IN THE CLASSROOM -- Laughter and Thanksgiving

Young Chang

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which a Daily Pilot writer

visits a Newport-Mesa school and writes about the experience.

Chery Weaver is not your typical teacher. She doesn’t over-enunciate

when speaking to her first-grade students at Page Private School. She

doesn’t talk down the slightest bit.

Weaver is, instead, subtly sarcastic with dry humor and a straight

face. Her students find her funny.

During Monday morning’s lesson on Thanksgiving, she asked them about

the pilgrims’ journey from England and their life in America. She

good-naturedly teased the first-graders when they suggested that turkeys

were a crop.

Then came the crafts. Weaver passed out construction paper, each with

outlines of an American Indian’s headband and feathers in assorted

colors. The assignment was to cut out the headband and the feathers,

paste them onto the band and wear them.

“You get what you get and you like it,” she said, explaining that no

one was to trade papers, only individual feathers.The first-graders

mimicked her, all the while laughing: “You get what you get!”

Soon, there was chaos. Laughter erupted -- often for no apparent

reason -- and children jumped out of their seats. The students seemed to

forget, with scissors and glue sticks in hand, the rules and manners that

come with being in school. But they had fun.

Wesley Krautkramer taped his eyes shut. Victoria Smith wrapped a

lavender sweater around her head and was asked to leave the room for a

few minutes. And Funmi Kalejaiye illegally swapped headbands with a

friend. She was only allowed to trade feathers, remember?

Weaver asked, “Is that a feather? That long thing?”

To Wesley’s tape prank, she quipped, “It doesn’t even work on your

mouth.”

When students waved scissors in the air, she said, “I want to see you

all walk out with 10 fingers.”

She reminded the first-graders that they had only five feathers each,

so if one of them somehow ended up with six, she would take one away.

When one little boy asked Weaver to staple his headband because he

couldn’t estimate the diameter of his head, Weaver said, “I’ll just glue

it to your head. Wanna wear it all day?”

Her young audience found her hilarious -- even when she didn’t mean to

be.

Toward the end of class, Weaver announced, “Someone stole my stapler!”

Victoria squealed with delight, but offered no confession.

FYI

WHO: Chery Weaver’s first-grade class

WHAT: Learning about the pilgrims and Thanksgiving

WHERE: Page Private School in Costa Mesa