The Awesome Awesomeness that is Rennie... :-)

Today I got to sub again at the school I did my final round of student teaching at last year.  I got to see several of my students from last year, which was awesome; I also had a couple of the little siblings of some of my last year's students in the class I was actually teaching, which was cool but a little weird because apparently, if your older sibling had your teacher in previous years-- whether the teacher's a student teacher or a sub-- that automatically makes you a Second-Grade Rock Star, with all the rights and privileges accorded therein.  ("Yeah… my sister Jennifer had her last year.  Oh yeah, that's right… YAH BOI WORD UP YO-YOs!")

But anyway…

One of my regrets from blogging last year was that by the time I had time to blog more often, I had already finished my student teaching and I kind of thought it would be weird to spend time writing about the things a former student had said… even if they were absolutely hilarious at the time.  However, every time I've subbed at this school, this one particular student has made a point of tracking me down wherever I've been just to talk to me… Which wouldn't make talking about the things he said last year any less weird EXCEPT THAT today, he came up with another brilliant declaration that reminded me just how much I loved having him in my classroom :-)  And so today, I finally get to tell y'all about Rennie…

First of all, one of Rennie's parents works at the school.  Which always made for really interesting threats on my part whenever Rennie decided that he didn't really feel like doing his work (which was pretty much daily for a significant portion of my student teaching assignment :-/)  "Rennie… We're all going to lunch in about 45 minutes.  Do you REALLY want me to walk into the staff room with big bald patches in my hair, an uncontrollable flailing of limbs, and my left eye twitching the Macarena while your dad is trying to eat his lunch?  And when he asks me how my morning is going… WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M GOING TO TELL HIM?????"  Coincidentally, by the end of the semester, Rennie's work habits and stick-to-it-ness had improved tremendously ^_^

Second, Rennie is probably off-the-charts gifted.  He was one of the two kids in the class who had already tested into the TAG program, and the word around the school was (probably still is) that someday, he will do amazing things and we will all be staring in wonder at him on our TV screens, going "I was in his 2nd grade/4th grade/middle school PE/high school underwater basket weaving class…  I have been in the presence of AWESOME."  The only problem with this is that Rennie's also one of the younger students in his cohort, and when you combine that with the fact that he's a boy, what you get is awe-inspiring flashes of brilliance coupled with kicking/screaming/sitting-under-his-desk-and-banging-his-head-against-the-metal-legs temper tantrums.  Apparently, it's incredibly frustrating to be a misunderstood genius trapped in a nine-year-old's body :-/

But of course, this odd combination of Steve Jobs and Honey-Boo-Boo does make for some… memorable conversations.  Because you see, Rennie also has probably the most extensive vocabulary of any elementary schooler I've ever known, with the possible exception of his classmate Jason and my own youngest child.  My favorite memory of Rennie from last year goes as follows:

Visualize, if you will, my classroom.  I have a lectern at the front, with an overhead projector next to it.  Directly in front of the lectern sits Jason (whom I've mentioned with much fondness before); next to him sits Brian, another of the class smarty-pantses.  Across from Brian sits Lisa, who is probably the quietest, most polite, mildest-mannered 10 year old I've ever met in my life.  To Lisa's right sits R.C., which stands in my book for "Random Child", who I may or may not get around to telling about in a future post.  And at Lisa's left hand, directly in front of the overhead projector, is Rennie.  On the classroom map, this group was called the Red Group; my personal pet name for them was the Brain Trust.  Or, on my less generous days, Pinky and the Brains o_O

It's another typical day with another typical student-teachery type of lesson…

"OK, so who can tell me… Rennie, I'm using that part of the overhead right now; please turn it back.  So, who can tell me which part of this sentence… Jason, did I not just ask Rennie to stop messing with my overhead?"

"Yes, but you never specifically asked me not to touch it.  So technically, I'm not disobeying you."

"Fine.  Jason, stop touching my overhead.  Now, which part…"

"So can I touch it again now?"

"No.  Rennie AND Jason, stop touching the overhead.  Now, which part of the sentence is the subject?"  Rennie's hand moves from the overhead reel and starts waving in the air like a demon-possessed jellyfish.  "Let's see… Jennifer, which part is the subject?  Who is this sentence about?"

