Bag of Cheer - How They Did

Brrr!  Tuesday, January 2, 2018, and I woke up to a temperature of -9 degrees Fahrenheit.  That is      -22.7 degrees Celsius for my friends in Europe.  School was cancelled due to the cold weather so I have the day off.  Although it was too cold for the scholars to attend school my school announced through the morning newspaper that our cafeteria would be open for any scholar that wanted a free meal.  It's too cold to go to school to learn but it's not too cold to go to the school for a free meal.  I find that interesting.

Ok!  For those of you that are bugging me about how Grr! and Huey did on the Bag of Cheer field trip here we go.  First, a quick review.  Huey went with the third grade scholars to the main branch of the Indianapolis Public Library.  Grr! went to a Chick-fil-A and I was with him as approximately forty fourth grade scholars boarded the bus for that road trip.  Grr! boarded the bus first and I figured he would be looking for an empty seat.  As he started down the aisle one of the fourth grade scholars called his name and invited him to sit down by him.  To my surprise Grr! did and that put a smile on my face.  As I've said a number of times before, this is my fourth year with Grr! and during this time I was never certain if he had any friends outside our immediate classroom.  So, when he sat down next to this scholar on the bus, I felt pretty good. 

When we arrived at the Chick-fil-A we literally took over the majority of the seating in the restaurant.  To my surprise again, Grr! sat down at a table with three other fourth grade scholars.
As I observed Grr! from a safe distance away I watched as he interacted with these scholars.  Watching him again brought a smile to my face as he was having fun and laughing with his friends.  Grr! glanced up at me a couple times to see what I was doing and I just smiled at him.  When Grr!'s turned came to hand to a complete stranger his Bag of Cheer, he did it exactly as I expected.  Perfectly, with a smile on his face and he even said, "Merry Christmas."  Once all of the Bags of Cheer were distributed the manager of the Chick-fil-A announced that all of the scholars, plus adults, would be given a free meal.  Fortunately, for the Chick-fil-A manager, the restaurant was pretty empty when the forty scholars erupted in excitement at the opportunity to have a free meal.  With the meal consumed, and on Teacher #4's cue, the scholars all shouted out in unison, "thank you," to the restaurant manager and we boarded the bus for our return trip to school.

Grr! walked into the classroom first and immediately took a seat at his desk.  After a slight delay, Knewer asked him about the field trip.  His response was simple, "good."  Knewer prodded him from across the classroom for a little more information about the field trip and he finally said, "we got a free lunch."  Although Grr! didn't exhibit a lot of enthusiasm about this field trip I know what I saw.  I saw a young scholar with anxiety issues, anger control issues, and someone who, when his hot button is pushed, wouldn't hesitate to throw a punch at someone, have a real good behavior day with his new fourth grade friends.

Huey was already in the classroom when Grr! and I returned.  When the opportunity presented itself I asked Huey about the field trip.  His face lit up immediately as he said to me, "Mr. Schultz, this was the best field trip ever.  This was even better than the camp I went to last year."  The look of excitement on Huey's face, as he gave me some of the details of his field trip, is something that I will remember for a long time because it's one I've never seen before.  So you know, on the second floor of the main branch of the Indianapolis Central Library is a kids zone and it is huge.  There are easily a thousand children's books to read, numerous games to play, toys everywhere to play with, puzzles to put together, video screens to watch and right there in the midst of all this stuff stood Huey.  I'm pretty certain, in the thirty to forty-five minutes Huey got to spend in this kids zone, he saw more things to do there than in his entire home life.  And just think, this is the young scholar who, about three hours earlier, was walking down the school corridor acting all grumpy and saying, "I don't want to go on this stupid field trip."

It's decision time.  To continue or stop now.  Although I still haven't gotten to part two of my reading intervention group it will be a negative story so I'm going to stop now.  The previous blog post brought a lot of smiles to peoples faces.  I also know that for one reader in particular that blog post was like a message from God that helped lift her spirits during the holiday season.  To go into something that I know will be negative is not the right thing to do right now.  Instead, I going to leave you with this.  Prior to the field trip both Grr! and Huey did a lot to avoid going.  In the end, they went on the field trip and I'm certain that they had one of the best days of their young lives.

Happy New Year!