One of my students was adding blue colored pencil filling to his Thomas the Tank Engine drawing, and he said, “People used to make fun of me for liking this stuff.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s not right.” It’s the end of April. The kids wanted to do their online learning thing, and I was so tired, I let them. (We had taken their usual computer day to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday.)
“Yeah, they were really mean to me. You know, when you’re a little kid, it really hurts your feelings to be made fun of.”
“Yeah, I know, I got made fun of, too.”
“I got mad. I used to be a really bad kid,” he said.
“Not a bad kid. A kid who made bad choices,” I said.
“No, a bad kid. I used to rip up other kids’ papers. I used to make everyone have to evacuate the room.”
Often my students mention their previous extreme antisocial behaviors, and I’m surprised. This goes to show that time and effort can help a lot of kids be less “bad,” that is, destructive of property and inclined to hit their teachers.
First hour we had another discussion about hygiene.
“Did you wash your hair?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you brush it?”
“No.”
“You’re gonna have dreads. Is that what you want?”
“I mean, I know when you’re depressed it can be hard to take care of yourself….”
“You know who loves grooming? Girls!” I put in.
“You should do it for yourself, though,” my assistant added.
“You should,” I said.
We are more likely to do spontaneous singing and dancing this time of year. Today a teacher did a nice number using a fork for a mic.
You get slap-happy, as we used to say, at the end of the year.
When a kid comes into our room and isn’t supposed to be there, I bring up a youtube video of applause, and say, “We’re going to miss you so much!”
“What makes you think I have $40 to loan you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think you have more money than us.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You went to California for spring break!”
“That was my parents’ money!”
“Their money is your money for a little longer.”
I duck over to the math classroom with my box of leftover chocolate cupcakes. Shakespeare’s birthday was fully celebrated, but there were extra cakes.
I hide the box and slip one to the three teachers in the room. Then I sidle out.
“That’s cold, Ms Schurman!”
I return and give the last cupcake to the kid.
“Whoa, she’s so nice! I wouldn’t have done that!”
When kids work more independently, I take my coffee cups down to wash them, and haul dirty water and clean water for our class fish, Sunny.
Working at an alternative school, my workload is manageable. I don’t have to be working every second I’m in the building. I think they call this kind of situation “sustainable.”
On my planning period, I see the door to an empty classroom is open. I go in there to scavenge for the third or fourth time. Glow sticks! Sure! A hammer! You never know! A plastic container just the right size for storing the Shakespeare’s birthday decorations!
Another teacher, in the middle of cleaning out his room, says, “Hey, see if you want any of this!”
We are moving next year. We have been housed in a former Catholic elementary school for years, and now the district is moving us to the basement of a middle school.
I’m very bummed. At our current location, we get the scent of incense from the sanctuary downstairs. We have huge windows everywhere. The walk we take students on includes many trees, plants planted by the congregation, and sometimes deer. We have a playground. No one loves a playground more than an upperclassman.
“There’s a bird at your feeder, Ms Schurman!” It’s always a female cardinal. They seemed to have claimed our feeder.
The closet of games and the closet of puzzles. The classroom library I’ve built up (again) into a decent selection. A cabinet full of scissors and glue and stamps and beads and construction paper and pipe cleaners for our occasional creating. Our toys: a stuffed frog named Dr. Frog, a foam hand from a Royals’ game, the jar we use for a lottery when we read “The Lottery,” the ugly doll that is our poppet for The Crucible. Two cacti, four spider plants, and four baby spider plants.
The kids have binders that hold all their work from the current semester. For some kids, they are crammed full, and for others… less so.
So much to pack in the next few weeks.
I’m getting a bit better at telling myself, “you’ve done well.”
I’m a bit better at not obsessing about the good deeds that were punished.
“Can I get a granola bar?”
“I used a vocabulary word!”
The principal reminds us to remove everything educational from the walls, for testing next week. I have a lot. What is left: posters of famous paintings, and collages the kids made.
I tell the fish goodbye. “Have a good weekend, Sun.”
Going On 