Best Teaching Tip – The Back Pocket Plan

After teaching for years, I know to be prepared for the unexpected, so I always carry a spiral notebook in my back pocket. On it, I have a list activities for those times when the lesson does not go as planned due to faulty technology, essay eating hobgoblins and the never fail, « I can’t present today my group member is sick. »

Kids today are so clever. They must toss a virtual coin on Facebook the night before a group oral presentations are due to decide which member of the team should be absent the next day.

Teachers become adept at thinking off the top of their head, seat of their pants and back of their eyeballs. Since my students weren’t ready, I resorted to the pack pocket plan. I led a discussion about how the weather echoes human emotions in the text we were studying. Then I opened the blinds and told them to stare out the window and write for 10 minutes about this typical dreary fall day. Write about whatever comes to mind regarding weather, how you feel when looking out the window today, how the rainy autumn affects your mood, how you dream of escaping this dreary classroom.

Educational studies show that students learn best when they see the teacher looking at a book during reading time or writing along with them during a writing assignment. I pulled out my pocket notebook and began scribbling.

At the end of 10 minutes, a few brave souls timidly read their pieces of work. Then I think as a ploy to save unwilling classmates, they insisted I read mine. So I began…

« This weather stinks. Rainy. Cloudy. Cold. Old man winter is coming round cloaking us in a death vice. I am sick of the foggy gloom that is November. I am tired of seeing the faded, grey view from my dark tinted glasses. I am weary from too much work and too little time. I want to crawl under my soft, lumpy duvet and hibernate until spring, but I can’t. My students are waiting with eager, smiling faces, fidgety and restless, full of life. So I put on a happy face and greet my class with a grin. They bring me enough light and laughter to endure the autumn blues. »

Bless their generous little hearts, when I finished reading, the class burst into applause. Right on time one ginger-headed boy, deadpanned, « You must have been writing about your other class. »

We burst out laughing just as the dismissal bell rang ending the school day.

And that is why I love teaching.

What is your best back pocket plan?

Best Teaching Tip – The Back Pocket Plan

Kids today are so clever. They must toss a virtual coin on Facebook the night before a group oral presentations are due to decide which member of the team should be absent the next day.

At the end of 10 minutes, a few brave souls timidly read their pieces of work. Then I think as a ploy to save unwilling classmates, they insisted I read mine. So I began…

Bless their generous little hearts, when I finished reading, the class burst into applause. Right on time one ginger-headed boy, deadpanned, « You must have been writing about your other class. »

We burst out laughing just as the dismissal bell rang ending the school day.

And that is why I love teaching.

What is your best back pocket plan?

There is no place like home

The warm reception that I received from my hometown after the release of my book, Home Sweet Hardwood, was magical and filled with surprises.

My old college roommate planned to drive out from Chicago, but her job interview ran late and she knew she would miss my talk at the library. Amy drove out anyway and came to the house after my speaking engagement. We picked up right where we left off 25 years ago.

Rocky, a Native American, was the first journalist to write about the first sanctioned girls’ basketball games in Illinois in the early 1970s, at a time when media coverage was nonexistent. He read the book and rated it right up there with his favorite book, To Kill A Mockingbird.

My friend, Phil, told me that he stayed up all night to read it. « The Willie Mayes story and the Pat McKinzie story were the only books I ever finished. » He ranked me right up there with the greatest.

Ray Torres saw the write up about me in the paper, called the house, and asked if he could bring his 12-year-old granddaughter, a talented softball player, out to meet me and sign a book. He brought the whole family. Madison told me about how she trained year round for her sport and I got to shake hands with an AAU champion, who reminded me of me at that age.

At a lunch date at Angelos with the friends I made in gradeschool – and still keep in contact with today – my oldest, most loyal supporters cheered for the success of my book in the same way that they once applauded my efforts on the court.

the Home Team

My family attended every function with me. One sister drove out from Chicago, another from Minneapolis. My parents, in their 80s, beamed from the front row as I spoke. Sue ran the powerpoint, Karen sat at the back of the room and waved if my voice faded. They made cookies for the library social, carted books to events, picked out my wardrobe, listened to me stumble through my speech umpteen times and shared in the joy and celebration of my life long dream.

The members of the Rotary Club and Kiwanis Club honored me by inviting me to speak at their organizations. It tickled my funny bones to think that the very groups that had denied women access until the 80s gave me center stage to recount my history of growing up in the 1970s and being excluded from America’s playing fields, but today’s members were welcoming and supportive.

Readers of all ages and walks of life told me how they laughed and cried as they turned the pages and felt inspired by my fighting spirit.

“You can’t know where you are going until you understand where you have been.” I said in my speeches. “In all my wanderings I have always known that I am a McKinzie, a Sterling Golden Warrior, a product of the Land of Lincoln.

After hearing me speak, reporter Ty Reynolds wrote in the Sterling Gazette, “Meet the woman. Read her story. Tell me she wasn’t as good a storyteller as she was basketball player. I dare you.”

All these touching tributes reminded me that the real reward in writing a book is not the fleeting fame or any financial success, it is about connecting with people one word at time.

Book Launch Party in Switzerland

avid party goers enjoying a glass of champagne at book launch

My book launch party was a huge success even though it was too cold and cloudy to sit at our new outdoor table and enjoy our backyard view of the Alps and Mont Blanc.

