A visit to the children's classrooms

I had a day off today, so I decided to visit the classrooms of my three children. First on the docket was Greg's fourth grade class. This was a teacher who believes in freedom. Kids were talking all around the room and walking back and forth. When I was introduced as Greg's father, kids shouted out from all corners of the room that "Greg is hilarious." One boy even walked over to Greg and raised Greg's hand in the air like a referee would raise the hand of the winner of a prizefight, and announced, "Greg is hilarious!" Greg did say something funny when the kid raised his hand: "You are overdoing your pride in my achievements!"

Okay, I thought, the kids like him, but is he the class clown? The kids were working on graphs for a math assignment. Greg got up and went over to the teacher, who was sitting on her fanny taking a break, I guess. Greg said, "This doesn't make any sense!" She re-read the instructions to him, but I don't think Greg was convinced that it made any sense. I spoke briefly with the teacher, who, as far as I could see, was not doing any teaching. She said, "If Greg put half as much energy into just doing his work as he does in trying to avoid his work, he would accomplish amazing things." Sigh.

But wait, there is hope. My next stop was Jon's classroom, which will be Greg's next year. Can you say NO NONSENSE? Jon's teacher was intense, passionate, terrific. Those kids are going to learn every subject she teaches; I have not a shadow of a doubt! And guess what? Like me, she is a huge fan of the writer Pat Conroy. She had amazing control of that classroom. Does a child have poor posture? She will remark about it and the child will immediately straighten up. All of the children were completely involved in learning the multiplication and division problems. The teacher would make a presentation at the front of the room, then circle throughout the room checking everyone's work, while still holding the attention of the entire class. She used humor, but was entirely focused on teaching the subject matter, and so were the children. No clowns allowed in this class.

I sat next to Jon, and noticed that he was just as fidgety as he is when I am reading to him and Greg at night. He was tapping lightly with a magnet, wiggling his feet, eating his pencil, but he was staying up with the teacher even if it was math, which is not Jon's best subject (writing and p.e. are).

Lastly, I went to Sara's class. She seemed very, very glad to see me. I sat down next to her. One of the first things she told me was that she can lift off the ground every single kid in the class. If you could see her and the rest of the class, you would immediately believe Sara, who is at least a head taller than any other child (we think her biological father must have been a NBA player). Not to my surprise, Sara was working way ahead of her teacher and the other kids. That is the way she is with me, too. She whispered to me that the next time I come she wants me to teach the class along with her teacher, and she will speak to the teacher about that.