Teaching Elementary, My Dear Watson

43 - Relays

43

Relays

Monday, April 10

"How come you didn't let us know your birthday was last Friday?" Mary asked. She had casts on both her broken bones, but they didn't affect the radiance of her smile. "Mrs. Reyes Miller just told us this morning!"

Kevin said, "It was supposed to be a secret. Looks like I can't trust our music teacher on that."

Of course, she only kept it to herself so she could orchestrate the surprise TGIF.

Brendan asked, "How old are you now?"

"One hundred seventy-eight."

"Oh, sure," said several.

"What year were you born?" asked Art.

"1800," said Kevin. He was ready for that one. The kids at Buena Vista had tried to trip him up, too, but picking the first year of a century enabled him to quickly figure out his fake age. "I was good friends with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. They even told me the real story about why George Washington did not get in trouble when he admitted to his father the truth, that he had chopped down the cherry tree."

"Why?" asked Jenna, who was smiling, but decided to play along.

"Well, if you were George's father, and your son was holding an enormous, sharp ax, would you try to punish him?"

The kids laughed.

"You look pretty good for 178," said Graciela. "But way too old for fifth grade. Except as a teacher."

Kevin smiled. I'm where I need to be.

Tuesday, April 11

Sixteen eager runners met with Kevin at lunch. The day was warm and hazy, but due to wispy clouds rather than smog. Perfect for running. He held the final rankings for his fastest kids. There would be four relay teams, two for third and fourth graders, and another pair of teams combining fifth and sixth graders.

In the Olympics, runners used blind passes, meaning they would hand off the baton to the hand of the next runner facing forward, who would hold open fingers behind in anticipation, grabbing it without looking when it hit the palm. But the blind transfer was dangerous. Even with adults, Kevin had seen them mess up. If the pass fell to the ground, the chance for a victory was over. Kevin's teams would trade speed for safety. The chance for a mistake was too great, and the consequence too severe.

The third and fourth graders were cute. Kevin took his older relay teams and assigned each a younger brother or sister, depending on their place in the relay. For the fifth and sixth-grade kids, the order was set. The girls would start with Sonya, who had a quick start, followed by Erin, Valerie, and finally Graciela. The boys would begin with Little Joe, also quick but not as fast, so they would probably have to catch up, but his soccer forwards could do so. José, Alfonso, and Thang had speed. His soccer center strikers, Graciela and Thang, were the two fastest, so they ran last as anchors. Valerie was just fast enough. She wouldn't do as well in a sprint, like the 50-yard dash, because she didn't have an explosive start, but over 110 yards, her pacing kicked in. So Kevin put her in the middle, where she could jog while getting ready to receive the pass, yet still have plenty of strength left to complete the handoff to the next runner.

Batons at an elementary school level were made from wood, foot-long dowels, not the aluminum tubes used in the Olympics. But they worked. Kevin started the kids practicing the pass while standing still, then walking, and finally jogging slowly. Later, he would add lanes and marks to show them where they had to transfer the baton. But he'd build up to that. He increased the challenge level literally one step at a time.