Keys, tears, and broken hearts

Keys…isn’t amazing how important keys are? Like here I have a key to my apartment, a key to my classroom, a key to the gate that is in front of the office, two keys to the teacher’s workroom (one key that works and one key that doesn’t) and I have a little yellow tag that says my name on it, just incase my keys sprout legs and walk off. Now you are all probably wondering why I bring up the fact of why keys are so important. Well today was Thursday and I was so tired, I had slept late and was rushing around trying to get ready for my day…and at one point in that rush I discovered that my keys were not on the cord that I wear around my neck. I was so puzzled. I knew that I had put my keys into my back pack the night before when I was climbing into bed (because I knew that it would be very foolish to misplace my keys in my room, cause it is a wreck), but now in the morning I could see quite clearly that my keys were no where in sight. I wandered out of my room and asked Marla if she had seen my keys…she said no, but maybe Becky borrowed them to go down the workroom. I settled down to eat a breakfast of eggs and toast while I thought about where on earth I could have left my keys. Soon Becky came back and I asked her if she had seen my keys…she hadn’t, then the search took place. I was literally looking everywhere for my keys…on my bed, behind my bed, under the stacks of boxes around our beds, out in the living room, but I couldn’t find them. I silently prayed, asking for a clue…instantly I got a little response…”in your classroom” I was like “No, they would not be in my classroom…remember I opened the apartment door with my keys…no they are in here.” So I went back to my room and went through the same search I had done a few minutes before…it was now past staff worship time, but I didn’t care I wanted to find my keys…the little voice persisted, but I resisted…finally I knew that I would have to go and tell Nollie that I needed him to open my classroom door when he was done with gate duty. I trudged down to the office, talked to Nollie and then made my way to my classroom. Once I got there all my kids pestered me with questions, “Teacher why aren’t you opening the door?”
“Because teacher misplaced her keys.”
“But why would you do that?”
“Well sometimes teachers are forgetful and misplace things that are important.”
“But teacher are we going to be outside all day long?”
“No, Nollie will come and open the door and if he doesn’t come Evangeline will come with her key.”
“But teacher what are we going to do?”
“Be patient.”
I really can’t write down all that they said…I spent the waiting time calling back students and telling others not to climb on that railing or to come back up the stairs…or not to look in the windows of the different classrooms and well to stay put. Soon I saw Nollie coming with his rings of keys and a hammer and a screw driver. When he got to my room all my kids crowded around trying to get a better look as he patiently tried one key after another. But for some reason he didn’t have the key to my classroom door…so he prepared to break open the back door and all of the boys rushed over to watch and ask questions…soon the door was open and all of my students piled in and ran around the classroom…choosing their seat for the day…because at that point I hadn’t assigned seats yet.
I cut out and put up their sticker chart, got the lunch orders and sent McRon off with the basket to go to the café and the money that went to the office. Then Evangeline came in and I got ready to read the worship story…I had looked in my room for my keys and I didn’t see them anywhere…then I suddenly I decided to look up on top of my filing cabinet…and under the box of crayons that was on top of a book, which was on top of a trash bag…I found my keys…all safe and sound…too bad, I thought to myself, too bad I didn’t listen to God the first time.

Wednesday was one of those days when I almost wanted to crawl on my hands and knees begging my students not to get hurt in recess…The entire recess I spent my time comforting the hurting and reassuring those that didn’t want to play because they were afraid they would get hurt. When Maggie and I blew our whistles to end recess I saw Wolfgang and TM leading a crying Chad towards me, of course the rest of the class had to go and see. “Oh no!” I thought, “What has happened to him this time?” I shoved my way through my class and yelled at them to get back in line. I knelt down by Chad and sweetly asked what happened. (A teacher can change their voice from loud to soft or harsh to gentle in a blink of an eye) Ever noticed how hard it is for young children to tell you what is wrong when they are in full cry? Through his sobs this is the story that I understood.
“I was running and TM took his foot like this (here he shows me, tears still flowing down his face) and I fell…and when I tried to get up Wolfgang hit me in the side with his head and I fell down again.”
He started to cry all over again…and I bent over him and hugged him telling him that it would be alright, at the same time I looked straight at Wolfgang and informed him that he was in big trouble…TM had slipped away…but as many of my students have discovered they can run, but they can’t hide from me or Mr. B…and the principal’s office was where my three boys were headed…Chad wasn’t in trouble…but TM and Wolfgang have this bad habit of after clobbering someone looking at me and saying “Teacher it wasn’t me!” So I wanted Chad to tell Mr. B what he had told me…Once Wolfgang realized where he was headed he started to cry…actually sob would probably be a better term for it…I found Mr. B…told him briefly what had happened and handed over the three of them, then I went to my classroom and got to deal with the 14 other students who were generally running around the classroom like a bunch of little Indians.

Tuesday was a really fun day, it was long but fun too. Reading is our first subject of the day on Tuesdays and Thursdays…remembering something important I had learned from teacher in-service day on how to teach kids to read…I decided to try it out on my students. I would teach them the sound of /a/ like in cat. You should have seen it…I wrote “a” on the board…pointed at it, said /a/ and asked them to repeat it. We did that four or five times. Then I wrote c-a-t on the board and asked the class to say the sound of each letter in order to sound out the word…when that went well I wrote other words on the board and then started picking on people and asking them to sound out the word and then to say it. They seemed to really in joy that…especially when I told them that they were beginning to read.

Later that day as I was working at my desk and my students were drawing I hear a wail come from somewhere in the back of the room. “Teacher! McRon broke my heart!” At this I started laughing, because it sounded so funny…what happened was this…TM had cut out a paper hear and I guess written in it (most of the girls in my class have been cutting out hearts writing in them and then giving them to me…inside I read “I love Denzel, I love teacher, I miss you I love you” rather funny to read the first time…but by the 20th time…it is getting rather old) now at some point the heart fell on the ground and McRon picked it up, now I don’t know if he crumpled it because he knew what it was or for the fact that he wanted to make a basket by throwing it into the trashcan (something that I really hate them to do…because I am always finding paper everywhere)…but either way he crumpled it in front of TM and somehow TM recognized it and wanted it back…hence the screaming…I didn’t do anything about because I was laughing and Evangeline was laughing so hard that she had to put her head down on the table…the boys knew we were laughing at them…but I don’t think they knew why.

Anyway that is all the interesting news at the moment