Learn Me Gooder (11 page)

I’m kidding, of course. We actually talked for well over an hour, with none of the lulls in conversation or stinging insults that you and I seem to encounter when we talk on the phone. I’m meeting Jill on Friday evening for dinner and drinks. No IHOP, no video games. No inadvertent flatulence, no distant planets.

Hey, speaking of video games, congratulations on scoring the big new contract with Microsoft for the Xbox! I mean, I know you yourself didn’t strike the deal, but that’s still awesome news, and I’m more than a little jealous. The coolest project I ever got to work on while I was at HPU was the 14-pin butterfly package with insulated alfjsfpjp3jr31aafji34139redfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Oh, sorry man! I put myself to sleep there for a second! I’ll be sure to stay away from my old job Friday night!

But back to your new project, if you play your cards right, maybe you can talk your way into being used as an avatar in some new video game. They’ve come such a long way since we were kids, back when the characters were usually just a big square body with a circle for a head. Very simple geometry, which, as it just so happens, is our subject this week.

I’ve got a quiz for you. Do you know the shape of a speed limit sign? How about a railroad crossing? A stop sign?

You’re correct if you said a rectangle, a circle, and not a hexagon.

I’ve noticed that every year, for some reason, kids are infatuated with hexagons. That is ALWAYS the first word they want to shout out when I ask them to identify any two-dimensional shape with more than four sides. I guess there really is something to be said for hex-appeal.

When I can get them to count the sides first, they are much more accurate in naming the shape. And they DO seem to know the shapes that go with those road signs. I need to find some way to get them to envision a series of street signs before choosing a name. Then maybe they would Yield their thoughts, Stop their hex addiction, and not resemble Slow Children at Play quite as much.

Yesterday’s activity was creating two-dimensional shapes using marshmallows and toothpicks. The marshmallows were the points and the toothpicks were the line segments.

Things were going swimmingly throughout most of the class. We had covered angles, lines, rays, quadrilaterals, and all sorts of other shapes. We were nearing the end of the lesson, creating the final shape of the day, when disaster struck.

I had just asked the kids to make an 8-sided figure. Suddenly, Felipe stood up and started howling. He was crying so hard the tears were shooting out of his eyes. My first thought was that he must have EATEN one of the marshmallows and forgotten to take the toothpick out first.

When I asked him what was wrong, I got no answer, other than the continued impersonation of someone falling down a bottomless pit. I scanned him up and down, and I noticed a toothpick protruding from the side (towards the rear) of his pants. It kind of looked like an Amazon native had shot a blow-dart at him.

I guess the old saying is true – “It’s all fun and games until someone gets a toothpick stuck in their ass.”

I so badly wanted to ask how the toothpick had gotten there – I mean, after all, they are flimsy little things. I would have thought the toothpick would break or lay flat if sat upon, kind of like a straw can’t go through a tree unless driven by hurricane-force winds. But more pressing was the fact that the toothpick was still stuck in his ass. Since Felipe was making no move whatsoever to remove the problem himself, I took it upon myself to pull it out. I was amazed at how hard I had to pull to actually dislodge it.

This was right at the end of class, so I didn’t get a chance to find out exactly how the incident had happened. I sent Felipe to the bathroom to clean himself up, and then it was time to go.

Today, we shifted to three-dimensional shapes, and away from toothpicks. I gave each student a net to cut out and paste together to create a geometric solid.

My morning class did pretty well. The only real problem was convincing the kids that their finished product should look like one of the pre-made shapes on my counter, and not like a wadded up Kleenex. Sure, a wadded up Kleenex is, technically, three-dimensional, but that wasn’t the point of the lesson.

The afternoon class was much more trying with my already limited patience. Before I could even get the kids started on cutting out the nets, I had to stop several times to review scissor safety and remind the kids that they should NOT clip the shears back and forth in front of their faces. I then had to place not one, but TWO kids in timeout for immediately clipping the shears back and forth in front of their faces.

