Posts Tagged “desk”

What Every Parent Should Know #2

There are many things parents should know before sending their kids off to school.

#2. Creativity Works Both Ways.

Most parents try hard to cultivate creativity in their children, as do teachers. I am often amazed at how creative some students can be if given an opportunity to explore something. Each year with my 4th graders during our “whole group” days I do a writing activity with them that allows them to fracture a fairytale. Some of their stories and illustrations really should be published I think, they never cease to amaze me. But on occasion creativity can also work against you. Here is a little story about a fellow teacher and friend of mine Mrs. D.

This past school year Mrs. D. had a challenging class. She knew at the beginning the year that 3 of her students had some interesting behavior issues and often caused disturbances in the classroom. But, when it was revealed that 2 other students, new to the district, who were placed in her room also, had behavior issues, life in Mrs. D’s 2nd grade classroom got very interesting. In fact a substitute teacher left her a note after spending one day with her class telling Mrs. D. if she had to teach in this classroom on a daily basis she would probably be drinking her lunch. That same substitute teacher told the principal that Mrs. D. deserved combat pay.

On this particular day, she had 3 of the 5 spinning. One of them, “Tim”, had been under his desk and torn up his work more than once that day. She informed him because he didn’t have his work completed he would be staying in at recess to complete it. This sent him under his desk again. She ignored this behavior until she noticed him playing with the case to his eyeglasses, so she took that away from him and placed it on her desk. Later in the day, she also took away his glasses and put them in the case – as you can tell neither his day nor hers had improved.

The next morning he arrived in a much better mood and things were going well, until he needed his glasses. Mrs. D. opened the case on her desk to give them to him and noticed a little drawing on the inside of the case. Inspecting this more closely she realized “Tim” had drawn a picture of a hand “flippin’ the bird” then drawn an arrow pointing to the words “Mrs. D.” She looked up at “Tim” and before she could say a word he very calmly said, “Weeeellllllll, I was mad at you yesterday.”

She shared this story with me later in the day, and showed me the actual “artwork”. Mrs. D. said she really did appreciate his creativity on a certain level since he hadn’t literally expressed this during class which would have caused a major disruption, but she had to contact his parents about it anyway. Let’s just say his parents didn’t quite have the same feeling about Tim’s creativity.