Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind (32 page)

Once in a while I even need a translator — like the day John walked into the classroom after recess with his hair soaked and
sticking straight up.

“John!” I cried. “What did you do to your
hair
?”

“It’s a swirlie,” he answered, proudly.

“A
what
?”

“A swirlie.”

I thought swirlies were what they serve at Dairy Queen.

“You don’t know what a swirlie is?” Trevor asked, shocked.

“No. What is it?”

The kids started laughing at me. I got the same response when I told them that I had never visited Club Penguin and couldn’t
name all three of the Jonas Brothers.

Kevin piped up. “It’s when you stick your head in the toilet and flush it and it makes your hair look like that.” He pointed
to John’s head.

This week Joshua and Robbie completely lost me.

“Jinx!” they called out at exactly the same time.

“Personal Jinx!” they cried in unison.

“Rainbow Jinx!” they announced together.

“Toilet Jinx!” they shouted. Josh was a split second faster than Robbie. Robbie stomped his foot.

I stood there dazed. “What’s Toilet Jinx?”

Josh cracked a smile. “Robbie can’t go to the bathroom or say anything until I say his name three times.”

So much has changed since I was a kid. When I was my students’ age, we turned the dial on phones, found books in the card
catalog, waited a whole year to see
The Sound of Music
on TV, unfolded car maps to find directions, and painted typing mistakes with Liquid Paper.

We dropped the needle on the spinning record and hoped we’d hit the beginning of the song on the very first try, waited for
the cassette to beep before turning the knob on the filmstrip projector, and changed the due date in the librarian’s stamp
when she wasn’t looking.

Of course
nothing
has changed like technology. Kids TiVo their favorite television shows, text on cell phones, shuffle tunes on their iPods,
ride in cars with GPS, Skype their grandparents, snap digital photos, appear on their moms’ blogs, play Nintendo Wii at their
birthday parties, and have virtual food fights on the Internet. Today’s children are as familiar with Google, Yahoo!, Craigslist,
Mapquest, Netflix, eBay, and Amazon as they are with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Jiminy Cricket, and Dumbo. This year,
five of my third graders already have their own Facebook pages. Melanie’s ballet recital is on YouTube. And Dylan’s dog has
a profile page on Dogster — a MySpace for canines. No doubt Fishter, Birdster, and Class Bunnyster will be here soon.

As one who grew up with scratchy records and watching the Emerald City on television in black and white, I feel lost in the
twenty-first century. I only know what three of the twenty-seven buttons on my remote mean, would starve if the microwave
didn’t have the
potato
setting, and drive my car around with the wrong time for half the year just so I don’t have to reset the clock when we go
off Daylight Saving Time.

It’s not my fault really. When I was in teacher school, my technology class consisted of changing the bulb in the overhead,
making sure the slides in the carousel weren’t upside down, and feeding film into the movie projector so it didn’t spill out
all over the floor.

A
bug
was something you brought in from recess to show the teacher. A
desktop
was something you scraped dried Elmer’s glue off of with your teacher scissors.
Hard drives
were on Monday mornings.
Viruses
kept you home from school.
Backups
were what you called the custodian about when the toilet overflowed.
Monitors
cleared the boys out of the bathrooms on rainy-day recess. The
mouse
was something you forgot to feed.
Zip
was what the teacher told you to do to your jacket on a cloudy day.
Windows
were what you opened with a long pole. And
cursors
were sent to the principal’s office.

Do I worry that I’m becoming a relic? Am I concerned about becoming outdated? Not at all. Because I know that every morning
when I read my students a story on the carpet, they will sit transfixed and scoot closer. And every afternoon when I set the
song on the overhead projector, they will sing their hearts out. These things will never change. Good things usually don’t.

I
n May, the third graders put on a Wax Museum. It’s like Madame Tussauds in miniature. We invite the parents. The other classes
visit, too. To prepare for the day, the kids read biographies about famous men and women then write mini reports which they
memorize. On the morning of the Wax Museum, the children come to school dressed up like the people they have studied and take
their places all over the multi. Each third grader stands frozen until someone touches the green construction paper “button”
pinned on his shoulder. When the button is pressed, the frozen figure comes to life and begins speaking. After he is finished,
he refreezes until someone else walks over and starts him up again.

