31. (five.)

35 works of art,
continued.

(Some works of art
are harder to walk through than others.)

Elements of today's installation:

• teaching on Pentecost. Enjoyed telling the story. For most, their first exposure to any teaching about the Holy Spirit... the idea of the 'wind', the 'breath,' of God, blowing where He will. The fulfillment of Jesus' promise to be with us always, to the end of the age, and His promise to empower us to be His witnesses -- to the ends of the earth. Can be seen as a reversal of Babel, or at least as the inclusion of all nations in God's plan, His desire to have all peoples hear the message, meaning and merciful offering of Jesus.
  I made a lot of blowing-of-a-mighty-wind-into-the-room sounds this morning.
  
  They drew pictures in little "windows" that open -- symbolic of the wind, the Spirit knowing no boundaries, the opening up of the message... pictures of the story we'd heard. G. was determined to draw people of many nations inside. "How do you make Chinese?" she asks. I think at first that she means writing in Chinese. But she clarifies by frustratedly pointing to her eyes. "Like Chinese in the eyes," says she. She wants to know how to draw a person who looks ethnically Chinese. We work on it. She is pleased. She goes on to declare her determination to draw someone from Chile. I give her my 'Children of the World' UNICEF book to peruse. She is satisfied.
  
  J.'s people are "all from Turkey." M.'s picture includes God in the background, with a (pink) crown on. "He is there. He is invisible, but He is watching it all." M. asks. "Tongues, like this?" He holds his own tongue with his fingers. "Yep. They appeared to be tongues of fire," I say. He draws an orange U-shape with a line down the middle. The classic tongue drawing. Like a Mister Potato-Head tongue. Above the tongue, he writes two letter 'Z's.' "Zzzz," he says. "For sleeping." I am confused. "Because they are sleeping on their heads," he explains when I ask about it. Aha! He listens well. He heard me say as I read the story from Scripture, "tongues of fire resting on the heads..."... I like the sleeping orange potato-head tongue with crowned God in the background.
  
  J-girl's picture has many heads, all saying "God loves you" or just "God" in speech bubbles. I like this. The Spirit comes for the purpose of empowering us to spread the Word. She got that. A's picture has the wind, the fire, and someone with "1, 2, 3" in their speech bubble. "They're speaking Chinese!" she says. I beam. Because I know she is so proud of remembering how to count to three in Chinese (we learned it from a dear Chinese friend who visited our class last fall.). Pentecost begun. To be continued tomorrow. Holy Spirit, enable me.
  
  
• Deep frustration at what they have not learned. What just bounces off the walls of their brains, no matter how many times I've tried to get it in there. Stuff they should know by now. Stuff they should know to graduate Kindergarten. They are so resistant!! How long it takes us to get through a simple task that should, according to curriculum, be easy for them by now. ARGH. A generation and a culture that it is very, very, very hard to teach. How do you pour water into a vessel that has a lid on it??
  
  
• Market week. I'm teaching about how the world shops and trades this week. Trying to tie together all the continents we've learned about as well as our math lessons on money, plus hoping to instill an economic conscience/awareness. We acted out a supply chain, with motions for each actor. From a garment shop worker (a little girl) in India (and her family), to her boss, to the shipper/middleperson in their country, to the middleperson in the U.S. who seeks out the lowest-priced manufacturer, to the 'big boss' of the selling corporation in the U.S. Plus the cashier at his store, for good measure and connection to our daily lives. And finally, an American consumer. The big boss starts with all the money. A rectangle o' construction paper. He tears it up, piece by piece, to pay the players -- or they pay one another...
  
  First we acted it out with greed in full sway. The girl in India ends up with virtually nothing. Her boss takes as much advantage of her powerlessness as possible. The 'big boss' ends up pretty well off. The American consumer buys a shirt that says 'made in India.' Then we switched it up. American consumers wrote to the big boss and asked him to make sure the products he sells are made with fair conditions for workers. He thinks about and decides to give it a try. His ethical stipulations are passed down the line until the garment shop boss in India has to either comply or lose business. He complies. The little girl has fairer conditions and a better life for her family. The American consumer buys a shirt that says 'made under fair trade conditions in India.' Tomorrow we'll talk about child labor. And then the more nitty-gritty of bargaining and buying and selling directly.
  
  We're also reading "Market," by Ted Lewin. A good picture book about different outdoor markets around the world. Then we'll have our own little market days on Wednesday and Thursday. Bringing in stuff to 'sell.' I haven't thought out all the logistics of how to make that fun and non-disastrous yet. Sigh. Sometimes I just hope these things come to me in the moment, or just a few minutes before. Today's lesson did. I was fairly happy with the attention they paid and how into it they got. They were proud of the roles they played. When J. was the 'big boss,' he came to the end and wanted to give all his money to the girl in India. I was proud of him.
  
  I must say, I feel rather like a hypocrite. I try to avoid being a consumer, period. But I know that I don't know the background of much of what I do own. Well. Teach a lesson, wake yourself up.
  
