Festivus Day is normally celebrated on December 23rd but I need to change the date to February 20th so I can get a few things off my chest. Before doing so I need to talk a bit about Valentines Day. I'm sure that everyone is familiar with the Christian saint so I will only say one thing about this day. I can't believe the ACLU and/or ICLU hasn't filed a lawsuit against all of the public schools for allowing scholars to bring candy to school on this religious icon's day.
With Valentines Day falling on a Friday Gnu worked the holiday into our fun Friday theme in the classroom. Shortly after lunch she introduced to the scholars the activities that will take place. To start out she told the scholars that they had to guess what she was going to make in the classroom. One by one she listed the ingredients on the whiteboard and asked the scholars to guess what she was going to make. The list included bananas, blueberries, strawberries, ice, a little bit of milk and a blender. The scholars were absolutely clueless as to what she was going to make so finally she told them smoothies. "What?" "What is a smoothie Mama D?" Time out for clarification. The scholars have decided to start calling Gnu Mama D. Why? I don't have the slightest idea. Gnu speaking to the scholars, "you've never had a smoothie?" "No!" "Well, you're about to get to taste one." Everyone headed to the front table as the smoothie building process was about to begin. One by one the ingredients were added with no arguing about the correct order to put the ingredients into the blender. This in itself was a small victory as normally NoFouls would be trying quite loudly and sometimes aggressively to tell Gnu that she was doing it wrong and he should take over. Everything was smooth until all of a sudden I heard this loud grinding sound and I was standing up quickly and looking toward the front table as I thought one of the scholars did something stupid with the blender. I sat back down as Gnu just put the ice into the blender. A short time later the smoothie making process was completed and it's taste testing time. Success! They all like smoothies. Yo! speaking, "Mr. Schultz would you like to try one?" "No thank you." Yo! now walking toward me with a small smoothie in his hand, "come on Mr. Schultz try one, they're good." He hands me the smoothie and my first response was "I'm not drinking this it's purple." At this point all of the scholars are standing at my desk trying to convince me to taste one. "No, it's purple and looks nasty." "Aw, come on Mr. Schultz it's good." I'm now going into my finest wine drinking Wednesday wine tasting routine as I give the smoothie the nose test. "It smells like fruit but it has little black specks in it." "Just taste it Mr. Schultz." I take a small sip and start swishing it around in my mouth and I'm making all kinds of distorted facial expressions as I go through the tasting routine. Finally I say "that's not too bad, can I have another taste?" "Sorry Mr. Schultz but we drank it all." "You drank it all, that blender is huge and all I get is one little taste." "We told you it was good Mr. Schultz."
Fast forward and it's time for Yo! to leave for the day. "Yo!, your bus is here so gather your things and let's head to the bus." As we are walking down the corridor he stops and says to me, "Mr. Schultz I forgot something" and he turns around and heads back to the classroom. When he enters the room he walks up to Gnu and says, "Mama D that was a lot of fun, thank you and have a nice weekend." Gnu and I make contact and we are both smiling. Why do Gnu and I do what we do? Because of moments like this one.
It's at this point that I was going to air my grievances but I'm going to forego doing that for now. If you been reading this blog long enough you know that there have been a lot more posts about what went wrong in the classroom rather than what went right. That often bothers me so rather than put a damper on a great day by airing my grievances I'm going to stop now and to quote Forrest Gump, "that's all that I have to say about that."
I wonder if I have to explain Forrest Gump to the blog readers in the Ukraine? It's the weekend, I'm out. Thanks for continuing to read my blog.
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