Friday - my daemon

Here he is. My handsome dog Friday busy at work. My students know that he will plod down the hallway into the office as we work on reading and writing. He usually shows up as soon as they start to read a text aloud. This works out perfectly since students always want Friday to come in the room. So, they read with a nice clear voice and Friday never disappoints! He waits patiently for the hour to end and then really enjoys walking them to the door. This may have to do with the fact that he usually gets a treat for doing one of his many tricks too!

My favorite story of Friday has to do with teaching a little boy, A., an English Language Learner student I had this past spring. A. is from a working-class neighborhood here on Nantucket and, just as I remember doing from my own childhood, all the kids play outside in a swooping group of kids. My arrival was usually a signal to A. that his play time was over - NOT my favorite entrance! He was always cooperative and VERY polite though. One time Friday came with me and was sitting in the front seat as I pulled over to park on the edge of the dusty dirt road across from A.'s house. As soon as he saw Friday A. very smartly turned the "Aw, I gotta go inside now." moment into, "Hey! look, MY teacher has a cool dog!" (and we can all talk about the dog so I WON'T go inside!) I completely indulged him as he asked if Friday could come out and do his tricks for the pack of 4th and 5th grade boys who came over with their various skateboards, whiffle bats, and bikes. A. milked it for all it was worth. Since he is one of the youngest of this group (and the ONLY one who had to be tutored!) he wasn't going to miss this opportunity to show off his connection with Friday. And, of course, Friday complied in his patient grandfatherly way. Good dog!!

Finally, the teacher in me had to end the whole dog-trick session and announce that REALLY we had to go inside and get some work done. Friday was tired and back into the car he went for a nap. And into the house we went to do some work. And off in a swirl of dust and shouting went the other boys. A. and I had only read one text and were just starting to get some writing done in his quiet dining room when the door opened and in trooped A.'s older brother with a portion of the boys. This had never happened before and I watched quietly to see how long the unusual interruption was going to last. I was thinking something like, "Man, give these kids an inch and they take a mile!" They all piled on the couch and started to fire up a VIDEO game! So, I spoke up and reminded them that A. and I were working and that they would have to wait quietly til we were done. Off goes the TV. On comes all the questions . . ."Why does A. have to be tutored? When will you be done? Can't he do tutoring some other day? What are you doing?" To which I patiently (sort of) answered we would be done soon after writing. "So, what is A. writing?". Well, that gave me pause because A., in an effort to write AS LITTLE as possible (very typical of a writing student) was writing something uninteresting like, "I have brown eyes." So, I didn't really answer and said something "enticing" like - "Oh, we can write about absolutely ANYthing we want! Would you like to join us?" Without missing a beat one boy waved his arm and said, "We'll take a pass thanks." speaking for the whole group. That's when A. performed yet another deft social maneuver and said HE was writing about Friday and all the tricks he could do!

Twenty minutes later I had to go and here is the scene I left. Five dusty boys sitting at the table with A. and all the paper and markers I could find in my bag strewn across the table. Each boy was hard at work working on his own story and picture. They talked animatedly over each other as they read their sentences to each other, passed the markers around, and asked questions like, "Does that sound good?", "Is Friday a capital?", "How do you spell speak?" "Is it r-o-l-e or r-o-l-l over?". They barely noticed me leaving.

And Friday was waiting in the car.