"Um… Joe?"  Now both of Rennie's hands are in motion.  As one hand waves frantically, the other creeps back to the reel of the overhead projector.  Joe (who is, as Jennifer has correctly discerned, the subject of the sentence "Joe walks his dog down the street.") slowly begins to slide, along with his dog, slowly down the overhead screen.

"Yes, Jennifer… Good job!"  As I enter the battle for Joe's right to walk his dog at the top of the projector screen, Joe jerkily moves back to his original position.  I fix Rennie with a Death Glare and move on to the next question.  "So, if Joe is our subject, what is the predicate?  What is Joe doing in this sentence?"

Once again, Rennie's hands and arms begin to flail.  Only they're now joined by semi-constipated grunting noises.  Now, as we all know, a good teacher always tries to ignore behaviors that are purely attention seeking in nature, while seeking out model behaviors and praising those students who exhibit such behaviors.  And since flailing, grunting, and overhead-projector tampering are not usually found on the Picture Charts of Model Behaviors in college-level educational theory textbooks, I do what any well-intentioned neophyte teacher wannabe would do: I choose to ignore Rennie and call on other students.

"Adam, I see you're sitting quietly with your hand up.  Can you tell us what the predicate of the sentence is?"

At this point, Rennie has had enough.

"OH.  MY.  GOD.  I'm sitting right here!"

"Yes, Rennie.  I know you're there.  It would be extremely difficult NOT to know you're there, as a matter of fact."

"But YOU DIDN'T CALL ON ME!"

"You're right, I didn't.  So, Adam… what's our predicate?"

"BUT I KNOW THE ANSWER!!!"

"I'm sorry, Adam… I had a little trouble hearing you.  Could you say that again?"

"OMG!!!"  Yes, he actually said it just like that… "oh-em-geeeee!"  "I can't BELIEVE this!  I'm sitting right HERE, and I KNOW you can see me and I KNOW you can HEAR me… but you STILL won't CALL ON ME???  What do I have to DO to get your ATTENTION???"

I glance over at my supervising teacher, who is sitting at her desk trying her best to hold in the laughter.  I'm now quite certain this was how Chamberlain felt at Little Round Top when his men were out of bullets, the Confederate soldiers were preparing another attack, and all they had were some lousy bayonets and no help in sight.

Maybe student teachers should be given a spare bayonet for days like these…

"So, Adam…  What's that?  You don't want to share your answer after all?  OK, then… Who else thinks they might know what the predicate is?"

"HEY GUYS!"  Rennie is smart enough to know he needs backup here.  And who better to support him than his trusty Brain Trust.  "Do you SEE this?  She's PURPOSELY DISCRIMINATING against us!  She hasn't called on ANYONE from the Red Group YET today!!!"

A quick glimpse at Pinky and the Brains gives great insight into his chances of success.  Jason (who hates loud noises and disruptions to the daily routine) is laying with his hood up, his head on the desk, and his hands covering his ears.  Brian is glaring at Rennie and mouthing what looks suspiciously like "Shut UP you moron!" while making chopping motions across his throat.  R.C. is leaning back in his chair with an ear-to-ear grin watching the show and probably wishing he had some popcorn.  And mild-mannered Lisa is staring at Rennie with her eyes about to pop out and roll across the floor and her face a shade of magenta only found on dinosaurs on PBS.

"Don't you see?  This is the absolute WORST place to sit in the ENTIRE classroom!"  Rennie turns his appeal to the rest of his fellow Americans.  "None of you should EVER choose to sit here, EVER!  Do you want to know WHY???"  He stops to take a dramatic breath.

"Because there is a LIABILITY at this table!!!"

The whole room goes silent.  And now I, along with my supervising teacher, am trying desperately to contain the bouts of maniacal laughter.  Jason looks up, his eyes meet mine, and we have one of those beautifully random moments of perfect mutual understanding.

Yes, Rennie… there certainly is.  ^_^

--------------------------------------------

By the end of the year, Rennie and I had (finally) come to a sense of mutual understanding and respect, and we were both able to laugh at the "Liability" incident-- eventually :-)  Rennie even learned how to stop and actually listen to the words that come out of his mouth every once in a while; we call it the "5-Second Delay", and it's been a HUGE help to him in understanding why Lisa has always been so leery of sitting within earshot of him. 

Fast forward to today.  Rennie is now a 5th grader, and he has learned a lot more self-control than he had last year.  He's still the same smart, funny, perceptive (though at times totally clueless) guy I remembered, and still one of my all-time favorite students.  So, when he hollered at me from across the blacktop this afternoon, I was more than happy to stop and talk to him.

