Happy Birthday to Timi

This morning in TA I brought out my nesting birthday baskets. The largest contains reusable stickers with themes of kindness and inclusion, the middle basket contains pencils with color, glitter, planets.. and the smallest basket contains Jolly Ranchers and Starburst of various flavors. It’s a 3-2-1. Students can decide what they want three of, what they want two of, and what they only want one of. That element of personal priority I added in after the first year of doing this, and it’s always interesting to see their choices.

“Whose birthday is it today, Ms. Dunbar?”

“Timi’s!” 

Word spread as Timi quickly made his choices, and by the time I emerged from putting the baskets back in their copy room niche, a small crowd of admirers had formed around Timi. They spontaneously began singing “Happy Birthday” to him, in perfect choral harmony. 

Chills ran up and down my spine as they continued with “Is he one? Is he two? Is he three?…” He acknowledged fourteen with a smile and a downward hand motion, at which point his well-wishers began moving slowly back to their seats for the beginning of the morning news show.

“Everyone likes Timi!” I heard one fellow say, emphatically. And it’s true. He is the Every-teen.

Timi was one of only two new-to-TJ students in my TA this school year, and the only one to arrive after the school year started. He was shy and soft-spoken, didn’t know a soul, and got scooped up by a loner who annoyed most of the other students. 

I stood by for the first several weeks as Timi showed grace to this student, accepted his need to be a mentor and friend, but then began to realize that he didn’t want to be best buds with him. The way Timi gradually extricated himself from that web and began sitting at a few other tables on a rotational basis, before settling in with his permanent TA nest, was truly impressive for someone so new to us and seemingly shy. Maturity and grace of this sort, in eighth grade, is not the norm. 

This is a moment that will stick with me and help me forever remember this group of students.

May the Fourth Be With You

May the fourth was definitely with me, and so is May the fifth. 

We are officially 30 (almost 29) days from the end of this school year and each day is a heavy weight right now. This probably has a lot to do with the incessant pollen invading Arlington. But it may also have something to do with every third exchange I’m having with our eighth grade students lately.

They are getting ready to leave us soon, and it’s easier to go if they decide we are annoying. So they do what they can to bait us. We stand strong and firm, without over-reacting, but it’s oh-so-tiring to have a handful of these exchanges every single day.

“Gerson, Mr. Lapin asked you to move to the front row.”

“I don’t want to move there. Can I stay here if I pay attention?”

“Gerson, please do what Mr. Lapin asked you to do.”

“But I can pay attention from here.”

“This is not a negotiation, Gerson. This is a request.”

“Kamila, please fill out the pa….”

“What paper?” (Defensively)

“The one with the sounds at the top of each col…”

“Ohhhh!” (Overly loudly)

“Column. You need to say each…”

“I said I got it. You don’t need to keep telling me.” (With attitude)

“You interrupted me.” 

“YOU interrupted ME!” (Rudely)

“Andrew, please park your iPad.” (Pause)

“Andrew, please park your iPad.” (Pause)

“Andrew. Can you hear what I am asking you to do?” (Calmly)

“Yeah. Geeze.” (Snarly)

“Well… then please do it now!”

How Will I Know?

It’s April 15th and we have 43 days of school left until Summer. How are we already beginning the fourth quarter of the school year?

While I’ve always enjoyed the cycle of school years throughout my life, I’m also wondering if time will slow down a bit in retirement, when I’m not marking its passage by days off, weeklong breaks, grading periods, and due dates. In retirement I imagine one day being very much like another. Not in a Groundhog Day kind of way, but in more of a what-plant-shall-I-grow-today sort of way.

But ask the average retired person how they like retirement and many will say they are busier than ever, or at least busier than they had expected to be. Or they might start listing the various activities they participate in, as if you’d asked them what they do in retirement, rather than who they are in retirement. Yet I’ve noticed that no one ever regrets having retired. 

How does a person know when it’s time to retire? It’s certainly more of a temptation when a spouse has gone out ahead of you, even if they are older. Watching a close colleague slog through the various tasks in preparation for her retirement this Spring is oddly tantalizing. Even when I’m feeling committed to at least one more year in my current position, if not also one more year after that.

