32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny

by Phillip Done

  So Phillip left his fifth grade class twice a week after lunch with a few other students and went to the gifted class. Once they rode in a bus to the theater and saw a play by George Bernard Shaw. Once they visited the space museum. Once they made wrapping paper. Phillip did not understand why his friends could not go with him to the play or the space museum, or make wrapping paper. He knew that they would also like to meet the astronaut.

  Phillip did not want to be gifted anymore. Back in his classroom, his friends were making dioramas out of shoe boxes. He wanted to make a diorama too. He asked his mom if he could stop going to the gifted class and make a diorama. She said yes.

  Why do we have gifted education? Why is there such a strong lobby for gifted education? I will tell you why. It feeds egos. People can say, “My child is in the gifted program.” Now, please don’t get me wrong. I’m all for challenging students. I’m all for meeting the individual needs of children. I’m all for enrichment—as long as every child is being enriched.

  Let me tell you how some of these gifted programs work. In some districts children who are “identified” as gifted get pulled out of their regular classrooms once, maybe twice a month for “enrichment.” The students usually work on projects that are supposed to be more challenging, more enriching, more “higher-level.” Well, I’ve seen what they bring back.

  “Uh … that’s a very nice plant holder. You macraméed it in the gifted class?”

  “Oh, you made a bird house in your gifted class today? It’s lovely. I didn’t realize that hammering was so higher-level.”

  Sometimes the gifted students go on field trips. They might visit a gallery or attend a concert or go on a boat trip.

  And what about those students who are left behind? I’d like you to see their faces when the “gifted” ones leave. The ones left behind are sad. They feel dumb. They do not understand. Teachers spend the whole year building their kids up and telling them how special and smart and talented and wonderful they are, and then it’s ruined.

  What do I say to the ones left behind? Sorry, Johnny, you can jump higher and run faster than any student in the school, but you struggle in reading, so you’re not gifted. Sorry, Becky, you can play Mozart and Beethoven and Chopin beautifully, but you cannot read big numbers, so you’re not gifted. Sorry, Alexis, you can draw ten times better than I can and you’re only eight years old, but you missed one too many problems on the test, so you’re not gifted. And sorry, Stephen, you can whip anyone in chess and put together the most elaborate Lego invention, but you can’t spell, so you’re not gifted.

  I am not a political person. I never have been. I am too busy teaching children the difference between there and their and they’re. But this issue riles me up. You can overload my classroom. You can go three years without giving me a raise. You can ration my paper to two reams a month. You can make me teach my own art and PE and music because of budget cuts. You can take away the school nurse and the counselor and the librarian and my hot lunch. You can make me buy my own pencils and stickers and rewards and soccer balls. But don’t start messing with my students.

  Open House

  Every spring at my school we have Open House. It’s the night when all the moms and dads come to school to see their kids’ work. And the kids come too.

  At our school, Open House is a big deal—even bigger than Back to School Night. Teachers spend weeks getting ready. The Model Homes lay out extra plastic runners. The Pilers straighten their piles. The Shocks decorate the pencil sharpeners. And the Hospitals dare to poke holes in their bulletin boards. Kim’s name for Open House is Cecil B. DeMille Presents. Lisa calls it the Super Bowl. I call it Barnum and Bailey.

  When the parents arrive, they come with their shopping lists in hand. You see, the parents are supposed to visit their own child’s classroom and look at their child’s work. But I usually have just as many parents of second graders as parents of third graders. They are shopping for next year’s teacher.

  This year for Barnum and Bailey all the third grade classes made huge murals of the water cycle. I was just putting the finishing touches on mine when I ran out of cottonballs.

  Crap, I thought. I have to finish this mural. You can’t have a water cycle mural without clouds. I went to Mrs. Wilson’s room, but her door was locked. I didn’t have time to run to the store. So I ran to the nurse’s office. Nurses always have cottonballs.

  I looked in all the cupboards. No luck. Then suddenly I spotted a box under the sink. I snatched the box, hid it under my jacket, and ran back to my classroom. When I got back, I started attaching my new clouds. Perfect!

