Saved by a Book

  You know those nightmares you have before school starts where everyone and everything is out of control?  I had one of those days today.  Ok, it wasn't the whole day.  It was just math class.  But I was ready to throw in the towel by 9:30 AM (and it takes a lot for me to want to throw in the towel).  The math lesson was too hard, I had a child in tears because he was frustrated, and on top of that the document camera kept shutting down as I was trying to walk the kids through our lesson.  I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks, as I struggled with the Elmo camera and heard the following at the same time (I might add that both kids were out of their seats and standing right behind me as I wrestled with the technology):  "Mrs. Johnson, I have to go to the bathroom.  It's an emergency. Mrs. Johnson, my throat is really dry, even though I keep getting drinks.  I told my mom but she didn't say anything."  I wish I knew how to write those two sentences on top of each other, because that's what it sounded like.  The noise level was rising (reminding me of my own classmates talking as the teacher fiddled with the film projector), as was my frustration.  As I imagined leaping into my car and driving far, far away to some sandy beach with blue water, I took a deep breath and stopped.  I didn't finish the lesson. I just stopped and told the kids that we needed to take a break from math.  We all did some deep breathing and I glanced on my desk.  Sitting there was a new title that a colleague had given me, telling me it was hilarious.  I knew it was what we needed.

I gathered my young learners around me and we opened the book.  In this story, Michael loves to collect words, all kinds of words.  Then he hears a bad word that he kind of likes.  His sister warns him that the word is inappropriate, but her pays her no mind.  Before you know it, he's got lots of kids saying the bad word.  My students were laughing out loud as I read the story, piping in with their own stories of bad words.

Before we knew it, it was time for gym - the perfect way to get rid of any extra stress.  We left the classroom in a much better frame of mind.  The Very Inappropriate Word helped us regroup and refocus and get on with our day.  Thank goodness!  I really can't afford an exotic vacation right now, and I really do love my job.  Lucky for us, the rest of the day went on without a problem and we all agreed that we were glad to have that math lesson behind us.

Thank you to Ruth and Stacey for hosting Slice of Life Tuesdays.  You can read more posts on their blog.