‘So tell me where you live’. Arms start waving. ‘Okay, Miss…so okay. You know the school right?’ I sigh. ‘Yes, where we are right now at this very moment’. ‘Yea, so you know the other side…the side where you go out and there’s a park and you go this way?’ Arms wave madly in a straight ahead direction. I look at him. ‘Yes, I think so, yes’. He continues. ‘Okay, so you go by the park…so you go this way, this way and then around the other way and then you, you see a red house and a car. And, and then you go right…you go right…(the student points fiercely toward the left)…then there’s a, a…what’s the name of that color? Oh, teal…that color. There’s a house there…teal…and, and a bush. There’s a bush there’.
Silence.
I respond. ‘That’s where you live?’ ‘Yes…by the bush there’. ‘Do you know the name of your street?’ Silence. ‘No, no Miss’. I try again. ‘Any idea at all?’ ‘Nope’. More silence. ‘But we’re moving soon, I think’. I sigh again. ‘Do you have any idea where you are moving or when you are moving?’ He laughs. ‘Oh no, Miss…I don’t know where I am moving and I don’t know when I am moving’.
We both laugh because what else can we do?
Fourth grade is going to keep us all very busy…
690 Saint Paul 