in praise of children, the little shits.

Is there any more contradictory being on earth than an eight-year-old? The most breathtaking cruelty towards the "weird kid" in class one moment, heart-rending kindness toward the same classmate the next.

We're revisiting time and measurement in class at the moment, and I did a journaling exercise with my 8 and 9 year olds today in which they were to create a timeline of their lives and list at least two significant events from each year. (This was interesting, as they of course have no memory of being, say, one.) In a lot of ways, these kids are my favorite class - individually, they're some of the neatest kids I've known, but they're also the problem class in the school, constantly picking at each other and, primarily, the little girl who was adopted from Russia a few years ago and who has a lot of problems fitting in socially. I finally got their attention long enough to get them focused on the assignment...and another student, one of my favorites and the one who's both the most mean and the most kind to the Russian girl, started bawling. Loudly.

What the hell? I asked myself. Turned out that one of the significant events that she'd "remembered" had been the death of her great-grandmother when she was barely two. She stopped after a minute or so, but by that time the tears had started with two of the others. I guess we spent three or four minutes negotiating that little emotional minefield.

Sometimes, you go on faith that you're actually achieving anything in the classroom.

Wish my son's teachers were that creative.

I picked up the little book from which I get my math journaling topics at a SchoolBox store. You really almost *have* to be interdisciplinary at this age - I just wish the language arts teacher would reciprocate once in a while.

more people like us.

Just stay on your toes. I'm in my fifth year teaching, all of which has been spent in private schools, and they're no less hidebound than what I saw of public schools as a student. Independent thought and action are not often welcomed. I've learned to ignore the useless where I could.

most likely to provide the profound learning opportunities, in one twisted way or another!

The ones that get it off the bat, refreshing and welcome as they are, aren't the ones that teach *me* anything standing in front of a class, putting on the daily performance. We've had quite a few students withdrawn since I started at this school in June, and the one I miss the most is the little autistic girl who was almost impossible to teach at first, but with whom we were starting to make some good progress. I'm not ashamed to admit that I had to leave the room for a minute the first time she did five problems, accurately, in a row.

My frustration with the school's ownership (one hesitates to call it "administration" even) continues to mount, though - we essentially got nothing of any worth done the last three weeks before the holiday break because the school's founder has this idea that music/dance performance is the perfect representation of everything else in the canon, and so those three weeks were largely given over to rehearsals for the Christmas pageant.

:eyes::argh::eyes::argh::eyes::argh::eyes::argh::eyes::argh:

A couple of years ago, I was in line getting an autograph from Jonathan Harris (The guy who played Dr. Smith on the TV show "Lost in Space"). THe person ahead of me in line had a 3 year old and put him in front of Mr. Harris (who, I admit, was kind of scary looking). The kid immediately started crying...he was scared to death...the father of the kid apologized, and Mr. Harris graciously signed him an autograph...as he left with his kid, I heard Jonathan Harris mutter under his breath "Little Shit".

One of my all time favorite memories...

"Kids are assholes. But they're their own assholes."
- Utah Phillips

:D

are lucky enough to have a teacher like you, someday.

Should I have a Mini-Kev in a class some day, I'll consider myself fortunate as well. :)

Fiancee to 7 y.o. student: "OK, Billy, I've got a note from your mom saying you have a doctor's appointment at noon."

Billy: "yeah."

Fiancee: "Are you feeling OK?"

Billy: "Yeah, but I got a splatter infection."

:D

your work with children...thank you for your sensitivity and investment in all our futures :hug:

btw...... i am love with johnathan koloz...if i wasn't already married he would be my man

even the most difficult kids can make you smile. I have never failed to learn something from the many kids I have worked with. One of my favorite sayings was from one kid, who had learned to avoid swearing by saying "Son of a buttered biscuit!" :) Thanks for a good post.

used to scare the hell out of me, but they're just short and have limited vocabularies. :)