![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perfectworrytitle: "Does this look infected to you?'
genre: nonfiction
community:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
therealljidol
prompt: Exhibit B: Week 4: "does this look infected to you?"
word count: 573
rating: G
summary: I fell into a hole and skinned my leg. It was a teachable moment.
notes: all of the stories in this "collection" are about my first grade students; names and other details have been changed to protect their privacy (and mine), but the stories are otherwise true.
"Don't read while you're walking," I say automatically. "I don't want you to fall down and get hurt."
Nadya doesn't look up from her Japanese homework as she says, "I won't fall." She continues reading and walking to demonstrate.
"Maybe not this time," I insist, because I really don't want her to fall down the stairs. But Nadya is confident, and surefooted, and stubborn as a mule. I've spent the whole school year reminding her to sit down, to listen, to not read while she's freaking walking. It's May. She's been in my class for nine months, and although her handwriting, maths, and reading fluency have improved, she stubbornly insists on braiding Erin's hair during story time, spelling birthday as borfday, and reading while she walks, but she hasn't won yet because I have a secret weapon.
"Do you want to see something gross?" I ask. This catches her interest and she looks up from her book. I know Nadya well enough to know that she can't resist something gross. She hovered around me wanting to see the time Miki nearly broke one of my toes dropping a metal thermos, full to the brim, directly on my foot, protected by nothing but some flimsy ballet flats. She begged me to show her the bug I pulled off of Oliver's backpack the other day and asked the librarian for help finding a book about "guts." This girl can't resist gross. It's a trait I try to encourage in her.
"Yes," says Nadya, her attention entirely on me, and her book forgotten. I twitch up my skirt so she can see. She is adequately disgusted.
The scar is old now, but I never went to see a doctor, preferring to patch it up in my bathroom with some store-bought bandages and something I really hoped said "antiseptic" on the front. The clerk at the drugstore saw me sitting on the curb, bleeding all over the street, while my roommate ran around trying to find what we needed to clean me up on a Tokyo sidewalk, so I think we got the right thing because my wound, as I took to calling it with something almost (but not quite) like affection, got better instead of getting worse. Even fully healed, it looks pretty nasty.
Other than sports, and Russian, and choreographing dances to show the teachers at recess, Nadya's greatest passion is fashion. She designs outfits during art time and critiques my choice of shoes. Nadya scrunches up her face, and I know that I've won. With a big ugly scar like that, her designs would be ruined: most of them feature micro-mini skirts. An inch and a half long purple and red scar would definitely clash with her favorite magenta dress.
"I got it because I was reading while I was walking," I tell her, quite serious and straight faced.
"Really?" Now she seems less confident in her own ability to walk and read at the same time. After all, every first grader knows that teachers are infallible, except that we prefer comfier shoes to more fashionable options, which is a sin for which there is no forgiveness.
"Really." I nod solemnly and she believes me. "Now shoo, and it's afternoon, so tell sensei 'konnichiwa,' not 'ohayogoizaimasu.'"
Nine months and she still stubbornly can't remember that, either, but I think I've taught her a lesson about why we should pay attention to our surroundings.
title: First Grade Fashion Advice
genre: nonfiction
community:therealljidol
prompt: Exhibit B: Week 8: smells like rubbing alcohol
word count: 832
rating: G
summary: My students have a lot of opinions about things, especially my looks. Damn kids say the darndest things.
"Have you been painting your nails?" is the first thing my roommate wants to know when she gets home from work. The answer, of course, is yes; it's Thursday night, so I ate gummy worms for dinner and painted my nails while I watched a movie on AIM with a friend in another city.
"Green," I answer, and I hold my hands up for her to see my new sea foam mermaid green from the drugstore down the street.
"Very nice," she says, but she opens the windows anyway. "I can smell it."
"Sorry," I say, but not sorry enough that I won't paint my nails again next week. I'm really into this new color. It makes me feel like a mermaid.
