The Power

My kids ask me questions all day long. Most of them are related to what we're doing, some are just WAY out there and I wonder where the hell they come from. Some are obvious, some I can figure out with some logic, and some just stump me. (You may recall an earlier post about a question: "If one triplet dies, are the remaining two now known as twins?" I still don't know the answer to that one.

Today I got another stumper.

We've been reviewing literary genres. (Sidenote: How old were you when you learned the word "genre?" I probably didn't learn that word until college. The average first grader now uses that word. I kid you not.) Of course there are the 2 broad categories: fiction and non-fiction, but then you can break down each one into sub-categories such as historical fiction, fantasy, folk tales, biographies, informational, etc. I know you know all this. I just feel the need to make sure everyone's on the same page.

One of my boys is reading a book about Bionicles. Bionicles are a creation of the Lego company. They look like aliens and each one has its own defensive and offensive properties. That's all I can tell you. (Follow the link, nerds, to learn more). So the book my kid is reading is a book describing each character in a certain "class" of Bionicle beasts, the Rahi (it's all very complex). So my kid asks me, "Ms. M, this book is informational, so it's non-fiction, but it's about characters that don't exist, so it's fantasy, too. What genre is it?"

Now I have no problem admitting when I don't know something. In fact, I hate it when people pass off their guesses as fact because they don't want to appear to not know everything in the entire world.

"Uhhhh..." was my first response.

"Let me see the book" was my second response.

"To be honest, I'm not sure" was my third response.

My fourth and best response: "If we HAD to stick the 'the rules,' we would probably classify it as fantasy, but since we're creative people, let's make up our own genre. What do you think?"

After some discussion, we came up with "informational fiction." He seemed genuinely intrigued at the idea that things could be flexible, that we, as readers, hell, as people, could do crazy things like make up a genre! If we can create a genre, what else can we do???

Isn't it that kind of thinking that creates new and wonderful ideas? I mean, how powerful for a child to be able to create something like that, cuz when you think about it, children are pretty powerless in their everyday lives: they are told how and when to do absolutely EVERYTHING.

I think I opened a mind today.

Hello Drrrrrrama!

School starts at 8:50 every morning. By 9:00 I had already dealt with two major problems between my kids. The first was between two boys, the second between two girls. The incidents really highlight the difference between how boys and girls "fight" with each other and which one I prefer handling.

By 8:52, two of my boys "got into it" (scuffling, arguing, pulling something between them so it was about to rip in two) in front of their lockers. I went over to see what was going on. It turned out that one boy knocked over the other's book bag, so the other one tried to take his jacket away. THIS IS WHAT 4TH GRADE BOYS FIGHT ABOUT. Ugh. They were SO mad with one another. When I "broke it up," they each tried to tell me what the other did (of course they themselves were not at fault), but I hushed them up right quick and told them I didn't want to hear it. I told them to close their mouths, get their stuff put away, and go pull their cards. What're the next words I hear?

"BUT..."

"But nothing," I said. And if I hear another word about it, you can go pull your card again" (which puts them on red before the day even starts! Oooooooh...). One of them couldn't help it. He kept trying to defend himself. Poor kid got on red before he even entered the classroom. He was NOT happy. Oh well. This is the kid who, according to him, is wrongfully accused for everything. He never does anything wrong. Mmm-hmm.

Not even 2 minutes later, one of my girls comes pouting to me that she wants to change seats because another girl who sits at her table is rolling her eyes at her, talking about her, and turning all the other girls against her. This all stemmed from a problem yesterday at lunch. And I had already told the eye-roller yesterday after the lunch incident that there is NO DRAMA ALLOWED IN MY CLASSROOM. There will be no eye-rolling, no rumor-starting, no tongue-sticking outing (?), NONE OF THAT.

I (stupidly) let the eye-roller give me some background info about why she was acting the way she was acting, because I knew it could not have been about the stupid lunch incident yesterday. It turns out that the other girl told her that "she couldn't get no man." (hee-hee). I (stupidly) asked the one who supposedly said this to her about it and it turns out that she had written it in her diary and the eye-roller read the diary without her permission. Oooooooh...

Then I realized that I was (stupidly) getting caught up in the drama that I had expressly forbid in my classroom and told them I didn't want to hear any monre "buts....". Then I expressly forbid diaries in my classroom. At this point, I felt exhausted. It was 9:09. This is how my day started.

Oh, and by lunch the girls were best friends again.

Going to Extremes

I saw a comedian once who made a most astute observation about our country. He said something like, "Here in America, we'll do nothing about a problem or issue...until something happens. Then we do freakin' everything." This is so true. Take terrorist attacks. Before 9/11, there were minimal security measures at airports. Now we can't even bring toothpaste on a plane. I mean, is that really necessary? I don't think banning toothpaste is going to prevent another attack, but like I said: first we do nothing, then we do freakin' EVERYTHING!

Today before school, a boy got hurt throwing around a football. I heard the injury was pretty bad. Apparently (and this is through the grapevine) he fell over a fence and cut his head open on a license plate. Blood was everywhere and you could see his skull! Knowing the grapevine, he probably only has a bruise. (Okay, it's more severe than that because an ambulance came).

They made an announcement at around 8:35 asking teachers if they could go pick up their kids from outside early so as to remove 699 kids from the injured boys vicinity. Everyone complied and later on got thanked via a subsequent announcement in which the entire school was informed that there would be absolutely NO MORE FOOTBALL ALLOWED EVER. One kid gets hurt and football is banned permanently. wtf?

This kind of logic doesn't make sense to me. I understanding not allowing football in the mornings because it's too crowded and children of all ages (from 4 to 13) are out there and it gets dangerous, but to ban it completely is so extreme. Following this logic, what's going to happen when someone gets hurt walking up the stairs?