\u201cNice dance moves, Buddy!\u201d<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t sure what my brother, calling from Edmonton, was talking about. But then he noted that he had recently seen the Inside Out launch video<\/a> and proceeded to regale me with how much his daughter\u2014my niece\u2014was killing herself laughing at her Uncle Seth dancing in the library with his students. I wasn’t surprised by her laughter (the direct correlation between my dance moves and hilarity is striking), nor was I surprised by the distance the video had travelled (Facebook is everywhere!), but I was surprised by how quickly a \u201cmaybe\u201d can turn into a teasing call from Alberta.<\/p>\n And so starts the quick year-in-review of <\/em>s<\/strong><\/em>trange things\u00a0I’ve\u00a0learned in my first year at ACS<\/span><\/em>:<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Saying \u201cmaybe\u201d to an invitation to write for a school blog quickly morphed, not only into actual writing, but also into participation in an impromptu dance session (with mirthful moves included).<\/p>\n When K-B was lined up outside my office to use the nearby bathroom, one of the boys peeked in and then quickly retreated, saying to his friend, \u201cCareful! That guy eats Kindergarteners!\u201d<\/em>\u00a0I didn’t want to get that reputation so soon at ACS, so I popped out in the hallway, cookie in hand, and reassured the boys that I prefer cookies. They seemed relieved (not just because of the recent bathroom visit). I then might have mentioned that I\u2019d wait until they were in grade 1 when they would be more nutritious and filling\u2026.<\/p>\n Sometimes in PE classes, I can\u2019t resist joining in with the activities. I\u2019m especially susceptible during basketball drills, dodge ball (who hasn’t wanted to hit a moving target?), volleyball serving, and particularly, Capture-the-Flag. So when we went out onto the snowy field to have a boys-versus-girls round of the game, and the girls invited me to play on their team, I couldn’t resist.\u00a0 I didn’t capture the flag\u2014one of the girls did\u2014but the boys didn’t get anywhere close to our flag (perhaps due to some hyper-vigilant pursuit of flag-capturing gentlemen). After soundly losing round one, some boys called out, \u201cYou girls only won because Mr. Bakker is a cheater!\u201d\u00a0<\/em> While I object to the cheating label, I was reminded to restrain my exuberance and give the boys a chance.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll just be working in my office or classroom when a student will dive right into their amazing story about their broken arm, new tractor, favorite sports team, or idea to raise funds for Run for Water. One especially wonderful story was when a grade 4 girl brought a container with a bunch of rabbits by for me to see\u00a0(she was going to show them to K-A). She popped into my office and highlighted her favorite one-eared rabbit. I had never seen one of those before! Now I know that one-eared rabbits exist! More importantly, I know what a distinct privilege\/honor\/blessing it is to have so many young elementary students want to share exciting events in their lives with me.<\/p>\n Whether meaningful or strange, I\u2019m very grateful to ACS (and particularly its delightful students) for the opportunity to keep learning at school!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cNice dance moves, Buddy!\u201d I wasn\u2019t sure what my brother, calling from Edmonton, was talking about. But then he noted that he had recently seen the Inside Out launch video and proceeded to regale me with how much his daughter\u2014my niece\u2014was killing herself laughing at her Uncle Seth dancing in the library with his students. […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-elementary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cMaybe\u201d = \u201cYes\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
Kindergarten Students Taste Bad<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
I \u201cCheat\u201d in PE<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
One-Eared Rabbits are Awesome!<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n