Tales from a fourth grade teacher

Moments it is worth begin a teacher...

• Sometimes at the end of the day as they kids line up we play "guess my animal". Well I was calling on students to guess and I called on a fairly quiet students who doesn't raise his hand too often. Out of his mouth, with total serious tone, he said " Is it a chupacabra?". Now if you do not know what a chupacabra is you will have to wikipedia it. Basically it is kind of like the Big-Foot of Latin America, but it is more like a alien lizard thing (see pic below). Well my family used to always joke about the chupacabras, especially after Paydan watched a scooby-doo episode with it in. Well, anyway, it caught me totally off gaurd and made me giggle. The other kids had no clue what he said and a few asked him what it was, but it is moments like this that make it worth being a teacher.
  

• a fairly "straight-laced" mother of one of my sweet, shy, brainiac Asian students emailed me about what she could to do help her daughters writing. Anyway, at the end of one of her emails, totally out of the blue she said " By the way _________ (name withheld) is having the best year ever she has had at Ben Rush Elementary." WOW! Coming from this parent, it totally blew me away. Here I thought I was probably not challenging her daughter enough to her liking but instead she gives me a comment that makes it worth being a teacher.

• Last week we had a PTA sponsored assembly where they brought in this guy called the Reptile Man. Basically this guy has a ton of reptiles and is an expert so he brings them in and shows them to the students. Well, the funny thing is that this guy has been around so long that I say him when I WAS IN FOURTH GRADE. Funny story with it too. When I was that age I was a "bit" of a tom-boy and I actually really liked snakes. Well after coming to my school he also did a night "assembly" for the families. I wanted to go so bad becuase you could pay a small sum to get your picture taken with an albino like 8 foot python. Well, usually my parents were totally game for things like that and were rarely busy, but for some reason that night they had to go some where resulting in me having to stay home. I cried and cried! Well, I told this story to my students after the assembly and they all were like "Mrs. Jones... you HAVE to come tonight so you can FINALLY get your picture with the snake!!!" Thieu concern for me was so genuine, it melted my heart. Those moments make it worth being a teacher! (ps.) unfortunately I had prior arrangements and still could not go and fulfill my dream!ha!!)
• 

• Seeing many of my kids get to that "pre-teen" stage where the girls whisper in each others ears and the boys start to want to brag about their feats on the football fields to "impress" the ladies, just makes me smile. It brings back so many memories. I even have a few girls in my class that out of the blue are now OBSESSED with Twilight. One of them even showed up to school with a HUGE Edward tee-shirt. Man, to live vicariously through the students makes it worth being a teacher!
  
•