by Phillip Done
There is always one student who keeps me entertained with her spelling. This year it is Melanie. Melanie is a darling little girl. She loves art and singing. But she can’t spell a lick. When we made cards for the art teacher who was going on maternity leave, Melanie wrote, “I’m very sad you are living.” In this week’s creative writing assignment, the mom in her story woke the child up with, “Good morning, sweaty.”
Once Melanie came running up to me at recess. I was on yard duty.
“Mr. Done,” she tattled, “Joshua said the G word.”
What’s the G word?
I bent down and whispered. “What did he say?”
Melanie whispered back. “Jerk.”
I stood up, biting my lip. “Josh, come here.” He walked over. “Did you call Melanie a jerk?”
“No.”
“Yes, you did,” Melanie protested.
I gave him my best teacher look. “Josh, did you say it or didn’t you?”
He thought for a moment. “I opened my mouth and it just fell out.”
Melanie often leaves letters out of her words. Once she wrote me a card that said, “Mr. Done, you are god.” I didn’t know if she meant I was a good teacher, or she really had a high opinion of me. Another day I stopped at her desk and glanced over her shoulder while she was writing. “Uh…” I pointed to one of the words. “What’s this word?”
“Shirt.”
“That’s what I thought you meant. You left out the r, honey.”
After our trip to the nature reserve, Melanie wrote an elaborate story all about the food chain. She named all the shorebirds and snails and crabs and microorganisms.
“Melanie, could you come up here please?”
She skipped on up.
“I love your story, sweetheart. You did such a good job.” I pointed to one of the words. “Can you read this for me, please?”
“Organism.”
“You left out the n and the i, honey.”
“Ohhhhhh!”
“You have to put the n and i in that word. It’s very important.”
I’m not the only spelling teacher in class. My students like to teach me about spelling, too.
“Mr. Done,” Christopher said one day, “spell pig backward. Then say ‘different colors’ real fast.”
I didn’t think about it. (Warning: Never spell something out loud when a child asks you to without thinking it through.) “Okay,” I replied. “G-I-P different colors.”
Hoots of laughter shot up to the ceiling. I stood there, staring at them all. Mouth apart. Hold on please while I bang my head against a wall. Finally, I spoke. “What is so funny?”
“You… you pee in different colors!” Christopher declared, still cracking up.
There went the ceiling again.
I narrowed my eyes. “Where did you guys learn this?”
“Everyone knows that!” Laura decreed in between laughs.
Christopher leapt to his feet. “Mr. Done, spell icup.”
I cast a sidelong glance and made a face. “I know this one.”
“Please!” Christopher begged.
I shook my head. I knew what would happen if I spelled it. There’d be complete chaos — utter pandemonium.
“Please!” he pressed.
“No.”
“PLEASE!”
“NO!”
Everyone joined in. “PLEEEEEEEASE.”
I looked out at their twenty upturned faces then let out a giant sigh. There are certain moments in teaching when the teacher’s best option is to just give in.
“Okay,” I conceded. “I-C-U-P.”
Well, I was right. As soon as I said it, the class went into convulsions. A third of the kids jumped out of their chairs. Peals of uproarious laughter echoed in the room. It sounded like one giant tickle fight.
“Okay, okay,” I said, trying to reel them back. “I hope you’re happy. Christopher, get back in your chair. Trevor, get off the floor. Kevin, breathe.” Then I walked to the board and wrote htam. “Christopher, spell this backward.”
He spelled it out loud. “M-A-T-H.”
“Good,” I said. “Now everyone get your math books out. Spelling is over.”
THE TEACHER’S DESK
On Columbus Day, I tell my students about the discovery of America. Everyone knows the story, of course — how Christopher Columbus sailed the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria in 1492 in search of a shorter route to the Indies. Columbus kept a log during his voyage. He reported that when the wind was strong, his ships made a lot of progress. When it wasn’t, they made very little. As the weeks went on, the crew grew restless. Storms brought trouble. Supplies became limited. Some of the food went bad.