Pleased as punch, I go to work the next day with my favorite new nail polish on, and it even matches my dress. The girls in my class like to look at my fingernails, even when I don't paint them, because they're very long. Erin is the line leader today, and I've got one hand up in the air, the school's code for quiet, and the other in one of her hands while she inspects the paint job.
"I liked it better purple," she whispers to me on the way to art class.
"I'll keep that in mind," I tell her. "Now shush, and say good morning to Ms G."
*
I do keep it in mind, but I don't stop painting my fingernails green, or pink, or silver. I keep it in mind because it's a funny story, like the time Nadya lectured me on the right shoes to wear with a long skirt.
"I like your skirt, Ms Hanashima," She swishes her short uniform skirt for emphasis. My skirt is long, black, and it drapes very nicely.
"Thank you, Nadya," I winkle my nose at her. "I like it, too."
"But," she drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I want to be a fashion designer when I grow up," she pushes her drawing towards me, another self portrait of her at sixteen in a magenta dress and purple heels, "so…" She trails off awkwardly. She doesn't want to embarrass me. "Those are the wrong kind of shoes to wear with a long skirt."
"What kind of shoes should I wear, Nadya?" I ask, because although of course I already know the answer (heels, which are Nadya's favorite things, right after nail polish and before colored contact lenses), I want her to be a thinker and explain it to me. I won't stop wearing my beaten up ballet flats with the cushy insoles, but I want to hear what she has to say.
"High ones," she says, "with the toes open."
"It's dangerous to wear shoes with the toes open at school," I explain. She makes a face and doesn't believe me. "Remember when Miki dropped her water bottle on my foot?"
Nadya nods, point taken. A few weeks ago, Miki dropped a full metal water bottle directly on my toes. If I hadn't been wearing rain boots, she might have broken them. It hurt like hell, and all of my students saw it happen.
"But you could still wear high shoes," she insists.
"I like my shoes," I tell her, never turning down an opportunity to talk, however obliquely, about feminism. "They're not very pretty, but they are very comfy. How could I play tag with you at recess if I was wearing high shoes?"
Nadya has an answer for everything, though: "Bring a change."
I don't bring a change, and I don't wear heels.
*
I don't always disregard my students' fashion advice, though. Just most of the time.
Standing outside in line in June, and it's getting hot. I'm sweating, and so are my students. I put my hand, palm down, on the line leader's head. "Adit," I say. "Your hair is so hot that I could make okonomiyaki on your head."
Adit, serious and solemn boy though he is, laughs out loud at this, and soon I have a crowd of little kids asking me if their hair is not enough to make okonomiyaki, too.
"No," I tell Ian. His hair isn't straight and black, like most of the other children in my class, but an ashy blond color and curly like Shirley Temple, a joke I have told him but he doesn't understand. "But your hair is cool," I add, when his face falls. "It's curly like mine."
"No," says Ajit. "Ian's hair is curly like Zivko's." Zivko has an afro. His hair looks nothing like Ian's, but I don't argue. "Your hair looks like an earthquake!"
I call and schedule a haircut during my lunch break. I knew I was overdue for a trim, but it's not every day someone compares your hair to a natural disaster. Damn kids say the darndest things, but at least you can count on them to be honest.
title: Tag, You're It!
genre: nonfiction
community:therealljidol
prompt: Exhibit B: Week 10: all that jazz
word count: 989
rating: G
summary: I never used to like kids, but then I realized something…
notes: this intersects with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eeyore_grrl's entry, beneath the surface.
"Why do you like children?" asked the interviewer.
I don't remember what I said; something about learning and growing and their excitement about exploring the world around them, the enthusiasm only a first grader can bring to absolutely everything, provided the teacher makes it interesting, blah blah blah, etc.
"It's my job to make it interesting," I add. "If they're going to be spending Saturday afternoons with me, I want them to have fun while they learn."
The interviewer likes that. He smiles, and transitions onward. "But why do kids like you?" he asks.