After the kids had created their figures, I began the unenviable task of coaxing them to explore the attributes. How many faces? What 2-D shapes are the faces? How many edges? How many vertices? No, vertices, not puncture holes from your scissors.

As usual, I had about four kids that were actively participating and trying to answer the questions, while the others did their best showroom window mannequin impersonations.

Finally, the end of the day came around and it was time to dismiss the kids. As I called them to line up, Amir held out something to me. It was the metal tip of his pen, which he had unscrewed.

“Look, this is a cone!” he informed me.

I know I’ve been losing my patience with this group, and I’ve been frustrated more often than inspired. However, in that moment right before dismissal, one child demonstrated that he HAD learned something today, and that he could apply that knowledge to a real-world object.

It’s always nice to be reassured that SOMETHING is working. And honestly, any day that doesn’t end with a kid getting something stuck in his ass should be considered a good day in the history books.
Talk to you later,
Paul E. Hedron

I should have known that last email would catch Latya’s attention. He always was fascinated by objects being stuck in places they have no business being stuck.

I did ask Felipe the next day what had happened, and he just looked down and whispered, “I sat on it.”

I decided not to press the matter. We can only hope it wasn’t intentional. After all, sitting on an octagon is one thing, but I have no desire to see anybody purposefully plopping down onto a rectangular pyramid.

Nothing would surprise me, though, because in case I haven’t mentioned it, my class this year is extremely immature. I’ve never had so many kids that still suck their thumbs, display a total lack of listening skills, and repeatedly do the same things over and over and over again, despite being told not to. Case in point, Chassany, who, even after all this time, continues to get in trouble for talking in the hall.

I also notice that many of my kids have a supreme sense of responsibility when it comes to OTHER kids in the room, but they can’t seem to look after themselves. They are so worried about the kids around them not following the rules, but they never seem to notice (or care) when they’re not following the rules themselves.

I think it’s great for kids to take on responsibility, but one of my boys, Lex, always winds up taking responsibility AWAY from somebody else. I’ll ask one of the kids to hold open a door so the class can walk through, and seconds later I’ll turn around and Lex will be holding the door. Or someone in my class will ask if they can take a basketball out to recess, yet Lex is always the one who winds up holding the ball after lunch.

Mrs. Bird has started calling him “The Sheriff,” while I suspect he’s been reading his Spiderman comics backwards again and thinks that with great responsibility comes great power.

Yesterday, a few minutes before the bell rang at the end of the day, I asked everyone to clean up the area around their desk, as I always do before we leave the classroom. Usually, it’s the kids with the lumber yard right under their desk that ignore me and keep talking, while the kids with a few atoms of dust under their desk are lying prostrate on the floor, trying to make it clean enough to perform open-heart surgery.

As I was asking everyone to look on the floor around them, I looked directly at several scraps of crayon wrapper right underneath Lex’s chair. Rather than looking around his own area and picking up the trash, however, Lex noticed that Tyler, on the other side of the room, had a small piece of eraser under his chair. So Lex went running towards Tyler’s chair, did a power slide on his knees that would make Tenacious D weep with joy, and picked up the eraser. Then he beamed at me like I was going to award him the Silver Star Award.

And he’s only one of many who act this way. Still, the worst of it all is the tattling. I know, I know, I should be used to it by now. After all, tattling in grade school is like the kilt in Scotland – ever present, expected even, but never welcome. Nevertheless, it continues to annoy me.

I think that if teachers didn’t receive any base salary at all, but they were given $25 every time one of their students tattled on someone, they could all retire to the Bahamas by the end of the second year.

There is a significant difference between telling the teacher something and telling ON someone. For instance if Tina is hanging upside down from the monkey bars by her shoestrings and can’t get down, then yes, that’s something I need to know. However, I think I can do without hearing that Billy laughed when Peter dribbled chocolate milk down his chin.

