Too COOL for school

I love talking about the weather. What for others might be considered small talk is for me the most gripping of conversations. It really affects me, too. I'm pretty sure I have S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), because on cloudy days I look like this:

 and on sunny days I look like this:

Exactly like that. The only way I can upset this terrible relationship is to drug myself silly with coffee, but then I look like this:

You see my dilemma.

So on one of our last cloudy days of the long, long winter we had here a couple of weeks ago, I got desperate. I had to come up with a lesson, but I was suffering from a classic case of "Die Qual der Wahl" (pronounced: dee kval deah vall. It means something like "the torment of choice". The idea is that you're so overwhelmed by the vast sea of possibilities before you that you can't focus on or choose one). I did what I often do when I get desperate for an idea. I went for a walk next to the river. Something about the movement of my legs to the pulse of the water combined with fresh air gets my thoughts moving.

As soon as I got out of the door it hit me: weather (not the door). It immediately struck me as genius, because weather is the exact topic most people try to avoid. A pleasant drizzle of ideas began falling in my head, as had so many droplets of rain on that day, and what had been my enemy became my friend. It seems so superficial, but the weather is so important to us, and being able to talk about it is, too. These students are going to have to have a stupid conversation in English some day, hopefully, and when they do I want them to be able to hold their own.

I asked myself what songs I knew that referred to the weather. What resulted was the best playlist I've ever made, which then became the structure of my lesson.

The next day, when I held the lesson, the weather was wonderfully sunny. When I walked into class I started some small talk about the weather. Then I played them this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj1AesMfIf8

They immediately recognized it and all laughed. The lyrics were PERFECT. "Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter." I had asked them to listen to the words. When I asked them what had been sung, they only gave me the chorus. Duh! Ugh, guys, I asked you to listen to all the words. After this introductory song I dampened the mood a little with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94sJYhfoPC0

I used the "weatherman" to introduce the next section. I made them pair up and make a weather report of any kind of weather they wished. I asked  them to be creative and fun, but also try to make it somewhat realistic. One pair did a weather forecast of the apocalypse with a rain of fire. One warned everyone about the danger of a hurricane that would sink the island they lived on. Someone predicted a hail of frogs. Yet others did very realistic, detailed weather forecasts. I then taught them some expressions like "strong winds", "pouring rain", "showers", "drizzle", "wind chill", etc.

Transitioning to the next part, I let them rest their ears on this baby:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIV0oovj7vc

I'm from Tulsa, so Garth Brooks belongs to the very core of our identity. Am I right?! People here often ask me what the weather is like where I'm from, so I used this local hero to talk about 1) the couple of times I saw Garth Brooks and 2) tornado alley and what our weather is normally like.

I had also collected a great selection of weather idioms in the English language e.g. "rain check", "fair-weather friend", "under the weather", etc. I taught them what each of them meant.

Then I soothed them with one last oldie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZh7nRw6gl8

I then whipped out my guitar and told them to write a love song with the idioms and words I taught them. Then we sang in 6 part harmony what will soon be hitting the top charts worldwide, and my students praised me as the best teacher of all time ever.

I'm just kiddin', y'all. Starting with "My Girl" I was lying to you. You really think I could fit all of that into 50 minutes? No way, but if I could do a perfect lesson that would be it. I also wanted to play "Time of the Season" by the Zombies, but it turns out the only weather related words are in the title, and the rest could be inappropriate.

The first time I did the lesson, I was actually pretty let down. One of my students wouldn't stop shaking his head because he was too cool for school. Literally. Then, when I had them do their weather reports and asked them questions, they gave me the bare minimum. It's actually a class that I've been struggling with all year. They're all really good, well-meaning students, but they just don't talk as much as I'd like.

Most of my classes are great, but there are a couple I'm really having to do battle with. Today I had the two hardest classes, and I learned something in each. The first class re-taught me the lesson about flexibility I'd already taught myself and forgotten. I came in, and for the first time ever in response to my question about their weekend, they answered. I nearly passed out I was so surprised. I pressed and they kept on talking and asking me questions. I really started re-examining the meaning of the universe. This exchange was really shaking up my whole paradigm. Yet, I had a plan, so I did the lesson. The problem was, I had planned the lesson accounting for a class that hadn't been talking. It was a lesson more focused on listening and building the right energy up on the classroom. Afterward, I realized that if I had just ditched half of the material, realizing that this was a golden opportunity to be taken advantage of, we could have had a nice chat. It's funny how feeling like you have the overview of the whole situation can distract you from seeing the opportunity in a nuance, in a moment. Focusing too much on the strategy can actually screw with the tactics.

The second class was a real challenge. It's one of the younger classes that I've been making learn a poem. The other class is doing really well, but this one has been kind of rebelling. They swear they're just stressed and don't have enough time, but, as evidenced by the other class that has the exact same schedule, that's just not the case. The kids in this class are just as smart as the ones in the other, but for some reason they're just not trying. Every day I go in there it feels like I'm battling with them. Today, for the first time, I decided to use the other class as an example that it actually was very possible. There was an immediate uproar. One of the more confident ones voiced what most of them meant, "Das ist uns sowas von Wurst" (literal translation: that is completely sausage to us. Better translation: we don't give a crap.) "We're not the other class," he barked back, "and we don't care how they're doing."

I honestly don't know what I learned from that experience. What became clear was that this relationship wasn't all too different from one between parents and a "troubled" child. I suddenly felt like I was comparing two siblings, and the one who was doing poorer was resenting me for comparing them. I felt justified, knowing that I love and like these students, and I only demand and criticize because I know they're more than capable, and I'd like to trust that my respect and equal love for them balances out the bit of hurting I do when I compare. Every movie I've ever watched, I've hated parents who compared, but for the first time I understand. It really isn't a matter of love. I don't think I'm going to be able to figure out where I come out of this in the next few sentences. Suffice it to say, it makes me wonder how responsible parents and teachers really are for "wayward" sons and daughters. Both can be justified, but something in the intimacy or the meeting point in the relationship just makes for a bad mix. It seems like little can be done to mend the relationship except give it time and distance.

Well, enough of raining on the parade, if you catch my drift. It's a sunny day, and I personally have a hard time leaving things on a bad note. Today I will sit on my balcony and read. Yesterday, James and I rode to the nearby town of Bad Goisern.

It was one of the first rides of the season, so James and I panted and complained about our butts the whole way up the mountain. We drank a couple of beers, then rode to a nearby crevice in a cliff face called the Ewige Wand (translation would be something like the "eternal" or "everlasting wall"). On the way there we ran into some colleagues, who invited us to their house below. When we got there they treated us to coffee, cake, and a Jauzen (yowsen: normally bread, cheese, and meat) while we overlooked the valley. It was one of the most beautiful days I've ever experienced.