"Hey, Rennie… What's up?"

"Nothin' much.  Hey, guess what?"

"What?"

"Did you know that I can make noise with my mouth?"

I stop.  Pause.  And just look at him as I silently count to 5.

"OK, that's NOT what I MEANT!  You KNOW what I meant…"

"Well, Rennie, I MIGHT have been thinking SOMETHING along the lines of 'Of COURSE you can make noise with your mouth… That's NEVER been one of your areas of struggle…'  But of course I would NEVER say such a thing to a student out loud…"

Rennie smirks at me.  "Yeah, of course you wouldn't."  And then he grins.  "What I MEANT was that I can make weird mouth noises like this…"  And then he proceeds to make several different creepy/weird/funny noises that were actually pretty impressive for a 10 year old.

"Now that's just awesome!"  And I smile back at him.  "But you do know that there's something that every 5th grader has to learn before they'll let him into middle school, right?"

"Really?  What?"

I fix him with my most serious real-life teacher face.  "Burping the entire alphabet from A to Z.  All 26 letters.  In order."

"Sweet!"  And then he starts to burp.  And they almost sound like letters.  Or weird letter-like mouth noises, anyway.  "See?  I got up to F that time!"  And as he turns to head into Music, he starts to shout.  "HEY!  I'VE GOT AN F!!!"

OMG, I cannot WAIT to sub in 5th grade this year… :-D





(Oh, and for those of you who are still wondering about the subject and the predicate... )

Aiming for the moon... via Facebook ^_^

Well, the school year has begun and I'm officially registered to sub at about 4 different districts in my area.  Trouble is, there aren't a whole lot of teachers who call in sick during the first month or two of the school year, so so far it's been a whole lot of waiting.  And cleaning the apartment.  And going through boxes of old paperwork and bills from 2006.  And worrying over my daughter's transition to the drama that is high school and her sudden interest in high school boys.  Let's just say that it's been an... interesting couple of months :-)

The other thing I've been doing is creating "motivational" posters for my future middle school classroom.  The first one I created was based on a Facebook conversation I was involved in on a friend's wall...

Aim for the moon... even if you miss, you'll still land among the stars.  Actually, you won't, because the stars, unlike the moon, are outside of our solar system.  So, really, it should be, "Aim for the moon, and if you miss, you miss and plummet back towards earth, where, due to the friction caused by re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, you die a horrific, firey death.  So, really, just don't fail, because if you fail, you die."  Which really just means that you end up right back where you started... except for the firey ball of doom part, of course.  But more importantly, always remember to think critically about such things and pay attention to the details.

I've already made one copy for my daughter and another for her best friend...   Any additional copies for the rest of her classmates will be $29.99 plus shipping and handling ^_^

And then there's the poster I just finished this morning...  This one was inspired by conversations I've had with my daughter's best friend, who is completely, adamantly, 100%, absolutely morally opposed to ever getting a Facebook of his own.  He believes FB to be a complete and total waste of time... and I can't say that I completely disagree with him :-/  But anyway, this was my response to him, in picture form :-)

Facebook is like a hammer... It can be used for good, bad, or stupid...

Of course, I had to throw that last little bit at the end in after watching Facebook's first TV commercial...  I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or hit myself in the head with a hammer afterwards o_O  (March 2024 Update: Apparently, "Meta" has wiped all reference to this ad from YouTube, since I cannot find the original video I had posted OR any other versions... Feeling slightly gaslit at the moment, not gonna lie :-/ )

Yeah... If this whole substitute teaching thing doesn't work out, I think I could write advertising copy for Facebook... ;-)

What To Expect When You're High-Schoolering...

Yesterday, my daughter and most of her friends graduated from the 8th grade; as she keeps reminding me, she's "officially" a high schooler now, and "not some little seventh grader anymore, Mooooommmm... " <insert dramatic eye-rolls here>  I'm kind of hard-pressed to find the words to say how proud I am of her and all of her friends, and how hope-filled, excited, and nervous I am for all of them as they start the final leg of their journey to adulthood: high school.

