Elijah's Kleenex

Remember the story of the widow whose oil and flour never ran out as she fed her son and Elijah during the famine? I have a Kleenex box like that. Every time a visitor to my office sheds a tear, I whip out the trusty box. I am always fearful that the next Kleenex will be the very last. Amazingly, there is always one more.

Our school year ends in 50 minutes. In 50 minutes we’ll have the Big Countdown and final cheer. In 50 minutes, the bells in our tower will ring joyously, but I’ve noticed students looking ahead with mixed feelings. Many are feeling sad about leaving friends and teachers for the summer.

This morning several people have cried in my office. A mom concerned for her two kids. A recent divorce has split the family in half. Mom is managing pretty well with all her new duties, but she has concerns for the near and distant futures.

I hand her the Kleenex box, and guess what? She picks out one more Kleenex… and then another!

Another mom drops in to wish me well as she takes her newly-graduated son – her youngest child – away from this school for the last time. She’s been a fantastic helper at Rogers over many, many years. From fundraising to friendraising, she’s done it all to make life better for all of us.

She’s suddenly overcome with nostalgia, gratitude, and sorrow at leaving. I hand her the Kleenex box, and guess what? She picks out one more Kleenex.

Dads, kids, moms, relatives, friends… they’ve all taken my Kleenex through the year. Life has been so fast over the last month that I haven’t even been able to share with you the stories that continue to happen. Soon, the bells will ring, the feet will hurry past, and the school will be empty and silent.

There is still one Kleenex left… That one’s mine.

Fire Safety and Donuts

Today I helped cart kindergartners to and from their field trip to city hall. During the fire safety lecture at the fire station. Firefighter John told them, “Your mom and dad might think this is strange, but you will be safer if you sleep with your door closed.”

A very energetic girl raises her hand and says, “Not my mommy! She shuts my door every night… and locks it!”

Later I was laughing about the girl’s response, and a mom told me the following story.

When the kids had entered the police station, one of the officers was eating a donut and another officer made a self-conscious crack about that stereotype. The kindergartners were ushered into a room that had quite a library.

“What do you think is in all those books?” asked the officer in charge.

One boy seriously offered, “How to eat donuts?”

"Serious Talk"

Today I drove from College Place to Marrowstone Island and back. Twelve hours of driving to attend a funeral. The woman who died was the mother of two girls who sat for four years in my one-room school – my first teaching appointment. Today would have been the mother’s 53rd birthday.

The long drive was worth it. Five former students attended the simple service in the Nordland Garden Club. “Going home” to this island school community brought up powerful memories of the students, their families, and my efforts.

One young mother introduced me to her husband saying, “Honey, this is the man who is the reason I am what I am today.”

He shook my hand and with mock concern said to me, “Well then, you and I need to have a serious talk!” We all laughed.

I enjoyed seeing these former students again; some of them for the first time in 21 years. Interestingly, the students – though now older than I was when I went to teach them – are virtually unchanged. They’ve grown tall and beautiful. They know more. They have traveled life’s bumpy road and learned some things the hard way.

But they are still the same people I knew back then. Their gestures are the same. They receive and process new information with the same direct focus, or the same tilt of the head, or the same smiling nod. They have the same individual levels of energy, curiosity, humor, or doubt that they had 21 years ago. The jokes they didn’t get then, they still don’t get today.

I drove away feeling that I had seen the souls of these girls. I could see each one, somehow, stripped of age, accomplishments, and acquisitions. I could sense that unchanging piece that makes each one unique and irreplaceable. It made me value the years I was privileged to be with them. God couldn’t have blessed me with a more colorful first group of students.

Driving back into sleepy College Place I realized that I am again surrounded with a colorful collection of once-in-eternity characters. Each child, each parent, each teacher is unique and irreplaceable. “Lord, help my eyes stay open to the inestimable value of each soul.”

Quick Learner

The boy bursts into the restroom where I am washing my hands. “Ptui!” he spits a mouthful of something into the wastebasket and turns to dash back out. “That is the last time I put 15 mints in my mouth at one time.” I agree that’s smart. Minty fumes are already beginning to clear my own sinuses, and I'm 10 feet from the wastebasket.

Planting a Legacy

Today our school planted trees. More accurately, the community showed up en masse to buy and plant trees for us. A legacy, these trees will benefit generations to come. The trees will bear the names of the donors or those they wished to honor.

