School Days Are Here Again

Here we are again: Another school year. My seventeenth to be exact. Surely, I am not old enough to have been teaching for this long.

I have a poster hanging in my classroom that says, "Music keeps you young." Maybe that explains why I feel like I can't possibly be going in to my seventeenth year.

That and I am still not always sure what I am doing . . . 

However, the students and I are up to our old shenanigans, no matter what our age.

PRESCHOOL  
Out of the blue, one little boy in my music class announced, "Don't call me Ty. Call me Batman!"

Another girl started babbling about Copy Cat (the feline puppet I bring out for a song or two every week). I didn't catch most of what she said, but I am pretty sure it had something to do with Copy Cat having puppies.


In a different class, one boy yelled out, "Honestly? l wanna do Itsy Bitsy Spider!"

When we sang the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" a few minutes later, he belted it out at the top of his lungs.

The preschoolers have started sitting by me when they come to music, and they leave me enough room for a four-year-old's body.

"Miss Becky needs more room than you!" I always say to them.


About halfway through class this week, one little girl looked up at me with sad eyes and said, "I will miss you."

KINDERGARTEN
Have you ever tried to explain to kindergartners where to go for a lockdown drill? It's not the easiest thing to do.

Mostly the kids just stared at me blankly until one little girl asked, "What if we need a hug?"


Another day, we were getting ready to line up and one kindergartner sighed, "I wish I could spend a little more time with you."

FIRST GRADE
We have a lot of new students at my school this year, and I am still getting to know their names.

I called one of my first graders by a name, then second guessed myself and asked her, "Is that your name?"

She shook her head. I checked my roster. From what I could tell, I had called her the correct name.

"Is that your name?" I asked her again.

This time, she nodded. 

Yesterday, one of the first grade boys barked all the way through our steady beat song.

SECOND GRADE
I have a second grader who gets very emotional about music.

Once he told me, "I heard you playing the piano today. I really liked that."

He also cried the first time I sang his class opera last year . . . and not because it was terrible. He thought it sounded beautiful and was moved by it.

Speaking of opera . . . One of our faculty members said the kids were out at recess talking about opera and they took on a very serious tone.

"And we are NOT allowed to laugh at it!" they told her.

THIRD GRADE

One girl entered my room with puffy eyes. It was after recess, and she was holding a broken pink and white polka dot umbrella.

"Is there someplace I can put this?" She started to cry, "Like in the trash?"

The umbrella was broken and so was my heart. (P.S. We didn't put it in the trash. She took it home to see if it could be fixed.)

CHOIR
"Choir puts me in a good mood," a sixth grade boy told me while he was waiting in line for music class. "It makes me have a good day."

My fifth grade choir members kept on whispering, "SLIP AND SLIDE!" every time a student would sneak in to put a contract in the bin during their class.


"No one is doing it!" one fifth grade girl said.

"Doing what?" I asked.

"You told us to 'slip and slide' into the room to turn in our contracts if you had class. No one is slipping and sliding," and she and a few of the other choir kids did some kind of '80s dance move that they had collectively decided was the "Slip and Slide."

"Did I actually say that, slip and slide?" I asked them.

"YES!"  they said in unison.

"Huh, that's kind of clever."

I guess they really do pay attention to what I am saying . . . even if I don't.

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.

It's Time to Start Acting Like an Adult . . . Sigh (RE-POST from 9/15/13)

 I have to start #adulting again now that the school year has begun. Here is a post I wrote a few years ago about coming to terms with my apparent professional competence. I'm way more mature now that I'm forty though. Enjoy this re-post from 2013!

This year, I have had to accept the fact that I am now an adult. It's probably about time considering I'm thirty-six years old. But it's amazing how easily one can put off adulthood when one does not have children.

I have flown under the radar for about twelve years. It helps that I still look pretty young, so people are often unaware that I have been living in the adult world for a while now. But I guess a person can only be "new to the profession" for so long.

