I was teaching third grade. My grand daughter, Rachel, was in my friend, Luci’s, third grade class, just one classroom over.
One afternoon, after the children had gone home, I was working at my desk, when Luci came into my room. In her hand was a piece of the familiar tan-colored paper with the blue solid and dotted lines that third graders use.
“Honey? Did you have something you wanted to tell me?” she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
“What?” I brilliantly replied.
“Well, these are Rachel’s spelling sentences. I think you should read the fourth one.” She said as she handed me the paper.
Sentence number four boldly said, “My Uncle Rob came out of the closet.”
Closet was the spelling word. We laughed and wondered if Leigh, his wife of six years, would be amused to find this out.
I sent the paper to Rob and Leigh because I knew they’d love it. The paper is still attached to the door of their refrigerator with a little magnet. Rachel is in the eighth grade now, and alas, too worldly to write such funny things.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Things Kids Say and Write
Today I was playing around with my “Book In a Box” as I call my box of things I saved from when I was teaching school. I saved items that the kids wrote or said that amused me. I am in the process of categorizing into Things they said, Things they did, and well just Things.
Here are some of the things they wrote. I’m telling you right now, these kids were brilliant! I taught them everything they knew.
All trees in Washington came from seeds that came from airplanes.
The governor of Texas has the right to paint his employees.
When the war broke out, they turned the mission into a fart.
Covered wagons were called prairie schooners because they were used to schoon the prairies.
Three characteristics that define a society are TVs, Parties, and Fashion. (The answer was supposed to be; organized religion, an established government, and a common language- but she was close!)
Some people in Taiwan right now are ball-headed.
If you ever get the chance to see sharks reproduce, take it!
Germany’s religion is similar to ours. They have a big building in the city.
Abe Lincoln got his face on our pannies.
I picked Wyoming for my state because it is easy to draw.
If a possum knows its going to lose, it just “aks”
dead and most of the time it works!
Orca whales have pimples around their eyes, like my big brother.
Mammals are worm blooded.
The big blue whale has baleen wich is his other teeth.
Funny things they said:
“My mom can play the tangerine really well.”
“My health report is on Alcohol and Neurotics.”(Narcotics)
“Since I’m half Jewish, tonight we’re going to light the harmonica.”
“Mrs. Guinn, you sound just like a cowgirl.” (And I had been trying SO hard to lose that Okie accent!)
“Mrs. Guinn, from the back, you look just like a kid, but from the front you look regular.
“Mrs. Guinn, I like you because you’re so normal.”
(Well, I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but normal has never been one of them!)
Every year, I asked them to write down what they had learned so far in their lives. Here is some fine wisdom:
Don’t cut my own hair.
Don’t start a sentence with “Because.” (Yay! I taught this one something!)
Don’t bother the baby.
Don’t eat dog food.
Don’t keep money on your desk when you’re having a birthday party.
Don’t stand too close to the pool when a big dog is running around.
Don’t sit in the driver’s seat when the car is running and especially don’t touch the shifter.
When you are mad, don’t kick a window.
Never, NEVER ask your mom why she made this crap for dinner.
I learned not to pitch to my Uncle Jay.
Don’t put two wires together.
Don’t hang from the tree house.
Don’t call Mom, “Mrs. Guinn.”
I learned not to swim with my big cousin.
Don’t open your mouth when a baby is reaching for it. They can reach in far and you will barf.
You shouldn’t try to bounce a Christmas tree ball.
If you spin round and round in the living room things can go very wrong.
Don’t jump on a shovel barefooted.
If you forget to put the grass holder on the lawn mower you have to mow again.
Not to go into the bathroom if the door is shut, even if it is not locked.
Don’t take that tone of voice with mom.
Use your nose and not your fingers when you need to see if the baby has a dirty diaper.
If you take a bite of something hot, spit it out, because if you swallow it, it burns all the way down.
Not all bugs are friendly.
You shouldn’t say, “Yuck” when you are at someone else’s house for dinner.
Don’t drink too much water before bedtime.
Teasing your brother when Mom is in a bad mood is a very bad idea and can cause you to miss The Cosby Show.
Never use Mom’s good jewelry on your jack-o-lantern.
Drinking a Pepsi when you are playing on your dad’s new computer is dangerous.
Fish hooks don’t come out of your finger very easy.
Don’t pretend you are going to steal your dog’s food when she’s eating.
Don’t keep begging after Mom says, “NO!” with her teeth together.
Never lean your chair back on the two back legs because you could break your neck.
Never try to sneak some of your big sister’s Monopoly money when you think she isn’t looking.
And my personal favorite;
Don’t do things half fast.
Here are some of the things they wrote. I’m telling you right now, these kids were brilliant! I taught them everything they knew.
All trees in Washington came from seeds that came from airplanes.
The governor of Texas has the right to paint his employees.
When the war broke out, they turned the mission into a fart.
Covered wagons were called prairie schooners because they were used to schoon the prairies.
Three characteristics that define a society are TVs, Parties, and Fashion. (The answer was supposed to be; organized religion, an established government, and a common language- but she was close!)
