School Days – Month 5 of 12 Ancestors in 12 Months

Students are the Best

Years ago, when I first started teaching in 1977, I would share with my mother the fascinating and amusing things my students said or did. My mother told me I should write everything down. Alas, I did not heed my mother’s advice. At the time, I thought I would remember all of these tidbits, but after 40 years of teaching and seven years of retirement, memories become a bit fuzzy or only the big picture remains and not the details and new memories often take place of the old, especially when there is not a huge emotional component.

Fast forward to Facebook…I joined FB in 2010. One nice content category in Facebook is Memories.  Today I can view memories of my posts to see what happened in years past. Now I have access to some of those interesting student comments from the later years of my career when I was the school teacher/librarian and worked with all the teachers and students.

Here are a few of the memories I’ve come across:

Students sometimes seem to miss the point of the lesson.

• One of my favorite collaborations was the Ancient Civilizations Scavenger Hunt that I did with 6^th grade classes. On October 10, 2010, there was a 6^th grade boy who was totally perplexed as he was working on the scavenger hunt. He had the encyclopedia open but was totally confused about the writing system that the Sumerians had. I explained that Sumer was the civilization and the Sumerians were the people who lived there. The light bulb went on and he said, “So, it’s not submarines!”
• In 2011, I had 7^th graders in doing science research. Each student had to select a biome and an animal that lives in the biome. So this very serious boy asked me if I could help find information about werewolves because that’s what he wanted to do for his project.
• Then there was a 7^th grade boy who wanted to know why Abraham Lincoln wanted to strike Germany.
• In 2011, I had some posters attached to my counter. A girl was looking very intently at one of them. Finally, she said to me, “I didn’t know you had Facebook at this school.” I said, “Sure, but we call it Farcebook.” She looked again at the poster and said, “Okay,” then walked away. I didn’t tell her that Frankenstein’s monster was a fictional character – I didn’t want to confuse the issue.

One of the pleasures of being the school teacher/librarian was helping students find just the right book. I absolutely loved giving book talks and enjoyed when the technology improved so that I could add graphics and sometimes video (and of course when the students began to make their own book videos, we really had a good time).

• In 2010, a 6^th grade girl came up to me and wanted to know if we have the book she’s holding without the cover on that particular copy which had a boy and girl kissing. I asked her if maybe her mother wouldn’t approve and she just gave me a sheepish grin. I sent her over to the Princess Diaries and she was really happy with her choice. At the time I wondered what things would be like when she became an 8^th grader.
• Sometimes I could just read their minds. This was an actual conversation in 2013: “Do you have that book? You know, the one with the eye?” Me: “Cleopatra Confesses? No, it’s checked out.”
• On May 21, 2015 I wore my Wonder Litograph shirt to school. It was a huge success and I had lots of discussions with students. I went to Sarah Curran’s room where her classes were currently reading the book. One girl told me she doesn’t like to read but was very animated when she declared how much she likes this book. A boy made his mother buy him the book because he wanted his own copy. Sarah’s students told me they thought the whole class should get shirts then we could take pictures for the yearbook.
• Another time in May (this time in 2011), the book orders came in and one of my 8^th grade boys got the last Vladimir Tod. He said, “Now I have all the books in the series. I have fulfilled one of my life’s goals!”

Sometimes students have their own brand of logic.

• On December 10, 2015 a 7^th grade boy came up to me and blurted out, “Star Wars is everything; Star Trek is nothing!” I told him that I was sure that there was a life lesson there somewhere.
• On March 8, 2012 a 7^th grade boy wore a T-shirt with John Wayne and Lil Way side-by-side. Another boy asked the first boy, “So, who’s John Wayne? Is he another rapper?”
• During lunch one day 2016, a student says, “For some reason, the sun keeps going on and off.”
• Seriously, when you live in the desert you expect it to be sunny and hot. On another morning in 2016 it was dark and eerily quiet. A boy came in the library and said, “It’s really weird; it must be the Zombie Apocalypse.” For those who live where it rains and snows, you just don’t understand how traumatic a change in weather can be.
• I really do enjoy how middle school students think. In 2017, the 7th grade Social Studies classes were learning about the Renaissance. For the final assessment, students had to state the ‘moral of the story’ for Macbeth. One student wrote, “The idea of this story is never trust random people or in this case witches. Also never kill because karma will get you back. And do not do what wives tell you to do.”

And this is why we do what we do:

• On May 10, 2011, one of my library aides told me that I was so lucky that I got to live in the library.
• Students notice your fashion sense…On March 17, 2015 a boy came up to me today and very seriously and politely said, “You look really good!” Of course it was St. Patrick’s Day and I was wearing my St. Patrick’s Day hat.
• Sarah’s classes were in the library on October 15, 2010 and she overheard one of her, uhm, “interesting” students ask one of my students, “how much do you have to pay to be a library aide?”
• We were in a low-income school where 98% of the students qualified for free/reduced lunch. While we had our share of problems, we had some of the sweetest students around. It was nice to see that for many getting an education was important. On January 6, 2012, I was chatting with a 7^th grade girl and she informed me that she planned to move to New York, become a family therapist, then retire in Europe. Seriously, in 2012 I had no idea what I was going to do in retirement.
• A student was leaving the library after class on August 16, 2015 and said, “Thank you Mrs. Coble, you have the best books!”
• In 2017, a boy came in at lunch with a big smile on his face and said, “The library is my favorite place at school!”
• And on a sentimental note: On March 15, 2015, we had high schoolers on campus and several came by to say hello. One boy told me that he was surprised at how emotional he was to come back. Several high school students asked about teachers they had and remarked about the many ‘new’ teachers that seemed to be on campus. I reminded them that Mr. Coble and I were still there. One boy said, “Well of course you are. The school couldn’t function without you.” Sometimes they’re just really sweet.

Gary and I retired in 2017. It’s hard to believe that it’s been so long (and yes, the school has functioned without us). We often talk about how much we miss the students.