Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind (10 page)

You know those circus performers who spin plates on long sticks and try to keep them up in the air? Well, sometimes that’s
how I feel. Just this week I juggled three words at once.

“Mr. Done, how do you spell
great
?
”
Laura shouted out.

I began spelling:
“G — ”

“Mr. Done, how do you spell
swimming
?” Kevin interrupted.

I looked at him.
“S-W-I — ”

Back to Laura:
“R — ”

Back to Kevin: “Double
M.
”

Melanie jumped in. “Mr. Done, how do you spell
with
?”

To Melanie:
“W — ”

To Laura:
“E-A-T.”

To Melanie:
“I — ”

To Kevin:
“I-N-G.”

To Melanie:
“T-H.”

“Wait!” Laura broke in. “What was after the first letter again?”

I started over.

Every year there are certain words that I am
sure
my kids will ask me to spell. These include:
pirate, treasure, castle, blood, sword, chocolate, army, pizza, en garde, dinosaur, warrior, underwear, Frankenstein, fairy,
lava, princess, guillotine,
and
Godzilla.
Rarely am I ever asked how to spell
Mississippi.
I am convinced that most children are born knowing how to spell this word.

Sometimes the kids want help with words I can’t spell. I hate that.

“Mr. Done, how do you spell
Philippines
?” Dylan asked.

“Uh… go look at the map.”

“Mr. Done, how do you spell
Ouija
?” John wanted to know.

My eyebrows scrunched together. “
Ouija?
Why do you need to know that?”

“It’s on my birthday list.”

“Ask for something else.”

Stacy walked up to my desk. “Mr. Done, how do you spell
piranha
?”

“Look it up in the dictionary.”

“I did. It’s not there.”

“Bring it here.”

Stacy fetched the dictionary, and I watched her flip through the pages to the end then flip back through the pages to the
front.

This could take years.

I offered to help. Finally, we found it.

“Why is it spelled like
that
?” Stacy asked.

“Beats me.”

Danny raised his head. “Mr. Done, how do you spell
croissant.
”

“WHAT?” I said, eyebrows arched.

“How do you spell
croissant
?”

I took a deep breath. “Why do you guys always ask me such hard words? Why don’t you ask me something easy once in a while?”
I started spelling it out.
“C-R-O…”
I stopped. “Ahh… just write
roll.
”

I have also become an expert at spelling every conceivable sound.

“Mr. Done, how do you spell the sound pirates make?”

“A-R-R-G-H-H.”

“Mr. Done, how do you spell when a car brakes?”

“E-R-R-R-R.”

“Mr. Done, how do you spell when a lion roars?”

“G-R-R-R-R.”

One day Christopher shouted out, “Mr. Done, how do you spell the sound that bombs make?”

I squinted at him. “You mean like
kaboom
?”

“No.” He made an exploding noise. “Like that.”

The other kids looked up.

“Uh… I’m not sure,” I replied.

“I know!” Trevor announced, jumping up. “It’s
P-U-H-H-H-H-H!
”

“No, it’s not!” John piped up. “It’s
C-H-H-G-R-H-H!
”

Pretty soon every boy in the room was impersonating bombs and grenades and volcanoes. Trevor could only make the sounds while
diving on the beanbag chair. Finally, the class settled on
“pchhhhh!”
and
“ppPCHHchhh!!”
for a really loud one.

Kids’ spelling mistakes never change:
they
will be
thay, grandpa
will be
grampa, different
will be
difrent, every
will be
evry, goes
will be
gose, improve
will be
inprove, kind of
will be
kindov,
and
sandwich
will be
sandwitch.
In December,
ornaments
will be spelled
ordaments,
and
candy canes
will be
candy cans.
Santa’s name can give kids trouble, too. After the movie
Santa Clause
came out, some children added an
e
to the end of his name. (I hate when moviemakers do that. Don’t they know I’m trying to teach spelling here!) Sometimes it’s
Santa
Claws.
Last year when Abigail wrote in her journal that she visited Santa at the mall, she got her letters a little mixed up and
wrote that she sat on “Satan’s lap.”

