Thank You For All You Do

Over the years I've gotten my share of  thank you for all you do emails. They inevitably follow a request to do something fun, like pick up an extra duty or cover a class. The thank you for all you do is the closing line so that you understand that nothing you're being asked to do is negotiable. I have my suspicions that it's an admin code for " f**k you, silly underling." ( Another code is a see me email without any explanation.  It is admin code for "This is an ambush and you are in a heap of trouble.")

So the other day, I took my first graders to the Atlanta Symphony.   The ASO provides several outreach programs and I was able to get a grant to take the entire first grade.  It was a program about musical opposites (loud/soft, fast/slow, etc), concepts that we work on in kindergarten and first grades.

There were lots of schools in attendance, with a healthy mix of suburban and urban populations.  Not surprisingly, there wasn't a person of color in the orchestra and I was wondering how or if my students would notice.  I m not sure how  much my kids notice race. During Black history month I will sometimes mention  that 50 years ago it would've been highly unlikely that I would have been teaching African American students like themselves, and I can always count on several to pipe up, "but you're not white; you're light skinned." The rest of the students are trying to fathom being on this planet for more than 50 years and stare at me in disbelief when they figure out I'm older than their great, great, great grandparents. (Age is something else little people have no concept of.  One year when asked on my birthday by a first grader how old I was I said, "110, and as the class exited the room I heard her tell her classmates, "Ms. Jove is 110 years old! )  For the record, I go out in the sun only under duress and am about as colorful as a snowball.  The first time I heard the comment about being light skinned I mentioned it to a Black teacher and she said  it was a compliment, so that's the story I'm going with.  Anyway, I was glad to see that at least the conductor was African American.  I think it's important for children to see people who look like them doing important jobs.

My students were beautifully attired.  Two boys had on  three piece suits and many girls wore their party dresses.  As we were entering the hall I looked around and noticed several of the  more suburban students  hopping and jumping around like frogs on a bad LSD trip.  I looked at my students.  They were standing quietly in a line, one head behind the other, mouths in the closed position, hands and feet held in check.  The five first  grade teachers surveyed their students with a watchful eye, and two of them were holding the hands of their most squirrelly ones.  If a student even approached antsy pantsy phase, his teacher would swoop down and nip it in the bud.  I watched the teachers of the LSD tripping frog children and they seemed oblivious to all external stimulation.   I had to fight the impulse to run over and fuss at one kid who  looked like he was throwing out the first pitch at Turner Field over and over again to another one playing the role of imaginary catcher. The students at my school are not easy to control and if you turn your back they will invent all sorts of dangerous jobs for themselves, but I know that within nanoseconds there will be an adult who will close down shop just as quickly.  But these looked like middle class kids who I've heard said are supposed to know better.  Well, they don't. They were exhausting to watch. I wanted to hand their teachers the number of a local pharmacy.

 During the performance I tried to tune out the banging of little feet on the backs of chairs and the rustling of whatever the little ones saw fit to rustle about with.   Then I glanced at my students.  One was sleeping, but the rest were staring transfixed at the stage trying to suppress their need to tell me that they recognized the pieces on the program or had seen that instrument in my room.  Several were surreptitiously doing the patterned movement routines I use when I play classical music.  I was doing them, too.  Music makes us want to move.  It's just that we have that slapped out of us when we're young. 

As we exited the concert hall I overheard many of my students tell their teachers or each other how much they enjoyed the program.  Again their teachers kept them in quiet lines as we went to wait  for the buses.  And again I saw the crazy frog children twirling and bopping around while the adults in charge engaged themselves by  communing with air molecules.We stood outside for about 10 minutes and I couldn't believe how the other kids were behaving.  Running, jumping, twirling and oddly gesticulating...and those were the quieter ones. 

The first grade at my school is definitely a level or two above the other grades.  Part of it is because many of them have been there since pre-k.  But a large part is due to their teachers.  I teach every kid in my school and I know that with certain teachers I will see a steady improvement both in behavior and academics.   I am grateful to them.  To them I say, "thank you for all you do."  And I mean it.  No strings attached.