Friday, November 10, 2006

If I was 22

So I'm tutoring a first grader again. He's a little behind in reading, so I help him out every day. We work together from 9-9:30 each day. Keep in mind, this is a 7 year old boy I'm chatting with.

We talked on November 7th (election day) about the election. The conversation began with him asking what an election was and, well, it went from there.

Tyler: "What's an election?"

Mr. Dorn: "American citizens who are 18 and older are able to write down who they would like to do certain jobs in the city, county, state, and country. Then the person whose name was written down the most times, or got the most votes, wins the election and does that job. How do you know about elections?"

Tyler: "I saw Doyle and Green on the news."

Mr. Dorn: "Did you understand what they had to say?"

Tyler: "I don't know, but if I was 22 right now, I'd vote for Doyle. I would vote for Mark Green, but it's hard. I don't know who to pick. Maybe I'll pick Green."

Mr. Dorn: "Why is that?"

Tyler: "I think he's a better governor. Plus, Doyle said we have to sit in booster seats. (But I don't have one)."

Mr. Dorn: "Will you get in trouble?"

Tyler: "My dad probably will."

Then I tried to get back on track with him. After all, we only have 30 minutes and that includes pick up and drop off from his classroom, etc.

Mr. Dorn: "Are you ready to get down to business?"

Tyler: "Nope! I'm ready to go home!"

9:15 and he's ready to go home already. I remember those days. Elementary school is all about recess. Ok, and milk break - 2 chocolates, please!

School is such a fun environment. I know I've said it before, but it really is a great job. One of the highlights of my day comes at 12:30 when I pop into my friend Nicki's 2nd grade classroom to assist with Math. She's got a habit of calling me "Digiorno" after the pizza, of course. Her kids hear this and love it. I've been called "Mr. Digiorno" many times in that class.

Another 2nd grade teacher called me that yesterday as well. Must be a catchy nickname.

The last couple of weeks have been kind of boring though. I've been 'proctoring' the WKCE standard tests in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. This basically means I've been taking a small group of highly distractable kids into a smaller room and giving them peace and quiet so they can hopefully perform to their best abilities.

The boring part comes when they are taking the test. 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes. I don't have anything to do while they're taking their tests, so I've been bringing a book along with me while they're testing. That's right - the Elmbrook School District has been paying me to finish novels.

Only 30-60 minutes at a time, though.

1 comment:

dirq said...

Well. It's 7:50am and work didn't even start yet. And I am DEFINITELY ready to go home.