Earlier this week Miriam had a sub. During lunch, I was eating in my classroom and her sub was not. I heard a handful of boys in her room, playing. They were definitely supposed to be outside and not playing inside the classroom, unsupervised. I sent them packing and one of them was just the slightest bit defiant and tried to stand his ground. Since he is 8 and I'm not, he went outside. I can usually outlast a student who is trying to get away with something.
Yesterday, Miriam and I were on recess duty. She was a PE teacher before being a third grade teacher and she also played basketball at UVU. She is athletic. She was tossing a football back and forth with this same student. Perfect spirals going back and forth.
The boy looked at me, gesturing with his face like Hispanic boys can--I think it's somewhere in their DNA. "Hey Teacher," he yelled, "Can you catch?"
It felt like a challenge.
It felt intimidating.
It felt like I was in PE again, picked last and uncoordinated. Because...I can't catch.
He tossed me the ball. A perfect spiral through the warm sunshine.
I caught it.
And that, my friends, is something to be grateful about.
Miriam went to deal with another student so I found myself playing catch. After a few tosses back and forth, I had apparently risen in his estimation enough that he thought I was ready to run a play. He said, "OK Teacher," and he walked up next to me. He traced a line on the football and said, "I'm going to run this way, and then I'm going to zig."
All of this is to say, you go to school and you just never know what the day is going to bring.
2 comments:
What an athlete!
Great job, Thelma!
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