Part 2: Flying, Climbing, and the Truth

More fun stories from my classroom :)

Flying: It is a quite well known fact, that what goes up must eventually come back down. Now with my kids this is something that is very, very hard to understand…I am sure that none of you ever had the urge growing up to fling yourself off your house roof in the desperate attempt to learn how to fly, feel free to correct me if I am wrong. But today as I was watching the first graders play on the playground I witnessed one of my students, by name of Kota, throw himself off the slide. He hit the ground with a plop and just lay there. I naturally freaked out and ran over to him, expecting to see broken bones or at least a bloody nose. But instead I was greeted by a very stunned Kota who contented himself by pulling the grass at his feet up by the roots and grunting out answers as I dusted off his shirt and pants and told him sternly to never do that stunt again.

Climbing: Boys have to climb; they must climb up anything that is climbable, whether it is the radio tower on Sokeh’s Ridge or the railing in front of my classroom. They must climb it. Now Miss Cramer, my comrade on the second floor, was on duty during lunch recess one day when she suddenly saw Wolfgang standing on the railing as if this was something that was quite normal for anyone to do. Now the only thing below our second story room is concert and a ditch full of mud. Naturally Marla freaked out and rushed to Wolfgang who was very oblivious to his danger. Wolfgang is generally oblivious to just about everything that goes on in the world around him, he is a born wanderer and loves to climb…usually he will climb over the wooden railing and slide down the fire like pole (that probably holds up something really important) to ground level and run around the playground until I notice that he is missing.

Telling the truth: Being truthful appears to be something that is very hard for a 5 or 6 year old to understand or even comprehend. This is especially true when they know that they have done something dreadfully wrong. For example, today after lunch recess two of my boys were playing at the drinking fountain. And I watched them from the top of the stairs as they splashed and dunked their heads under the water and were generally having a good time. Now my kids know that it is a great sin to play in the water and not drink the water…generally when they are playing in the water I will have to go and fetch them…which doesn’t put me in all that good of a mood. So today when I had collected my two lost sheep by name of Marson and T.M. I asked them if they had been playing in the water…
“No teacher!” T.M blurted out…I think I should interjected and tell you that both T.M and Marson had water dripping from their heads, their shirts where wet, they were slipping around the sidewalk on wet slippers…yes they had been playing in the water fountain again. I looked down at them and sternly said.
“I believe that you are lying to teacher.”
“No! No Teacher we weren’t!” both little boys shook their heads and tried to pull off their most pathetic looking little doggie eyes possible. At this point I looked them from head to toe.
“Your hair is soaking, which in turn is dripping onto your shirt, you legs are wet from the knee down, you have been slipping on the sidewalk because your slippers are soaking…now are you sure that you haven’t been playing in the water?”
“Teacher we haven’t been!” They both squeaked out.
“Is that your final answer?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, you are going to Miss Cramer’s classroom to stand in the corner, I want you to think about your answer that you have just given me.” With that I gently sent my two naughty boys to stand in the corner. Fifteen minutes later I collected my very tired little sheep from the third grade classroom. Once again I asked them if they had been playing in the water at the drinking fountain.
“We weren’t.” choked T.M. He was looking frantically at Marson, who was looking everywhere except at T.M. Finally T.M with head hanging said, “We were.” With that I lead them to the classroom and their language test.
There are times when it is hard to figure out if they are lying or not, but sometimes it is very obvious.