Among this year’s famous people were Davy Crockett, Rosa Parks, Benjamin Franklin, Amelia Earhart, Mark Twain, Laura Ingalls
Wilder, Charles Schulz, Theodore Roosevelt, Joe DiMaggio, Annie Oakley, Henry Ford, Walt Disney, and Black Beard. Black Beard
was Trevor’s second choice. He really wanted to be the Hulk, but I explained that the Hulk was not quite the famous historical
figure I had in mind.

As the children performed, I made my way around the multi. Laura was dressed up as Amelia Earhart. She’d borrowed her dad’s
leather jacket and wore an old swimming cap and goggles on her head. She looked more like she had swum across the Atlantic
than flown over it.

Sarah was Shirley Temple. When I pressed her green button, she sang “On the Good Ship Lollipop” and tapped out a little routine
in her black Mary Janes. Her hair was a mop of exactly twenty-three ringlets which Sarah reported when she walked into class.
Chloe wanted to count them, but I said I was sure that Sarah was right.

John came as Vincent Van Gogh. He painted a canvas of sunflowers while delivering his speech. Paintbrushes stuck out of his
pockets like a porcupine. His hair was spray-painted red. His left ear was covered with a bandage.

As Vincent was wrapping up his talk, I noticed a crowd of second graders gathered around Black Beard. I walked on over. One
child was holding down the pirate’s green button while the others laughed. Black Beard was talking really fast like a Chipmunk.

“Okay,” I said, breaking through. “What’s going on?”

“I’m fast-forwarding him,” one of the onlookers giggled.

I turned Trevor off and shooed his audience away.

Over the next half hour I listened to Thomas Edison describe the lightbulb, Dr. Seuss read
Green Eggs and Ham,
Harry Houdini reveal how to break out of handcuffs, Jim Henson sing with Kermit, and Louis Armstrong play “Hot Cross Buns”
on his trumpet.

One of my last stops was Abraham Lincoln (played by Brian). Lincoln sat in a chair next to Shirley Temple. He wore an old
tuxedo jacket that his mom had bought at the Salvation Army Store. Dark sideburns were drawn on his cheeks with eyebrow pencil.
His top hat was made out of an oatmeal box. I pressed his green button.

Slowly, Lincoln rose out of his seat. He grabbed his lapels then began reciting the Gettysburg Address. As he spoke, a parent
came by and pressed Shirley’s On button. Immediately Shirley launched into “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” Lincoln snapped his
gaze at Shirley and cast a disapproving look. Shirley, oblivious to his stare, kept right on singing. Soon she started doing
time steps on the tile floor. Lincoln spoke louder. Then Shirley started shuffling off to Buffalo right in front of the president.
Her twenty-three ringlets bounced like Slinkys on her head. Well, that was it. Lincoln turned to the child star and without
missing a beat declared, “Little girl, would you kindly stop singing that ridiculous song. Can’t you see I’m trying to win
a war here.” Shirley stopped cold. Lincoln went right back on giving his speech.

I have always loved museums. When I was eight, I went around the house gathering up knickknacks and dishes and odd stuff and
hauled it all upstairs to my bedroom. I set it out all over my bed and desk and dresser and labeled everything. After the
room was ready, I invited the public in. The sign on my door said “Museum. Admission: ten cents.” My mom paid to view the
exhibit. My brother would not give me a dime, so he didn’t get to see it.

The United States has a lot of odd and unusual museums. Across the country there are museums of mustard, barbed wire, Pez
containers, bananas, Band-Aids, dental instruments, and squished pennies. There is even a Museum of Dirt. People send in all
different kinds of dirt from around the world. Someday I’ll mail in a jar of my own. It will be labeled: “Mud Tracked in on
Rainy-Day Recess.”

Actually, I’m surprised that no one has built a Teacher Museum yet. If there were one, I know just what it would look like.
The lobby would be covered with first-day-of-school photos. “You’re a Grand Old Flag” would play on the speakers. Visitors
would store their bags in cubbies. The tour guides would wear smocks.

