Will Work for Cookies

When I arrived to volunteer today, Ms. Bright’s students were in Ms. Fair’s classroom (the two classrooms are connected) for a math lesson. Ty had told me how much he enjoys going to Ms. Fair’s class—and that he’s been excited for me to spend time in her class—and now I understand why.

Ms. Fair is great with the students. She’s stern and really funny at the same time. I’d say she has “attitude.” The kids love her. She can easily handle a double-sized class, too, which is no small feat.

We spent almost an hour and a half acting as employees of a cookie company. All of the orders were for fractions of cookies, and we had to make (draw) the cookies accordingly, and then package them in groups of like-cookie. It was a complex lesson for the students, who were newly learning how to combine and simplify fractions. There was much heated discussion amongst the groups.

Two other volunteers paced around Ms. Fair’s classroom, passing out worksheets as instructed. I’d never seen them before, and they were clearly not parents. I guessed they were college students—the “traditional” (i.e. young) kind. I’m a “nontraditional” college student, meaning I returned to college after a several-year hiatus from formal education. While today’s traditional college students were children, I was raising children . . . and attending classes, and managing a household, and running home-based businesses, etc., etc., etc. Basically, my life experience puts me on a different planet from most of my classmates, and that’s an interesting position to be in—one that enables me to learn a lot, and teach a lot. Those are two of my favorite things to do, so when I noticed the two college interns struggling, I made it a point to lead by example. There’s really no “right” way of volunteering at a school. You literally just have to find a need and fill it. So I made my way from table to table, checking in on the students’ progress in filling their cookie orders. The interns followed suit and, before long, there was a real buzz in the classroom. These kids were filling some orders!

Notable experience: There was one table of three—two boys and one girl. They all three had the same answers for the first two questions. Wrong answers. I knelt to the table to explain that they needed to re-check their work. Only the girl listened to me. She quickly erased what she’d written and then sought my eyes out for further information. I led her through the cookie order until she filled the order correctly. The two boys ignored me. Literally. It was, like, an intentional thing. I said, “You two need to recheck your work for the first two problems, because your answers are incorrect” and the kid to the right of me (the apparent ringleader) looked at me, looked at the other boy (across from him), made a face (I’m not sure enough of the nature of this face to comment on it), and then went right back to working on problem number three, as if I’d never said anything. The other boy (who’d received the mystery facial expression) followed suit, ignoring me and continuing on in his wrong-ness. As there was nothing more I could do to remedy that situation without insisting (which I refuse to do; I will explain and then let the kids decide whether or not to follow my instruction), I announced, “Well, one person at this table has the correct answers” and gave the girl, “Rosie,” a knowing nod before walking away.

Towards the end of our cookie business activity, Ty called me aside to tell me that it was already 9:36! “Time is going by fast isn’t it?” he said. He was right. Fun was being had, and we all know what time does when fun has its way . . .

After putting away our crayons and turning in our worksheets, Ms. Bright’s class moved back to Ms. Bright’s classroom. Ty had told me that John would be moving, so I made it a point to spend some time at John’s desk. Ty had given him our phone number. John presented to me the slip of paper with Ty’s scrawl, as if to ask my permission to call. I insisted he call us.

The energy was so rolling in Ms. Bright’s classroom so that I didn’t notice the time until it was fifteen minutes past my time to leave. As I had a meeting to get to, I rushed out, air-kissing Ty and bidding a, “See you next week!” to all the other students. John blocked my way, apparently purposeful in his un-intention, his shoulders turned toward me as if to say, "Can I have a hug?"

I hugged that kid so big. And he called Ty, that night.