Missed Moments

A lot goes down in my classroom that I do not blog about. Either I forget, can't word it right, or fall asleep before I can share it with the internet. And then my faithful twelve readers are deprived of that hilarious or important moment forever. I realized that one of my favorite stories from this year is one of those. And, as Jack just reminded me ever so kindly, now is the best time to begin blogging about it (as the Celtics/Heat game begins).

Anyway, it's short. Plus everyone knows the beginning of basketball games don't matter. Not the first five minutes, at least.

Qwaseem, one of the kids in my class this year, is one of the happiest and most carefree little kids there is. Unless he has to do something he doesn't want to do, which is 95% of all first grade requirements. Then his face turns sour, he gets mad, and he snorts and grunts like a bull.

Key difference between this year and last year? I can deal with that now. I had to escort him one-on-one out to the bus lot one day because he wouldn't leave my room with the rest of my class because he didn't get a SECOND piece of candy. He glared at me the whole walk out, slamming his bookbag on the sidewalk as he trudged along.

"Pick it up," I commanded.

"Why are you ruining my life? I hate you."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Last year that would have haunted me all weekend. This year, I'm not letting a six-year-old ruin my Friday because he didn't get his way.

NOT the story I intended to tell. The one I'm talking about happened during math class, when Qwaseem waved one finger in the air emphatically to show me that he had to use the bathroom.

"Someone's in there," I replied, "You'll have to wait."

"But I CAN'T," he whined back. "Let me go in the hall bathroom."

Unfortunately for Qwaseem, two unidentified K-2 students had been dumping our toilet paper rolls in the toilets, so student were generally not allowed to go to the hall bathrooms anymore. And I've gotten Rainman-good at being able to tell when kids can wait and when they are actually going to pee their pants. This was not one of those moments. When I told him to wait, he continued to glare at me in spite of my insistence that he just keep working to make the time go by faster.

His classmate finally came out of the bathroom, grinning because he had probably been using toilet paper as a makeshift toy car for 10 minutes while in there. "Go, Qwaseem. Sean's out."

Instead of wiggling on over to the bathroom like most first graders (and college boys) when they REALLY have to go, he stood up slowly, staring at me. Each step he took had a calculated, even slap to it, like the steps of someone walking the plank on a pirate ship. It took him about 45 seconds to walk to the bathroom like that, his eyes on me the whole time.

When he finally got to the bathroom door, he lingered for about fifteen seconds with his hand on the doorknob, still looking at me. What a drama queen, I thought, believing he'd break the stare down to finally go in. But he didn't.

He turned around, walked just as slowly across the room back to me (where I was working with another kid) and told me flat out-

"Why do you have to be WASTING my time?"

I just looked at him. Wasting your time? You're six. What else do you have to do beside these addition problems I just gave you? Tie your shoe? Oh wait, you still don't know how to tie your shoes.

Meanwhile, as Qwaseem's nostrils were flaring and daggers were shooting out of his eyes in my general direction, the sweetest kid in my class walked up to me doing the telltale "I have to pee" dance.

"Go ahead," I said to him, then turned back to Qwaseem. "I'm sorry I wasted your time."

First graders telling me that kind of stuff is one of things I will NOT miss about teaching. Along with a whole bunch of stuff I will miss. But you won't hear about that until I start getting sentimental... on the last day of school.