On Thursday I went on a field trip to Toronto’s Medieval Times dinner theatre with the grade fours, fives and sixes.  (“Medieval Times” or the “middle ages” is a big part of the grade four social studies curriculum in Ontario, so the dinner theatre makes for a great educational field trip.  Kids in grade four generally spend a month or more studying castles, weapons, knights, kings and queens and all that stuff.)  All in all, it was a pretty good day, and the show was great.  But there were a few problems, and I learned a few things about field trips as a result.

Krista, the grade four/five teacher told me that the show started at 1:00 but for some reason Medieval Times staff had told her we had to be there by 12:00.  She didn’t know why.  When we got there, I figured out why – it’s just a money grab.  The Medieval Times lobby is full of vendors in period-costume selling souvenirs and drinks.  The souvenirs were super-cool – beautiful princess veils for girls and glow-in-the-dark swords and shields for boys.  The drinks were cool too – they had multi-coloured flashing lights in the bottom of the glasses.  Unfortunately, since none of our kids had money, we had some pretty sad-looking kids looking at all the fun toys they couldn’t have.  And there was nothing else to do except look at souvenirs – for a whole hour!  I felt bad for them.  I wished I was rich so I could buy them all a glow-in-the-dark sword or something.

The show was quite good, in general, but the first part of it was not ideal for deaf kids.  At the beginning, there’s about a half hour of speeches from the King and Queen about the types of clothes worn in medieval times, the types of weapons used,  and the purpose of the tournaments, and the recent history of battles in the kingdom.  It was good – they had good English accents, and they made the kids laugh, by saying things like, “Worst of all, in Medieval Times, there were no X-Boxes or Game Boys or iPods!  What did we have instead?  Jousting tournaments and archery contests and battles between brave knights for the hand of the fair princess!  Now, would you see some sport?”  (Most of the young audience didn’t respond because they didn’t really understand that “would you” is the old English way of saying “Would you like to”.  But when the host said, “Or would you prefer to be back at school?”  The kids screamed “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”  He said again, “Would you see some sport?” and this time they screamed “YEAAAAAAAAAH!” at the top of their lungs, and stomped their feet and banged their tables.

The problem was that all this talking occurred in the dark (with spotlights on the actors), so the deaf kids had no idea what was going on for about half an hour.  Of course, the school interpreter was along for the day (who gets paid $50 an hour), but sign language interpreters are pretty useless in the dark.  The host of the show also welcomed each school individually by name, which of course is just an excuse for the kids to engage in a cheering/screaming competition.  The host announced, “A special welcome to Holy Rosary Catholic School (deafening screams), South Street Elementary School (deafening screams and cheering)," and he named our school (complete silence).”  People must have thought we didn’t show up.  (I wished they had said, "such and such School for the Deaf" instead, so that people would understand the silence.  If the kids had been able to see the interpreter, they could have stood and screamed too.  Deaf kids are good at yelling and screaming – in fact, they can be much louder than hearing kids because they don’t hurt their own ears or anyone else’s who happens to be standing nearby.

(Krista told me that Medieval Times had phoned her the day before and asked if she wanted to arrange for a portable spotlight to put at the feet of the interpreter.  She said yes.  But when we arrived there, the lighting people said that nothing had been arranged, and nothing was available.  That was disappointing.)

The food was okay – though not great.  It was a very greasy piece of chicken with the skin on, half of a baked potato, and half of a cob of corn, and a little piece of cake for dessert.  The real problem with the food (besides the calories, carbohydrates, and cholesterol), though, was the drink.  It was Pepsi, all-you-can-drink.  The servers came by our table every five minutes, refilling everybody’s half-empty cups to the top.  At the time, I thought this was good service.  But then the show was over.  When the lights came up and I could talk to the kids again, I asked one of the kids in sign language, “What’d you think of the show?”  She looked like she was going to cry, and she signed back, “I think I’m going to pee my pants.”  I said to Krista, “We gotta get to the bathroom, fast.”  She said, “Okay, let’s go.”  Another girl signed “I have to go too!  And I REALLY gotta go!”  She did that half-squatting thing that kids do.  But there was no getting there fast.  We left the theatre (we were the last ones to leave because we had front-row seats) and started looking for the washrooms.  It was easy to find them – they were at the other end of a line of about 500 kids.  (I think the theatre seated about 1000 people, and half of them probably had been chugging Pepsi for the past hour.)  The kids saw the line up and the tears started rolling.  We decided that the kids had a better chance of staying dry if we left the theatre and found washrooms elsewhere.  We left the building and headed for the bus.  Luckily, we found additional washroom facilities in the bus parking lot.

If I ever take deaf kids to Medieval Times Dinner Theatre on a field trip, I’ll keep the following things in mind:

1. It’s not really necessary to arrive an hour before the show so that the kids can look at souvenirs that they can’t afford.  Arriving half an hour before the show would be sufficient, and make sure everybody goes to the bathroom in that half hour.

2. Teach the kids about the screaming contest tradition between hearing schools, and practice beforehand.

3.  Make special arrangements for the interpreter’s spotlight, and phone Medieval Times every few days to nag them about it, so they don’t screw it up.

