Here is a snippet from an impromptu conversation that unfolded in my classroom this week:
A student: Ms. Cahoon, are you going to take anybody trick or treating this year?
Me: No, I don’t think so.
Another student: Don’t you miss going trick or treating?
And another student: How long has it been since you’ve been trick or treating?
Me: Well, believe it or not, the last time I actually went trick or treating myself was when I was twenty-one.
Yet another student: Oh, then that was just last year, right!
Me: Uh . . . yeah!
And one more student: But I thought you were just eighteen now!
Me: Oh man, you guys are good!
Obviously, there are backstories here, at least two anyway—a birthday one and a Halloween one. Although the Halloween one really transpired first in the chain of events of my personal history, I shall commence with the birthday one.
When I began teaching overseas, I switched out third graders for seventh and eighth graders and then launched a largely new generation of lesson plans and classroom procedures more fitting for a middle school English Language Arts experience. So now at the beginning of a school year, usually the first day, I have students fill out a 3x5 index card with tidbits of information as I model on the board my own card full information. For their birthdays (half-birthdays for those born during the summer break), I give my students a “birthday kit,” which includes a card (a personal note from me), cake (Hostess cupcake usually), a candle, and ribbon around a “gift” (a pen and a pencil to capture ALL the words). This “birthday kit” is so much easier to assemble when I have index cards for each student arranged in “birthday order” and containing information about likes, dislikes, skills, and hopes and dreams. That “card” that I develop on the board in front of my students as they complete theirs contains all manner of details about me (some of which might surprise you) and all of it true . . . except my birthday. On my “card” I record my birthday as February 32, 1910. Actually, I bumped the year twenty years forward when I left Germany—there it was 1890—because figuring out my age quickly became trickier, for some reason, with the advent of the twenty-first century!
No matter how old, students are intrigued with the age of their teachers. Maybe, though, that is just an interest of humans in general. Anyway, I love waiting for that little instant between when I write February 32, 1910 on the board and hear a student—and sometimes it’s only one or two—say, “Hey, February doesn’t have 32 days . . . no month does!” And then the moan of curiosity thwarted, “1910 . . . that’s not your real birthday!” Of course, with 6th graders especially, there are always some who are really not quite sure if the “1910” is a joke or not. Age discussions rarely ensue on the first day, though; emotional intensity and information overload prevail. But they most certainly do surface again, especially when I share a personal story or on someone else’s birthday. After that first day of school, the first time a student asks me my birthday, I reply that I told everybody on the first day of school and then repeat “February 32, 1910.” Following a moment of shocked silence (somehow they rarely remember the first day presentation), some smarty—usually a guy, may I add—says something like, “I thought you were only 25!” And I say, “I believe you have an A in this class!” And then, baby, it’s game on!
And next, the Halloween story—a story that involves my brother Ken!
I started teaching school in the fall I was twenty-one. That first year of teaching I often drove the two-and-a-half-hour journey home on weekends. If I left as soon as school ended, I could be home for supper—one that Mom prepared! Apparently, Halloween was on a Friday that year. Ken, who would have been fifteen, and a couple of his friends had plans to partake in the trick or treat tradition at least once more before surrendering another piece of childhood. Before heading out, Ken and friends convinced me to accompany them. Although I felt some trepidation—no doubt because of my advanced age and dignified maturity—I suspect it was a fairly easy sell. I donned some sort of costume, of which I have no real memory, but I definitely recall having a strong desire for a disguise and noting that being way shorter than the guys would probably work in my behalf! Indeed, a lady at one of the houses we canvassed for treats did lecture the guys on perhaps being a bit old for trick or treating, but she never even made eye contact with me. So, in the end, I had the magical experience of trespassing—returning to partake one more time in a rite of childhood and sharing that experience with my brother. I still treasure the memory.
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