One anonymous donor chose to honor six hardworking children, four of whom attend Rogers. It’s a long story but it has to do with another kind of legacy.

Two months ago our school was in the middle of its annual magazine campaign. I was walking home and saw a seventh-grade girl trudging up the road with three small siblings trailing behind. They looked discouraged and tired. I asked how they were doing.

“No one wants to buy magazines,” she answered. She had tried all the sales pitch strategies, but still hadn’t found buyers. Students get prizes for turning in order forms. It’s not easy work, and I was impressed that she would be willing to share her earnings with this tribe of four. I had already bought through another student, so I passed on her plight to another person who ordered in her name.

The seventh-grader and her siblings were happy with the order. Surprisingly, as the days passed, she continued to make sales and did quite well for herself and her brothers and sister. Her generosity and hard work paid off. It’s the kind of mix that helps us leave legacies.

Today we planted trees. The magazine buyer remembered the girl’s hard work and her caring for her family. So the buyer decided to donate a tree in honor of her and the family. We say “God helps those who help themselves.” Jesus said, “To those who have, more will be given.” Either way, when we act as though we “have” and we act in faith, Someone always notices. Sometimes we see the blessing today… sometimes years down the road.

... Won't Happen Again

Last Monday an eighth-grader gave me a pledge to do things better. He’d flippantly written something offensive, and according to our practice, he was asked to write what the problem was, how it could be avoided next time, and what level of commitment he had to making sure it didn’t happen again.

I accepted his folded piece of paper as he headed to class. In my office I opened the paper and read of his shame at what he’d done. He ended with a single earnest line… and a mistake. Instead of promising that it wouldn’t happen again – as he intended to write – he omitted the “t” and wrote a whole different message.

“I will never happen again.”

I chuckled… then the truth of it hit me. He’s right, he won’t happen again. Neither will I. Neither will any of us. That is why all this effort of educating people is so worthwhile.

No one again will ever bear our unique fingerprint of personality, our approach to life, our spiritual potential. It’s the reason we must value each other… the reason we must practice compassion, the reason we must insist on competence.

More Homework, Please

A man recently called his friend whose third-grade son attends Rogers. When the studious boy answered, the friend made small talk by asking if the boy had been doing a lot of homework. “No,” sighed the third grader, “They’re not preparing us for college.”

Pile o' Poo!

A pre-schooler is hanging around by herself in front of the school waiting for mom. I hear her say loudly to no one, “Boogaloo, Pile o’ Poo!” Then she skips into the building to find mama.

Her sixth-grade brother is just coming out and I ask if he heard what she said. He hadn’t, so I repeat it, “She said, ‘Boogaloo, Pile o’ Poo!’”

Her brother makes a rather pained look and replies, “She’s trying to say, ‘Parlez vous.’”

Not at Home

A happy mom passes me in the hall as she is leaving the dining commons. She has her children in school after years of home-schooling.

“Being here for lunch is a good thing,” she tells me. “First, the teachers need my help at lunch time, but even more,” she continues, apparently thinking of the many spills and piles of crumbs, “it just convinces me that I did the right thing putting my kids in school. It is better to have them here… on your floor, and not mine.”

To Tell the Truth

Our weekly assembly of cross-age student groups spawns some interesting stories. When playing “To Tell the Truth”, the students standing in front were secretly given a strange-but-true event from the life of a classmate. Each student was to say, “My name is [their own name], and once I [whatever story was being guessed about.]” Then the audience was to ask questions of each child in front to see if they could tell which child the story was really about.

As one group stood in front, the lined-up students began to say, “My name is… and once I…” The Leader for that Family Group noticed that one second-grade boy was looking uncomfortable. As it came closer for him to talk, tears began to slide down his face.

The leader knelt by his side to coach him. She asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I forgot,” he said.

“Forgot what?” she asked, thinking the story had been too complex.

“My name!” he quavered.

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In another round, a crafty student tried to get around one of the rules designed to let all students play. He asked, “At the time this happened, were you a boy or a girl?”

You Smell Like a Hotel Room

After every Family Group activity, the Chieftains discuss on how it went. They identify what worked, what didn’t, and whether the activity should be used again, or if it should be changed.

At the beginning of one debriefing, an eighth-grade girl said, “Mr. Weller, one of my youngest members said I smelled like a hotel room!”

I’ve never heard that before, so I asked, “Well, was that a good thing, or a bad thing?”

