Sea Monsters in the Orchestra Room

     This year, one of my duties at school is to cover classrooms for teachers who have been called into middle-of-the-day meetings. 

    That is how I found myself in Terra Incognita last week. That is, the undiscovered territory--noted on maps of the school by tiny pictures of writhing sea monsters twined around a compass rose.

    You know, the fine arts hall. Specifically, the orchestra room. Staggered semicircles of padded chairs and spindly music stands, faded indoor/outdoor carpet that probably has an acoustic-masking spell interwoven. Oversized cubbies jammed full of violins and violas and flutes and horns and the like. Against the wall, a double bass or four. (Also called a stand-up bass by those who equate them more with the Stray Cats than Beethoven's 5th.)

    So I started the string section of the first-year orchestra off on their daily exercises. As God is my witness, one of the tunes in the exercise program was "Hot Cross Buns". All we needed was to imagine a section of 3rd graders on plastic recorders for me to journey back to the particular hell of Hot Cross Bun Week on the bus. Scads of hyperventilating 8-year-olds huffing and piping and moaning into the windpipes, their mouths engulfing the tunnels like as many Coke bottles.

    So back to last week: Among fades, sustains, and vibratos, I raised my line of sight to an astonishing vision. Across the cabinets snugged into the cinderblock walls were arrayed row upon row of trophies, some three feet tall and begilded with adornments and embellishments. There were so many awards that they had spilled onto a cantilevered shelf added to the adjoining wall.

    Awards for individual soloists, for the entire orchestra, for the directors that have led the orchestra since McMeans' establishment in 2000. Creating a monument to achievement that would make Mr. Holland stop mid-Opus for a sigh of pride. I was so inspired that I captured a 10-second panoramic scan.

    We all get tunnel vision. Over time, everything fades into the environment. Even people dear to us. That is how we start taking the people we love for granted. Forget how they enrich our lives.

     Forget also the pride and exhilaration of our accomplishments. The daily grind is just that--a rasp of donkeywork in the face of which all that is exciting and inspiring recedes to a fuzzy out-of-focus sepiatone picture of ages past.

    That is why it is so important to open up to new angles new facets new opportunities new inspirations. To recast your eyes and mind, to be newly stunned by wisdom, beauty, emotion. Not to forget what it is that makes us spectacular.

      In this case, 25 years of stupendous achievement.

      I try to ask myself every day--What else am I missing in front of my eyes because I have willed it into the environmental background of busy-ness?

 

    

    

    

Tale of Two...Trophies?

     Okay, so this story starts with boredom. Not the deep boredom of existential angst, but the simple boredom faced by every sentry on guard duty.

    What to do while guarding the perimeter?

    In this case, the perimeter is the entry corridor to my school. The sentry duty? Patrolling the main entrance, in front of the trophy cases, and ensuring that students without good reasons to be in the hallways before the bell (tutorials, nurse) stay in the gym or cafeteria. Otherwise, gangs of roaming kids get into mischief and stop the Serious Business of teachers prepping for the day's instruction.

    So--mornings at McMeans I am stationed in front of the trophy cases. Full of the boundless energy of a daily coffee addiction, bouncing back and forth. Between challenges to students trying to sneak in to wander the hallways aimlessly, I read all the club notices posted on the walls, look at the decades of choir and orchestra awards, try to pronounce the names engraved on the Athlete of the Year trophies. 

    Separated from the main trophy wall by a cross-corridor and facing the industrial wing of the school--meaning the woodshop, the engineering lab, and the home ec kitchen and sewing room--is a small and mostly overlooked trophy annex. Annex, meaning an addition to the main structure. Just a couple of shelves with a few miscellaneous plaques and trophies. Something something Lego challenge. Another confusing plaque, something to do with a cheer challenge, but separate from the main cheer trophies positioned in the fashionable center.

    And a couple of Quiz Bowl plaques. First place in a tournament from 2011. Fifth place in 2014. 

    Quiz Bowl? So at one time McMeans competed in academic competitions characterized by buzzers and arcane knowledge. Did quite well, judging by the awards won. 

    I was intrigued.Why did we drop the program? Who was the sponsor? Does Quiz Bowl still exist?

    I did some investigation, spoke to teachers who had been around at that time. And struck out. So I called in the deep magic.

    Two doors away is the former principal of my school, Dr. Rice. She hired me then retired a year later, and she was definitely at McMeans during the 2010s. So I knocked on her door with my questions. She was not positive, but she suspected that the teacher who sponsored Quiz Bowl transferred to another campus and no one else was willing to run the club. Extracurricular clubs do pay a modest stipend, but the amount is not enough to tempt you unless you are already inclined to sponsor. At that time in the 2010s, all the attention was focused on robotics and STEM.

    With no sponsor and no interest, Quiz Bowl just...disappeared.

  

    While playing Sherlock Holmes in solving the Case of The Disappearing Program, one of my conversations was with a friend who heads up Destination Imagination, a STEM challenge program. Sam Jow, who places a winning team in the finals more years than not, is well-connected across the district, and he connected me with our new GT facilitator, who had recently resurrected Quiz Bowl programs at some of our sister junior highs.

    Which is how I found myself signing on as the new sponsor of the McMeans Quiz Bowl team. Downloading practice questions, adding quiz apps to my phone, posting flyers around the school, adding daily announcements and lunch screen scrawls. Ms. Ratliff, the GT coordinator, recruited players from her GT classes, and we found ourselves with a room full of smartypants kids eager to compete.

