by John Pearson
Apparently, during recess, MP threw Jessica down to the ground out on the field. As a quick measure, Kelly took him down to Mrs. Andrews’ room to stand in a corner. By the way, Lucifer has left the building (and the school), so I am once again on Mrs. Andrew’s good list.
We got to her classroom and took Mark Peter out into the hallway for questioning. At first, his sole defense of his actions was, “We was playin’ football!” Over and over, as if that excused any misbehavior. Finally, trying a different tact, I asked him, “Was Jessica holding the football when you tackled her?” I wasn’t really surprised when he silently shook his head. When I asked him why he didn’t at least tackle the person WITH the football, he informed me, quite naturally, that there was no football. Amazed, I said, “So you weren’t playing football, you were playing tackle, and you, a big, tall boy, decided to tackle the smallest little girl out there?” He stared at me, wooden-faced, for a full ten-count before finally declaring, “But we was playin’ football!” I only wish I had been carrying something yellow in my pocket that I could have thrown at him, penalty-flag-like.
Kelly and I decided to suspend him for three days at home. We wrote up a discipline sheet and put it in the outgoing mailbox, with the knowledge that it wouldn’t get to MP’s parents until Tuesday or so. We gave MP a copy of the form to take home, with the knowledge that it would probably NEVER get to his parents. Remember that they don’t have a phone, so we couldn’t call them. We also made it very clear to MP that he was not to come to school this week until Thursday. We probably should have made another home visit to tell his parents, but after having just been there the night before, we were hoping things would just work out the right way. How very foolish of us.
This morning, guess who showed up on my doorstep, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I stopped him in the doorway and reminded him that he was supposed to be at home. The discipline form was crumpled up at the bottom of his backpack. I sent him down to the office to ask one of the assistant principals to take him home. I should have taken him to the office myself, or at least called ahead, but I got swamped with other things.
At lunchtime, one of the other teachers mentioned that they saw Mark Peter going to lunch with Mrs. Andrews’ class. I went down to Mrs. Carpenter’s room, where all of the fourth grade teachers eat (and where the lunch detention kids stand in corners) and sure enough, there he was. Mrs. Andrews told me that MP had shown up at her door this morning and told her that I wanted him to stay in her class for another day.
Needless to say, I was a bit miffed. I drove MP home myself, after one of the teacher’s aides agreed to watch my class. MP’s father was surprised to see us, as he of course had no idea what had been happening. I had to explain the tackling incident as well as the three-day suspension, which will now be starting tomorrow.
I think that our boy Mark Peter is mere millimeters away from getting himself sent to DAEP, which is the District Alternative Education Program (aka the School for Wayward Miscreants). I would say he’s skating on thin ice, but knowing his predilections, perhaps I should say he’s picnicking on thin ice.
Later,
Warden Woodson
Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Mad Libs still rule
Hey buddy, You’re right, I made a lot of assumptions with Mark Peter the other day — assumptions that he would do what I asked — and they didn’t quite pan out. You know what they say about people who assume. But I didn’t take him down to the office myself because I really did get busy with the class, not because I was drinking too much egg nog, as you imply. ‘Tis the season, but there are still two more days to go before I can do the Nog.
Enough about problem children; let’s talk about problems of another sort. Since so much of the third grade math TAKS test deals with word problems, we practice them every single day. We’re at a point now where we want the kids to start writing some word problems of their own, in the hopes that thinking up their own will help them better understand the reasoning behind other problems.
The children are not quite ready to put together their own problems without any help just yet. I’ve seen a few try, and they look something like this:
Tommy had 25 cents. Jenny had 34 cents. How many more total dollars did Tommy each have left?
Not a horrible start, but not exactly what I’m looking for. They’re using clue words like Dick Lorenzo uses teeth whitener — to ridiculous excess. So I started them off with a story frame. A story frame has most of the problem already written out, but the kids get to put in some of their own information. Here was today’s frame:
_________(Name)_________ the Bear was collecting acorns. He picked _________(Number)________ acorns from one tree, and then he picked _________(Number)________ acorns from another tree. How many acorns did he collect altogether?
