by Phillip Done
Look at any teacher’s individual photos and you’ll see that most look preoccupied. Some appear dazed. If they’re smiling at all, the smile seems fake. Why? Do you know what grade school teachers have been doing just before sitting down to have their individual photos taken? They have been smashing down bed hair, tucking in shirts, keeping children in line, straightening collars, tying bows, fixing buttons that are in the wrong holes, blotting sweaty after-recess foreheads, handing Kleenex to kids with runny noses, standing behind the photographer trying to get kids to smile, and searching in the Lost and Found box in the corner of the multi for a shirt for Danny to wear because his mom will not be happy if she sees half the soccer field all over his new shirt.
One of my jobs on Picture Day is to pass out the plastic combs while the children wait in line. Before I start handing them out, I always give the Comb Speech: Do not share your combs. Hold on to them. Please take them out of your hair before having your picture taken.
Normally, the little plastic combs are black. But this year they were red, green, blue, and yellow.
I handed Melanie a blue one.
“Can I have red?” she asked.
I gave her red.
Sarah was next. “Green, please.”
I felt like I was handing out Otter Pops.
Gina studied the combs in my hand as if she were deciding on which cupcake had the most frosting. “Mmm… can I have yellow?”
“Honey, they’re all the same.”
She pointed to Emily. “She got yellow.”
I let out a sigh and handed her a yellow. Then I made an announcement. “Okay, class, no more choosing colors. Take the ones I give you.”
“Then can we trade?” asked Brian.
“No!”
By the time the teacher gets to sit down for his own photo, he is completely wiped out. But the fun has just begun. Now the teacher must take a seat on the photographer’s stool. This is similar to sitting in the dentist’s chair while he performs a root canal. The teacher can’t move. He must sit perfectly still with hands folded, knees together, back straight, chin up, and feet planted on the masking tape while his students stand on the sidelines unsupervised.
Our school photographer’s name is Charlie. He has been taking school photos for thirty-seven years. Charlie loves taking kids’ pictures — except when the cafeteria is serving pizza. If Picture Day takes place on Pizza Day, Charlie says kids will have ear-to-ear sauce stains and look like clowns.
This year while I was sitting helplessly on the stool and Charlie was tilting my chin, Christopher was demonstrating for his classmates how to slide across the multi floor as if he were stealing second base. Trevor was making farting noises as he emptied his gel bottle onto Kevin’s head. And John was trying to see if he could turn his plastic comb into a boomerang.
Every year before I take a seat on Charlie’s stool, I say the same thing: “Listen you guys — when I sit down I don’t want anyone to fool around. I mean it. I’m serious.” But do you think my students listen? Absolutely not. They stand behind the lights and point and giggle and make faces at me because few things are more fun than trying to make your teacher laugh when he is having his photo taken on Picture Day.
VANILLA WAFERS
We have a new teacher at our school. Her name is Carrie. Carrie teaches third grade a few doors down from me. At the end of the first week, I went to check on her. She was sitting at her desk sorting through some papers.
“Well,” I said, clapping my hands together, “you made it through week one. Congratulations!”
“Yeah!” Carrie cheered.
“Only 180 more days to go.”
“Ahhhhhh!” she cried.
I sat down in a kid chair. “So how’s it going?”
“Well,” she sighed, “between today’s fire drill, a birthday party, and the school assembly that I forgot about until the last minute, I don’t know if my kids learned anything.”
I laughed. “That’s normal.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs. “So can you relax this weekend?”
She held up her lesson plan book and grinned. “It’s empty.”
“Ah yes,” I said with a nod. “I remember. Don’t worry. The second year is easier. Trust me.”
“I hope so,” she breathed out.
“Hey,” I said, “mind if I give you some advice from an old vet?”
“Please.”
I uncrossed my legs and leaned in. “Don’t try to do it all your first year.”
Carrie gave an understanding nod.
“You’ll want to make everything perfect,” I continued. “Like you were trained to do in teacher school. But you can’t.” Carrie nodded some more. “And cut yourself a lot of slack. Learning to teach is like learning a new language.”
“Uh-oh,” she squeaked.
“What?”
“I didn’t do so well in French.”
We both laughed.
“May I tell you something else?” I added.
“Absolutely.”
I paused for a moment. “Sometime in the next few weeks you’ll have such a bad day that you will wonder why you even went into this profession. Expect it. We all have those days.”
Her eyes got big. “Even you?”
“Absolutely. But the funny thing is that every time I have a really bad day, it’s soon followed by a wonderful one that reminds me of why I became a teacher in the first place.” Carrie listened closely. “In all my years of teaching, it has never failed. Never.”
Her face broke into a smile. “I’ll try to remember that.”
I turned and looked around the room. Her students’ self-portraits filled one board. Their autobiographies were up on another. Giant tempera-painted sunflowers mounted on black paper hung over the sink. “It looks great in here. You’re ahead of me. I don’t have all my kids’ work up yet.”
“Thanks,” Carrie said. Then she put her elbows on a stack of papers, rested her chin in her hands, and looked out at the desks. “Phil, I think everything is going well, but I’m not sure that I’m… I’m not sure that I’m reaching them.”
