Fair

One thing I like about being around hoards of six- to eight-year-old people for hours on end is that I get to see some more obvious cases of human nature being manifest.  Case in point, making teams for a game of football.

There are eight boys that are dividing up into teams.  Four of them (the Reds) are wearing jerseys that bear the name of the athletic flavor of the week.  The other four (the Blues) are trying to figure out the rules.  Johnny Red is interested in winning and looking like a star in the process.  Timmy Red is interested in playing a fun game.  Johnny and Timmy end up getting into an argument that sounds something like this:

Johnny: Four (Reds) against four (Blues).  That’s fair.

Timmy: No.  (Looking at the Blues and trying not to hurt their feelings.)  It’s not fair to have the best players on the same team.

Johnny: In football you have the same amount of players on both sides.  If both sides have the same number of players, it is fair.

Timmy: No, it’s not.  Let’s re-pick.

Johnny: You’re just afraid.

Timmy: I am not.

Johnny: Fine.  You go be on their team.  Three against five and we’ll still beat you.

Timmy: But that still isn’t fair!

Johnny: I know.  Your team will have more than our team.  It’s not fair to us, but we don’t mind.

Timmy: Fine.

When Mrs. Whatserface calls the class in Johnny celebrates a 49 – 0 victory with the other three Reds, while Timmy tries not to be labeled as a Blue.  “The teams weren’t fair,” he mutters under his breath.

I suppose every teacher has a discussion about what the word “fair” means.  There is the comparison between the difference between “fair” and “equal.”  Simon gets rewarded for turning in his homework while Peter does not.  It isn’t equal,  but it is fair because Simon has ADHD and only sees his single parent on weekends.  Peter gets the blue ribbon at the science fair that Simon cannot attend.  As a teacher, it is hard to figure out what is fair, because every teacher wants each student to advance one step every day.  The meaning of “step” differs with every student.  We might not be good at it all the time, but I like to think that it is our aim.

I watched a bleeding-heart, left-wing, propagandist, liberal, [insert Hannity-esque adjective] documentary recently about water.  It showed how water has become one of the hottest commodities on the market.  Water is the source of life, and whoever controls the source of life, controls life itself (an exaggeration, to be sure, but a valid thought).  In third-world countries, human beings cannot afford to drink treated water.  Why not?  Because the companies have decided that water can be owned.

Yes, companies that treat the water should be compensated for doing so.  However, the documentary points out that the bottom line cost for treated water is equal to about two dollars per person per year.  Citizens of third world countries that cannot afford water cannot afford the mark-up.  The Corporations that sell the water sell them to third-world country citizens at the same price that they charge Americans.  Much of the water that Americans drink (in bottled water, soft drinks, etc.) comes from third-world countries.  They have to drink from rivers into which their own waste is dumped, but we get to drink the treated water from their aquifers.  Why are we so lucky?  Because we can afford to be.

In the end, everyone pays the same amount for the same product.  It is fair.  Right?

Riddle Me This

The books that I have read say that teaching to the smart kids is the most effective way to get the most out of student. On the plus side, 93% of parents believe that their child is THE smart kid of the class. 5% of parents have the child is in Special Education. The remaining 2% of parents aren’t grounded in reality at all. These facts can be validated both empirically and anecdotally by looking at surveys that I have created and by asking those that agrees with me. I got this idea of corroboration from the Bush administration.

The No Child Left Behind Legislation (2001) was geared toward helping those with linguistic and social barriers that prevent their success in school. A noble end, no doubt. When one looks at the new High-Stakes Tests developed for measuring NCLB initiatives, it is easy to see that NCLB is working at improving NCLB test scores. In the past six years, NCLB High-Stakes scores have gone up consistently, narrowing the gap between the knows and the know-nots.

By contrast, the National Assessment of Educational Progress–commissioned by the US Department of Education–has been gathering reading scores since 1971. Educational professionals started to see the gap between the knows and the know-nots. Educational methods started changing and the gap started to narrow. It continued to do so for decades. That is, until about 2002, when President Bush thought that he was the first one to ask the question “Is our children learning?” So, according to NCLB, NCLB is working (Click for Shameless Jab), but on the other hand, according to the NAEP, NCLB isn’t. This, I’m not sure that NCLB statistics are any more reliable than those I make up on my blog.