4.  Discuss the pros and cons of the “free re-fill” phenomenon with the kids before the show.  Advise them that the phrase “All you can drink” should not be taken literally, especially when washroom facilities are limited.

5.  In case they ignore my advice, remember that there are additional washrooms in the bus parking lot at Medieval Times that few other teachers seem to know about.

Yay!  I have a teaching job in the fall at the school for the Deaf in Milton!  I  got an email from the principal today and she told me that an offer letter is in the mail.  I'm so happy.

And tomorrow I graduate from teacher's college.  Mom and Dad are coming in the morning for the convocation ceremony and then we're going on a picnic in Springbank Park and we're going to drink and party all day by the pool and then Denise and Sam are coming over for dinner.  It's going to be great.

P.S.  I added some very cute pictures of my cousins Alexander, Lauren and Alyssa, and some pictures from the Bruce Peninsula.

I have taught gym class for a total of about 6 days this month, from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 9, with Deaf kids and hearing kids with physical and intellectual disabilities, and the most important thing that I have learned in these 6 days is that I would never want to be a full-time gym teacher (or a high school teacher).

Today I figured out why I’m getting so frustrated with the grade seven and eight kids in the LD school.  I think of it now as the “Cheat, Lie, Argue” cycle, which occurs about 75,000 times per hour.  First somebody cheats, then the kid lies about cheating, then the kid argues with me, or with other kids, about the cheating.  It drives me up the wall. 

Here’s one example from today.  During a game called “Stones”:

I watch student A. touch student B.  Student B. keeps on running, pretending it never happened.  This is the “cheat”.

Me: “B., you’re out!  A. touched you!”

B: “No, he didn’t!”  (The lie.)

A: “I did so!  You know I did!” 

B: “No, you didn’t, you idiot!”  (The argument.)

Me: “B., you’re out, I saw it.  You’re frozen, sit down until somebody unfreezes you.”

B: “I didn’t even get touched!  He just ALMOST touched me, but he actually didn’t!”  (The argument continues.)

Me: “Sit down, you’re out.  That’s final.”

A: “Fine, I don’t even care.  I hate this game anyway.”  (I ignore this, and indicate that the game is back on.)

About three-and-a-half seconds later, student C. throws a ball into the net, where student D. is the goalie.  D. doesn’t stop the ball.  But C. was in the crease, the place in front of the net where you’re not allowed to be when you’re taking a shot on goal.  (This is the “cheat”.)

C: (excitedly) “Yah!”

D: “No!  You were inside the crease!  No fair!”

Me: “D’s right, no goal.  You were in the crease.  Pass me the ball please.”

C: “I was not!  See?  My foot was right here.”  (The “lie”, accompanied by a slow-motion replay of the shot on goal.)

Me: “I said no goal.  Give me the ball please.”

C: (rudely and angrily) “Whatever!”

About five seconds later, student E. trips student F., who has the ball.  (This is the cheat.)

F: (to me): “Did you see that?  He totally just tripped me!”

Me: “Yes, I did see it.  E., that’s a one-minute time-out.  Sit on the sideline.”

E. “What’d I do?”

Me: “I saw what you did.  You tripped him.  Sit on the sideline.  Now.”

E: “I did not!” (The lie.)

E. “I didn’t trip him!  He fell over my foot!  He made it look like a trip.  He ran at me and then fell on purpose at the last minute!  He should be out, not me.”  (The argument.)

F: “Ha ha!”

Me: “F., that’s enough.  Throw the ball, let’s go.”

So, this cheat-lie-argue cycle continued without ceasing for 6 days, and I got more and more tired of it.  (I don’t mean that all the students in the school behave like this, mostly just this grade seven/eight class that I teach after lunch.)  Today, I had enough.  After half an hour of the cheat-lie-argue cycle, I interrupted an argument between the kids about whether or not a student was actually ‘out’ with a short but stern lecture.

I said, angrily, “Why do you guys insist on arguing about every little incident that happens in every single game?  It makes the game SO boring when we have to stop every 2 minutes to settle an argument, and it is very annoying!  I don’t understand how you guys can have any fun playing a game when you act like this!  It’s very immature and unsportsmanlike.”  At this point, I looked at my watch.  It was 1:29.  The kids were supposed to go get changed at 1:30.  There was no sense starting the game again for less than a minute.  I said, “Alright, game over, guys.  Go get changed.  Please help me pick up the equipment and carry it back inside.”  The E.A. said, “And please put your pinneys on the hanger.”  (Pinneys are coloured over-shirts that one team wears to differentiate its players from the other team.)

One student, C., exploded.  He threw his pinney on the ground and stomped off.  I said, “C., get back here and pick this up.”  (I certainly wasn’t going to pick up after him.)  C. kept walking. 

Me (louder): “C., get over here and pick up this pinney, and put it on the hanger!”

C. turns around, fuming and scowling, picks up the pinney, and says to me:  “Thanks a lot for wrecking my life!”
Me: “How did I wreck your life, C.?”

C: “I think you know.”

Me: “No, I really don’t know.  Wait a minute, explain this to me.”  (He was trying to keep up with the other kids on their way to the changeroom.)  I said, “C., tell me what’s going on here.”

