Teamwork!

Last week was emotionally eventful for one of my students. Sarah was the student who "broken" by receiving the 1 on her first writing camp composition. Helping her work through this was probably one of the hardest things I've done as a teacher, but the good news is that she did finish a 2+ or 3 composition by Friday.

The second hardest part of her week was the spider she did not invite to hang out in her desk. Here's how it went down...

I looked across the room when everyone was supposed to be writing and I see Sarah crying. I also see Juan huddled around her desk with a few other students. A kid comes up to tell me, "Sarah's crying." Within seconds, at least 6 kids join the crowd around the desk. I go over to get the status on the situation. I lean over the desk to look inside to see what the crowd is staring at. To my surprise, they were staring at nothing. The desk was empty. All of Sarah's belongings were on the floor below her desk. As some kids are still staring in the desk, a few others have an animal encyclopedia and they are trying to figure out what type of spider it is. They talk about how big it was, the color, its leg length, and what its body looked like. As they flip through the pages, I suggest, "Maybe it was a tarantula?!" The other kids thought it was funny, but Sarah did not. I think they determined it was a brown house spider or a daddy long leg. I tell them they need to pick up the mess on the floor and return it to Sarah's desk. Before doing that, the 8 students that are now gathered around the desk, give the desk another few stares before moving. (I will post a picture of the gathered students staring in an empty desk tomorrow...it was funny to watch.)

I could have handled this situation a bit differently, but allowed this disruption on the basis that these kids were showing caring towards Sarah, working together to get the spider taken care of, showed cooperation in each of their "jobs" in spider hunting, and it was fun to watch them take care of this. I also took this lesson from Philip Done who wrote 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny. He would have done the same thing. In fact, in a story very similar to one he wrote about, I also stopped teaching when a bee flew into the room. There are certain things that teaching must be put on hold for.