"I, uhm …"
*
Playing tag out on the field with my first graders, they all gang up on me. Everyone wants Ms Hanashima to be it, and Everett backs me into a corner. If I step over the chalk line around the soccer field, then I'll be out. He jumps for me, tags my stomach with unnecessary force, and screams to his friends "Ms Hanashima is the oni."
Okay, kiddo. If I'm the demon, I'll be the scariest demon in the history of tag. I chase the kids around, letting them outrun me and then dramatically catch them up, only to let them slip through my fingers again while they cackle with glee at escaping. But it's hot outside, and I'm creaky and old. My knees hurt after awhile.
So I chase after Adjit, meaning to catch him this time so I can duck out of this game and get a drink of water. Adjit is a stickler for the rules, and he stops dead on the chalk edge, tumbling over at the sudden stop. There's not enough space for me to stop without crashing into him.
Summoning acrobatic skill I didn't know I had, I half leapt, half flipped, half fell onto the grass outside the soccer field, narrowly avoiding landing on a six-year-old boy and, doubtlessly, crushing him. My shoulder is bruised and my glasses never recovered, but the kid was okay and that's what matters.
"Ms Hanashima," shouts Everett. "That was awesome."
He runs over to me to give me a high five for my superhero flip. I step back into the field, high five him, and shout, "you're it!" before running (only limping a little) out of bounds.
*
"Ms Hanashima," says Adjit, as I hand back his library books. "I can read chapter books."
Adjit is the first student in our class we've allowed to take out chapter books. He has a Magic Tree House book in his hands.
"I know you can." I want him to understand that I'm proud of him, but I'm not not proud of the other students. "But remember to read books that are fun, not just books that are hard."
He looks at me skeptically, and sweeps his books into his bag. Nadya comes next, with two picture books. I see the sneer on Adjit's face, so I make sure to compliment her for reading in English and Russian.
"That's really cool, Nadya," I tell her, swiping the barcode reader down the spine. "I can only read in English."
"Really?" she asks me.
I nod, solemnly. "Really really." I'm the only person in the classroom who can't speak at least two languages. One of my little girls, Serena, speaks three, fluently; she's six (and a half, she'll insist) years old.
Back in the classroom a few weeks later, Adjit takes his book out for silent reading time; Diary of a Wimpy Kid doesn't really seem like first grade material, so I crouch down by his desk to talk to him about it. Who are the characters? What's the story about? If he can answer those questions, I'll let him keep it. If not, we'll find something new.
"I can read long books," insists Adjit. "I can read books more than two hundred pages long."
"So can I." I've been doing silent reading with the students for D.E.A.R., Drop Everything And Read; I still have my book in my hands: The Dark Tower, clocking in at a whopping 1031 pages. Adjit is suitably impressed.
"How many times longer is my book than yours?" I ask him, giving him another chance to prove his cleverness so he won't feel embarrassed.
"Five," he says.
He's a little stuck-up sometimes, but can you blame him? I'm getting competitive with a six-year-old about reading ability.
*
"Come on, Everett. I know you can do a nicer job than that. Try it again and take your time. Use nice handwriting, please. This is for your portfolio."
I pass Everett's wonder bubble back to him. He frowns at me and wrinkles his nose. "I don't want to," he whines.
I try not to grind my teeth at the sound. It's past snack time, and I've been so busy I haven't even made my morning cup of tea. "Sorry." I'm trying to sound sympathetic here, but I've spent my whole morning doing things I don't want to do, and the weather is terrible.
"What if Mrs C and I decided not to do our work nicely?" I ask him. "It takes a long time to make wonder bubbles for everyone, and I have to make twenty five! What If I didn't make them for you?"
"Then I wouldn't have to do it," says Everett.
I shoo him away to go do his work again and take his time instead of rushing so he can play with Legos. I sigh. I just got outsmarted by a first grader.
*
I don't remember what I said to my interviewer. I blathered something about being an assistant means I'm more accessible to the students, who don't have to worry about me grading them. I spend all day, every day with these kids. They know me and they trust me. I play with them in a way the homeroom teacher's can't.