The girl thought for a moment and said, “Probably a good thing, because she said, ‘You smell pretty… like a hotel room’.”

Heavenly Music

One of the things we enjoy in our new school is space. The entire school can finally assemble together all at once in our own building. We do so every Friday morning.

Today, at the close of Family Groups, I walked back to the office and was met by one of the regular mom volunteers. She and other moms had been listening to the students’ songs of worship as they wafted down the long hall into the lobby.

The mom says, “It was so beautiful… we were nearly in tears.”

I was too. God has blessed us with a school that finally fits our mission.

Is It Contagious?

A first-grade boy bites a sixth-graders finger. It breaks the skin. The older boy is okay with that; I'm not.

I tell the younger boy, “There are two reasons we don’t do that. One, people just don’t go around biting people. Two, your mouth is a germy place. You can cause bad infections.” Then thinking about universal precautions, I add, “If you had HIV, you could give it to your friend.”

The firstgrader's brows knit together for a moment in thought, then he offers helpfully, “Well, I do have dust allergies.”

The Turning Point

This morning we’ve had a grand excursion. All 310 students and teachers and staff walked to the new school several blocks away from our current site. We knelt on the dusty, mid-construction, concrete floors of our classrooms, music rooms, gym, and offices. There on the floor, each individual wrote their favorite Bible verse.

In a few weeks, these precious promises of strength and protection will be covered with carpet and tile and wood. But we will know what’s there, invisible yet present.

Next week we will dip our hands in paint and leave our indelible prints on the walls of the old school. There is a sadness and a joy in leaving one home for another.

[For the “new school” story in pictures, click on the link to “Our New School”. All blogs below this occurred in the old building. All blogs above are set in the new school.]

Good Advice

A fifth- and sixth-grade class created bookmarks to send to El Salvador. They were to draw a picture, quote a Bible text or put on some kind of saying. One child did all three.

There was the picture: a monkey.
There was the saying: “Don’t monkey around.”
There was the Bible passage: the seventh commandment!

Morning Question

Every morning I give announcements over the PA. Each day I ask a question students can answer for “Rogers Dollars.” As I visit a first- and second-grade classroom, a boy suggests a morning announcements question to ask.

With a big smile he enthusiastically says, “Ask them ‘How many teeth are in a dog’s mouth?’”

It’s not unusual for students to suggest questions knowing they’ll be able to answer them and earn easy money. I’m glad this boy knows about dogs, so I ask, “How many teeth are in a dog’s mouth?”

He grins expectantly and says, “I haven’t got a clue!”

What's Missing?

As the day started I was running full-tilt. I’d gotten up early and had already worked several hours before school began. As I hurried out to greet students, I failed to turn on the hallway music. While greeting kids in the hall, I realized that there was a strange quiet in the halls.

The next student to greet me was a second-grade boy. I said, “Hey there, Sonny, what’s missing this morning?”

He shot back, “My tooth! I lost it last night at 9:48 p.m.!”

New Light on the Revolution

Today, a fourth-grader responded to a test question which asked why the Revolutionary War broke out.

His answer: “The colonists were using tea for gunpowder.”

That Other Education

A room mother reports that a second-grade boy confided in her that he knew the worst word in the world! “Oh Honey, I’m sorry to hear that,” she says, “What is it?”

He leaned close, cupped his hands around her ear and whispered, “S-X-E!”

“I told him that sex is a wonderful thing,” she says.

Now I bet he’s really confused.

Coming to School

Our new kindergartner is upset. He’s just starting school and was hoping to be a first-grader. After testing, his mom and I agree that kindergarten will be a better start. He is devastated and refuses to meet his teacher.

“My friends will all laugh at me,” he wails.

“Do they go to this school?” I ask.

“No, but they’ll find out,” he says miserably.

“What grade are they in?”

“Pre-school!” he pouts.

I assure him that school can be fun. He doesn’t have a choice on what grade he’ll be in, but he can choose whether he’ll be happy or grumpy. “School’s a lot more fun when you’re happy,” I assure him. He looks doubtful.

Wednesday is a snow closure, so Thursday is his first day in school. Friday morning with a slack face and sad eyes, he approaches me, “I didn’t have fun yesterday…”

I’m hurting for the little guy and quickly fish around in my brain for some sensitive, yet encouraging thing to say when he finishes up with “… I had a BLAST!”