Dad on Duty #119

The art teacher decided to create a school-wide project that she called the “Community of Cooper”.  It would include a self-portrait by every student and staff member.

She asked me to participate as well.  Called me out by name in her email. 

I was floored by that.  To be included at that level, and for her to specifically think to ask me, means a lot to me.  I’ve only been here one year. 

I started the drawing one day.  Now mind you, I have the artistic ability of a jellyfish who has been shot, then given multiple shots of tequila.  In other words, it’s not great.

My initial draft looked like a stick man that had been in a nuclear explosion of some sort. 

On our way home one afternoon, Tori got a glimpse of it and said “what the heck is THAT?”.  I told her the assignment, and she said “well you’re not turning that in”.  So, in the truck, while we were driving down the road, she used the center console and a pencil to draw my “self portrait”.

It’s pretty damn good.  Thank you Becky Smiley.

A few days later, I turn it in to Genny, but I fess up; “um….my kid drew this.  Mine would have caused several kids to go to counseling”.  She laughs, accepts it, and puts it on the big board.

There you go, I’m part of the community.

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Today is the biggest and busiest day in the Cooper school year.  It is Cooper Expo.  This is where the kids put their very best work on display to parents and visitors.  There will also be a couple of shows by the choir and the dance troup, fifth grade will be doing their “egg drop” (with the help of a ladder truck from the fire department), we are eating outside picnic-style and we have the “graduate walk”, a GISD tradition where graduating seniors return to their elementary school and walk the halls to the cheers of the current students.

Pretty sure I’ll get my steps today.

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For the Expo, each grade level chooses a theme and kids work both collaboratively and individually to create presentations to show the visitors what they’ve learned about that topic.

Third grade is doing world environments and eco-systems.  They turn two of their classrooms into replicas of the arctic (here is a glacier):

And volcanic islands:

Another 3rd grade class has created a interactive map, displayed on a large touch-screen, where visitors can touch any blue dot and that geological feature will expand and the kids can tell you about

Kindergarten has chosen a space theme.  The rooms are all decorated in an interstellar motif, and the kids have great props including little jet packs they can put on while they are telling you about the moon.

The best part is what they *know*.  Kindergarteners were able to tell me about gravity, constellations and attributes of gas versus rock planets.  Quite impressive.

Fourth grade is doing the Wax Museum project, where kids pick a historical figure, make a poster summarizing that person and then when someone visits their station, they rattle off everything they know about the individual.  There were some really cool people there, represented in many cases in full dress.

2nd grade chose the oceans.  And they went all out. 

Again, although the decorations were amazing, it was really their understanding of the topic that was most impressive. 

As I mentioned, this was an incredibly busy day.  I felt a lot of pressure to be on the move, and be on the lookout, and to help solve problems. 

But at every grade level, I found classrooms with relatively few parents.  Kids were just sitting at their presentation, with no one to whom to present.  Teachers who had the flexibility to do so made the heroic effort to go to every room and hear those kids.  But I realized maybe I needed to do so as well.  Maybe the crowd in the gym would be OK for a few minutes without me.  So, starting with one of the 2nd grade classes (that had chosen the arctic biosphere as their project), I sat and listened to a handful of exhibitions, in each and every grade.  I’m just rare enough in the building, I think, (I’m not someone they see everyday), that the kids perceived my attention as worth their efforts. 

In first grade, we were also doing ecosystems.  But one teacher, Ms. Elisor, took it to a whole other level.

She had live chickens.

Her and her class had hatched these chicks and raised them.  It was an impressive visual aid when deployed by a first grader telling you about domestic animals as part of the ecosystem.

Now, what the hell they’re going to do with them next week……but that ain’t my problem…….

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Right before lunch, a work crew shows up.  I think really?  Today?  Unless something is on fire, I can’t imagine a worst decision.  I am about to head to The Boss and ask her if I can politely toss these guys and all their stuff out onto the sidewalk (and was genuinely fully prepared to do so) when I realize; they are here to replace the paper towels dispensers.

They are changing to a completely different model of dispenser.

At my age and life experience, there are very few things that are life changing. 

This, without question, is absolutely that. 

You have NO idea, unless you have tried to help a kid get a friggin paper towel out of the current dispensers.  It is literally the end of times.  Beelzebub himself could not have made these things any more painful. 

Gentlemen, if you will change these horrible, awful, evil paper towel dispensers, with which I have been struggling for SEVEN YEARS, you, my dear men, have free run of this building.  I will personally stand guard right here and make sure your work is not interrupted.  I will bring you refreshments. 

Kids came in to use the bathroom while the guys are working, and I chased them away.  “Do not disturb these men!  This is the single most important work ever to be done in this building!” I shouted, as if I were Moses, proclaiming the arrival of the Arc of the Covenant.  The kids were like “I really gotta pee!”  “Whatever.  Next bathroom.  It’s only like 200 feet”.

Behold, the glory.  All hail:

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For lunch, we are having a cookout.  This dude:

spent four hours cooking about 700 hamburgers and hot dogs for the crowd.  He never took a break, and never let up.  And it was hot as hell around his grill.  Really uncomfortable.  He is a hero.