  Just as I was finishing up the last few clouds, Dawn walked into my room.

  “All ready?” she asked.

  “Just about,” I replied.

  “It looks great.”

  “Thanks.”

  Dawn stared at the mural. Her eyes got big.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said slowly.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Those are not what I think they are,” she said.

  “What?” I asked again.

  “The clouds.”

  “You like ’em?” I asked proudly.

  She closed her eyes. “You’re not using minipads for clouds, are you?”

  “You can tell?”

  “Uh … yes,” she said. “Where did you get them?”

  I smiled. “In the nurse’s office.”

  She shook her head and started walking out the door. “Well,” she said under her breath, “at least you didn’t find tampons.”

  Grammar Lessons

  Today, boys and girls, we are going to study the parts of speech. We will start with the word boy. Boy is a noun. A noun is a person, place, or thing. The word teacher is also a noun. Can you all say “noun”?

  Now, there are two types of nouns—common nouns and proper nouns. Boy is a common noun. Stephen is a proper noun. Proper nouns are more specific than common nouns. Proper nouns are always capitalized. Teacher is a common noun. Mr. Done is a proper noun. Understand?

  Adjectives describe nouns. Naughty is an adjective. It describes the boy. Angry is also an adjective; it describes the teacher.

  In the sentence, “Mr. Done chases Stephen,” chases is a verb. Verbs show action. When “Mr. Done catches Stephen,” catches is the verb.

  A pronoun takes the place of a noun. In the sentence, “He takes Stephen to the principal’s office,” he replaces Mr. Done. Thus, he is a pronoun. If we say, for example, “Mr. Done takes him to the principal’s office,” him is the pronoun.

  Prepositional phrases modify verbs. “To the principal’s office” is what we call a prepositional phrase, for it modifies the verb takes. In the sentence, “Mr. Done and Stephen walk down the hall,” down the hall is a prepositional phrase. If I say, “The angry teacher waits for the principal,” can you find the prepositional phrase?

  “Mr. Done talks with the principal” is a simple sentence. A simple sentence contains only one subject and one predicate. In this sentence, Mr. Done is the subject, and talks with the principal is the predicate. “Mr. Done is not very happy right now” and “Stephen is in big trouble” are also simple sentences. Each has only one subject and one predicate.

  A compound sentence is a sentence that contains two or more independent clauses. “The principal listened to Mr. Done, and he immediately called Stephen’s parents” contains two independent clauses: “The principal listened to Mr. Done” and “he immediately called Stephen’s parents.” As you can see, the clauses are connected by the word and. And is what we call a coordinating conjunction; it connects the two independent clauses.

  Subordinate clauses cannot stand alone. Let’s look at the following sentence: “Mom, who has been called out of an important meeting at work, drives to school to pick up Stephen.” In this example, “who has been called out of an important meeting” cannot stand by itself. “Stephen, who is sitting in the principal’s office, is very nervous” also contains a subordinate clause. Can
you identify it?

  When Mom arrives at school and asks, “What happened?” she is asking a question. Note that a question ends with a question mark. If Mom says, “I’m not happy about this,” this is not a question. This is a declarative statement. Declarative statements do not end with question marks.

  In the previous example, you can see that I and am have been connected with an apostrophe to form the word I’m. This is what we call a contraction. “You’re in big trouble, sonny!” also contains a contraction. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you!” contains two contractions.

  At this point Mom is most likely using a lot of exclamatory sentences. Exclamatory sentences end with exclamation marks. Exclamatory sentences express surprise or emotion or deep feeling. Right now, Mom is probably expressing all three. “You’re grounded for a month!” is an exclamatory sentence. “Wait till we get home!” is also an exclamatory sentence. (Note that the first sentence also contains a contraction.)

  The exclamation mark is also used after commands (statements that require immediate action). “Get in the car!” is a command. Here Mom is commanding Stephen to do something. Sometimes a sentence will have more than one exclamation mark. When Mom screams, “Oh! Just wait till your father hears about this!” we can see two exclamation marks, one following the word Oh (this is called an interjection), and one at the end of the sentence.

