Mr. and Mrs. Piper

It has been a short and sweet and super hectic first week of work at my new school. I am still a Spec Ed teacher in an ISP classroom, but I have older students and more integration and more interaction with other teachers.

Day before yesterday, a teacher walked in and asked me if my grade 7s will go on a field trip. I told him that I need to consult with my CYW. He looked at me seriously and told me that I am the teacher and that I need to make the decision. Fortunately, my CYW arrived and we told him that we are happy for our students to go on the trip.

Yesterday, I ran into another teacher in front of her classroom, and she wondered if our grade 7s would go on a field trip that she was organizing. I was a little confused and she clarified that there are 2 separate trips. Then, I saw her name behind her, beside her classroom. It was Mrs. Piper. So, I exclaimed loudly, “Hey! It was a Mr. Piper I spoke with yesterday!”. She revealed that that was her husband.

I had never met a husband-and-wife teacher team within one school ever!

By the end of the day yesterday, Mrs. Piper sent an email to all grade 7 teachers asking them to fill out their excursion forms. I had never filled out these forms, and I was glad when my CYW helped me out with it. This morning, Mr. Piper sent an email to all grade 7 teachers letting us know that he filled out the forms for all of us!

I was glad to run into him after work today. I thanked him and unwittingly blurted out about the differences I noticed in how the 2 field trips were being managed. He quickly jumped to his wife’s defence by saying how much she hates paperwork and how she showed him how to do the excursion forms. That made me feel like I was criticizing his wife. So, I quickly brought up the “give a man a fish or teach a man to fish” proverb, and I thanked him for my fish! It took him 2.2 seconds to realize what I said and he smiled.

Although Mrs. Piper came across as unhelpful to someone like me who is still learning, I did appreciate her approach because I got to learn how to fill out the excursion forms. However, since it has been such a busy week, I also appreciated Mr. Piper sparing me the tedious task.

The husband-and-wife teacher team are music teachers, and so I decided to name them Pipers!

The 2 Halves of a Traditional Dorm Room

Hans chose to share a room with a stranger and share washrooms with many other never-met-before people!

Both Hans and his roommate were supposed to move in at 9:30 am on August 29th. We got there at 8:30 am and were allowed to move in. Hans and I quickly unpacked his stuff; made his bed; put the “mom” suitcase in the closet; and went out for breakfast. The roommate got stuck in the line-up of cars and moved in a couple of hours later. When Hans and I got back, he was unpacking with his parents. Everything was neatly organized and the mom was on top of everything.

Hans’ roommate is an only child and it all made sense.

I couldn’t take a picture of the other half of the room. But this is how I described it to Manda, my friend, who wanted to hear all about it. I told her that Hans’ side looked so bare, like a truckers’ motel accommodations (no offense to truckers or motels), and the other half looked like a room in a 5-star hotel!

I felt a bit terrible about not putting in an effort, but that’s how Hans wanted it and that’s what he got - bare minimum!

Hans came home 2 days ago. We were with my parents, and they wanted to hear everything about his roommate and how things were in residence. I quickly recapped my brief interaction with the other boy’s parents and gushed about how their son had everything. And I did this in the language we share, which Hans can’t quite comprehend. So, it was truly hilarious when he started off by saying how his roommate asked him for a facial tissue and Hans told him to take one whenever he needed it!

The boy who seemed to have everything still had to ask for something. I felt like there was a lesson to be learnt from that!

On the Same Page!

A few days prior to the move-in date for Hans, there was an email that both he and I received about the many events happening on campus over the orientation week. I realized quickly that there were over 140 events taking place over 5 days. I decided to help the boy. So, I spent some time going through each event that was listed and eventually produced a curated list of about 14 events. I shared those in a Google doc with Hans. I believe he did not look at the list until after he moved into residence. Right after, he must have skimmed through the list and wryly commented on ‘Academic Success: Pushing Past Procrastination’. That was the last one on the list. Hans told me that he was going to skip that one!

Obviously, when I shared the list with him, I told him that they were all mere suggestions.

The night before orientation week, I received the following from Hans - “Sorry mom but I am probably going to not consider the list you made for events … I want to know every event I can possibly go to and plan from there”.

That was probably one of the longer messages I ever received from Hans. I was so happy to read it.

Somewhere prior to that, we also had another exchange where he called the CAs (Community Advisors) “floor manager people”. I wondered why he can’t use the proper terminology but was pleasantly surprised to hear that he helped the 2 CAs assigned to his floor at the first community meeting. So, I sent a Momley message to endorse that and encourage such interactions. Here is what I communicated - “Just studying and getting good grades is not enough. It is the people you connect with that may matter more. And you are already doing that. So, make the most of your time by doing things outside of the lecture halls and classrooms. Don’t kill yourself by spending too much time trying to get high grades. I am okay if you just pass your courses. You can make a difference in so many other ways.”.

Hans responded with “Mom if you know me I would never over study”!

I am glad that Hans and I are on the same page. I just wish he works a little bit on the punctuation in his text messages; however, I am content to receive responses to my ramblings.