School Daze

Today, we were doing a pre-writing activity where everyone had their own white board, and we were supposed to list as many active verbs (as opposed to "be" "am" "is") as we could, consulting with our seatmates. It was a three minute activity. I looked over toward a certain fellow's seat, and he'd written "pooping" and was gleefully holding it up for his team to observe. He glanced around, locked eyes with me, and I just said, "Well, I can't really think of how that is going to fit into our poem about autumn or Halloween, so choose another one." And he did.

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Remember the Drama Queen who couldn't sit in the desk where her former "Like" sat? Well, my co-worker told me today that she'd come, all teary-eyed, to her this week, with her folder from that class opened to a page. "[a poor dumb boy] wrote this in my folder!"  It said, "[APDB] says "hi!" It was another horrible tragedy --- like stalking or something. Or grafitti or ... we don't know. The teacher said,"Here, erase it." And that was the end of that.

 

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The flyer from the office was all about next week's Halloween costume parade, which we have at 2:30 P.M. (We're lucky to get one at all because our leader doesn't like to have any part of an academic day taken up by frivolous activities that children might expect or enjoy.)  (Sorry...I just think that childhood should include a few moments of frivolity, even if it isn't in our state standards.)So, anyway....we're going over this flyer that was to go home, and one line read:

 

Students grades 1-5 may NOT wear costumes to school.

 

But I was prepared for it this year. What it really means, is that those students should bring their costumes in a bag, and change just before the parade. They are not to wear their costume through the entire school day. Kindergarteners do get to come to school in their costumes. (Can you imagine the poor Kinder teachers "helping" all 28 of their little buddies into their costumes, parading around the classrooms, and then having them back out the door, all in the 2 1/2 hours they're in school?) (No...do not try to imagine it.) 

 

So, when the inevitable hue and cry arose, WHY CAN'T WE WEAR COSTUMES?! I was prepared to explain. Perhaps I should appoint myself the editor of the Halloween flyer and re-word that part?

 

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You cannot imagine how quickly nine year olds will get totally silent and line up straight when they realize that, instead of taking them upstairs to recess, you, the teacher, have sat down, opened your lunchbox, and started to eat your sandwich. I did that today after cautioning everyone that they needed to stop talking so we could get in line to go to recess.  But, noooo, whatever the 1/3 of them were saying must have been really, really important, because they wouldn't stop talking about it. That is until I started my lunch. As I pointed out, their recess is my lunch. And even if they didn't care where they got to stand around talking to their friends, I cared that I got to spend enough time sitting down, calmly eating my lunch. So, talk amongst yourselves right here, no problem. I'm fine.

 

 I probably won't have to do that again anytime soon.