I can’t help but think how much Columbus’s famous voyage parallels life in the classroom. In the beginning of the school year, teachers set their course. Some days we make a lot of progress. Some days we don’t. Our crews complain, too. Rain spoils recess plans. We run out of supplies. The food in the cafeteria isn’t very good, either.
As I sat in the reading corner pointing out Columbus’s route on a map, Bob my principal walked in carrying a form for me to sign. When he saw that I was busy with the children, he pointed and whispered, “I’ll just put it on your desk.”
Uh-oh. Not the desk.
I followed him with my eyes as he walked to the front of the room. When he reached my desk, Bob stopped and scratched his head, hunting for a place to set the form. I considered telling him that I was in the middle of spring cleaning, but since it was only October, I decided against it. Instead, I cringed and watched him set the form down as if he were adding to a tower of playing cards.
My poor desk. It looks like the floor of a snow globe after all the flakes have settled to the bottom. It is covered with stacks of papers, overhead transparencies, lesson plans, teachers’ manuals, construction paper, sticky notes, permission slips, library passes, spelling lists, answer keys, clipboards, grade books, and my attendance folder. That’s just the top layer.
My coffee cup has never rested on a flat surface. My elbows have never leaned on wood. When Christopher set his hamster on my desk, it took us five minutes to find her.
My students tease me about my desk all the time.
“Mr. Done,” Stacy said one day, “you need to clean Oscar.”
“Who’s Oscar?” I asked, tilting my head.
“Your desk.”
I blinked hard. “You named my desk Oscar?”
“That’s only one of his names.”
“You have more?”
“Yeah. Want to hear them?”
“No.”
Actually, my students have only seen Oscar clean twice — once on the first day of school when everything looked perfect and again on the morning after Back to School Night. When the kids walked in and saw that my desk was clean, they started clapping.
Bob’s desk does not look like mine. It does not resemble the return counter at Macy’s the day after Christmas. His stapler looks polished. The little plastic circle that sits in his tape dispenser always has tape on it. (I’m sure he has never had to hunt for the end of the tape on the little roll then scrape it off with his fingernail.) Bob’s planner sits perfectly in the center of his desk. His to do list is color-coded. All the pens in his pencil can have caps on them. His pencils do not have masking tape flags on them that say, “THIS IS NOT YOURS!” His paper clips are not all globbed onto a magnet that someone pulled off the whiteboard. There are no trolls or plastic toys taped to the top of his computer. The little brush inside his bottle of Wite-Out does not look like it just had a seizure.
Of course, I’m not the only teacher with a messy desk. There are lots of us out there. Teachers with messy desks know who all the other teachers with messy desks are. It’s like a secret club. We even sit together at lunch. But we don’t talk about our desks — especially around the teachers whose desks are not messy.
I’m convinced that there really are only two types of people in the world — those with n
eat desks like my boss’s and those with messy desks like mine. Tidys and Messys, I call them. It really is a Mars-and-Venus sort of thing. The two groups do not understand each other. Tidys roll their eyes at Messys and make jokes about us waiting for the File Fairy to come clean up our piles. Messys long to be accepted by Tidys. That’s why you will occasionally see Messys shaking their doormats wildly out in front of their classrooms. We want Tidys to see us cleaning.
You know those decorating magazines that show cluttered rooms transformed into organized ones? Well, the “before” photos are always taken at a Messy’s place. Tidys do the makeovers. Sometimes in those magazines there are quizzes to see how organized you are. You answer questions like: Do you leave your keys in the same place? Do you keep your desk neat and organized? Can you find your stapler today?