C: “It’s not fair that I have to lose MY gym time because other kids are arguing!”  (I believe that C., who is generally a good kid, does lose some privileges because of his classmates misbehaviour, and he’s probably frustrated about that.  I know I had the same issue when I was his age.)

I realized that he thought I was sending them to the changeroom early, because I had lectured them, and then sent them inside, angrily.  Since we were outside, and he didn’t have a watch on, he didn’t know that class was actually over.

I said, “C., look at my watch, it’s time to go get changed.”  I showed him my watch, which said 1:30.  He stomped to the changeroom.  It occurred to me that my three-year-old cousin Alex is a lot more mature than this teenager, in some ways.

I have heard it said that teenagers aren’t exactly the highest quality of human being that we have here on the planet.  Of course, that’s an unfair generalization and I know that there are many, many great teenagers around.  But, I can see that dealing with teenagers involves being on the receiving end of an awful lot of rudeness and anger and stomping around and door slamming and moaning and groaning.  I remember being a teenager, and I did all of those things too.  But at the time, it all seemed quite justified.  Now, though, it just looks silly.  If I wanted to, someday, I could spend $900 on a summer course that would qualify me to teach beyond the sixth grade.  But I’m not planning on that, at least in the near future.

I was playing school with Alexander, and he was the teacher, and I was the student.  I called him “Mr. K.,” (using his real last name, of course), and he jokingly called me “Mr. Lady” in return.  I explained to him that women were called “Miss or Mrs.”  But because I laughed at being called Mr. Lady, he continued to call me that. 

Alex picked up a book about Billy the Kid that probably belonged to his dad, a book that was several hundred pages long, with no pictures or anything.  He said, “Mr. Lady, now it’s time for a story.”  I was thrilled.  I always try to get him to tell me a story, either by making it up from his imagination or by using the pictures to help him remember the sequence of events.  But he always says, “No, Auntie Pam, YOU read the story.  I don’t know the words.”  So, I was thrilled about him pretending to “read” me a story.

Alex: “Once, there was a farmer.  He had a train.  One day the train felled in the mud.  Oh – wait.  I have to turn the page.”  He did, very seriously.

Me: “Oh, this is a great story.”

Alex: “The farmer said, ‘Oh no, the train felled in the mud.  I have to call the tow truck.’

Me: “Hmmm.  I wonder what’s going to happen.’

Alex: “I have to turn the page.”

Me: “Okay, then.”

Alex: “The tow truck came and pulled the train right out of the mud!”

Me: “Wow, Alex!  I mean, Mr. K.!  That was a great story!”

Alex: “Wait, Mr. Lady.  There’s another story in here!”

Me: “Oh, okay.  Let’s hear it.”

Alex: “Wait.  First I have to find it.  Once, there was a farmer.  He had a…  He had a…  He had a… bus!  But the bus got stuck in the mud.” (I knew where this was going.)  Wait, I have to turn the page.”

Me: “Alright.”

Alex: “So the farmer looked at the bus and he said, ‘I better call the tow truck!'  I have to turn the page now.”

Me: “Wow.  This is exciting.  I can’t wait to see what happens to that bus.”

Alex: “And the tow truck came!  And pulled the bus out of the mud and the grass!”

Me: “Wow!  What a good story!”

Alex: “Wait, I think there’s even ANOTHER good one in here.”

Me: “Okay.  I’m listening.”

Alex: “Once, there was a farmer.  And he had a…  And he had a…  And he had a MONSTER TRUCK!  But the monster truck felled right in the mud and it was STUCK.  Now I have to turn the page.”

Alex: “And the farmer said, ‘Uh-ohh!  I better call the tow truck!’  So he called the tow truck.”

Me: “I think this farmer had better get his very OWN tow truck.”

Alex: “Grace has his own tow truck.  He lets me ride in it sometimes.”  (Grace is Alex's imaginary friend.  Grace is a boy.  Bob and Carry aren’t sure where he got the name.)

My cousin Bob poked his head in the door and said, “Lunch is ready, guys.” 

Alex said, “But daddy, I’m not finished my story yet!”

I thought to myself, “That's okay.  I think I already know how it ends.”

Anybody who’s ever met a three-year-old already knows about the “why” phase.  (I asked my cousin Alex how old he was.  He told me, "I'm three, but I like to pretend I'm four."  But since I haven't spent a great deal of time with three-year-olds, playing the "why" game doesn't drive me too crazy (yet).  In fact, it kind of amuses me.  These conversations took place while I was visiting my cousins in Kitchener for a few days.

While playing outside with sidewalk chalk:

Me: “Oh, look!  The sun’s coming out!”

Alex: “Why is the sun coming out?”

Me: “Because the clouds moved out of the way.”

Alex: “But why did the clouds move out of the way?”

Me: “Because the wind pushed them.”

Alex: “But why did the wind push them?”

Me: “Ummm….  Because the air likes to move from a high-pressure area to a low-pressure area.”  (I didn’t have time to think of a better way to say that so that he would understand.  But having played the "why" game a few times already, I also knew that he didn’t care what the answer was, he just wanted an answer upon which to base the next question.)

Alex: “But why does the air … why does… why does the air like to move around like that?”

