A Conversation Overheard

Today my class was working on cutting out paper for an art project. I turned on the Pandora relaxation station, which I sometimes play when they're working individually. This is the conversation I overheard.

Leslie: Ugh, why does she always play the romance music?
Liva: She needs to get married already.
Regina: No if she gets married, she will get pregnant...
Liva: Yeah and then she will get fat.
Regina: No! Then she will have a baby!
Leslie: Then we won't be her favorites anymore. Because she will love her baby.
Liva: Yeah, but babies are so cute. And teacher is old. She's supposed to have babies.
Leslie and Regina: Yeah.. she should... you're right...


Happy Tuesday!

It's Claudio (Said in the Mario Voice)

Today was picture day. Claudio came in his best button down shirt with a fancy corduroy jacket over the top. His hair was perfectly slicked.

As I was herding my kids to line up to get their pictures taken, I caught the following conversation:

Picture lady: Oh don't look fancy! Go ahead and take a seat with your knees facing forward. That looks great. Ok now can you put your hand down?
(Pause)
You look great, I just need that hand to come down.
(Pause)
Your hand is blocking your face can you put it down?
(Pause)
Why do you have your hand like that?

Claudio: It's holding my hat
Picture lady: But you're not wearing a hat.
Claudio: This is how Mario poses in all of his pictures.

Well he's not wrong.

I finally met Claudio's mother today. The first thing she said to me was, "He doesn't talk about Mario too much, does he?"

Hmmmm... How much is too much?

One Week Wiser

I've got one more week as a teacher under my belt and I have learned some very important lessons.

#1. Kids notice EVERYTHING...

I brought in a ziploc baggie with some cookies my dear sister Kendall made for me to school one day. Knowing that my kids would see them and want them, I hid them behind the frame on my desk.
Claudio came up to give me my morning hug (he's a hugger) and mid-sentence (which I'm sure was about Mario) his eyes zeroed in on the corner of my desk behind my frame.

Claudio: Miss Earl, are those cookies?
Me: Yes they are. My sister made them for me.
*Claudio goes back to his desk and returns a minute later
Claudio: I'm really hungry.
Me: Bummer. We have a long time until lunch.
*Claudio goes back to his desk and returns thirty seconds later
Claudio: Miss Earl, I wish you would put those cookies away. They are very distracting.

#2. ...well, everything that is important to them. 

As a second grade teacher, you do a lot of walking backwards. I have learned that as soon as you turn your back to them, kids turn into demons. Without fail. Every. Single. Time. So I walk backwards every day and never watch where I'm going. I know, I'm a giver. I do it for the children.

So this one time I'm walking my class to P.E. and I was getting after someone for talking or pushing their neighbor or one of the million other things I nag my kids about, when I walked right into the metal pole in the middle of an open doorway. It knocked the breath out of me it hurt so bad. And I bit my tongue really hard. And I wanted to cry a little bit. But instead I asked my class, "Why did nobody warn me?"
To which Tehani replied, "You're the one who works here."

#3. Students really do think teachers are all knowing beings. 

Leslie: How do you spell because?
Me: b-e-c-a-u-s-e
Tasi: Teacher, do you know how to spell every word?
Me: Yes I do. Give me a word and I'll spell it.

They threw out a couple of words off the top of their head. School, desk, wonderful... then it got very quiet as they all thought of a word that could stump me.

Tasi: Germany! (with a very proud look on his face)
Me: G-e-r-m-a-n-y
*class cheers*
Tasi: WOW. You DO know every word.


I was trying to get a student signed on to a math website and just wasn't having any luck. The boy sitting next to him, William, noticed my struggling and jumped right in to help. It's important that you know that William can't say his r's or his l's, so everything he says is ten times funnier.

William: Aw you twying to sign on to Fast Math? I know how to get theyoo. But, yoh a teacha. Why don't you know how?
*he looks at me disgustedly and gets on the computer to help his neighbor*
Me: Oh there it is! Thanks, William
William: It was easy. I just went to the student website. How did you not know that? Fast Math is on the student website. Don't foget that because it's weewy impotant. Do you want to watch me do it again? Yoh a teacha. Teachas should weewy know that. (With the same disgusted look on his face.) *This story may not be as funny in writing, but oh my heavens I'm crying just thinking of it. So funny.

