Friday, November 21, 2008

Shoes

Its a new post, but an old experience but I haven't told it yet and it makes me smile.

This happened about 4 days into the new school year. In order for you to truely appreciate this experience you need to know that in the afternoon I have two different sets of students that I only see every other day.

So I received this comment from a student after he had only seen me twice. We were sitting in class I was in the middle of some amazing math lesson (I'm sure) and a little boy shouts out you "why do you always wear the same shoes. You wear those shoes yesterday." I was quite taken back. It takes quite a bit to catch me off guard in class but this did. My first thought was to argue back "no I don't". Then I just had to laugh. For starters he had only seen me twice (and although I didn't wear that same pair of shoes the day before, both days he had been in my class I had in fact worn the same pair of shoes. Didn't realize that was not acceptable :)). Then I also remembered seeing his mom last year. She was wearing this amazing black and white dress with these bright red heels and I remember thinking she looked great, but that I would never wear that to work. Then I saw her again in the afternoon-she was still wearing the same dress but this time she was wearing a pair of lime green heels. :) I told his mom what he had said and she was so embarassed that she actually talked to him about it when they got home. She told me that her son would not be commenting on my shoes or any other piece of clothing anymore. I was a little disapointed, I had thought his comment was kind of funny. Well a few days later, when I was brave enough to wear the shoes again, he again commented on me wearing the same shoes (don't tell his mom). I then told him that it was okay and that I would wear them quite often because I only had about 3 pairs of shoes that I wear to school, to which he replied "well can't you at least wear them in a pattern?" What can I say-they sure took the patterning lesson to heart!

A side note: A few days later this child's mom came to me and said "you know I think we do put a lot of focus on clothing at our home and I never realized it before. My son always picks out his dads tie for work and then this morning before we left for school we were all saying prayer when my son opened his eyes and said-"dad, that is a cool belt". I immediately opened my eyes and said, son we do not comment on clothing when we are in the middle of prayer." Then she said "looks like we have some work to do". :)

6 comments:

Black Family said...

Love the story! Jake and I laughed and smiled as we read it. By the way I love those shoes...they are my favorite! Thanks for your comment on our blog....hopefully we will get to talk soon..phone tag USA lately. Miss ya!

Crystal said...

That is cute! how funny that he noticed your shoes!

Dawn W said...

Hey - aren't those the cute shoes that you have to stuff toilet paper in the toes, just so they fit?

Andrea said...

That is the cutest story! Thank you for sending me your blog address. I love reading about your life, and I love hearing your teaching experiences. I miss those classroom moments so much! Do you know you are the most amazing teacher!?! I learned so much from you... and that kid's got patterning down! That is awesome! I was just looking over our "Thanksgiving unit" we planned together. It made me smile to remember those fun and stressful times we shared. Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Stacie said...

Thanks for sharing such a wonderful story! I had a good chuckle.

jana said...

Ha! Kids wow what they catch on to.
Yesterday I finally broke down and bought some clothes for my son who always goes to church in shirts and pants that are to small and doesn't wear socks as his shoes are too small to wear socks with. I have an awesome cousin who has great clothes and has been passing them down to my kids that I am soooo grateful for. But I think he is growing too fast. Well I thought I had done a good job of getting the right size clothes and when he tried them on he looked in the mirror and pats his chest and says "yep handsome." Then he looks at his ankles and says "well they are a little too long I can't see my ankles." Opps. I guess he has been in pants that are too short for long enough that he is pretty set on the too short look.