Ode to a Fourth Grade Teacher

I am not a poet, but I wish I was. I would sit right down and write an ode to Eli's fourth grade teacher. That woman is a wonder. I get the pleasure of volunteering for an hour a week with a group of 6 fourth grade boys. And believe me it is a pleasure. I would have never guessed. My job is to facilitate a book club, but my role is really to observe and be amused. The boys each have a role to play and preparations to make and they do it and it is fabulous. The conversation amuses and delights me to no end. I love this new lingo they use when talking about books- making text to world connections or text to self connections or whatever. Today we were having a rather wide-ranging discussion about the book Shiloh. The discussion leader had asked the question, 'Does Judd treat his dogs fairly'. The boys dug into that word fairly and picked it apart. I loved watching one of them gnaw on something another had said and then his face would light up and he would spurt: "I made a text to world connection..." and then share that connection. They were making so many connections they got into using a sort of short hand: "I made a T-T-M". And while I would sit there trying to puzzle out what T-T-M stood for, they would barrel off down a path about talking how the book relates to slavery and Jim Crow laws. Wow. And the teacher sidles by and stands behind them and watches and she's glowing too. And the thing is, I don't think discussions like these are the exception- this is the rule in her classroom. She has given this crew the tools to dig into these issues and then she lets them roll. She has created space where the expectation is that they will think and they will think hard, and better yet, they will enjoy it. And these boys do. Fourth grade boys. Love it. Love her. I hate to think of Eli moving on next year after being with this teacher for two years. But my hope is that Theo will get to slide right in. Maybe by the time he is moving on I will have figured out all the shorthand they use- I'm still puzzling over T-T-M.