My first year of teaching was a doozy (that might qualify as educational jargon so here is a self made definition - "doo'zee": adj., superior, extraordinary, highly unusual...)
What was extraordinary about it? The day before school started the school psychologist sat down with me and said, "I want to talk to you about a child that you will have in your room this year. Her name is Pam."
I swallowed hard and said, "OK." She continued, "Pam seems to have a number of unusual social and emotional issues."
"How do these issues manifest themselves?" I asked. (In non-educational jargon I probably said, "What does she do?")
"Well," hesitated the school psychologist, "Last week she shredded the living room curtains with a razor blade and set them on fire."
I swallowed again and looked at my windows to see if there were curtains in the room.
As the year began I got to know Pam better and to appreciate a few of her idiosyncrasies (that's jargon for odd behaviors.)
One of her quirks was a penchant for hypochondria (jargon for complaining about mystery illnesses.)
One day on the way to recess she stopped me, "Mr. Stock, I can't take recess today because I have a hole in the bottom of my heart." This was a new one I thought to myself.
I patted her on the head and said, "Well go ahead outside and take it easy at recess."
The next day on the way to recess she reached over, put her arm around my waist and said, "Mr. Stock, I love you from the bottom of my heart."
I smiled, gave her a squeeze and said, "That's flattering Pam, but how is that possible with that big hole in the bottom of your heart?"
Have a great weekend. Go Warriors beat the Rockies. Good luck at state to the XC team.
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