#4. Every victory counts. 

September is Attendance Awareness Month at our school. Any class that gets less than 8 absences for the entire month gets to have a BYU athlete come eat lunch and play with them at recess. The front office put up posters to track the attendance for each class. For every day you have zero absences you get a star. I never go by the front office, so when I finally did this week I was surprised to see this:

Not only am I beating the entire Second Grade, I am beating the ENTIRE SCHOOL. I have perfect attendance in my class!

We may not be learning much, but we're showing up and that's what counts. Now fingers crossed the athlete they get to hang out with my kids is a basketball player. And a dude.

#5. Kids are full of fun facts. Chalk full of them. 

Ruth: Miss Earl, Jameson grabbed my leg and he pulled me off my chair and my last name means mountain of the sea and I really didn't like that he did that but also my first name, Ruth, means friend and so my name is like friend mountain of the sea and now my leg really hurts and I wish he hadn't done that.

#6. It doesn't matter how much you bribe or threaten them, your class will misbehave for the sub.

#7. When your class misbehaves for the sub, you can make them put their head down on their desks and you will have five minutes of glorious, glorious silence. Plus, you feel super BA when you're able to instill the fear of Zeus into 21 little kids. 

#8. Notes of appreciation are great. And then they get old. 

Especially when they are preceded by:
"Teacher, how do you spell miss?"
"How do you spell Earl?"
"How do you spell are?"
"How do you spell favorite?"
"How do you spell teacher?"

And she still didn't get it right...

#9. When it comes to teacher swag, apples are SO last year. 

That is a flower, a bracelet made from a shoelace, and a half eaten Snickers bar.

And nothing says, sorry we were horrible to the sub like some freshly picked weeds!

#10. Kids can't keep a secret. 

Miss Baughman (one of the teachers on my team): You're little Cristian walked into my class today and he was doing the splits and cartwheels and just dancing all over the place. So I told him, Cristian we don't do that in the classroom, dancing is for recess time. And do you know what he said? Miss Earl let's us dance! Hahaha, can you believe that?
Me: What? No, that's totally crazy. What a liar, kids are stupid...

Close enough?

"Hey Miss Earl! Is this how you spell my name in cursive?"

"Not quite, Cristian...."

Is it only Tuesday?

Cristian: Hey Miss Earl, Tasi has an eraser in his ear!

Me: What? You mean on his ear?

Cristian: Nope! It's inside. And it's stuck in there good, huh Tasi?

Me: Tasi is that true? 

Tasi: (nods)

Me: Well, how did the eraser get in your ear? 

Tasi: I have no idea. 

Me: Well, did you put it there? (Tasi nods) Then I'm thinking that's how it got there. Let me see it. I don't see anything. Are you sure it didn't fall out already. 

Cristian: Look closer Miss Earl! It's real deep!

And so I did. And there it was. 

And after 6 hours of "Eyes on me!" and "voices off!" I just lost it.

After a solid 30 seconds of laughing hysterically, I wiped the tears from my eyes and said, 

"Well Tasi, let's just hope your parents think this is as funny as I do."

In the words of Claudio: I saw it! I saw the eraser! And it was so awesome (whispered in awe.)

Please don't let this be the start of a new trend in my class.

I survived my first full week...

Spoiler alert: I am back in America and have been for quite some time now.

I took some time off from the blogging world to regroup and focus on me for a while, ya know? Well, it was that and also my life got super boring once again.

But now I am on a new adventure called teaching second grade.

Another spoiler alert: teaching kids is really hard. and tiring. and crazy. and most days I wake up and I think to myself...

hahahaha. Jk?

But really, it's going to be a great year.

To remind myself how much I love working with little kids that have to pee every five minutes and cry whenever someone "buts" them in line ("back in my day, we used to call that cutting") I think it's important that I share the funny things that they do.

So here goes.

We were in the middle of a math pre-assessment and all the kids were really struggling with it. I kept explaining to them that the things on this test were things that I was going to be teaching them later, and that I just wanted to see what they knew right now so they just needed to give it their best guess. One student in particular was just moaning and groaning through the entire thing. When I went over to check on him I tried to be as sweet as possible and I said, "Claudio, I know that this test is really hard and I know that you are getting tired. But I also know that you are a very smart boy and that you can give it your best for just a few more minutes." His response?

