Yearbook photos, saving lives, and a training bra

Today was school picture day. Some students really dress up, while others apparently couldn’t care less. I had a girl who looked like she was wearing some Project Runway-designed gown to a state dinner at the White House, while one of my boys wore his favorite Green Day t-shirt. I led my class down when it was our turn to get our individual photos taken. The 40-something photographer that looked like a librarian who lives in a house full of cats motioned for me and said “Sit down right here, handsome.” Apparently I wasn’t posed properly because she tilted my chin down, yet did so by slowly rubbing her hand all the way from my ear down the side of my cheek. It was kind of like one of those long, lingering scenes you see in soap operas that takes forever to fade into a commercial. “So, you have a busy day today?” she inquired. “Ya, we’re learning to round to the nearest thousand this morning. Pretty exciting,” I rambled. She followed this up by asking me what I was doing later tonight. Before I could answer that I was going to be taking care of my daughter with pneumonia and giving my wife a much needed break, she said “I heard about this new restaurant in Dunlap.” Immediately she followed this up with “Say cheese.” I was so confused by this woman that I guarantee that my yearbook picture is going to be ruined by a confused, quizzical look on my face. Don’t get me wrong, the greasy hair, cat hair-covered blouse, and urine-colored teeth are hard to pass up, but unfortunately I had to decline.

Today we were reading a story about fire safety. In the article it outlined some fire safety tips and I wrote them on the board as we came to them. One of them was remembering not to re-enter a burning building. Now throughout the story almost everyone had a story to share. We heard about a boy throwing his pets out his bedroom window and another boy who admitted to playing with matches in his house. Ya, not exactly the brightest class I’ve ever had. As I called on another boy who proudly said that his grandmother once rescued two children from a burning house and ended up with her back badly burned. What a great heroic story. When I asked if she’s doing better today, he simply said “She died.” Hey, what a heart-warming story right before lunch! Who’s ready to go eat some ravioli?

Throughout the school year you really want to form a true relationship with your students, one where they feel comfortable with you and will really try to do their best in everything. Well I think I might have gotten to that point with one of the girls. We’ve started reading a book about a boy who runs for president, which has lead into some really rich discussions about the upcoming election. We were talked about term limits and how old they would be when the next election comes around and how long it will be until they are old enough to vote. At the end of the day as students were lining up at the door for dismissal one of the girls said, “If I have to be eighteen to vote, how old do I have to be to get a training bra?” That’s one of those questions that stumps teachers such as “What was the smallest dinosaur?” or “Why do I need to learn about isosceles triangles?” I told her that I wasn’t an expert on that and she’d have to ask her mom about it. She responded, “Oh, I thought you would know since you have a daughter.” If Ella has such large breasts at the age of three that she’s wearing a bra, then Lord help us.