Thursday, April 24, 2014

The windows on the bus

The windows on the bus go down, down, down . . .
In the winter it's no trouble keeping the windows of the bus closed
since arctic air is swirling around us.
The minute it starts to get the least bit warm students are begging
to open the windows.


"It's still cold!" I protest.


"But it's spring!" they wail.  "And we've been in a stuffy school all day!"


We had one week of 70* so the windows were down.


I reminded the students of two rules.
Please don't yell out the windows when we pass friends or foes out there on the side walk.
and . . .  Student will keep head and hands inside bus.


Otherwise we will lose the privilege of open windows on the bus.


I caught one guy happily sticking his face out the window and yelling to friends.


"Don't you remember the rule about the windows?"
Puzzled look on his freckled face . . . "No, not really."


"The one about keeping your head and hands inside?"


"No, I don't thinks so," as he rubs his head thoughtfully.


Oh come on!  I know this has been a long winter but does he expect me to believe that?


 
One afternoon I mentioned to some middle school students
that we had a couple of harrowing bus runs.
. . .  and they had missed out on it because they were gone a couple days.
Now they were riding again and it seemed like they were getting ready
to cause a ruckus all over again.
 
One student stared at me with wide eyes. 


I asked what was wrong.
 
It turns out this student misunderstood me and thought I was talking about
a very dangerous habit forming drug.  
 
"Look it up in the dictionary," I said, when they asked what harrowing
 meant.  They thought looking it up on-line would be much easier.  
 
A harrow is a frame with spikes or sharp-edged disks,
drawn by horse or tractor 
- used for breaking up and leveling plowed ground,
covering seeds, rooting up weeds
 
Harrowing - adj. very painful or distressing 
World Book Dictionary 
- to cause mental distress to; torment; vex
Webster's New World  College Dictionary
 
Maybe I was exaggerating to say we had two harrowing days. 
They weren't that painful or distressing.    
 
This episode reminded me of Anne Hobbs in the book, Tisha.
Anne was teaching school in Chicken, Alaska back in 1927.
One of her students asked why they have to all come to school at
the same time and all eat lunch at the same time. 


quote:
"How come you can't do things when you feel like it?"
"If everyone did it would be like a three-ring circus," I said.
"What's a three-ring circus?" Elvira asked.
"Well," I said,  "it's like a chautauqua, only it's bigger. 
It has elephants and clowns and ---"
"What's a shuh-tawk-wa?"Jimmy asked hesitantly.
I explained that a chautauqua was like a fair, only to have
Elvira ask what a fair was.  By the time I was finished nobody
really had any idea of what a three-ring circus was like.
They had never seen clowns, or jungle animals, or acrobats.
If I was going to cite examples I'd have to pick things they were familiar
with--gold mining and trapping, dog teams and hunting.
- end of quote

One day not long after this I was explaining to my students that
a bus is not a gym or a play ground.  They can't do acrobatic stunts
on the backs of the seats.
One girl slid across the aisle and sat on the seat beside her friend. 
"Debbie!* You can't turn the bus into a three-ring circus, you know!"


    hmmm!   did she just read my mind or what? 

* names have been changed



 


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