Over the years I’ve encountered pretty much every misspelling imaginable. I’ve seen
insects
spelled as
insex, garbage
as
garbitch, tutor
as
tooter, peninsula
as
penisula,
and our sixteenth president written as
Ape Lincoln.
I’ve read
littel, speshl, butaful, grat, frist, rember, probly,
and
whith
so many times that the misspelled versions look correct. I’ve received secret notes on my desk saying, “Mr. Done, you are
the
beast.
” And once when the kids had to answer “Who discovered the New World?” Rachel wrote
Colombo.

Grade school teachers are master code breakers. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy who figured out the
hieroglyphic mystery on the Rosetta stone wasn’t at one time a third-grade teacher. When a child writes
uperd,
I don’t have to think twice. He means
appeared.
I know immediately that
ine
is
any, doter
is
daughter, exited
is
excited, fell
is
feel,
and
turd
is
third.
Yesterday Brian wrote
bowenairo.
That was an easy one:
bow and arrow.

There is always one student who keeps me entertained with her spelling. This year it is Melanie. Melanie is a darling little
girl. She loves art and singing. But she can’t spell a lick. When we made cards for the art teacher who was going on maternity
leave, Melanie wrote, “I’m very sad you are living.” In this week’s creative writing assignment, the mom in her story woke
the child up with, “Good morning, sweaty.”

Once Melanie came running up to me at recess. I was on yard duty.

“Mr. Done,” she tattled, “Joshua said the
G
word.”

What’s the G word?

I bent down and whispered. “What did he say?”

Melanie whispered back. “Jerk.”

I stood up, biting my lip. “Josh, come here.” He walked over. “Did you call Melanie a jerk?”

“No.”

“Yes, you did,” Melanie protested.

I gave him my best teacher look. “Josh, did you say it or didn’t you?”

He thought for a moment. “I opened my mouth and it just fell out.”

Melanie often leaves letters out of her words. Once she wrote me a card that said, “Mr. Done, you are god.” I didn’t know
if she meant I was a good teacher, or she really had a high opinion of me. Another day I stopped at her desk and glanced over
her shoulder while she was writing. “Uh…” I pointed to one of the words. “What’s this word?”

“Shirt.”

“That’s what I thought you meant. You left out the
r,
honey.”

After our trip to the nature reserve, Melanie wrote an elaborate story all about the food chain. She named all the shorebirds
and snails and crabs and microorganisms.

“Melanie, could you come up here please?”

She skipped on up.

“I love your story, sweetheart. You did such a good job.” I pointed to one of the words. “Can you read this for me, please?”

“Organism.”

“You left out the
n
and the
i,
honey.”

“Ohhhhhh!”

“You
have
to put the
n
and
i
in that word. It’s
very
important.”

I’m not the only spelling teacher in class. My students like to teach me about spelling, too.

“Mr. Done,” Christopher said one day, “spell
pig
backward. Then say ‘different colors’ real fast.”

I didn’t think about it. (
Warning:
Never spell something out loud when a child asks you to without thinking it through.) “Okay,” I replied. “
G-I-P
different colors.”

Hoots of laughter shot up to the ceiling. I stood there, staring at them all. Mouth apart.
Hold on please while I bang my head against a wall.
Finally, I spoke. “What is so funny?”

“You… you pee in different colors!” Christopher declared, still cracking up.

There went the ceiling again.

I narrowed my eyes. “Where did you guys learn this?”

“Everyone knows
that
!” Laura decreed in between laughs.

Christopher leapt to his feet. “Mr. Done, spell
icup.
”

I cast a sidelong glance and made a face. “I know this one.”

“Please!” Christopher begged.

I shook my head. I knew what would happen if I spelled it. There’d be complete chaos — utter pandemonium.

“Please!” he pressed.

“No.”

“PLEASE!”

“NO!”

Everyone joined in. “PLEEEEEEEASE.”