"I just want the fire Mario so bad!! I have all the other carts! I even have Princess Peach and I didn't even want her! And I can't focus on anything else because I just NEED the fire Mario!"

Yeah, apparently he was less worried about the difficulty of the test and more worried about his Mario Kart game.

*Mario Kart on the Wii is a recurring topic for Claudio and I. It usually sounds little something like this: "Class, who can tell me how many ones are in the number 28? Claudio?"
"Do you know what sound Yoshi makes? (insert Yoshi sound here)"


For one of our projects we colored little paper chameleons so they would blend in around our classroom. They had these little toes that were very difficult for my 7-year-olds to cut out, and many were amputated in the process. One of my kids came up to me distraught because he had cut off a toe and he was insistent that I tape it back on. After I did, I handed it back to him and he just stared at it. I thought he was upset because I just slapped a piece of tape on it and didn't bother to line it up to the correct toe socket.
Instead, he looked up with big eyes and said, "Teacher, this is amazing! You could be a doctor!"


We have centers time where the kids are in small groups working on literacy activities and only one group is working with me at a time. I have been trying to train my kids to not ask me questions during centers time, since I will be busy with one of the groups. We spent a whole hour practicing activities where they couldn't ask me questions. It was awesome. I love centers. Anyways, after one of our practices I asked my class, "What should I do if I have a question during centers. I know that I can't ask Miss Earl, but what is something else I could do?"
Barrett responds in all seriousness, "You could pray about it."


I have one little boy in my class who came straight from Mexico this year. He is very smart, but he doesn't speak a lick of English. Thankfully, about half of my class is native Spanish speakers, so they help me out quite a bit. There is just something so adorable about little kids speaking Spanish! Is that creepy to think so? Anyways, one of my little caucasians Elisia came to school one morning and she said to me, "My mom taught me how to say my name is Elisia in Spanish last night." I told her that was so great and maybe she could introduce herself to Octavio now.

A little bit later in the day we were walking to recess and I overheard her tell another Spanish speaker in our class, "oh yeah, I speak a little Spanish, too."

But here's the best part. As the kids are walking in to my room from lunch, I say, "Alright class, come in quietly and go directly to the rug." Elisia comes up and says, "Oh, don't worry Miss Earl, I'll tell Octavio what you said!"

She turns to him and in her best Taco Bell Chihuahua accent says, "When you get inside go straight to the rug." Surprisingly enough, Octavio didn't seem to understand her. It was awesome and oh-so-racist.

Kids Say the Darndest Things: Ranui Edition

My time here in New Zealand is coming to an end. This is my last semester taking classes in the BYU elementary education program. In a stroke of good luck, I got chosen for an internship! That means that instead of doing student teaching for a semester I will have my own class for a whole school year. I even get paid half a first year teacher's salary (I'm gonna be rich!) So, next fall I will be teaching a second grade class at Spring Creek Elementary. Yeah, they're gonna trust me with a whole class of second graders. Hahahahahaha. It's gonna be awesome.

My Future. Could not be more excited.

I spent the last five weeks here in New Zealand working as a student teacher at Ranui Primary School. As mentioned previously, Ranui is worlds different from any previous teaching experiences I have had, but I loved every minute of it!

Happy times at Ranui School

*A difference I forgot to mention, instead of calling me Miss Earl, my kids called me Whaea Kylie. Whaea is the Maori word for teacher. The 'wh' makes the sound of an f, the 'ae' makes the long i sound and the 'a' is like a short u sound. It's like saying 'fire' with a Boston accent. Somehow having kids yelling, "Whaea! Whaea! Whaea!" at you is way cuter then when they yell, "Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!"*

Me and some of my kids

Being the tall, blonde, and extremely white Americans that we are, Brooke and I were easy to recognize and quickly gained celebrity status around the school. Kids we had never seen before would run up to hug us and say, "Good morning Kylie! You and Brooke look beautiful today!" It was pretty awesome.

Chillin at recess. Naisali liked to treat me like his arm candy.

The funny thing about kids is that they literally say whatever they think most of the time, so they can tear you down just as fast as they brought you up. One kid will walk up to you and say, "You look like Taylor Swift. I wish I could be as pretty as you." and the next one gets you with, "Wow, your stomach is really big." Bubble officially bursted.