The visitors and kids lined up for lunch,

They get their food and then head out to the blacktop area to eat.  The problems with this operation were many.  The short version:

1. They are using styrofoam trays to carry food about 150 yards, which is 149 yards farther than those things are designed to withstand.
2. After you got your food, you still had to come to a different part of the space and get your drink and silverware, and the kids had to scan their cards.  At that point, you were 100 feet from the door that was closest to the blacktop, and to get to that door, you had to contra-flow into the rest of the school that was still on step 1.  So that went well.
3. The process was slow enough, and the space crowded enough, that by the second group of students, teachers had to exit with the first few kids from their class and go find a spot.  That left me inside saying “go out, turn left, and look for people you know”.  It worked, no kids wandered off, but it was more chaotic than we like. 

I spent about an hour just standing there, picking up dropped watermelon, physically redirecting kids and shouting, every few minutes “Ms. <insert teacher name here> friends, come to me here!”  Over, and over. 

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Meanwhile, in the gym, we have a show consisting of the choir doing two performances of rockabilly/Elvis stuff (and it was damn good) and the dance troup performing a few routines.  At any given show, about half of the school was physically present, plus a hundred or so parents. 

We had to move kids around several times, and between them and the adults, it was packed.  So that was a lot like a Rubik’s cube exercise.  Except hot and a little stinky from all the sweaty people….

The kids were troopers, and Ms. Culberson, our music teacher, and Ms. Rogers and Ms. Marek, our dance coordinators, facilitated a great show.

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Earlier in the day, our librarian, Ms. Montecinos, had asked me if I could capture some photos and videos on her iPad for the official Twitter feed. 

Sure. 

So I did the best I could, in between all this stuff I’ve told you about here, and I bet I took 1,000 photos.

And I’m guessing she found 3, maybe 4, she could use.

To be clear; I am not an artist.  I recommend re-thinking your plan if you want me to do something vaguely related to art.  It will likely not end well.  I am more than happy to try, but I want to be honest and transparent in setting our expectations here. 

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GISD has an amazing tradition wherein seniors that are graduating will go back to their elementary schools and walk the halls in full graduation garb. 

It is intended to inspire the elementary kids; these people were 3rd graders too, right here in this same place as you.  And now they are graduating.  They did it.  You can too.

But it also serves a couple of other amazing purposes.  The graduates, in most cases, have not stepped foot into their elementary school since they left 5th grade.  It’s a special moment of nostalgia for them to walk those halls again, and in many cases, see teachers and administrators that were there when they were in 3rd grade.

But perhaps even more poignant and powerful is the effect on the teachers and administrators who knew these kids back then, and taught these kids back then, and now see them as graduating…..adults.

As an educator, you would be hard pressed to think of something more powerful to you, than to see your 2nd grade student, here in the building you both shared 10 years ago, now in a cap and gown, in front of you.  About to launch into the world. 

As our seniors start to show up, we convene them in the library.  The Boss, who is retiring this year….this is her last go-around on this event…..says “oh, wait a minute!”  She disappears briefly.

……And returns holding the class pics of these kids, from second grade. 

They gather around her to look at it, with her. 

Almost every kid in the graduate walk today is in that picture.  10 years ago.  With Ms. Peacock.  At this building, where they stand together, now. 

And if that didn’t make you tear up…..well…..you better check in with your doctor, because you are probably not alive. 

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Right as the graduates start to gather, The Boss taps me on the shoulder and says “the fire truck just showed up”.

Of course it did.  Right now.  Perfect. 

%*&$. 

I run out there.  Sure enough, it’s a ladder truck.  Which is a vehicle that is 40 feet long, 15 feet wide and weighs about 40,000 pounds. 

Fortunately, these guys are experienced professionals and have gotten themselves parked without any help, and without squishing any kids.

They are here to do the egg drop for 5th grade.  Which, if you haven’t seen one of these, is pretty darn cool.

As their capstone end-of-year project, our 5th graders were challenged with packaging an egg that could be dropped 50 feet onto the blacktop, without breaking.  There were serious limits to the materials and techniques they could employ, of course. 

And so here they go, dropping 120 eggs in various, random and super imaginative packages.

Many packages do very well, gently floating to the asphalt thanks to grocery-bag parachutes, or makeshift wings sewn onto stuff animals.  Others drop rather abruptly, but are so well cushioned by their carefully designed containers that the eggs likely survived unharmed.

Then there are the failures.

They are spectacular.  Well worth the time to watch.

Egg-containing packages plunge from the ladder truck bucket at full terminal velocity, and hit the parking lot sounding like a pumpkin chunked 500 yards from a catapult into a concrete wall.  It is an awesome sound.  And all the observers, simultaneously, let out an “ooooh” and hold their hands to their faces, as in “that’s not good….”.

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23,574 steps later, the day is done. 

It was amazing, but for planning purposes, I’d like to recommend we do this stuff over the course of 2, or maybe 3 days next time?  Just a suggestion. 

Or at least setup a margarita machine in the teacher lounge.  That would definitely help.  Somebody without an actual ISD email will need to rent that.  Just saying. 

All those in favor of that plan……?