Over the past year or so, I have been encouraged to take on more adult responsibilities in my job, such as leadership and organizational roles. Occasionally, people even come to me for advice . . . to me who still feels like the young, new kid on the block. What's that all about?

When I was given the choice between two columns of professional duties—a mentor column verses a need-to-be-mentored column—I was encouraged to sign up under the mentor column. I did, a little flattered and a little under duress. My "But I don't know anything" protestations were met with "You silly girl" shakes of the head.

Just in the last month, I have received asked three times for my input on department issues. I have been asked to explain and present on two different occasions in front of my peers. I hate speaking in front of adults. I will perform, sometimes half-naked, on stage in front of 1000-member audiences. But when it comes to sharing my expertise, if it could be called that, I much prefer the younger generation (i.e. five-year-olds, etc.)

One of my former student's parents caught up with me this year and was telling me how much her children missed me at their new school.

"Mrs. Duggan was the best . . . " they would say when they came home.

"You have quite a reputation, you know," the parent said.

I guess I should just accept the fact that I finally know what I'm doing, and I should also be flattered that other people think I know what I'm doing.

I read once that every professional's biggest fear until retirement is that he/she will be found out, that he/she will be revealed to be a fraud, that everyone will eventually know that he/she never really knew how to function in his/her job.

I've got a ways to go until retirement, and that just doesn't sound like a very pleasant existence, so I guess I had better sit back and start enjoying this adult responsibility thing.

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.

My Life is Taken Over By Yellow Jackets . . . Again

We have a lot of yellow jackets in our backyard in the summer. Earlier in the season, my husband, Dan, removed a few nests from our patio umbrella. We moved our trap closer to the umbrella, hoping it would discourage the yellow jackets from building more nests in their favorite place.

Yesterday, we noticed several wasps circling the trap, which hadn't caught anything all summer long.

"Maybe they are more aggressive this time of year, and we'll finally get rid of them," I said. "Go in there, little wasps. Follow your friends."

The new location of the trap was right above our back door, and it freaked me out to walk under the swarm to water my outdoor plants.

"You stay there and distract them while I go inside," I told Dan.

I squealed and ducked into the house, accidentally locking him outside with the circling insects. He didn't seem to mind. He stood there, examining them like they were a science experiment.

I have a mild case of PTSD when it come to yellow jackets.

Before Dan and I were married, I lived in an apartment. A bunch of wasps also decided to make my apartment their home, and they sneaked in through a tiny crack in one of the balcony supports and built a nest.

The apartment managers sent an exterminator to spray the post a few times, but because it was hidden inside the infrastructure, they couldn't get to the nest to remove it, and the queen bee thrived and continued to bring more and more wasps into her humble abode on my balcony.

The yellow jackets crawled into my apartment via the light fixtures and the sliding glass door. I would hear a "bzz" over my head, and that was my cue that another wasp had dropped into the dome covering my living room light.

I lived across from three Boise State football players, and one day, when a couple of wasps crawled through my screen door and lit on the glass inside my apartment, I knocked on their door.

I handed one of the guys my Birkenstock, "I have a wasp problem. Can you kill a few of them for me?"

He obliged, but not without a lot of jumping around and shrieking . . . from both of us.

Eventually, I bought some spray, the kind that really should be used outside, and Dan sprayed the entire perimeter of my balcony door and light fixtures. (That's when I decided to keep him.) It helped for about a day.

The yellow jackets never completely died off, but they did slow down once the temperatures dropped. Dan and I got married in December, and I moved out and away from my yellow jacket friends forever.

Meanwhile, in my present situation . . .

The yellow jackets disappeared this morning, possibly and hopefully dead.

I looked up and past the yellow plastic trap.

"Dan," I called to him shakily, "I think I know why we have so many wasps in our backyard right now."

"Whoa!" Dan said. "Did they just build that overnight? I swear it wasn't up there yesterday."