Me: “Umm… because the air likes to be even all around.”  (I realize now that I should have compared this phenomenon to filling up the bathtub – the water likes to move from the faucet-end to the other end so that it’s even.) 

Alex: “Why does the air like to be even all around?”

Me: “I don’t know, Alex.”  

(When I told Paul about this that night, he told me that I should have said, ‘Because it wants to be in a state of equilibrium.’  I asked Paul, “But why does it want to be in a state of equilibrium?”  He said, “Because a state of equilibrium is a low-energy state.”  I asked him, “But why does it want to be a low-energy state?”  He said, “Everything naturally wants to be in a low-energy state.”  I said, “Is that why I like sleeping?”)

While Alex was eating lunch:

Me: “Finish up your lunch Alex, so that we can go play again.”

Alex: “Why do I have to finish my lunch so that we can go play?”

Me: “Because if you don’t finish your lunch, you’ll be hungry later.”

Alex: “Why will I be hungry later if I don’t finish my lunch?”

Me: “Because your tummy will be finished digesting your lunch, and it wants more food.”

Alex: “Why does it want more food?”

Me: “Umm… I don’t know.  Maybe because it gets bored if it has no food to digest.”

Alex: “Well, why does your tummy get bored?”

Me: “Maybe because it has nothing else to do.”

Alex: “Why does it have nothing else to do?”

Me: “’Cause it only knows how to do one thing.”

Alex: “Why does it only know how to do one thing?”

Me: “Because that's how a tummy works.  So finish your lunch, and then we can go play.”

Alex: “Okay.”

While driving, after Alex announced that he had to “go potty”.  After discussing the potty options with Bob, I told Alex:

“We’re going to go potty at Tim Horton’s.  But not the Tim Horton’s that mommy works at.  A different one.”

Alex: “Why are we going to a different one?”

Me: “Because mommy’s Tim Horton’s is far away.”

Alex: “Why is it far away?”

Me: “Because we’re in New Hamburg right now.  Mommy’s Tim Horton’s is in Kitchener.”

Alex: “Why is Mommy’s Tim Horton’s in Kitchener?”

Me: “Because it’s close to your house, so she wants to work at that one, so she doesn't have a long drive every day.”

Alex: “Why is it close to my house?”

Bob (his dad) said: “Because that’s where they decided to build it, buddy.”

Alex: “Why did they decide to build it there?”

Bob said: “Because they did.”

(I would have answered the question differently, but I think Mom and Dad are, understandably, a little bit tired of this game.)

While Alex and I were putting together a race-car puzzle:

Me: “Here Alex, you can put the last three pieces in.”

Alex: “Why do I get to put in the last three pieces?”

Me: “Because that’s the fun part.”

Alex: “Why is that the fun part?”

Me: “Umm… because you feel a sense of accomplishment, I think.  Because you’re all done.  Or maybe because your brain likes to see the whole picture when the puzzle is done.”

Alex: “But why do you … why does your … why, Auntie Pam?”

Me: “Ummm…  I think it’s called Gestalt Theory.  If your brain doesn’t see the whole picture, then it has to fill-in-the-blanks, and that’s more work for your brain.”

Alex: “Why is it called that?”

Me: “Because the word “gestalt” means “whole” in German.” Because your brain likes to see the "whole" picture.

Alex: “Why does it mean that?”

Me: “I don’t know, Alex.”

Alex: “Oh.  Why don’t you know?”

Me: “I don’t know why I don’t know.”

Alex (laughing hysterically): “You’re funny, Auntie Pam!”

Me: “No, YOU’RE funny, Alex.”

Alex: “No, YOU’RE funny, Auntie Pam!”  etc etc.

(This story is Part 2 of "The Sad Story".  The sad story should be read first for this to make sense.)

The psychologist may not have realised how difficult the sympathy card project would turn out to be.  The kids (and probably all kids their age) have absolutely no concept of what a “sympathy” card is, and so most of their ideas for the card were quite inappropriate, and sometimes, in a way, kinda funny.  While I write this, I feel bad laughing about something connected to a tragedy, and I hope this entry doesn’t seem insensitive. 

Because I knew the kids would have no idea what to say, I wrote the words “We are sorry for your loss” and “We are thinking of you” on the board, for the kids to copy into their cards.  I suggested they draw pictures of flowers on the card.  But it wasn’t that simple.

One student, a boy I’ll call J., has Oppositional Defiant Disorder, which of course means that he will usually oppose and defy any direction he receives from anyone.  (When I told Paul about this disorder, he suggested that I tell this student to do exactly the opposite of what I actually want him to do.  I laughed and said, “Yeah, I’ll tell him, 'J., please run amok around the classroom and knock stuff over, but whatever you do, DO NOT sit down and quietly read that book!'")

Anyway, J. picked up a computer graphic of a Star Wars character (Yoda, a short green alien with big ears, who’s kind of like a wise old philosopher), and started to colour it.  I thought, “Uh-oh.”  This is how the conversation went, in sign language.

Me: “J., that’s a nice picture.”

J. : “It’s Yoda.”

Me: “Are you colouring that for Mrs. E. or for yourself?”  (I hoped he was colouring it for himself.)

