Superhero in Pink Boots: My Outlier

Charlie on his  throne at the farm: Margaret River, Australia, 2014

He was the only boy. 

Surrounded by four elementary-age girls, three moms, and two dads, Charlie held his own on our recent trip with great friends to Margaret River, Australia. 

We'd find him early in the morning practicing his swordplay with sticks, jumping into (or off of) piles of hay, chasing sheep, and helping out Uncle Vinnie who runs the place. In pink boots.

And the girls ended up constructing the fort, for the most part (Charlie added some finishing touches). It was the most intricate fort I'd ever seen -- the little engineers designed a fantasy land I wish I'd had as a part of the neighborhood gang in the '70s.

Entering the girls' fort: Margaret River, Australia, 2014

As a teacher, I'm always trying to look beyond gender stereotypes to encourage all my students: from the boy who loves to write poetry to the girl who wants to research war tactics (those are just two recent examples) and just see them as writers and lovers of literature. So when I came across my teaching partner Betsy's Outliers sketchbook, I knew I had to include my kids: my own children, of course, but also add a little thought of how I can transfer what Mayzie and Charlie teach me into the environment I make for my students.

So I want to dedicate this post to two people.

One, the fabulous Betsy Hall, who alongside me on the journey of our recent historical narrative poetry unit, allowed so much freedom of choice that our students could take poetry and see that it's one way we, as writers and thinkers, can zoom in on anything we want, even if it's seen as some teens as typically "feminine." 

If it was three voices exploring the brutal effects of post-traumatic stress disorder from the Vietnam War or a poem's speaker delving deep into what it was like for a child to sit, waiting for someone to find her in the rubble of the World Trade Center's overshadowed buildings, the gender lines were blurred as to who wrote it.

And two, it's for Charlie, who picked out the pink boots in the store. And the Batman shirt.