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BOLD BEGINNING
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Teachingis a career that can be hysterical some days. I have great memories of hilariously funny moments, that I will never forget. A moment that is etched in my mind forever, goes back 10 years ago to when my class went to confession.“Miss Nicholas, Nick is crying!” I heard as I had my back to the class, trying to write notes on the dirty, dusty chalkboard. I turned around and there he was, crying!
A few times a year my class would go to confess their sins to the priest while talking about all the wrongs they did in the world, in order to avoid going to the underworld. This was a ritual in a Catholic school and by my 2nd year I was used to it. The kids didn’t take it too seriously so I was shocked when I found one of my 6th grade students, Nick, in tears after leaving confession. His tears were falling out of his eyes like heavy rain fall, from the sky, during a hurricane.Nick stood there with his hands over his eyes, wiping his tears and battling with the fact that his classmates were looking at him like he was a weirdo, but also battling with his inside which told him to confess. He was so embarrassed his face was bright red, like a tomato, and at that point, I knew I had to address the situation and not just ignore it, because the entire class was thrown off and in silence. I wouldn’t have been able to teach with this kid sobbing in the room, so I asked him to come to my desk where he confessed to me that he cheated on his spelling test and that he forgot to tell the priest. He insisted on going back to confess to Father Rock. He continued to cry and beg me to go, but the truth was that the church was not next door, it was a distance away and I could not send a child on their own. Nick continued to sob and as if it wasn’t weird enough that a 6th grade boy was crying in front of his peers, it was even weirder that he was crying because he forgot to confess his sins. I felt bad for him. So I called the school principal, who was a nun, and asked her if she could bring him to see the priest. She agreed it was best to bring him, so she picked up Nick and off they went to confess his sins.
What was that horrible smell, was all that lingered in my mind for the first few minutes, of the longest lock down drill of my life.Lock down drills have become an ordinary occurrence in schools these days. When I was a kid, fire drills were a big deal, but now there are all sorts of drills. These drills are different because you stay in the classroom, huddled together, in a part of the room where no one can see you from the door, in silence, with the lights out. Time passes slowly, even though it’s really only a minute or so that goes by. Most kids take it seriously, but others are goofy, as most middle school kids are. During one lock down drill it was hard for anyone to be serious. I guess one kid had a rotten lunch and was sharing the rotten smell with us during this drill, if you can imagine what this means. As if causing your classroom to smell isn’t bad enough when sitting next to your peers, it’s really awful to have it happen when sitting face to face, knee to knee,stuck in the corner, under a table, with your peers, in silence. I don’t think you get just how close you are in a lock down drill. You’re huddled together, as close as sardines in a can, and I imagine that smells too! Well that day it wasn’t silent, as the kids tried so hard to keep from laughing! The smell was so bad that I could hardly breathe. The smell was as rotten as cheese, that was left out for months!The kids were gasping for air while trying to hold in their cheeks. Sean was proud though, of course, and gladly admitted to dropping the bomb. From that day on, every body called Sean stinky. I wonder if they still call him stinky 8 years later?I have to say, no doubt, that teachers have the funniest stories of their days with kids, and every single funny moment is awesome!
“Splat!” was the sound I heard when I fell into the ditch.It was a tradition at this one school for the 5th grade to go on a 3-day trip in the woods, sleeping in cabins, hiking all day with friends, and playing games at night. Like always in my career, I suspected that I was being set up for more funny moments to remember forever!It was also a tradition to play the game predator or prey, which was a legend passed down from grade to grade. Basically in kindergarten you counted the days until you would become a 5th grader who would be able to play predator or prey. Basically, it’s like manhunt but with teams that represent levels of the food chain. There are the human, the hawks, the rats, the insects and the plants. The plants had the most amount of players and the humans had the least amount of players, just like the food pyramid is largest at the bottom. If you got tagged by a group above you, you became one of their team members and at the end, the team with the most players wins. Well of course I was a plant, so I was running for my life from nearly every kid in the grade! The territory was a huge, at least a hundred acres, or maybe more! There were trees and high grass to hide behind, as well as hills and rocks and cabins. I was hiding under some cabins with my students watching everyone run by us, but unfortunately you were not able to stay in the same place for more then 10 minutes. So we ran to hide behind a hill. Little did we know, a group of insects came running at us, from behind us, so when we saw them, it scared the day lights out of me! For a second, I forgot it was a game, and began running for my life, as if I was being chase by killer bees!My heart was racing like the engine of a race carand I could hardly form real words out of my mouth, until I ran right into a ditch! I fell right into it, and then covered by pure mud! It was as gooey as fresh baked cookies, right out of the oven!Other students also running fell in the ditch with me, all covered in mud. We were then taken hostage by the insects. Yet again, another funny moment, to add to my teaching funny list.
As I ran running down the hallway, gasping for air, with my heart racing, I wondered if he would be ok. I wondered where he was, while I held back my years.It was that same school where I lost a student. During that year, I had a group of students who really struggled to pack up at the end of the day, so it became routine for me to help them pack. I would send my class to their special, which was at the end of the day, with my classroom aide, while I helped pack up this group of kids. After they were packed up, I would send them one by one to their special, which today was library. I had finished 3 students and had 2 to go. I packed up Matt and sent him on his way and then Hunter and sent them on their way, individually. Finally, the day was done. I then went about my normal teacher activity of grading papers and got a call from the library, about 15 minutes after sending the kids off. The librarian wanted to know if I still had Matt, because his classmates said he was in school today. At that very moment, I could tell that this was going to be yet another funny moment to add to my list.I told her that I didn’t have him and called the office to ask them to make an announcement to find him. I was sure that he was goofing around somewhere or in the bathroom. After 3 or 4 calls for him to come the office, he did not arrive. The school began to panic. The superintendent, principal, vice principal, nurse, guidance counselor, business administrator, secretary, and myself began running around the school campus looking for him, police included. No one could find him! I was in tears, everyone was panic stricken. The police then went to Matt’s house to see if he by any chance left school to go home. Sure enough, on his couch, was Matt, eating a granola bar! I couldn’t believe it! How could this kid not notice that no other kids were leaving school, or that there were no cars waiting for kids? The police officer asked him why he was home so early and Matt insisted that school was over. After going back and forth, Matt finally saw that it was only 2:50 on his cell phone, knowing that school ends at 3:00. He apparently broke into tearslike a waterfall and was escorted in a police car back to school. It wasn’t so funny that day, but as I look back on that moment, I can laugh out loud, like I have with the other many funny times in my career.
Kids get off track easily. As a teacher, I know this fact all too well. So when I bent over and split my pants, in front of my 6th grade class, I knew that I couldn’t stop teaching to address my issue, or I would have lost them for the rest of the period. As I squatted down to pick up a piece of chalk, I felt my pants start to get tight, almost stuck, around my thighs. Sure enough, they split! My mind was exploding on the inside, but on the outside I remained as cool as a cucumber. I then made the quick decision to grab a stapler. The truth is that my thigh was hanging out of my pants, like bubble, so not only was it embarrassing to split my pants, but the unique way that my skin was popping out of my pants was even more embarrassing. After some quick thinking, I grabbed a stapler! Without even stopping class, I began to staple my pants together. I never even stopped teaching, continued to talk about the ancient Egyptians, as if my class heard one word that I was saying, as they watched me staple my pants back together. The look of shock on their faces was priceless, as I am sure mine was too! Moments like these, I am glad to have happened, because it keeps a smile on my face, even on a bad day, because my students always keep me laughing!