Pulling Teeth--Well, One, Anyway

After our shocking, morning discussion in class yesterday, I pushed it out of the student's minds by going over our addition facts, coins, and the clock. I don't know what happened to their brains, but they stumbled all over during our review. In the midst of my impassioned speech of how God did not give them mush for brains and how in the world could they have forgotten every scrap of learning I had taught them, Beans raised her hand and told me "My tooth is wiggly". I asked her what that had to do with the price of eggs in China, and then proceeded to do some more review.

Pretty soon, everything came back to them, and they began on their numbers worksheet. I went to my desk and started grading some papers. I glanced up to see Bean's hand in the air. "Miss Tesfamariam, do you know that my tooth is very wiggly?" I asked her if she wanted me to pull it out for her, to which she emphatically shook her head and said her mom would do it. Which by the way, said Mom would not touch the tooth with a ten foot pole. I told her to finish her page and then I helped Peanut with her work.

Beans finished her numbers page and brought it up to me to check. While at my desk, I glanced over to see one of her teeth protruding at an odd angle. I asked her which tooth was wiggly, and she pointed to the one I was staring at. It was ready to fall off--I asked her if she wanted the 3rd & 4th grade teacher, Rila, to pull it out. Beans shook her head. Exasperated, I told her that Rila's son, MM would be SO proud of her if she got her tooth pulled. At this her eyes got a hopeful look to them and she repeated, "MM would be proud of me?"...she agreed to go get her tooth pulled out.

You see, Beans has a passionate love for MM--she is determined to marry him when they grow up. So, yes, I did try to trick her into deciding to get her tooth pulled, but so would you if you dealt with "my tooth is wiggly" statements and moments when your student is more concerned about wiggling her tooth than doing her work. It was for the greater good. Unfortunately, Beans is a girl and she changed her minds about 59 times right up until 5 minutes before dismissal.

While sitting at her desk and fiddling with her tooth once again, Beans gave a sharp cry and exclaimed, "Ah! My tooth is out! I took it out!" She brought up her tooth and showed me the gap in her mouth:

"MM will be so proud, right Miss Tesfamariam?!" Uh...well....uhhh...what did I get myself into?! Perhaps she will forget all about that by Monday!