Romance and Logic in the Third Grade

One of my beautiful little girls here had an excellent question for me last year. She asked:

"When boys like you, why do they hit you and tease you and call you names and steal your stuff? Why can't they just say they like you?"

Then this is the kicker:

"And when do they stop acting like that?"

I had to break it to her that some of them NEVER stop. And that as adults, women often wonder about adult men why they just can't use their words and say they like you! (yes, I know I'll hear from a bunch of men - I'm sure you're the exception and always use your words and are frustrated by women's lack of communication. I'm just telling it from my perspective)

The same girl asked me once about Columbus. The conversation went something like this, and I have to say, I was very proud of her for the critical thinking skills she displayed.

Student: Why do we call them Indians when India is a different country?

Me: [some crap I can't remember about how Columbus got lost and thought he was going to India, so he called them Indians because he was assuming he was in India]

Student: [stares at me incredulously] They got named the wrong thing because he got LOST? [thinks for a minute] And where does he get off naming them anyway? Who said the white guy could name them??

Comments

JulieBee said…

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2:04 PM

Jessamyn Harris said…

hee hee!
I'm glad to read something lighter after that super intense one.
you are a really good writer, and I'm really enjoying reading this blog, sister...
I think I will come visit your class soon?
will they kill me?

it's very interesting to visit. I never feel what it's like to be the minority, really, except when I go to bron's school - then everyone is just like "what the--?!" and watching me to see what I'll do. it's good to wear the other shoe sometimes (and to know how lucky I am that I can drive away from that place).

7:41 PM

Stuffed Animals

There are several much more serious stories I was going to share, but I'm not in the mood to be made sad tonight, so I'll tell you all about the stuffed animals. This is a post that needs images so someday when I have or borrow a working scanner, I will add the photos. A few years into teaching, I joined Freecyle. For those of you who don't know Freecycle, it's a group of people in any given community who are on an email list to get rid of their old stuff and get stuff from other people. It's a fabulous form of recycling. Somebody posted that they had a huge bag of stuffed animals in good condition to give away and I decided to grab it for my class. I thought that some of the kids would like the stuffed animals, but I certainly didn't think they'd all be into them. Kids grow up really fast in that neighborhood, and when you have six-year olds talking about how they walk to school alone because their parents say they're "grown," and how

A Loss

(I have been putting off finishing this blog post for months. You'll see why) Today, I was cleaning a bookshelf and I found the journal from one of my third-grade students, who I call Fred in my book , in 2001. I still had it because he didn't come to the last day of school to get his stuff this year and I guess it got put in a pile and somehow I've kept it with me. He didn't come to the last day of school, probably because his family was a mess: dad in prison, mom in an abusive relationship, all the kids (understandably) acting out violently. Fred was expelled from our school in second grade for hitting a teacher. Then he was expelled from the other school, I don't know why, at the end of second grade. He came back on the condition from the administration that he be in my class because I had him as a student in first grade and he listened to me and worked well with me. We had a really good relationship, although Fred was definitely not easy to have in class.

A New Prison, Part Two

Second very long part of the prison visit report. After we got all the paperwork filled out and went through the metal detector, we got visitation slips with the name of the inmate, and made our way over to the other building for visitation. This is not maximum security so thankfully you can just sit next to the inmates, and not be separated by glass or have to use a telephone to talk. First, you get a gate unlocked and go into a holding pen that is of course in direct sunlight (or rain if it's that season) and surrounded by fences topped with razor wire. You wait there until the gate at the other end is unlocked. This holding pen was a little bigger and less claustrophobic than the other prison (I do not have any claustrophobia and I came very close to a panic attack once at the other place) and they opened the other gate more quickly. Then you walk, again in blazing sunlight (or rain) to the visitation building. This one was less of a walk than the other prison but I still

Bronwyn Harris, Author

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