Taco Shells

My student teaching experience has reminded me of how much enjoyment I get from being around children. I have a great although talkative class of third graders. They are smart, funny, and clever. I like to joke around with them, even though my supervisor thinks I am "too nice to them".

I took my kids out for morning recess the other day. Once they had finished their snacks, they were off to play. The girls love to jump rope, much like I did when I was their age. One of their favorite rhymes goes as follows:

Bluebells, cockle shells,
Eevie, ivy, over;
I like coffee, I like tea;
I like the boys, and the boys like me.
Tell your mother to hold her tongue;
She had a fellow when she was young.
Tell your father to do the same;
He had a girl and he changed her name.

I was sitting on the bench, keeping an eye on all the kids, when I heard the girls start this chant. I thought nothing of it until I listened closer. They were singing:

"Bluebells, TACO shells..."

I started laughing and I asked them to say it slowly so I could make sure I heard correctly. They again repeated the "taco shells" version. I laughed even harder and one serious girl said "Mrs. James, you DO know what a taco shell is, don't you?"

All of my friends like to come over and hear the funny stories I come home with every day. A lot of stories I have come from the same dear boy. We shall call him S. for confidentiality purposes.

S. is a very long-winded boy. He is pudgy and not athletic and he is extremely intelligent for an eight-year-old. One day I had to keep him inside for a few minutes to finishes his math (he was not on-task during math time). I had a couple of other students in too, and they finished as quickly as possible and ran outside. Not S.

He walked up to me looking very pensive. I asked him if he needed something and he said "I have a question." Preparing myself for something fantastic, S. launches into the following:

"Mrs. James, if we were having indoor recess, because it was raining, and I wanted to draw on the small white boards, and I wanted to draw a Pikachu, which is a Pokemon, and I needed to use the yellow dry-erase marker and someone was using it, would it be possible for me to use one of my Roseart washable markers?"

I wanted to pant for breath after he said this run-on sentence. Poor S., I had to answer "no" to his very detailed question. Instead of being upset, he said "very well."

Children are so wonderful. They have very interesting perspectives on the world and I feel very fortunate to be around them every day.

George Washington and the Civil War

After my first week as a student teacher, I have come to the realization that I am in the right profession. It certainly has its fair share of problems, but in the grand scheme of things it is where I was ment to be. The reason I know this is that when leaving at the end of the day, my mentor teacher said "Hurray for Friday! We don't have to stay late and we get a three day weekend!" You know what I thought? I thought, I forgot it was Friday and I can't wait until Tuesday!
In all of my previous employment, I could not wait for Friday! I started the week thinking "only 5 more days..." This week I find myself saying "I can't wait to come back tomorrow!"
I am sure this attitude will change as the school year wears on, but it is nice to have found my place in society, a place that I know I belong.
The group of kids I am working with (third graders), is amazing. They have already amazed me with their abilities and their egarness to learn. I couldn't have asked for a better first class.
Having said that, one of the things that I love about them, is their sense on humor (intentional or not). There are two quotes for today's entery.
The first quote comes from the same boy who won't write with a regular pencil. My mentor teacher was recounting and experience from her past, where she was young and curious about what the boys bathroom looked like compared to the girls. She went in to look around and was disappointed that it wasn't more impressive.
This particular boy looked at her with a straight face and asked "Well, what did you expect? Disco balls?"

The second quote comes from the interaction between a group of students. One student is sharing with the class a box filled with things that are most important to him. In that box, he included an army man that was his grandfathers. It belonged to a set that was made in replication of the Civil War soldiers. One of the boys classmates shouted out "My great-great-granfather was in the Civil War!" another student responds with "My father knows someone who was in the Civil War and he is still alive!" (read: impossible since the person would be around 150 yrs old) Yet another student added his two cents with the comment: "Wow, just like George Washington!"
This display was so amusing to my teacher and I that we accidently laughed out loud. After drawing attention to ourselves, we had to try to explain that not only that Civil War veterans couldn't be alive today, but that George Washington was not alive during the war.
Their version of U.S. History would certainly be entertaining!