Some people in Taiwan right now are ball-headed.
If you ever get the chance to see sharks reproduce, take it!
Germany’s religion is similar to ours. They have a big building in the city.
Abe Lincoln got his face on our pannies.
I picked Wyoming for my state because it is easy to draw.
If a possum knows its going to lose, it just “aks”
dead and most of the time it works!
Orca whales have pimples around their eyes, like my big brother.
Mammals are worm blooded.
The big blue whale has baleen wich is his other teeth.
Funny things they said:
“My mom can play the tangerine really well.”
“My health report is on Alcohol and Neurotics.”(Narcotics)
“Since I’m half Jewish, tonight we’re going to light the harmonica.”
“Mrs. Guinn, you sound just like a cowgirl.” (And I had been trying SO hard to lose that Okie accent!)
“Mrs. Guinn, from the back, you look just like a kid, but from the front you look regular.
“Mrs. Guinn, I like you because you’re so normal.”
(Well, I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but normal has never been one of them!)
Every year, I asked them to write down what they had learned so far in their lives. Here is some fine wisdom:
Don’t cut my own hair.
Don’t start a sentence with “Because.” (Yay! I taught this one something!)
Don’t bother the baby.
Don’t eat dog food.
Don’t keep money on your desk when you’re having a birthday party.
Don’t stand too close to the pool when a big dog is running around.
Don’t sit in the driver’s seat when the car is running and especially don’t touch the shifter.
When you are mad, don’t kick a window.
Never, NEVER ask your mom why she made this crap for dinner.
I learned not to pitch to my Uncle Jay.
Don’t put two wires together.
Don’t hang from the tree house.
Don’t call Mom, “Mrs. Guinn.”
I learned not to swim with my big cousin.
Don’t open your mouth when a baby is reaching for it. They can reach in far and you will barf.
You shouldn’t try to bounce a Christmas tree ball.
If you spin round and round in the living room things can go very wrong.
Don’t jump on a shovel barefooted.
If you forget to put the grass holder on the lawn mower you have to mow again.
Not to go into the bathroom if the door is shut, even if it is not locked.
Don’t take that tone of voice with mom.
Use your nose and not your fingers when you need to see if the baby has a dirty diaper.
If you take a bite of something hot, spit it out, because if you swallow it, it burns all the way down.
Not all bugs are friendly.
You shouldn’t say, “Yuck” when you are at someone else’s house for dinner.
Don’t drink too much water before bedtime.
Teasing your brother when Mom is in a bad mood is a very bad idea and can cause you to miss The Cosby Show.
Never use Mom’s good jewelry on your jack-o-lantern.
Drinking a Pepsi when you are playing on your dad’s new computer is dangerous.
Fish hooks don’t come out of your finger very easy.
Don’t pretend you are going to steal your dog’s food when she’s eating.
Don’t keep begging after Mom says, “NO!” with her teeth together.
Never lean your chair back on the two back legs because you could break your neck.
Never try to sneak some of your big sister’s Monopoly money when you think she isn’t looking.
And my personal favorite;
Don’t do things half fast.
The Queen's Rules
The Queen’s Rules
By Lynn Guinn
When I was a teacher in the California public school system, I always told my students that I was their queen and they were all my princes and princesses. This always delighted third graders, and made sixth graders roll their almost junior high eyes. I was pretty sure they didn’t take it seriously until one day my classroom phone was out of order.
Another teacher came in and said, “Well, doesn’t the queen ever answer her phone?” Their surprised eyes leapt to my face and they said, in awe, “Even Mrs. Weaver knows you are the queen!”
Since I was the queen, my classroom rules were a bit unorthodox. I share them with you now.
1. Please do not tap me to get my attention. The attention you will get from tapping on me is not the kind of attention you want to get.
2. You may accidentally call me “Mom.” You may even accidentally call me “Grandma,” but I draw the line at “Dad.”
3. Please do not block my view of the rest of the class when you are waiting to see me. Now and then there will be a student who uses unguarded moments to slather his hand with glue because he finds it interesting to peel it off when it dries.
4. If you bring me a gift from home, please be sure your mother knows about it.
5. If I am looking at another student’s paper and discussing it with him or her, do not place your paper between my face and the paper I am reading.
6. “Courtesy” is the key word. Rude remarks are unacceptable. In other words you may not say “Duh” when a classmate gives the wrong answer.
7. Add “Shut-up” and “Stupid” to your list of bad words that you must not say.
8. Don’t tattle unless someone is bleeding, or possibly about to bleed.
9. Put your name on your paper. I sold my Ouija board at a garage sale.
10. Spare me your excuses for not having your homework finished. I have heard them all and now I only hear, “I didn’t get to do my homework because bla, bla, bla, bla, bla.” (Except for the time I heard “because my mother had to go to jail.”)
11. Take care of your materials. Everything has been provided for a reason. In two months when I say, “Please get out your red, yellow, and blue crayons,” you should be able to retrieve them and be ready for the activity. “Someone stole my red.” Will not be an acceptable excuse for not having your red crayon.
12. Keep your desk neat. If it is too messy for you to find your math notebook, I will gladly help you by dumping its contents upon the floor, thus illuminating the items therein.
