Saturday, March 06, 2010

For a change from the often serious nature of this blog, some updates from Thursday's classroom:

B (who has autism) now has an imaginary friend. I was very excited to be having some rare one-on-one time with B, while my 6th graders had to finish up some testing in their regular rooms. Unfortunately, I did not yet know about Jim, B's imaginary friend. It turned out that every other question I asked had to be directed to Jim, not B. If B also knew the answer, he would tell me what Jim said, but if he did not, he'd say he couldn't hear Jim. Then when the sixth graders actually started to enter the room, K almost sat on Jim! Braylen quickly stopped her, and I had to go up to Jim and ask him politely if he would mind moving and then give him a big high five so that K could finally sit down. If you could have seen poor K's face! She was utterly confused, and the other sixth graders were just barely holding themselves together!

Also on Thursday, two third graders (whom I don't teach) came into my room during after-school tutoring, after nearly inciting an epic fight with some boys. I proceeded to show them my sign on the wall that says in Thai "jai yen" (cool heart) and talk to them about keeping cool when boys are purposefully trying to torment them. I then allowed them to sweep and clean my room, during which time conversation shifted quite predictably to Rosenwald students' favorite topic, "Miss Kara, you single?" When I answered affirmatively, I got an especially delightful answer this time, "Miss Kara, why?! That's ridiculous! You are so pretty and nice." However, the next part of the conversation I could barely even contain myself for. "Ms. Kara, did you know Mr. Q is also single? He's lonely at night, and he might spend the rest of his life alone! You should spend some time with him." To which my response (while carefully guarding my laughter) was, "That's true, he might spend the rest of his life alone, but the problem is I am not lonely. I'm quite content, so I think I'll be okay without a boyfriend for now." They solemnly shook their heads at my misguided ideas.