Young Love...

In honor of Valentine's Day, I've decided to compile a list of the greatest love notes that have ever crossed my desk (or table, because teachers don't have desks). Now, young love is a beautiful thing.  But it does have a tendency to go terribly wrong, which leads to lots of emotional development, which leads to some pretty interesting conversations.  Choosing a top 5 was tough, since I have so many of these.  However, it had to be done, so here are the winners!

5.  This was for the 100th day of school celebration.  "I wish I had 100 girls, but I am glad that I do not have 100 wives1"  I did not choose this battle.  

4.  This Valentine was beautiful because I got some GREAT data from this informal writing sample.  Also, he has a pet cat.

3.  I mean, she has her priorities in line. She's got high standards.  "I will marry a man that can help pay the bills and child support and help pay the light bill and help make new houses."

2.  This one didn't end well. He was seeing someone else.

1.   I mean, is there a greater act of love???

We had some good conversations about boundaries and being respectful of women, so it eventually turned into this: 

That's right, she's pretty on the inside.

5 Greatest Gifts I've Ever Received From Students

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, I have been reflecting (teachers have to reflect ALL THE TIME) on the wonderful gifts I’ve received over the past few years from students.  Now there were quite a few options to choose from, but I managed to narrow it down to the top 5.  Sadly, I couldn’t find pictures of some of them, so you’ll just have to imagine.  I’ll do my best to describe them accurately without exaggeration.

5.  Flowers

Last Valentine’s Day was a pretty spectacular gift day.  Now, I’m not the biggest Valentine’s Day fan, but I tried to rally since that kind of thing is really fun for 5 and 6 year olds.  One of my students (and it was THAT student, you know, the one that you learned their name first because you have to say it SO much because they are such a hot mess) brought me flowers.  It was the sweetest.  I even teared up a little.  I showered him with thanks, gave him a hug.  He did the shy shrug and half-smile thing, almost making up for the hours of frustration he had caused me.

I lovingly placed the flowers in a vase and placed them on my desk.  A few hours later, his mom comes in to help with (or be there for) the Valentine’s Party, which is my least favorite school activity.  She comes up to me in a panic asking about the flowers.  I showed her how I had proudly displayed them. 

And she says, “Oh, those aren’t for you.  They are for a girl in the class he has a crush on..”

So I had to take the flowers out of the vase and give them to a 5 year old.  That was a personal low point in my life.

4.  Grocery Bag Full of Hot Cheetos*

This was not a bag of Hot Cheetos.  Nor was it a grocery bag with a bag of Hot Cheetos inside it.  This was legitimately a plastic grocery sack with loose Hot Cheetos inside of it.  I wish I had taken a picture, just to prove that I’m not exaggerating.  But, sadly, I did not.  You’ll just have to take my word for it.

*For the life of me, I do not understand what the huge deal is with Hot Cheetos.  They are disgusting.  But I can’t tell you how many fights I’ve had to break up started by Hot Cheetos.

3.  A Shofar

Yes, a shofar.  If you are not familiar with this, it is a musical instrument (usually made from a ram’s horn) typically used in Jewish religious ceremonies.  This would have been a much cooler gift if either this student or I were Jewish, but we are not. 

Also, this gift was not for any particular reason.  Just a random day, he walked into the room and handed me a shofar.  I did take a picture of this to prove that it actually happened (see picture 3)

2.  Put a Bird on It!

In The Hood, you get lots of notes and pictures from kiddos who are trying to suck up to you.  This particular picture has been my favorite so far—partly because of the fact that it is of birds, partly because the birds are labeled, mostly because of the craziness of the situation surrounding the picture.

I was going about my day, having a relatively calm day (that should have been my first clue that things were about to explode).  I was doing small reading groups, and heard some door slamming and yelling going on in the hallway right outside my room.  I happened to glance out my door window to see my teammate being swung around the hallway by the lanyard around her neck.  She was desperately trying to get the lanyard off, but the student on the other side of it was having none of that. 

In an effort to save her life, I ran to the hallway and said “Hey student!  Do you like birds?”  I have no clue why I said birds.  I don’t really like birds.  Maybe I had subconsciously noticed him reading a book about birds.  But he stopped dead in his tracks and turned his attention on me.  I did a quick scan of my body, making sure I had nothing he could strangle me with, but this huge smile spread across his face.  He let go of his teacher and ran to get colored pencils and paper. 