13. Irresponsibility on your part does not create an emergency for me. Therefore, if you lose an important paper, or you accidentally tore it in half to draw upon it an unflattering picture of your ex-best friend, I shall be happy to give you a new one, if I happen to have more. If I don’t have any more extras, it is not my crisis. You may wait until after school for me to dig out the original and go to the copier to make another one for you.
14. During direct instruction, or when I am reading to you, you are to remain in your seat. You may not get up to get a drink of water, get paper, sharpen your pencil, or throw something away. It is distracting to other students and the queen.
15. Exception to Number 14! Vomit. If you feel as if you are about to show us what you had for lunch. Do not hesitate. Run to the restroom! You do not need to come to me to announce your dilemma. My desk is messy enough as it is.
16. When the queen is speaking, you are listening, not whispering to your neighbor, writing notes, sticking pins into your eraser, or digging in your backpack to get something you shouldn’t have at school in the first place.
17. If I decide to do something that is different than the norm, don’t question me about it. I have a reason for everything I do. Besides, I am the queen.
18. When you are doing your homework, remember that parents are consultants only. The queen can tell if homework has been sub-contracted to an older sibling or parents. The queen did not just come in on a load of royal turnips.
19. What happens at recess stays at recess. We do not have time to rehash why Linda and Mary Beth didn’t want to play with you today. We can discuss this after math is over.
20. Clean up after yourself. Your mother isn’t in this class.
By Lynn Guinn
When I was a teacher in the California public school system, I always told my students that I was their queen and they were all my princes and princesses. This always delighted third graders, and made sixth graders roll their almost junior high eyes. I was pretty sure they didn’t take it seriously until one day my classroom phone was out of order.
Another teacher came in and said, “Well, doesn’t the queen ever answer her phone?” Their surprised eyes leapt to my face and they said, in awe, “Even Mrs. Weaver knows you are the queen!”
Since I was the queen, my classroom rules were a bit unorthodox. I share them with you now.
1. Please do not tap me to get my attention. The attention you will get from tapping on me is not the kind of attention you want to get.
2. You may accidentally call me “Mom.” You may even accidentally call me “Grandma,” but I draw the line at “Dad.”
3. Please do not block my view of the rest of the class when you are waiting to see me. Now and then there will be a student who uses unguarded moments to slather his hand with glue because he finds it interesting to peel it off when it dries.
4. If you bring me a gift from home, please be sure your mother knows about it.
5. If I am looking at another student’s paper and discussing it with him or her, do not place your paper between my face and the paper I am reading.
6. “Courtesy” is the key word. Rude remarks are unacceptable. In other words you may not say “Duh” when a classmate gives the wrong answer.
7. Add “Shut-up” and “Stupid” to your list of bad words that you must not say.
8. Don’t tattle unless someone is bleeding, or possibly about to bleed.
9. Put your name on your paper. I sold my Ouija board at a garage sale.
10. Spare me your excuses for not having your homework finished. I have heard them all and now I only hear, “I didn’t get to do my homework because bla, bla, bla, bla, bla.” (Except for the time I heard “because my mother had to go to jail.”)
11. Take care of your materials. Everything has been provided for a reason. In two months when I say, “Please get out your red, yellow, and blue crayons,” you should be able to retrieve them and be ready for the activity. “Someone stole my red.” Will not be an acceptable excuse for not having your red crayon.
12. Keep your desk neat. If it is too messy for you to find your math notebook, I will gladly help you by dumping its contents upon the floor, thus illuminating the items therein.
13. Irresponsibility on your part does not create an emergency for me. Therefore, if you lose an important paper, or you accidentally tore it in half to draw upon it an unflattering picture of your ex-best friend, I shall be happy to give you a new one, if I happen to have more. If I don’t have any more extras, it is not my crisis. You may wait until after school for me to dig out the original and go to the copier to make another one for you.
14. During direct instruction, or when I am reading to you, you are to remain in your seat. You may not get up to get a drink of water, get paper, sharpen your pencil, or throw something away. It is distracting to other students and the queen.
15. Exception to Number 14! Vomit. If you feel as if you are about to show us what you had for lunch. Do not hesitate. Run to the restroom! You do not need to come to me to announce your dilemma. My desk is messy enough as it is.
16. When the queen is speaking, you are listening, not whispering to your neighbor, writing notes, sticking pins into your eraser, or digging in your backpack to get something you shouldn’t have at school in the first place.
17. If I decide to do something that is different than the norm, don’t question me about it. I have a reason for everything I do. Besides, I am the queen.
18. When you are doing your homework, remember that parents are consultants only. The queen can tell if homework has been sub-contracted to an older sibling or parents. The queen did not just come in on a load of royal turnips.
19. What happens at recess stays at recess. We do not have time to rehash why Linda and Mary Beth didn’t want to play with you today. We can discuss this after math is over.
20. Clean up after yourself. Your mother isn’t in this class.
The Don't Smoke Story
Every November we teachers were obligated to commemorate the Great American Smokeout.
