Wednesday, March 31, 2021

trevor’s encyclopedia of lost things

Today at school, one thing made me laugh and one thing made me cry.

This is common during a school day, feeling your heart both rise to the clouds and sink to the bottom of the sea.


Such is the life of a helper/teacher.


Here is the thing that made me laugh.


I was sitting at the lunch table with my students, eating my lunch - mac and cheese, raw baby carrots, a plumb and half of a bat shaped brownie. (You can tell I’m an elementary school teacher just by the lunch I eat, huh?)


One of my students looked up from his mac and cheese with a serious look on his face.


“Mr. Barton,” he asked sincerely, “How do you think giraffes mate?”


I nearly choked on my bat shaped brownie and dropped a baby carrot into my mac and cheese.


Being a 4th grade teacher, I’m used to random questions.


This is the first time, however, I’ve been asked this one.


“Very carefully,” I answered matter-of-factly, and moved on to, ummm, less awkward topics.


And here is the thing that made me cry.


I was rocking in my rocking chair with my students around me, finishing the novel The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo.


“Who do you most identify with in the story?”


I love to cast out this question among my students after we finish a great story, because I’m teaching them to put themselves into the shoes of the characters we meet, teaching them empathy.


One of my tough boys raised his hand.


I was surprised because he usually chooses to remain quiet and thoughtful during our book talks.


“Sistine,” he answered.


“Oh yeah?” I continued, “Why’s that?”


He’s the kind of kid I expected to identify with the tiger in the story.


“Tiger, tiger, burning bright/

In the forests of the night/

What immortal hand or eye/

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?/

In what distant deeps or skies/

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?/

On what wings dare he aspire?”


says the poem in the book about the tiger.


It could easily be a poem about my student.


“I chose Sistine because her father made a mistake and she can’t see him, and my dad’s in jail and I can’t see him.”


Dang.


Life.


Life is real.


Being a teacher keeps me real, too.




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