In recent weeks, some of the members of our family have achieved success, both behaviorally and academically.

The whole class is proud to recognize these successes!

Here are some shots from Thursday's field trip.  We came, and we saw, but we didn't quite conquer.  While there was much to learn from this field trip, I think the teachers learned more than the students.  They (the students) couldn't contain their excitement, and they repeatedly wanted to point out features to each other or express their joy to the world.

Bluff Dwellers Cave has a sizable rock, mineral, and fossil collection, housed in the museum near the cave exit. There is also a local history display, as well as manmade artifacts found near and in the cave itself.

Once inside the cavern, students quickly discovered that this a tight fit in places.  They saw many speleothems around them, heard some cave humor, and even located three or four bats as well as a cave cricket.  They saw the balancing rock, the cave duck.

We're attempting something different, this year.  Rather than rotate music programs, fourth grade is going to start being the year that honors the veterans of our armed forces.  The reason for this change is 

• We believe fourth graders are on the cusp of maturity and can understand the reason for Veterans Day.
• Through the years, some grades have gotten to present more programs through the year than others.  By securing the program in fourth grade, every child who attends our school (and stays at our school) will get to present this program.
• We want the program to focus on more than just the music program at Cecil Floyd.  While music is still a major part of the Veterans Day program, our focus will be more upon the meaning of the holiday and on honoring vets in everyday life.

Please mark your calendar now for this important event, which will be presented in the afternoon and again in the evening on November 10, 2016.  We may need some assistance with costuming, special effects, and set decoration; please let us know if you can help.

We've talk in class, of late, about reactions.  Nothing to do with chemistry, mind you, but more about our reactions to things that happen around us.  We could easily apply such to chemistry, geology, or other sciences, but at the same time we might apply it to history - to how nations react to other nations or how politicians react to the news of the day.

But we would rather, first, discuss our reactions to one another.

There are ways in which we grow up that form who we are as adults.  When we look back, it's easier to see how our friends affected us.  We see how a teacher broke us down.  We see how our parents' parenting changed how we see the world.

But as children, we likely did not see all of this happening.  We simply reacted.

The doctor hammered on my knee once, and my leg kicked.  I didn't have to think about it.  I didn't take special courses to learn how to kick when hammered on.  I just kicked.  I could have controlled it, but I didn't.

The same occurs with fourth graders.  They see things, they hear things, they smell things, and they immediately react without restraint.  Without restraint they react.  I suppose it's part of learning.  If I don't stop what I am doing as a teacher and address the reaction, I feel like I have failed in a major part of my job.  As a teacher, I am a partner with the community in which I live.  I have an obligation to try everything I can to develop good citizens.

I saw a statistic this week:  it said kids make up 20% of the population, but they make up 100% of the future.  To a reflective educator, that hits hard.  I puts me in mind of the statement made more than 20 years ago by the grandmother of a boy in my second grade class:  through tears, she told me that I was the only calm male influence for her grandson.  Obviously, her words stuck with me.  They pressed on my shoulders as I realized their weight.

So when I see fourth graders reacting to every little thing that is said and everything that catches their attention, I need to react to their reactions.

For example, last week some students found a spider on the playground.  No big deal, right?  It might even be expected that there is a high probability of a spider camping out in the dark, shadowy protection of a slide.  But instead of leaving the spider alone, they reacted.  Rather than observing the spider with curiosity, they reacted. And a mob gathered.  One would have thought a fight had broken out at the local saloon.

The crowd gathered with pitchforks and protest signs.  Some simply wanted to see what was happening, but others wanted to mess with the spider.  Someone wanted to show bravery by touching the thing.  Someone else wanted to be silly and flip the spider onto someone else.  Another person just wanted to stomp on it.  Everything that happened was a reaction to everything else.  And members of the mob turned on each other.  Groups shot out of the mob to tell the teacher on duty, all talking at once as you might suspect.  Only in an elementary school, right?

But you can see the progression of today's "society", can't you?  The playground is a microcosm of everything that happens on the cable news channels.  The same kind of thing happens during protests of injustice or riots rooted in disagreement.  The same thing happens on black Friday, when shoppers stomp to death a clerk at Target just to be the first to pick up their special deals.

We as teachers must be ready to reflect with our students about thinking reasonably during such crowd formations. Students must be made aware that they only assembled in the mob because their curiosity got the better of them. They must start to think in such situations more about safety for themselves and others.  We have to get them to think of alternative reactions.  We have to get them to consider that they do not have to follow the crowd when the crowd is being reactionary.

How many people have done things just because they saw the larger group doing it?  How many people take the easy way out of allowing the popular view to make decisions for them?

I know...I tend to think big about little things (spiders), but I think there is an opportunity for learning big things from little experiences.

Every time someone makes a nonsensical comment, I do not have to react with a comment of my own.  When 20 kids all react in such a way, chaos ensues.  Every time someone passes gas, I do not have to laugh. Likewise, I do not have to critically point out other people's mistakes my neighbor.  Where is the benefit to any of these?  Do I feel better about myself when I belittle others?  Why else would I comment, laugh, and criticize unkindly?

Reactions matter.

Safety matters.

Kindness matters.

The future matters.

We will continue to develop children in our classrooms by openly discussing such matters with positive intents.

As a follow up to last weeks concert-presentation by the Harlem Quartet, Hoggatteers wrote friendly letters to the musicians.  We made such a personal connection that I thought we should resurrect the lost art of letter writing. Find below some of the lines students included, on their own, in their letters (Note:  I only edited the capitalization at the beginning of their sentences where needed.).

Read the sentence below.  Do you see any problems?