attempting to deter unwanted behavior

During quiet time, I require the students to put their heads down on the tables and close their eyes. Some get bored and begin amusing themselves at the tables. Since there are dire consequences for having one's head up or eyes open, they find ways to play around while seemingly keeping their heads down and eyes closed. The latest is to spit on the table and then smear it around. (Disgusting, yes, I know. My definition and my students' definition of disgusting differ, however. I think spitting on a table is gross, but they like to play with the bubbles. However, saying that a dinosaur was the size of a chicken brings a resounding "Ewww!" from the children). Anyway, I caught Daija spitting on the table during quiet time. So I made her wash the tables during center time instead of being able to play with her friends. Jayden saw what she was doing and asked if he could help. I told him no, that Daija had to clean all the tables because she was spitting on them. He said, "Can I clean the floor? I was spitting on the floor." I told him that the janitor would do it. I don't think that the lesson would have worked very well on him, anyway. Hopefully he won't start spitting on the table in order to get to wash the tables - I'd have to come up with some other consequence for him.

Joy School

Here is my funny story for the day, which is really my sister's story. Tori (my niece) is going to Joy School, a preschool, where they sing, "Tori, please stand up and let us see your smile, we are glad you came today, please stay a while." They do this for each child. Well. Tori doesn't stand up, or smile. Instead she tilts her head to her shoulder, says "No!" and gives a nasty look.

My sister tells the rest: "Mia (Tori's little sister) and I left but later this afternoon Mia came in to me and said, 'Mom, I want to go to Goy Kool and have them sing that song and go like this:' she tilts her head to the side and gives a mean glare.

'What?' I asked, not really seeing her and paying attention to other things. She repeated her request this time singing the song. I said, 'Oh, that would be great!' Mia said, 'No Mom, I want to do this there' and she tilted her head to her right shoulder and glared. I burst out laughing which earned me the 'DON'T MOM! DON'T!'

Over dinner we talked about how ladies should be happy and how the best response to the song should be standing up and smiling. So, we all did it. Tori's version, which Mia now copies, is a smile with the shoulders up to her chin, head tilted, arms crossed and locked hands. I was just glad a smile was involved."

my weekend adventure

My roommate Cat and I went to a dance last weekend, naively assuming it would be like any regular dance. We were wrong. Very wrong. It was like prom...in a cultural hall...with very few couples. I think Cat and I were about the only ones without dates. If that wasn't awkward enough, it wasn't long before Cat saw a boy that she had been trying to avoid. After a buildup of a game of limbo (can you imagine?) and a choreographed dance to the YMCA song by about six navy boys (all in their cute navy uniforms and cummerbunds), one of the navy boys proposed to his girlfriend. Everything was great until the MC noted that the newly engaged couple had met at this very dance two years ago. Suddenly everyone was on the prowl. After all, it had worked for these two...you never know...one's future mate may be at that very dance, just waiting. Meantime, Cat had noticed that a boy that I was trying to avoid had been sneaking up behind us. That was the last straw, and we fled. I don't think I've ever exited a dance as quickly or with such a sense of relief. I'll investigate a dance more thoroughly next time before showing up.

playing catch with Pablo

The weather is getting nice, and the students are becoming coordinated enough that we've started bringing out kickballs to recess. It has been a huge success, and it's great to see theirs abilities improve. The best game is playing catch, with variations in not bouncing the ball, or bouncing it once or twice between the two people. Of course all the kids want to play catch with me, and a lot of them haven't quite grasped the concept that I only have two arms with which to catch balls. My coordination has improved, as well, to juggle six or seven balls coming at me at varying speeds and varying amounts of notice beforehand. Pablo, who is quite clever, has discovered a new strategy to monopolize my attention. He moves around behind me when I am 'playing catch' with about six other students, and lobs a ball at my head. He then calls out "Ms. Marshall!" a fraction of a second before it hits me. So, if I turn immediately, I have a chance to catch the ball or move out of the way. If not, I get smacked in the head with a kickball. Operant conditioning at its best: it hasn't taken me long to be quick to move as soon as I hear Pablo's voice. Unfortunately, he has pretty good aim.

hair cut

My hair has been getting too long, so one of my roommates trimmed my hair over the weekend. I really didn't expect my students to notice, since they can be little egocentric at times. Well, apparently they notice hair. When Aiyanna saw my hair, she was shocked and horrified. "Ms. Marshall, you cut your hair!" "Yes, I did." "But why?" "Well, because it was getting too long." "But why?" I couldn't give her a satisfactory answer. Throughout the day, she would periodically come up to me and say, "but why would you cut your hair?" and once I overheard her say to Amari when they were working at the writing center together: "But I just don't understand why Ms. Marshall would cut her hair." So far Aiyanna is coming to terms with my shorter hair style, but I won't underestimate her observational skills again.

the thrill of the circus

The government paid for us to go to the Ringling Bros. Circus. It was the first time I'd been to the circus, so I was excited. Deondre was a little confused about what we were doing. He kept asking we were going, and once we got to the Verizon Center he wanted to know when it was going to start. I told him we would know when it would start because an announcer would tell us when it was starting and what was going. As I had told him, the announcer came out and the lights went out and the show started. It was really exciting: there were tigers and tightrope walkers and flying trapeze artists. In the middle of all of this, Deondre turned to me and asked when it was going to start. I told him that it had already started. He said, "but where's the movie screen?" I told him that we weren't at the movies, we were at the circus. He said, "but there's not even a round twirly thing!" "A ferris wheel?" "Yeah. There's not even a ferris wheel." "Deondre, we're not at the carnival. We're at the circus. Look at the tigers and the trapeze artists!" He apparently wasn't impressed - or even interested. He slept through the whole thing. But, you know, it was nice of all the taxpayers to give Deondre the experience of going to the circus.