how much is a million?

did i mention that one of my high school projects has successfully infiltrated my classroom? two copies of a children's book i wrote my senior year (i opted not to write a zillion poems for a portfolio. the thought still sort of makes me cringe inside ...) made it into the boxes of books i brought from home.

it surfaced sometime at the beginning of the year, and i am not exaggerating when i say that on any given day, that book is sitting on someone's desk. today someone was reading it instead of doing math ... and when i changed his card for not doing work, he got so upset because 1. it's YOUR book ms. matthews! how you gonna get mad about that? and 2. it has so many numbers in it already! it's just like doing math. i told him that writing a book like it could count as a math assignment ... but until he learns enough math for that, good luck. (was that mean?)

sometimes it reallllllly makes me miss my little brother to see kids reading it and enjoying it (i wrote it for him). i remember on his birthday, someone was reading it and then they asked about david since his name's in the book. i got all teary-eyed and could barely answer.

awww, you say ... yeah well, i'm just a sentimental lady when it comes to these things.

the absentees

Two of my students were absent today. But I didn't miss them too much, because one called at about 10 am to see who was in school (so he knew whose house he could go over to? i'm not sure). another student answered the room phone when he called, and they handed it to me and said, um, ms. matthews, it's **. why is he calling you?

he has called me through the school before, no big surprise, but still funny.

and the other one, at 3:10, comes bouncing into the classroom.

um, buddy, whatcha doin' here?
- oh, my mom sent me to the store, but i wanted to come up and say hi and get my tokens.
why weren't you in school today?
- uh, i don't know. just didn't come. i stayed home and played.
well it's good to see you. let me give you your homework. so glad you stopped by!
- ah!!!! ms. matttttheeeewwwwwwsssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hilarious. what kid skips school but stops by 10 minutes before it's over to say hi?

follow-up

after school i pulled one of my kids aside who had been asking a lot of the questions, answering many of them too. he's the one with whom i've had spiritual conversations before (same kid who loves shawn mcdonald and STILL sings one song about every day). a couple other kids were waiting for him so they hung around. he had been answering a lot of other kids' questions, but with lots of what you have to 'do' to get to heaven. so for 2 or 3 minutes i explained things a little more clearly. when i finished, one of the other kids exclaimed, wow ms. matthews that was a good speech. well no, but the information most certainly is.

captivating

the neatest thing, though, about the conversation, was that all day i couldn't get them to listen to me for my life. they were antsy and silly and talkative. and this conversation started and all of a sudden, all of the talking was (gasp!) on topic. everyone was clamoring to be heard. they were all leaning forward, no heads down, raising their hands - no, waving their hands, listening to every comment i made, all eyes and ears to see what everyone else was saying.

they were totally captivated, for the first time in a long time.

not surprising, He's like that :)

conversation

this saturday is earth day, so we're spending the week in science learning about it.

one of the first questions anyone had about the earth was "who made it?". not wanting to be too ... whatever, i asked the class to share their thoughts. the resounding answer, um god did, of *course*. okay, well, then who made god? oh geez. i told them that the bible says that god has always existed and will always exist, no one made him, he made everything. and then well, who made the devil? two of the students wove together a little, fairly accurate, narrative about the devil's fall, which ended with the devil in hell where "all you bad people gonna go and you be burnin forever and the devil's all around you and you be screamin but no one cares and you're there forever".

then the question was, how do you avoid that? i let the kids have a go at that one, and we got lots of 'be good and behave in school' (believe it or not, not the answer i was looking for ... :)), love was in there somewhere, respect and kindness, follow the 10 'rules' that god gave to moses (which were all listed by one student - i was impressed), follow god, love god, worship god, do the right thing ...

i ended the classroom discussion with telling them that it matters more what you believe about god than what you do, reminded them why they all celebrated easter yesterday, and said, i think sort of quickly (dah), so believing in jesus is where it's at. let's go to recess. you guys just made your own social studies lesson.