NYR 9-21-11 - school volunteering

I told Mac's teacher at the beginning of the school year that I would be happy to volunteer for whatever she needed done, but she's really Johnny-on-the-spot and doesn't need any help (except for the normal stuff like class parties). But then Mac saw some of his friends' parents volunteering in his friends' classrooms and put a major guilt trip on me about my not volunteering. So I, in turn, put the guilt trip on the teacher who said I could come for library time.

Now when I heard that, I thought that would be great. I'd just read some books or listen to the children read to me and that would be that.

Wrong.

Mac's teacher is super-creative and artsy, both of which I am not.

When I got to school today, she told me that I'd go over some of their reading responses with them individually and then we'd break into small groups. I was still with her at this point.

She said that we'd read one chapter of a book together with the group (there would just be 4 kids in the group but I'd do two different groups over the course of the morning).

Still with her.

And then, and THEN I'd work with the group to come up with a verbal way to present that chapter to the other group. It could be a poem, a song, a short play, etc.

And this is where she lost me.

Did I mention I am not creative and this is the sort of assignment that could cause me to break out in hives?

I got a great group of really smart kids. Three of the four, I think, are really left-brained and then there was the Brazilian girl - no offense to my dear Brazilian friends - who was totally, 100% right-brained Brazilian.

We whipped through the chapter, and they totally got the vocabulary and the comprehension but only the Brazilian girl had ideas for how to present it. Her first suggestion for presentation was that we write and present a poem that used similes and metaphors (which they've just studied). But we decided it's a little hard to write a narrative in simile or metaphor.

Then I suggested that perhaps we make a song.

To which Brazilian girl suggested we could dance like Jennifer Lopez. I looked at the three other students who looked stricken with panic at the thought of doing some Jenny from the Block moves.

Then I suggested that perhaps we could think of a song that we all knew the tune to and we could make up some words to the well-known tune. I threw out "Old McDonald Had a Farm" as an idea.

To which Brazilian girl said she thought a Britney Spears number would be more fun.

Another panic-stricken moment before I realized that I needed to grab this bull by the horns and lead her into less provocative territory.

I suggested the "Happy Birthday" song, we came up with appropriate words that involved no hip-shaking, sashaying dance moves. We really rocked it, if I do say so myself. I've set a pretty high bar for my creativity, I think.

For a really fun morning that made me laugh and for this adorable girl who took me right back to Brazil, I am truly thankful.