I Want To Be Good

By Martha Ramondetta

Hello, my name is Danny and today I just love school. But I didn't always love school. In fact, I used to hate it.

You see, school has so many rules and I just hate rules. You have to raise your hand to speak ­ imagine that? And only one person can speak at a time ­ how dumb! And you can never even whisper when your teacher is speaking­stupid, stupid, stupid rules.

And I had to do work! That was the worst! That was just the worst ­ paper, pencil, crayons, scissors ­ yuck, yuck, yuck!

But then there were the fun projects and those were going to be the best! There was "center time" ­ games, legos, puzzles, housekeeping ­ yippee, yippee!

On the first day of school I decided that I just wouldn't do any dumb work or follow any of those quiet rules, but I was very interested in that "center time." You see, I didn't care about learning or being smart. I just wanted to have fun.

However, my teacher had other plans. She said, "no work, no play." But I didn't believe her the first time she gave me paper and crayons. I decided to play a game with the crayons ­ flicking them across the room!

Everyone thought that I was pretty funny ­ everyone except my teacher. I had to sit in "time-out." It was pretty boring.

Then finally it was "Center Time." Hooray! I was so excited. It was time to try all that neat stuff ­ the puzzles, the legos, the farm center ­ I just couldn't wait! But guess what? My teacher called everyone's name except mine.

She came over and said, "No work, no play." I was sooo mad. I would fix her. I screamed so loud even my ears hurt. Now everyone was looking at me­everyone except my teacher.

Well, I would show her. I threw myself on the floor and started kicking my feet ­ my mom says you call it a tantrum. Now, I was really mad. I took a magic marker bucket and threw all those markers-hundreds of them-all over the floor. What a big mess.

Then I noticed my teacher coming over. I knew she had enough. Finally, she was going to let me play. Boy, was I wrong. She didn't even seem mad. She just said, "Now the good news is you have to pick up all those markers, but the bad news is, no "center time".

I couldn't believe it. I was so furious. She didn't seem upset at all.

She put her arm around me and said, "Danny, I'm sorry you're feeling so mad and I'm sorry you can't have "center time" today. But you didn't do any work for me. When all the other children were working, you were playing 'flick the crayons."

Hey, how did she know the name of my game? I guess she's not as dumb as I thought. Then she started about those rules. She said how important it is to follow the rules especially doing my work.

She told me that doing my schoolwork would make me smart, even though she thought I was pretty smart already. She told me some of the great things I would learn about if I did my work. Then she told me when I finished my work, I would be able to explore all those great centers.

You know, I think I'm going to try some of that work. I guess it's not so dumb after all. I know that I want to be smart and I know I want to explore those centers.

So, right now, I can't wait until tomorrow, because I want to be good.

© 2006 Martha Ramondetta

Martha Ramondetta is a retired teacher from the Holyoke, Massachusetts school district.