With that in mind, here is what I'd like to say to them-- the little bits and pieces of advice that I'd like to give them as one who went through high school and survived.  Not that they would listen at the moment, since they're too busy reveling in the fact that it's finally SUMMER (Yay! Yah! WooHOOOOOOOOO!!! and all that jazz) to actually listen to anyone, but hey... that's what my blog is for, right? ^_^

So, without further ado (sounds so much more dramatic than it really is, huh? ^_^), here is my Top 8 list of Things Every New High Schooler Should Know:

1.     Everything counts. 
If you have a goal of succeeding in high school, going to college, and getting a job where you get paid a lot of money for not working very hard (as one of my daughter's friends was quoted as saying in their graduation ceremony), you have to start now, with that first Freshman Study Skills class.  In high school, there are no MDFs to turn in when you were too busy to finish your homework and need an extra day or two (or 17, as the case may be) to get it in... Either you turn it in on time or the teacher docks you by half, no ifs ands or buts.  It's not that there are no second chances in high school... it's just that second chances in high school are called "Credit Recovery" and you have to take them during your summer vacation :-(  Which just plain sucks.  Big time.


2.     Don't underestimate the little things. 
You never know what someone else is going through, and your one insignificant little action could be the thing that either makes their day bearable or destroys their will to go on.  A whole school year of little things can make the difference between giving up and pushing through... especially since you have no idea of all the other "little things" that someone is thinking about in any given moment. 

3.     Kindness.
No matter what, you will never go wrong with kindness.  Don't do to others just because they did it to you... an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind and all that.  It doesn't matter who started it... You can be the one to finish it :-) 

4.     You don't know the future.
You may get the chance tomorrow to make amends for the stupidities of today.  Then again, you may not.  You have no way of knowing what is going to happen next to yourself or to that person walking away from you...  As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone, and don't wait to make the wrong things right. 

5.     You can't change the past.
When all else fails, today is a new day, and you can always choose to keep walking forward.  It really doesn't matter what everyone says you are or what everyone is predicting based on yesterday and all that came before... You are who you are because God has formed you and shaped you to be in this place, and where you go from here is between you and Him.  Don't let the haters tell you who you have to be. 

6.     YOLO.
When Nickelback says to live like today was your last day, it doesn't necessarily mean that you should go out and give everything away and refuse to plan for the future.  Rather, live each day so that when you lay down at night, you don't have any regrets to keep you awake.  If you have to think about how you're going to hide what you're about to do, chances are good you probably shouldn't be doing it.  If you've screwed up and need to make things right, do it today, ASAP.  Very few people will be ticked off at you for calling or texting them at 10:45 PM to say you're sorry :-) 

7.     YODO.  You only die once too.  Don't be excessively stupid :-)  (And, since I forgot to include a video in the last post, I'll throw in a bonus video here...

And finally, with all that being said...

8.     Enjoy high school.
This is your last chance to be a kid, before you have to worry about a job, a place to live, insurance, settling down and raising kids, etcetera.  Think about it... If you're 14 now, you could have at least 60 years ahead of you to do all those things.  You don't have to choose a husband or wife, a career path, or a house right now (although the choices you make now could end up having a huge effect on those choices down the road...)  Enjoy being young and having your whole life ahead of you... Don't be in such a hurry to weigh yourself down with the worries of being an adult just yet, because in 20 years, you'll be looking back and going, "Y'know, I really, really wish I hadn't done that...", and you'll end up sitting at your kitchen table writing all of these things down in a blog instead of actually telling your kids and their friends what they need to know to survive high school ^_^

I think this song pretty much sums up everything I want to say here... and knowing my daughter, chances are good that she'd rather hear it from somebody yelling into a microphone than from me, anyway ^_^ 


Today really is the first day of the rest of your life... and not just because that's what the vice-principal said in his official 8th grade graduation speech that he's probably been giving from memory since Vanilla Ice was still cool o_O   No, today is the first day of the rest of your life because, as long as you still have life in you, you can choose to make it the first day.  This is your life, no one else's... and no one can take that away from you :-)

Last day of student teaching... AKA The Spring of my Starlight Mints :-D

Well, it's official... I'm an official university graduate with an official BS degree in Elementary Education (which, if one thinks too hard about it, actually makes quite a bit of sense, as about 67% of what we El Ed people do is pure improv anyway ^_^)  Not to mention that during my last week of student teaching, I caught the flu bug that was spreading through my class, and so stumbled through graduation on a cocktail of Nyquil, coffee, and Mountain Dew... ah, those wild and crazy college days :-D