“Ahh,” I said, nodding my head. “Vanilla wafers.”
“Huh?”
“Vanilla wafers,” I mused aloud. “When I was a new teacher, I had the same thought. I wondered if I was making an impact. Then one morning I walked to the front of the room and found a Ziploc bag with three vanilla wafers resting on my desk. I figured someone had dropped it on the floor and the custodian picked it up. I held up the bag and asked if anyone had lost them. No one answered. Then a soft voice in the first row whispered, ‘They’re for you.’”
A smile crossed Carrie’s face.
“That was my sign,” I said, holding up one finger.
My eyes shifted to the wall behind her. Taped on the whiteboard was a colored-pencil drawing of a woman with rosy cheeks, long eyelashes, and a Marlo Thomas hairdo. A bright sun wearing glasses smiled in the corner. A rainbow swooped through the words To Miss Baxter.
I pointed to the drawing. “Is that from one of your students?”
Carrie turned and looked at it. “Yes.”
“There’s your sign,” I said with a smile. “You’re doing great.”
LETTERS
They say that the art of letter writing is dying. Well, this simply is not true. Ask any elementary school teacher if you don’t believe me. Teachers help kids write friendly letters all the time — letters to pen pals, cards for Grandparent’s Day, thank-yous to our field trip drivers. When a child writes a letter that is really cute, sometimes I’ll pull in his mom and share it. Last year after we wrote valentines to the veterans, I showed Martin’s mom. Martin wrote, “Dear Vet, Happy Veteran’s Day. Thanks for taking care of my cat. She’s all better now.”
Writing a friendly letter is not easy for a third grader. There is so much to think about — which words to capitalize, where to put the commas, what to indent, and whether to sign off with Sincerely, Love, or From. It’s a lot for a
child to wrap his head around. But letter writing isn’t just difficult for the kids. It’s not easy to teach, either.
This year on the morning of Back to School Night, I handed out paper to each child. Then I drew a giant piece of paper with lines and margins on the whiteboard.
“Okay, everyone,” I began, “today we are going to start writing letters to our parents welcoming them to Back to School Night. We’ll leave them out on our desks so that your moms and dads will see them when they walk into the classroom tonight.”
Dylan looked worried. “On our desks or in our desks?”
“On top,” I answered.
He sighed loudly. “Good.”
I continued the lesson. “Now boys and girls, there are five parts to a friendly letter. The first part is the Date.” I tapped the large paper that I had drawn on the board and pointed to the place for the date. “In a friendly letter, the date goes on the upper right side of your paper. But try not to write in the margin.”
“What’s a margin?” Gina asked.
“The space on the side of your paper.” I grabbed a sheet of binder paper off my desk and pointed to the left margin. “This is the left margin. See the pink line.” Everyone looked down at the pink lines on their papers. I moved my finger to the other side. “And this is the right margin. There’s a pink line there, too, but it’s harder to see. Can you all see it?” Everyone leaned in.
“I see it!” John shouted.
“I see it!” Kevin echoed.
“Me, too!” Emily burst out.
I went on. “The reason the pink line is so light is because it’s on the other side of the paper.”
As soon as I said this, the entire class turned their papers over at the same time and started chattering.
THIRD-GRADE FACT: Finding the pink line on the back of a piece of binder paper is a very important discovery.
“Okay,” I said, “now we are all going to write the date.”
I wrote it on the board: September 10, 2008.
“Make sure you put a comma after the 10,” I instructed. “A comma always goes after the day.”
“Can we write…” John cringed as he tried to think of the right word. “Can we… you know… make it smaller?”
I helped him out. “You mean — may you abbreviate?”
THIRD-GRADE FACT: Abbreviating is more fun than writing the whole word out.
I shook my head. “Sorry. I’d like you to practice writing the whole word.”
“Can we write 9 slash 10?” Laura asked, making a hand movement for the slash.
THIRD-GRADE FACT: Making slashes is even more fun than abbreviating.
“Not today,” I answered. “I want you all to practice writing the date out entirely.”
I moved on. “Okay now, I’d like all of you to write today’s date on the top line. And try to not write in the margin.”
I knew exactly what would happen next. When kids first write the date on the top line of their letters, they never allow themselves enough room. An eight-year-old will begin writing the date in his normal penmanship. But when he is about halfway through, he will realize that he is quickly approaching THE PINK LINE. Determined to not cross it, he will start to write smaller and smaller, eventually stacking letters one on top of the other. When he is finished writing the whole date, it will look like it just crashed into a pink wall. Unhappy with the way that this has turned out, the child will then begin erasing his paper with the same force that one uses to clean a dirty pan with an S.O.S pad. The paper will tear. He will ask for a second piece, upon which he will start writing the date in the exact same place he did on the first one.
After my students wrote the date (and I handed out more paper), I continued with the lesson.
“The next part of our letter,” I explained, “is the Greeting. The greeting is where you write Dear Mom and Dad.” I pointed to the left side of my large letter. “The greeting begins on this side of the paper. It goes on the next line after the date.” I wrote Dear Mom and Dad on the board. “Does anyone know what mark follows the greeting?”