  When Mom screams, “Stephen Eric, you’re grounded for a month, you lose your allowance, and you have no TV for the rest of your life!” these three exclamations are separated by commas. A colon may be used here as well. Mom could say, “Stephen Eric, listen very closely to the following: you’re grounded for a month, you lose your allowance, and you have no TV for the rest of your life!”

  Idioms are expressions that cannot be directly translated. Every language has them. If Mom says, “Stephen, you’re in the doghouse!” this does not mean that Mom will put Stephen in a doghouse. It means that Stephen is in trouble. If Stephen says, “Mom hit the roof,” he means that Mom is extremely angry.

  When we use the words like, as, or than to compare two things, we’re using similes. “Mom blew up like a volcano,” “Mom is as mad as a hornet,” and “Mom is madder than a wet hen!” are all examples of similes—and are all probably true.

  Metaphors are different from similes. Metaphors compare two things but do not use the words like or as or than. “Mom was a volcano!” is a metaphor. We know that Mom is not really a volcano. We are saying this descriptively. “Stephen is dead meat” is also a metaphor. He is not really dead meat (well, not yet anyway). We mean that he is in big trouble.

  When Stephen responds, “I didn’t do anything!” this is neither a metaphor nor a simile. This is what we call a lie.

  School Supplies

  It’s embarrassing. No matter how hard I try, every year my kids still confuse the basic items in the classroom. It’s April, and Joshua still thinks his desk is a wastebasket. Joey thinks the ball is a chair, and Patrick thinks his pencil is a Q-tip! I had to do something. I could not send my kids out into the world like this.

  I could just see it. Someday Joshua will take his desk out to the curb on garbage pickup day. Joey will furnish his dining room with Hoppity Hops, and Patrick will go deaf. And it will be all my fault. Something had to be done. So I decided to make a huge sign and post it in the front of my classroom. Here’s what it says:

  Attention All Students!

  These are scissors. We cut paper with them. We do not cut our hair with them. We do not cut our friend’s hair with them either.

  This is a pen cap. It goes on top of the marker. Then you can use your marker more than once and not ask me tomorrow why we have no more black markers.

  This is masking tape. We do not play kidnap with it and tape Ryan’s mouth shut to see if you can understand what Ryan is saying when his mouth is covered with tape.

  This is a permanent pen. See the word permanent on the side. We use it to write on paper. We do not use it to write our friend’s phone number on the palm of our hand. We do not use it to draw tattoos on our arms either.

  These are my car keys. We do not play hide-and-seek with them.

  This is my coffee mug. (See #5.)

  This is a paper clip. It holds papers together. It is not a retainer. You do not have braces.

  This is a coat hook. It holds things. The coat hook and the jacket are friends. They like to be together.

  This is a yardstick. We measure with it. It is not a sword. It is not a hockey stick. It is not a golf club. It is not a javelin. It is not a spear.

  This is Kleenex. We blow our nose with it.

  This is an empty wastebasket. This is what you put the Kleenex in after you have just blown your nose.

  This is a desk. It is not the wastebasket. It is not a toy box either. It is not the Hello Kitty store.

  This is a doormat. You wipe your feet on it after you have run around outside in the mud and the snow.

  This is a carpet. See the footprints. This is how a carpet looks after you do not use the doormat.

  This is a drinking fountain. We drink water from it. It is not a birdbath. It is not a shower. It is not a Super Soaker.

  This is a newspaper. We put the newspaper under our painting before we decide to paint on the carpet.

  This is carpet cleaner. This is what we use to clean the carpet that you just painted on.

  This is your lunch bag. It is not a bomb. We do not blow it up and see how loud it will explode.

  This is a juice box. It is not a bomb either.

  This is a paintbrush. We dip it in paint and paint the paper.

  This is a student. We do not paint the student.

  This is a telephone. It makes phone calls. Watch me push these buttons on the telephone to call your mom because you just painted Erika.

