I Quit!

Those were the words that Bear's 4th grade class heard from their teacher (who happens to be a friend of mine). Bear's class literally runs the gamut. She has the bright students, the co-teach kids, and the 2 worst behavior kids in the whole grade level. You can imagine what a typical day for her & the co-teacher is like. The teachers really love the class though.

Near the end of the day, Teacher was trying to teach a lesson. Tired of the rude behavior, the talking amongst each other, and the obviously not paying attention from the majority of the class, she informed them that she quit. They better figure out what they are going to do because she's done. After a few minutes of stunned silence, she told them to go on & teach themselves. Bear & his tablemate looked at each other. Bear then shrugged his shoulders & preceded to read the chapter of the book out loud. He finished. Waited. Nothing happened. So he started with the next chapter. At that point, Teacher stepped in & asked them to write a paragraph about what happened these past 10 minutes. After a few minutes of writing, she told them to wad up the paper & throw it away along with their negative behavior. Tomorrow would be a new day & they'd all start over together.

Bear's response to that? Well, ok, when I walk in, it'll be a brand new day. If I don't talk to you, it's because I don't know any of you yet.

On the way home, we were discussing it. Bear is as sensitive as he is funny. He informed me that he felt like crying and had to use the book to hide his face. He told me there were a million reasons he felt like crying. I asked for three of them.

1. He was scared.
2. It's hard teaching people, especially when you are just a kid yourself. I mean, there are important tests coming up. That's a lot of pressure!
3. There were German words in the story. How is he expected to know German words when I won't let him take German classes?

I think he now knows how his teacher feels. Hopefully tomorrow will be a brand new day for his class & they treat their teacher with the respect she deserves. They are truly lucky to have her in their lives. She fights hard for them, she gives so much of herself to them, & she absolutely cares for each & every one of them. And she's fun! She does her best to make learning exciting.