Two in a Row!

In other words, I have another cute K story for you!! These are the moments I should have been writing down during the past 22 years so that I could finally write my book!

When I was working on my national board certification, I was looking for a way to 1) get to know each year's new students' personalities, likes and dislikes and 2) screen them for language difficulties, handedness, possible color blindness, etc.

I started doing a little Interview Assessment: within the first week or so of school each year, I take a few minutes to talk one-on-one with each student. I have them hold a pencil and pretend to write (to determine which hand is dominant), have them name colors and then ask them a few simple questions.

One question is, "Tell me about your family." Sometimes that draws a blank look, so I rephrase it as, "Tell me who's in your family." That's what I asked Elena (not her name) today. She mentioned her mother, her father and grandparents. I was moving on to the next question when she added in a tone of disgust, "Oh yeah, and there's a little baby brother, too, but he's real young and he can't do ANYTHING." I laughed and said, "Well, he's part of your family, though." Elena repeated in a dismissive way that the baby was tiny and really couldn't do ANYTHING. She added, "He's so young, he can't even TALK!"

By then I was picturing Zoey's little face. She can't talk, either, but she's definitely part of our family and she definitely should count as part of it. So I repeated, "Well, Elena, I know he's little but he's still part of your family!" She arched an eyebrow and said nothing. I pressed on..."He still counts, Elena!"

Elena looked at me like I was a total idiot and she said, "He can't COUNT. I just told you, he can't even TALK yet!!"

Thanks for stopping by!