Grace the motivational speaker

One of the reasons I love working with elementary-school students is because I can, within the limits of professionalism and human kindness, mess with their minds to coax out the desired results.

While I certainly have a very dry sense of humor, it doesn't really make an appearance most of the time. I think slowly in situations that require a lot of verbal interactions, which is why I generally suck at life and socializing. I'm often jealous of Dan and his perfectly-timed zingers. He's drummed up quite a reputation at work for being, well, hilarious. I normally can't pull this off unless my meds are somehow working in high gear and everything is going in high gear. Most of the time somebody will make a comment or ask me a question and I'll start stuttering, make some kind of feeble non-remark ("Wow!" "That's cool!" "Really?"), randomly insert the wrong sounds into common words ("I love to raid! No, wait, I love to road! No, I mean I love to read!"), or, my favorite no-no, I'll stumble over my own monosyllabic utterances to such an extent that I accidentally spit at the other person, mercifully ending just another awkward episode of Grace making friends. Thankfully, I have strong writing skillz which allow me to be as dry and sarcastic as humanly possible on paper. I have heard that the writing process is channeled through a different segment of the brain than the verbal awesomeness part, which is good for you, as otherwise you'd be reading an awful lot of yeahs and uh-huhs on this blog.

But when it comes to kids... I'm much better with the verbal sarcasm. A very good part of this, I'm sure, is that I'm a lot more comfortable with those of us ages thirteen and younger. Kids don't have fully-developed social acuity yet and usually chalk up my failed stuttered sarcastic jabth to my advanced age of grandmotherhood (I know I'm not fat because no child has ever told me I'm fat. I'm not sure, however, how old I am because one child asked me how many grandchildren I had.). Also, thinking quickly in kid time is like thinking slowly in adult time, so I can really hold my own with the second-graders.

So I eventually learned to use my sarcastic weirdness for good in the school setting. Depending on the student population of the day, I'd set the limits, turn on the charm, and then just go nuts. My formula was generally this.

1. Tell kids what to do.
2. Veer into insanity.

This formula worked especially well with those kids who were a little harder to crack than the others. For some kids, you could ask them nicely to do their math problems, and they'd do it. No need to go to step two. For some kids, you could tell them to answer question three on their paper, and they'd tell you to go jump off a cliff, or at least out a second-story window.

One second-grade student, who we'll call Jaden because just about every other second-grader in that particular school was named Jaden, became my poster child for my formula. I was subbing for the learning support teacher and was trying to complete a reading lesson with Jaden. Jaden had other ideas.

It's not like I missed a step. I did tell Jaden what to do. Questions one through five in lesson five. It'd only take him five minutes to do, if he actually sat down and did it.

Jaden gave me a withering look. I was a sub. He was eight. It was clear who was winning out in this game.

"Miss, I ain't doing reading today."

"Oh?" I said.

"Yeah. I did my reading yesterday. You're not the teacher, so you can't tell me what to do."

I couldn't really argue with that logic, but I was the adult here. It was time to implement step two of The Plan.

"Jaden," I said, trying to be all secretive and confiding but probably just coming off as really creepy, "Trust me, you want to do your work."

"No."

"Well, you want to know why you should do your reading?"

"No."

"I'll tell you anyway. If you don't finish your reading, then I'm going to eat your lunch tomorrow."

Jaden looked a little shocked.

"You ain't gonna eat my lunch. You ain't gonna even be here tomorrow. Miss Smith will be here tomorrow."

"Exactly! Miss Smith will be busy in here. You'll be doing the reading you missed with her, so I'll be able to go on down to the cafeteria and get your lunch and eat it."

Jaden was wavering. I could see the terror rising. The threat of chocolate milk deprivation could do that to you.

"Miss, I know you ain't gonna eat my lunch. You don't even know what we having."

"Pizza, pineapple, and corn. Chocolate milk." Thank you, Miss Smith, for having a very messy desk topped by the lunch menu. But seriously, sub plans go at the top of the pile, not the bottom.

"Chocolate milk?"

"Chocolate milk!" I said, enthusiastically. Time to come back from the edge a bit and get some work out of Jaden. "Although, I don't really like chocolate milk too much. I might let you have the chocolate milk."

"Miss," chided Jaden, "You should like chocolate milk. Everybody likes chocolate milk."

"Well, I'll try it. I used to drink it when I was a kid, but it really tastes too sweet for me now. In fact, maybe I won't eat your lunch tomorrow if I can have a taste of your chocolate milk when I come back some day."

"Sure," said Jaden, now totally thinking about chocolate milk and not about work refusal, "I'll give you some, Miss! It's really great. I love it. Sometimes my mom, she buys it for me, but I always drink it for lunch. I wish I could only drink chocolate milk for the rest of my life."

"I'm looking forward to having some! Look, though, we've only got fifteen minutes before you have to get packed up. Let's see if we can quick get through your reading before it's time to go."

Would he bite?

Jaden sat up straight and picked up a pencil.

"OK, miss. Which questions again?"

"One, two, three, four, and five."

"Oh!" he squealed. "I did five questions yesterday, too! That was easy. This will be so easy."

Thus did the power of humor triumph over the power of eight. The battle was won. Jaden did his work. I never did, unfortunately, have the chance to pretend that I actually was going to drink chocolate milk, because I never subbed in that classroom again. Which is part of the sadness of subbing, but that's for a future post. This post is all about the funny.