Turns out that the biggest hurdle to overcome in this new exercise was the name slot. The kids had no problem whatsoever thinking up numbers to fill in, but some of them took nearly ten minutes to come up with a name for the bear! I collected the papers when we were done, and between the two classes, there were some interesting choices. Some were alliterative like Billy the Bear and Buzzy the Bear. Some were fellow classmates — Rachel the Bear, and Carlos the Bear. There were even two or three kids that chose Mister Woodson the Bear. (I smell extra credit!!) The strangest choice of all (at least from my perspective) was Sally’s. “Mr. Woodson” apparently was not specific enough for her, so she had “Jack Woodson the Bear” out collecting acorns. Hmm... I might need to send my apprentice, Juan, over to have a little talk with her about that.
Over on the numbers side, the choices ranged from lazy to over-achieving, but mostly they were in the reasonable range. Not surprisingly, Jessica had her bear picking one single acorn from each tree, while Marvin went to the other extreme and loaded the trees up with 999,999,999 acorns each. Except that in a slight case of dyslexia, it came out as PPP,PPP,PPP acorns.
Before I go, let me leave you with another story frame, and you fill in the blanks:
___(Name)___ the engineer still owes me those ___(Number)___ bucks I loaned him for dinner last weekend.
Later,
Yogi
Date: Friday, December 19, 2003
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: How the Grinch stole Christmas vacation
Hey bud, I’m sorry sir, but I refuse to fill in your “adult-themed” Mad Libs. I’ll give you a verb or a place name, but the slots are not supposed to be labeled “Body parts that rhyme with rubies.”
Unless I’m mistaken, we have something in common — we both have some time off coming! You have to work next week, but the plant still shuts down between Christmas and New Year’s, right? That hasn’t changed, has it? First day of school in the new year is January 6th, so all of my little Whos will have a nice two-week break in which to forget everything they’ve learned so far.
Today was fun, with a tint of sadness. The sad part is that today was Ariel’s last day here. She and her family are moving to some small town I’ve never heard of, about two hours east of here. As I’m sure I’ve told you before, Ariel is one of my favorite students, and I am really going to miss her.
But as I said, the day was fun, because we did Christmas activities. Mrs. Swanson made ornaments with the class over in her room. They were little construction paper cutouts with glitter and a picture of the kid glued to them. They even made one for me. My tree can be complete now!
Meanwhile, I made stockings (or attempted to make stockings) in my room. Each child cut a couple of stocking shapes out of brown paper lunch sacks using templates I made last night. Then they punched holes along the edges and used red yarn to hold them together. Sounds easy, right? Well, it WAS easy — up until the point when we actually began.
By the time the day was done, a few of the kids had beautiful stockings and were decorating them with crayon
s and stickers. Kari, Xander, and Maria all had stockings that looked fantastic. Others had tried to punch holes in their two cutouts separately, and the holes weren’t lining up. And then there was Plakton, who was still trying to figure out how to use the scissors. Don’t worry, I kept a close watch to make sure he didn’t poke himself in the eye with them.
My own big problem was with the yarn. I will freely admit that I use yarn about as frequently as I use hair extensions — not often — so I had a rough time. I would start pulling on a strand and get it a ways out, but then it would start knotting up, and I was stuck untangling knots for much of the day. A couple of times, I had to send a kid with the skein over to Mrs. Swanson’s room, and she would send it back straightened out (the yarn, not the student).
I even had my own little Tiny Tim moment. I got a Santa hat from one of the teachers (my Secret Santa) earlier in the week, and I wore it for most of today. When I put it on with 3F, Marvin exclaimed, “Yay! Mr. Woodson is cool now!” Did you catch that? Marvin finally thinks I’m cool — not quite the same as throwing away crutches and walking, but a Christmas miracle all the same.
