Tears

I'm in a kindergarten class. We're at the end of a good day, everything having moved along well, and I'm feeling my kinder mojo might be coming back. Kindergarten is so hard for me, just hitting all the marks of work and time and the right amount of explaining and encouraging. We were doing math centers, everybody working on task. I have a group I'm helping, another group doing a worksheet and the lucky red group playing a math game on the carpet.

Suddenly, next to me is a boy crying, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, but no words or sobs coming out. Hardly a breathe going in. "What is it?" I asked, alarmed but trying not to panic. His mouth opens and closes a few more times and the tears keep rolling but still no words. "Are you hurt?" I ask and he just continues his silent sobbing. Clearly he's in terrible pain and the worst thoughts run through my head. Are his eyes okay? Do I see any bumps? Is it internal? The lucky red group on the carpet where he was playing are oblivious. If he was serious injured they are not alarmed. I get back down to his level and finally he speaks, eeking out the words between tears. "They aren't going in order," he sobs. Ahh, right. No broken bones, no punctured skin. They just weren't going in order.

I tell this story at dinner that night, dramatizing my fear and my reaction. "Mom," says Maia. "Don't ever panic. You'll scare all the other kids."

"Really?" I'm interested in what she thinks ought to happen. "What should I have done."

"Get down at his level and look him in the eye. Then say 'Are you okay, honey?'" Her voice is high and teacher-like. Why does my ten year old have better instincts than I do?

Widespread Panic

At one of our local middle schools, a student let off a series of firecrackers during Friday lunch. It happens once, maybe twice, a year -- not too unusual. Except today. Today 1400 kids sat in silence for two seconds, and then ran. They ran out onto the upper fields and up towards the classrooms. Some jumped the fence and kept running up the streets. Others tired before the fence and waited out on the grass, regaining their calm, telling themselves it really couldn't have been gunfire.

The thing is that on Monday, all of these students sat through an intense assembly entitled Rachel's Challenge (www.rachelschallenge.com) that recounted to these students who had been preschoolers at the time, the story of the Columbine shootings. It was a moving assembly, which I'm sure had a profound affect on many students in its call for spreading compassion and kindness. But on this day, the reality of that story literally scared the crap out of 1400 middle schoolers when they heard a series of firecrackers explode.

It was a little reminder that timing can be everything.

Grades

Chongo got a 93% on his last math test. Exciting news in our house since his math grade has been dogging him this year. It's 8th grade Algebra and he needs an A or B to take Geometry next year. We're in the car when he tells me this and I raise my hand, "High Five!"

"Mom, don't high five me."

"Why?"

"It hurts me. It hurts me inside." The rascal, he's teasing me.

"I'm happy for you," I say. "What should I do to celebrate?"

"How about $5?" he suggests. Right. I'm not paying for test scores. I already pay for semester grades and at $20 per A and $5 per B sometimes it costs me a chunk.

"Consider it a donation to the the "Cause for a Better Chongo." We both laugh out loud at this and he starts to riff on an ad for his new cause.

Inside myself I celebrate his sense of humor. Today I like it even better than A's on math tests.

Learning to Wait

This week I learned something about myself in Sunday School. Yes, I actually go to Sunday School, much as I hate saying it. Sunday School sounds like a place where somebody's mom shows a flannel graph story from the Bible and then tells you how you can know Jesus as your personal savior. My Sunday School is not that kind of Sunday School. It's just a place where some wonderfully diverse people get together for some damn good coffee and conversation and to engage a teacher who likes the questions more than the answers.

Sunday's discussion was about waiting. Active waiting. Waiting like Habbakuk pictures it standing on the watchtower scanning the horizon for God, for God's answer to his complaint. We read from the prophet Isaiah that God works on behalf of those who wait. And we tried to think about what it meant to anticipate God, to look for God, to wait for God. We recognized that the life of waiting is a life of tension and not always a happy place to live. We talked about how much we seek resolution, diminishing the tension of waiting either through controlling our circumstances or disengagement.

