...A Big, Beautiful Butterfly

This post is primarily for Bethie who always asks if I have any funny work stories. I do love my job.

This past week, I have been reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" with some of my students. It is a class of special ed students who have down syndrom, autism, etc. They are such an endearing group of kiddos and we always have a ball together. We read the story together and as I came to the ending, I read... "He built a cocoon and stayed inside for more than 2 weeks. Then, he nibbled a hole in the cocoon and pushed his way out and..." At this point, I remembered that a co-worker had told me that she had a butterfly puppet I could use. "Perfect," I thought. " I will build anticipation by leaving the room and come back in with the puppet for the ending. They'll love it!" So, I told the kids to "wait a minute" as I walked out of the room. They knew I obviously had some sort of surprise so they were literally on the edge of their seats. I ran across the hall to grab the butterfly, but the teacher who had made the offer was absent. I searched frantically through all of her cabinets, but to no avail. The clock was ticking and I had a class full of kids waiting for me to return with some "grand finale" and I had nothing! As I got back to the door of the classroom, empty-handed, I knew I had to do SOMETHING. So, I poked my head in the door, said "And he became...", and then I went half hopping/half prancing in while I flapped my arms gracefully in the air and concluded "a BIG, BEAUTIFUL butterfly!" Now, it would have been one thing had I made this entrance into a room full of students ONLY, but that was not the case. In addition to my 7 students, there were a handful of adult aides watching my sad attempt at a human butterfly. In order to minimize the attention on me (because at this point I was feeling really awkward), I invited all of the kids to "Come on everyone, be a big, beautiful butterfly" signaling for everyone to stand up and join in the "fun." Now, generally speaking, this group of kids is uninhibited when it comes to odd or unusual social behaviors, but even they understood the absurdity of my behavior and sat there staring at me blankly. Needless to say, my grand finale wasn't so grand and we all knew it. Maybe next time kids...