When I first was given the job of sixth grade teacher, I was nervous. I thought, "I geez. I'm going to go into a classroom where even the smallest runt of a 12-year-old towers over me. How will I ever get their attention?" Then I thought of the scene in Catch Me If You Can where Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) walks into his new high school and the kids make fun of him so he decides to act like the substitute. The kids all respect him and he teaches them French. The only changes to that scene in my world would be me standing in for Frank, a bunch of 6th graders filling in for high school kids, all subjects filling in for French, and instead of the respect part, I'd be tied up and laughed at while huge 6th graders stole my lunch. That was my nightmare. Luckily, I quickly realized that 6th graders don't start all that big.
The day I met a bunch of them, I was relieved. I was empowered. I thought, "I can take these kids. They're not nearly as scary as I thought they were."
Fast forward to today...My students are slowly beginning to tower over me. I've been eye-to-eye with many of them for the past few weeks. Today I realized that my tallest little darling is now taller than me. As I told him how to revise his paragraph, I looked up into his eyes. Then I laughed and said, "Today is the day you become taller than me." He said, "I know. Pretty cool, huh?" No. Not really. Good thing we only have 11 more weeks together and 17 total weeks to grow.
I guess now is the time to invest in comfortable heels.
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