Lines

How do you feel about lines? Most adults, I think, HATE them, unless we're already in one, and someone cuts into it. Then we want the orderly justice a line promises, be it on the freeway or at Costco. Our inner wild thing wants to become a ruthless enforcer of line order.

Wild kid beings, I've noticed, are just like us in this regard. They don't like being in line, but, omigod!, if anyone 'cuts' them, I'm instantly buzzed by a swarm of tattle-tales: Ms. B, Ms. B, Ms. B!! Kyle V. cut me! Esteban cut me! Kelly CUT ME!

The first time I heard this, I looked for the knife.
I'm sure there's a whole theory of discipline based on children walking like ducklings in perfectly ordered, evenly spaced, single or double files. Neat lines, neat minds. Or something like that. Certainly there's a lot of children's literature that walks that path.


I love the Madeline books, and I read them to my students, but I can't say I subscribe to the two straight lines theory of life. I was a 4th grader at a school run by Carmelite nuns who believed in uniformed field drills only Leni Riefenstahl would have enjoyed.

And, as you can see, I'm also not very good at it. My kids' lines always waver and wobble, especially after the first weeks of school.

Except in one area.

When it comes to getting kids to line up their numbers in math problems or line up their spelling words in neat columns, I'm a perfect little Nazi. Neatness when there's meaning involved is very important to me. What do you think?

Creatures of Habit

We're such creatures of habit. What worked before is what we gravitate towards, instinctually, it seems. Why does it take so much effort to approach things anew? And when are we willing to try?

My kids from the last two years were abstract thinkers. They loved symbolic manipulation. For most of them, math was their favorite subject. This year's crew, individually and in the aggregate, have a completely different personality.

They're tactile. All day long they touch:
tables
pencils
erasers
backpacks
sweatshirts
their body parts
their partners' body parts...

They hug each other. They braid each other's hair. They tangle legs. They make human piles. They just want to be in contact.

I have a silken brown teddy bear named Chocolate. Alejandro gave him to me last year. They vie for Chocolate.

I realized today I have to rethink the methods I use to teach this crew. I can't be so abstract. Most of them don't love words for words' sake or numbers for numbers' sake. Being able to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious does not intrinsically give them joy. They like to count with stackable multicolored cubes. They like to write words with fat, multicolored markers. When I give them something to touch during a lesson, they come back to Planet Classroom. Airplane Eraser Battlefront ends. They're less lost.

But it takes effort to rethink how you teach. I've have to reorient everything that's second nature to me. And there's a block. It's the classic teacher's secret, every parent's nightmare: Will I bond? Will I love the next (class, child) as much as the previous one?

I know I'm still in love with last year's crew. We know each other so well. We worked so well together. We have our inside jokes and games and habits and rituals. A bunch of them still visit me every day, twice a day.

I've got to clear some emotional space for this next bunch. Or I will be forever grouchy this year.

Do you remember being in love with your teachers? Or vice versa?