Some of the kids even brought me gifts. Not one hundred dollar bills, as I had hoped for, but sweet gestures nonetheless. Kari and Susan gave me candy with decorative holders, Juan gave me a nice little picture frame, and Alex gave me a card. I think at some point Thomson may have even given me the finger.
Well, in case I don’t see you before then, have a very merry Christmas! Tell all the good gentiles there the same from me. Oh, and feel free to drop by on the 23rd. We’ll be having our annual “Good Ol’ Fashion Woodson Family Christmas Movie Marathon.” ™ This is the night we watch as many Christmas-themed movies as we can stomach. We always watch It’s a Wonderful Life, Scrooged, and Christmas Vacation; the others are rotated in and out. Round about 3 or 4 AM, when everyone else is passed out on the floor, my brother and I usually put up Die Hard. Hey, it’s a Christmas movie!
Ho ho ho! (Now I have a machine gun)
Good King Wenceslaus
Date: Thursday, January 8, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Naming rights
Yo Freddy! I’m BAAAAAAAAACK! I know you guys have been back at the plant for almost a week now, but we just started back again. We had a “teacher prep day” on Monday (a delightful opportunity to sit in a freezing cafeteria and wish we were still on break!), and then Tuesday was the first day of class in the new year. We’ve slowly eased back into that whole learning thing — don’t want any heads exploding after a two-week hiatus.
I do have to say though, I missed my kids over the break. Sure, it was nice to sleep in till 3 every day, but things were getting almost boring without Marvin around to rock the casbah.
I learned over break that my partner Kelly is pregnant. I asked her husband Frank if they knew who the father was, and he said they were checking into it. Nancy told me that Wendy from purchasing is pregnant as well, so please congratulate her for me. And I have a precautionary tale that you might want to pass on to her. I wouldn’t want the same fate to befall her child that befell my newest student.
Harry just enrolled in my homeroom Tuesday. Today I received his cumulative file from his previous school. This is sort of like the dreaded “permanent record” kids are always being threatened with. Strangely, instead of saying “Harry,” the stickers on the front of the file said “Baby Boy.” I thought that was a bit odd, so I walked down to Jenny’s office to ask her about it. Jenny is our records person, and she enrolls all of the kids.
Jenny told me that she had spoken with Harry’s mother when she was here on Tuesday. The story is that soon after Harry was born, his mother noticed a bracelet around his wrist that said “Baby Boy” along with her last name. She figured that somebody must have already named her child, and apparently the name was agreeable with her!
Harry actually went by Baby Boy up until about a year ago, presumably when an observant second grade teacher had a conversation with the mother. I’m sure it was a very short conversation: “You mean? Of course! D’OH!” I suppose it could have been worse. His first name could have been “First Name.” (Or “Jobediah”)
The thing I’m curious about now is, did this mom really rename her child “Harry,” or did she just look at the top of his head and start calling him “Hairy?” Either way, be sure to tell Wendy to have a name ready in advance.
One last piece of news that I know you’ve been waiting to hear. My Fantasy Football season wrapped up over the break, and I came in third. My dad’s team, Rebel Yell, won the Super bowl, while my brother Zack’s team, Margaritaville, came in second. But my Absolut will win it all next year, this I vow! Oh, had I mentioned that we all named our teams after brands of alcohol? Let me know if you want to join our league next year — there’s still room for a Wild Turkey.
Talk to you later,
Male Caucasian Woodson
Date: Tuesday, January 13, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: LOCK DOWN!
Hey bud, Thanks for passing the warning on to Wendy, and tell her hi right back. Those are some lovely names she has picked out, and I’m glad she’s already put some thought into it. But you might want to tell her to bring a Sharpie to the hospital just in case...
Yesterday marked the first day of third grade “Lock Down.” The students had it pretty easy in 2003, but now it’s time to release the hounds, turn the searchlights on the electric fences, and start rationing water.
