Weeding out the Kids

The topic for today is Dangerous Kids' Games, so I guess someone has observed too many screaming, misbehaving children in Wal-Mart and decided to thin their ranks. Well, okay, but I kind of like kids. I think their problems are more likely to be parents who don't understand the concept of discipline, but I'll experiment.

Let's see, I'm guessing scissors must be involved, perhaps the incredibly sinking chair, electrical cords. Okay, I guess I'm leaving kids behind and thinking about BWP as Survivor. Each day, starting on Monday, we vote someone off the island or perhaps just off the big table until one person is left to write at the big table alone with the best chair, and everyone else crowds around the table built for two. Wait, I'll be back. I need to get a napkin to grab the spoonful of eggs, grits, and bacon that somehow missed my mouth.

Okay, I'm back, savoring the breakfast goodness while I imagine the challenges our contestants will face. It's an obstacle course.

Challenges:

• Surviving the demo--this involves presenting new, research-based teaching strategies while managing this rowdy crowd without seeming to manage the crowd, showing the connection to other grade levels and disciplines, finding the peer-to-peer tone rather than the "don't you wish you were all as good of a teacher as I am" tone, weaving sources throughout the demo, including interactive activities, and using humor effectively
• Walking the admin tightrope--this involves choosing an issue that is relevant for your school, finding sources on point (I picture people in tutus right now even though I think it's spelled differently), and searching for the right way to present that information to your admin in a way that will prompt change and help you be seen as a teacher leader while maintaining your job--it is a tightrope, especially with some of the topics you have, but those topics matter, and you may make your environment better
• Responding, responding, responding--think "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!" Here you have to subjugate your own ego and focus on the work of others; it's as if everyone else matters but you. You just have to give, give, give--give your ideas, energies, and responses to the texts of your creative writing group, your professional writing group, your BWP colleagues who aren't in your creative writing group, your NWP colleagues who aren't in BWP, you BWP colleagues on the blog. "And you give yourself away, you give yourself away . . . [they] can't live with or without you . . ." Is that U2?
• Putting it out there as a writer--this involves drafting memoirs and poems and (Yikes!) sharing those drafts with people in your creative writing groups and then (Big gasp!) sharing it with anybody on Open Mic this summer. I wonder how many people that includes. Okay, I checked. There are currently 62 Summer Institutes in progress today, so 62 x 18 people = 1116. But that doesn't include the people who are in a Summer Institute in July. And THEN you'll choose texts to include in the print version of the anthology, which will be mailed to legislators and shared with other stakeholders including yourselves.
• Breakfast Bonanza--this prize goes to the person who brings the best breakfast, the one that raises the bar for everyone else, the one that everyone eats. Hmm, the competition will only get fiercer here as one and then another participant falls. I'm already out of the running with my cinnamon rock cake. Sigh.
• Freewriting front runner: Who uses time most effectively, writing the full time, sharing occasionally but not so much that he or she drowns out the voices of others? Who encourages the writing of colleagues? Who runs ahead but pulls others along as well, generating other ideas?
• Log Blaster: Who crafts the best log, the one that describes the day fully, pulls participants into the log, and again raises the bar? Who uses the most interesting format or ties the format to the current activities in our community?
• Citizen Cane: Who is the best citizen, the most helpful, the most positive, the most humorous, the most on-task? Who is voted Miss or Mr. Congeniality?

Okay, that's all I've got, but I do wonder who survives BWP Survivor and moves into leadership positions. Who is the next newsletter author? The next book review editor? The next legislative liaison? The next tech liaison? The next co-director? The next inservice provider? The next teacher consultant?

Let the games continue.