Back to School

Although school is still weeks away, it’s close enough for students and teachers alike to start dreading (in the best possible way) school starting. I know for me the beginning of school comes with a lot of questions and a lot of unknowns. I have to imagine it’s the same for students.

Well this was my Story of the Day that was mailed to me today. For some reason it reminded me of school.

Unconditional Love

I try to use unconditional love in small amounts, she said, so people really appreciate it. The rest of the time I just try not to yell.

I just had to laugh … revisited.

A few posts back I talked about a new student I was “experiencing” in my class. I was rereading that post, and I realized that my perspective has changed after some time getting to know him. I mentioned in that post that he was “wide-eyed and innocent” … wow … first impressions can be deceiving. He does have really big eyes … but the rest of that was way off. He is sneaky.

I can’t even remember all of the experiences we’ve had, but he is a daily challenge. He really annoys people and then looks all puppy-dog-sad when they want to beat him up.

It’s funny how things can be cute at first and then turn incredibly annoying after the 10th or 11th time. One example would be this little habit he has. When he doesn’t know a word, he replaces it with “cha-ching”. So when he reads it might sound something like this, “The boy was cha-ching and then he cha-ching and cha-ching after cha-ching.” My current goal is to increase his vocabulary so we have less “cha-chings” when he reads. If I can do that … I will feel like a good teacher.

Happy Easter!!!

They gave it a try at any rate.

Do you ever pay attention to some of the expressions we use? There are things we say that really don’t make much sense. I don’t realize how confusing they can be until I try to teach them to my students.

This week we were discussing expressions and the students were each given a sentence strip with one on them. They were supposed to read it … try to explain what they thought it meant to the class … and then write a short story using it correctly.

I would love to hear how you would explain some of these:

“They gave it a try at any rate.”

“He bought the car to the tune of one hundred dollars.”

These were two of the hardest ones. I know what they mean, but try explaining them to some 12-14 year old kids that think a “senior citizen” is when you go to the movie by yourself.

I found that out when I was trying to explain what a “rate” is. I mentioned movie tickets and how they are different prices for different people. For example, children and senior citizens are usually a different price than a regular ticket. A boy on the front row said, “Miss, what’s a senior citizen? When you go by yourself?”

I realized then that if I’m having to explain what these expressions mean … they probably aren’t going to use them much anyway, so what’s the point?! From now on, I’ll probably be skipping that section of our textbook.

I just had to laugh …

This week I had a new student begin my class. He is an experience I’ve not had before. And that’s the best way I can describe him … an experience. I think he has hugged me more this week than any other person in my entire life. Today he came back to my desk to ask a question. He looked down at my hands and said, “You have the most smooth and beautiful skin hands.” His voice was that voice a child gets when they’ve just seen the most amazing thing.

I had to take him out for a while so my assistant could talk to the other students. They’ve been making fun of him and mocking him. We needed it to stop immediately. So we went and ran random errands around the building. It gave me a chance to talk to him some one on one. He really is a great kid. Very innocent and wide-eyed. I said a prayer for him today that God would guard his heart. I also asked God to help me to treat him as the precious creation that he is. Even when he’s invading my personal space … over … and over … and over again.

A Joke

It was autumn, and members of a Native American tribe asked their new Chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a new Chief in a modern society and had never been taught the old secrets of Nature, he looked up at the sky and had no clue what to do. To play it safe, he replied to his tribe that the winter could definitely be cold and that they should collect firewood early, just to be prepared. So, the members began gathering wood.

Being a practical leader, he figured he should also use the resources available to the modern society. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, “Will this winter be cold?”

“As of now, it looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,” the forecaster said.

So the Chief went back to his tribe and told them to collect even more wood. A week later he called the National Weather Service again and asked for an update.

“Yes,” the man at National Weather Service again replied, “based on incoming data, this winter is looking to be colder than we expected.” The Chief was surprised, but again went back to his tribe, told them that this might be a very cold winter, and asked them to collect every scrap of wood they could find.

One week later, the Chief called the National Weather Service yet again, hoping for a new answer. “Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?”

“Positive,” the man replied. “It’s going to be one of the coldest winters ever.”

“Really?” the shocked Chief exclaimed. “How can you be so sure?”

“First,” the forecaster replied, “The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy.”

This cracked me up …