Hello, Friends. I do realize that this blog has been completely forsaken, so I’m going to tell the only things I have to tell…which are more classroom anecdotes. Consider this your fair warning if you’re tired of them- that’s all you’ll find here. =)
Disclaimer done. Here we go.

Last week, a child, whom we’ll call Princess,raised her hand to inform me that someone had left mean notes in her desk. One said “Ugly Princess” and one said “you are stuped”. Oh, and one of them was signed, “From Lily.”

Now, not only is Lily not quite dim enough to sign her own name to a mean note, but she also knows how to spell.

So I take a quick handwriting sample from the class. (By the way, did you know stupid is a curse word? When I asked them to write down ” you are stupid,” they looked at me as if I’d asked them to eat a talking baby rabbit.)

The sample narrowed it down to three suspects. One of whom was Princess, who gave me a sample that read “ulgly” and “stoopit”

To which I was enlightened for the first time to the depths of her street smarts. Her spelling isn’t that bad. Substituting an e for an i is one thing…

I’ll spare you the full TEN MINUTE INTERROGATION that followed. Here’s the highlights.

Me: “Princess, did you write these notes to yourself?”
P: “No.”
Me:”Are you sure?”
P:”I wouldn’t try to frame someone.”

(Mental Me: CAUGHT YOU!)

Me: “Okay…see, that makes me think you did.”
P: “I didn’t.”
Me: “Right…let me show you this. Do you see how you spelled stupid? Well, the person who wrote the note didn’t spell it this way. I think you spelled it really wrong on purpose.”

P:”Did the person spell ugly the same way I did?”

(YOU’RE REALLY IN IT NOW! I KNOW IT!.. but HOW to convince you that I know it?)

Me: “Actually, no. But it sure looks like they added that extra l in ulgly, doesn’t it? Maybe they added it quickly after they wrote the word? Maybe to try to trick me? ”
P:” __________”

(This is old. Moving in for it.)

Me:” You know what really makes me think you did it?”
P: “____________”

Me:” If someone wrote a mean note to me, I’d be crying. And if my teacher thought I did it.. but it wasn’t me…I’d be so incredibly sad. But you. You seem more scared that you’re getting caught.”

As I’m speaking, Princess is really working to squeeze out some tears. I’m not sure what she was thinking of. But it was very, very sad.

To conclude the story, she finally confessed THE NEXT DAY after I asked her about it once every hour. (Applying the Biblical principle of repeatedly asking for something until the person is worn down and you get it.)

Other shorter stories:

After trying to explain who our Ast. Principal is, I had to refer to her outfit before they realized who I was talking about. Which led to a discussion/comparison of her outfit to my outfit.

“Okay, wait, do you want to talk about my outfit, or do you want to hear the compliment our Ast. Principal gave you?”

Of course they chose compliment. After going on for about five minutes to pass on the aforementioned compliment, Ed raised his hand.

“Now can we talk about your outfit?”

This one’s so sad, I’m not sure I should post it. But one day, there was a STENCH in the classroom. I thought one of the boys had a major after lunch moment. Half the class was experiencing a gag reflex.
Hoping it would clear itself- or the mystery child would air him/herself out on the playground, we headed out for recess.

AFTER OUR 20 MINUTE RECESS, as we’re heading in to art, one boy ran up to me and confessed that he’d pooped in his pants.

I guess recess really does beat out just about anything….including comfort and hygiene. (It turns out he was getting over a stomach virus. Poor, self-neglecting kid.)

Trying to get the kids thinking about impossible (for our grade, since we don’t quite do negatives) math problems, I asked, “If I had five dollars and Bill asked me for 7 dollars, then…”
Student pipes up, “Then you’d be broke.”