronto, and later become a teacher and move back to Northern Virginia. What would I be doing now? Who would my life revolve around? 

But mostly I’m glad I did move on and away, because now I have this beautiful, peaceful place to return to from time to time. The nostalgia is exciting. The renewal of old friendships is rejuvenating. The retracing of favorite steps in favorite places is comforting. But I am always ready to get back to my current life, my own home and family, as well as all the planting and outside work that awaits my return.

Almost heaven, West Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River. Life is old there, older than the trees. Younger than the mountains, growin’ like a breeze.

Last Ditch Effort

It amazes me how much solid work you can get out of a sixth grade boy when he meets you in the Library for after school Study Hall versus what he gets done in a class of 24 students, many of whom are his friends. 

The student in question is a Level 3 EL student, and does not currently receive Special Education services. It is very possible that he has undiagnosed ADHD because of the lack of focus and concentration he exhibits when he sits in the middle of a large group of students, right before lunch. Yet, here in the quiet of the Library after school, he is ready and willing to work. 

First he got out the Figurative Language Study Guide for tomorrow’s summative test. He blew through that, with me reading the poems out loud so he could hear the Alliteration, and the Rhyme. But he correctly identified all of the figurative language phrases that he (and sometimes I) picked out of the poems. He knows the difference between Personification, Onomatopoeia, Imagery, Metaphor, and Simile, 

Now he is compiling three of his Hundred Day Challenge writings to submit for that summative, along with a 50-word explanation of why he chose each one. (We won’t mention that there WERE only three pieces to choose from, one of which he just composed today!)

Two out of three summatives are all but done, and the third outstanding one, a historical children’s story with illustrations, is now made more concrete by my having shown him examples that his peers came up with. We sometimes forget how much help a few visual examples can be to some students. By the time he packed up his binder, after enjoying a few fun stories, I could see the gears of his thinking machine turning.

Here’s hoping he offloads a third summative assignment by the start of Spring Break!

Living Legacy

My middle brother just dug up a couple of old obituaries of people he and I each worked with back in the early 1980s as successive work-study students at the UVA Print Shop. One was the packaging and delivery man whom we worked along side of. The other was the shop’s director who approved our work study and made us feel welcome. 

I remember the first day I walked into the shop, Mr. Keeney called me “a breath of fresh air”, based entirely on his fond memory of my elder brother’s two years of employment there. Denton Epps, on the other hand, was standoffish which I interpreted as wary of working closely with a college girl. But once he realized whose younger sister I was he was satisfied that I would be up to the job.

Not only did I follow my brother into a work-study assignment at the print shop, but I also followed him into several history courses that he recommended to me, all very memorable classes: English History 1 & 2, The Reformation, and Early Modern Europe. While he went on to get a Ph.D. In History, I merely minored in it. Nevertheless, we still enjoy reminiscing about the professors we shared and their eccentricities.

I hope to follow my brother into retirement in another year or two, and I bet he will lead me to more interesting places.

Throw Back

Ralph Sampson, my homie, is sitting in the stands of the Virginia-Tennessee NCAA match-up. It’s good to see you, Ralph! Seeing you takes me back. Way back…

I miss the generation of coaches and referees who stressed basketball fundamentals. What I’m seeing in college ball these days is sloppy play: one-handed passes, bounce passes, and cross court passes. Double dribbling and walking are rarely called any more. Big men are dribbling inside the key.  

None of this happened under Lefty Drisell at Maryland, Terry Holland at Virginia, Dean Smith at UNC, Coach V at NC state, and Coach K at Duke. These men were the coaches of the Atlantic Coast Conference back when every ACC team actually bordered the Atlantic Ocean. 

And while I’m sitting here griping, get off my lawn you darn kids, or I’ll spray you with my hose!

March Madness

Mr. C, my co-TA teacher, is setting up his bracket. A half dozen TA students, randomly assembled, are choosing each match-up winner for him as he enters the info into his laptop. There is a men’s bracket and a women’s bracket at TJ this year. 

Meanwhile, for the past two weeks Student K, who is chronically absent from school, has spent every day she’s been here doing test make-ups for the ACCESS sub-tests and then yesterday, the NAEP. Because of all these make-ups and the absences themselves, she is so far behind in every class that coming to school is an overwhelming burden each day.

Speaking of the ACCESS, that albatross of an English proficiency test has finally left the building after taking up residence in our classrooms for all of three weeks. Four sub tests that each require 45 to 60 minutes for over 250 students to complete, while missing all that class time, is beyond madness.

The NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), for which students are randomly selected, is shrouded in enough vagueness that the opportunity for parents to opt out their student is virtually nonexistent. Nevertheless, one of our TA students faced down the tenacious federal testing official, to whom he latched on like a dog to a bone, until she finally relented and put him down as “refused test”.

That’s right… a test of national educational progress in a nation that is currently dismantling its federal Department of Education.

March madness indeed.

Your Voice Matters

Every time I leave an appointment, use a service, buy a product, or turn around, someone wants me to fill out a survey. Data! We need data! How can we improve our service, product, market position, prospectus, etc. without YOUR input?! I am weary of surveys. I dare say we are all weary of surveys. Even my TA students are weary of surveys!

One of the several surveys that students and teachers take at school twice a year is the “Your Voice Matters” survey put out by our school district. Our voice matters! But does it really? My students often wonder, and so do I. Is it our VOICE that matters? Or our survey participation that matters? Participation alone is often the data point they seek. “We need 80% participation,” they say. Why? Does my voice only matter if 80% of my colleagues participate? Wouldn’t non-participation tell them something they need to know?

There is no place on this survey to speak originally. No free answer questions. Only categories to click: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree. We have to instantaneously form an opinion if we don’t have one already. Or go eenie-meenie-miny-moe. 

So really, does MY voice actually MATTER?

Much Ado About Something

I’ve been home from school for about four hours now - enough time to watch the Oscars that we recorded last night -  but other than a bit of rain, the “severe weather” that we are expecting has not arrived. Not that we need it to arrive.

This past weekend I spent an hour just picking up limbs of all sizes from the backyard. I do love my trees, and I understand that this is the price I pay for my expanding canopy. I filled the whole yard waste bin with those limbs. There is no room left for whatever is going to come down this evening.

They are saying “around 8:30pm”. So we’ll see…