January 27, 2011
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The Daily News
1 Holy Moly!
2 Ah, just kiddin'.
3 You shoulda seen what happened to me yesterday.
4 No dude, SERIOUSLY!
5 Okay, ya ready?
6 I'm finishing up The Odyssey, did something like six or seven more books than our lit book has.
7 Took a LOT of work preparing the lessons, and training myself to tell the students all of the stuff that is not in the lit book.
8 My deal is that more is more. I taught them about the golden age of Greece, of Pericles and Socrates, and of wisdom.
9 Our lit books short-change the story ridiculously, so I want them to hear the stories of ships turning to stone and sinking to the bottom of the ocean, and of walls bleeding as the suitors mock Telemachus, who sees the bleeding walls and the blood dripping off their faces. Our lit books leave a lot of the great moments of the story out. I don't want my students to learn on appetizers; they deserve a light entree.
10 I tell these tales to them, and it exhausts me, but it is worth it. I tell them these great stories from antiquity, but it is lunacy attempting it. I still so, because the stories are so colorful and wonderful.
11 But the last three books (actually there are four) I blessedly have a CD with professional actors doing the work for me.
12 The challenge is that class sizes are so huge now that the CD isn't loud enough. I play it from my computer and cord it out to an iPod dock in order to make it considerably louder. I avoid movies until the unit is completely done, so that the story is already defined in each student's mind. So the CD is a nice compromise.
13 But if they can't hear it, they won't listen.
14 If they CAN hear it, they will be riveted. And I can grade papers while they listen.
15 Win-win.
16 AnywayZ, yesterday I was around seven or eight minutes down the road, a bit late for school, when I realized I had left my iPod deck at home!
17 I thought to myself, "No prob. You have an amp and a mic in your room, which no other teacher does. Just mike the existing speakers and amp it up."
18 Still, I was upset because I have been pretty much on top of my game, and that was a huge omission.
19 When I got to school, I thought, "Maybe my small Altecs will be enough if the classes are quiet." My first class is by far my most cooperative in that regard, so I explained to them what had happened, and they agreed to listen attentively.
20 I put the CD on, and within seconds, I knew it was not going to work. I knew that two days ago, but thought I'd give it a shot anyway.
21 With brash cockiness, I opened a cabinet, took out my mini-amp, and set it up swiftly.
22 I then turned to the cubbies behind me where I always have a microphone, and...
23 Gone!
24 I had taken it home for the summer, and never brought it back.
25 It was then I panicked. I looked in every cupboard I could. They began talking, chatting, and laughing.
26 I looked at them and explained that my microphone was home.
27 They couldn't care less. They just knew this was a ticket to relax, not stress, and talk with friends. I paced, nervously looking into every nook and cranny in the room. I decided swiftly that I must have looked like a lunatic, saying things like, "I ALWAYS have a mic!"
28 To me as a teacher, it was like fumbling the opening kickoff in the Super Bowl. This was IT. This was the climax of the entire unit, which began around Thanksgiving!
29 I felt like a quarterback who had already been sacked twice, and was scrambling in the pocket.
30 THEN irony and the gods reared their ugly faces. My iPhone 4 started playing some sort of strange music. It was in my pants pocket, so this weird music played from my pocket. I felt like I was on fire, or at least my pants pocket was!
31 I pulled it out, and tried to figure out how to stop the music. It wouldn't shut down! So even if I decided to lecture, this weird music would play in the background.
32 Well, I relaxed, became patient, and held the off button down. It finally went off. Duh.
33 I thought, "What would a good quarterback do here?" I looked out at the sky, at the gods, at Joe-the-Bear, at the Muses, and at Mom for strength. And it worked.
34 I grabbed a lit book and fiercely approached the podium.
35 You run for a touchdown is what you do. You take all your strength, seize the opp, and run with it.
36 "I think the gods are messing with me," I smiled. They smiled back. Good students.
37 "I think that I'm destined to deliver the end of the Odyssey to you the same way the bards did in ancient Greece. Turn off the lights, and let the daylight in. We will have no digital anything, no electricity, no CD's. I will do a dramatic reading of the end of the story, so that you will hear it as it was originally delivered."
38 The lights went out; the daylight came through the windows. I opened the book and became a legend. I knew this had to be one of my finest moments.
39 It worked. I became each voice in the story, taking everything I had ever done to a new level. I became the voice of Odysseus, as he exacted revenge on the suitors.
40 No bravado. In fact, I'm humbled that I had forgotten the CD, and was a little upset that I had to stand and do this for five periods. It is exhausting, and I wasn't getting any papers graded. But sometimes gifts come in mysterious ways.
41 I simply had to do it. It worked famously! The students were amazingly quiet and attentive all day. I got semi-applause in three periods. You know, the kind of applause that everyone wants to give, but that they need a prompt.
42 I said each time, "No, give yourselves applause for being polite and awesome listeners!" The applause then came through. It wasn't me; I was just surviving. We have been working on listening skills for around two weeks, and it paid off in spades.
43 So I went from looking like some fool who lost his keys to enjoying listening to my own narration by the end of the day. The story ends romantically and beautifully, and when I stopped, it was as if the Earth itself stopped.
44 Great teaching moment, and it could have been an all-day disaster.
45 Thank goodness the students respected this classic, and this Old Brown Shoe, who still managed to get it done. By the end of the day, I looked up at the sky and thanked the gods, Joe-the-Bear, the Muses, and Mom. The sun pierced the clouds and sent hope smiling down. A golden moment.
46 Thanks to all. My students learned. And I collapsed.
47 On the ride home, I enjoyed the sunset, and the tranquility of a day of wisdom and intelligence.
48 There's hope. And we all won. All of us.
47 Peace.
~H~
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