Wait, that would be a PRISON lock down. Our lock down is a kinder, gentler version. Our version of lock down refers to the time between 8:00 and 10:00 that is devoted strictly to TAKS reading preparation. Even us math teachers are in on it, going over reading strategies for those two hours each morning. To further this goal, all of the third graders have been split up according to their reading ability, from great to poor.
In the past, I think they used to name these groups like they were sports teams. When the theme was birds, the great readers were the Eagles, the average readers were the Robins, and the poor readers were the Buzzards. When the theme was trees, the high group was the Redwoods, the middle group was the Maples, and the low group was the Charlie Brown Christmas Trees. For some reason, I guess that had a negative effect on self-esteem. They don’t name the groups anymore.
The math teachers got the highest groups of readers, while the reading teachers have taken the struggling readers. My group consists entirely of great or near-great readers. This is nice in a way, but while the reading teachers are probably thinking, “How can I help just one of the kids in my group pass?” I can’t help but think, “What if just one of the kids in my group DOESN’T pass?”
The reading teachers have put together packets of TAKS-representative reading passages and questions, so all of the prep work has been done for us. I let the kids have a while to read a few stories and do the questions, and then we read them aloud and check the answers together. Understandably, my group has a much smoother time at it than the lower groups, for whom each question is a real challenge.
There are a few familiar faces in my group, which is nice. Juan, Victor, Sofia, and Sa’tun are in with me. I recognized most of the others, but they were new names for me to learn.
There is one boy in my group, Allan, who is a little odd. Whenever he misses a question, he exclaims, “Tartar sauce!” I suppose there are worse expletives he could use, but condiments do not often come to mind when I get upset.
Lock down will continue until the TAKS reading test, which is on March 3rd. Except for Fridays, when we’ll be back on our normal schedule. After March 3rd, we may shift to a math version of lock down. Only I’d like to come up with a better name for it than math lock down. Maybe The Texas Chainsaw Mathacre? Of course, they’d want to change “Chainsaw” to “TAKS,” but it might still be cool.
Later,
Mathter of Ceremonies
&nbs
p; Date: Thursday, January 15, 2004
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Mass exodus
Hey bud, Thorry, I’ll loothe that nathty lithp right away... And thanks for filling me in on Sponge Bob Square Pants! I’ve heard of him, and I know what he looks like — Miss Lake’s classroom is wall-to-wall Sponge Bob paraphernalia — but I’ve never watched an episode. So I had no idea that he exclaims, “Tartar Sauce!” when he gets upset. That explains a little bit of Allan’s weirdness, but there are still many, many unanswered questions.
Have you guys had any recent lay-offs there at the plant? Because it feels like we have here at the school. Kelly and I together have lost eight kids in the last week. When I say we lost them, I don’t mean misplaced, like they’re hidden away in some custodial closet. These kids have all moved to other schools and/or cities. If this was college and they were going pro early, the loss wouldn’t be so great, but that’s not the case here.
A large percentage of our recent loss is due to the fact that one of the apartment complexes that our kids live in is being demolished to make way for a new high school. That’s right, they’re razing an entire set of apartments. Somewhere, the Vogons are rejoicing. So anyone who lived there has had until the end of this week to find somewhere new to live. As a result, Marcus left last week, and today was the last day for Rachel, Clark, Tiara, Laura, and Don. If you’re scratching your head and saying, “WHO??!?” don’t worry — some of these kids just enrolled! Rachel and Tiara gave me big hugs before they got on their buses after school, and both said they would miss me. I was sorry to see them go.
Ricky left on Wednesday — his family just decided to move. He was one of my best students, very smart, very well behaved, and I really wish I could have more like him. His brother Ernie in the fifth grade is completely the opposite — lazy, rude, and ignorant. He was in Mrs. Andrew’s class last year, when I student taught. I remember taking a stink bomb away from Ernie on my very first day at the school. The fifth grade teachers are probably out doing celebratory shots right now.