So being the dramatic writer and actor that I am, I wrote and “performed” the following, hoping they would see the ridiculousness of sucking smoke into one’s lungs for the sake of…what?
Once upon a time, soon after fire was discovered, a cave man came upon some green leaves growing in a field.
They were green and luscious looking so he picked a few and took them back to his cave. “Gorg!” He said to his cave mates, which meant,
“Looky what I found!”
“What is it?” They asked.
“Don’t know,” He replied.
“What should we do with it?” they wondered.
What else? Let’s eat it!
So they put it in their salad.
The next morning the only cave man left alive was the one who didn’t eat the salad.
He assessed the situation.
“Must not be good thing to eat,” he surmised.
Later on, after cleaning his cave, he went to see if he could find some new cave mates. He chanced upon the field growing those beautiful green leaves, where he saw his next cave neighbors picking the lovely green tobacco leaves.
“Don’t eat!” He yelled.
The people stood up and looked up at him.
“Whaaaa?” They asked.
“It will make you die, lickety split!” He told them.
“Then what should we do with this lovely harvest?” they asked, pointing to the great pile of leaves.
“Let’s think of a use for it”, he replied, because cave people were quite thrifty, and liked to use all of the things they discovered.
They thought and thought and they paced about and rubbed their cave man chins, until finally the one named Grub said,
“I’ve got it!” And he stopped pacing and raised his pointy finger into the air authoritatively.
“Let’s put it out in the sun and let it dry up and get all brown and wrinkly!”
“Whaaa?” They asked in unison.
They really meant, “Why?” But that question hadn’t been invented yet.
“Don’t know,” he replied in cave-man language, “but at least it won’t look delicious like turnip greens!”
“Then what will we do with it?”
“Then! He said pacing excitedly, “We’ll tear it all up and smash it till it’s small.”
“Whaaaa?”
Then we’ll um, um, (thinking) ROLL it up in really thin paper, and and, and, then we’ll um, um, (more thinking) have a little round stick of it!!” He was really getting into this now.
“Whaaaa?” They asked again.
Then we’ll LIGHT ONE END OF THE STICK ON FIRE!”
“That’s it! That’s what we’ll do with it!” He exclaimed banging his big caveman fist into his big caveman palm.
“Whaaaaa?” the others shouted getting caught up in the Grub’s excitement.
“Then we’ll um…” and here he paused not really sure what to say next, but everyone was looking at him so expectantly he knew he had to come up with a colossal idea.
He continued to walk back and forth, dragging his knuckles on the ground in typical caveman style.
Suddenly he stopped and faced his trusting friends and neighbors.
“THEN we’ll put the end that’s NOT on fire into our mouths and SUCK the smoke into our lungs.
What a great idea! (Here I usually looked like a demented, Steve Martin in his early days.)
And so they did and they coughed and choked, but they didn’t die. …That day.
So being the dramatic writer and actor that I am, I wrote and “performed” the following, hoping they would see the ridiculousness of sucking smoke into one’s lungs for the sake of…what?
Once upon a time, soon after fire was discovered, a cave man came upon some green leaves growing in a field.
They were green and luscious looking so he picked a few and took them back to his cave. “Gorg!” He said to his cave mates, which meant,
“Looky what I found!”
“What is it?” They asked.
“Don’t know,” He replied.
“What should we do with it?” they wondered.
What else? Let’s eat it!
So they put it in their salad.
The next morning the only cave man left alive was the one who didn’t eat the salad.
He assessed the situation.
“Must not be good thing to eat,” he surmised.
Later on, after cleaning his cave, he went to see if he could find some new cave mates. He chanced upon the field growing those beautiful green leaves, where he saw his next cave neighbors picking the lovely green tobacco leaves.
“Don’t eat!” He yelled.
The people stood up and looked up at him.
“Whaaaa?” They asked.
“It will make you die, lickety split!” He told them.
“Then what should we do with this lovely harvest?” they asked, pointing to the great pile of leaves.
“Let’s think of a use for it”, he replied, because cave people were quite thrifty, and liked to use all of the things they discovered.
They thought and thought and they paced about and rubbed their cave man chins, until finally the one named Grub said,
“I’ve got it!” And he stopped pacing and raised his pointy finger into the air authoritatively.
“Let’s put it out in the sun and let it dry up and get all brown and wrinkly!”
“Whaaa?” They asked in unison.
They really meant, “Why?” But that question hadn’t been invented yet.
“Don’t know,” he replied in cave-man language, “but at least it won’t look delicious like turnip greens!”
“Then what will we do with it?”
“Then! He said pacing excitedly, “We’ll tear it all up and smash it till it’s small.”
“Whaaaa?”
Then we’ll um, um, (thinking) ROLL it up in really thin paper, and and, and, then we’ll um, um, (more thinking) have a little round stick of it!!” He was really getting into this now.
“Whaaaa?” They asked again.
Then we’ll LIGHT ONE END OF THE STICK ON FIRE!”
“That’s it! That’s what we’ll do with it!” He exclaimed banging his big caveman fist into his big caveman palm.
“Whaaaaa?” the others shouted getting caught up in the Grub’s excitement.