    As part of my first coaching speech, I fetched from the trophy case that dusty old plaque from 2011 announcing us as the winner of the Katy Middle School Challenge. To show the kids we had been champions. Would be champions again. 

    That is what coaches do.

    Only two practices into the year, we enrolled in a small tournament at our feeder high school. Told the kids we were going for practice, to get experience. Low stakes. No pressure. For fun. We had 9 volunteers for that September 19 tournament.

    We won. 

    With one veteran player who moved here over the summer from a long-established competitor as the outright individual scorer, and with another player also landing in the top 10, we won the division on our first outing. Unbelievable! Incredible!

    

    So, well before we had planned, I opened up that dusty old trophy case and made room on the now-reserved QUIZ BOWL shelf. Taking pride of central position, slightly in front of our historical forebears from 2011 and 2014, is our shiny new September 19, 2026 plaque. Every practice, I tell them that we have proven ourselves-that we can compete with all the other junior highs around. But we have to practice daily and diligently. Work on strategy. Learn buzzer discipline. Diagnose our shortcomings and overcome them. 

    Because that is what coaches do.

       

 

He called me a tattletale!

     I chose junior high education due to my experiences as a bus driver. In the early days, before I got a route of my own, I was a pool driver-waiting in the break room each morning to cover absences. With 100 drivers based out of my transportation hub, there was always someone out, so I got to cover all three types of school. Elementary. Junior high. High school. Although I enjoyed both my elementary and high school passengers, it was junior high students that proved to be my tribe.

    

    But elementary students were mighty entertaining.

     One of my most entertaining students was also one of my youngest and smallest. His initials were CJ, which was what he preferred to be called. A kindergartner in 2013. And a typical kindergartner, energetic and emotional and impulsive. 

    His seatmate and best friend was my most mature kindergartner, maybe the most mature kindergarter I have ever known. He spoke three languages, had hundreds of followers on social media where he created videos about robotics, and knew the Latin names of all the dinosaurs. His name was Aiden, and he is probably in a premed or pre-engineering program at Harvard right now. Not exaggerating.

    So these two were seatmates and fast friends. A normal high-energy little kid, and a middle-aged professor hidden in a 6-year-old body. They got along despite obvious differences. Usually.

    

    Until the day that Aiden brought a new dinosaur book on the bus. A coffee-table book, full color with glossy illustrations and crammed with scholarly articles on the differences between saurischians and  

ornithischians. All in tiny 8-point font. Aiden, of course, was studying it in silence, head bowed close to the page as we jumbled over the bumps on Westheimer Parkway.

    I guess CJ had been asking to see the new book and was frustrated at being told no, because he finally appealed to me in frustration: "Mr. Barber, Aiden won't let me look at his book."

    Well, I know that sharing is a big big lesson taught in kindergarten, but enshrined in our Constitution is the right to property. So, as kindly as I could, I explained to CJ that Aiden did not have to share his book with anyone, but maybe he would later, given enough time to look at it himself. 

    There was some hasty conversation between the two, with a sharp comment from Aiden at the end of it. Consideration from CJ, then another appeal to my authority as el Capitan of the Bus. 

    "Mr. Barber, Aiden said I'm a tattletale."

    Well, that is a fine kettle of fish to intervene in. Encourage kids to protect their rights by speaking up. But also leading them to realize that there is a difference between protecting those rights and--well, tattling. Snitching. 

    This is one of the challenges of teaching elementary kids, teaching them about tattling while also making sure they speak up when appropiate. By junior high, most kids have learned the difference. 

    So how was I to negotiate this minefield between two fast friends? Respect feelings but also acknowledge that this report was not covered under safety or fairness?

    CJ solved this problem for me, thankfully. His next question, as I threaded the bus between parked cars, came while I composed a considered and scientific reponse.

    "Mr. Barber, what is a tattletale?"

       

    A snort from Aiden, nose still in an ankylosaurus' thagomizer (credit to Gary Larson, there). 

    Ahh, here was an escape. If I spent enough time sociologically and philosophically defining the unknown term, maybe I could blunt the impact on CJ's feelings. So I explained at length the most accepted definition of the word

    

    someone who tells a teacher or parent that someone else has done something bad, in order to get them in trouble

    For a few moments, silence. Educators call this processing time. Not the time it takes to return your passport, but the time it takes a student to understand the nuances of newly presented information and internalize it. Fit it in with other facts.

    Maybe 30 seconds later, CJ erupted into a forlorn wail. Gouts of hot tears on his cheeks, face red and flushed. 

    "Mr. Barber, I AM a tattletale!" This moaned in agony of self-realization. Never an overly sensitive student, CJ now proved himself to be keenly aware. And miserable.

    Well, although I had to keep my eyes firmly on the road as I kept from breaking out in laughter, his outburst had a happy outcome. Aiden raised his face from his obsession, shoved the book over with a grunt, and turned his face resignedly to the window. CJ wiped ribbons of snot from wet cheeks with the back of his hand and forgot his emotional torment in the mysteries of the sauropods. 

    And I was thankful that I was spared a big discussion about whether or not it is the right thing to do to tell on someone. At their best, kids are good about making their own decisions about their behavior.