The Last Time I Saw My 6th Grade Teacher

Memory is a funny thing. It fades over time. Events blend together like an impressionistic painting. Certain events will stand out, but as you get older even those will drift out of focus and become fuzzy. You might remember your middle school teachers names - maybe, but in a few decades you will have very few clear memories of us. 

That is unless, you have a teacher who really makes a super-strong and long-lasting impression. That middle school teacher for me was Fred Hone. He was my 6th grade teacher.

He looked a little like Jug Head from the Archie comics, but what impressed me was that he didn’t talk to us like we were kids. He didn’t talk down to us. He treated us as equals who just didn’t have the education and life experience he had. 

He was a great teacher for me. He was energized and intense. When you had his attention, you had his FULL attention. A few moments stand out:

When he read The Call of the Wild, a wonderful book about a sled dog, he opened the

huge windows in the classroom on a cold winter day and read aloud as snow flurries swirled around our feet. 

He showed us how to frame a building and helped us build scale models of houses and garages. 

When I casually mentioned my family was getting a pop-up camper, he diagramed how and where to weld the hitch to the frame of the car we would use to tow the trailer. (I’m not sure if he expected an 11-year-old boy to actually do the welding or just impart the information, diagrams and all, to my Dad.)

You know how it is, you see the teachers you had in younger grades around the building. It was the same for me. I saw him around until I left the building and went to high school. 

I didn’t think about Mr. Hone for a very long time - about 18 years. In those years, I finished high school and college, got married, started a family and was, of course, working.

I came home from work one day and casually turned on the TV - The Oprah Winfrey talk show was on - and these were the days when her talk show was a lot like the Jerry Springer or Maury Povich shows. That is to say, very sensationalistic with all sorts of strange and bizarre people featured each day. 

And there was Mr. Hone and his wife casually chatting with Oprah. They met in his 6th grade math class. He was her teacher and, a few years later, when she turned 17, they married. It was national news. He even went to jail for a brief time.

I was shocked and stunned. I just stood there in my kitchen, mouth agape and just stared at the TV. I mean who does that?

That was the last time I saw my 6th grade teacher and it’s kind of a funny story to tell.  But, when I think about Mr. Hone (Here I am, 60 years old and he’s still Mister Hone to me), I think about how enthusiastic he was in the classroom, how he loved to impart knowledge to his young charges and how intense his teaching style was. 

Sadly, as I was researching this post, I discovered that Mr. Hone passed away this September. He made an impression on me. I hope I carry some of his respect for students in my teaching style.  

And, if anyone wants to know how to weld a trailer hitch to a car, I’d be happy to diagram it out for you.

Do Your Job

“Do Your Job.”

It’s about the most famous phrase in New England sports history. 

It’s the mantra that has powered the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl winning seasons.

I say it all the time, but in the school-speak version: “Do your work.”

I know it’s true for my class, but I suspect it’s a universal truth - if you do your work, you’ll get good grades.

When I see students who are not getting good grades in class, it’s almost always because they’re not doing the work. And, it’s usually not because they don’t understand, it’s because they’d rather sit and chat. 

We’re at the end of the first quarter. Report cards come out next week. Your grades are probably just about done. You can ask your teachers about your grade. 

If you’re not happy with the grade, now is a time for some honest reflection. Did you do your work?  Did you finish assignments or just let time slip away until it was too late to complete your work? Did you sit and talk while you should have been working?

It’s not too late to change your approach to school. It’s really pretty simple:

• If you do your work, you’ll get good grades.

If you get good grades, lots of good things happen: Your parents will be proud of you. You’ll be proud of yourself. You’ll have more choices on where to go for high school. You’ll get the better classes in high school…and so on.

• If you don’t do your work, you’ll probably get poor grades. 

If you get poor grades, lots of bad things will happen: Your parents will be on your case. You’ll feel bad about yourself. You’ll have few if any choices on where to go for high school. You’ll get the lower, slower classes…and so on.

Just do your job - do your work. 