There are many cases when I have to fight mightily to resist the sarcastic response.
Student X: “Jimmy pointed his middle finger at me!”
Me: “Really? Then he’s not doing it correctly.”
Student X: “He’s copying!!”
Me: “Wow, from YOU? Then he deserves his grade!”
Student X: “She called my momma fat!”
Me: “Your momma is not fat. But does she ever Porky Pig?”

Here on board the Tattlestar Galactica, two of my kids take things to the extreme.

I have unofficially given DaQuayvius the cabinet post of Tattle Tale General, since he assaults my ears as soon as he sees me each morning, laying out the entire school population’s misdeeds with military precision.

“Sir, status report, Sir! Tommy kicked Lisa’s book bag, Kelly was making faces at a second grader, and Donnell is jangling pennies in his pocket. In world news, Lindsay Lohan was busted on DUI charges again.”

Then there’s Lakeisha, who is constantly tattling about someone or something. And apparently, to anyone who will listen. Today, as her class was entering the cafeteria for lunch, I exited through the other cafeteria door, behind her class, so she was not aware that I was standing there. I actually witnessed her tattle on one of her classmates to some random woman walking down the hall! It was probably some poor second grader’s mother, just minding her own business, suddenly accosted by a little girl claiming, “Excuse me, Miss, he just hit me!”

Of course, this lady was able to do what I always wish I COULD do. She kept her eyes straight ahead, didn’t make eye contact, and just kept on walking.

Mrs. Frisch told me that she informed her kids at the beginning of the year that she doesn’t want to hear any complaining unless it involves one of the 3 B’s – Barfing, Bleeding, or Broken. Of course, she has to deal with Roy’al every day, so I think tattling is the least of her worries.

I’ve overheard Mrs. Bird on more than one occasion tell one of our kids to “Save it for tattle-time.” The trick here is that there never IS a tattle-time, but the kids don’t seem to catch on to this.

I’m considering creating a tattle patsy. This will be a stuffed animal, or a poster, or even just a stapler – something that I can send the kids to when they really, really have to tell on someone. After all, Lakeisha and others like her just want to speak the words into the air anyway, regardless of who is listening.

I just need to be sure that “Tattle Toby,” the stuffed elephant, has eyes that can roll.

Wish me luck on my date with Jill tonight! And please inform Tom Winter that our first date will NOT consist of “going up the hill to fetch a pail of water.”

He is so freakin’ hilarious.
Later,
Ima Tellonue

How was your Thanksgiving? Can you believe some people don’t have turkey as part of their holiday dinner? Jill told me that her family always has chicken on Thanksgiving, and that’s just mind-boggling to me. Of course, some people have said that as long as I’m at the table, there will always be a turkey at dinner.

Jill’s family lives near San Antonio, so she went down there for most of last week. After our fantastic first date the week before, I’m a little scared of jinxing things by rushing it, but we’re on for dinner again this Saturday. In the meantime, I have a few tens of munchkins to attend to.

I liked your suggestion for a tattle spray. Something I could spritz onto a kid that would instantly halt their tattling. Sort of like pepper spray, but with less ocular burning.

I also like how you’ve already incorporated my “tattle patsy” idea in your own cubicle. For you, it’s not so much a “tattle” patsy as it is a “long-winded-droning” patsy. Pretty clever to have a portrait of Jimmy Carter hanging on the file cabinet, so that Darrin will have someone to prattle on and on and on to, while you continue working.

I got an interesting gift today. It’s not uncommon for kids to come to school and bring their teachers random little tokens of affection. Usually, it’s near one of the major gift-giving holidays like Christmas, or Valentine’s Day, or Speak Like a Pirate Day, but it can occur at any time really.

In years past, I have received apples, candy, leaves, drawings, and mugs. Today, I received a nutcracker.

When I say nutcracker, I mean a traditional, wooden, looks-like-a-dude-with-really-scary-dentures nutcracker. Thilleenica brought two to school today – one for me and one for Mrs. Bird. She claims to have one more at home, intended for our principal, Mrs. Forest.