POETIC PUPILS

"Ms. Z is a big cup of cocoa": In a era of budget cuts, school's out but greatteachers will always be in

Rebecca Zirczy, fourth grade teacher at HISD's Mark Twain Elementary School
Ms. Z's class came up with some endearing answers
What "school's out" looks like to the world of Disney
Alice Cooper's hit album and song from 1972: "School's Out"
What today looks like

The hit song, "School's Out", by Motor City's Vincent Damon Furnier (known as Alice Cooper), is in full play today — much as it was when it was released way back in 1972 and every year since. With the sound of the final bell, doors across the state's school districts burst open with wild-eyed children ready for swimming pools, popsicles and lazy summer days under a hot Texas sun.

Meanwhile, the state of Texas, like pretty much every other state across the country, is embroiled in a war of school budget cuts. One side arguing for sound fiscal responsibility and the other side warning that further cuts to our education harms the future of our children.

That said, I want to celebrate those teachers who teach out of passion, with a conviction to do their level best to help our children love to learn. Teachers who create an environment where it is safe for a student to explore the big, sometime scary world around us. Where each child is given the opportunity and responsibility to choose his or her own path, all the while knowing that each of us can be whomever we want so long as we have faith in ourselves and work hard to pursue our dreams.

Lofty speak you say amongst the youthful screaming, sneezing, and snarkiness that teachers must endure day in and day out? Perhaps, but let us dispense with cynicism if only for today, the "last day of school," and acknowledge that there are many teachers in many schools around the country who wake up each day and help our children love to learn. And by doing this they do in fact make society move forward.

So here' s a tribute to one of them by a class in a public school right here in Houston. I share an email that I received this morning about a teacher at Houston Independent School District's exemplary Mark Twain Elementary School. It's a poem written by all the students in Rebecca Zirczy's (pronounced "zerk-see") fourth grade class (disclosure: my child is in her class).

To me, this poem symbolizes what great teaching is all about and it is what we need to keep in mind when making tough decisions about layoffs vs. hiring: Some decisions are good for the bottom line, others most certainly jeopardize the future of our children.

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June 3, 2011

To the Parents of Ms. Zirczy's class:

Ms. Zirczy’s class presented her yesterday with the poetry book they created for her last week. They took it in turns to read out their poems and she tells me was in turn laughing and wiping a tear away at each one. They did a really great job.

The poems they wrote were all called “Ms. Zirczy is…” and during the workshop I did with them last week, we worked hard on finding metaphors and similes to give a strong picture of what Ms. Z has meant to them and done for them this year. They also did a lot of brainstorming about smells, tastes, sounds, sights and feelings (both touchable and emotional) that connected her to them.

Below are some of the highlights of the poems (and I wish I could have shown you them all) ... I hope you enjoy reading the full poems, and wish you all a wonderful summer.

Caroline

(Kirsty’s mom)

Ms Zirczy is …

· a big cup of cocoa, as warm as the sun (River)

· like a bomb because she explodes our imagination (Titus)

· a colorful lightning bolt, electrocuting me with creativity (Sophie)

· the yellow rays of sunshine making its way through the leaves to give me her golden smile (Hannah)

· a teddybear, a fuzzy wuzzy bear waiting to be hugged every day (Jackie)

· fresh spring water flowing through our minds with knowledge (Kirsty)

· like an angel, making 4th grade as easy as eating cake (Nishanth)

· the warm chocolate cake on the table (Kate)

· like a tire, smoothing our way to 5th grade (Delaney)

· a jellybean, a hyperactive teacher never running out of energy to teach (John)

· warm like a husky’s fur because she wears her jacket a lot (Luke)

· like a flying flower, worth trying to catch (Mason)

· like a wizard — she sprays you with her magic, making the 4th grade faster than you think (Alissa)

· like a caramel covered apple because of her sweet and warm smile (Ethan)

· a golden sled, sliding through our heads with knowledge (Cyril)

· like a bomb, exploding us with creativity (Cole)

· a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter day (Kelsey)

And also…

Her voice is like a pigeon playing jazz (Charles)

I hear her voice sounding like a flute (David)

I hear the clicker of dreadfulness ending our wonderful recesses (Carlos)

I see Aphrodite brushing her hair with a gold brush (Colleen)

I feel nice and warm around her like a warm campfire (Caitlyn)

I hear the clicker at recess as loud as a gun (Jeremy)

unspecified

Winter weather warning

Arctic air will bring hard freeze to Houston this weekend

Photo by Uliana Sova on Unsplash

This weekend could bring ice to Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond.