Rather than post pics of graduation, I figured I'd share a story from my final day of student teaching.  Of course, before I tell the story, I have to explain a little bit about Casey.  Casey is the A-Number-One, Oregon's Most Wanted "problem child" in the fourth grade... actually, in the whole school.  First off, he's been held back once, and is none too happy about it.  Second, this is his first year at our school, so to start the year off right, Casey found the biggest, most-feared fifth grader in the school and picked a fight with him.  He got thoroughly pounded, of course... but the point was made that you don't mess with Myles or Casey o_O    Third, he's become the subject of both a school-wide anti-bullying campaign AND an ESD-level threat assessment... simply by making an offhand comment to a staff member that he was planning to bring a gun to school and that he already had 3 people "on the hit list".  And then there are all the little day-to-day joys of life with Casey... such as him warning me that, if I didn't handle his most recent disagreement with a classmate properly, he would have to take care of the matter himself, and that I wasn't "going to like the results 'cause there's gonna be lots of blood and concrete and somebody would probably be going to jail afterwards."  Rather considerate of him to warn me, all things considered... o_O  Casey's not at all stupid, though he seems to have a lot of people convinced that, because he refuses to do most of his schoolwork, he must be a slow learner.  Personally, I think he's just got the system figured out already... which tells me a lot about his intelligence that I wouldn't get from looking at his grades :-)

When he's not terrorizing his peers, though, Casey can actually be a pretty funny, sweet kid.  Such as the time when his classmate Yesenia was told by another student, "Well, at least I'm white...", and Casey went out of his way to comfort her and make her laugh again.  Or the incident that happened on my last day in the classroom:

That morning, I busted Casey with his iPhone in class again... third time in four days.  After first refusing to put it in his backpack and then stuffing it in his back pocket and lying outright about it ("Whaaaaat?  It IS in my backpack!!!"  "Yeah, OK, so what is that in your pocket, then?"  "That?  Well, it's NOT my PHOOOOOONE... it's my iPHOOOOONE!  Hahahahahahaha..."), Casey eventually did go and put the phone away like I had asked... yes, we celebrate the small victories here... ^_^

... and came out of the coat closet with two fistfuls of candy and both cheeks stuffed full besides...

... which became really interesting because it was his turn to lead the class in the Pledge of Allegiance.  Which is a little difficult to do with a mouth full of Starlight Mints ("Ipfffawwjttdffphguv d Oontdfdd Stttsuvv Mrrrguhh...")  Natural consequences FTW  ^_^

The day progressed normally (this was the same day as Casey's oh-so-considerate pre-warning about the blood and concrete and all that... pretty typical, all things considered o_O), until about half an hour before the end of the day.  At that time, Casey was headed out to one of his Special Ed classes, when he suddenly turned and ran over to hand me two Starlight Mints.  "It's a good-bye present."

"Oh... OK.  Thanks!"  How sweet of him :-)  Really, it was actually pretty sweet... no kidding :-D

When Casey returned from his class to get his things at the end of the day, he came over to my desk, where I was starting to pack up my things.  "Here," he says, and gestures for me to hold out my hands.  I do so, and he dumps a couple of handfuls of Starlight Mints into my hands and onto my desk.

"Um... Thanks.  By the way, where did you get all of these mints from?"

"My backpack.  Duh..."  And he shows me that the bottom of his backpack is filled with about the same amount of mints as he's just given me.

I laugh.  "Okay, yeah, 'duh...'  I meant before they were in your backpack... Where did you get so much candy from?"

"Oh, from the restaurant."

"The restaurant?"

"Yeah, the restaurant.  My mom said that, for 50 bucks for dinner, we deserved as many mints as we could carry!"

Lovely.  Just... lovely :-D  Wonder if they take away your teaching license for accepting stolen goods from your students...

My Top 5 list of phrases that will heretofore be forever banned from my classroom...

As I draw near to the end of my full-time student teaching experience (Graduation in t-minus 11 days... Squeeeeee! :-D), I've come to the conclusion that there are certain phrases that should be banned from any classroom anywhere at any time...

5.  "But you never TAUGHT us THIS...!"
In some cases, this is OK.  Just not when we're talking about nouns after I've spent a week and a half covering them.  In detail.  With all sorts of color-coded whiteboard games and Mad Libs.  And Schoolhouse Rock videos.  Did I mention that I'm teaching fourth grade?  Yeah.  You see how it is...