But, the law is the law, so educators have to be on guard that they are teaching to the lowest common denominator. While I believe that no child should be left behind, I also believe that no child should be held back (from reaching his/her potential). Because of my stay in Public Education Penitentiary, I know how frustrating is can be to be held back. I wanted someone to push me academically, not just give me more homework. This is why I liked Mrs. Walter’s Physics class, yet never took A.P. English.

So when I am teaching, I don’t mind using terms and concepts that are too complicated for most students. I have a handful of students that will find me in private times and ask me questions like, “What is a clause?” I had slipped that word into one of my spelling tests. Not as a spelling word, but as white noise. While most students are still trying to grasp subject and predicate, others figured that out in Kindergarten and are aroused when they hear that there is more to language than a is for apple.

One thing my father did for me was to teach me riddles. The trophy riddle was the albatross sandwich riddle. Memory fails me as to whether the answer was EARNED after rigorous Q&A over the course of Sunday or just CONCESSION after an intellectually fatiguing Sunday. Regardless, father taught me that my intellect could be used for something. I could find simple answers to complicated problems. This was an empowering feeling for a child.

So, ever now and again, I will give my students a very difficult riddle. After a few minutes of knee-jerk guessing, they give up. They say “we give up.” Then I say, “that’s too bad. If you give up you will never find the answer.” You see, in their experience, giving up was a way of getting the answer. I don’t play that game, but I will reward mental exertion. After posing a riddle I can go days without giving a solution. It drives them crazy at first, but then it drives them to thought. I like that.

Part of the fun of a riddle is it’s syntax. “What gets wetter the more it dries?” The phrasing alone is provocative. Even if the answer were obvious, I would still respect the question. The mystery of solvency is a secondary–albeit more potent–source of pleasure. Once the secret to a riddle is revealed to the Eyos, they smile quietly. There is a satisfaction in watching reason pour its way through every crevice of their former puzzlement.

During a bus trip with the Eyos, I gave a few riddles. They loved it, and thus, tried to produce their own riddles. Just like a 14-year-old’s first attempt at a standard transmission, it didn’t go well. Here are some of the early submissions:

What slithers? What is white and falls from the sky? What restaurant starts with r and ends with Tuesday?

At first, I let them get away with saying that I got the answers because I am so smart, but after “riddle” #3, I was morally bound to explain that riddling isn’t just another kind of guessing game. An effective riddle has only one answer, and that the descriptions are cryptic, making the answer difficult to find.

At this point, most students returned to their games of rock, paper, scissors. But not “Jacques.” He processed the instruction for a bit, then came out with “What’s bigger than a house?” I said the name of a dinosaur, and he was pleased to have finally “stumped” me. “Nope, it was an airplane.”

“No. A brontosaurus IS bigger than a house too. Your riddle did not require me to select ‘house’ as my answer.”

“Jacques” thought a little bit longer, then came back with “okay, what is smaller than a house but bigger than a piece of dust?” Rather than guess, I showed “Jacques” how that riddle also failed. He tried to impress me with his answer. I wasn’t impressed. This was disappointing to him. Sad, no doubt, but I didn’t want to reward shoddy work; “Jacques” was capable of better. I showed him a few elements of riddles and sent him on his way. We were both satisfied.

Jacques tell me riddles every now and then. They are good. Oh, did I mention that “Jacques” is pulled out of class every day for 30 minutes to get his English as a Second Language lessons? He gets pulled during our creative writing lessons because we don’t want to leave him behind.

Simile Smile

I taught the Eyos (Eight-Year-Olds) about similes and metaphors. Not only will it help them understand the verbal world better, but I want them to be able to use symbols in their writing. The metaphor lesson will be discussed later, but here’s a little snatch from the simile lesson.

I have found that learning more abstract concepts takes a few days to process. Students can tell me definitions, but the true meaning of those definitions isn’t realized until those application moments that teachers pray for. My simile application moment came during the the daily ritual of smacking around two of my students.