We fooled Mother Nature, moved the patio furniture inside, held the party anyway and still had fun.

My friends were an eclectic mix of friends from around the globe : American, British, Canadian, Cameroonian, Croatian, French, German, Irish, Indian, Polish, Spanish, Swiss, Swedish, Somali, South-African, Zimbabwean and even one Wisconsinite.

with German friend Maria & Somali husband Mohamed

When I explained why I was compelled to write the book, my friends wondered,

What argument did authorities use to ban women’s participation in sports? »

“The physical education association, backed by medical authorities, forbade competitive sport for girls, because they believed that rigorous exercise would be too strenuous for their hearts” I explained. “They feared it could interfere with a woman’s ability to bear children.”

“How could a country that had the scientific knowledge to drop an atomic bomb and put a man on the moon believe such nonsense?”

My European friends were astounded.

In retrospect, it sounds preposterous. Their incredulous reaction reaffirmed my reasons for telling my story. I wanted to record the voice of the silent generation, who fought for the equal rights in education and sport, opportunities which thankfully women today can take for granted. My book, Home Sweet Hardwood, A Title IX Trailblazer Breaks Barriers Through Basketball is important because, despite many victories, the struggle for gender and racial equality continues.

Our doorbell rang non-stop and my little abode filled with chocolates, champagne, and wine in an outpouring of congratulations. Every spare table and counter space was covered with bouquets of roses, lilies, and peonies every color of the rainbow.

a great team celebrates

My techie husband, who orchestrated the whole event, including cooking tasty treats, and posted our website on TV with snapshots of my past.

Champagne flowed; the house rang with laughter and cheerful chatter.

The moment was made more poignant because I also shared the evening with my son. We topped off the night with a toast among his friends in celebration of his college graduation.

What touched me the most was knowing that even though most of the people at my party had no interest in basketball, they bought the book anyway, intrigued by my story and as a sign of solidarity.

author dedicating her book

I tumbled into bed after midnight, overwhelmed with gratitude for the outpouring of support of my long held dream.

Written Acts of Kindness

On Thanksgiving Day, I dragged through the work feeling sad, wondering why bother to connect kids and cultures in my job as an international schoolteacher and ex pat blogger. I suffered from writer’s angst about my upcoming memoir publication. I missed my homeland, friends, and family, including both Big Kids now living in the States. Like the November weather outside my window, a dense fog settled in my soul. Then I received an unexpected gift – the Written Acts of Kindness Award – from a friend I have never met personally.

Kathy and I took Dan Blank’s Build Your Author Platform Course in 2011. Now we follow each other all over cyberspace! Kathy is a grandma on the go, retired family nurse practitioner, cancer survivor and inspiring writer, whose strong faith and sense of purpose comes through admirably on her blog site, Memoir Writer’s Journey. She is working on a memoir about the power of hope through her faith in God.Read more→

Inspirational Blog Award

Bear with me as if I go off topic on my post this week. Four years ago, my Frenchman suggested I start a blog to replace my old newspaper column. Little did he know what he was getting into! I enrolled in Dan Blank’s Blogging 101 and How to Build An Author Platform and became a part of a Virtual writing group. My blogging buddy and cyberspace friend extraordinaire, Kathy Pooler of Memoir Writer’s Journey has nominated me for the Inspirational Blog Award.

Nominees are asked to list seven little-known facts about themselves and then pass this prize on to seven other deserving bloggers.

I was bit by rabid skunk when I was 18-months-old; I haven’t been quite right since.
I never carry a purse because it hurts my back.
I dropped out of creative writing class in college because I thought I couldn’t write.
I have Ledderhose Disease, (my first German-named ailment), a rare disorder where nodules grow in the arches of the feet.
I wore high heels only once on my wedding day.
I became a globetrotter, yet still confuse my right from my left and can’t read a map.
My little sisters and I used to prance in front of the picture window in pink nighties; we still dance together, only now we call it aerobics.

Here are 7 of my favorite blogs that I recommend.

1. Authentic Woman – with Clara Freeman, who keeps me real, challenging me to follow my passion and listen to the voice of my inner warrior

2. Life in the Expat Lane –with Missy Footloose, the Dutch ex-pat whose humorous perspective on living everywhere but her homeland, keeps me laughing

3. Du Jour – with Delana, a Minnesotan who pitched everything to start over in Provence France, keeps me in tune with my Frenchness

4. Coach Dawn – with Dawn Redd, Beloit College women’s volleyball coach, who gives me great coaching tips that can also be applied to real life

5. Self righteous Housewife –with Judy Zimmerman, the Erma Bombeck of suburbia, who keeps me chuckling over her family’s antics in the Windy City

6. One Big Yodel – with Chantal Panozzo, a young writer, who left her home of deep dish pizza for the land of cheese and chocolate

7. I also love Any Shiny Thing by my Californian friend, Lynne Spreen. Lynne has introduced me to a new blog worth checking out. Vonnie Kennedy’s Bloomer Notes Blog to help me stay healthy in my Middle Ages

Thanks to my global sisterhood of blogging buddies that keep me inspired!

As the guidelines go:

Link back to X-pat Files From Overseas
Reveal seven little-known facts about yourself
Nominate 7 of your favorite bloggers for the “Inspiring Blog Award”, contact the nominees and give them the guidelines.

Write on!