There are no stupid questions? Part 1

Kareli has fallen head over heels in love with question marks. She adores question marks more than she loves stars and now affixes them to any and all paperwork she does in the classroom. I half expect that any day now she will begin to write her name with a question mark after the 'i.'

Kareli is an amazing little girl for many reasons - she is adorably sweet, impossibly cute, incredibly intelligent, and all of the sudden, within the last 10 minutes, she started speaking English - in full phrases. Last week she still said a word here and there and did a lot of mimicry - but today she told me a simple story about seeing a rabbit - in comprehensible English.

As a new English learner, she puts that question mark tilt at the end of all her spoken sentences - unless she is chirping out her usual "OKAY Teacher" when I give a direction. "I can use the pencil? I can go bathroom? I can eat snack?" Lots of oral question marks there. So not so surprising that she loves them in print.

As a teacher, I ask a lot of questions, so Kareli and I are really hitting it off here. She is one of the kids I will grieve for when she boards the bus the last day of school.

Most of my questions are good ones and Kareli is quick with the positive reinforcement. All answers are given with an emphatic, total-body response, complete with a smile that illuminates even the most mundane of tasks. And just to drive the point home, Kareli always adds, with emphasis, "OKAY Teacher!"

But not all of my questions are good. Sometimes I ask the questions that the New Teachers Handbook will always warn you against, in big bold letters. They are questions with no real response that will ever make any sense. The kids usually know this and are quick with the Stink Eye - unless they are feeling magnanimous and then you are treated to the "Teacher, Teacher Teacher," look, complete with a look of almost total disbelief and slow but meaningful head-shaking.

I had dismissed the kids to their tables for group time. There was something for everybody to do and places to go when you were finished. There was a math activity, two writing centers, and an art table today. I also had some chalkboards on the rug for the copying of sight words. Things were moving like a well-oiled machine and I was very proud of myself.

But then I noticed the stack of hardcover books in the library. The same stack that had been painstakingly refiled that very morning by one of my middle school helpers. This stack was dangerously high and sitting on the little yellow table in the library. This could only mean one thing: Torrean was not at a table doing his work. He was in the library "stacking pizza." Stacking pizza is one of his favorite activities. It makes him happy to carry the books around and "sell" them as pizza to classmates.

If I've asked him once I have asked him a thousand times this year: "Torrean, where are you supposed to be?" Has he been to the math table with me? No. Has he been to Lupita's table for writing? No. Has he completed the art project that I was certain would just flip his skirt up and knock his socks off? No. Did he stop by the round table to sequence number cards with Jenny the 7th Grader? No! He has completed none of these tasks and he has slipped his leash and he is in the library stacking pizza.

"Torrean. Please return to Jenny's table."

My attention is now elsewhere - I am attempting to teach addition using dot cubes and lots of painstaking counting. After all. I AM the teacher. Several kids are all counting dots at different paces and in different places and it sounds like an accounting convention.

But 30 seconds later I look up to see Torrean digging math manipulatives out of a bucket on the shelf next to my table.

"Torrean - " I say with complete patience but just a hint of annoyance in my voice. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Torrean fiddles with several math chips that are now resting in his hand and looks at me as one might look at a demented but much beloved relative. The look on his face is serious and relates to me the supreme importance of his task.

"I have to pay for the pizza," he tells me, before bounding back across the room to the library in order to make his deliveries.

I look down at the table because Kareli has finished counting all her dots and writing all her equations and calculating all her sums. Her first and last name are on the top of the paper and she is delightedly adding little question marks to all of her math problems - 2+3=5? 4+3=7? 9+1=10? 3+3=6?

"Of course you do," I respond, half under my breath, trying to retain my composure while Kareli adds a question mark to her last name.

"OKAY Teacher!" she announces, thrusting the paper into my hand as she bounces across the room to the library to procure a pizza.