“Then we’ll um…” and here he paused not really sure what to say next, but everyone was looking at him so expectantly he knew he had to come up with a colossal idea.
He continued to walk back and forth, dragging his knuckles on the ground in typical caveman style.
Suddenly he stopped and faced his trusting friends and neighbors.
“THEN we’ll put the end that’s NOT on fire into our mouths and SUCK the smoke into our lungs.
What a great idea! (Here I usually looked like a demented, Steve Martin in his early days.)
And so they did and they coughed and choked, but they didn’t die. …That day.
The Dark Side of the Classroom
From “The Dark Side” File
A boy is in my class. We’ll call him Chuck. He is severely ADHD and is on medication. When he comes to school before his meds have “kicked in” (his words) he has to stay out of the classroom until he becomes “normal.” He will pace briskly up and down the sidewalk yelling random multi-syllabic words, like “cappuccino” and “Deuteronomy.” This causes all classroom doors up and down the courtyard to slam shut.
For a while I had him wait in the office, but this proved to be too disrupting to all of the office personnel and the things of importance that they were doing in there. “He was swinging from the upper window ledge!”
A simple solution to this problem would be for him to have his meds administered a bit earlier, but for reasons to be soon discovered, his parents were unable to perform this task.
When Chuck, first came to be in my class, I had the foolish notion that he should do his (modified) homework. I paid him a home visit one afternoon to take him the papers he had forgotten. There was a bedroom dresser in his front yard. It was raining. His father and another man were sitting in the garage drinking beer. I handed the work to him and skedaddled right out of there! I never saw the completed homework.
As the days went on, I began to see that the regular classroom was too much for him to handle. I spoke to the Powers about this matter. The ball was put in motion, but the education ball rolls very slowly.
I began to discover things about this child’s family situation. First, a good friend of mine, who was a retired teacher informed me that she had taught both of Chuck’s parents and was devastated when she discovered that they had gotten together and produced offspring. She had taught Chuck’s older sister the year before she retired, and found her to be a sweet, pathetic creature. She had spent the year trying to help her with self-esteem problems.
The next thing I discovered was that this girl, (now in the 7th grade), was taken out of the home because her father had molested her. When I say, “molested” I am talking completely and sexually, and in his mind, they had a relationship. When I read the report it made me sick. Reading reports of child abuse is not new to me, but this one was full of disgusting dialogue. This little girl is now living with her grandmother.
Now, the thing that shocked me the most, here, is that the mother chose this man who had done an unspeakable thing to her little girl, OVER her little girl. I am not easily shocked after teaching for so many years, but this was beyond my realm.
(I saw the girl in the market, buying sodas for a church party. She is absolutely the sanest member of the family. She said she missed Chuck, but not her parents.)
Just as I thought I had heard it all, I found out that the father had a girlfriend who had three children, and they were all living with Chuck and his family. They were living in the house that Chuck’s recently deceased grandmother had left to his mother. Chuck’s mother was the only one who had a job. So, in addition to providing the inherited house, she was supporting her disgusting husband, his girlfriend, her children, and Chuck, plus some “uncle,” who liked to take Chris’ meds. (Of course this was merely hearsay, but was reported to CPS as such)
Meanwhile, Chuck continues to come to school every morning with his “breakfast” (i.e., something sugary from the 7-11) and having just taken his meds in the car on the way to school.
One day he had an ice-cream bar for breakfast, which he placed on his desk. By the time I noticed it, it had melted and run down to his seat and then to the floor. (His medication squelched his appetite.)
Another day he came to school wearing one knitted glove. By the end of the day there was a pile of yarn on his desk and on the floor around him. At some point he broke his arm in an accident and proceeded to EAT his cast of. He did this not once, but twice.
He was always dirty, and I asked my principal to call his mother and ask her to please wash his sweatshirt before he came back to school the next day. (Mother had already said, she didn’t want to hear from me anymore, as I was harassing her about her ability to be a mother.)
Mother called the superintendent and said that the principal has harassed her and embarrassed her at work and she was going to sue the school district if it happened again. The superintendent called the principal and told her to do what ever she has to do to keep the district office from having to hear from this woman again. So much for that.
Let me stop here and say that Chuck is a good kid. He is kind. He is gentle. He is never aggressive toward any of the other children. I observe him doing little favors for them, and he never misses a chance to do something helpful for me. He needs far more than I can give him in a class of 29. He needs to be in a small class, and certainly not in a class with a blind child, whose Braille machine clacks all day. Chuck reacts to every clack.
We continue to struggle through the year. My efforts to get him into an SDC are on the move, but there are many steps to be taken and many hoops to jump through. Meanwhile, he sits in class, removes his shoes and picks at his feet. When I tell him to stop, he quietly puts his shoes back on and begins to pick at his arms. His hands are always busy. I place a pencil into those busy hands and for a while he does what he should be doing. When I am drawn to another student, he returns to his own little world again.
Finally he is admitted into the Resource Program. One of the “hoops” is that he must spend ninety percent of his day there, for a certain length of time. The year ends.
He begins his fourth grade year in a regular classroom. It is mid-year before he gets into a Special Day Class at another district school.