I looked out at their twenty upturned faces then let out a giant sigh. There are certain moments in teaching when the teacher’s
best option is to just give in.

“Okay,” I conceded.
“I-C-U-P.”

Well, I was right. As soon as I said it, the class went into convulsions. A third of the kids jumped out of their chairs.
Peals of uproarious laughter echoed in the room. It sounded like one giant tickle fight.

“Okay, okay,” I said, trying to reel them back. “I hope you’re happy. Christopher, get back in your chair. Trevor, get off
the floor. Kevin, breathe.” Then I walked to the board and wrote
htam.
“Christopher, spell this backward.”

He spelled it out loud.
“M-A-T-H.”

“Good,” I said. “Now everyone get your math books out. Spelling is over.”

O
n Columbus Day, I tell my students about the discovery of America. Everyone knows the story, of course — how Christopher Columbus
sailed the
Niña
,
Pinta
, and
Santa Maria
in 1492 in search of a shorter route to the Indies. Columbus kept a log during his voyage. He reported that when the wind
was strong, his ships made a lot of progress. When it wasn’t, they made very little. As the weeks went on, the crew grew restless.
Storms brought trouble. Supplies became limited. Some of the food went bad.

I can’t help but think how much Columbus’s famous voyage parallels life in the classroom. In the beginning of the school year,
teachers set their course. Some days we make a lot of progress. Some days we don’t. Our crews complain, too. Rain spoils recess
plans. We run out of supplies. The food in the cafeteria isn’t very good, either.

As I sat in the reading corner pointing out Columbus’s route on a map, Bob my principal walked in carrying a form for me to
sign. When he saw that I was busy with the children, he pointed and whispered, “I’ll just put it on your desk.”

Uh-oh. Not the desk.

I followed him with my eyes as he walked to the front of the room. When he reached my desk, Bob stopped and scratched his
head, hunting for a place to set the form. I considered telling him that I was in the middle of spring cleaning, but since
it was only October, I decided against it. Instead, I cringed and watched him set the form down as if he were adding to a
tower of playing cards.

My poor desk. It looks like the floor of a snow globe after all the flakes have settled to the bottom. It is covered with
stacks of papers, overhead transparencies, lesson plans, teachers’ manuals, construction paper, sticky notes, permission slips,
library passes, spelling lists, answer keys, clipboards, grade books, and my attendance folder. That’s just the top layer.

My coffee cup has never rested on a flat surface. My elbows have never leaned on wood. When Christopher set his hamster on
my desk, it took us five minutes to find her.

My students tease me about my desk all the time.

“Mr. Done,” Stacy said one day, “you need to clean Oscar.”

“Who’s Oscar?” I asked, tilting my head.

“Your desk.”

I blinked hard. “You named my desk
Oscar
?”

“That’s only one of his names.”

“You have
more
?”

“Yeah. Want to hear them?”

“No.”

Actually, my students have only seen Oscar clean twice — once on the first day of school when everything looked perfect and
again on the morning after Back to School Night. When the kids walked in and saw that my desk was clean, they started clapping.

Bob’s desk does not look like mine. It does not resemble the return counter at Macy’s the day after Christmas. His stapler
looks polished. The little plastic circle that sits in his tape dispenser always has tape on it. (I’m sure he has never had
to hunt for the end of the tape on the little roll then scrape it off with his fingernail.) Bob’s planner sits perfectly in
the center of his desk. His to do list is color-coded. All the pens in his pencil can have caps on them. His pencils do not
have masking tape flags on them that say, “THIS IS NOT YOURS!” His paper clips are not all globbed onto a magnet that someone
pulled off the whiteboard. There are no trolls or plastic toys taped to the top of his computer. The little brush inside his
bottle of Wite-Out does not look like it just had a seizure.

Of course, I’m not the only teacher with a messy desk. There are lots of us out there. Teachers with messy desks know who
all the other teachers with messy desks are. It’s like a secret club. We even sit together at lunch. But we don’t talk about
our desks — especially around the teachers whose desks are not messy.