We teachers took a second to regroup in the hall (and of course follow all administrative protocol).  Twenty minutes later, student showed up at my door with this picture (see picture 2).

From then on, every time he got angry at a teacher, we’d just ask for a picture of a bird.   He’d do all this research on the best birds to draw pictures of, and do these fantastic representations.  Teacher success!

1.  Panda Bear

I don’t really know why, but I think panda bears are really cool.  Not cool enough to collect figurines or know random trivia facts about them.  This is just a general interest that I have.  This note from a beloved student used to have a panda bear button on it, which made it even more precious than it was originally (see picture 1).

Also, the story behind this note makes it more precious.  I had a classful of super-emotional girls.  They could not go a full day without crying.  It would usually start with one crying for some non-reason, then another would start crying because the first one was crying.  Then another would cry because all her friends were crying and she didn’t know how to make them feel better.  I know it sounds sweet, but really it’s just annoying. 

We had just come in from recess, and of course all the girls were crying.  None of them could explain to me who started it or why anyone was crying, so I pulled them all out into the hallway for an intervention.  After what seemed like HOURS of snottiness and tears, it came out that one was upset because she couldn’t decide which of her best friends she should play with.  The others were crying because they could sympathize, they also couldn’t decide which best friend to play with.  So, naturally, I suggested they all play in a group together.  Apparently, second graders need more intentional time together (2’s company, 3’s a crowd).  So we made a schedule for the week of who should play with who each day at recess.

So this picture reminds me that I fix people’s feelings when they are sad.  Crushed it.

Jodie

What are the best gifts you’ve ever received from students?

Field Trips

Spring is in the air, and spring always makes me want to take field trips.  Now, from a teachers’ perspective, field trips are the worst.  The absolute worst.  They involve so many stinking forms and permission slips.  You have to fill out a separate form for each person involved in any aspect of a school (teachers, parents, principals, district administration, transportation, food service, nurses, specials, any type of aide or resource teacher). 

Then there’s the money…the dreaded money.  How much does it cost to get in?  How much does it cost to drive there?  How do I divide the $20 per mile bus/gas fee by 120 students?  Will they round up to 5 if we go 4.7 miles?  What about chaperones?  Oh shoot, what if no parents will come help me?  Oh shoot, what if all the parents want to come help?  How do I decide which ones have to pay and which ones don’t?  What if I get robbed between collecting money from students and turning it in to the office (because that is a legitimate fear in The Hood)?  What if half my class can’t pay?  Can I afford that?  What if someone pays, then doesn’t show up that day and their parents demand the money back?  But then the financial secretary can’t refund the $4 because it was already deposited?  What if they just start yelling at me to give them their $4 back?

These are just the extra questions on top of the gajillion you already have to deal with because you are a teacher and nobody knows what the crap is going on in public education.

Anyways, my first year in The Hood, I somehow managed to get my kindergarten class to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.  

This is mostly a museum for adults, but they had a transportation grant (which eliminated all the $20 per mile x 7 miles to the museum divided by 120 students madness).  And I somehow got enough adults to go that we could have manageable-sized groups.  Plus God blessed me with 1-on-1 parental support for my kiddos who liked to run off.  I figured that things would mostly go okay, and I would be pretty available in case of emergency or overwhelmed parent.

I don’t know if you realize this, but museums with important and expensive pieces of art, like the Oklahoma Western Heritage Museum, have many alarms and such that sound just in case people try to steal the said important and expensive pieces of art.  Also, kindergartners like to touch things they are not supposed to touch, like important and expensive pieces of art.  And when these kindergartners are not monitored with an eagle-eye, they WILL touch what they are not supposed to regardless of how many times you said not to or the extreme consequences you threatened.  When they do this, it looks as though they are trying to steal the important and expensive pieces of art and ALL the alarms in the museum will sound.  And even if you saw it coming and slo-mo launched yourself at the kindergartner to stop them from touching the art and were only a half-second late, the alarms will STILL sound.  And they are very loud.

So I locked them in a jail cell...

They also tried to climb onto the horse, but they were too short.  Luckily this was in the "hands on" section of the museum.

