Summer School 2016

 Ahhh...summer school. Twenty-five days of students filing into the classroom with eager questions.

"Are we going outside now?"

 "What's to eat?"

 "Can we go to the computer lab?"

"Is that ALL there is to eat?"

 "Is it time to go home yet?"

"Didn't we do math yesterday?"

Twenty-five days of starting the day with a "Buster the Bear" joke and only having co-teacher, Cassie laugh.

"Why didn't the bear go to college?" "He didn't have the right koala-fications!"

"How did the bear stop the movie?" "By hitting pause!"

Twenty-five days of torturing Cassie with curriculum-based crafts. Hot glue burns, carpel-tunnel from squeezing "tacky" glue bottles, the mad hunt for orange beans and heated arguments with 2nd graders over the best positioning of "angry" eyebrows.

Twenty-five days of mature conversations.

Overheard during a journal writing brainstorming session:

Student:  (Responding to the prompt) "I like hard on."

Cassie (calmly): "What?" (The tf was implied)

Student: (clarifying) "I mean rock hard."

Me (curled in the fetal position under my desk at this point, listening as Cassie valiantly hung in there)

Cassie:  "Do you mean hard rock?"

Student (brightening happily): "Yeah."

It might have been helpful to mention that the day's writing prompt was to describe your favorite song.

Overheard during the morning welcome:

Student (looking at the agenda board sporting an animated gif of a cartoon bear) "Mrs. Mosiman? Why is that bear crapping?"

I whirled around to look. No...I was okay. The bear was clapping.

Twenty-five days leading to the much-anticipated end-of-Summer-School picnic. A veteran of this highly acclaimed event, I knew to try and contain my excitement as, every year, we wait twenty-five days to take eight-minutes to eat a hot dog and then wonder what else to do. Sometimes you have to make your own fun.

Faced with the choice of watered-down tepid powdered lemonade or stealing Pepsi from those more-prepared than I...well...I chose the path that led me straight to my friend Kim who looked at me, first in confusion and then fear as I loomed over her little picnic party and demanded Pepsi. Turns out that the three tablespoons that I stole from her resulted in a lack-of-Pepsi-produced panic that had Kim racing from one sold-out vending machine in the school to the next. I would have apologized but I, too, was desperate. My next victim was my friend Jen who had cherry Pepsi but hey, times are tough and one must made sacrifices when needed.

In a year of firsts, our Summer School administrator put a lock-down on desserts until we had eaten the actual meal (of healthy hot dogs and salt-laden chips). I looked longingly at my friend Amanda's soft sour cream cookies and vowed to somehow break them out. I brightened as our superintendent joined the line of our picnic buffet. I quietly and respectfully explained the sad situation to her, concluding with an inspirational plea to "set our cookies free!" Without hesitation, she strode forth and lifted the lids on our captive cookies and proclaimed them emancipated.  We cheered. "Free at last...free at last!"

After eight minutes, the picnic was done. We returned to our room to construct owl smores. Cassie was delighted. As she shuttled students, two by two, to the microwave, the rest watched "Yogi Bear" on my computer monitor. A small voice suddenly said, "I think I'm going to touch a button." I responded immediately (and too late), "You absolutely WILL NOT touch a button." Without warning (wait...I guess there was a warning), Yogi demonstrated his multi-lingual abilities and began to speak French, proving, once again, that he is more than just your average bear. In the face of my anger, my button-pushing protege suddenly claimed to have no knowledge of how this could have happened. I offered that there were only two possible explanations for this French-speaking phenomena.

(a) A little boy, sitting in close proximity to the button determining language selection, and who had voiced a sudden need to TOUCH a button...actually did

 or

(b) The Lord willed it so.

And finally, after twenty-five days, our precious students boarded the bus as we gathered to witness their departure (and make sure they really left). We heaved a sigh of relief as the buses began to inch forward when one suddenly stopped and one of MY students came barreling back up the sidewalk. "No! No!," we shouted, turning to flee but there was no escape. What could he want, I wondered. Oh, maybe he forgot to give me a heartfelt thank you or to share how I, in twenty-five short days, altered his academic route, re-directing him from the Freeway of Failure to the Highway of Higher Learning and Success. He stood before me, breathless. I've waited  my whole life for this moment:

"Mrs. Mosiman, I forgot my candy."