One day I took them outside and spent 45 minutes teaching them how to play Ships and Sailors. #educationthatmatters

But that leads me to my post. May I present...

Kids Say the Darndest Things: Ranui Edition

I'm walking to the teacher's lounge when a little girl comes out of nowhere and stops in front of me
little girl: "You look like a coconut tree."
me: "Uh... thanks?"
little girl pulls me down and whispers in my ear: "That's why you're so tall."

"Reading" at the library

Ben and Lafi at Recess and me with a kid on each side in the background. They would not leave my sides, especially on the last day.

Naisali gives me a hug
Naisali: "How big are you?"
me: "How big am I? Just look at me."
Naisali: "No, how big are you? like a number!"
me: "Oh! How much do I weigh? I only know it in pounds, not kilos, so it wouldn't make sense to you."
Naisali: "But haven't you gone to the doctor? They tell you how big you are."
me: "I've been to the doctor in America, but never in New Zealand so I still don't know my weight."
Naisali thinks for a while: "Can you get hurt?"
me: "What do you mean?"
Naisali: "Can you get hurt? and then go to the doctors?
me: "Well yes, if I got hurt I could go to the doctors."
Naisali: "Oh good! You get hurt, then you go to the doctors and you can tell me how big you are. Can I hurt you???"

Naisali

Playing duck duck goose

I am on recess duty walking around with a group of my kids as I "monitor" the field
Ben: Whaea, can I hold your water bottle?
me: Sure
Ezekiel: Can I hold your badge?
me: Sure
Illisani: Can I hold your clipboard?
me: Sure
and then I am left walking around hands empty while the kids truck around me stuff
Illisani: This is fun! It's like we're your slaves!

my team of hair professionals

They challenged me to a race. I tripped on my skirt and the whole thing almost came off. Plus I lost. It was so much fun!

I am sitting in my teacher chair and Ben comes over, sits at my feet, and begins rubbing my calf
me: Ben, what are you doing
Ben (With a face that clearly says duh): Rubbing your legs.
me: Well don't do that
Ben: Well then can I rub your shoulders?
Ezekiel: No! Let me rub your shoulders!
me: No!
Ben as he pouts off to his desk: You never let me rub your shoulders!

Ben being Ben

Exekiel

Ben just came and sat on my legs like it was the most normal thing in the world. I am mildly obsessed with this kid.

Random little girl at recess: Do you know Justin Bieber?
me: Not personally, but I have heard of him
girl: Do you want to date him?
me: Nope
girl looking really relieved: Oh thank goodness! Because he just broke up with Selena Gomez and she is DESPERATE to get back with him.

Niang, Anna, Luta, and Afelini

Luta and Afleini

I had a hard time pronouncing some of the children's names and the kids liked to give me grief about it. I had to repeatedly explain that I was doing the best that I could, but sometimes the names sound funny when I say them because of my accent. I was in the middle of teaching a lesson in the computer lab and the kids were just on a rampage. No one was listening and I was at my wits end. In an effort to use my positive reinforcement training I said, "Thank you Foga, for sitting quietly and waiting for instructions." To which someone in the class replied, "Did you say FONGA? That's not how you say her name." I was just about to lose it when dear, sweet little Foga yelled, "Give her a break! She is an AMERICAN!"

Foga and Ana

Ben getting ready for swimming

The boys in class were commenting on the ring on my fingers
Ezekiel: You've got rings, that means you're married.
me: No, I would wear it on this finger if I were married, but I wear it on this finger because I'm single.
Kian: Wait, how old are you again?
me: 21
Kian: I'm 11. How old will you be when I'm 21?
me: I'll be 31
Kian: Well, that's not too old at all!

Kian

Recess

I was telling my class that I was waiting to hear if I got an internship
me: If I don't get a job, I'm not sure what I will do.
Muna: You can move back here! We will give you a job!
Class: Yeah! Move back here!
Popua: Yeah, if you move back here, I would let you be the janitor!

My kids are total camera hogs

Ben got a free sample of sunscreen, so he put it all over his face naturally.

Man I am going miss these kids so much! I mean look at those faces, wouldn't you?