I thought about all the times I wait. As a child I waited eagerly for Christmas morning and the toys we would get. As a teen, the anticipation of seeing the boy I liked at a party held a a deep thrill. Now that I'm older I can't think of much I wait for with the same hope. I've learned to diminish the excitement of waiting. By anticipating less I've managed to lower my expectations. Expecting less leads to less dissapointment. Also, I've found that when you expect too much you often diminish the lovely reality of what is. Like this afternoon, when I saw the large manila envelope sitting in the mailbox, for one moment of wild hope I thought it might be the response I was hoping for about a piece of my writing. Imagine my disappointment to discover it was (just!) a letter from my nephew. (I waited for my cup of coffee to open the letter and very much enjoyed reading his journal about Flat Stanley.)

But what does that mean about how I wait for God? It seems what I believe about God informs how I wait. The problem is that although I believe with all my heart that God is good, I also believe with all my heart that he desires character and wholeness in me far more than indulging the pansy ass easy life I'm trying to live. While I'm sitting on the couch reading a novel, I'm tensely anticipating God, the parent, yelling at me to get my homework done. So I feel, ultimately, like I'm waiting for hard things to come from God. While I believe God's outcomes are good, I can't bring myself to desire the process. All I'm left with is a question: Do we have to desire what we wait for from God?

And that begs another question for educating mama: If I'm just left with a question, did I really learn anything in Sunday School?

Career Moves

Chongo and Maia's kindergarten teacher once told me this story.

She was at a dinner with her business exec ex-husband. Someone asked her what she did.
"I'm a teacher."
"Oh, what grade do you teach?"
"Kindergarten."
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be able to move up."

I'm not sure which is harder to teach -- middle school or kindergarten. All I know is that both of those grade groups take a teacher who is particular to them. Otherwise it would be easy to give up the teaching thing. Most teachers of other grades say they'll teach anything but kindergarten or middle school. So I consider the teachers who prefer middle schoolers or kindergarteners as teachers who've chosen a specialty. Otherwise known as experts in their field.

A new strategy

I realized, only this morning, that there was a better way to handle the whiner I had in my class yesterday. Yesterday, I engaged him and his endless commenting.

The boy began the day complaining about his seating arrangement which was just under my nose at the front of the class. "Can I move seats, I don't like it here. People bother me here. Can I take my quiz next door so I can concentrate? " This concern lasted for the the first 10 minutes.

Another student was given permission to go to the bathroom. Mr. Talker begins "Can I get a drink? My throat hurts. Can I see the nurse? Please just a drink?"

They had to leave for an assembly and then return to get their backpacks, proof they had actually attended. "Can we take our backpacks with us? Please? Please? Why? Why not?"

I kept responding to him firmly and clearly, but he just seemed unable to stop the flow from his mouth. Today I realized that next time, I'm going to try ignoring him, except for when he raises his hand SILENTLY.

How do I know to try this? Maia was telling me about a show she has been watching called "Me or the Dog." It's a show about pets who are coming between a household relationship. In one episode, Maia saw the owner is told to turn her back when the dog tries to jump up on her. By not responding, she won't reward bad behavior with attention.

Hmmm. Maybe the talker in the front row needs a little less attention. Next time, I'm going to try a little dog training.

Defiance

I was in the office of an elementary school the other day when the phone rang. It was a teacher calling to ask for help from the teacher specialist. Apparently one of her students was being defiant and refusing to remove his hat in the classroom.

The teacher specialist rolled her eyes and headed out the door. In only a few moments she returned. "He just got a buzz haircut yesterday," she informed us. "He didn't want anyone to see his hair."

"So what did you do?" asked another teacher.

"I asked to see his haircut, then told him he looked handsome. He wasn't defiant," she reported, "He was just embarrassed."

And what is the difference when a teacher can't get a student to remove his hat?