The Big Fresh January 26, 2013 The Stick Game

Half of the time I don’t know what they’re talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I’m a foreigner in the world and I don’t understand the language.

                                                             Jean Webster

My daughter Maya and I are part of a Mother-Daughter group that meets monthly (here’s a link to the project that inspired our start http://www.themother-daughterproject.com/ourstory.htm). There are ten of us, five mothers and five teenage daughters. During the last meeting Ella and Hope taught us the stick game. There were no rules; you paid attention in order to learn how to play.

Hope started, “Are you ready? Okay. I can play the stick game, stick game, stick game. I can play the stick game. Can you?” She tapped her shoulders and knees with the stick for each syllable, alternating from left to right.

Ella followed, “I’m ready. Okay. I can play the stick game, stick game, stick game. I can play the stick game. Can you?” She tapped her cheeks and the top of her head.

Then one of the moms took a try, “I can play the stick game, stick game, stick game. I can play the stick game. Can you?” She mimicked exactly what Ella had done, but both Hope and Ella agreed, “You can’t play the stick game yet.” She was confused.

The game continued with each of us trying to say the words right and tap the stick correctly. My attempts got more ridiculous as time went on. I tapped myself with the stick multiple times and tried to copy each of the girls and moms who were “in the know” of the stick game, but I was told I still couldn’t play the stick game.

I flashed back to my days as a beginning teacher. This is exactly what it felt like! I tried to watch the masters around me. I invariably couldn’t figure out all the rules to the game. One time I shared in the staff lounge that I was reading Superfudge to my third graders. The group got quiet. “But that’s a fourth-grade book,” a teacher said.  “If you read it, it will spoil it for next year.” Another time I took my students outside to observe and write. A teacher in a classroom nearby had her door propped open, and she informed me my class was distracting her students. When I confided in another teacher she said, “We all go to the other side because of her complaints.”

It turns out that the key element of the stick game is not how you say the chant or how you tap the stick. In fact, it doesn’t involve the stick at all. You simply need to say “okay” before beginning. Okay! I felt free as soon as I’d broken the code! It was a good reminder to me about letting young teachers, all teachers for that matter, in on the “unspoken” rules.

This week we’re featuring a wealth of resources for helping students crack that code of responding well to their peers. Plus more as always — enjoy!

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1475