I inquire about him during his sixth grade year. He has made good progress. His teacher and principal are quite proud of him.
I think about the family often.
A boy is in my class. We’ll call him Chuck. He is severely ADHD and is on medication. When he comes to school before his meds have “kicked in” (his words) he has to stay out of the classroom until he becomes “normal.” He will pace briskly up and down the sidewalk yelling random multi-syllabic words, like “cappuccino” and “Deuteronomy.” This causes all classroom doors up and down the courtyard to slam shut.
For a while I had him wait in the office, but this proved to be too disrupting to all of the office personnel and the things of importance that they were doing in there. “He was swinging from the upper window ledge!”
A simple solution to this problem would be for him to have his meds administered a bit earlier, but for reasons to be soon discovered, his parents were unable to perform this task.
When Chuck, first came to be in my class, I had the foolish notion that he should do his (modified) homework. I paid him a home visit one afternoon to take him the papers he had forgotten. There was a bedroom dresser in his front yard. It was raining. His father and another man were sitting in the garage drinking beer. I handed the work to him and skedaddled right out of there! I never saw the completed homework.
As the days went on, I began to see that the regular classroom was too much for him to handle. I spoke to the Powers about this matter. The ball was put in motion, but the education ball rolls very slowly.
I began to discover things about this child’s family situation. First, a good friend of mine, who was a retired teacher informed me that she had taught both of Chuck’s parents and was devastated when she discovered that they had gotten together and produced offspring. She had taught Chuck’s older sister the year before she retired, and found her to be a sweet, pathetic creature. She had spent the year trying to help her with self-esteem problems.
The next thing I discovered was that this girl, (now in the 7th grade), was taken out of the home because her father had molested her. When I say, “molested” I am talking completely and sexually, and in his mind, they had a relationship. When I read the report it made me sick. Reading reports of child abuse is not new to me, but this one was full of disgusting dialogue. This little girl is now living with her grandmother.
Now, the thing that shocked me the most, here, is that the mother chose this man who had done an unspeakable thing to her little girl, OVER her little girl. I am not easily shocked after teaching for so many years, but this was beyond my realm.
(I saw the girl in the market, buying sodas for a church party. She is absolutely the sanest member of the family. She said she missed Chuck, but not her parents.)
Just as I thought I had heard it all, I found out that the father had a girlfriend who had three children, and they were all living with Chuck and his family. They were living in the house that Chuck’s recently deceased grandmother had left to his mother. Chuck’s mother was the only one who had a job. So, in addition to providing the inherited house, she was supporting her disgusting husband, his girlfriend, her children, and Chuck, plus some “uncle,” who liked to take Chris’ meds. (Of course this was merely hearsay, but was reported to CPS as such)
Meanwhile, Chuck continues to come to school every morning with his “breakfast” (i.e., something sugary from the 7-11) and having just taken his meds in the car on the way to school.
One day he had an ice-cream bar for breakfast, which he placed on his desk. By the time I noticed it, it had melted and run down to his seat and then to the floor. (His medication squelched his appetite.)
Another day he came to school wearing one knitted glove. By the end of the day there was a pile of yarn on his desk and on the floor around him. At some point he broke his arm in an accident and proceeded to EAT his cast of. He did this not once, but twice.
He was always dirty, and I asked my principal to call his mother and ask her to please wash his sweatshirt before he came back to school the next day. (Mother had already said, she didn’t want to hear from me anymore, as I was harassing her about her ability to be a mother.)
Mother called the superintendent and said that the principal has harassed her and embarrassed her at work and she was going to sue the school district if it happened again. The superintendent called the principal and told her to do what ever she has to do to keep the district office from having to hear from this woman again. So much for that.
Let me stop here and say that Chuck is a good kid. He is kind. He is gentle. He is never aggressive toward any of the other children. I observe him doing little favors for them, and he never misses a chance to do something helpful for me. He needs far more than I can give him in a class of 29. He needs to be in a small class, and certainly not in a class with a blind child, whose Braille machine clacks all day. Chuck reacts to every clack.
We continue to struggle through the year. My efforts to get him into an SDC are on the move, but there are many steps to be taken and many hoops to jump through. Meanwhile, he sits in class, removes his shoes and picks at his feet. When I tell him to stop, he quietly puts his shoes back on and begins to pick at his arms. His hands are always busy. I place a pencil into those busy hands and for a while he does what he should be doing. When I am drawn to another student, he returns to his own little world again.
Finally he is admitted into the Resource Program. One of the “hoops” is that he must spend ninety percent of his day there, for a certain length of time. The year ends.
He begins his fourth grade year in a regular classroom. It is mid-year before he gets into a Special Day Class at another district school.
I inquire about him during his sixth grade year. He has made good progress. His teacher and principal are quite proud of him.
I think about the family often.
Reading, Writing, and Triage
Among my duties as a California public school teacher, I was to be prepared to rescue children from the rubble of an earthquake, should the Big One come along during school hours. We had no mountain lion awareness nor did we need to be bear savvy the way school employees must be here in the foothills. However, in Orange County, (which I have heard Northstaters refer to as “Darn Near Mexico”), we had to be prepared for a worst-case-scenario-type earthquake event. In addition to being trained in how to successfully teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, we had to be trained in the art of search and rescue, triage, and first aid.
