The Art of Rethinking

All teachers have that student.  The student you desperately want to be absent.  You compulsively check attendance on your computer.  Your heart flutters to see he is absent 1st hour.  Your mood improves when he is also absent 2nd hour.  Yahoo!  He still hasn't shown up 3rd hour.  The angel chorus is warming up.  Then the 4th hour tardy bell rings and he saunters through your door.  Ugh.

You feel anger towards his 1st, 2nd, and 3rd hour teaches.  Why did they escape him and you didn't?  You feel annoyed with the attendance secretary.  Why didn't she shoot you an email to warn you?  You might as well go home, your day is ruined.

Flaming Hot Cheetos rank 7th on my list of pet peeves, right after asking to use the restroom while I am giving directions.

What?  You don't recognize this student?  Here are some more details.  He is often chasing screeching girls and smudging your books with the red devil dust of Flaming Hot Cheetos.  He always has something unrelated to contribute.  For instance, if you are talking about antonyms, he is wondering about the stain on your ceiling.  If you are exploring theme, he is curious about your marital status.  Oh, this is also the student who falls asleep the second he is asked to open a book. 

I was so happy on the last day of school.

• No more uncontrollable attendance checking.
• No more red devil dust.
• No more anger swallowing.

Summer vacation - here I come!

Twenty plus days into my summer vacation, I went to a lake with my friends and kids.  Blue skies.  Raked sand.  Lazy lapping waves.  All was blissful, until . . . I looked up from my book and saw that student.

There he was, trudging through the sand towards me.  Wearing a red t-shirt, black gym shorts, and his beloved Jordans.  (Dear Lord, have mercy on me!  I survived the month of May with him.  Is there no justice?)  I prayed he wouldn't spot me.  I wrapped a beach towel several times around my neck and firmly pushed up my sunglasses.  

Hmm.  He wasn't walking toward me, rather towards a little girl playing in the sand.  She had been filling a pail with sand and repeatedly dumping it out.  

My student squatted in the sand next to the girl.  (I couldn't believe he was getting his Jordans sandy.  He was always wasting my hand sanitizer and Kleenex to get the smudges off his pristine, white shoes.)  He showed the girl how to fill the pail with sand, tamp it down, and tip it over to leave a perfectly formed mound of sand.  I watched as they slowly built a fortress of sand around them.  How had I ever dreaded this adorable boy?  A boy who would play in the sand so sweetly with a little girl. 

Walking back to my car, I didn't look back.  I wanted to keep the vision of that student playing in the sand intact, until September when I will see him again.

Prairie Eydie