What's With These Kids?

It’s my third day as principal at Rogers. I am amazed by the courtesy the students show in the hallways and at doorways. I'm used to urban kids. I’m also surprised at the size of many students’ vocabularies.

I play music in the halls as students enter the school each morning. Today I’m playing some peppy music and I stop a third grader to ask, “What does this music make you think of?”

She thinks briefly and offers, “Gershwin?”

Later in the day, I drop in on our librarian’s first meeting with one of the first-and second-grade classrooms. They’re all huddled around Mrs. Bailey who sits in a rocking chair showing them an atlas.

“Then I traveled over here to Colorado,” she says tracing the route on the atlas. Just weeks ago, Mrs. Bailey and I and all the other teachers attended a huge teachers convention in Dallas. Being new at the school, I’m still newsworthy, so she continues, “Then I traveled all the way down to Texas, and who do you think I saw?” She glances up and smiles at me over the sea of raised hands.

She calls on a second-grade boy who blurts out, “An illustrator?”