J. : (Angrily)  “It’s for the card!”

Me: “Oh, I see.  Well, you know what?  Star Wars pictures are cool, but they’re not really good for sympathy cards.  Remember, Mrs. E. is very sad right now, so we need a picture of something that will make her happy.  Like flowers, or…”

J: (Very angrily, slamming his fist down.) “Yoda makes her happy!”

Me: “Well, maybe you could keep that picture for yourself, and colour a different picture for Mrs. E.”   

J: (He slammed his fist down on the table again, scowled, and, with tears coming out of his eyes, said, “I WANT YODA FOR MRS. E!”)

I decided that when dealing with a child with ODD, it’s probably best to choose your battles.  Like one of my professors at teacher’s college once said, sometimes you just gotta ask yourself, “Is this a ditch to die in?”  I decided it wasn’t.  I said, “Okay, that’s fine.”  Better to save the power struggle for something more important.

Another boy, D., who seemed to understand where I was coming from, said to J.: “Yeah, you know you shouldn’t do Star Wars on your card.  Because Star Wars is all about war and shooting and stuff and that won’t make her feel any better!”

J (signing furiously while grunting loudly): “But YODA never shot anybody!  He’s very calm and serious.  He gives advice and he’s smart and stuff.  He’s very peaceful, you know!  He’s at one with the force!  Don’t you even know that!”

J. was getting more and more agitated, and he looked like he was ready to explode.  I told D. to leave J. (boy) alone, and to worry about his own card.  (When I told Paul this, he said, "At least he didn't write, 'May the force be with you' on the card.")

D. said: “What should I put on it?”

Me: “Well, some nice flowers would be good.”  I could see this boy didn’t like the idea of drawing flowers.  He probably found it a little too feminine.  I tried to think of a cheerful alternative. 

Me (grasping for another idea): “Or… animals, maybe…”

D: “Can I put a monkey on it, then?”

Me: “Well…”  I considered the fact that I had suggested animals, and I didn’t want to say no.  He went to the computer and found some graphics of funny-looking monkeys, doing stupid things like smoking cigarettes and wearing people clothes.  I thought, “Why can’t they just draw some flowers!”  I started reminded him that the teacher’s husband had been killed in a motorcycle accident, and was about to say that the picture needed to be more serious than a smoking monkey.  He interrupted me with excitement, saying “I know!  I’ll put a great big picture of a motorcycle on the front!  That’d be good, wouldn’t it?”

Me: “No, that would make her very sad.”
D: “Oh.”

Finally he settled on a cute picture of a puppy.  He printed it, coloured it, but then wrote around the card “This puppy’s name is Mrs. E.”  Oh well.   

Then J. tapped my shoulder and signed, “I don’t want to write all that – ‘We’re sorry for your loss’.  Can’t I just write, “I’m sorry you died?”

Me: “No, because Mrs. E. lost her husband, that’s her loss.  You must write ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’  The card is for Mrs. E., not her husband.  Mrs. E. did not die.”

J.: (groaning) “Oh, fine.”

I looked over to see what J. (the girl) was doing.  She had carefully drawn a picture of a woman standing by a gravestone, crying, holding flowers.  The sun was also crying.  This made me uneasy, but I decided to let it go.  Kids are kids, after all, and their teacher knows that better than anyone.  I said, “That’s nice.”  She nodded, and drew a big thought bubble above the woman’s head.  She said, “She’s thinking about her husband.”

I nodded.  She continued, “She’s thinking about the accident.  I’m going to draw a picture of the motorcycle and the transport truck crashing, 'cause that's what she's thinking about.”

I said, “Oh no, J.  Mrs. E. is thinking about that a lot, but if she sees that picture on your card, it will make her cry.  We want this card to help make her happy, a little.”

She said, “Oh.  Can I just draw a picture of her husband, then? Just his face?”  I said, “Yes, that will be nice.”  She said, “Can I write, ‘I know you miss your husband”?  I said, “Yes, that will be nice too.”  I thought that she had a fairly good sense of what she was doing. 

The other student, D. looked at J.'s card, noticing the gravestone on the front.  He said, "You have to write R.I.P. on there."  The girl said, "Alright."  I said, "No, please don't write R.I.P. on the gravestone.  It's not nice."

D.: "I've seen lots of gravestones, and they all say R.I.P. on it!"

J.: "What's R.I.P.?"

Me: "R.I.P. means Rest In Peace, but it's kind of a joke for Halloween and horror movies.  It would be rude to write it on the card."

J. said, "But 'Rest in Peace' sounds nice.  How come it's rude?"

I said, "Because it just is.  It's okay for Halloween gravestones, but not real ones."

J. said, "Oh, alright."  I could see she was getting a little frustrated.  I thought, again, "Is it so hard to just draw flowers!?!?!"

The E.A., Joanne, arrived to help.  J. opened her card and made a chart with two columns, and asked the E.A. how to spell “Mrs. E. happy with her husband alive” and “Mrs. E. sad after husband died”.  She was going to draw a happy face on the left side and a sad face on the right side.  The E.A. stopped her, and helped her think of a more appropriate drawing.  The final product was a happy face and the caption "Mrs. E. happy with her students."  It was actually D.'s idea.