What I should have told him is this: "They can tell I'm secretly one of them."
genre: nonfiction
community:
therealljidol prompt: Exhibit B: Week 4: "does this look infected to you?"
word count: 573
rating: G
summary: I fell into a hole and skinned my leg. It was a teachable moment.
notes: all of the stories in this "collection" are about my first grade students; names and other details have been changed to protect their privacy (and mine), but the stories are otherwise true.
"Don't read while you're walking," I say automatically. "I don't want you to fall down and get hurt."
Nadya doesn't look up from her Japanese homework as she says, "I won't fall." She continues reading and walking to demonstrate.
"Maybe not this time," I insist, because I really don't want her to fall down the stairs. But Nadya is confident, and surefooted, and stubborn as a mule. I've spent the whole school year reminding her to sit down, to listen, to not read while she's freaking walking. It's May. She's been in my class for nine months, and although her handwriting, maths, and reading fluency have improved, she stubbornly insists on braiding Erin's hair during story time, spelling birthday as borfday, and reading while she walks, but she hasn't won yet because I have a secret weapon.
"Do you want to see something gross?" I ask. This catches her interest and she looks up from her book. I know Nadya well enough to know that she can't resist something gross. She hovered around me wanting to see the time Miki nearly broke one of my toes dropping a metal thermos, full to the brim, directly on my foot, protected by nothing but some flimsy ballet flats. She begged me to show her the bug I pulled off of Oliver's backpack the other day and asked the librarian for help finding a book about "guts." This girl can't resist gross. It's a trait I try to encourage in her.
"Yes," says Nadya, her attention entirely on me, and her book forgotten. I twitch up my skirt so she can see. She is adequately disgusted.
The scar is old now, but I never went to see a doctor, preferring to patch it up in my bathroom with some store-bought bandages and something I really hoped said "antiseptic" on the front. The clerk at the drugstore saw me sitting on the curb, bleeding all over the street, while my roommate ran around trying to find what we needed to clean me up on a Tokyo sidewalk, so I think we got the right thing because my wound, as I took to calling it with something almost (but not quite) like affection, got better instead of getting worse. Even fully healed, it looks pretty nasty.
Other than sports, and Russian, and choreographing dances to show the teachers at recess, Nadya's greatest passion is fashion. She designs outfits during art time and critiques my choice of shoes. Nadya scrunches up her face, and I know that I've won. With a big ugly scar like that, her designs would be ruined: most of them feature micro-mini skirts. An inch and a half long purple and red scar would definitely clash with her favorite magenta dress.
"I got it because I was reading while I was walking," I tell her, quite serious and straight faced.
"Really?" Now she seems less confident in her own ability to walk and read at the same time. After all, every first grader knows that teachers are infallible, except that we prefer comfier shoes to more fashionable options, which is a sin for which there is no forgiveness.
"Really." I nod solemnly and she believes me. "Now shoo, and it's afternoon, so tell sensei 'konnichiwa,' not 'ohayogoizaimasu.'"
Nine months and she still stubbornly can't remember that, either, but I think I've taught her a lesson about why we should pay attention to our surroundings.
title: First Grade Fashion Advice
genre: nonfiction
community:
therealljidol prompt: Exhibit B: Week 8: smells like rubbing alcohol
word count: 832
rating: G
summary: My students have a lot of opinions about things, especially my looks. Damn kids say the darndest things.
"Have you been painting your nails?" is the first thing my roommate wants to know when she gets home from work. The answer, of course, is yes; it's Thursday night, so I ate gummy worms for dinner and painted my nails while I watched a movie on AIM with a friend in another city.
"Green," I answer, and I hold my hands up for her to see my new sea foam mermaid green from the drugstore down the street.
"Very nice," she says, but she opens the windows anyway. "I can smell it."
"Sorry," I say, but not sorry enough that I won't paint my nails again next week. I'm really into this new color. It makes me feel like a mermaid.