But Messys understand something that Tidys do not: A cluttered work space can serve as an invaluable teaching tool. Take our planet, for example. A messy desk provides the perfect illustration for teaching students about the layers of the earth. On every messy desk you’ll find the December dittos stacked on top of November’s grades, which are piled on October’s correcting basket, covering September’s lesson plans. Just like the layers of our planet, the older layers are on the bottom and the newer ones are on the top. I wouldn’t be surprised if hole punches and scissors lodged between the piles eventually began to fossilize.
A desk like mine can also be used to simulate a multitude of forces in nature. When a child bumps into my desk and disrupts one of the piles, students observe the seismic shift of an earthquake. If one of the piles collapses, children witness firsthand how landslides move. When the teacher sweeps everything on top of his desk into a large box the day before Open House, children see just how quickly deforestation can wipe out an entire rain forest.
With a messy desk — who needs a social studies text? For my geography unit, I have used the stacks and piles on my desk to illustrate mountains, hills, caves, caverns, highlands, lowlands, canyons, peaks, valleys, plateaus, crevasses, wilderness territory, and badlands. When the piles spread onto nearby counters and tables, students understand urban sprawl.
And don’t forget about Mr. Columbus. Digging through a messy desk also provides the perfect metaphor for Columbus’s voyage. In fact, it is a metaphor for any exploration. All of the great explorers faced disappointment, experienced hardships, adjusted their courses, and overcame adversity. Last week when I realized my keys were missing, I started searching the corner of my desk (embarked on my quest). I lifted piles and dug under papers but couldn’t find them anywhere (disappointment). After no success, I switched to the other side of the desk (changed my course). Suddenly my coffee cup spilled all over the desk (hardship). The kids began to laugh (further hardship). I ran to the back of the room to get paper towels and mopped up the spill (overcame adversity). Then I continued my search (forged ahead). Finally, I spotted the end of the key chain, pulled it out from under a stack of books, and shouted, “I found them!” (joy of discovery).
This morning after I finished reading to my students, I excused them back to their seats and tossed the Columbus book on my desk. All of a sudden the tallest pile on the edge came tumbling down into the wastebasket. There was a loud crash. The basket tipped over. Papers spilled out all over the floor. Everyone stopped and stared at the mess.
“It’s an avalanche!” Trevor shrieked.
What did I tell you? They learn so much.
* * *
THE MESSY OR TIDY QUIZ
Not sure if you’re a Messy or a Tidy? Take the following test and find out.
Do you have shoe boxes stacked on the top shelf in your bedroom closet for diorama projects? If yes, give yourself 1 point. Under your bed? 2 points.
Do you have enough pie tins, glass jars, and plastic cottage cheese tubs under your sink at school to start a recycling center? 1 point.
When you look at the wilted celery in the vegetable bin in your refrigerator, do you think, Good. Bunny food? If yes, 1 point.
Have you ever worn a sweater to work over your shirt even though it was a hot day because nothing at home was ironed? 1 point.
Does your laundry basket look like the Lost and Found box at school? If so, 1 point.
Do you find White Elephant gifts easily in your home? If yes, 1 point.
Are all the alphabet letters on your refrigerator in alphabetical order? If not, 1 point.
When describing your classroom, do you prefer the words relaxed, comfortable, and lived-in? 1 point.
Do you have school stuff in the passenger seat of your car? 1 point. In the passenger seat and the backseat? 2 points. Is your trunk full, too? 3 points.
Can your students write their spelling words in the dust on your TV? 1 point.
Score of 0: My principal will love you.
Score of 1–5: You cheated.
Score of 6 or more: You can eat lunch with me.
THE TOOTH FAIRY
Third graders look like little jack-o’-lanterns. Half my kids are missing some of their front teeth. The other half have their hands in their mouths trying to pull their teeth out.
I can always tell when a child is close to losing one. She speaks to me while turning and twisting and yanking on some poor little baby tooth. “Don’t pull it out at school!” I cry. But they don’t listen to me. They keep tugging away. There is money at stake here.
By third grade some children don’t believe in Santa anymore, and some have their doubts about the Easter Bunny. But more than 90 percent of them still believe in the Tooth Fairy. I’m not sure why exactly. Maybe it’s because she is the only one who brings cash.