  This is a chair. We do not stand on it. We do not hurdle it. We do not walk on it. We sit on it.

  This is a seatbelt. It will be attached to your chair soon if you do not put your bottom on that seat right this second!

  How Old Is Your Mom?

  I don’t know why, but kids like to talk about their parents’ ages. It is as predictable a subject of conversation as what they’re going to be for Halloween or whether or not Santa Claus really exists. Every year, at some time, I will hear one student ask another, “How old is your mom?”

  I remember when I first heard the question. I was twenty-three years old and fresh out of college.

  “How old is your mom?” Kelly asked Tiffany.

  “She’s thirty-five,” answered Tiffany.

  “My mom’s thirty-seven,” said Kelly.

  Wow, I thought to myself. Their parents are old!

  Pretty soon I was thirty-three, and I heard the question again.

  “How old is your dad?” Benjamin asked Alex.

  “He’s thirty-five,” answered Alex.

  “My dad’s thirty-four,” said Benjamin.

  “My dad’s thirty-three,” said Danny.

  Wow, I thought. I’m the same age as their parents now.

  Now I am forty-three. And sure enough, this year I heard the question again.

  “How old is your mom?” Melanie asked Isabel while they were coloring their Mother’s Day cards.

  “My mom’s thirty-five,” Isabel said.

  “How old is your dad?” Melanie asked.

  “He’s old,” Isabel answered. “He’s thirty-six.”

  Oh my God, I thought. I’m older than their parents. What happened?

  Last summer I ran into Mrs. White in the grocery store parking lot. I had had her daughter in third grade.

  “How’s Stephanie doing?” I asked Mrs. White.

  “Oh, she’s doing just great. She’s tearing ’em up at Stanford.”

  “Stanford?” I screamed.

  “Yes, she’s a junior.”

  “A junior! She can’t be. She was just eight years old. She can’t be in college yet. She just learned how to multiply! She just l
earned her cursive!”

  The other day I went to the bank and walked up to the counter.

  “Hi, Mr. Done,” said the bank teller.

  “Uh … hi,” I said.

  Behind the counter stood a beautiful woman.

  “Remember me?” she asked. “Julia Velazquez?”

  I jogged my memory banks.

  A pudgy little eight-year-old girl with headgear popped into my head. I remember she could not add.

  “Yes.” I nodded. “Yes, I remember you. You’re … all grown up.”

  She smiled.

  “How old are you now, Julia?” I asked.

  “Twenty-four,” she answered.

  I stared at her.

  “Twenty-four?” I said, shocked.

  Julia laughed.

  “This is my son,” she said, pointing to a photo next to her computer of a cute little kid. “He just turned two.”

  I was speechless.

  Julia gave me my money (I checked her addition). I thanked her, then said good-bye. I walked out of the bank, opened my car door, and sat in my car. I did not start the engine.

  I thought to myself, Where did the time go?

  Teachers are Peter Pans in a way. It’s so easy to lose track of time. You forget that you’re getting older, because they’re always eight years old. You teach in the same classroom year after year. You wear the same tie. You tell the same jokes. Everything is always the same.

  Then one day you are kicked into the reality that you are getting older when you receive a graduation announcement or a wedding invitation, or when the bank teller says, “Hi, Mr. Done. Remember me?”

  Twenty-four years old! I said to myself. I’m getting old.

  Then I made a decision. Right there in the car. I decided that the day one of my students says to me, “Mr. Done, you taught my mom when she was in third grade,” that is the day I will retire.

  Words You Cannot Say in Class

  It is well known among teachers that there are certain words you must never say in the classroom. Take the seventh planet from the sun, for example. I would like to talk with the person who came up with the name Uranus. Obviously he never taught third graders. Saturn is a perfectly lovely name for a planet. And so is Jupiter. But Uranus? What was he thinking? I’ve tried accenting the wrong syllables in that word. I’ve tried mispronouncing it completely. It makes no difference. No matter how you pronounce it, Uranus always sounds bad. One year I finally got smart and said there are no planets after Jupiter.