dot eleven

You may wonder why I jump to "11." I begin with this number because while my fingers began to tap down on the keys, I thought of a pertinant moment with my 4 year old student today. One of the fundamental studies we cover are numbers and the beginning of addition. I've been trying to teach him "11" in a variety of ways. I got out color pencils to demonstrate a numeric situation and he insisted on building a house with them. Building his counter top was a crowning moment. After a few minutes I halted playtime to get back to the teaching at hand. He was ordering and identifying numbers 1-12 and today, like every other day we've tried to read 11, he got stuck.

"If you tell me the number, I'll let you play with my stamps."

"Uhhhh. . .uhh...ehhHH-LEVEN!!!"

When he comes upon something as important as the key to a reward, he likes to scream at the top of his little lungs. I'll admit it; I felt a bit like a sell-out, but my inkling that such an approach would deliver was just too strong to pass up. Give him some palpable incentives and the answers come spilling right out.

A similar situation occured earlier today when I decided to play a little trivia game with seventh graders on aspects of the five world religions. I happened to have some desperately old candy in my purse, but hell, it got their hot hands flying.

"What is the word for believing in many gods? What is the word for believing in one? Why is the cow sacred in the Hindu religion? What is the word for Jewish dietary laws? Answer them all and you will get a candy."

Boom, boom, boom.

There are always those kids that raise their hand every single damn time, never thinking that they will ultimately need an answer.

"I got it, pick me, pick me, PICK ME." Yes, you (I shoot a feeble point.)

"Uhh. . .uhh. . .I don't know."

Of course you don't know. You just got so excited about an incentive that it didn't even occur to you that you would have to do some thinking.

It wouldn't be fair to write an entirely cynical dot without sharing some of the sweeter bits of my day: an extremely caring and friendly student, a delicious lunch salad from my mom's kitchen, valentine making with Brie, and a heart swell from reading an old children's story with colorings done by my brother and me from when we were little kiddies.

Ma vie. . .