I am doing my best not to turn this into a Kids Say The Darndest Things blog. I worry that sharing kid quotes is the teacher-blog equivalent of showing people pictures of your toddler or recounting your trip to Europe, i.e., they're not as cute as you think they are, and you had to be there.
But I do think the quote below is pretty darn'd.
Michael Jackson's life, in one run-on sentence, as summarized by a 6-year-old: "First his grandfather had a long gun and and then he made music and then he looked like a woman and then he had to go to the hospital. Oh, and when he looked like a woman he turned white."
Can anyone verify that grandfather/ gun part? I have no idea what she's talking about, but it's more than possible that I'm less hip than a 6-year-old.
I think I have devoted an inordinate amount of blog space to the lower elementary kids I work with in the afterschool program, as opposed to the fifth graders whom I actually teach. Lest you get the mistaken impression that I aspire to teach little ones, let me clarify: I will never teach lower elementary. You may mark these words.
They're cute and all, but I could never do what K-2 teachers do. And I don't mean that in the patronizing way that people say "I could never do what you do" when really they mean "I don't want to do what you do, and I don't understand why anyone would." I think teaching children who can barely control their own bladders to read and be students is totally rad. People think of primary education as easy, compared to older grades, because the content knowledge is so basic. But that's exactly the problem. I have no idea how to conceptualize and explain something like addition. I had to confront this while trying to help a first grader with his homework last week. If you want me to teach you how to convert a fraction into a decimal using long division, no problem. I can conceptualize why that's tricky. I can predict what mistakes you will make. I can think through the process and explain to you the steps and why/ how they work. But addition? This is how I teach addition: "Add these numbers. No, I said add them. Stop. You're subtracting. Add. Are you sure you're adding?" At this point the kid is basically a random number generator. Finally he lands on the right number. "You did it!" I say, even though, as far as I know, he didn't. And we move on. Good thing he didn't have reading homework; I probably would have used a lot of expletives.
The last story I'm going to tell about afterschool (today) is how last week during story time, one of the kids called out "what's that red light??" and pointed toward the ceiling behind me. I turned around and saw nothing, so I said "I don't see anything.... and raise your hand, please." A couple seconds later, another kid called out: "There! That light" Again I looked behind me. Nothing. "I really don't see anything," I said, and kept reading. A few seconds later, all 15-ish of them, overlapping and hysterical: "There!!! The red light!!!" I turn and stare for maybe 30 seconds. Nothing. They insist they are all still seeing it. I feel like a skeptic during the Salem witch trials. "Well, it's clearly a magical light that only children can see," I say. This is apparently a sufficient answer; they nod their heads and let me finish the story uninterrupted. On the one hand I felt bad for sort of lying to them but on the other hand... I wasn't lying.
*Trick question, already did.
But I do think the quote below is pretty darn'd.
Michael Jackson's life, in one run-on sentence, as summarized by a 6-year-old: "First his grandfather had a long gun and and then he made music and then he looked like a woman and then he had to go to the hospital. Oh, and when he looked like a woman he turned white."
Can anyone verify that grandfather/ gun part? I have no idea what she's talking about, but it's more than possible that I'm less hip than a 6-year-old.
I think I have devoted an inordinate amount of blog space to the lower elementary kids I work with in the afterschool program, as opposed to the fifth graders whom I actually teach. Lest you get the mistaken impression that I aspire to teach little ones, let me clarify: I will never teach lower elementary. You may mark these words.
They're cute and all, but I could never do what K-2 teachers do. And I don't mean that in the patronizing way that people say "I could never do what you do" when really they mean "I don't want to do what you do, and I don't understand why anyone would." I think teaching children who can barely control their own bladders to read and be students is totally rad. People think of primary education as easy, compared to older grades, because the content knowledge is so basic. But that's exactly the problem. I have no idea how to conceptualize and explain something like addition. I had to confront this while trying to help a first grader with his homework last week. If you want me to teach you how to convert a fraction into a decimal using long division, no problem. I can conceptualize why that's tricky. I can predict what mistakes you will make. I can think through the process and explain to you the steps and why/ how they work. But addition? This is how I teach addition: "Add these numbers. No, I said add them. Stop. You're subtracting. Add. Are you sure you're adding?" At this point the kid is basically a random number generator. Finally he lands on the right number. "You did it!" I say, even though, as far as I know, he didn't. And we move on. Good thing he didn't have reading homework; I probably would have used a lot of expletives.
The last story I'm going to tell about afterschool (today) is how last week during story time, one of the kids called out "what's that red light??" and pointed toward the ceiling behind me. I turned around and saw nothing, so I said "I don't see anything.... and raise your hand, please." A couple seconds later, another kid called out: "There! That light" Again I looked behind me. Nothing. "I really don't see anything," I said, and kept reading. A few seconds later, all 15-ish of them, overlapping and hysterical: "There!!! The red light!!!" I turn and stare for maybe 30 seconds. Nothing. They insist they are all still seeing it. I feel like a skeptic during the Salem witch trials. "Well, it's clearly a magical light that only children can see," I say. This is apparently a sufficient answer; they nod their heads and let me finish the story uninterrupted. On the one hand I felt bad for sort of lying to them but on the other hand... I wasn't lying.
*Trick question, already did.
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