Reason #4,612

Yet another reason why I love kids:

As I may or may not have mentioned before (remember I'm pregnant, I can't remember anything and I'm too tired to go back into the archives and look), my students have to write a letter to me every week about what they're reading. These are called "Reading Responses." Well, in honor of Black History Month, my students had to read biographies about, uh, famous black people. I changed the reading response assignment so that the letters they wrote were not to be addressed to me, but rather to the person about whom the biography they chose was written. They could ask the person questions, give them advice, tell them what they thought of them...you get the idea.

This is what what of my kids wrote in his letter to Duke Ellington:

Dear Mr. Ellington,

I've just read 3 chapters of Duke Ellington (yourself) by Richard Terrill. I wanted to ask you....[insert several pertinent questions here].

I'm also interested in the piano (like yourself) and am wondering if you can send me a miniature piano (if you're still alive at 109 years old). I'm going to look up if you're still alive on Google. I wish I could meet you in person. Too bad you're 109.

Sincerely, your reader,

R

I guess since he had only read the first 3 chapters at that point, he hadn't gotten to the part where Duke Ellington died in 1974.

Q and A Jitters

Today we had musicians visit our classroom. They were part of an orchestra we heard play yesterday. Did I blog about that? I can't even remember. They say it's the pregnancy. I hope so, cuz my forgetfulness is getting to be a real problem. Seriously. In fact, let me go off on a tangent and tell a little story about this:

Saturday night I had a dream in which I was very forgetful. The whole dream was about me trying to find something, finding it, and then forgetting what I did with it. It was exhausting. Sunday morning, I told my husband, "I'm so forgetful, I'm having dreams in which I'm forgetful!" and proceeded to tell him about my dream. Later on that same day, probably not even 5 hours later, I piped up, "God, I'm so forgetful lately. I even had a dream last night in which I was forgetful." He about peed in his pants. I forgot that I had told him. Pathetic.

Aaaaanyway...back to the musicians. When my kids are open to Q and A sessions that do not involve me doing the Q'ing or A'ing, I get a little nervous. This is because some of my kids ask the stupidest questions imagineable. No, not all of them. In fact, the first two kids picked to ask questions asked very intelligent questions. The third...not so much. The short musical session taught them about how music moved to the "New World" in the 1700s since there were no recording devices. A flutist (flautist?) and violinist gave the talk and played samples of music from the time. Here are their questions:

Student 1: Shit, I can't remember her question. (Told you).

Student 2: "Back in the 1700s, would they have been playing a metal flute? Wouldn't it have been made out of wood?" (I was so proud!)

Student 3: "Do you know where I can get an African knife?"

Uh, WHAT? Hello???? We are talking about music here! Yes, there was some mention about music slaves sang, but NOTHING about knives. wtf???

Thank god they cut off the questions after that, because after one kid goes off-topic, it's like a free-for-all.

Return of the Past

It happened. I was at Jiffy Lube yesterday getting my oil changed (duh) when the woman ringing me up asked me if I used to work at X X school. Immediately I went into observation mode. I studied her eyes, her voice, anything that might give me a clue as to who this person is. I got nothing. (I give myself some slack though. I worked at that school from 1997-1999).

I told her yes, I did work at that school. She replied with, "You were my fourth grade teacher!" I asked her her name and it did sound familiar. I got home and looked at my file of class pictures (yes, I kept them all) and there she was. 1998-1999. Which makes her 19 or 20 years old right now. She looks exactly the same. Okay, taller, but mostly the same.

As I look at these 2 years of pictures from this first school I ever taught at, I'm surprised at 2 things: how well I remember some students and how little I remember other students.


I remember Lauren because she once wrote on her desk that I'm a bitch.
I remember Jihad because he was the first person who observed Ramadan that I'd ever met.
I remember Mark because he was a pain in my ass for an entire year.
I remember Shirley because she was brilliant and could have probably handled 8th grade work.
I remember Adrienne because she witnessed her mom being murdered (true story).
I remember Stanley because his mom was mentally ill and he was pretty much neglected.


If I think about it hard enough, I remember something about every single student. I may not be able to identify each one on sight, but each one of them is in my memory somewhere when I see their picture.

I guess that's why I kept them all.