I have eyes in the back of my head

The other day Jabari and Jaylen were hanging out on the carpet watching me while I cleaned up the classroom. They started fooling off, and I turned sharply and looked at them. Jaylen said, "You have eyes in the back of your head, don't you?" I said, "but of course! I hide them behind my hair." Jaylen said, "my mom does, too." He seemed pretty matter-of-fact about it, and that was the end of it, but Jabari, who thinks I don't know how much he goofs off, looked really concerned about this new development. That was the end of the discussion, but Jabari watched me pretty closely the rest of the day, and he moderated his behavior a lot. I remember at summer training in Philadelphia one of my teachers started detailing how much we'd lie to the students, and I didn't believe it. Then again, I never thought that one of my students would believe that I really did have eyes in the back of my head.

shoelaces

Pablo came in to school a few weeks ago and announced that he had learned to tie his shoes. This has been an ongoing process all year, and he has good small motor skills, so I wasn't really surprised. Something bothered me about what he was doing, but it wasn't until this morning that I really watched him and saw exactly how he was tying his shoes. As soon as he sat down on the carpet every morning, Pablo would undo his beautifully tied shoes. He'd then go through the process of retying them, which consisted of knotting his laces together until there wasn't any string left, and then tucking the ends under. I must say, this is one of the most effective ways of tying shoelaces that I've ever seen. They definitely don't come undone! I even got Pablo to pose for a picture of his tied shoelaces. And I must admit that it's creative. None of the other students have come up with this solution.

dress code woes

Yesterday William came to school in a thin cotton t-shirt, which is pushing the dress code limits, which consists of a white shirt (button-up or polo), and navy pants. He also has a tendency to chew on his shirts, and as his teeth are broken and chipped, they’re really sharp. While some of his other shirts can withstand the treatment, this flimsy little t-shirt couldn’t handle the pressure. After the first 20 minutes or so of class, the whole front of his shirt was soaked and drooping. Ms. Stewart tried to call William’s mom to get more appropriate clothing, but no one answered the phone (surprise, surprise). After soaking his shirt, William began to gnaw on the bottom of his shirt. He would bite a hole in the shirt and then play with the hole. By lunch time he had ripped the bottom three inches off his shirt off with the exception of about a 1/2 inch of fabric in the very back that held it on like a tail - which he used to whip the other kids with. I finally ripped off the last 1/2 inch of fabric and threw away the bottom part of his shirt just before lunch. William sported a midriff shirt until 15 minutes before the buses arrived, when his mother sent up a more appropriate shirt for him. Luckily I didn’t get in trouble for William so blatantly disregarding the dress code. I doubt that M.H. Elementary School has seen this fashion statement very often – and thank goodness!

Deondre's gift from his mom

Yesterday during morning meeting (the first part of the day), Deondre raised his hand and said that he had something in his backpack for me. The kids know that anything they bring to school for me (notes from home, permission slips, etc.) come out of the backpack before they even put the backpack away. And Deondre has a habit of going to get something out of his backpack and then playing back there and distracting the rest of the students. So I gave him a hard time about this. He kept affirming that it was very important and that it was from his mom and I needed to have it. Finally I let him go get it out of his backpack. He came back with a well-used pink toothbrush. It still had dried toothpaste on the handle. He held it out to me and looked up and very seriously said, "My mom says you can have it." This was apparently a very important gift. I didn't want to reject it, but I didn't want to touch it, either. I finally thanked him for it and told him that he could keep it at home for me. He went and put it back in his backpack and hopefully took it home. I tried to keep a straight face, but couldn't quite do it. It was so unexpected and incongruous. I wonder what really happened at home that morning when he was taking his mother's toothbrush to school. Would she have let him take it if she knew Deondre was going to present it to me in front of the class? It's probably one of those things that I'll never bring up when we discuss Deondre.