Pleased as punch, I go to work the next day with my favorite new nail polish on, and it even matches my dress. The girls in my class like to look at my fingernails, even when I don't paint them, because they're very long. Erin is the line leader today, and I've got one hand up in the air, the school's code for quiet, and the other in one of her hands while she inspects the paint job.
"I liked it better purple," she whispers to me on the way to art class.
"I'll keep that in mind," I tell her. "Now shush, and say good morning to Ms G."
*
I do keep it in mind, but I don't stop painting my fingernails green, or pink, or silver. I keep it in mind because it's a funny story, like the time Nadya lectured me on the right shoes to wear with a long skirt.
"I like your skirt, Ms Hanashima," She swishes her short uniform skirt for emphasis. My skirt is long, black, and it drapes very nicely.
"Thank you, Nadya," I winkle my nose at her. "I like it, too."
"But," she drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I want to be a fashion designer when I grow up," she pushes her drawing towards me, another self portrait of her at sixteen in a magenta dress and purple heels, "so…" She trails off awkwardly. She doesn't want to embarrass me. "Those are the wrong kind of shoes to wear with a long skirt."
"What kind of shoes should I wear, Nadya?" I ask, because although of course I already know the answer (heels, which are Nadya's favorite things, right after nail polish and before colored contact lenses), I want her to be a thinker and explain it to me. I won't stop wearing my beaten up ballet flats with the cushy insoles, but I want to hear what she has to say.
"High ones," she says, "with the toes open."
"It's dangerous to wear shoes with the toes open at school," I explain. She makes a face and doesn't believe me. "Remember when Miki dropped her water bottle on my foot?"
Nadya nods, point taken. A few weeks ago, Miki dropped a full metal water bottle directly on my toes. If I hadn't been wearing rain boots, she might have broken them. It hurt like hell, and all of my students saw it happen.
"But you could still wear high shoes," she insists.
"I like my shoes," I tell her, never turning down an opportunity to talk, however obliquely, about feminism. "They're not very pretty, but they are very comfy. How could I play tag with you at recess if I was wearing high shoes?"
Nadya has an answer for everything, though: "Bring a change."
I don't bring a change, and I don't wear heels.
*
I don't always disregard my students' fashion advice, though. Just most of the time.
Standing outside in line in June, and it's getting hot. I'm sweating, and so are my students. I put my hand, palm down, on the line leader's head. "Adit," I say. "Your hair is so hot that I could make okonomiyaki on your head."
Adit, serious and solemn boy though he is, laughs out loud at this, and soon I have a crowd of little kids asking me if their hair is not enough to make okonomiyaki, too.
"No," I tell Ian. His hair isn't straight and black, like most of the other children in my class, but an ashy blond color and curly like Shirley Temple, a joke I have told him but he doesn't understand. "But your hair is cool," I add, when his face falls. "It's curly like mine."
"No," says Ajit. "Ian's hair is curly like Zivko's." Zivko has an afro. His hair looks nothing like Ian's, but I don't argue. "Your hair looks like an earthquake!"
I call and schedule a haircut during my lunch break. I knew I was overdue for a trim, but it's not every day someone compares your hair to a natural disaster. Damn kids say the darndest things, but at least you can count on them to be honest.
title: Tag, You're It!
genre: nonfiction
community:
therealljidol prompt: Exhibit B: Week 10: all that jazz
word count: 989
rating: G
summary: I never used to like kids, but then I realized something…
notes: this intersects with
eeyore_grrl's entry, beneath the surface."Why do you like children?" asked the interviewer.
I don't remember what I said; something about learning and growing and their excitement about exploring the world around them, the enthusiasm only a first grader can bring to absolutely everything, provided the teacher makes it interesting, blah blah blah, etc.
"It's my job to make it interesting," I add. "If they're going to be spending Saturday afternoons with me, I want them to have fun while they learn."
The interviewer likes that. He smiles, and transitions onward. "But why do kids like you?" he asks.
