Teacher in Training

My seven-year-old niece is practicing being a teacher. Many of us did this to some extent. I'm pretty sure I forced my sister and brother to sit still while I read spelling words to them that they didn't care about.

Later, when I really was a teacher, I would see fifth-grade students come into my third-grade classroom and help kids in that same way, the "I really feel special acting like a teacher," way.

It's really fun to see kids do that. It's very special to see that the relationship is so important that they imitate it and aspire to it.

My niece, S, is very committed to her teacher role, not even slowed down by the fact that she doesn't have any siblings. She has been a teacher for her stuffed monkey, my parents' dog, and lately, a collection of stuffed squashes she was given.

It's really fun to see how excited she gets about playing school. She writes out schedules that are better than any school I've ever seen: "Hello, Drawing, Snack, Recess, French, Art." She writes poems for her students that are more creative than any I ever wrote for mine.

She writes encouraging notes to the parents of her student (my parents' Golden Retriever):

"Your dahter is a bad student.

A. She is stinkey.

B. She dosen't do any work.

P.S. She needs a bath.

P.S. I'll help."

And she's very patient with her youngest students, baby stuffed squashes. She even told her mom that they can't really read, you know, because they're just babies!

I wish I could be excited about S wanting to be a teacher. Clearly, she has years to change her mind, but I would love to foster this love and get her really excited about being a teacher. How do I tell her one day that being a teacher is amazing and rewarding, but she'd better marry well because she won't be able to afford to live? How do I tell her that she'll have so many ideas for how to inspire her students, only to have to spend weeks giving them standardized tests?

For now, I'll try to enjoy it. She really is very gifted. And she loves Halloween! She's be a wonderful teacher.

Comments

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 pri...

A New Prison, Part 1

My former student, friend, and co-author was moved to a new prison during COVID. We (myself, Mitali, and his Abuela) have visited a couple of times via the video visit functionality they set up, but we've also been trying to visit in person, ever since in-person visits were allowed again. After four of them being canceled (sometimes we were told why, sometimes not), we finally got a visit. I was super nervous about this visit. (I felt better when Mitali mentioned that she was also, because she is an inherently positive and optimistic person!) I am not proud of this, but there was a large part of me that was hoping that the visit would be canceled, just like the previous four were. I felt a little better when someone I know messaged me privately to tell me that they had had very good experiences visiting a family member in that prison. But I still didn't sleep well at all that night, worrying about the guards, the many things that could go wrong, and the projected 111-degree hea...

Bronwyn Harris, Author

Search This Blog