Departments: In the Light Lane
Getting Untracked

First grade is sometimes a difficult transition for the young learner.

One of my students was unable to stay on track to complete an assignment. We devised a reward system whereby he would receive a sticker after he completed each part.

After several weeks, this student had a particularly good day and completed the entire assignment along with the class. Our principal stopped in that day, and I told her about our good day. The principal returned shortly and gave my student a new pencil sporting the 3-D message “A Winning Attitude!”

While packing to go home for the day, I noticed the new pencil left on my student’s desk—and remembered all the telephone calls and notes home about uncooperative behavior. So I said, “You forgot your pencil! Aren’t you going to take it home and show your mom?”

“Oh no!” he replied. “My mom said don’t bring any attitude into this house!”

Patricia Dimichino
Elizabeth, New Jersey

I took my self-contained class, learning disabled students, on a field trip to the Meadowlands facilities. We were able to visit all three sporting venues.

At the Meadowlands Racetrack, we were able to see the jockeys and horses practicing. After listening to the guide tell us about the track and the horses, one of the students asked if the jockeys were handicapped.

Puzzled, I asked her to explain. Well, she said, the horses are pulling wheelchairs, aren’t they?

Meaghan Monahan
Mahwah, New Jersey

My five-year-old granddaughter was learning her telephone number for school. To help, her dad posted the number near the family computer and used it for her password. When her teacher asked for my granddaughter’s number, she proudly replied, “Three, six, four, space, three, three, six, zero, enter.”

Rosemarie Corsner
Chapel Hill, Tennessee

Several weeks ago I was beginning a new and exciting lesson with my students—government! To get a feel for my students’ knowledge base, I began with a few vocabulary questions.

“What is a candidate?” I asked, having just finished reading a newspaper article about presidential hopefuls.

A young fourth grader hesitantly raised his hand and answered, “Someone from Canada?”

Dylan Hartwell
Hamilton, Ohio

I recently had the opportunity to attend a technology training workshop sponsored by our school district and found the technology more modern than I expected. I had to chuckle as I washed my hands and noticed the “FOR LAPTOP ONLY” label along the network terminal outlet next to the toilet seat in the restroom.

Rick Soria
Fort Walton Beach, Florida

In my tenth grade English class we were having a discussion about Sigmund Freud’s impact on the 20th century.

One student asked if Freud was still alive. I responded “no” and moved on. The same student raised her hand again and, with a puzzled look on her face, stated: “I think he’s alive. I just saw him perform at the Mirage in Las Vegas!”

I informed the student that Sigmund Freud and Siegfried and Roy were not one and the same.

Nancy Wickstrom
Rolling Hills Estates, California

I walked my first-grade students to the bus area after school one day and returned to my classroom. I was working at my desk when one of my students ran in, puffing, and said that she had forgotten to give me a letter from her mother.

I told her she had better hurry because the bus would leave without her. She replied, “That’s OK. The driver is waiting for me. Here’s the note.”

I took the note from her hand. It read: “Clarissa will be taking the bus home today.”

Ann Gonzalez
Tucson, Arizona

Here in Maine we have not had much of a winter so far, but we recently experienced a terrible cold snap. One Saturday, our kindergartener, Logan, told us that there had been no outdoor recess at his school the previous day.

When we asked him why not, he replied, “Because the windshield wiper was below zero!”

For those of you not familiar with the cold weather term “wind chill factor,” we now know one kindergartener who is!

Kristi Boucher
West Paris, Maine

Making sense of space is an interesting process for some students. I explained to my second graders about how we were going to have a total lunar eclipse in our area that night. I said I hoped their parents would let them stay up late to watch the eclipse, around 9 o’clock.

When I asked if there were any questions, one very serious young man raised his hand and said, “What channel did you say that was on again?’’

Cyndie Bleskan
Denver, Colorado

Mixed Memories

After my sixth grade music class asked questions about opera, I set up a bulletin board with covers from Opera News magazine. The students picked out the photo of Pavarotti right away.

But one boy looked puzzled and asked, “Didn’t he have something to do with Princess Di’s death?” I was trying to figure out what he meant when the rest of the class called out “No, that was the paparazzi!”

Renee Ashley
Huntington Station, New York

While studying the Southeastern region of the United States with my fourth grade class, I asked the students to name the insect that destroyed cotton crops. One student excitedly said, “That’s easy! It was the Bulwinkle!”

Of course he meant “boll weevil.”

Elizabeth Lencho
Janesville, Wisconsin

One of our fifth grade students has numerous allergies. Upon entering his classroom the first day of school, he looked warily at the three aquariums. As the seats in the center of the class were taken, he would have to take a seat near one of the aquariums.

The student walked up to his teacher and asked if he could exchange with another student. When asked why, he remarked that he couldn’t sit next to the aquariums since he was allergic to seafood!

Mary J. McMeekin
Davenport, Iowa

Got Laughs?

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