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I am a licensed middle school math and science teacher, but I'm only teaching science now. Some of you may not know, I have taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math in the past. 

When I was in middle school, I was an average math student. My grades were usually in the B range. In high school, I continued as a B student except for Geometry. I loved Geometry - I earned 100 on all the tests and usually got the bonus right, so my average for the year was 107 or something ridiculous like that.

When I got to college, things changed. I struggled with Calculus (Thank you Sir Issac Newton). In my first Calc class, I got a 13 on the first major exam. I was lost. My professor was not helpful but 99% of the blame falls on my shoulders. 

I was afraid. 

I was afraid of failure - but I was failing in a big way. 

I was afraid to ask for help. I was all mixed up.

Instead of taking steps to un-mix myself, I hid. I avoided the problem. I wished it would just suddenly make sense. Of course, I was doing nothing to make it all make sense. I just tried not to think about it. 

Guess what? 

It did not get better. It did not “suddenly make sense.” I failed. I still have nightmares about that struggle and it was a loooong time ago. 

But, I learned from my disastrous experience. 

I took the class again, this time with another professor. I asked for help as soon as I started feeling lost and confused. I went for extra help. I asked questions. 

This time, I earned a solid B. It was hard, but it was not something I could not do. I just needed to take action. I needed to face my problems and solve them, often with help from friends, the professor and his teaching assistant. 

It’s hard to face failure. It’s hard to admit that you don’t understand. It’s hard to ask for help.

We all fail. We all have things we don’t understand. We all need help sometimes. 

We just need to be brave enough to ask for help. We need to take action and not hope it gets better. 

Ask the questions. Admit you don't know it all, yet. Raise your hand. 

Be brave and you will be sucessful. 

The Day I Broke My Finger

Look at the picture of my right hand. Do you notice that one of the fingers has a bend in it?

Yeah, that’s the finger I broke. It didn’t heal quite correctly, so it’s got a bit of a bend towards the index finger and thumb.

Actually, I’ve been pretty lucky with respect to broken bones. I’ve broken that finger and a toe (same toe - twice).

The finger break happened when I was in college. I was working for an electrician. I’m NOT an electrician, I was kinda “the kid” on the job site. As in, have the kid climb into the 125 degree attic, or have the kid crawl under the house and look for that wire. 

It was not glamorous work but I enjoyed it. I liked the camaraderie with the guys I worked with (There were no female employees in the company and I can not recall any woman construction workers on any job site). I learned a lot - skills that have helped me as a homeowner. It was great and I earned a gaudy $3.00 an hour! (Of course the minimum wage in those days was $2.05 an hour)

I broke my finger using what’s called an impact-drill. It’s a drill that spins and hammers at the same time. It’s used to drill holes in concrete. That’s what I was doing: drilling a hole in a concrete ceiling so we could run some wires. Unfortunately, the bit (That’s the pointy end of the drill that actually does the drilling) got hung up on a piece of steel wire inside the concrete and spun the drill uncontrollably in my hands, taking my right hand on an alarming ride.

It hurt!

Since it was lunch time anyway, I stopped working, had lunch and worked the rest of the day. My whole hand hurt and my finger was swelling so much I could not put my work-gloves on.

That night I went to a walk-in medical center and they put a splint on my finger and told me not to use the hand for anything strenuous for a week or so. 

I did not listen. I went to work the next day with the splint on and continued working - but no more drilling!

I didn’t take good care of my finger and I guess that’s why it’s got that bend in it. 

I guess I should have listened…

Beware The Gravity Vortex

There is something weird going on in my room. And, no, I’m not talking about the 8th grade. People keep falling off chairs and stools. 

My first thought was “Oh, the new black, wooden stools are a bit slippery” but it has happened to kids sitting on the old stools - and they are not slippery -  and to people sitting in the blue chairs as well. 

I know these kids are not leaning back in their chairs, lifting the chair/stool feet off the ground. I mean, that would just be asking for trouble, right? The lab stools have four legs and four feet and to attempt to balance on just one or two, is just tempting fate, right?