I learned a few things from this experience.  First of all, as the teacher I have to learn to set the expectations better before the kids start doing what they’re supposed to do.  I have a bad habit of just handing the kids the materials, giving a short and sweet explanation of what I want from them, and letting them dive right in, and then correcting them where they go wrong.  But often that strategy results in chaos.  If I ever have to do this again, I'll host a "brainstorming" session, where the kids tell me their ideas before they start, and we think together of appropriate words and pictures that are acceptable.  Then they can choose ideas from the acceptable list.  (Normally, I would never interfere in a kid's artwork or imagination, but this was a sensitive situation.) 

I also realized that kids think that sympathy cards are about death.  This is a logical assumption to make – birthday cards are about birthdays, and they show birthday- related items, like balloons, cakes, candles, presents.  Christmas cards are about Christmas, and they Christmas-y type things, like Santa Claus, snowmen, presents, and decorations.  But sympathy cards are not about death (they're about comforting someone) and therefore they should not show death-related items.  You can’t use the word ‘death’ (you have to replace it with the less offensive word, “loss”), you can’t draw a picture of the dead person or the grieving person, you can’t draw motorcycles or transport trucks or cemetaries or gravestones or anything else that reminds one of death.  (Although I let some of that slide in this situation, such as the gravestone.)  Star Wars aliens (even peaceful ones) and smoking monkeys don't work either.  When it comes down to it, all you're left with is... flowers.  And flowers are about life, the opposite of death.  I think this is why the kids didn't want to draw them.  They wanted to face the issue in their card, and I insisted they avoid it. 

I learned a lot that day.

Last weekend I was called in to supply teach for a very sad reason.  The husband of a teacher was killed on Friday, when his motorcycle crossed the centre line and collided with a transport truck.   I had seen the headline in the paper on Sunday morning, but I didn’t read the article at the time.  After the principal called me and told me what happened, I read the article and I cried.  He was a father of three, and he had worked at the deaf school for ten years, and he had worked for the Children’s Aid Society, and he did lots of volunteer work for kids with spina bifida, and he coached his kids’ sports teams.  His wife, who taught grade two/three on Tuesdays and Thursdays, won’t be back to work for the rest of the year.  I replaced her last week and another supply teacher will replace her for the rest of the year.

So the other day I taught grade two/three for the first time.  After the kids returned from phys. ed. class, the principal, the psychologist (a Deaf woman), and an interpreter (because the principal doesn’t sign) arrived to tell the kids what happened.  The psychologist suggested that they make a card for the teacher, so I had them do that during science class in the afternoon.

Well, here's all my news. 

I have finished teacher's college (finally!) and I will graduate on June 14th.  It's a weird feeling - because I have been a university student for the past nine years, since 1996! (It took me nine years to get five years' worth of university credits, because I went part-time some terms, and withdrew some terms.)  Although I now wish I didn't waste those 4 years by going to school only part-time, I'm now the proud owner of not one but TWO university degrees.  A bachelor of arts and a bachelor of education.  Pretty cool, eh?  I can't wait to frame the two degrees and hang them up side by side on a wall somewhere.

I'm now working as a supply teacher at a school for the Deaf in London, which is absolutely the coolest thing in the world.  So far, I've had five and a half days of work, and I've enjoyed it.  I thought supply teaching would be a nightmare, because the kids would misbehave, but actually they're mostly quite good.

I probably have a full-time permanent job at another school for the Deaf, in Milton.  I had the interview on April 28th, and on my way out the door the high school principal shook my hand and said, "I strongly suspect that I'll be seeing you in my elementary school in the fall."  After a couple of weeks of not hearing anything, I emailed the elementary school principal (they both interviewed me), to see what was going on.  I wrote, "I had a job interview for a teaching position on April 28th.  I was just wondering if you have finished hiring yet or if it's still in process.  I'm looking forward to hearing from you."  In other words, "Do I have a job or what?"  The principal emailed me back and said, "I want to hire you.  Are you still interested in the position?  We will be notifying the successful candidates at the beginning of June."  In other words, "Yes, you have the job but there's some red tape and I can't offer you the job until June."  The staff at this Deaf school where I'm working now tell me I'm a shoe-in at the other school.  They're hiring about 20 new teachers for the fall, and there aren't 20 qualified teachers in Ontario that are fluent in sign language and available to teach there.  Last year they had some parents teaching there (just because they can sign), and next year they will have hearing, non-signing but qualified teachers there, along with full-time interpreters.  Neither is an ideal situation for the students.  But it is an ideal situation for me.  Most of the teachers I graduate with on June 14th will not have jobs yet.  (Even though many, many baby boomer teachers are retiring, the school boards don't always have the budget or the student enrolment to replace them.)  Most will be lucky to get on supply teaching lists for the fall.  Once they're on that list, they'll hope to get what's called a long-term occasional teaching position, which means covering for somebody's maternity leave.  After that, they'll hope to be get a full-time permanent position.  There are some exceptions, of course.  French teachers are in very high demand right now.  But with my specialization in deaf education, I have very little competition to worry about.  That makes me very happy.