  
• In all of this, in all of this, it is a fight. A fight for their attention. To get them to sit up, face you, look up, wake up, get engaged. 'Come on, please!', you think. 'If you'd only give me a minute, just a minute, just listen long enough for me to catch you. It's good stuff! You will be caught! Just please, for one second, stop playing with the lint on the floor, whispering to the person next to you, fussing about position..."

31.

32. Or: Four.

Some highlights:

A discussion of the weather this morning results in a split vote between "partly cloudy" and "sunny." There are two clouds in the sky!" the ardent defenders of p.c. assert. The two clouds in question were very small, streaks of cirrus against a brilliant and otherwise cloudless blue.
Sunny takes it by two votes, but the sunny faction graciously asks that "partly cloudy" be put up on the weather board, too. I am impressed with their diplomacy.

A worship and prayer session is our follow-up to the Ascension story this week. Just like the disciples returned to their quarters to pray and praise God after they saw Jesus ascend, we took our cardboard disciples off the wall where they stood under our cotton ball clouds. "Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."
We sang the chorus to 'He Reigns' --
"It's all God's children singing glory, glory, hallelujah, He reigns... It's all God's children singing glory, glory, hallelujah, He reigns.
And all the powers of darkness tremble at what they've just heard.
For all the powers of darkness can't drown out a single word....:
It's all God's children singing glory, glory, hallelujah, He reigns..."
They sing with gusto. They hold their cardboard disciples. We worship with the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us.

Later in the day: Two boys come up to me beaming with pride: "He asked me to open the refrigerator for him, because he needed help, and I did it." "And I said thank you!"
I love that this was report-worthy.

Next came: Friday, parent-teacher conferences. A strange step into the world of 'what if'. what if the day didn't start so early... what if we talked more to one another... everything changes, then suddenly: Wham. Back to the routine. A bit like waking up and then being slammed back into the strange and heavy dream you were having before... but I'm thankful. The meetings I did have went well. The folk who were not able to come... I hope I get a chance to talk to when I have the kind of energy that is rare on full days of teaching.

Friday evening: Sara Groves, in person, and the amazing kids and staff of New City Church bless me richly. With memories, hope, and rest in Christ. In Almighty God. Thank You.

33. or: Three.

Pieces of
today.

---A practice evacuation (or Tsunami Drill) walk. Entire school. Buddied up -- big kids with little ones. Up the block. Halfway across the bridge. U-turn. Back to school. When was the last time you had a tsunami drill? It felt like a merry parade.---

---They colored Picasso's 'Three Musicians.' Tomorrow they'll attempt their own cubist-ish portraits of one another. Thankful for their interest, I am, I am.
---

---"How do people get powers?"
this the deep, whispered naptime question of the day from my Wheels-Always-Turning J.-boy. He got up in the dark and walked around his table to come ask me this where I was sitting.

Me: What kind of powers do you mean?
J: You know, like doing stuff with your eyes, or flying. Superhero powers like that. How do people get those?
Me: Well...not all the powers you see in stories and movies are real. Birds are made to fly, but people weren't -- but it's fun to pretend! And God can do all those things when He chooses to... And hey, you have powers, you know.
J: Like what?
Me: Thinking power, talking power, walking power...
J (scornfully, a little disappointed): Those aren't powers.
Me: Ah, but I bet if a carrot looked at you, he'd say to himself, "I wish I had the super powers he has! Walking power, talking power...those are amazing super powers!"
J: Oh! (dawning realization of perspective making a difference).... But carrots have powers too. Like talking to their carrot friends. The other carrots.
Me: Interesting point. Have a seat now, bud. It's rest time...

Many interesting things about the dialogue above. Not least of which is why I would choose to use a carrot as the example of a less-powerful creature, as opposed to a thinking being, like a dog, say, or a mouse. A carrot.

I think you step rather far into the realm of the hallucinatory

when you live in reactive stream-of-consciousness performance day after day after day. ---
and that
is all
for now.

34. Or Two.

35 Works of Art. in process.

Learned more about the ascension of Christ through teaching it. We talked about how the disciples would feel. I thought about the promises -- "WAIT FOR THE GIFT THAT WAS PROMISED" and "I WILL BE WITH YOU ALWAYS" -- bookending the event. The question asked by the disciples just before -- "now, Lord? Restoring the kingdom now?" And the answer: "It's not for you to know the day or the hour...but you will be empowered to be witnesses to me. To all you've seen." (paraphrase. excuse me.)
And I see that I ask the same: now, Lord, now? Won't you come back now? Won't you fix all this madness now?
And the answer is still: You will be empowered to be my witness.
That's it. And lo, He is with me always
even to the very end of the age.
The kidlings made 'disciples.' Cardboard ones. The point was to put an expression on 'your' disciple's face. How did he feel at the ascension of Jesus? "He's amazed," said one. "I would be nervous," said another. One drew a smile right on top of a frown. Mixed emotions.
and ours change, too, over our years of encountering the promise from a God we can no longer touch with our hands.

They cracked up at today's chapter of 'Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.' I was yelling nonsense words at the top of my voice as Willy Wonka pretended to be a martian. That was nice.
Ah, but the headache was beginning then.
How is it that a headache can override so many little positives in a day to make it all feel too much? They are, after all, so loud. What kind of fool tries to play alphabet Bingo ("Sound-O") for a station during playtime? (this kind.)

