Antonio moved to Wisconsin. Again.
Kelly moved next door (after the social worker showed up after the my-mommy-hits-me-with-a-belt incident after a week had gone by since I reported it after which her mommy kept her out of school for three days and threatened to take her to another school unless the principal switched her out of my class after which he asked me how I felt about this [good principal!] after which I said whatever she thinks is best for her child after which Kelly moved next door).
We’re down to 18. For now. (LAUSD threatens to turn that into 25 by springtime.)
But something’s in the air. I believe it’s called change.
We all came back from Thanksgiving changed. More relaxed, happier, somewhat plumper around our middles.
But, most importantly, we came back focused. I want to get each wild thing over his or her individual hurdles, and the wild things seem ready to jump. Not up and down in a wild rumpus (though maybe some of that), but they seem ready to see themselves as learners. As Children Who Try Most If Not All of the TIme. As the Arabs and Persians used to say, as People of the Book.
Today they ALL wanted to learn more words (translucent, opaque, lurk, plunge, surface, plankton, krill, bloom, lively). Lurk, especially, was a big hit. They lurked under tables and lurked under chairs. They caught each other lurking and played lurk-tag. They learned about the characteristics of mammals (new words: live young, warm-blooded) and debated whether chicks fell into the mammal category because they had fur. (New word: down.) Then they moved on to spelling long u patterns. Then to subtraction with regrouping. Then back to lurking. They could have lurked all day if I’d have let them.
I was out the day before Thanksgiving. The substitute, a retired teacher on whom I call whenever I have to be gone from my room, a veteran special ed teacher full of patience and humor and frankness, took charge of my wild things. Here’s what her note said:
They were lively, but they tried so hard.
I was thrilled to hear that. As were they. Maybe we’re turning a corner.
Who knows what lurks around it.
on Dec 5th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
So glad I found you and your blogs again! Love reading it. So sweet. so sad. so inspiring. keep it up. Can i somehow link this to my Facebook page so others can find it and access it?
on Dec 6th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Thanks for visiting! To link to your Facebook page, click on that green < ShareThis icon, and it’ll open up a box of sharing possibilities. One of them is Facebook. You just need to click it and log onto your FB account and you can post the bloglink onto your webpage.