Preparing for President’s Day

Coral Wilson

Leftover cookies, crackers, raisins and candy are shoved back into

backpacks and coat pockets as quickly as they had come out. The

ground outside is still wet from the rain, preventing the

second-grade class at Village View Elementary School in Huntington

Beach from going outside to play. Restless energy fills the air.

Recess inside is no fun, no fun at all.

Toby Henry, 7, stuffs his Capri-Sun and a bag of chips into his

black backpack, which hangs loosely on the back of his chair. A trail

of broken chips marks the trip from his desk to his bag, and Toby

leaves the flap unzipped, hanging wide open, in his hurry. His

neighbor, Haley Huffman, 7, knocks the chair over, pulling it back up

as she follows in a rush just steps behind.

It is reading time, and teacher Candace Atchison had beckoned the

class to gather around her in a circle on the floor.

Atchison announces their new “reader’s theater” project. The

subject is George Washington.

“Some of you will have two parts, and some will have three,”

Atchison says as she hands out the scripts.

The students immediately start comparing.

“I have three parts.”

“I have four!”

“I am a boy!”

“I only have two.”

Their teacher suggests the students use their reading voices to

make the words more interesting.

Christian Layhee, 8, jumps at the challenge. Waving his arms, he

reads how Washington’s birthday is not really on the day that people

celebrate it today.

“I like having two birthdays. Wouldn’t you?” Christian exclaims,

raising his eyebrows for humor.

“And you, and you?” He adds his own words for emphasis, pointing

at his classmates.

Hannah Wagner, 8, tries a serious voice, bringing her voice down

several notches.

Suddenly, 7-year-old Jake Bauers falls dramatically into the

middle of the circle, claiming someone had pushed him.

After getting Jake up again, the students brainstorm voice and

costume ideas and then settle down to read the rest of the script.

Two boys pull the hoods over their heads and collapse on their

stomachs to sleep. Other students sit cross-legged, wobble back and

forth on their knees, rest their chins in their arms or move around

nervously, experimenting for the most comfortable position.

Christian pretends to be a dog, taking bites at his neighbor’s

paper.

Two more students drop to the floor as the dialogue drones on.

Finally, by the end of the reading, seven sleepy second-graders were

down, and others were on their way, yawning widely to express their

utter boredom.

It is time for lunch, and all students quickly jump back on their

feet.

“Who cares about George Washington, anyway?” they seem to wonder

as they grab their coats and head for the door.

His biggest accomplishment, after all, was getting them a day off

from school.