“A comma,” Laura answered.
“Very good. In a friendly letter, the greeting is always followed by a comma.” I drew a gigantic comma after Dad. It was bigger than my head. The kids burst out laughing. “This is our second comma.” I pointed to both of them. “See?” Then, putting my cap back on my marker, I turned and faced the kids. “Okay, next I’d like you all to write Dear Mom and Dad on your papers. And…” I paused. “Don’t forget the comma.”
Now, you’d think that writing Dear Mom and Dad would be easy. It’s only four words plus one little comma, right? Wrong. Do you know how many variations there are on these four words? Thirty-three! And that’s if the children know how to spell dear (which they don’t). Every year I see all thirty-three variations:
dear mom and dad
dear mom and Dad
dear mom And dad
dear Mom and dad
Dear mom and dad
dear mom and dad,
dear mom and Dad,
dear mom And dad,
dear Mom and dad,
Dear mom and dad,
dear mom And Dad
dear Mom And dad
Dear Mom and dad
dear Mom and Dad
Dear mom And dad
Dear mom and Dad
dear mom And Dad,
dear Mom And dad,
Dear Mom and dad,
dear Mom and Dad,
Dear mom And dad,
Dear mom and Dad,
Dear Mom And dad
Dear Mom and Dad
Dear mom And Dad
dear Mom And Dad
Dear Mom And Dad
Dear Mom And dad,
Dear Mom and Dad,
Dear mom And Dad,
dear Mom And Dad,
Dear Mom And Dad,
And my favorite: Dear Mom and Dad Comma
After the children finished their greetings, I tapped my pen on the board. “Okay class, look here. What I’m about to say is very important.” I waited until everyone’s eyes were on me. “You do not write under the word Dear. This is where we indent.”
Melanie looked puzzled. “What’s that?”
I looked around the room. “Who here knows what an indent is?”
“My mom has one on the side of her car,” Laura chipped in.
“Well,” I laughed, “that’s sort of an indent. An indent in a letter is where you leave a space.” I walked to the board and put my finger under the word Dear. “You do not write there.”
“Why?” Dylan called out.
I shrugged. “That’s just how you do it.” I pounded the same spot on the board with my fist. “DO. NOT. WRITE. THERE.”
There was a good reason that I was making such a big production of this. No matter how many times teachers say, “Do not write under the word Dear,” half the class will. I don’t know why, but children just do not want to leave a space under that word. I’ve tried having them put a finger under it, but that doesn’t work. They’ll spend five minutes coloring their fingernails. I’ve told them that there’s “hot lava” under that Dear, and they can’t touch it. But the hot lava idea backfired. As soon as I said it, everyone wanted to write in the lava spot and scream that their words were burning up. I know I shouldn’t say this, but I hate that indent.
I forged ahead.
“Okay, boys and girls, the next part of our letter is called the Body. It is the main part of your letter. It is not to be confused with this kind of body.” I posed like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Giggles. “In the body you should welcome your parents and thank them for coming to Back to School Night. Ask them to look around the room at your work.”
It is at this point in every letter writing lesson that one of your students will say, “I don’t know what to write.” To avoid this I always write a sample on the board. I began writing.
Dear Mom and Dad,
Welcome to Back to School Night! Thank you for comin
g to my classroom. Please look around the room at my work. You will see…
“Mr. Done?” Christopher interrupted.
“What?” I said, continuing to write.
“Can we tell our parents that they have to listen to the teacher?”
I smiled. “Sure.”
Trevor grinned. “Can we tell them that if they don’t listen they have to go to the principal’s office?”
Melanie giggled.
“Uh… I think that’s going a little too far.”
Stacy raised her hand as I finished writing the example.
“Yes, Stacy?”
“How long does the letter have to be?”
“Mmm… I’d say about half a page. You’re big third graders now. Third graders can write at least half a page.”
Stacy’s jaw fell open. David threw his head on his desk. Gina made a high-pitched squeal. You’d think I had just asked them to write Moby-Dick.
“Can we copy that?” Rebecca asked.
“Yes.”
Brian’s hand was up next.
“Yes, Brian?”
“I don’t know what to write.”
I was almost finished with the lesson. “Okay, kids, the last part of the letter is called the Closing. Watch closely.” I put my finger up on the date. “Place your finger on the beginning of the date like this.” The children copied me. “Now drag it down your paper in a straight line.” I slid my finger down the board. They did the same. “Pretend there is an imaginary dotted line here.” I drew a thick dotted line so they would understand what I meant. I tapped the bottom of it. “This is where you write Sincerely or Best Regards or Love. Since you’re writing to your parents, you should write Love.”
“Ewww!” David shouted.
I gave him a look then wrote Love. “Now you make your third comma.” I drew another giant comma. This one was even bigger than the last. Laughter swept the room. “Finally, you sign your name under Love — indenting it just a little — and you’re all done.” To finish it off, I signed Trevor’s name. More titters. Trevor’s face lit up.
THIRD-GRADE FACT: Whenever you use a child’s name in an example, he will beam.