Cohort A... a distant memory?

I had forgotten. When I checked...it seems that others had forgotten as well. I'm glad to have been a part of this blog, and hope that we can continue to try to find the time in our busy lives to breath and vent.

If you want to tell a teacher story and your friends/coworkers/roommates/spouse/partner/(fill in the blank!) is tired of them or otherwise unavailable... I'd love to listen.

Here's one:

3rd Grade: Friday, last moments of a hectic day.

One of my third grade girls enters the room during our final moments (our lockers are out in the hall so the kids have to go out and pack up and then come back in to line up). She comes in the door, holding something above her head, and calls out to everyone who is willing to hear or listen: "WHAT IS THIS!?" I glance over and do a double-take. Do my eyes deceive me, or is this young girl holding up an object of feminine hygiene that most men won't even come within the same aisle of in the grocery store? Yes indeed, a partly opened... ahem... unfolded and growing in her hand. I make haste and take to her side, turning her away from the other students who are gaping. Some of my girls have, apparently, already had some form of Sex Ed. and giggle together... The boys are looking at the object in question and begin calling out to each other: "It's a diaper!" "No, it doesn't look like one, it's too small..." "It is! It's a diaper!"

With the poor child at my side, I ask her where she got the item of interest from. I fear that it is some sort of sick prank that another student has been playing. (Sounded more like a college-aged prank to me, but the thought came nonetheless.) I could tell that it had recently come out of its original packaging which, combined with her response, allowed me to rest easy: "I found it in my locker, I think it fell out of my backpack!"

I quickly tell her that she needs to put that away immediately and that she needs to stop asking what that is until she gets home and can ask her mom! I can hear the boys chittering away all the way down the hall and down the stairs to music class. One refuses to go. "I'll go after you tell me what that was!" Sorry bud, you'll find out in fifth grade!

Needless to say, it was definitely one of many five-minute-ordeals that begin and end, and ultimately begin to blend together into the loud chaos of memories and emotions that have made up my first year as a school teacher.