Life Span and Sex Identification of Giant Pandas: Animal Reports in First Grade

"Any questions for Melanie?" Hands flew up all over the classroom. Melanie stood proudly next to her giant panda display board, eager to deflect the curiosity of her classmates.

Question time is my favorite part of a student's report, when they go off script and I discover how much they really learned about their topic. Or how creative they are in a pinch.

"How long do pandas stay alive?" someone called out.

"Um, they stay alive until a snow leopard or a wild dog eats them," she replied confidently.

"So...they can live as long as they want to?"

"Yeah. Until they die."

She answered questions about panda babies, where you buy bamboo to put on a board about pandas, and where pandas live. Just when I thought we were done, however, she pulled out her own question: "Do you want to know how to tell if one is a boy or a girl?"

I was tempted to redirect, but I was just too curious about how she would explain it. I WAS ready to intervene at any moment, however. "Well, how you know if a panda is a boy or a girl -because they look just the same on the outside- is you watch them. See, only a boy will walk up to a girl. So, if there are two pandas together, the one that's walking up to the other one is the boy. That's how you tell!"

This didn't fully satisfy my curiosity -do girl pandas simply go through life without meeting?- but the class thought it made perfect sense, and we moved on without any major violations of our innocence. Phew.

Running, Walking, and Leprosy

Here at school, we're always sprinting when we should be walking and slowing down to a pace of utmost decorum when we should be hustling. It's some kind of weird Murphy's Law that exists between children and adults in authority. Some days, it seems that all I do is swing between harping on students to "WALK!" instead of fly and harping on students to "GET MOVING!" instead of putz.

On the way to the lunch line? We're a blur, barely visible to the naked eye. You wouldn't want to be standing outside the classroom door when we head out to our backpacks to get our snacks, either. (I guarantee you'd be the one left with the bruise.) The same is true as we tumble out the door for recess.

But we let our feet d - r - a - g on the way back to the classroom. Thirty minutes of recess has a way of reprogramming our legs to bring us back to class by the slowest, least direct detours. Same goes for return trips from the bathroom -- that's the perfect time to tour the world at a snail's pace. This year I even apprehended one of my own students as he was army crawling all the way back from the bathroom. (Yes, army crawling.)

These thoughts brought to mind a chapel sermon I heard back in the day at NCU (from a Californian pastor named Scott Brown. A plus to being a note taker: being able to give credit where it's due ten years later...). He told the story of Namaan the Syrian leper coming to Elisha, the Israelite prophet, for healing. (You can find the whole story here, in 2 Kings 5.)

It was the only message I've ever heard which focused on Elisha's servant Gehazi, who's not even mentioned until the end, when Elisha rejects Namaan's joyful offer of a reward for the healing and sends Namaan on his way. Gehazi, thinking that Elisha let Namaan off too easy, runs after him and lies in order to take the reward for himself. When he comes back to the house, Elisha tells Gehazi that he'll have leprosy for the rest of his life (and upon his descendants, as well) because of his subterfuge. Not exactly a happy ending.

An astonishing healing had just taken place, but Gehazi wasn't excited about that. He perked up and ran, however, at an opportunity to enrich himself. Brown's question was simple, but heart piercing:

What makes you run?

And what makes you walk?

Because the things we run for, ultimately, become the things that run our lives.

This is making me think. I run to check my email. I d - r - a - g my feet to correct reading workbooks. I'll spend time with friends in a flash, but I've been vascillating for months now about working in the church nursery (a small thing!). I'm highly motivated to keep my blog updated, but the simple acts of washing dishes or keeping track of my budget? Well, suddenly I'M the one army crawling across the living room.

The older I get, the more I see how much those small things matter -- the things I'm happy to avoid. Just like my poky students -and good old Gehazi-, I'll miss out on a lot of what's truly important (and bring pain on myself and those around me) if I don't learn to walk and run at the right times.

So today, I'm asking God: where is He telling me to "Get a move on!"? And where is He saying, "Hold your horses, there..."?

The Opening of Kid-Quote Season

We had our first and second grade open house yesterday. A few kids came in to try their new desks and check out the new room arrangement (and see me, I guess).

My favorite conversation was with the second grader who happened to be the most quotable first grader in my class last year.

I hugged him, saying, "I missed you this summer!"

He sighed and replied, "I finally threw up."

While it wasn't what I was expecting, I did the best I could to roll with it: "You did? Were you sick?"

"No, I was brushing my teeth," he explained.

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. Are you feeling better now?"

"Yeah, sort of." He paused, then ended with a flourish: "Miss Djerf, why is throw up always orange?"

I'm so glad he's back!

A Good Question to Ask When You're Singlehandedly Snarfing a Bag of Potato Chips

"So how old do you guys think I'll be when eating like this takes its toll on me?"

- Marissa during a recent road trip (to be fair, I must confess that I was assisting in the potato-chip snarfing)