Halfway through a kindergarten lesson this morning, one little boy looks up at me and asks, ‘Hey Mrs. Algarin…do you work here?’ I’m not sure why this was unclear since he has been my student since September 1. Appropriate for the beginning of the week, methinks.
‘Wait…what?’…the child stares at me with stupefied incredulity. ‘Mrs. Algarin is your name?’…’Yes’ I respond. ‘Mrs. Algarin is my name’. ‘Awwwww…’ she responds slowly and returns to her writing. I wait. ‘I thought your name was something so, so beautiful like…like Ariel’.
A little one tells me today…’I speak Linguish and Spanish’. So, I pose the question to my smaller students as we gather around a circular table. ‘What are some of the differences between Puerto Rico and Rochester, NY?’ I am informed that on the island, ‘pit bulls ride around in cars’…So there is that to consider.
As the day winds down…I am told in no uncertain terms, ‘You’ll all be sorry when I figure out how to breathe fire!’…would that I could breathe fire…
It is mid year and I consider the possibility that there may still be a gap somewhere…
Real things are never simple…they are more than worth ferreting out…but never simple…and terribly exhausting.
690 Saint Paul 