I have my students grouped by their ability when it comes to spelling and they get a list of 10 words to study that week. On Mondays I feel like my whole world revolves around spelling words. We play games with their words, draw pictures of their words, write stories about their words, try to have conversations containing their words (my personal favorite, so funny), and finally the kids write a sentence to go along with each word. Writing sentences is old school, I'm aware, but I've found that going back to that basic activity helps them not only learn to spell the word but actually learn what the word means.
And so, this past Monday was like any other. I sat with one group of students while they worked on their spelling sentences. A couple asked questions about the word, one asked if he could write about his favorite word "mustard" instead (no, but thanks for asking!), and the others worked quietly.
All of a sudden one of my boys, I'll call him Fred, gasped. He slapped his hand on the table and started to laugh. "Oh Ms. Rajanen, you have GOT to read my sentence. I wrote it just to make you laugh!"
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| "I just don't like it when people smell dirty every day Like dude take a shower." |
I had to include the picture because without it, it loses something. The spelling word, in case you were wondering, was "dirty" and yes, we have some work to do on sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation, but put that aside for a moment and enjoy it for what it is. In typical middle school boy fashion, he wrote about stinky people-- a very big deal in his world of adolescent boys in varying stages of the process of learning about hygiene. I died. I started laughing and he started laughing and I couldn't stop. Tears streamed down my face, because as I'm sure we all know from different moments in our lives, sometimes there is nothing to do but laugh until you cry.
I thought about my student Fred and his funny sentence that he wrote "just to make me laugh" when I saw this ted-talk that a friend posted earlier in the week. The speaker is incredible and the first time I watched it, I cried in my living room because it hit so close to home. I highly recommend you take a few minutes to watch it here:
I have this link bookmarked on my computer and I hope I remember his words often. "Instead of focusing on the quicksand, think of those who refuse to drown." My students are resilient, incredibly talented and hilarious. They make me a better person every day simply by allowing me to be their teacher. I have no doubt, they will do amazing things for this world some day. And in the mean time, they will keep cracking me up with their spelling words every Monday morning!
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