We put on our 'color eyes' this afternoon. Put on your orange eyes. What do you see around us that's orange? Purple eyes. What do you see? We talked about warm colors and cool colors. And then colored a page of each. That was nice. I think I need to teach some vague, loosely monitored and defined Sensory Experience and Imagination class.

A friendly New York City policeman happened by during their recess, as I was out among my small people, and as J. was coming up to me tearfully to tattle on people not letting him play, or poking him... I forget all the details. But said policeman said "Who?" J. repeats the names of the offenders, as if NYC cop will of course know whom he is talking about. Policeman: "Point them out to me." I was too tired by this point in the day to play this out to its full potential. Wish I had. My thanks to that policeman for the moment.

incapacitated by the day. tasks after school that should have taken ten minutes took forty-five. Mind sloooooowed. Like moving through molasses. Fuzzy molasses. Blurry molasses. What?

Thirty-four.

Thirty-five. One.

35 Works of Art.
(the last child-peopled 35 days of Kindergarten; God bless them all.)

Installation (or installment) #1. Or #35 if you prefer to count backward. Which I think I do.

The plan: With notes on the realization thereof in red.

1. Welcome back from spring break. Review rules. Hope that this has some effect.
Rules review may have had some minimal effect. One kid went to Disney World over the break. I was very excited about this. Our class still struggles with calling out, which escalates into chatting at volumes so high so as to make the teacher inaudible. The teacher being: me. I do get tired of addressing this. How does one retain one's sanity addressing this again...and again...and again... ?
2. Calendar and Bible time. Bible: Review Easter, talk about the appearances of Jesus to His disciples after resurrection. ("Peace be with you," said He; loving the doubter Thomas; forgiving the unfaithful Peter; fellowship a priority; the beginnings of the Church -- "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you...") How did you celebrate Easter? Sing our latest song -- "It Was a Great Thing." Pray together.
Discussion took too long for singing to take place. But it was good talk. Surprising how many kids said they did nothing to celebrate Easter. General exclamations by all when Thomas put his hands on Jesus' wounds. I was proud of my roly-poly (in speech and body) G. when she turned to the memory verse of 3 weeks ago on the wall behind her and recited it with gusto: "For we know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. Romans 6:6." I tried to bring up limited atonement today. Those God has called into His family are those Christ died for. J.'s closing prayer included "and bless our food." Bless the boy. He's like a fifty-five year old boxer who's just been brought into a church for the first time and is trying to reverence the sacred.
3. Math: telling time. Reviewing parts of a clock. Workbook pages for basic 'o'clock' times. Playing with small demo clocks and giant clock hands and numbers on the carpet.
Surprisingly smooth. Every blessing You pour out, I'll turn back to praise.
4. Phonics: introducing lots of short 'e' words. Game played with the chart of words. Teams have Readers, Artists (to illustrate the word), Rhymers and Sentence-Makers. Work through different words as a team.
A liiiiittle chaotic. Hoping that we can repeat this and have it go much more smoothly now that they know how it works. One team was smooth and smart and open-eared. The other was wacky, didn't listen to each other, all over the place. The talking over my voice and instructions was starting to get to me by this point.
5. Their elective; lunch; free time (help! this needs more structure in order to avoid yelling, violence and chaos. We'll see what happens today. Maybe I'll give them more specific tasks). Story time (Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator) and nap. Recess.
The Great Glass Elevator is wacky. Way off from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 60s political commentary (we're in chapter 4), puns that go way over a 5-year-old's head... I'm thinking I may need to hop over some bits in this readaloud. We got through today's chapter, but I may lose 'em if it keeps up this way. I think we all miss the chocolate and the wild machinery. Free time: we made birds by gluing fragments of tissue paper onto self-designed 'bird-shapes.' The normally unartistically-inclined J. got into how the tissue paper loses its color on the white paper when wet. I loved how his eyes gleamed when I told him it looked like he'd found the color of sunshine and captured it on paper. This made me glad.
6. I take the other Kindergarten class today -- art focus this week. Color! Rainbow day. We'll learn the chorus of "Look to the Rainbow", meet Roy G. Biv, and make rainbows with pastels, on mural paper, etc.
Messy. Fine. Didn't get to the song. They talked over me too much. But it's always good to see kids paint. I hope these parents aren't prissy about pastels all over white uniform shirts, etc. Blue paint in one kid's hair, on another's face, and all over several hands.

After school: tutoring one special lad on alphabet and sounds. He has a unique way of looking at the world. Quotes of the day from this dear alien: "I am an artist. I have art power stronger than other people." and "When I was a baby, I was good all day."

Lingering sense: Thankfulness for a day that did not sock me in the face, after a very rough morning, rough getting up, facing situation, fighting fear, inertia and other things. Hopefulness. Desire to not let the day keep talking to me negatively once school's over -- hoping to learn to let it go. Hoping the emotional frustration with being talked over will stay at a low-grade, keeping-it-in-perspective level. 35. There it was. There it is. Committed to the Lord of it. Gone and done,
and the color of sunshine on a very gray and rainy day.