"I, uhm …"
*
Playing tag out on the field with my first graders, they all gang up on me. Everyone wants Ms Hanashima to be it, and Everett backs me into a corner. If I step over the chalk line around the soccer field, then I'll be out. He jumps for me, tags my stomach with unnecessary force, and screams to his friends "Ms Hanashima is the oni."
Okay, kiddo. If I'm the demon, I'll be the scariest demon in the history of tag. I chase the kids around, letting them outrun me and then dramatically catch them up, only to let them slip through my fingers again while they cackle with glee at escaping. But it's hot outside, and I'm creaky and old. My knees hurt after awhile.
So I chase after Adjit, meaning to catch him this time so I can duck out of this game and get a drink of water. Adjit is a stickler for the rules, and he stops dead on the chalk edge, tumbling over at the sudden stop. There's not enough space for me to stop without crashing into him.
Summoning acrobatic skill I didn't know I had, I half leapt, half flipped, half fell onto the grass outside the soccer field, narrowly avoiding landing on a six-year-old boy and, doubtlessly, crushing him. My shoulder is bruised and my glasses never recovered, but the kid was okay and that's what matters.
"Ms Hanashima," shouts Everett. "That was awesome."
He runs over to me to give me a high five for my superhero flip. I step back into the field, high five him, and shout, "you're it!" before running (only limping a little) out of bounds.
*
"Ms Hanashima," says Adjit, as I hand back his library books. "I can read chapter books."
Adjit is the first student in our class we've allowed to take out chapter books. He has a Magic Tree House book in his hands.
"I know you can." I want him to understand that I'm proud of him, but I'm not not proud of the other students. "But remember to read books that are fun, not just books that are hard."
He looks at me skeptically, and sweeps his books into his bag. Nadya comes next, with two picture books. I see the sneer on Adjit's face, so I make sure to compliment her for reading in English and Russian.
"That's really cool, Nadya," I tell her, swiping the barcode reader down the spine. "I can only read in English."
"Really?" she asks me.
I nod, solemnly. "Really really." I'm the only person in the classroom who can't speak at least two languages. One of my little girls, Serena, speaks three, fluently; she's six (and a half, she'll insist) years old.
Back in the classroom a few weeks later, Adjit takes his book out for silent reading time; Diary of a Wimpy Kid doesn't really seem like first grade material, so I crouch down by his desk to talk to him about it. Who are the characters? What's the story about? If he can answer those questions, I'll let him keep it. If not, we'll find something new.
"I can read long books," insists Adjit. "I can read books more than two hundred pages long."
"So can I." I've been doing silent reading with the students for D.E.A.R., Drop Everything And Read; I still have my book in my hands: The Dark Tower, clocking in at a whopping 1031 pages. Adjit is suitably impressed.
"How many times longer is my book than yours?" I ask him, giving him another chance to prove his cleverness so he won't feel embarrassed.
"Five," he says.
He's a little stuck-up sometimes, but can you blame him? I'm getting competitive with a six-year-old about reading ability.
*
"Come on, Everett. I know you can do a nicer job than that. Try it again and take your time. Use nice handwriting, please. This is for your portfolio."
I pass Everett's wonder bubble back to him. He frowns at me and wrinkles his nose. "I don't want to," he whines.
I try not to grind my teeth at the sound. It's past snack time, and I've been so busy I haven't even made my morning cup of tea. "Sorry." I'm trying to sound sympathetic here, but I've spent my whole morning doing things I don't want to do, and the weather is terrible.
"What if Mrs C and I decided not to do our work nicely?" I ask him. "It takes a long time to make wonder bubbles for everyone, and I have to make twenty five! What If I didn't make them for you?"
"Then I wouldn't have to do it," says Everett.
I shoo him away to go do his work again and take his time instead of rushing so he can play with Legos. I sigh. I just got outsmarted by a first grader.
*
I don't remember what I said to my interviewer. I blathered something about being an assistant means I'm more accessible to the students, who don't have to worry about me grading them. I spend all day, every day with these kids. They know me and they trust me. I play with them in a way the homeroom teacher's can't.
What I should have told him is this: "They can tell I'm secretly one of them."
