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Thursday, November 01, 2007

What! Are You Nuts?…

That comment was from Claudette when she heard I accepted an assignment to sub for…Kindergarten...the day after Halloween.

I accepted the afternoon class in Kindergarten for a couple of reasons.

Kindergarten isn’t at the top of my preferred assignment list, but I feel that I should try a Kinder class at least once each school year to see if my bias for the upper grade levels is still valid.

The real reason I accepted the assignment was that I hit the wrong button choice on the automated caller system. So instead of declining the assignment and expecting to hear a menu of “reason for declining” selections, I heard a confirmation message giving me the assignment number and time to show up.

Even before the kids arrived for class, I knew I was in for an interesting afternoon. On the class attendance list there were twins named (…and I kid you not) “Knowledge” and “Wisdom”.

I could be wrong but I can only speculate twenty or thirty years from now, the encounters these kids might have with their unusual monikers:

“Welcome to “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader”! On the show today, we have Knowledge from California. She’ll be playing for the big prize and with a name like hers; we have a sure winner…”

“President Wisdom, are you sure invading Canada is the best way to solve Universal Health Care?...”

These kids will eventually reach adulthood. As adults, they will probably marry and have children of their own. They will more likely than not want to give those children names.

If so, my only wish for these future parents is that better “knowledge” of American culture will give them the “wisdom” to choose names that won’t cause awkwardness and difficulties as their kids grow and mature.

P.S. The twenty Kinders drove me nuts today. My bias for the upper grade levels remains intact.

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