We have a class rule against violence, but there is one exception: the Paper Passers. I have two paper passers that…well…pass out papers. The spoonful of sugar that helps this medicine is the paper passers’ request for a beating. I goes something like this. Mr. Bushman: Paper Passers? Paper Passers: Yes, sir? Mr. Bushman: Come forward. [The paper passers walk to the front of the room. Mr. Bushman looks at paper passer #1 in the face.] Paper Passer #1: Hard. [Mr. Bushman takes half of the papers and hits him/her over the head, then looks to the now-chuckling paper passer #2.] Paper Passer #2: Hard. [Smack. More giggling.]

For the first few weeks, there are three choices. Hard, medium, and soft. As the year goes on, hard becomes very hard, then very, very hard, then super-duper hard. And so on. I am still amazed when little “Florence” asks for a hard smacking. “Florence” can’t project her voice from the third row to my ears. She is extremely shy and does her best to not be noticed for anything–except when she is paper passer. When she is paper passer, her face gets really red, but she still walks to the front of the room, removes whatever hair appliances are making her look so very cute, clutches her eyes closed, then says “Hard.” She doesn’t laugh, but her smile informs me that she won’t be shy forever.

“Jacque” is the kid who is always looking for the boundaries. I like him for this reason. One day, he pulled a fast one. I looked into Paper Passer #1’s face and she said “Very, very, very, VERY, very, very…” and was interrupted by a smack over the head. She joined the class in a hearty chortle. “Jacque” liked his, and so began into his string of verys. I gave Jacque his smack on the head, then he looked up at me and said through his grin “soft.” The class erupted into a chorus of gleeful ohs. As I said, we have a rule against violence, and the only reason I get away with the paper passer beatings is that they ask for it. If a paper passer doesn’t give a request, I just hand him/her the papers and it is over. For “Jacque” to ask for very soft and to get very hard–although it was his full intention–was a violation of our agreement. I took a moment to apologize to “Jacque” and ask for his forgiveness. I put out the idea that I was afraid I might make this mistake again, and so verbally considered abandoning the beatings. This was booed down out of hand. “Jacque” won and so did I.

Then on one fateful day, “Janice” was my paper passer. She got to the front of the room and said “Soft as a feather.” My face lit up. “Did you hear that everyone? Janice just used an excellent simile. Say it again Janice.” Sheepishly, but proudly, Janice repeated her simile and the students gave the obligitory shout out (w00t, w00t). She handed out the paper and we did out math. But now, the precedent was set.

My paper passers continued to say “soft as a feather” for a few times, but it didn’t take long to discover that the value of a metaphor was its novelty. This is when similes were actually understood. They’ve come up with dozens. As hard as a rock, as soft as falling snow, as hard as Arnold (Schwarzenegger–their phonics teacher), as soft as a hair. Time passed and “Jacque” was a paper passer again. He marched up to the front and spoke with the confidence of a saved evangelical:

As medium as a bull!

Democracy and Cookies

I have done my fair share of offending people this election season, so I don’t imagine that my discussing democracy with my class would inspire confidence from my critics. Since I didn’t want to ignore the democratic process, but I just couldn’t muster up the courage to speak objectively, I chose a third option. We would practice.

I told the class that I had 12 cookies, but 22 people. “What should we do?” I asked. “You decide.” Then I sat down.

They started talking to each other and it got pretty loud. Some of them talked about the cookies and some of them didn’t. I let the stew cook for a while, then I stood up. “Now I want you to get into groups. You can choose whichever group you want. Groups can be as big as you want. Choose one leader for every group.”

We ended up with six parties. Seven-year-olds come up with much better names than “The Baked Good Distribution Party” or the “The Confectionary Allotment Party.” Two of the party names included the word monkey.

Each party leader got a thirty second speech to convince the class that his or her party was the best. I was impressed with the solutions they came up with. 1) Divide the cookies into fourths and hand them out until there aren’t any left. 2) Give each person half of a cookie, the give the rest to hungry people. 3) Divide the cookies into fourths, give every student a fourth, and then give the rest to poor people. And so on.

Then I gave my speech. “If you vote for the Bushman party, the twelve tallest students will get a cookie.” I lined up the class from tallest to shortest and pointed out who would get a cookie for voting for me. Then we voted.

I got 13 votes—one more than I was expecting.

I handed out one whole cookie to the twelve tallest students and watched as their faces reflected their thoughts. They weren’t allowed to eat the cookies just yet. They could only look at the cookies and each other.

“Mr. Bushman, that’s not fair,” said one of the non-cookie-getters.

