My amazing teammate has the perfect, “Toodles!”

She uses it at the perfect times.

I’m trying to adopt it as a catchphrase myself. Here’s what I’m learning about “Toodles!”

When there are kids who just showed you a dance they made up at recess and you loved to watch. But then they are just standing there staring at you.

That’s when you say, “Thanks for sharing that friends! Toodles!”

When you see a student out in the real world and you’ve had the whole conversation, you are actually so happy to see them. But then they are just standing there staring at you.

That’s when you say, “So good to see you! Toodles!”

Or when it’s time for morning meeting to start and you are in the hall with the few stragglers, trying to get them to finish up and head in to start the day.

That’s when you say, “I’m going in for morning meeting. See you in a minute! Toodles!”

Help me out, friends. When else can I practice my new favorite catchphrase?

Toodles!

Yesterday was Opposite Day in second grade.
Luckily it was short lived.

It started with kids calling me my student teacher’s name, my student teacher was called my name. Then it progressed. Lunch one was lunch two, lunch two was lunch one. Chairs that were still up were down, chairs that were down, were, you guessed it, up.

“It’s Opposite Day!” kids announced to those just coming in.

And so it rolled.

I was worried, to be honest. I was sick and I didn’t think I had the patience for a whole day of Opposite Day.

“It’s Opposite Day!” Someone exclaimed to me.

“I’m so excited.” I said.

She smiled. I don’t think she understood that my “excitement” was my one and only contribution to Opposite Day.

Luckily, the opposites quieted down by morning meeting, and I forgot about it until just now. Phew.

Today we got to something some of my students have been waiting for, hoping for, begging for.
They drum-rolled as I went to switch the slide.
They cheered as the new slide appeared.
It was finally time to learn…

The cursive capital G.

It’s always nice to be able to make them so happy.

We started how we always start a new cursive letter, “pencils up in the air!”

I took them step by step. “Start at the bottom. Curve up to the top. Loop around to the left and swing up to the right. Pull down to the bottom and swing left to cross. Swing up to the right.”

“This is hard!” Someone complained.
“No it’s not, it’s easy,” someone else said.

My student teacher reminded them that things can be easy for one person and hard for another. She asked them to be encouraging.

I moved on to the next letter we were learning. My student teacher complimented my ability to read the formation directions while drawing the letter.

I thanked her for her kind words and added, “It actually is tricky sometimes!”

“No it’s not” that same someone else said again.
“She wasn’t talking to you,” another student said.

I looked at the clock.

We started practicing the lower case w. One of the students said something about it that I couldn’t hear. I asked 3 times for her to repeat herself, when my para told me. “She said it looks like an outline of a bum.”

“Oh.” I’m annoyed at myself for trying so hard to understand what she was saying.

“Well, it’s just a w. It looks like a w, and that’s what it is. That’s all.”

In the back of my head I remembered how a few days ago my student teacher said she admired my patience, and I laugh to myself as we finish up cursive and head to lunch.

You know those kids in your class that have such a hard time with
(you can fill in the blank — )
listening, keeping their hands to themselves,
not interrupting, staying on the rug, staying on their chairs. . .
you know those kids
they have good moments and hard moments
good days and hard days
good weeks and hard weeks

I want to know the form of
poetry
to adequately express the moment
during a hard week
when you walk by their after school program and one of
those very kids
runs up to you
arms open wide
smiling from ear to ear
proclaiming
“Hello!”
as they hug you
and your papers and bags almost fall to the ground
because
that moment is the sweet hope of teaching,
I think.

Way back when I was a new teacher, there was a mom who was mad at me… very mad at me. This was my second year teaching, I think, and my first year in sixth grade.

25 years later and my memory is a bit hazy, but I think I remember enough. Her daughter was in student council, and once a week or so she would miss the first part of homeroom. She would miss the start, or maybe the end of our daily journal writing. Even though part of being on student council was the understanding that you would need to make up missed work, she had a hard time finishing those half page journal assignments.

I guess she earned a B on the journal assignment one marking period. If my memory serves…

Mom was mad.

She said, “My daughter is a great writer. She doesn’t need to do these assignments.”

She said, “My daughter is in student government. She doesn’t need to do these assignments.”

She said, “My daughter doesn’t get B’s.”

I don’t know if this was one phone call or three. I don’t remember if there were meetings, or if there were emails. I mean, there was email, like email was a thing… But not as much email. Maybe there was a hand written note from home!

I do know that the teacher across the hall, my mentor and friend Mardi helped me through this tricky situation. (And many more situations after this.)

She told me that sometimes you just have to ask, “What would you like me to do? What grade would you like your child to have?”

It doesn’t solve every issue, or every miscommunication. but, it does give pause.