Day -12: Readers' Choice

A quick story:

My friend who teaches the fifth grade bilingual class at our school and who has all my students from last year popped her head in my room last Friday. "Oh my God! I almost killed Pedro!" she burst out.

Pedro deserves a whole blog entry all to himself, but suffice it to say that he is rather odd. He is obsessed with fashion (especially Abercrombie and Fitch), has a new spiky gelled hairdo, is a tetherball star, and does not reason the same way your average fifth grader does.

The fifth graders have been doing a project in which they thought of "What's your favorite ...?" questions, surveyed first graders, and made bar and pie graphs showing the results of their surveys. As they were preparing posters with their results, Pedro picked up a glue stick, proceeded to smear glue all over the bottom of both his sneakers, and then started walking around the classroom. My friend finally realized what was going on and was so angry that all she could think of to do was point furiously at Pedro and scream, "KNEEL! KNEEL RIGHT NOW!"

Fortunately for her and him, he gathered what the word "kneel" meant and did it, thereby getting his sticky feet off the floor. My friend was so angry and flabbergasted that she made Pedro stay there for a minute or two until she calmed down and had time to deal with him. He cheerfully mopped up the sticky mess. What he will take from this incident is anyone's guess.

***

I can't believe there are so few days left of school!

In talking with a few people who read this blog, I've heard some ideas for topics they'd like for me to write about during these last few days. To save myself some time and brain energy tonight, I thought I'd pose a question instead of writing a regular post.

What do you want to read about? I have 12 days left at my school with my students. What do you want to know about them and my teaching life?

Some topics other people have suggested to spark your thinking:
- discipline (i.e. what kinds of discipline problems do I deal with, how do I deal with them, etc.)
- the social worlds of the girls in my class (ins and outs of their cliques, gossip, etc.)
- how my curriculum has changed as a result of No Child Left Behind and other mandates (what, specifically, I have stopped doing and what I do more of now)

Please take a minute and post your vote for a topic you'd like to read about - one of these or anything else that you've been wondering about. You can post your comment anonymously if you want. Or you can send me an email to my regular email address if you have it. Thanks!