What people in the Real World, (our little term for people not in the “Ed Biz”) don’t know is, school personnel are prepared to stay at the site until the last child has been delivered to parents or authorities in the event of a calamity. We even had food, water, and blankets in our classrooms to sustain us overnight if the need arose. I had nightmares about chaperoning a sleepover with twenty-eight frightened nine-year-olds.
There have been comprehensive studies done about what to expect at a school when a disaster occurs. The findings were this:
Parents will rush to the school, driving as far as they are able to, then abandon their cars and run the rest of the way in a hysterical manner. The first arrivals will get fairly close to the school, many even parking on the schoolyard, as well as the yards of the neighboring houses. The subsequent hysterical arrivals will be forced to abandon their cars increasingly farther back. This activity will block any arriving rescue vehicles completely. As I understand it, the opportunity for this study occurred when an errant boiler exploded at an elementary school somewhere in Texas. As a result of this study, the district administrators devised a complex plan to deal with any disaster that might befall us.
We had an elaborate role-playing practice drill one day instead of regular class. Several students and members of the staff were given little sealed envelopes containing tags that went around their necks to designate various injuries ranging from cuts to concussions. Some had tags that simply informed them that they were dead.
I already knew that I was to be a member of the Search and Rescue Team. This designation was probably given to me because I was in robust health and had given everyone the impression that I was calm under duress.
They didn’t know about the little dance I do when there is an emergency. (I call it my Turkey’s on Fire Dance, so called because I first performed it when a turkey I was cooking in a too-small pan set my oven on fire. It looks somewhat as if I have wasps in my underwear and one of my feet is nailed down. )
On the big day, the secret disaster code-bell rang. Everyone went into action. After delivering each of my ambulatory students to a pre-designated safe place and hanging the proper colored tag upon my classroom door, (red for dead and yellow for injured, and green for empty) I went on to my searching and rescuing.
I went into a classroom with a “dead” third grader in it. Now, you and I both know that most kids play dead with their eyes shut. This one had his eyes open, fixed and staring at nothing. There he was with his little Dead Tag hanging around his neck, not moving, not blinking, and most amazing, not giggling. He didn’t even break character when I said,
“Wow! You’re GOOD!!”
I waved my hand in front of his face. Nothing.
He didn’t budge when I said,
“OK, You. Get on the stretcher.”
No, my partner and I had to LIFT his limp, chubby, lifeless body onto the stretcher and carry him all the way to the triage dead pile.
If that kid isn’t acting in movies by now, someone dropped the ball.
Teachers are champions of multi-tasking, and I mean The Best. However I was always worried about those colored tags. Really! How was I going to gather crying, mortally frightened children, hack my way out of a room, (We were told the doors were likely to stick shut due to the twisting of the building in the quake.) all while determining whether a child might be dead or merely injured? I was guessing that the proper colored door tags were crucial. What if I thought someone was dead but he was only severely injured? Sometimes that isn’t clear, unless, of course the head happens to be severed from the body. More nightmares.
When the opportunity came to retire, freedom from this worry was the first thing I thought of. The second thing I did was pray that the Big One would just hold off until June.
What people in the Real World, (our little term for people not in the “Ed Biz”) don’t know is, school personnel are prepared to stay at the site until the last child has been delivered to parents or authorities in the event of a calamity. We even had food, water, and blankets in our classrooms to sustain us overnight if the need arose. I had nightmares about chaperoning a sleepover with twenty-eight frightened nine-year-olds.
There have been comprehensive studies done about what to expect at a school when a disaster occurs. The findings were this:
Parents will rush to the school, driving as far as they are able to, then abandon their cars and run the rest of the way in a hysterical manner. The first arrivals will get fairly close to the school, many even parking on the schoolyard, as well as the yards of the neighboring houses. The subsequent hysterical arrivals will be forced to abandon their cars increasingly farther back. This activity will block any arriving rescue vehicles completely. As I understand it, the opportunity for this study occurred when an errant boiler exploded at an elementary school somewhere in Texas. As a result of this study, the district administrators devised a complex plan to deal with any disaster that might befall us.
We had an elaborate role-playing practice drill one day instead of regular class. Several students and members of the staff were given little sealed envelopes containing tags that went around their necks to designate various injuries ranging from cuts to concussions. Some had tags that simply informed them that they were dead.
I already knew that I was to be a member of the Search and Rescue Team. This designation was probably given to me because I was in robust health and had given everyone the impression that I was calm under duress.
They didn’t know about the little dance I do when there is an emergency. (I call it my Turkey’s on Fire Dance, so called because I first performed it when a turkey I was cooking in a too-small pan set my oven on fire. It looks somewhat as if I have wasps in my underwear and one of my feet is nailed down. )
On the big day, the secret disaster code-bell rang. Everyone went into action. After delivering each of my ambulatory students to a pre-designated safe place and hanging the proper colored tag upon my classroom door, (red for dead and yellow for injured, and green for empty) I went on to my searching and rescuing.
