Monday's Memory--Teaching

With all of the talk at school about retirement, my friends and I have been reliving some of our favorite times. I'd like to share two here that I had actually forgotten about until I was reminded.
The first happened probably 20 years ago. Mice and rats have never been my favorite things, especially when they startle you by running in front of you. One day, in the middle of teaching, a child shouted that they had seen a mouse run across the floor. I immediately sat on top of my desk, with my feet up on the trash can! The kids thought I was kidding, but no, I wasn't. The custodian set traps over the weekend, caught the little bugger, and all was back to normal. A week later, again during class, one of the kids calmly told me not to panic, but there was a mouse up on the bookcase in the back of the room. Again, up on my desk I went, and looked toward the back of the room. There was a huge rat, his head poking out from a book! Then the kids started roaring with laughter. They had planted a big, plastic rat, just so they could see me in "action." It was pretty funny.
The other memory is also about one of my fears. This time my fear of heights. Every year, part of the fifth grade curriculum was a fire prevention unit. After completing several weeks of work, the fire truck always came to show the kids. Some of the kids got to dress in the fireman's turnout gear and they all got to walk around the truck looking at all of the cool stuff. Anyway, one year, the firemen offered to take the teachers up in the bucket! The kids were so excited, I couldn't let them down. But oh my goodness. It was really high up there! Katy kept telling me to look at all the neat things down on the ground, but I couldn't. I just kept looking at the horizon until we finally got back down to earth. A few notes about this picture collage: in the Colonial Day picture, that is Jane Calister with me. She was my partner for many years, until she retired a few years ago. She lives in Huntington Beach and we used to car pool often. Katy Grosse, my other partner, is also pictured with me outside our classrooms. Katy, Jane, and I traveled to Fiji to sail for a week on Katy's parents sail boat. More about that in another post. The podium in the upper right was build for mom by one of her past student. When she retired, I took it over, and now it is in Amy's classroom for a third generation. Who knows, maybe Emma will get some use out of it too?