If someone was leaning back on a lab stool and suddenly toppled over and landed in a heap on the floor, no one would say “I didn’t see that coming,” because, well, you do see it coming. It’s inevitable. So, i’m convinced that’s not what’s causing my students to crash to the floor. 

And, that wouldn’t explain how they’re falling out of the blue chairs. Those chairs have two long runners to support them, Those runners are about a foot and a half long and have four little feet on them. They’re pretty sturdy. You really have to work to tip one of those over. The idea of leaning back in one of those seems like more work than it could possibly be

worth. 

No, it’s not my young scholars leaning back in the chairs that’s bringing them smashing into the hard, tile floor. It’s not the slipperiness of the new wooden stools. It has to be something else….

The only thing I can think of is a gravity vortex. 

I picture it like a tornado - but invisible and with gravity and not wind. These gravity vortexes must be all over the school, because I have seen kids falling out of chairs in other classrooms as well. 

Maybe, to keep you kids safe, we should install seatbelts on all the chairs/stools in the school. I’m not sure how to get this done, but I’ll speak to the administration to see how we can make this happen.

Until then, be careful. Watch out for the gravity vortex!

The Joy of Audiobooks

I enjoy reading. I always have. 

One of my most distinct memories of middle school is walking home (I was a walker because I lived less than a mile from school (but, truthfully, it was about 12 feet less than a mile)) after school while reading “Reach for the Sky.” This is one of my favorite books and I’ve read it several times. It’s about a World War II fighter pilot who had lost his legs in a plane crash. I literally could not put

it down.

Each year, I set a goal for myself to read 20 books and I always exceed that number. As I write this, at the end of July, I am on book number 21 for 2019, so I’ve exceeded my goal again. (Maybe I need to set higher goals).

Recently, I have found reading in the evenings very difficult. I get tired after a few pages so it’s hard to get through a 300 page book, 5 pages a night. But, I listen to books - mostly in the car. 

Listening is easier than reading, and I spend a lot of time in the car. I get through a lot of books by listening. I don’t retain the information as well as actually reading it, so sometimes I’ll re-listen to a book or a chapter if I really want to “get it.”

Some of our science textbooks are available as audiobooks too, if you’re interested in listening rather than reading, see me. We can figure out how to get the audio version of the textbook on your phone. 

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Ten weeks off from school. Wow! It really helps not to have a lot of snow days. 

Ten weeks…and now it’s over.

I actually had a mostly busy summer with some stretches where I had very little to do. 

I sold my home and moved out. That was a LOT of work!

We bought a new condominium but had to wait 26 days from the time we sold our house to the date we could move into our new condo. We spent 26 days living in a hotel, waiting for our new place. Ugh.

That’s a long time in a hotel room with two adults and a dog. I had a lot of down time, so I

went to museums. 

I visited the Custom House Maritime Museum in Newburyport. I love all things related to ships, so this was a museum I had wanted to visit for a long time.

I visited the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, NH. This was okay, I was hoping it would be a great place for a field trip, but it's geared to elementary-aged kids. 

I visited the Warren Anatomical Museum in Boston. Gruesome and fascinating. Lots of skulls, bones, skeletons and other body parts.

I visited the Hart Nautical Collection at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge.

I visited the MIT Museum obviously at MIT in Cambridge. They had a lot of really cool things - like mechanical sculptures that moved on their own.

I visited the Umbrella Cover Museum in Portland, Maine. Honestly, I didn't even know what an umbrella cover was until I stopped in there. 

The two highlights of the museums were:

• Finding a mistake in a display at Hart Nautical Collection. They misidentified a ship in a display. I emailed the curator and pointed out the error.

• Seeing the skull of Phineas Gage. Phineas Gage was the victim of s gruesome accident. A four-foot long iron pole was blasted through his head, leaving part of his brain destroyed and two gaping holes in his head. The pole landed several yards
  
  away.  And he survived!

Then, it got busy again - we moved into our new home and that was a LOT of work, too!

Finally, it was time to prepare for school.

And here we are….