Red Shirts

October 16, 2013 — Leave a comment

This morning I had a student say to me, upon seeing me for the first time that day, “I like your shirt!”

It was just an ordinary blue button down Oxford shirt, but it was a long-sleeved shirt, see. The first I’d worn all year. Your basic Hal Gurnee outfit. Up until now it’s been nothing but the same 5 or 6 polo-style short sleeve shirts I own. Over the past year I had pared down my wardrobe, for travel purposes, and I’ve been slowly replenishing the work shirts since I got back. And so, since the year started, it’s been a simple uniform of khakis and polo shirts. I’ve had these weird skin sensitivities lately, but I recently discovered these shirts, and they’re fabulous. They’re pretty much all I wear.

Anyway. Why am I writing about shirts? Because yesterday, to coordinate with our Boosterthon Fun Run®, I wore the second of two red polo shirts I own. I wore the other one on Friday. Actually, I wear the red shirt every Friday, because it’s “spirit wear” day, and I get to wear blue jeans. Simple pleasures of life, people. So another student catches me in my wardrobe faux pas, and says, “Why are you wearing a red shirt? It’s not Friday!” I guess, according to him, I end the workweek like Tiger Woods does a golf tournament.

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Hopefully I’m less expendable than these guys.

 

The point of all this is not about shirts, or the lack of variety in my sartorial selections, but about what kids remember. I could complain that some spend more time remembering the oddball details, instead of putting proper punctuation at the end of their sentences, but that’s a losing battle. Kids remember weird stuff. (My former student Liz still busts out stuff I said in class 14 years ago like it was yesterday.) This causes many of us to develop that very cautious, rehearsed voice, where every word is chosen very slowly and deliberately. You never know what kids will remember, so sometimes its best to choose your words with caution and care.

I am not very good at this. I talk to them in a regular voice, and I try to avoid that “teacher voice” as much as possible. Our daily Boosterthon visitors to our classrooms have very rehearsed, affected voices, and I don’t think the kids like it. I think they take offense when you talk to them like you’re a textbook, or a game show host. Show them some respect, recognize them as proper individuals, and use your own voice when talking to them. That’s what I do, and I hope that’s something that they remember.

Oh, and the first time I wear a sweater, it’s gonna blow their minds!

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Untitled

October 15, 2013 — 1 Comment

Today I did something I hardly ever get to do anymore: I went to a store and bought physical music. Not at an actual record store, because I don’t think those really exist. But I wanted to do something enjoyable and real, and so I wanted to buy a couple of CDs and take them home and unwrap them and look at the liner notes and place the CD into the tray and then hit play and turn the music up loud.

I made it about halfway through Paul McCartney’s new album before I fell asleep. That’s not a knock on the new songs; it’s pretty good, actually. No, I was just exhausted. All I did last night was violently toss and turn in my bed, and only had a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, if that. So I had a short nap after work, if you can even call it that. I still remember listening to the whole album, and even noted when a new song came on, but all I did was sleepily wonder, “Is that the nostalgic song he wrote about being a kid in Liverpool?”

(I love Paul, but you can’t swing a dead cat around one of his albums without coming across a song describing his early days, more often than not “with John,” because he seems to feel people will turn on him if he doesn’t constantly look back and make semi-fond recollections about life with John. But hardly ever George, which is a darn shame. George was the best.)

But now here I go waxing nostalgic about buying physical music and about how it’s all changing and nothing’s the same. Well, yes and no. I probably buy most of my music off iTunes now (legally, I might add, to any students out there who think it’s okay to just steal it off the Internet.) Due to budget reasons, I’ve spent most of the past year listening to music on Spotify. I at least pay for the premium service, but I know barely any money goes to the artists. Maybe Sir Paul doesn’t have to worry about new money coming in, but other, smaller bands do, if they want to survive. So listen up, members of The Head and the Heart: I bought your CD too.