When people ask me about retirement plans, and they are beginning to do so now and then, I just say I’m on a year to year basis at this point. As long as my school continues with its strong admin team, solid co-teachers, and the technology is not outpacing me, I’m good to keep going. Even though I wear reading glasses now, and sometimes fear for my safety while rounding corners in our overcrowded hallways.

My cautionary tale is Grandma Kathie’s reflection on her own decision to abruptly retire several years before she’d originally planned to: “We were leaving the theater with our friend group one Sunday afternoon, and I noticed that Burt (her husband) was lagging behind everyone else. I remember thinking to myself that those next three years I’d planned to work could be the best ones we have left together. And you know what? They absolutely were.”

I think maybe that’s how you know.

Babysitting in Bethesda

Yesterday, Molly babysat for seven mostly school-aged children, mostly cousins of each other, during the entire length of a family wedding. The eldest, a 7th grade neighbor boy, has a friend who joined the group because he’s in training to become a babysitter.

“He’ll be my assistant,” Molly stated confidently. 

The carload bound for Bethesda assembled across the street at 2:30pm. It consisted of the father, Pete, Evan, Evan’s friend, and six year old Flora who is counting down to her seventh birthday in several days. No doubt her birthday party will be next weekend’s big event!

“Have fun with your cousins,” I said, as Flora waved to me. Then added, “Take good care of Molly!” Flora giggled and smiled. Molly was out of earshot as she had dashed back into our house to grab Uno Attack. 

One pair of cousins is staying at an airbnb in Alcova Heights, the next neighborhood over from us. The other pair of cousins had travelled from Sweden to be here, and must be the ones staying at the airbnb in Bethesda. Three-year-old August was one of those cousins.

“He’s bound to be jet-lagged,” Molly had said, hopefully, when listing the group members to me earlier in the afternoon. The decision to have the cousins located in the Bethesda residence had everything to do with it being two blocks from the wedding venue, “in case of any meltdowns,“ she had added.

Things went more smoothly than one might have imagined, despite Molly’s guarded apprehension about young August. Shortly after 10:00pm, Molly’s victory text appeared on my phone.

“Pete just took off. I’m coming back in a little while with Kate because August (3yo) is anxious about his parents getting back to the airbnb, and he’s attached himself to me.”

It appears my daughter is not only a cat whisperer, but she’s also an august handler of small children when she needs to be.

Wild Kingdom

Surfaces bursting with potted plants line the far side of my enclosed front porch. Three wide open days lie ahead of me. Time to plant many of them, beginning with the wild ginger, the May apples, and the Virginia ragwort.

This year I also have a box full of 18’ high gate panels to build in some rabbit protection around my natives. So far I have not seen any rabbit damage to my woodland phlox or for that matter, anything else. This is puzzling given that we have oodles of rabbits in the neighborhood, but I have a couple of ideas about why they might be keeping their distance from us this Spring.

Several weeks ago, early in the morning, Molly saw an opossum scurrying from the back yard towards the side of the house where our raised beds reside. A week or so later Brian saw the same activity, also very early one morning. Both were convinced that what they saw was a great big opossum. A huge monster of an opossum, in fact. 

We came to believe that perhaps she was pregnant, and no one has seen her since. But the hole leading into the crawl space is where we believe she lives and perhaps is nesting. Research suggests that an opossum eats small mammals which could include mice, perhaps chipmunks, and can be a threat to newborn bunnies as well, 

Foxes have also been sighted in the neighborhood this Spring, so perhaps we are cycling away from rabbits for now. I welcome each and every fox, including their nocturnal screams while mating, until my tender natives grow tall and tough.

Sunshine Tag

On afternoons when I arrive home from school and relax in my favorite sun-drenched chair for a cup of freshly brewed coffee, two alert adolescent cats sit expectantly on the sofa arm nearby, or on the floor near my sock feet. They are waiting for their new favorite game.

