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Monday, February 16, 2009

Off task, with love

So I was having this conversation with a fellow teacher, Ed U Cater, on Friday after work. He is a fourth grade teacher, and so I frequently bequeath him with my former students. We were discussing a few of those former students, with him asking if they were nearly as ditzy in the third grade as they seem to be now.

He told me a story about one girl in particular. All of the fourth graders took a practice TAKS writing test on Friday, and this girl finished early. However, instead of checking, editing, and revising her work as she was instructed to do, she took out a piece of paper and began to draw.

Ed noticed that the little girl had drawn a picture of a cute, cuddly teddy bear. Right before he took the paper away from her and ripped it in half.

After school, discussing this at the bar during our community outreach volunteer program activity, and was agonizing over his action, feeling he had been a bit extreme.

I imagine a scene where the little girl stared at him in horror and asked, "Why do you hate love??"

His story actually brought back a memory from last year, with one of my little girls who was frequently off task. We were doing a whole group math activity, when I noticed that this little girl was drawing on a piece of paper.

I said to her, "Put that away! Why aren't you doing your work?"

She looked at me in shock and answered, "But I'm making you a Best Teacher card!" Completely with a look and a tone of voice that said, "When we came in this morning, our two choices were to pay attention and do the math work or to draw a Best Teacher card, and I made my choice!"

Just a bit nonplussed, I responded, "Well, that's a very nice, but you need to do that home!"

At least I didn't take the cart away and rip it up. But then I'm just not a cold, heartless bastard.

Who hates love.

8 comments:

Mrs. Bluebird said...

Hum, so you aren't a cold heartless bastard that hates love....makes me wonder how things are going with the lady friend. It was Valentines this past Saturday, after all!!!

Unknown said...

oooooooooooooh, sorry. Destroying something a child created is way too harsh, even if they weren't supposed to be doing it at the time.

Melissa B. said...

What would a Cold Heartless Bastard do to occupy himself on Valentine's Day?

Jason Oller said...

I am going to justify Ed U. Cater;s action. It was a practice standardized test,so the hobbits should be acting as they do on the real test. Wouldn't drawing during the TAKS be against the rules. Aren't you supposed to read an Ar book if you finish early. That is what my 4th grade teacher did.

He could of given her a zero. If a monitor was in the room, that hobbit probably coulda flunked the TAKS. Ripping up the drawing was very reasonable(and sounds like what I'd do if I was a teacher.I'd also say "Number Nekt?", but that's another story that will soon be posted on my blog.) compared to a zero or no recess.

Ed. U Cater isn't a soulless bastard. He seems very proffesional.

-JASON OLLER, NO MASTERS DEGREE YET

Mister Teacher said...

Mrs. B, we had a very lovely ValenTIME's Day celebration, thank you very much.

Melissa, I wouldn't know! :)

Katie, sometimes it just happens... though hopefully we don't do it too often.

Jason, Ed is a friend. I kid.

HappyChyck said...

Teacher: "Get on task"

Students: "I'm not doing what I should be doing, but I'm doing something harmless and maybe even precious. Isn't that okay?"

Teacher thinking evil thoughts: "Nope."

These type of exchanges are the broken records of a teacher's day...

Jason Oller said...

Oops,I was very ranty(and sick) today. I'm usually not such a mean teacher(I like humor, too) advocate.Usually, I would have noticed if you were kidding. The word verification is "traficr".

Now, a real issue. Sinec I have nothing else to do, I noticed that some Texas colleges are changing Ec-4 to EC-6. Is the state changing it to that? Will you be changed to EC-6 or stay EC-4?

Christy said...

the best response is when you tell them to stop talking and they look at you and say, "but I was talking about what we're learning today!" \