Cathy and Kevin are probably buying a house in Rockwood, which is 30 kilometres (that's 19 miles, for Uncle Chuck and Aunt Merlyn) from the school in Milton, and they said I can stay with them for cheap.  And I won't even have to drive on the 401 (for Chuck and Merlyn, that's the hugest, busiest, scariest highway in Canada - the TransCanada, that goes into Toronto) - just little Highway 25.  It'll be great.  I'm going to buy a car at the end of August.  Maybe a Hyundai Accent or something.

In other news, I've moved in with my boyfriend Paul, in London.  Everything is going great, and we are very happy together.  We're looking forward to our vacation in August.  We're flying out west for his sister's wedding in Kimberley, British Columbia, on August 2nd.  We'll spend a week in Kimberley and then drive out to Victoria to stay with his dad for a week.  Paul has friends down in Seattle, Washington that we'll visit too.  It will be fantastic to see the Rocky Mountains.  We'll drive through Banff and the Okanagon Valley.  For my birthday in March, Paul gave me a memory stick for my camera that holds 125 photos.  I'm sure that I'll fill up the whole stick in those two weeks!  We'll be back on August 16th.

Then, two days after we get back from BC, we're going camping in the Bruce Peninsula National Park for one week.  I am so excited about these trips!  I can't wait to get back to the Bruce, camping on Cyprus Lake and swimming in Hudson Bay and Lake Huron.  I think it's absolutely the most beautiful place in Ontario. 

Oh, and I'm also going to a camp for Deaf kids the last two weeks of July.  It's in Parry Sound, and they have dirt bikes, ATVs, a beach, kayaks, canoes, and lots of cool stuff.  The camp runs for a month, the first two weeks are for kids aged 6-12, the last two weeks are for kids aged 12-18.  I decided to go for the last two weeks because older kids have better sign language, so I will learn more from them.  Then I'll be better prepared to teach in the fall.  It will be a valuable experience, and I'm sure I'll have lots of stories to put in my journal.

So, that's all the news I have for today.

Here are a couple funny things that happened on my first day of real teaching, of actually getting PAID to teach, after about a gazillion years of volunteering.  I was teaching grade 7/8 phys. ed. in the school for hearing kids with learning disabilities.  (I'm actually only qualified to teach up to grade six, but that doesn't seem to matter for supply teachers.)  They walked into the gym, and went into the changeroom.  One of them looked at me funny, then said, "Are you here for Mr. C. today?"  I said, "Yep."  He said, "Suh-weet."  (Sweet - another word for "cool".)  I thought, "Uh-oh, what does that mean?"

When they all got changed (15 boys and 2 girls), they started their four laps around the gym, followed by stretches.  One boy, however, came out of the changeroom with a skateboard in his hand, looked at me for a second, and then got on the skateboard, and proceded to skateboard around the gym.  I knew this was a test - he wanted to know how I would react.  I said, in a calm and friendly but very firm voice "Hey - you're supposed to be running your laps!"  He said, "I AM doing laps."  I said, "Off the skateboard, please."  He got off, then pointed the skateboard toward me, and skated over to me.  I said again, "Off the skateboard please."  He got off, and walked the rest of the way toward me.  He put the skateboard against the wall, near the door, and said, "I usually just leave it right here."  I said, "Alright, then.  Run your laps."  And he did.  I had no further problems with him.  The E.A. refereed the handball game.  I was glad she was there, because I have no idea about refereeing.

Next I taught the grade 9/10 "Food and Nutrition" class, in the LD school.  I asked them their names, we took up the homework from the day before, and I wrote a list of what they were supposed to do on the board.  They had to finish up a poster about kitchen safety rules, and then they had to read a chapter in a textbook about meal planning.  They usually read in partners, one person reads one sentence, the next person reads the next sentence.  Two of them were having some difficulty, and they were fooling around a little bit, so I grabbed a copy of their textbook and went over and sat across from them, to keep them going.  They were reading very slowly, so I offered to read every 3rd sentence for them.  They liked that idea.  I let them joke around a little bit while they read, but I kept them on track.  When they came to a long or difficult word, like "nutritious" or "metabolism", I would tell them the word and then ask them what it meant.  Usually, they knew what it meant when they heard it, but they just couldn't read the word.

They stumbled across the word "condiment".  I said, "What's a condiment?".  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I was in trouble.  I couldn't believe I had just asked a couple of goofy 15-year-old boys what a "condiment" was.  J., (I've decided to refer to the students in my journal by first initial only, just in case), a black kid that looks like a little rapper, with corn-roll braided hair and basketball outfit and sneakers, leaned forward in his desk, looking at me like I was a little bit stupid, but with a tiny smile at the corner of his mouth.  His eyes darted left to right (as if to see if anybody was listening), and said, in whispered voice, (acting as if he was filling me in on a little secret), "It's to cover your wang."  And then he chuckled a little, and his buddy burst out laughing.

I laughed, and considered the comeback, "You put ketchup on your WANG?", but I realized that this wasn't an appropriate question for a teacher to ask a student.  If he was my friend, or someone my age, I would have, but I couldn't have this kid telling his mother that his teacher asked him if he ever put ketchup on his wang. 