Have you seen what the Tooth Fairy is bringing these days? When I was a kid, she usually brought nickels and dimes. Nowadays some kids get a dollar a tooth. This year when Emily lost a molar, she got ten bucks! At that rate I’m tempted to pull out a few of my own.
The kindergarten and first-grade teachers on my campus are always prepared. If their kids lose a tooth at school, they get to take it home in a Tooth Taxi. Tooth Taxis are black plastic film containers decorated with pictures of Tommy the Tooth driving in a yellow cab. These containers are coveted. In fact, parents have reported that their children will do all they can to not lose their teeth at home just so they can get one.
I don’t send teeth home with Tommy the Tooth. When my students come to me with a bloody, newly pulled tooth, I just say, “Grab an envelope. Right-hand desk drawer. I don’t need to see it.”
I should probably carry envelopes with me. Once we were on a field trip watching a play when Emily screamed, “I lost my tooth!” Everyone turned around. Emily got up in the middle of the show, crawled over twenty kids, and handed me the tooth. What am I supposed to do with this? For some reason, all children deliver their newly pulled teeth to their teachers. It is automatic — like handing over every staple they find in the carpet during story time. I dropped Emily’s tooth in my shirt pocket.
When I was in my tooth-losing years, I was always afraid that the Tooth Fairy would not find my room — or worse yet would mistake my brother’s room for mine and give him the money instead of me! So I’d make signs with arrows pointing to my bedroom and plaster the whole house. She always found me.
There was that one terrible time when the Tooth Fairy forgot to come. I was devastated. Then my dad explained the Tooth Fairy’s rules. She likes the open end of the pillowcase facing out so she does not get tangled up when putting the money under the pillow. The next night I made sure to have the case open on the correct side. She came. I got double my normal rate.
In third grade, I was determined to catch the Tooth Fairy. One night I heard the bedroom door open slowly and pretended to be asleep. That’s her, I thought. She’s here! I didn’t move. I kept my eyes shut. Then all of a sudden there was a loud noise. Everything I had barricaded behind the door came tumbling down.
“What the… ,” I heard a voice cry.
I sat bolt upright and pointed my flashlight at
the door.
“Dad! What are you doing here?”
“Uh, well, I… I came to see if the Tooth Fairy had come yet.”
“No! Get out! She won’t come if she sees you!”
Last year, my mom handed me a shoe box with all the letters I ever wrote to the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny. When I lifted the lid, I pretended to be shocked. “How did you get these?” She laughed. I pulled out a few letters and read them. My baby teeth were still inside the envelopes.
Dear Tooth Fairy,
This is my third tooth. Last year I got a dime. This year I would like a quarter. My dad says there is inflation.
Dear Tooth Fairy,
I have another loose tooth. It’s the same tooth as last time but on the other side. Please send me a picture of you. I want to bring it in for Show and Tell. Everyone says you are not real but I believe in you. My bedtime is 8 o’clock so you can come by anytime after that.
Dear Tooth Fairy,
Instead of money could you please bring a guinea pig?
It seems like every month one of my third graders is losing a tooth. Earlier in the year, David was pushing a loose one back and forth with his tongue.
“I hope it’s not your sweet tooth,” I joked, trying to sound serious. “Then you can’t taste any more candy.”
He looked worried.
One day after I had just handed Chloe an envelope, she said, “Mr. Done, how does the Tooth Fairy find all the children?”
I started to answer. “Well…”
“I know,” Trevor interjected. “My mom says she uses GPS.”
The day after Christopher lost a tooth, I asked, “How much did you get for it?”
“A dollar.”
“That’s a lot.”
“It had a filling. They’re more valuable.”
Melanie’s Tooth Fairy is high tech.
“Melanie, did the Tooth Fairy come last night?” I inquired the morning after she lost a tooth.