With many Americans still recovering from multiple blasts of snow and unrelenting freezing temperatures in the nation’s northern tier, a new storm is set to emerge this weekend that could coat roads, trees and power lines with devastating ice across a wide expanse of the South, including Texas.

The storm arriving late this week and into the weekend is shaping up to be a “widespread potentially catastrophic event from Texas to the Carolinas,” said Ryan Maue, a former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“I don’t know how people are going to deal with it,” he said.

Forecasters on Tuesday, January 20 warned that the ice could weigh down trees and power lines, triggering widespread outages.

“If you get a half of an inch of ice — or heaven forbid an inch of ice — that could be catastrophic,” said Keith Avery, CEO of the Newberry Electric Cooperative in South Carolina.

The National Weather Service warned of "great swaths of heavy snow, sleet, and treacherous freezing rain” starting Friday in much of the nation’s midsection and then shifting toward the East Coast through Sunday.

Temperatures will be slow to warm in many areas, meaning ice that forms on roads and sidewalks might stick around, forecasters say.

The exact timing of the approaching storm — and where it is headed — remained uncertain on Tuesday. Forecasters say it can be challenging to predict precisely which areas could see rain and which ones could be punished with ice.

Meteorologists at WFAA say it's too early for an exact forecast across Dallas-Fort Worth. But it's good to start being weather aware.

Here’s what to know:

Cold air clashing with rain to fuel a 'major winter storm’
An extremely cold arctic air mass is set to dive south from Canada, setting up a clash with the cold temperatures and rain that will be streaming eastward across the southern U.S.

“This is extreme, even for this being the peak of winter,” National Weather Service meteorologist Bryan Jackson said of the cold temperatures.

When the cold air meets the rain, the likely result will be “a major winter storm with very impactful weather, with all the moisture coming up from the Gulf and encountering all this particularly cold air that’s spilling in,” Jackson said.

Texas could be a harbinger for other parts of the South
Some of the storm’s earliest impacts could be in Texas on Friday, as the arctic air mass slides south through much of the state, National Weather Service forecaster Sam Shamburger said in a briefing on the storm.

“At the same time, we’re expecting rain to move into much of the state,” Shamburger said.

Low temperatures could fall into the 20s or even the teens in parts of Texas by Saturday, with the potential for a wintery mix of weather in the northern part of the state.

Forecasters cautioned that significant uncertainty remains, particularly over how much ice or snow could fall across north and central Texas.

“It’s going to be a very difficult forecast,” Shamburger said.

An atmospheric river could set up across the Southern U.S.
An atmospheric river of moisture could be in place by the weekend, pulling precipitation across Texas and other states along the Gulf Coast and continuing across Georgia and the Carolinas, forecasters said.

“Global models are painting a concerning picture of what this weekend could look like, with an increasingly strong signal for ice storm potential across North Georgia and portions of central Georgia,” according to the National Weather Service's Atlanta office.

Highway and air travel could be tangled by the storm
Travel is a major concern, as Southern states have less equipment to remove snow and ice from roads, and extremely cold temperatures expected after the storm could prevent ice from melting for several days.

The storm is also expected to impact many of the nation’s major hub airports, including those in Dallas-Fort Worth; Atlanta; Memphis, Tennessee; and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Polar air from Canada to keep northern states in a deep freeze
Unusually cold temperatures are already in place across much of the northern tier of the U.S., but the blast of arctic air expected later this week is “will be the coldest yet,” Jackson said.

“There’s a large sprawling vortex of low pressure centered over Hudson Bay,” Jackson said of the sea in northern Canada that’s connected to the Arctic Ocean. “And this is dominating the weather over all of North America.”

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