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I felt like honoring ritual today, knowing that I won’t have much time left to enjoy it. We’ve gotta be in the final years of buying physical CDs, right? Or will they (and vinyl, and cassettes, even) trudge along, available for those who want them? The days of browsing record stores are long dead, and even places like Best Buy are down to barely anything decent. And it’s the same with bookstores, and I know I’m not saying anything original or revelatory. They’re just rituals that I enjoyed, and it’s something enjoyable from my younger days. Back when a drive from Peoria to Madison, Wisconsin, just to look for Pogues or Smiths imports was a day of fun. Now it’s all on the internet, everything you could ever want to listen to, and none of it has the meaning like something sought for long and hard, and then found. No. It’s just not the same.

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I’m tired, folks. I’m tired of having this cough for the fourth week now, tired of being unable to sleep like a real person. Tired of only wanting to stay home and surround myself with those hunted-down books and movies because I’m too worn-out and broke to do anything else. Tired of not feeling like I’m alive. Which is an awful thing to say, as too many people I know are in real fights for their lives. Too, too many people.

*   *   *

The new album by The Head and the Heart is great, though.

Time to grade a Math test.

UPDATED: I’ve listened to this whole album now, and I’m a bit underwhelmed. Maybe I just need to give it a few more listens…

ANOTHER UPDATE: My copy, courtesy of Target, had three extra songs on it that Target didn’t, for only a dollar more than iTunes. Physical media!

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Thundercrack

October 14, 2013 — Leave a comment

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Woke early and enjoyed a third morning of being able to read and drink coffee at my leisure. Graded papers until around noon, then decided to take a long drive. Followed Rt. 71 westward, the cool autumn air whipping around the inside of my car as I listened to Dylan’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid soundtrack and the first album by The Head and the Heart. Same albums I played over and over again during my various winter trips across the eastern half of the United States.

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Sun shone through the cornfields, glowing in the afternoon light. Pictures never do it justice, the way the fields look this time of year, contrasting against the blue sky and the deep green grass lining the roads. This is the Midwest at its loveliest, and I wish it could just stay this way forever. Not looking forward to the long six months of brown and grey and dead everything.


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Drove through Newark and Norway and a surprisingly vibrant-looking Ottawa. Used to drive this route all the time twenty years ago, back and forth from school to home and back again. I gas up and I hear a group of farmers chatting. Gas smell on my hands is pleasant, makes me think of the short time I did farm work myself.

Jump back in the car, now a time machine, continuing all the way to Starved Rock, last refuge of the real Fighting Illini, according to legend and a somewhat sketchy oral history. Obscure Springsteen tracks pour out of my stereo as I wind through a canopy of orange and yellow and russet. Take a short walk in the state park along the Illinois River, careful not to aggravate the various ailments plaguing me. Only thing I’m good for these days are sitting with a nose in my book, or driving in my car.

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Traffic is slow in spots as cars queue up behind a combine or a grain truck lumbering their way to the side roads. For some reason I spot no less than three abandoned cars along Rt. 71. For a moment I wonder if I’m heading towards some apocalyptic disaster, and the cars are the only remainders of those who tried to flee.

Then “Thundercrack” comes on and I forget all about the apocalypse.

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Sunday Baseball

October 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

I had to ask myself just now, “Did the Bears play today?” And then I remembered, no, they played the Giants on Thursday. Not that I would have watched the game. I try, I really do, but I just can’t get into football, and I know that makes me quite possibly an awful America-hating liberal elitist wimpy book-reading snob who hates America and who probably caused the government shutdown just because he hates America so much.

No, I don’t hate America, and I don’t hate football, but I just can’t get into it. I grew up during the heyday of Da Bears and Da Coach in the 1980s, and that was fun, but that was almost 30 years ago. I turn on the TV and it’s all bombast and commercials and all of these loud brash things that I don’t really like.

Then we had Jordan and the Bulls, and I watched a lot of those games, and for a while I could tell you the starting five players for the Fighting Illini. But that was a while ago. Derrick Rose is “healthy” and the Bull should be a real contender, so maybe I’ll give them a shot this year.

I’ve never watched a Blackhawk game in my life. Never liked hockey as a kid, ain’t gonna jump on that bandwagon now.