“It seems fair to me,” I said. “We voted on it, and that is what the class decided.” I looked around the class, and not even the cookie-getters were satisfied. “Should we try again?”

This time, the class rallied against me. “Russell” led the amalgamation party—called the Wild Cats—and I led the Bushman Party. I allowed open discussion to continue, the Bushman Party went to one side of the room, and the Wild Cats went to the other.

I changed my stump speech. “I will give a whole cookie to everyone that votes for me,” I said. The class ran to my side.

“That’s impossible,” said Russell, “he doesn’t have enough cookies.” The class returned to Russell’s side.

“All I need is twelve of you. The first twelve to vote for me will get cookies. I can promise you that.”

The very last minute of the exercise was the most interesting. I let the students battle it out for themselves. Some students weighed the options carefully, some just went wherever their friends went, some followed the majority, some sought class-equality (no pun intended), and some sought self-interest.

When the time was up, we took a vote. The Bushman Party won. There was some cheering, some murmuring, and some heads on desks.

At this point, a good teacher would have broken up the cookies and given everyone an equal share, regardless of the vote. A good teacher would have talked about how we need to be mindful of others as well as for ourselves. A good teacher would warn against selfishness. A good teacher would discuss the pledge of allegiance, asking what is meant by the phrase “justice for all.”

I’ve never been the kind of teacher that uses the usual lesson on holidays. On Columbus Day, we read a story from the perspective of a displaced Native American family. On September 11, we discuss prejudice—especially again non-Christians. During Red Ribbon Week, we talk about capitalism.

The way I see it, there will be days set aside for the three ships and the first Thanksgiving. There will be plenty of time to talk about how evil terrorists are and how great America is. There will be ample discussion about how yucky smokers look. I’ll leave the easy stuff for third grade.

I like to think I am a good teacher.

Halloween Part 1

It was nice to find a costume that utilized my natural strengths. It was hard to pretend that I liked honey, but everything else came quite naturally. Oh, and using the restroom was tricky because the zipper was in the back. I got really good at holding it.

After having our school Halloween Parade, I decided it was time to scare the Winne out of my class.

Before school, I set up a single light bulb onto a radio controlled module that would allow me to control the intensity of the bulb from anywhere in the room. I hid the controller in my Winnie Nuck Pooh hands so the students never saw it coming. I also had a radio controlled module that was broken, but still makes a fantastic clicking/tapping sound.

I turned out the overhead light, played some ambient horror music, and paraphrased the story of “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe. For those of you unfamiliar with this morbid tale, Montressor takes his friend-turned-enemy (Fortunato) deep into a catacomb, walls him up behind masonry, and leaves him for dead. Too morbid for seven-year-olds? Maybe. Effective at making kids shake in terrror. Yes. Oh baby yes. As the duo went deeper and deeper into the catacomb, the single light bulb got dimmer and dimmer. Eventually, the light was out and they were ready for the climax. When Fortunato is completely walled up he begins to tap again the wall. Cue the clicking module. The kids were totally spooked. I screamed, they jumped, then we all had a good laugh.

Even the most frightened of children begged for more.

To make the day all the more zany, I went to the temple as a Ward assignment. I couldn’t stop thinking of R.L. Stein references and movie taglines. Here’s a sample:

• Grant Bushman: Helping the Dead on Their Day.
• It really is the day of the dead.
• Helping the dead never looked so good.
• Once a year, the dead do some work for themselves.
• You scratch my back…
• A Halloween deal the devil didn’t count on.
• Death is only the beginning.

If you have any other additions, feel free to leave a comment.

Yo Ho Ho

September 19^th is National Talk Like a Pirate Day, so my class celebrated. Mr. Bushman took the day off, but sent Cap’n Purple to substitute. Cap’n Purple was simply me in a caricatured pirate costume. We read Mem Fox’s “Tough Boris”, we looked for treasure, we learned the correct way to say ahoy, and we learned Pirate jokes. By the end of the day, my throat was raw and I had a throbbing headache from the eye patch, but it was worth it.