So, these two boys finished up the chapter and went to work in the computer lab.  Three other boys and the E.A. that were in the computer lab at the time came back to the classroom to read the same chapter.  She had the same idea I did, to sit with the boys as they read the book, reading every fourth sentence for them, and asking them the meaning of the difficult word.  These boys stumbled over the word "condiment."  The E.A., a very serious gray-haired woman in her 50s, said, "Give me an example of a condiment."  I thought, "Uh-oh, here we go again."  I expected their answers to be "Trojan", "LifeStyles", and "Durex".  One boy said, "Ketchup", the next boy said, "Pickles" and the third boy said, "I don't know."  I wondered, "How come she got off so easy?"  I think it's because they must know that there would have been some kind of unfortuante consequence for joking around with this E.A..

If I had to work with these kids every day like she does, I would probably have to trade in my easy-going, friendly attitude for one that's a little more serious and stern.  Otherwise, I might end up with some serious difficulty in getting them to do their work.  But, I decided to play it cool, and this time, it worked out.  And they liked me.  One of them even said he hoped I would be back sometime (although that was right after I told them they didn't have any homework that night.) 

So, two weeks ago I got called in as a supply teacher for two days at the Deaf school.  

There are actually 2 schools in the same building there - a Deaf school and a separate school for kids with severe learning disabilities and social skills deficits.  ("Learning disabilties" is a term for otherwise normal kids who have a great deal of difficulty learning to read, write, and do math, due to dyslexia, short-term memory problems, etc.  These learning disabilities are often caused by mothers who drank or did drugs during their pregnancies.  Bu these aren't kids with Down Syndrome or autism or wheelchairs or anything like that.)  All of the Deaf schools in Ontario have an LD school in the same building.  It saves money because these schools tend to be small, so they can share resources like libraries, gyms, swimming pools, playgrounds, administration, facilities, staff, etc.

Anyway, on Sunday night the principal phoned me and asked me to replace the gym teacher, who had hurt his back on the weekend.  So, of course, I said, "Sure!", and the principal gave me the teacher's phone number so I could find out what to do.  I phoned the gym teacher and he told me that he teaches both the Deaf school and the LD school, and that it would be a pretty easy day of playing handball in each class.  I thought, "What the heck is handball?", but I didn't get a chance to ask him right then, since he had a lot of information to tell me.  I thought, "I'll ask him when he stops talking."  But he didn't stop talking for quite a while, and I forgot.  So Paul looked it up for me on the internet, and we figured out the rules and everything.  The teacher told me that there shouldn't be any major problems, and that the E.A.s would be there to help me. 

(When I was a kid, the students with special needs were taught in separate classrooms by a "special ed" teacher.  Now, for many reasons, the province and school boards have decided that that's a bad idea.  So kids with special needs are included in regular classrooms, and are taught by regular teachers.  Now "educational assistants" are paired up with those students with special needs, and work with them one-on-one in the same classroom as everyone else.  The advantage for supply teachers is that there is always one or two other adults in the room who know the kids and the routines and the rules very well, and they are a big help.) 

But I was nervous because I knew that kids tend to enjoy giving supply teachers a hard time.  When I was a kid, my class made an official sport out of it.  We would conspire together excitedly before she arrived, saying to each other "I wonder how much it will take to make THIS one cry!"  The fact that even I participated enthusiastically in this game, when I was usually so well-behaved and well-liked by teachers, sends shivers down my spine now that I'm the supply teacher.

But, to my pleasant surprise, it turned out to be a very good day.  Altogether, I probably taught around 50 kids from both schools, and I had very few problems.  Of course, there's always the ONE kid who makes things difficult (actually, there were 2), and those are the ones I'll remember.  I'll write about them in my next entry.

Welcome to my new journal!  I switched to MSN because I can put pictures on it.  You can choose the photo album called "Balloon Heads", and there's a button in the top right hand corner to make the pictures big.

So, just before the roommates and I had to move out of residence at the university, we decided to go out for dinner at East Side Mario's (my favourite restaurant).  Unfortunately, Anita wasn't able to make it but Paul joined us.  (Have I mentioned that he's the best guy in the whole world?)  It was really fun. 

At East Side's in London they have a card trick guy and a balloon woman there on Monday nights and weekends.  First the card trick guy came over and showed us a few tricks.  He was pretty good.  I gave him a toonie for a tip.  Then I called the balloon lady over.  She looked at us a little funny.  I said, "Do you just do balloons for kids, or can adults get them too?"  She said, "I can do adults too.  Who wants one?"  I said, "We all do!".  She said, "Hmmm.  How about I make a balloon hat for each of you, and then join them all together."  We said, "OKay, great!"  Then she said, "Now I'm only going to do this for you on one condition."  We said, "What's that?"  She said, "You have to promise me that you will actually walk out of here with the balloons on your heads."  We said, "Sure, no problem."

So, she made us a balloon hat one by one, and then connected our hats together.  When we were all set up, Paul said, "I think we can hear each other's thoughts now."  We left the balloons on for the whole meal and walked out of the restaurant in a single-file line.  Some people laughed at us, kids pointed, some gave us strange looks, and everyone stared at us.

We couldn't really wear the balloon heads in the car, but when we got back to residence, I insisted that we put them on to walk into the building and up to our room.  So we did.  I asked Kate, the front desk girl, to take a picture of us on the stairs.  Here it is.