The sport I’ve been the most loyal to would be baseball. I played a bit of it as a kid, although I wasn’t any good. But I grew up a Cubs fan, and if you gave me a minute I could probably tell you most of the players on the ’84, ’89, and ’03 teams. That old blog I started ten years ago has as its first entries a few mentions of the infamous 2003 playoffs, when we were five outs away from the World Series, until You Know What happened. I had been flirting with becoming a fan of the Red Sox for a few years at that point, and it was around then that I more or less gave up on the Cubs. The next year the Red Sox won the World Series, and that was fun, although I can’t say I stayed a consistent fan. I’ve got the Red Sox-Tigers game on right now, but as I look up I notice that Detroit scored and I don’t even remember that happening.

Still, being a Cubs fan is part of who I am, even though I don’t really watch the games any more. Even though it marked me immediately as a Yanqui devil, I wore my Cubs hat proudly while in Dublin. Needed a bit of home while I was away. But now they’re owned by the Ricketts family, which makes me…conflicted with some of their beliefs. But being a Cubs fan fits my overall personality, if you know what I mean. That Bill Murray-esque weary-with-the-world thing, hoping that something great happens, but enough of a realist to know that it probably won’t.

So, in the end, I’m just not a sports guy, and that can make you a very lonely person in a sports-obsessed culture like ours. I can fake it for about 10 seconds, but that’s about it.

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Leaving Connolly Station, 2012.

 

Now, if anyone wants to talk about European rail travel, or the plays of Brian Friel, or thin crust vs. deep dish pizza, or how awesome The Head and the Heart is, then I’m your man.

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A Saturday Evening Breeze

October 12, 2013 — 1 Comment

It rained off and on today, so I spent most of the day sleeping in, drinking coffee, and reading Holes, a novel for kids I should have probably read a long time ago, but never got around to it. The setting and premise were interesting, but I thought the ending had way too much of the ole “Everyone Gets Everything They Ever Wanted.” Maybe that’s part and parcel with kid lit, but I don’t know if I really get why it’s such a well-loved book. Maybe I just can’t read books for younger readers anymore.

The weather cleared up and so I ran out to get a few things for the house. Still rebuilding and restocking the new place, even after living here for three months. I may not have any dressers, but as of today I am the owner of a Crock-Pot. Ran into a few people I know, which happens more often now that I’m living in Oswego again.

The windows are open and there’s a nice breeze moving through the house. It’s Saturday night and the sun’s going down. Leaves are already falling off the trees, but we haven’t hit peak color here yet. Weather’s finally starting to cool off, hopefully for good. I’m just not made for the hot weather, and the fact that it’s mid-October and I was still running my air conditioner as of yesterday just makes me shake my head. Quite the toasty world we’ve got these days.

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A Walking Tour of Mr. Fauth’s Classroom, Part Two

October 11, 2013 — 1 Comment

Part One is located here, in case you missed it.


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Here’s a wide view of the room. I’ve been in this one for six years straight, as opposed to my time at East View, where I had three different rooms in the same span of time.

I have 30 students, plus a few 4th graders that come in for Math every day. It can be fairly crowded at times. Right now the seats are supposed to evoke a Viking mead hall, but I haven’t been able to get my annual Viking Day off the ground yet. It should have been today, as I always try and have it the Friday before Columbus Day weekend. We have new restrictions concerning food in school, which has really taken half the fun out of Viking Day. Because we do things like this:

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We’ll see if I can get an exemption.

Here’s one more look at my bulletin board area. I have a student who has been giving me pictures of different animals with human names like Bill and Sam:

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When the school was built, interior windows were in vogue, so we could monitor activity in the hallway. Now we cover them up to provide a “safer, more secure” environment in case of a lockdown.

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Traveling back in time to the East View days again, one year a fast food restaurant had Halloween Simpsons toys, based on episodes of their annual Treehouse of Horror episodes (back when they were good.) Students brought them in and gave them to me. I had a Bart one, but one year my sister and my niece were visiting and she took a liking to him.

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One student has decided it is her job to mark off the lunch calendar at the end of every day. And to occasionally leave me secret messages behind the screen.


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Zooming in on the library, we see some rather worn copies of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and a pre-film edition of The Return of the King. (I really need to update my classroom editions of  The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. That might be all that’s left of them.)

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My library could use some work, to be honest. I should be grouping them by genre, labeling them with reading level stickers and whatnot, but it’s a lot of work and I just don’t have the time.