Recess was an interesting mix of frustration and excitement. When the other classes saw that Cap’n Purple was outside, they didn’t want to miss whatever was going on. I was mobbed by about fifty kids, and I tried to convince them that they should just continue playing. Of course, I had to do this in a pirate voice, so nobody left. I used all of my PG level curse words to get them disperse, but this just encouraged them all the more. I realized that I wasn’t going to lose them until I did something fun. “Arrgh, very well. Let’s go looting and sacking.” They cheered as we walked out into the schoolyard.

I walked to the playground and stood behind the steering wheel anchored to the playground equipment. “All aboard!” The fifty children soon became over a hundred. The fields and swing-sets were empty.

“Where are we going?” asked one of them.

“We need to surround that tree and take it hostage. When I say ‘attack’, ye all should surround that tree until it give up. Are ye ready?”

“Yeah!” they shouted.

“Ye don’t say, ‘yeah’, ye say ‘Aye, aye, Cap’n. Got it?”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

I smiled. “Attack!”

The helpless was indeed surrounded a horde children. They surrounded the tree and began to cheer. It was no longer just a tree, it was their tree. I started toward the other teachers when the horde surrounded me again.

“What should we do next Cap’n?”

We laid siege upon the soccer goals and then plundered and looted the northern playground. The Cap’n was getting winded and started to realize that no beckoning teacher could tear a matey from his crew. It was time to quit so that classes could go in. I stood by a tree and told them to disperse. They wouldn’t.

I commanded them. “Argh, ye have done well, now go enjoy your spoils.”

“No,’ one of them shouted.

“Go play, go play. No more games with the Cap’n.”

They didn’t believe me. Not wanting to encourage them further, I leaned against the tree, looked over their heads as if they weren’t there and I didn’t move a muscle. Eventually, the adventure would wear off and they would return to soccer games, swings, and kissing tag.

So I thought.

Minute after minute, they coaxed, they begged, and prodded. In time it became a silent plea, but a plea nonetheless. They stood at attention, just waiting for orders. Then my watch beeped, alerting me to the end of recess. I walked to my trumpet case, pulled out the trumpet, and my class somehow formed a line through the center of the mob. We went inside to the sound of mass disappointment.

There’s just something about a pirate.

My Job Can Beat Up Your Job

Here are ten things that I take for granted. It is only when I step back a while that I realize just how incredibly cool my job is:

10. Ever Friday—without fail—I get an unsolicited a love note.

9. I get to shout “Boo Yah, Grandma” whenever I want.

8. I can call an ad hoc recess just because I feel like it.

7. Wearing a pencil mustache actually serves a valuable purpose.

6. I cannot be tackled in a game of football. Period.

5. I get extra French fries whenever I ask for them.

4. I can turn life into a musical by singing what I am thinking.

3. It is okay to be excited or sad about small things.

2. I still get birthday presents on my birthday.

1. I get paid to be an idol without worrying about paparazzi.

To me, that’s tons better than money.

There’s No Home-like Place

A few months ago, I found myself in a very strange place emotionally. I felt like a foreigner no matter where I went. In the tumult of my pilgrimage, I sought to find home. It was a new dimension of homeless. I wanted to find that feeling of being home.

They say you can’t go home again. I was determined to show that I could. For the summer months, I left the fair town of Logan to attend school at Salt Lake Community College. I moved in with my parents. They didn’t have a room for me—nor did I want them to. I specifically asked that they not. While living there, I juggled the dynamic of being both adult and dependant. Not fun. During those months, I realized that my parent’s house was not home. Home was somewhere in Logan, and I had to find out where.

I went back to Logan as soon as I could. I packed my bags, put them in the car, went to my last class, and immediately made the trip to the great cold North. I didn’t have any place to live, but just to be back was a shot in the arm.

Since I drive a convertible now, I have to be a bit more judicious about my living quarters. Logan gets pretty snowy, so I decided that I should park in a garage—or at least a car port. I found a place right away that was a dream home. Unfortunately, they I couldn’t move in for two weeks. I would have to find accommodations.

Accustomed to being an urban camper, my first impulse was to sleep in the canyon. On the way up the canyon, I friend of my mind pulled up behind me on his new hog. He didn’t recognize me because of the new car, but I got him to pull over. He invited me to his place, and I spent a couple of nights at his place. It was a home in which I had lived for years, but it was his place now. It wasn’t my home, it was his. We talked about the old days and he admitted that the neighborhood had changed. Most of the people that knew me were gone. Careers, spouses, and opportunities had called them away. Not even the neighborhood was home.

