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9 Twice a week for 52 minutes—and not a minute more!—I worked with
my group, creating patterns with geometric shapes, reading short stories,
learning about neighborhoods, and much more. The days were also filled
with glue sticking to things it shouldn’t and kids tattling about things they
shouldn’t. Most days I returned to my own campus exhausted, and I limped
along through my afternoon classes. Once, after my classmates snickered at
me, my teacher asked me why I was wearing a crown made of construction
paper. I had completely forgotten that I had been filling in for Cameron, who
had decided he no longer wanted to be the king in the group’s rehearsal of
their skit “King for a Day.”
10 Then there were all the first-grade codes I had to learn. When Fernando
held up three fingers and stuck them in my face, I told him to keep his
hands to himself. A few minutes later, Fernando stuck three fingers in the air
again. Back and forth for the next 10 minutes, those fingers went up and I
made him put them down. Finally another student told Miss Sanchez in her
“outside voice” so that everyone could hear, “Miss Chloe won’t let Fernando
go to the bathroom!”
11 “How was I to know they had hand signals for everything? Two fingers
for a drink of water, three fingers for bathroom, and one finger to ask a
question,” I grumbled to Maneya.
12 Maneya comforted me as I told story after story about first grade. But
as the weeks went on, I began to notice a change in our conversations. I
wasn’t the one who was complaining anymore. I had figured out how things
worked in the first grade, and Maneya was the one who started to complain.
Her experiences with fourth graders began to dull in comparison with my
adventures with the six-year-olds.
13 And now the last day of the mentoring project had arrived, and overall,
things had changed for the better. Sara still cried, but less frequently now
that she was deemed the student with the best handwriting in the class and
was sought out by others for help. Allie had taken ownership of the skit the
group had been assigned to write and produce, and she was able to get
Fernando to speak; we soon realized that he was really funny and could
write some really great lines. Cameron even relented and decided he would
be the king after all.
14 The students let go of the breath they were holding. The room was
quiet now. My group returned my thumbs-up gesture as they sat patiently
on the reading rug and waited for their turn to perform the “King for a Day”
skit they had practiced for weeks. After watching their terrific performance, I
smiled widely, congratulated and hugged each student, shook hands with
parents, and nibbled on tiny sandwiches. When I left that day, I knew I
would miss those first graders—even Sara and her endless tears.