The museum’s permanent collections would include the Hall of Excuse Notes, the Student of the Month Bumper Sticker Gallery,
and the Confiscated Item Salon. In the Room of Records, visitors would see the smallest working pencil, the highest correcting
basket, and the longest-lasting red rubber ball (three weeks). The museum would also house the world’s largest collection
of bells, whistles, apples, hamster cages, and Partridge Family lunch pails.

One entire wing of the museum would be dedicated to teacher apparel. Here hundreds of sweatshirts appliquéd with teddy bears,
wooden block alphabet necklaces, Christmas tree pins, and plastic spider earrings would be on display. The walls would be
covered with teacher T-shirts with messages like: “Just be thankful I’m not your mother,” “Teacher by day. Deadly ninja by
night,” “The dog ate my lesson plan,” and “I do not do decaf!”

In the gift shop, silhouettes traced on black construction paper, baby food jars decoupaged with tissue paper and Vano starch,
and postcards of the Zaner-Blaser cursive alphabet would be available. At the museum café, visitors could choose from sloppy
joes, pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, fish sticks, or toasty dogs (a buttered slice of white bread lined with a slice of
processed cheese, wrapped around a hot dog, held together with a toothpick then toasted). Side dishes would include Tater
Tots, canned peaches, celery filled with peanut butter, fruit cocktail, and shredded carrots in green Jell-O.

I
like to teach my students a little about archaeology. It helps them develop their thinking skills. Besides, what child doesn’t
enjoy solving mysteries and hunting in the dirt? I used to bury arrowheads, beads, baskets, and bones (that I bought at the
butcher) in the sandbox and pretend it was an ancient Native American site. But I don’t do this anymore. I got tired of telling
the kids that the Happy Meal Toys they found in the sand were
not
Indian artifacts.

This year I decided to try something new. I walked around the school and gathered various items out of wastebaskets. Back
in my classroom I set these “artifacts” out on the round table in the corner of the room: broken crayons, pencil stubs, ink
cartridges, Styrofoam cups, and lunch trays. When the kids walked in, I was wearing my white lab coat. They knew something
was up. After I took roll and the attendance monitor returned from the office, I began the lesson.

“Does anyone know what an archaeologist is?” I asked.

“Like in
Jurassic Park,
” Dylan said.

“That’s right. Archaeologists are like detectives. They solve mysteries. Would you like to solve some mysteries today?”

“Yeah!” they cheered.

I invited them to the corner of the room where they gathered around the table — kids in front on their knees, the back row
standing. Then I sat down in a chair and waited for them to quiet down.

“Now,” I began, “I want you all to pretend the year is 2100. You are digging at an archaeological site. There are no buildings
here. But you believe at one time there were. You’re not sure what kind.” I pointed to the objects on the table. “You have
just uncovered the objects you see in front of you. Things that you find in a dig are called
artifacts.
Everyone say
art-i-facts.
” They repeated it. I turned to Chloe.

“How many syllables?”

“Three.”

“Good.” I looked around the table. “Your job is to determine what kind of place used to be on this site.”

“That’s easy,” someone shouted.

“Not so fast,” I said. “You also have to pretend that you don’t know what these artifacts are. You’ve never seen them before.
Okay?”

“Okay,” everyone answered.

First I held up two crayon stubs — one red, one blue. The wrappers were torn off. “Hmm… what do you think these could be?”

“Crayons!” Stacy said.

“Wait,” I reminded. “Remember — you don’t know what these things are.”

I inspected them closely. “Do you think they are some kind of food?”

“No!” Rebecca giggled.

I bit into one. “You’re right! Tastes awful.”

“EWWWWWW!” they cried.

I held up the crayons. “What do you notice about them?”

“They’re different colors,” Sarah observed.

“Good,” I said. “And what are they made of?”

“Wax!” someone blurted out.

“And what is wax used for?” I asked.

“Drawing!” Stacy called out.

I stroked a piece of paper with the red crayon. “You’re right!” I said, acting surprised. “So if these were meant for drawing,
who
might have used them?”

“Kids!” Laura answered.

“Why do you say that?” I questioned.

“Kids like to draw,” Stacy remarked.

I looked across the table. “Who thinks there were kids at this site?”