Abort Mission!

There is no better way to get to know a kid than to have lunch with him.

I did that today with George. He's that lovable little imp who did this and this.

How did it go, Edna?

Just fine.

The End.

C'mon! Would I be writing about it if it went well?

I realize I need to get to know George better. He's a kid in need of a little TLC...

...if TLC stood for something OTHER than Tender Loving Care.

He had good behavior (relative term here) last week and just wanted to spend some time with me as a reward.

aaawwwwww!

That really is touching, so I invited him to bring his lunch to my room on Monday and we could do a little art together while we eat.

First thing in the morning, he shouted to me from across the playground that he couldn't WAIT for lunch today.

"Me too!" I shouted back. (I'm going straight to hell.)

Lunch rolls around and he arrives right on time, smile on his face and juice in his hand.

Me: Where's your lunch?

George: I don't want any. It's burritos.

Me: I don't want you to skip lunch. At least go get some fruit.

He leaves and returns 0.0003 seconds later.

George: No fruit left.

Now, I can't just snarf down my lunch in front of a kid holding a sweating bag of juice as his entire meal, so I handed over 3/4 of my lunch to him, which he gobbled down in less time than it took him not to go get some fruit.

And then it was time to make shoe monsters! (Take off your shoe, trace it on a piece of paper, put your shoe back on, make a monster out of your shoe's outline. Take THAT, Van Gogh!)

Well, I got as far as the tracing my shoe part when the Real George emerged.

George: That's your shoe? This is my shoe. I can't get my shoe back on. Put my shoe on for me. My velcro is stuck. Fix my velcro. I don't like laces. Laces are stupid. You should use velcro shoes. Is that gonna be your monster. I'm gonna make a purple eel monster out of my shoe. I want you make an eel monster too. I want you to use the purple marker. Is yours gonna have hair. Give yours hair. Elvis hair. I want you to make a mustache. Smell this marker. Draw a car in the sky with a ladder for him to climb. Then give him wings.Use the blue marker.

Me: I'm not going to use the bl...

George: USE THE BLUE MARKER! Blue is my favorite color and eels are my favorite animals. I like pizza. I think I'm going make mine eating pizza. You need to make yours eating pizza. Did you draw pants on yours? Why? I don't like pants that snap. They hurt my belly. I don't want you to draw pants. I want...

Me: How about you draw yours your way and I'll draw mine my way?

George: I aaaAAAmmMMM! Draw big teeth on yours. Right here. Name yours Purple Elvis Eel Monster. That is what I want you to...

Me: Oh darn. Time for us to end our lunch together.

George: AAaawwWWww...

Me: I know. I feel the same way. (Straight to hell, I tell you...) Time flies!!  Why don't you hit the restroom.

While he hit the restroom, I hit the wet bar I keep stashed in my desk. (Just kidding.)

My plan backfired. While I do indeed know him better, I learned that to know him is not to love him.

And I'm still hungry.

The Bits is A-Twitter

For those of you who follow The Bits via email or rss reader and haven't visited the site in a while, you might not know about the latest addition.

The Bits is on Twitter!

Follow along @DearEdnaLee.

Hopefully, I'll see you there!

Riddle Me This

Why is it that when a grade level has success with students by addressing student needs in a different way than the rest of the herd at school, they are ostracized and ridiculed for being different? Are we educators no better than the mean girls on the playground? Can we not put our petty fears aside and simply recognize the students' success?

 Which is why we're all here, right?

If teachers are genuinely doing all they can to meet their students' needs, no one will question if they're doing it in the same manner as another group of teachers or not. IF they are doing all they can, that is.

Could it be that only those who realize deep down inside that they are indeed NOT doing all they can, feel the need to lash out?  Are they afraid of the unknown or afraid they might be asked to change and it might be uncomfortable?

Or is it just easier to do what they've always done?

Gone are the days when we can simply blame a student's lack of success on his or her economic situation, language ability, parental involvement, or willingness to learn.

Whether we agree with it or not, we have to teach them all and we are responsible for the outcomes.

Also, gone are the days when you can always do what you always did. How we approach teaching has to be as varied as the students in our classrooms. What works for one student or group, may not work for another and we don't get to blame the students for that.

(We can satirize them anonymously on a blog while writing under a pseudonym, but we can't blame them.)

Now I understand that middle school and high school are different animals, and students have a greater say in their success or failure, but I am an elementary school teacher so that is the beast I understand best.

And what I know, without a shadow of a doubt, is that kids will walk through fire for a teacher that they believe truly cares about them.

If they know that they are not a number to you, not a statistic, not a success or a failure to you, not a pie graph or data to be analyzed they will work hard for you.

If you tell every one of them that there is NOTHING they can do that will make you not care about them, they will work hard for you.

If you tell them that they are so important to you that you want to know their families and regularly invite them to informal events where you just chat and get to know them personally, they will work hard for you.

And parents will know you on a deeper level, which naturally endears you to them.

If you repeatedly tell students that you don't care what score they get on their tests, but only that they try their best, they will work hard for you.

And their scores will go up.

If you tell them that learning to be a better person is more important than being a better student, and you try your best everyday to model the level of respect you want them to show others, they will work hard for you.

And their scores will go up even higher.

And you will risk being hated by your colleagues for not focusing on the same things they focus on, yet having more academic success than they are.

And those colleagues...

can suck it!

You Called it What?

Sorry, sorry, sorry. You know how regular life can get in the way of the life you really enjoy? Well, that's me right now. So, let me take a break from regular life and share with you a story from the life I really enjoy.

But before I do that, I have some bad news. Lou moved! You remember him? The kid who did this and this. I was so sad to see him go. He's a great kid and hope great things happen for him.

But on to funnier news. (At least, I hope you find it funny.) Well, if you don't find it funny, you'll at least find it inappropriately racy.

In my science classes, I have been teaching about ecosystems and how living things have adaptations to survive in their environments.

After studying the desert ecosystem, I began the "Build a Better Human" project in which students designed a "new" human that incorporates adaptations for desert organisms so that we might better survive in the desert.

One sweet little girl gave her human a long, hollow tongue so that he could capture ants that might seek shelter under rocks.

She called it, "The Suck Job."

Another student created a tortoise-like shell on his human's back and explained that it was defense against any toads and lizards that might jump on the human.

He called it, "The Horny Shield."

And our final entry in the "Don't hang THAT up at Open House" competition comes from Zeke.

Zeke was writing a summary of a story we'd read and here is an excerpt:

Marven was happy he met Jean Louis. He was lonely at the logging camp and Jean Louis played with him. Marven didn't have to play with himself anymore.

 When we met to edit his summary, I made a few suggestions…

Me: Zeke, let's be more specific in this sentence. What did Jean Louis play with Marven?

Zeke: Lumberjack games and songs.

Me: Then let's add that. Now, let's also change this other sentence about Marven playing WITH himself to say, "Marven didn't have to play BY himself."

Zeke: Why? What's the difference?

Me: Ummm…