Inventive

During a social studies class, we somehow got on to the subject of the President's plane, Air Force One. I was just telling some random facts and mentioned, "It's supposed to be impervious to a nuclear blast."

One kid had that "thinking" look on his face, and after a few minutes, raised his hand.

"What do they make it out of?" he asked. "Cockroaches?"

I really wish I had thought of that.

Undergarments

One day, a boy walked into class with two sleeveless shirts on. Having not seen a kid wear two such shirts together, I asked him why he was wearing them that way.

He looked down, scrunched his head, and got an idea. "Oh, that's my sports bra." he said proudly.

Well, I asked.

Hug?

Our first day back after Christmas, a girl from the Kindergarten class (which I don't teach) comes up at breakfast and asks, "Can I hab a hug?"

I lean over a little and she wraps her little arms around me while I pat her head.

With arms around me, she announces, "My hands are weally, weally sticky."

Thanks sweety. Makes me all warm inside. :)

Absence

Hey all! Sorry for my absense from the blog. After attending Army BCT all summer, it's been a race to catch up. But I'll do my best to update at least every other day from here on out. Here's a sampling just so you won't forget me.

Apologize...

The counselor was in the room and talking about apologizing to friends when you mess up. She gave the scenario that your best friend had told you a secret and you had, for whatever reason, told it publicly. Her question was, "How do you handle the situation?"

One little girl raised her hand with an answer. "You move and change schools."

Goals

Anybody who works with kids knows that they love to tell stories. A sales men's first rule is that people love to talk about themselves. Get them telling personal stories, and you can sell them anything.

Anyway, anytime a kid sees you unattended, they will latch on and start chatting. It's kind of like seek and destroy.

One morning, I was sitting down at the teacher table, enjoying my breakfast, when a little boy (not in my class) came up with a smile on his face. He closed in til he was about 3 inches from my face and said, with no segue whatsoever, "Hey, do you want to know what I'm gonna do when I grow up?"

Now, you can't just say, "Scram kid, I'm eating." no matter how much you want to. It makes their little day to have just a little interest in whatever they're trying to tell you. It's a huge deal to them. So I answered, "Sure. What are you gonna do?"

Smiling like The Joker, he proudly proclaimed, "I'm gonna climb the highest mountain in the world!"

That actually caught me off guard. I was thinking more along the lines of, say, fireman or wrestler. I was impressed. That's a pretty lofty goal. Wondering what other huge plans he could have, I asked, "What are you going to do after that?"

He scrunched his little head in thought. Apparently no one had asked this before and he hadn't gotten that far into the planning stage. He pondered for a few moments, then quietly said, "Well, I guess I could climb back down..."

Kids are far, far more brilliant than we give them credit for.

Bloody Battles

When I first started teaching, along with my science, I also taught 5th grade social studies, which focuses on U.S. History. Children's innocence amazes and astounds me every day, but one day in particular stands out.

We were discussing the Civil War, and I was really going into detail on the horror of war and the insane situation of having to fight your own country and just why the two sides were so desperate to beat the other. At some point, I mentioned that the battle (I know longer remember which battle) lasted all day. At this point, one of my little girls got a curious look and raised her hand.

I have always told my students that curiosity is a wonderful thing and they are allowed to ask questions in the middle of a lecture as long as they raise their hand and I call on them. Seeing her hand, I called and asked what she wanted to know.

With a truly worried look, she asked, "If they fought all day, did they stop and take snack breaks every couple hours?"

That's funny enough, but even funnier is that no one else in the room thought there anything strange at all with that. Perfectly reasonable, in their minds, for two warring factions to halt hostilities and engage in a quick snack.

And that's why I love teaching.

Lonely

At bus call at our school, how we handle it is that our secretary calls each class one at a time to have the students go down to wait in the cafeteria for their bus. My class, more or less, always leaves as a group. However, there are usually a few stragglers that just can't pack their stuff up quite as fast as the others. As they called my room one day, the class got up and left as a group, except for one little boy. This little boy is not usually a straggler, but had more than he usually did and was having trouble getting it ready to go. He looked up and saw he was alone, so he yelled, “Hey, why are you leaving me? I deserve to be loved!” in his most dramatic voice to the retreating backsides of his classmates.

Old Time Morals

As a science teacher, I have several class pets. Some of my favorite are a small rodent called a degu. They are super energetic, don't bite, and hilarious to watch.

For the longest time, I only had one male. They're hard to find where we live and the pet stores only seemed to carry boys. Finally, I visited one day and behold, they had a little girl. So I got her. As instructed, I placed her container next to my degu's cage so that they could get used to one another and not fight. I left her there for an entire day.

The next day, I got ready to throw her in with him. My class was working (supposedly) as I walked over to the degus to put them together. I picked up the girl, opened the aquarium lid, and was getting ready to throw her in when I heard a heart-stopping scream.

Scared to death, I turned, still holding the female degu, to see what the commotion was about. Staring at me, wide-eyed, was a little girl. "You can't put them together!" she screamed.

"Why not?" I asked, not having a clue what the problem was. The kids all knew I wanted a set so that I could have little degus. I had followed all the rules and done all that I could to make the transition harmless for the little rodents. I couldn't imagine what the problem was.

“Because,” she stated matter-of-factly, “they’re not married yet.”

Sick and Twisted

The rumor about me at school is that I am mean and evil. I love that rumor. I started it. How it began, was that when I would tell a kid no to something, for whatever reason, they would look at me with world-weary eyes and say what all kids say when they get a negative response. "You're mean."

To that, I would reply, "And...."

Then the kid would roll their eyes, and in a voice suggesting many repetitions, say, "Mean AND evil."

There are more instances. For example, in one class, a little girl was having trouble stapling some papers together, so she marched up to me and told me to hold her papers for her. I had been watching, and she had struggled with this thing for several minutes. I'd have stepped in to help already, but I was trying hard to contain my laughter. Some of the noises she was making rivaled that of some bodybuilders I know when they're going for a new record on the bench press. Keep in mind, this kid weighs around 60 pounds, tops.

I held her papers for her as she struggled and struggled to staple them, not making any headway. Finally, she gave up and handed it to me with the instructions, "I quit. You do it."

For the first time I was able to see just why she was having so much trouble with the stapler. It had been out of staples the whole time.

Trying very hard not to laugh and make her self-conscious, I told her what was wrong. She straightened up and got real serious. She looked at the stapler, then back to me.

While glaring her most evil glare at me, which was still pretty cute, she said, “You’re a sick, twisted man.” Then promptly grabber her un-stapled papers, turned, and walked away.

Magical

This story occurred while we were watching an educational video (how exciting!) on cells in science class. I am not a big movie-during-class person, but the kids had been good for a sub, so we had done a project that they could eat. While they ate their projects, the video played.

At one point, during a closeup of the cell organelle the mitochondria, the dull announcer's voice intoned, "Now let's take a closer look at the magical world of the mitochondrian..."

A little girl sitting near to where I was standing had a thought. "He says it's magical, but I bet there's no unicorns."

I can't argue with that kind of logic.