I know all this because it happened to me.  Never again have I taken a large group of young children to a museum for adults.

The Day the Police Came to School on Superhero Day

Now I’d like to take a second to talk about the last Earth Day I experienced.  In The Hood.  From this post title, you might be tempted to think that we were celebrating the brave police officers of our city (which they totally are).  You may think we were doing the whole "Everyday Superhero" after school special-type thing.  But then you would be wrong.  We were not that thoughtful.

This particular day was a dress up day…Superhero Day.  (Here are my previous thoughts on dress-up days, so you can better understand my frame of mind at this time).  I think it was around Earth Day because I dressed up like Michael Recycle, from Ellie Bethel’s book.  Saving the environment and all.  So I look like this:

And I’m supervising recess.  Suddenly, I notice that the helicopters are circling.  In The Hood, this is never a good sign.  One helicopter, you’re okay.  Two helicopters, you might start getting concerned.  Three helicopters, something unsavory is going on and your school is about to go into lockdown.  This was a three helicopters situation.

Within seconds, the cops show up right outside the fence.  Now remember, I look like this:

And I have to discuss the situation with the police, looking like an absolute fool.  “Yes I know I’m wearing spandex and a cape. Yes, I’m in charge here.  Yes I know it doesn’t look that way.”  Completely embarrassing, just mortifying.  Then I had to run around on the playground in my cape to get all the kids to go inside really quickly because someone had held something up and was running around with a gun.  You just try to get kids to take you seriously looking like that.  Not happening.  Then somehow make them take a lockdown seriously, because they all look like fools too.  Just another day in the life. 

My advice?  If you are an adult, planning on dressing up for these ridiculous dress-up days, change into regular clothes before going out to supervise recess. You never know what may happen!

Jodie

When Kids Wear Costumes and It's Not Halloween

Every school has them.  They’re meant to boost spirit or raise something for a cause.  Kids love them, sometimes teachers love them.  Yes, that’s right, Spirit Weeks.  They always start with a “Crazy Sock Day” or a “Crazy Hair Day.”  It usually ends with a “Pajama Day” (nobody is complaining about that!).  Somewhere in there, you have to have a “Superhero Day” or “Favorite Book Character Day.”  At some point during the week, you will have kids coming to school in costumes.

Now you know, when it comes to education, we can’t afford to waste time.  But these times are precious (if only for the stories), so we also MUST take notice and make the best of it!  I’ve chosen 3 of my favorite “costume” experiences from The Hood and how I made the best of it.

#3.  Superhero Day, 2011:

This is a tough one to get participation, unless you open it up to “whatever costume you used for Halloween.”  So I had 5 superheroes this particular day.  Which automatically makes them feel awkward and insecure because they are dressed up and most people are not.  I had to play it up and make them feel super awesome so they wouldn’t emotionally shut down for the rest of the day.  Solution: photo shoot.  I took 5 minutes at the beginning of the day and had individual photo sessions, then one group session.  This also got all the excitement out of the way early, so they were pretty focused for the rest of the day.

#2.  Superhero Day, 2013:

This one was more about me.  I was the one really dressed like a fool.  I have no solution for teachers who dress up and feel stupid.  Check back closer to Earth Day for the whole humiliating story.

And #1.  Random Day, 2012:

Keep in mind, this one had no connection to any school-sponsored spirit day.  However, it will forever be known as “The Day the Peep Came to School.”  That’s right...Peep.  As in Marshmallow Peep.  I saw him from across the gym when I went to pick them up in the morning.  Dressed as a Marshmallow Peep (He also wore this to Superhero Day).  Not wanting to make a scene in front of the whole school, we got back to class and I calmly told him that I appreciated his sense of humor, but he needed to change into his regular clothes for the rest of the day.  He flat refused.  Shocked (because this was not usually a combative child), I changed my tactics.  Bargaining.  You can wear it during Morning Meeting, lunch, and recess.  His counter proposal: he would only wear the costume during the appointed times, but I had to call him “Peeps.”  Solution: He got to wear his costume during the times I was less concerned with his cognitive focusing.  I got my way during the times in which he needed to focus on the learning objectives.

The point of the story is this:  Enjoy the dress-up days, but set limits.  That way nobody loses their mind!

Jodie