He glanced over at me.

"Why are you standing so weird?"

I was wiggling my lower half and jutting out my right hip.

"I'm getting chills up my butt," I said.

I get "chills up my butt" when something scares me, mostly creepy-crawly or heights-related things. It's hard to describe the sensation. Just go with it.

I wriggled my whole body as if trying to rid it of some demonic presence. Then I squealed and ran inside, leaving Dan outside, mystified and alone with the wasp nest and all of its eggs.

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.

The Legendary Globe of Death (RE-POST from 8/27/06)

Here's an oldie but goodie from when I first started this blog over ten years ago. (Holy cow, time flies by!) Dan and I made it to the fair again this year, only instead of a Globe of Death, we watched BMX bikers performing "acts of insanity." Enjoy this reread from 2006!

 

Last weekend, my husband and I went on our annual venture to the state fair. Dan and I are not overly eager fair aficionados. One of our first dates took place at the Idaho State Fair. We listened to an a cappella boy band croon cover songs, shared our first Pronto Pup strawberry lemonade, and watched the amusing antics at the late night hypnotist show.

It was also on that outing that Dan introduced me to the heavenly gooeyness of the Ice Cream Potato – not a true potato in the root vegetable sense of the word, but ice cream shaped as a potato, doused in cocoa, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup. With the invention of the Ice Cream Potato, Idaho has truly lived up to its reputation as the cultivator of famous potatoes.

So it’s out of a sappy sentimentality rather than a love for genuine western tradition that Dan and I visit the fair every year.

This year, Dan persuaded me to watch the circus act that the fair advertises as a thrilling daredevil spectacle. I’m not much of an advocate of thrilling daredevil spectacles. But I’m not much of a fair ride enthusiast either, and my choices were either watch a thrilling daredevil spectacle or get stuck with my husband in a metal cage that spun on its side, ascended to a vertical 50 feet above the ground before turning its passengers upside down and plummeting into oblivion.

This thrilling daredevil spectacle was no Cirque du Soleil. According to my keen observations that evening, a fair circus act consists of a human size hamster wheel that swings like a pendulum between two rickety metal posts and a steel sphere that the performers proudly call “The Legendary Globe of Death.”

A male and female, clad in shimmering spandex jumpsuits, who gravitate toward feats of psychosis rather than the daring bravery the fair brochure advertises, spent thirty nail biting minutes performing acts of insanity inside this hamster wheel and Globe of Death.

At one point, the male performer covered his head with an executioner’s hood and balanced himself on top of the wheel while it was suspended above the ground. As the crowd cheered in amazement, I looked on in horror, covering my mouth to prevent myself from shouting a not-so-amazed exclamation at the man.

“They don’t even use safety nets!” Dan said, sounding much too enthusiastic about this realization.

Indeed they did not. A fair circus act does not need safety nets. Instead the performers stand below the apparatus so that they may catch one another if mishap ensues.

Before the performers entered The Legendary Globe of Death, they told the audience that insurance companies refuse to cover them so if we would kindly have our photos taken in the steel globe after the performance, all proceeds would cover their emergency medical costs.

Then they entered the legendary globe on motorcycles.

I watched the motorcycles zoom around, upside down, vertically, horizontally, diagonally . . . through my fingers.

"You can't see what they're doing if you cover your eyes." My husband has a knack for pointing out the obvious.

Once the dolorous spectacle ended, the crowd ruptured into applause, and I allowed my face muscles to finally relax after a half-hour of being frozen in fright.

"So, you want to get your picture taken in the Globe of Death?" Dan said.

I responded with a dirty look.

"It's fun to watch these sorts of things with you. It's kind of cute."

Another dirty look, "I'm glad I could be so entertaining."

Then we finished off our evening with an Ice Cream Potato. And the nightmarish visions of The Legendary Globe of Death faded into obscurity.

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