Every week I teach 161 different kids. They say some ridiculous things. I write them down as accurately and timely as possible, then compile the best lines into these weekly Friday Field Notes.
Enjoy. I certainly do.
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Kindergarten:
(Runs to me and hugs me tight): I want to keep you forever!
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E: I got married on a wedding Saturday.
Me: Oh really? Do you mean you went to a wedding?
E: Yeah. My mom had a wedding.
Me: Your mom got married? Really?
E: With a juicebox.
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Grade 1/2/3
C: My parents builded me. They lived in Toronto maaaaany many years ago. That’s where they builded me.
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Discussing our Christmas concert, and whether or not we celebrate Christmas, and what it means to celebrate Christmas (some fascinating things come up in the public school system.)
Me: What is a manger?
B: Where (mumble mumble).
Me: Pardon?
B: Where they keep dead people.
Me: Um. No.
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K: My dad used to live down the street from the Jesus place.
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E: SOMETIMES people celebrate Christmas with brunch!
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Me: Do you celebrate Christmas?
A: No. But if it was on a Sunday, we’d go to church.
Me: Well, what would you learn at church?
A: That Jesus was born on Christmas.
Me: So then you celebrate Christmas.
A: Only if it’s on a Sunday.
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Me: Do you celebrate Christmas?
J: No, but we get presents.
Me: When?
J: On Christmas.
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A: Jesus wasn’t actually born on Christmas day.
M: WHAAAAT? NO! YOU’RE WRONG!
A: It wasn’t actually on the day with snow and a Christmas tree.
M: BUT THE BIBLE SAYS SO! JESUS WAS BORN WITH SNOW.
(this grade 2 discussion got RATHER heated)
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Grade 4/5
One of the “cool” guys in the class who rarely smiles, shows up to school on Halloween dressed head to toe in a pink and purple clown costume.
Me (deadpan, no smiling): Nice.
Him (deadpan, no smiling): Thanks.
It was one of my top Halloween moments of all time.
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E: What’s with your HAIR?
Me: Oh thanks, E! You look great today too!
E (brightening): Oh hey thanks, Miss B!
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Grade 1/2
Me (during an oral assessment of mapping skills during social studies): So what IS Canada? (correct response: a country)
A: A land of joy and chocolate!
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During math: A turtle peed on my arm!
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L: Miss…..B……I’m done.
Me: Looks great, L. Go have a seat at your desk.
(2 minutes later)
L: Miss….B….I’m done.
Me: Yup, I’ve already told you it looks good. Go have a seat at your desk.
(2 minutes later)
L: Miss….B……
Me: Yup, have a seat.
(2 minutes later)
L: Miss…
Me: Oh. My.
(2 minutes later)
L: Miss….B…..
Me: SERIOUSLY?!
(2 minutes later)
L: Miss….B…..
Me: Oh! Are you done? I had no idea!
L: But….(looking really confused as he walks back to his desk)
I totally won that one.
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I: I’m working SO hard, I’m getting math sweats!
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Oh, and two weeks ago, I threw up in the middle of a parent-teacher interview. When I came back from the washroom, the mom wanted a picture with me and her child before they went on a trip. So there’s a really really awful post-vomit picture of me circulating somewhere in India. Teaching is grand.
Have a delightful weekend.
6 Comments
Canada really is a land of joy and chocolate. The kiddos got it right!
“A land of joy and chocolate” should be the next tourism marketing slogan for Canada. Because now I want to visit that great land up north (unless you’re in Detroit, in which case it’s south) to get a taste of the joy and chocolate. Mostly the chocolate, but some joy, too.
I get math sweats too, math is hard….
It seems to me that there have been multiple arms in this school peed on by turtles. In math.
I have a submission. I was in a kindergarten class the other day and during their free time two of the girls got into a joking argument over what one of them said earlier, during class.
A: You said whipped cream!
B: I said cake!
A: I’m going to have to return the whipped cream?
B: I said CAKE!
A: WHIPPED CREAM!
B: You have whipped cream on your eyeball!
A: You said purple cream.
B: I said BLUE cream.
“A land of joy and chocolate!” <— Made me guffaw.
And I DO hope that if I ever get married, there are juice boxes involved.
So funny, at my school in Cambridge, I overheard a conversation go like this:
(Grade 2)
Student 1: You are too chatty!
Student 2: It is because of my speech delay
Student 1: I don’t even know what that means, what do you think I am Japanese?