In the meantime, I went to a three-day training conference for teachers. It was different than last year, because this year, I was experienced. I could weight the content against what I knew, not just what I anticipated. Regardless, the significant part of the conference was when I was giving a presentation and looked out into the hallway.

Watching me like a proud mother was Ann. Ann had been my mentor teacher that I had hand picked to be my mentor. She is a fantastic teacher. For the first time, I realized that she wasn’t going to be my mentor anymore. I was no longer in her nest. She was no longer my home.

After two weeks and one day, I called on the bedroom that I was anticipating. “Sorry. That room was filled.” Jerks. I went looking for a new, new place. I considered moving in with the gentlemen that I had lived with last year. Turns out all three of them were either engaged or married. Even my most recent home had dematerialized.

By this time, I starting to wonder if I would ever have a home again. The new school year was quickly approaching, and “my” class would be in third grade. I don’t know if every teacher goes through this, but I felt like getting a new class would somehow be cheating on the other. These little eight-year-olds were like my own children, and I wasn’t allowed to keep in touch with them. Third grade is like a bitter ex-wife that says that I was a lousy father and that I shouldn’t see the kids ever again. I could start again, but “my” kids would never see me again.

In this time of existential crisis, I turn to old reliable: Chinese food. It isn’t a very solvent coping strategy, but it is…well…reliable. Or so I thought. Even the China King Buffet, the mother of all Chinese Food, was gone. I guess their last Department of Health closure was their last. It is now “The House of Chen” and serves a different menu. No more General Tso Chicken, and their Sweet and Sour Sauce tastes like every one else’s.

The feeling of being foreign was back, but this time, it was accompanied by a new feeling of despair. I didn’t have any place to go. I had no refuge to which to return. I had no safe place where I could lick my wounds before returning to battle.

So I threw myself into my work. I went to my classroom and made preparations for the coming year. Even when the essentials were covered, I continued working with foresight (a commodity that I didn’t have last year). I copied reams and reams of paper. I measured and re-measured lines on posters. Having something to distract myself from my sadness was valuable. Before I knew it, the new class came and Grant was Mr. Bushman again.

I got home—which, for tonight was my sister’s home. Took off my shirt and stood in front of a fan. I was hot and tired. I started preparing for sleep. I emptied my pockets. Handkerchief, wallet, keys, and phone. And marbles. Marbles are points. Group leaders get points at the beginning of the day, and I take them away when group members require correction. The group leader gives them to me, and I put them in my pocket since I don’t have time to walk across the room and put them in the green coil pot.

I don’t have a church, a neighborhood, a place to live, a mentor, children, a favorite restaurant, or anyone with whom to discuss it. I am homeless. But somehow, seeing three oblong marbles on a make-shift bookcase made it okay. Home isn’t a place or a person. Home is a feeling. I don’t know how to produce that feeling, but I was encouraged that three little pieces of glass could. These days, home is having a pile of green Bushman Bucks poking out of my pocket. Home is having little voices yell whatever crazy statement I coached them to yell. Home is getting more French Fries than any of the other teachers. Home is helping baby boomers not be scared web-based applications. Home is work. Work is home.

If that last paragraph was touching to you, then you were probably under the same delusion I live in. Work is home? That isn’t touching, it is a sickness. The bell rings at 3:10, then home starts to fade away. Like a dream from which I am forced to awaken, home gets softer and softer, replaced by the tumultuous silence of homelessness. I go back to the place I live. I eat food. I watch youtube. I go to church. I go to parties. I flirt with girls. I get high fives. I drive my cool car. I call my family. I pray. I read. But, these places, these people, these things, they aren’t home. Most people can’t look forward to their weekends. I hate weekends. I count down the minutes until Monday Morning. I’ve got a five day weekend coming up, and I can barely breathe when I think about it. To enjoy one’s work is good. To enjoy nothing but work is dysfunctional.

Why am I writing this? Why am I publishing these thoughts on the internet? Why am I shouting into the vacuum? I guess I’m just waiting for an echo. When I hear it, I will walk toward it. Right now, the only thing that echoes is an Elementary School.

Drawing Strength

I have a rule: never expect anyone to share a feeling that I am not willing to share first. In this spirit, I have an exercise that I go through on the first day of school each year: I draw on the board.

