Still Surviving the School Year

The other day at work, I opened the door to my final class of the day, and one of the second graders greeted me with, "They're crazy today." 

 

That's never a good sign, I thought. 

 

Since August, I've gone home more than once feeling like the kids have forgotten how to be at school. Or maybe I have forgotten how to be at school. It has been almost two years since we've had a normal school year. And 2021 has been far from normal. 

 

 

We have managed to get a few fun things done:

 

One thing hasn't changed. I have a fifth grade student who enters my room, sits in his spot, and sneezes three times. Every. Single. Week. He has been doing this since kindergarten.

 

 

"I'm allergic to cats," he told me the other day. "Maybe it's Copy Cat's fault." 

 

Poor Copy Cat

 

Later, in a first grade class, I walked up the steps of my choir risers, and one of the little kids gasped. 

 

“Mrs. Duggan, you’re too heavy! You’re going to break the risers!” 

 

“Are you calling a woman HEAVY?!” I said with fake indignation.

 

He shrugged, “My mom is heavy too.” 

 

My face when a first grader calls me "heavy."

Also that day, I asked the sixth graders to hold their hands to the level of my chin for some weird reason. I don't remember why. 

 

"I hate to say it, Mrs. Duggan, but that's not hard to do," one of the students said. "You’re pretty small.”

 

At least this kid didn't say I was "heavy."

 

 

Some children have been trying to help with classroom behaviors. During a fourth grade class, I caught, out of the corner of my eye, two students pantomiming good seating behavior to one of the more fidgety kids in class. 

 

When he finally settled and sat with his hands in his lap in a way that satisfied the other two kids (their rule, not mine), the students fist-bumped surreptitiously, proud of their accomplishment. 

 

 

"Do you watch Squid Game?" the sixth graders asked me one day. 

"What is it? A video game? Anime? A TikTok thing?" I asked. 

Yes, I've been living under a rock. I am aware of Squid Game now. In my defense, this was a few weeks ago, before NPR aired anything about it. We older folks have to get our pop culture info from NPR, ya know. I still haven't watched it though.

 

 

"It's a TV show on Netflix. It's really good. But don’t watch it with your kids," the ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD said. 

 

(Um . . . )

 

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