Those darn kids

So, teaching has been a joy and a headache lately. Last Friday, the students performed poems they had been practicing all week. I was videotaping them, because they don't realize how softly they talk and I wanted them to see, when I realized that I really like all of my students. Even Shawn. They mean a lot to me. But they often say and do the funniest things. Sometimes they are naughty, and sometimes they are insightful. Like when Anya wrote her biography on President Hinckley. At the end of the biography, she wrote "and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen." I wanted to die, I couldn't decide whether to laugh, or to rejoice that kids have such simple testimonies. I just praised her for her work and told her maybe she could think that last part in her heart, but not put it in her final draft. Sad how you have to separate church and state so carefully. The other day we were talking about line segments, and one student gave the example of time. I almost went off on a schpeil about how this life is just a small segment of our whole existence, but I did mention that some people believe you live before you were born and after you are dead. I had to catch myself.

The hardest thing about teaching 5th graders is that anytime you talk about ANYTHING, they have 1,000,000,000 stories they want to tell about "the time we saw a deer," or "when my brother ate a caterpillar" Maybe they just want to get off on a tangent so they don't have to do any work, but they are fairly skilled at sidetracking our discussions. For those of you who remember being in 5th grade, maybe you were a devilish student who tried to do the same thing! But they are really cute! And most days they only drive me a little crazy.