Yesterday, my first-grader son was talking all about how to make a bomb with his class at school. I didn’t understand where this was coming from, at first. We never talk about that stuff at home. His teacher had River come in at pick-up time; I had made the rare request that he do the task yesterday afternoon instead of me, because I wasn’t feeling well. The vice-principal and the teacher informed Paolo that this kind of talk wasn’t suitable at school, and all asked, “Where did this come from?”
Council, standing there demurely and a bit distractedly, informed the group that she had threatened to blow Paolo up that morning if he came into the bathroom while she was using it. Then, she mentioned that in that darned movie “Nanny McPhee,” there were something like “instructions.” Admittedly, there is a boy character obsessed with bomb-making, although the movie does not contain specifics. Her idea of ingredients included flour, clay, wire, and broken shells.
Thus, Paolo’s incessant talking in his class, despite the teacher’s best efforts to get him to stop.
Last week, the problem was an argument over whether or not the letter “w” is a vowel. After having told Paolo that it was not a vowel, and this was quite a long time ago, and in passing, I might add, he came home from school one day last week, went about his business, and later marched over to me while I was at my desk. Very blunt and matter-of-fact, he said, “Mama, my teacher says that ‘w’ is a vowel, and she knows, because she has a master’s degree, and she’s a teacher, and you’re not.”
That really stung. I let him know so, and he proceeded to cry. The next day I can only imagine what he said to the teacher, or what the teacher might have said to him to bring home such words. (My mind has gotten pretty carried away with this, so I tried to just lay it aside for a while.)
The bomb episode gave the teacher a chance to remind us that she was hoping for a parent-teacher conference soon so she can “tell us how great Paolo is doing.” After these little mix-ups, I can imagine that she’s concerned, too, for how we might be feeling on that subject.
And the teacher’s right, “w” is a vowel. Sometimes.