The Robot

Instead of telling you about how a parent came in to talk to me about a detention slip I'd given her child while I was decked out in a skirt, veil, and gloves from the afterschool dress-up box, today I am going to tell you about Mitzie.*

Mitzie is a first grader and currently my favorite person. (Sorry, friends and family, you were all close contenders.) I get to hang out with Mitzie at breakfast, because I monitor her homeroom's table. Mitzie likes raisin bagels, the color pink, hugs, and attention. She dislikes plain bagels and being quiet.

Most of my breakfast students raise their hand when they need milk or a spoon or to go to the bathroom. Mitzie raises her hand every two minutes to just tell me things. "You are wearing pants today" Mitzie says. (You are wearing pants too, Mitzie.) "Yesterday I got doubles of sandwiches," Mitzie says. (Fantastic, Mitzie.) "Can I please sit on your lap?" Mitzie asks. (Absolutely not.)

Anyway, I have this theory that Mitzie is a robot created by my principal to teach me lessons.

"Robot" is not a word used lightly in education circles. It's usually an epithet used to accuse schools of turning their students into un-thinking, bubble-filling automatons. Or to accuse teachers of blindly following scripts rather than engaging with their students. And then there's that whole thing about South Korean classrooms being taught by actual, literal robots.

Mitzie fits none of those descriptions. But she has, several times, given me feedback that is just a little too on-point for a human six-year-old.

Evidence: My school (or, one could argue, any good school) is a big proponent of Positive Framing. You don't say "I'm waiting for you all to be quiet" because then you're just being naggy and letting the off-task kids win. Instead you say "Show me you're ready for class by tracking me silently" or "The whole left side of the room is so ready to learn"--that sort of thing. It sounds easy enough, but when you consider how many directions/ corrections a teacher gives in a day, you realize how hard it can to frame them all positively.

So one day I was supervising several students as they collected their belongings to go home, and Mitzie somehow managed to take literally four minutes to pick up her sweater and backpack from right in front of her. "Mitzie, you're taking way too long to get ready," I said. It was true. Four minutes!

Her response is what first elicited the robot theory:

"I don't like when people say that," she said. She was not whining. She was just stating, matter-of-factly.

I was dumbstruck. She really was taking forever, but she was right. I was being so un-Positive! How many times had I framed something this way without even a second thought? This is the same feedback we new teachers get from our mentors and administrators... but it was much more immediate coming from a six-year-old.

"Alright, let me try again... Mitzie, I know you can get your backpack and sweater ready with more urgency!" I said. "... Was that better?"

"Yes!" she said, and cheerily walked out the door with all her belongings.

Then there was the time that Mitzie was trying to screech something at me during breakfast (poor kid probably just wanted to notify me that I was wearing pants) and I told her, sternly, that she needed to wait and not interrupt, because I was talking to one of my fifth grade students. When I finally turned my attention to Mitzie, she was crying. I asked her if she understood about the whole not-interrupting thing, and she said "yes, but you weren't doing your business! You're supposed to do your business!" Ah, Mitzie, you got me again. It was breakfast time, and the first graders were my business. She was just helping me prioritize.

Today Mitzie told me that I smell good. Well, thanks Mitzie. Glad I've got that one thing down.



*If we named children when they were old enough for us to know their personalities, this would be her real name.