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My old Choose Your Own Adventure books made their way into my class library. Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey? was my favorite one to read over and over again.


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Peanuts isn’t as popular now with kids as it was back in the day, but they’re still a presence in my classroom. Snoopy on his doghouse was made by my mother a long, long time ago. The beanie toys were a gift from…Kaitlin S, I think.

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Nibbles is a creepy rat who occasionally shows up in students’ desks. Today someone made him a bed during Read Aloud.

This week was a long one, for many reasons, and I had to have a few chats with some of my boys who really don’t know how to make good choices. Forgotten homework, a tendency to goof around and talk at the wrong times, and a general disinterest in school. I have dubbed them “The Lost Boys.”

After we packed up and marched downstairs, and after the goodbyes and high fives, I walked back to my room, exhausted and frustrated yet again with how the year is going. This was waiting for me on my desk.

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I’ll address the missing capital “R” in “rings” on Tuesday. We just took a quiz today on proper nouns. They should know better!  🙂

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A Walking Tour of Mr. Fauth’s Classroom

October 10, 2013 — 1 Comment

Many teachers hang on to everything, because they never know when it’ll come in handy. I rarely hang on to anything that I don’t use on a regular basis, since I don’t like clutter, and more of more of my “stuff” is in digital form. I have hung onto a few interesting objects over the years, though, and along with a few other entertaining bits, I thought we’d take a short tour of some of my classroom.

Let’s start with this strange little object.

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Every year, sometime during the first days of school, I will have several students become obsessed with this object. They immediately think it’s a brain, or guts, and are always surprised to find that it’s just a hunk of hard pink plastic. Any clue what it is? I’ll let it sit there for a while and spark your creativity, and we’ll come back to it another day.

Also pictured: the new glass chess set donated to my room by a very nice family; the replica Empire Strikes Back lunchbox that is exactly the same as the one I had when I was in 3rd grade. Some NASA toys, a “bald” Lego Harry Potter, and of course rubber spiders and cockroaches, because obviously.

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My desk bulletin board is always one of my favorite places to personalize. It’s a mix of new oddments and some favorites that I stick up year after year. Up at the top you’ll see a man going for a walk:

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I pulled this out of a Norman Rockwell wall calendar a long time ago. I suppose it sums up me at my most content. Going for a long walk in the cool autumn air. Loyal Dog can be optional.

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This picture of Bob Dylan was part of Apple’s Think Different campaign of the late 90s. Its hung in my room every year I’ve taught. Above that is the picture Mr. Rainaldi and I convinced the school picture people to take of us as a joke. The Monet comes and goes, depending on my mood.

Here’s a flashback picture to my first work area, when I taught fourth grade at East View, and where you’ll find a few familiar pictures. I don’t know who the skinny guy with all the hair is, though. The Irish Tricolor hung in my room all the way back in 1998, before I ever set foot on the island. Note the collection of gourds, indicating that this picture was taken almost exactly fifteen years ago, give or take a few weeks. I think Liz gave most of them to me. And to the left of the gourds is the sweet Princess Leia mug I used to have…until Shane broke it the next year.

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Speaking of the Irish, you wind up in Water Bottle Prison if you bring one of those cheap plastic water bottles and scrunch it at your desk just to make noise and annoy me. It will be guarded by the Irish Stereotype Who Wields a Lightsaber.

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The cabinet is new, replacing a large green cabinet that I had in my classroom every year until now. It was originally built by my grandfather for my aunt, who used to teach first grade in the district. She lent it to me for years and years, and I gave it back to her when I moved to Dublin. A parent was kindly enough to donate this one to my classroom. She’s just happy her child is enjoying school again.

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And of course, nothing beats 5th grade artwork. Read it in a mirror!!!!

I’ll take some more pictures tomorrow and continue the tour then. This is kind of fun.

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88 per cent

October 9, 2013 — Leave a comment

While the kids left for P.E., one of them asked me, “What percent Mr. Fauth are you today?”

Mmm, I’m feeling about 88% today.

“I’ll take that!”

If I can monitor how I’m feeling by the number of Halls Menthol cough drops I suck on throughout the day, then I must be feeling better, because I think I only had 2 or 3 today. Usually it’s more like 10-12, sometimes almost non-stop.

