The Rites of Spring

Early-release day today, because tonight is Open House.

I never seem to time things right for Open House. Ideally, teachers have lots of colorful, impressive work up on their walls that screams "We've been doing important educational things here: your kid can be president someday!" Well, maybe Corey Snow, but that's a whole different story.

But I don't have any colorful, impressive things to put on my walls for tonight: I have the rough draft of an essay that isn't even marked; I have a packet from our movie study of Of Mice and Men that isn't marked; I have a stack of Scan-trons that would look silly stapled to the wall. I could rush through some of the papers in the next couple of hours just to have something on the wall, but only about 1 out of 20 parents look at that stuff anyway, out of idle curiosity.

Here's my solution: I've edited together video clips of my juniors reciting portions of Poe's "The Raven," and I'm going to pump the videos from my laptop (trusty ol' gal that she is) through an LCD projector and just let the video run while I mingle and chat with parents. The videos are about 10 minutes long, which is how much time each class period of parents is with me, wo the video will be bell-to-bell. Anyway, tonight it will be "The Raven" as recited by your kid, maybe. Definitely a classic, and looks to be a crowd-pleaser, even though I think it's sort of a cheap-out.



Note: there seems to be a problem with the videos: the audio is fine, but the video is stuck in a fast-forward. Whatever, Google.

The kids actually did a good job with it: trying to capture the eerie mood and the fragile-but-steadily-dissolving sanity of the narrator, and to see their performances reminds me of the kind of nuance and subtlety they are capable of at this age. Anyway, parents should like.

That means the laptop will be conveniently un use, and won't be available to look a kids' grades. With Parent Portal (grrr) in place they should be up on the kid's grade anyway: asking me in person reveals that they're not in the electronic loop.