When I pick up my phone, the sunlight reflects off of the glass and onto the wall behind me or the ceiling above my right shoulder. To them it’s Laser Tag, but instead of dodging the light, they attempt to catch it! Repeatedly. Forever amazed that it cannot be contained in their marshmallow paws.

Sometimes I angle my phone and create figure eight patterns on the floor that they pursue relentlessly. Or maybe I’ll hide the light inside one of the Swiss cheese holes of their carpet tower. I tire of these shenanigans long before they do. 

Their little brains desperately need the hunt, but this particular hunt does not bring them much success. So we end up playing some Stick Feather until all the jumping wears them out, at which point they flop into a sun spot on the carpet to snooze, with their conquered prey nearby. 

Changing the Narrative

This evening while at dinner with a couple of old friends on the occasion of the husband’s 66th birthday, the conversation turned to what our adult children are doing now. 

“Why doesn’t she sub at Arlington Tech? It’s so close to home,” he asked.

“Couldn’t he do some volunteering if he’s not looking for a job?” she wondered.

At first, I felt uncomfortable, knowing that these two friends are all about going and doing. In stark contrast to this, both our daughter and our son are at points in their lives where simply being is a shared joy for them. 

For the first time since they were toddler and baby together, neither one of them is in school, and we are giving them time to find their own paths.Time to breathe. And they are both happy! Not stressed, not anxious, not worried about what comes next - at least not outwardly so. 

There is no tension between us and them, especially since they willingly help out in little ways here and there around the house. It’s a joy to be with them at this moment in their lives, on the precipice of young adulthood.

As I tried to explain this to our friends, I could see the confusion cloud their faces, especially her face.

“How will he learn to assert his initiative if we are always planning his next move?” I asked. “He’s been much happier, more conversational and very present with us. And he no longer disappears into his room for hours at a time.”

Sometimes I do wonder if we are wise in this way of thinking, or simply becoming lazy and negligent in our parenting as we age. Is doing the enemy of being? Or is it the other way around? Time will tell. But also, what’s the rush? 

How Much Longer?

“Excuse me,” the man said, in his most plaintive tone, “I notice that the party of fourteen on the terrace just left. We requested terrace seating because we have two dogs with us. Do you know how long it will be?”

The Skyland dining room host mumbled something mostly inaudible, and promised to let him know when a table outside was available.

Next I heard a girl with the young family of five scrunched together on the sofa ask her mother, “What shall we do in the meantime?” I thought that was a very sophisticated sentence for her age, and she asked it so calmly, too. 

This is Opening Weekend at Skyland Lodge in Shenandoah National Park. We ventured up early this afternoon, Brian and I, to hike Limberlost Trail today and another easy hike, TBD, tomorrow morning.   

We are celebrating his six week post-op clearance for the lumbar laminectomy that has restored his ability to walk painlessly again. Hiking is one of his passions, and Shenandoah National Park is one of our happy places. 

It’s just hard to be truly happy when the dinner wait is one whole hour. But surely we are near the top of the list by now.

Spring Interlude

A Spring Break during which one must seek out the shade is a gift to gardeners. It means that tulips are blooming, and the parade of spring ephemerals has begun with Virginia bluebells leading off.

The first native plant sale of the season is underway, and I’m sitting on a shady bench behind the gazebo of Green Spring Gardens awaiting the arrival of a friend for walking and lunch to follow. My “finds” at the sale are safely tucked away in a car parked in shade, windows cracked open a couple of inches.

Oodles of Master Gardeners fill the flower beds, bent over at the waist with bottoms up in the air, doing spring clean-up, in-filling pansies, adding soil here and mulch there. Nannies and mothers with strollers are my midweek companions for the moment. 

Soon my friend will arrive. But for now I’m enjoying the cool breeze, the chattering of the birds, and the young boy who is toddling up and down the gentle ramp of the gazebo nearby. 

  

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…

Fan Interferece

We’re halfway between the Winter Olympics and the opening days of Major League Baseball. Spring is oh-so-close, and yet still not quite around the corner. Enter the World Baseball Classic!