Each time I get sick I can never remember the exact details of the last time I was sick, so I’m trying to use this blogging marathon as a way to document a few things, lest I forget the next time this crud comes my way. I’ve finally got a bit of energy again, but I tend to slip back into that overly-energetic mode I get into when I’m teaching, so I’m usually exhausted by the time snack break rolls around.

Had enough gas in the tank to make it to a former student’s soccer game yesterday, on the invite of a parent. I rarely have time for things like that, but he was a student who meant a lot and who kept in touch while I was gone last year, so I was glad to do it. Tough loss, but we got a chance to say hi and chat for a few minutes. Apparently he’s now deep into Arrested Development and Doctor Who. Knew I liked that kid for a reason.

Finally have some money in the back account, so I did a proper grocery buy tonight. After a quick dinner of chicken burritos (again) I worked on emails and my parent-teacher conference schedule, which I’m a bit behind in sending out.

First Quarter is winding down, and so my next two weekends will be spent with large tests and end-of-term projects, and then report cards. I missed the transition to online report cards last year, so this should be a pleasant change. No more hand-writing out all thirty students’ information, no more white out when I invariably make a mistake. 

Trying to get these guys whipped into shape, which involves being stern, but also appropriating stale memes that they haven’t discovered yet:


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This is the secret of my success. Corny, out-of-date jokes and bad impressions. I’m like the Michael Scott of elementary schools.

Oh, God. I’m the Michael Scott of elementary classrooms…

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Ah, no, says he, ’twas not to be

October 8, 2013 — Leave a comment
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The Pogues in 2007 in Chicago. Phil’s on the far left.

Sometimes people talk about that Blowin’ Your Mind moment. Brian Wilson hears “Be My Baby” and he’s so overwhelmed he has to pull his car over to the side of the road. It happens a lot with music. People hear someone like Dylan or Springsteen or Joni Mitchell and they’re just floored. Never heard anything like it, life’ll never be the same again.

I suppose that happened with me and The Pogues.

I’ve written about them before, on the old site, but I won’t bother linking or rehashing that. This is more of a family-friendly site, and some students may be reading it, so we’ll just stay focused on the new entries. But to sum it up, they’re my favorite band of all time. (When it’s not The Beatles, or Wilco, or Belle and Sebastian. Depends on what day you catch me.)

A buddy of mine in high school had their 1989 album Peace and Love, and he just couldn’t get into it. I listened to it in his room and just instantly fell in love, and he gave it to me. Sometime around then I saw them perform on Saturday Night Live, and I just kept thinking, what is this stuff? It’s loud and weird and kind of punk but also sounds kind of like those bluegrass records my mom and grandpa liked. The lead singer looks like a wreck, but he’s singing the most amazing songs.

They were London-Irish, mostly, and mixed traditional Irish tunes with a modern, early-80s punk vibe. They were never wildly popular, at least in my circles, but man did I love them. If anyone ever asks me what started my whole obsession with Irish culture, I always say it started with The Pogues.

So anyway, I bring them up today not to once again prattle on about My Time In Dublin, but to note that Philip Chevron passed away today after a long battle with cancer. He was the guitarist for the band, and the one that kept the flames going in the band, organizing tours, remastering the catalogue, and interacting with fans on their official message board. A gentleman, a lover of the theatre, and a great songwriter in his own right. “Thousands are Sailing” now becomes even more of a misty-eyed song than ever before.

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Ick of the Sea

October 7, 2013 — Leave a comment

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This is the very last of the Purina pencils.

Almost 30 years ago I had a bunch of these, which a friend of mine would alter by scratching out key letters in the Purina products advertised on the pencil. PURINA CHOWS became PURINA COWS; CHEX CEREALS morphed into CHEX EELS; PET products became ET products (how’s that for an 80s artifact?); and of course Chicken of the Sea became ICK OF THE SEA.

Don’t ask me why I still have it. One of those things that survived purge after purge of childhood mementoes and countless moves.

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That’s all I got tonight. Had a horrible night’s sleep, still not feeling any better. Hoping to go to bed early and get some real rest.

Tomorrow apparently there is something called a Boosterthon pep rally. I am scared.

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