4.  (Careful... this one is a two-parter)
Student: "I don't GET it..."
Me: "OK... what part don't you get?"
Student:  "... AAAALLLLL of it!"
Me:  Sigh.  Consider banging head against wall.  Decide against the wall plan and take a peek at Student's paper.  Point.  "First, put your name on the paper."  Walk away and repeat with the student three desks over.  If you make it through 5 students before your head explodes, you win.  Go directly to the teacher's lounge and scarf down any form of unguarded chocolate you find.

3.  "But this is HAAAAAAARRRRRD..."
My response to this varies with the student.  Sometimes it's, "Well, let's take it one step at a time... First, put your name on the paper..."  Sometimes it's "Yes... Welcome to fourth grade.  Your point is?"  And sometimes (if it happens to be Rennie or Jason saying it) it's "Noooo, this isn't hard, it's complex... Which are two related but linguistically separate things."  Which means I now have to tell y'all about Rennie, but that's a whole other post entirely...

2.  "But I don't WANT to..."
Of course you don't want to... If you DID, you would have already come up with this idea on your own and finished it.  Probably while I was explaining something else, to which your response was...

1.  "Do we HAAAAAAAVVVVVE to do this???"
No, no, of course not... I just spent the past 5 minutes explaining the directions for this art project/math game/vocabulary worksheet because I enjoy talking to myself in front of a room full of 10-year-olds, all of whom are now wondering if it would be better to notify their parents of their teacher's insanity or just sit back and enjoy the ride... ^_^

When I (someday) have my own classroom, one of the first things I'm going to do is create one of these bad boys... Many thanks to Ms. Teach for the idea :-D

As soon as any one of those phrases passes the lips of one of my students, they will earn a pick from the Fortune Teller of Doom... I swear on the soul of my father... Domingo Montoya...

Well, maybe not, but still... you see how utterly serious I am about this subject.  ^_^

And now, for those of you who know exactly what Schoolhouse Rock song I was referring to (and who now have it running around in your head like a caffeinated hamster...)

My favorite moment of the past week... Learning to speak softly :-)

OK, yes, it's been several months... FTST (Full-Time Student Teaching) will do that to a person o_O

I'm currently in a 4th grade bilingual classroom in rural Oregon... 29 kids, 12 girls and 17 boys... that right there should tell you 80% of what you need to know about how it's going o_O

But anyway, I figured that 1) it's been a while since I posted anything, and 2) I had to share this little incident with somebody other than my hubby and kids.

A little background:  On my first day at the school, one of the boys in my class (who I'll call Jason) decided that he hated my guts simply because I was there.  As it turns out, Jason has an ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), so he pretty much hates everything that doesn't fit into his schema... which includes student teachers, apparently.  Which is fine... we have a family friend with the same ASD, so I totally get where Jason was coming from.

Over the first few weeks, Jason and I developed a special kind of relationship... I would make eye contact with him, he would glare at me; I would ask him how he was doing, he would growl and turn his back; I would ask him to get out his homework, he would pull his hoodie over his face and pretend to sleep.  It was a beautiful and heartwarming thing, this budding friendship of ours.

And then, one day, we discovered that we had something in common: we've both read and loved the Warriors books by Erin Hunter :-D

After that, it was a whole different story... kind of a Longtail-and-Firepaw sort of thing, if you've read the books ^_^  As it turns out, Jason is off-the-charts brilliant... which goes a ways towards explaining why, as he puts it, "99% of the people in this school irritate me..."  He also does a killer Christopher Judge impersonation...

... though I seriously doubt that he would ever contemplate watching Stargate SG-1.  Ever.  Because everybody knows that intergalactic travel through a wormhole is both physically and theoretically impossible.  As are time travel and the existence of alternate realities.  Oh, well...

So, anyway, this week, I had just finished teaching a lesson when a random fourth grader walked up to me and randomly handed me a meterstick.  For no apparent reason.  Just... thought I should hold onto it, I guess... o_O

"OK... I now have a big stick.  Any idea what I'm supposed to do with it?"

Random Child shrugs, grins, and walks off.  Which is typical, but more on Random-Child later on, I'm sure...

At this point, Jason leans over, gives me his Teal'c look, and remarks, "Now all you need is to learn how to speak softly..."

Gah!  Roosevelt quotes from a fourth grader???  OMG... I love this kid! :-)  (And for the record, yes, he was able to tell me which Roosevelt he was quoting...)