My father is a brilliant artist. My older brother sucked all of the visual art genes out of my father, so while I was gestating, I didn’t pick up any of the nuances of color, line, shape, value, hue, blah blah blah that my older brother knows intuitively.

Before I draw my first picture, I think out loud for all of my student to hear. It sounds something like this: “I’m about to draw a picture and that makes me really nervous. You see, I don’t draw very well. Usually, my drawing doesn’t look much like what I am trying to draw. I hate that. I want to draw well, but I just can’t seem to do it. So right now, I am really nervous. I really want to draw a picture, but I don’t want anyone to laugh at me. If someone laughed at my picture that would really hurt my feelings. I would feel dumb and I wouldn’t ever want to draw anything in front of you ever again. But even though I am nervous I am going to do it. I am not going to let my fear control me. I am going to just do my best and remember that even if someone laughs, I am still a cool guy, and I can still make friends, and I can still try again. Here goes…”

Then I proceed to draw something. Usually, it is an animal because I am really bad at drawing animals. I breathe deeply with my emotions, trying to drink up every feeling of embarrassment, regret, risk, vulnerability, and panic. This is how my students must feel when they approach the board to solve a math problem, read a poem out loud, or explain their diagram.

Half way through this exercise, the miracle comes out. Initially, the miracle seems to be that my students don’t laugh. They could really hurt my feelings. That isn’t an act. I really would be rejected if they laughed. But they don’t. They are silent. But that isn’t the miracle.

The real miracle is what happens when I face them again. Feeling like a seven-year-old myself, I turn to them, hoping for their approval. Instead of puckered lips that say “Eh, it’s not all that bad,” I get rousing applause. My seven-year-old heart takes courage. “We can be friends,” I say within myself. “We can trust each other.”

Even months later, when I am explaining seed distribution or drawing an ad hoc bar graph, I still get applause. I recognize the applause now as the same kind of applause that they my little Asperger’s Syndrome student when he gets an answer right. It isn’t a patronizing applause. It genuinely feels like one person helping another person to stop feeling so afraid of his deficiencies.

As time has gone on, the applause has developed an epiphenomenal murmur. While I am adding details to my basic form, the students will whisper to each other “Wow,” “That’s great,” “What a great drawing,” or my favorite, “That’s the best [noun] I’ve ever seen.” It makes me want to keep drawing. I like doing the very thing that I hate about myself.

I try to remember my little support group when interacting with non-children. I try to murmur when they are drawing and clap when they face me. I think it makes us all feel a little better about the demons we carry.

Idiom, Sir?

From the first day of school, I would differentiate between when I was speaking idiomatically or literally. I told them what an idiom was, and I challenged them to call attention to me when I used a new one. They really enjoyed that, so I read them a book called “In a Pickle” which describes the origins of some popular idioms.

When we read the meaning of “On Top of the World”, I explained some scenarios wherein someone might feel on top of the world. “When you get a perfect score on a test, you might feel on top of the world. When you score the winning point in a soccer game, you might feel on top of the world. When I kissed a girl for the first time, I felt on top of the world.”

Naturally, the reaction was a twenty-six part harmony of the word gross. The girls giggled, the boys furrowed. Then “Neil” raised his hand and asked, “What was her name?”

When I lie to myself, I say that I like the draw these situations out because it models for students the opportunity that story tellers have to heighten excitement by postponing the resolution of a conflict. This helps them with their writing—so the lie goes. When I am honest with myself, I know that I just love the attention. Same rationale, different person benefited.

“Not telling,” I say with swagger. The children are naturally disappointed, not realizing that even if I said the name, it wouldn’t change anything. “Let’s go to the next idiom.”

They rebel. They beg. I show signs to weakening, then I open the book. They plead, I acquiesce. I’ve got them right where I want them. “Her name is Esther.”

Then there was a wild explosion of satisfaction. High fives, hands to hearts, and more giggling. They don’t know Esther any better that I know the prime minister of Canada, but they had broken down their teacher. It was a victory.

I explained that she was now married with children and that we aren’t in contact any more. I opened the book and went on to the next idiom. That’s when Neil—with uncharacteristic disregard for the hand raising rules—belted out:

“What’s her number?”