Featuring espresso in the dugout, for Team Italia, and a Dominican Republic lineup that is ready and able to kick USA butt, these games have been exciting from start to finish. Many MLB players chose to honor the heritage of one parent or the other by playing for a team other than the USA. This dilutes the talent pool across teams and creates exciting match-ups day after day.

While the players are missing part of their traditional Spring Training in order to compete, this event is a reasonable substitute for them. It’s also like Spring Training for fans. Especially for the one poor guy who reacted wrongly, but understandably, in reaching over the yellow line on top of the outfield fence, and down far enough to catch a ball still in play. 

His initial jubilation at catching what he assumed to be a certain grand slam heading straight for his seat gradually descended into face-in-glove despair when he realized the ruling. The camera roasted him an embarrassing number of times, but thankfully the outcome of this game is not likely to turn on his play.

Grounded

I’ve referred to the phenomenon of Frequent Flyers at school once before, and I am linking that post here.

Once again we find ourselves in the twilight zone between Spring approaching and Spring Break still a couple weeks away. Last week in our 8th grade team meeting we collectively decided that we needed to add several more students to the No Fly List.

This morning a colleague who was reviewing notes from the Leadership Meeting held yesterday remarked at how emblematic our current school-wide “No Fly List” is of the middle school arc in general:

6th grade: 1 student

7th grade: 4 students

8th grade: 28 students

It’s very grounding to me to keep that arc in mind, realizing that those 28 eighth grade students will all have a fresh start next year in their respective high schools.

Remember to breathe. Remind your students to breathe. Especially if they are eighth graders.

Cat on a Hot Shingled Roof

The warmer days of early Spring have spawned some unusual activities within the wild kingdom of my Douglas Park neighborhood.

Early this morning, one neighbor posted the following FYI on our neighborhood listserv.

"Just saw a very fast fox chase a black cat across my backyard [1700 block of South Pollard Street].            Hopefully the cat was faster than the fox. Providing as an FYI for those who have outdoor pets."

A reply to her FYI by a second neighbor reported another concerning event:

"A few days ago a huge vulture feasted for a long time on a dead squirrel on the roof of a neighbor's backyard building on South Monroe near South 12th Street."

So imagine my concern when I arrived home on this first 80 degree day of 2026 to some breaking news of our own: the more adventurous of our two seven month old kittens had stranded herself on our front porch roof! 

Apparently she'd pushed through a screen in the upstairs office window and could not figure out how to get back inside. Fortunately, my son heard her confused meows when he headed outside to take his daily walk and was able to coax her back inside from upstairs.

So now we have collectively placed restrictions of 1-2 inches on bottom-up window maneuvers, favoring instead the safer top-down maneuvers for the foreseeable future! 

How Lucky Am I?!

Being an Emotional Support Person is a job that entails precision. My desk sits in the same alcove as my client, but facing 90 degrees to the right. Close enough to be a sounding board, but not in the line of vision. 

Being an Emotional Support Person is a job that entails boundaries. If her headphones are on or her “in a meeting” tent card faces forward, she’s either in a meeting or doing intense spreadsheet work. 

Being an Emotional Support Person is a job that entails personal sacrifice. It’s a gorgeous early Spring day, close to 80 degrees outside, and I’m sitting here in this windowless room giving moral support at 4:00pm, until tomorrow’s ACCESS make-up schedule, test tickets, and related emails for are complete.

Being an Emotional Support Person is a job that does not go unnoticed. I receive more kudos from my client than she receives from her Admin team, even though she has taken on the Herculean task of coordinating all of the WIDA ACCESS testing for 275 English Learner students in our building.

I do this job because my client is an Extra Special Person.

But really, I ask myself, how lucky am I to sit in this cramped, windowless, mice-ridden room, in a fifty-five year old building that is falling down around us, working late with my two all-time favorite colleagues, knocking out our desk work in preparation for the last day of make-up testing, our upcoming Student-Led Parent/Teacher conferences, or any other task that comes our way?

Pretty lucky indeed!