Work

"Teacher?"
"Ms. Mac?"
"Teacher?"
"Ms. Jessica?"
"Duty?"
"Mrs. Whatever-your-name-is?"
"Jessica?"
"Ms. MacFarlan?"
(x 20+)

Jesus typically starts his greeting by tugging on my upper arm, "Duty? We have a problem..."

Omar greets me with the phrase, "Ms. Jessica? Can I run?"

Machiah skips the formalities altogether and announces his presence with the declaration, "Machiah is awesome!"

Jasmine walks with her hand in mine.

Farias alternates between running up for a hug and avoiding me when he wants to cause trouble. "Ms. Jessica? That duty," pointing to whomever has just dealt out his latest disciplinary action, "is mean."

***

The second graders just finished the story of The Ugly Duckling in reading group, and the fifth graders are nearly at the end of The Wizard of Oz. Toto tipped over that curtain, and they all forgot that this was reading group and they were supposed to be bored. Everyone wanted to be the one to read what happened next.

There are measurable goals they are supposed to be meeting, reading rate, accuracy, and recall. But, in the long run, this is the goal, that they decide, even for a few moments, that they like to read.

The second graders, on the other hand, are still relatively convinced that the whole thing is a competition. :)