By the middle of seventh grade, the kids are as tall as, if not taller, than me and look like mini adults.  This makes teaching interesting because they have adult bodies and child like thinking. It is easy to forget they are always in a state of flux.

This particular student, who will henceforth be called Beautiful Girl, reminded me of the dichotomy when she got in a bit of trouble. At our school we have ICI to help us handle those bit of trouble moments.  ICI is a time out for teenagers.  With all the changes in their lives, sometimes life gets to be too much and they aren’t into the learning groove.  Then they go to ICI, which is a quiet corner in the back of the room, and chill for a couple minutes.  If they still can’t hold it together, they get sent to another teacher’s class for the day and a call home is made. It’s a pretty good system.

Beautiful Girl chose to do something that earned her ICI.  After a couple minutes in  ICI,  we talk to the kids and help them through the rest of the hour.  When I went to talk to Beautiful Girl, she looked up at me and shook her head in dismay.  I was thinking, “Wow, she really took this hard.”

She said, “That girl lied to me.”

Looking around I asked, “What girl?”  Beautiful Girl was sitting alone so my curiosity is peaked.

“The girl who said in the email, that if I forwarded it to seven people this would be the best day in my life.”  She went on, “This has not been the best day of my life. This is the first time I got ICI”

This child was so excited about it being “the best day of her life,” she couldn’t contain herself.

The nurturing teacher that I am known to be did what the kids know me to do best-I laughed out loud.  And then, told her that the same thing happened to me except it was handwrite it 10 times so I could get a boyfriend.  Since I never had a date for any of the major dances in high school and didn’t have a boyfriend until I was 18 we know how effective that chain letter was in my life.  In the end she laughed too, and I marveled at the reminder of the preciousness of where she was in life.

Last night I received a random email from a lady named Mary.  Since I get emails from this blog and the random email had the subject line “want to know you” I opened the email. Mary wanted to know me, just not in a way that I want to be known by a person that isn’t my husband.  I was horrified.  However, after a few minutes I had to laugh, because the truth was out.  All of us, or at least I do, still believe in the randomness of goodness. Most of the times it’s true, but then there are those times you share the story about being had and hope there’s a friend that can laugh with you because it happened to them too.  I guess it was my turn.