HELPING OUT IN THE CLASSROOM
HELPING OUT IN THE CLASSROOM
I ﾒhelped outﾓ in Thomas Eﾕs Kindergarten-first grade classroom on Tuesday. The teacher quickly tried to explain my mission to me while the twenty or so students sat thinking of words that begin with ﾒuﾓ to use in their alphabet journals. They brainstormed and shot their hands in the air to be called on for their ﾒuﾓ word suggestions while another parent wrote their words on an easel holding that huge teacher paper that Paul Bunyan himself must have depleted an entire forest to supply.
Thereﾕs quite a range of abilities in the class, but not one student has yet mastered sitting and listening for longer than an irregular heartbeat. ﾒUnconstitutionalﾓ was proposed by a particularly argumentative overachiever in the front row. ﾒUm,ﾓ was suggested by one kid who looked as if he might have pulled a muscle thinking of it and was seconded and followed by a round of head-bobbing by his fellow students looking like birds on a crowded perch.
Not having much of an attention span myself, I took in my briefing as best I could. I was there for ﾒcenters,ﾓ which is when the students break up into groups of four or five and rotate from working on their letter journals to the silent reading couches to the math section to the reading-aloud-with-the-teacher table. On this day I was to man the math station. The teacher explained to me that I was supposed to play Pumpkin Bingo with them. I could hear that the other parent volunteer had said, ﾒThatﾕs great, but we already have ﾔumbrellaﾕ,ﾓ four times, which meant my briefing on my pumpkin bingo job was going to be really brief.
ﾒHere are the bingo cards. There wonﾕt be enough for each kid, so you might want to use just one. Try to take the emphasis off winning. Thanks for doing this,ﾓ the teacher said.
ﾒYou bet,ﾓ I said and marched to my station.
Iﾕll confess to you now that, before my first group of four or five stampeded over, I secretly hoped that I had an untapped gift for teaching and that, with no training at all, I possessed something in my honest, down-to-earth, yet hopeful style that could cause a kid who wasnﾕt getting it at all before to suddenly shine with understanding of early math skills. I hoped that at least one kid would have the kind of breakthrough where you remember forever the moment that you learned some basic fact. For example, I only know left and right because Andrea Roessler, who was my age but much smarter and prettier and, letﾕs face it, better than me, was riding her bike down the driveway in front of me when we were about seven and she yelled back, ﾒWhich way should we turn?ﾓ
I had no idea, and we werenﾕt going anywhere in particular, so I yelled, ﾒLeft,ﾓ and I followed her.
I think of Andrea Roessler when I give or follow directions. I think of Andrea Roessler when I put flippers on my kidsﾕ feet. Thatﾕs how I know left.
So now I was hoping that little Armando from Thomas Eﾕs K-1 class would someday be piloting a rocket ship and, while dashing off some calculations necessary to the shipﾕs successful navigation, heﾕd think,
ﾒFour plus one is five. Thomas Eﾕs mom taught me that with patience, understanding, and pumpkin bingo in kindergarten.ﾓ
ﾒO.K., weﾕre going to put the paper pumpkin on the number when we get the answer from the math problem that we roll with the dice,ﾓ I began when it seemed I had as much of the first groupﾕs attention as I was going to get.
ME: There are three dice. Two have numbers, and the third has a plus or minus sign on it, and we put it here in the middle to tell us if we add or take away the other number. Did you know that two dice are called ﾒdiceﾓ and just one is called a ﾒdieﾓ?
JACOB: I want the dices.
ARMANDO: I won!
ME: Letﾕs not worry about winning. Weﾕll just put the pumpkins on the numbers when we figure out the math problems, so we know what the number is, o.k.?
JACOB, ARMANDO, ZOE: I won!
ME: Jacob, why donﾕt you roll first.
ARMANDO: Hey, I didnﾕt get a turn.
ME: Thereﾕve been no turns yet.
THOMAS E: Can I sit on your lap?
ME: No, because during the morning message I let you sit on my lap and you kept asking me the answers while your teacher was talking.
THOMAS E: Why wouldnﾕt you tell me the answer?
ME: Thomas E, because Ms. Suomu doesnﾕt need to know if I know the answer. She needs to know if you know the answer. Do you see any other kids sitting on their parentﾕs laps getting the answer?
COLBY: I sit on my Dadﾕs lap.
ME: Yes, but not whileﾉ.
ZOE: I win!
ME: Donﾕt worry about winning. We havenﾕt rolled the dice yet. Jacob, could you please go ahead and roll the dice? It gets boring waiting while someone shakes the dice.
JACOB: Yaha!
ME: Jacob, now can you go get the dice? One landed over by the ﾒCalifornia Kindergarten Standardsﾓ laminated posters. Itﾕs right by number fifty-seven, ﾒStudents must be able to roll dice within three inches of the floor and drop them within a two-inch radius of an imaginary circle formed around their hand.ﾓ
(Jacob finally rolls)
Thank you, Jacob. Zoe, can you tell me what the two numbers and the symbol in the middle say?
ZOE: Five, one, three.
ME: It does look just like a one in the middle, huh? Itﾕs actually a symbol, though, see? If you turn it sideways, it says five minus three. Do you see? If I have five things and I take away three, how many do I have left? Zoe?.. Jacob?ﾉ Colby?ﾉ. Thomas E, what do you think?
THOMAS E: Can I sit in your lap?
ME: No. O.K., the answer is two, see? If I put out five pumpkinsﾉ.
ARMANDO: Hey, those are mine. I need those to win.
ME: Iﾕm just borrowing them for a second. Donﾕt worry about winning. Weﾕre just covering the numbers with the pumpkins for the sheer joy of it.
JACOB: I won!
ZOE: I didnﾕt get a turn.
ME: See, if I have five pumpkins and I take away, minus, subtract three, I have two. Or I could use these colorful manipulative squares. If I have five and I subtract three, I have two. Or I can use my fingers, see? Armando, can you please look at what weﾕre doing?
ARMANDO: Iﾕm not really a visual learner.
ME: Zoe, can you roll the dice? Good. What does that math sentence say?
ZOE: Six, one, four.
ME: Actually thatﾕs a symbol in the middle. It looks like a one, but if you turn it sidewaysﾉ. See? Itﾕs a minus sign. Can anybody tell meﾉ.
COLBY: I didnﾕt get a turn.
ME: What if we switch it to a plus sign? So, itﾕs six plus four. You guys know the pairs that make ten. Does anybody know whatﾕs six plus four? Colby?
JACOB: He already had a turn. I didnﾕt get a turn. He got twenty-five percent of the turns and I only got eighteen percent of the turns. Youﾕre unfair ninety-seven percent of the time.
THOMAS E: Mom, you have two bumps on your neck.
ME: Thatﾕs a jugular vein, honey.
THOMAS E: Itﾕs sticking out.
ME: If I have two bumps on one side of my neck and two on the other, how many do I have?
TEACHER: O.K., itﾕs time to rotate.
ME: (Quietly to myself) Armandoﾕs never going to make it back to Earth.
Posted by Paula at November 30, 2004 04:24 PM
