The Forgotten Door

Today was a teacher's typical Tuesday.

Mondays are the gem of the week. The students are sleepy, they don't talk a lot. They are still in a fog. You teach, you think they are listening, and from the dazed look you sure hope they are. Mondays are easy.

It is a lot easier to tell a student to wake up then it is to tell them to stop talking, sit in their desk, and for the love of pete keep their hands, feet, and objects to themselves.

That's what Tuesdays are for. All the energy they stored up in hibernation mode on Monday, they save it for Tuesday.

So Tuesdays are my days for wine and this blog. Thank you, blog. Thank you, week-old wine.

In the midst of yelling today and explaining things over and over and over again, I had a spare minute and I thought I would check the cabinents for a microscope.

I figure you can't be a legitimate science teacher if you do not have a handy dandy microscope.

I couldn't find it, but I did find something a gazillion times better.

Every since I took over that classroom a few weeks ago, I feel like I'm on a treasure hunt.

I'm not sure of the organizational system that was in place by the previous teacher, but I feel like treasures are tucked in ever nook and cranny.

Today, instead of a microscope, which I'm sure is in there somewhere, I found this:

The Forgotten Door.

It is THE book that made me:

• want to be a teacher - because my fourth grade teacher read it to my class with such energy that I wanted to be her
• want to be a writer
• tell Mr. Yardbird for the past 7 years I have to locate it

After my teacher read this book to us, I went on to write "The Magic Necklace" that year and other half finished short stories. I still have many of them in my old room at home. I couldn't stop writing because of this book and I started reading just about every suspenseful book I could get my hands on.

Finding this book, made me realize that:

• Oh yeah, I want to be a teacher
• Maybe this all might work out after all

I'm kidding, it was nice to find it though.

So,with all of my excitement upon finding the book, I called my class to attention.

Two people looked my way and I said "I want to read ya'll this amazing book for ten minutes everyday." I went on to read the back of the book and a few kids looked up with interest.

"How's that sound?" I said, beaming with happiness.

No one said anything.

Then I asked them to raise their hands if they were interested in that.

Guess what?

One person did.

So, I shrugged my shoulders, stuck my treasure in my bag and decided I'll wait to Ham gets bigger and read it to him.

Life with 5th graders.