I went into a classroom with a “dead” third grader in it. Now, you and I both know that most kids play dead with their eyes shut. This one had his eyes open, fixed and staring at nothing. There he was with his little Dead Tag hanging around his neck, not moving, not blinking, and most amazing, not giggling. He didn’t even break character when I said,
“Wow! You’re GOOD!!”
I waved my hand in front of his face. Nothing.
He didn’t budge when I said,
“OK, You. Get on the stretcher.”
No, my partner and I had to LIFT his limp, chubby, lifeless body onto the stretcher and carry him all the way to the triage dead pile.
If that kid isn’t acting in movies by now, someone dropped the ball.
Teachers are champions of multi-tasking, and I mean The Best. However I was always worried about those colored tags. Really! How was I going to gather crying, mortally frightened children, hack my way out of a room, (We were told the doors were likely to stick shut due to the twisting of the building in the quake.) all while determining whether a child might be dead or merely injured? I was guessing that the proper colored door tags were crucial. What if I thought someone was dead but he was only severely injured? Sometimes that isn’t clear, unless, of course the head happens to be severed from the body. More nightmares.
When the opportunity came to retire, freedom from this worry was the first thing I thought of. The second thing I did was pray that the Big One would just hold off until June.
Flat Jack
Flat Stanley is a children’s book by Jeff Brown, which has been around for a long time. If you have ever taught elementary school you know all about Stanley. Seems a bulletin board fell on him and flattened him. After poor Stanley adjusts to his new flat self, he discovers that it isn’t all that bad to be flat. He can do things that a full-bodied kid can’t do. It isn’t long before he comes up with a little scheme to mail himself to exciting places. These circumstances make for a great plot line. Children love to think of being able to sneak into places covertly.
When my grandson, Jack was in the second grade, his teacher used this book to make a writing assignment interesting and had the children make a flat version of themselves. After they admired one another’s flat alter egos they mailed themselves to another city hoping that they would have a wonderful adventure to write about and ultimately make their own little books.
Jack mailed Flat Jack to San Francisco to visit Uncle Rob. It wasn’t long before I got a frantic phone call. “Mom! We lost Flat Jack! We can’t find him anywhere!” I spoke to Jack’s teacher, who happens to be a friend and an ex colleague. She said that she’d have him make another to add to the project when the pictures of the adventure were returned to school. Since time was short, Rob quickly fashioned a new Flat Jack, using a photograph of Jack’s face for the head. Now Flat Jack looked quite real. Flat, but real.
They took him for an airplane ride. They strapped him in the front seat of their plane, took his picture, and took off. Flat Jack got to fly over and take pictures of The Golden Gate Bridge, Angel Island, Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge, and other wonderful San Francisco landmarks.
Then suddenly, horror of horrors, Flat Jack got air sick. Some disgusting paper green stuff spewed forth from his flat little mouth! (Let me tell you here that green stuff spewing from someone’s mouth is prime second grade humor.) The green stuff ended the flight.
They landed and went back to Uncle Rob’s house. There, Flat Jack played with Rob’s puppies, Mellie and Butler. Puppies, being puppies, chewed poor Flat Jack to pieces. The last photo was taken of these pieces scattered all over the floor with the dogs in the background; thus documenting the demise of poor Flat Jack.
His book was a hit, because not only do second graders like to be grossed out by barf, it appears they also enjoy canine dismemberment.
When my grandson, Jack was in the second grade, his teacher used this book to make a writing assignment interesting and had the children make a flat version of themselves. After they admired one another’s flat alter egos they mailed themselves to another city hoping that they would have a wonderful adventure to write about and ultimately make their own little books.
Jack mailed Flat Jack to San Francisco to visit Uncle Rob. It wasn’t long before I got a frantic phone call. “Mom! We lost Flat Jack! We can’t find him anywhere!” I spoke to Jack’s teacher, who happens to be a friend and an ex colleague. She said that she’d have him make another to add to the project when the pictures of the adventure were returned to school. Since time was short, Rob quickly fashioned a new Flat Jack, using a photograph of Jack’s face for the head. Now Flat Jack looked quite real. Flat, but real.
They took him for an airplane ride. They strapped him in the front seat of their plane, took his picture, and took off. Flat Jack got to fly over and take pictures of The Golden Gate Bridge, Angel Island, Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge, and other wonderful San Francisco landmarks.
Then suddenly, horror of horrors, Flat Jack got air sick. Some disgusting paper green stuff spewed forth from his flat little mouth! (Let me tell you here that green stuff spewing from someone’s mouth is prime second grade humor.) The green stuff ended the flight.
They landed and went back to Uncle Rob’s house. There, Flat Jack played with Rob’s puppies, Mellie and Butler. Puppies, being puppies, chewed poor Flat Jack to pieces. The last photo was taken of these pieces scattered all over the floor with the dogs in the background; thus documenting the demise of poor Flat Jack.
His book was a hit, because not only do second graders like to be grossed out by barf, it appears they also enjoy canine dismemberment.
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