Gotta make this short; Survivor returns tonight.
Last year’s crew of kids was, I have to say, a bit vanilla. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but they didn’t make for good blog fodder. This crowd is a whole ‘nother pack o’ dogs. I think this year is going to be fun to read about, if not live through.
First I have more “astronauts” than ever before. These are the kids who spend most of their time on Planet Janet or Planet Charles or just randomly wandering the cosmos. My thumbs got sore from snapping my fingers like a hypnotist all the time, so the Stick has been in heavy use as a focusing aid early this year. I think I’m up to 10 miles a day patrolling the aisles and whacking and helping and cajoling and REMINDING. (That’s would be waaaay up from typical 4.7 miles a day.)
Now I think I have a whole new breed on my hands. I don’t even have a name for this one yet, because it’s so new–at least to me.
One year I even had a girl who was prone to mini seizures, and would drop in the middle of class and twitch on the floor for a minute or so. We were supposed to make sure she wasn’t injured, and then go about our business. Sort of like having one of those fainting goats in your class. Sometimes I’d just step over her to get to another kid’s notebook or to the whiteboard. After the first ten times, even the kids weren’t fazed.
But I’ve never had one of these.
She wants to stand for the whole period.
Yup. She bent over her desk to write the warm up. She stood to the side to watch Mr. Morton today. She spent the entire 54 minutes on her feet. (I know: Welcome to our world.) I asked her if she was training for something.
“No.”
“So you just want to stand the whole period. I’ve heard that the new thing in some businesses is to have stand up desks, you know, to make sure people aren’t just loafing. It supposedly makes them more efficient. Is that what you’re after?”
“No.”
“A dare or a bet?”
“No.”
“So you just want to stand?”
“Yes.”
“Well then. OK. Go crazy. Have fun.” Luckily her seat is in a front corner, and she has plenty of room. Don’t know how it might work if she were in an aisle all period.
Later in the period, a kid raises his hand during the vocabulary pretest.
“I can’t see the choices for number four.”
My usual response it that they need glasses–and most do. But this time…
“Could you ask “Cindy” to move her head?”
I’m torn about whether that roundabout way of doing it was better or worse than the usual seventh grade way:
“Hey! Your head’s in the way. Move it!”
No word yet on whether this was a one shot deal or will become a daily occurrence. Or if, since I have her first period, this went down all day.
I’ll have to check into that.
Maybe you all could give me some suggestions for a name for this breed of middle schooler.
