Pumpkin’s urgent mission
I was reading a story the other morning, with lots of interruptions from a wiggly class, when Pumpkin interrupted me, while raising his hand (he is sort of getting the idea). “Teacher! Teacher!  I have to go save the world!” I looked at him, nonplussed. “I have to go!  I have to go right now!  I have to save the world!”  He was still raising his hand, jabbing it at the sky, urgently. I thought about how to respond.  “Honey?  Can we finish the story first, and then you can save the world?” He thought about it seriously, and then agreed. And we are all still here, so obviously, it worked

the first thanksgiving — an eyewitness account
Yesterday I told the children the story of the first Thanksgiving, in my own words.  Someone, maybe Cherry, interrupted me. “Were you there?” “No, I wasn’t there.  This happened hundreds of years ago.”  I continued with my story.  A few minutes later Pumpkin interrupted me. “Were you there?” “No, honey, I wasn’t there.  I’m [fill in the blank] years old.  The first Thanksgiving was hundreds of years ago.”  Pum

love my job; don’t want to go to work tomorrow
The mentoring part of my job is getting me down.  It bothers me that I have to do so much paperwork.  It bothers me that I have to spend so much time doing observations and conferences that I don’t really get to do much coaching.  It bothers me that I don’t know if I’m actually being helpful to anyone.  It bothers me that I’m asking teachers to do extra work and they haven’t been paid (nor have I) for all the points they earned last year doing this program. It bothers me that I can’t just shut the door and concentrate on my four year olds. This is the week I’m going to go in and talk to the Prince, and let him know th

technology
We have a new IT guy.  The Prince says he’s one of the best in the district, and we’re lucky to have him.  He also happens to be Plum’s dad, and I’m Plum’s teacher, so I knew he’d say yes when I asked him to help me with a computer problem. He came before school to help me figure out why I cannot open any of the documents I wrote last year.  The ones from two years ago?  No problem.  From this year?  Again, no problem.  But I’ve got a whole year’s worth of lesson plans that are inaccessible.  Plum’s dad was still in the room when the kids came in.  Plum’s eyes were wide.  “Will my Daddy be in ou

teacher blog turns into teacher book
I’ve been meaning to tell you all to buy It’s Not All Flowers and Sausages, the new book by Mrs. Mimi, the author of the It’s Not All Flowers and Sausages blog.  She is a teacher in NYC who loves teaching but maybe not some of the people she meets in the course of doing her job. She is hilarious, and so is the book. And any teacher (like me) who works with nice people will read it and feel incredibly lucky. Go out, people, and bu