Tuesday Twitterings of the Mundane

"Are we gonna do anything exciting/interesting today?"

"No,"  often punctuated with a sarcastic "I'm planning to bore you to death."

I couldn't help but chuckle and think of that common exchange---as students entered my classroom---when I read a former student-turned-teacher's Facebook status this morning.

Hers was a little different.

"Preparing for the big question of the day, 'Coach, are we gonna run the mile today?'" she wrote.  "Although the answer is 'no,' I one day hope they ask, 'Coach, do we GET to run the mile today?'"

I don't know how many classes of P.E. students she has today or how many of them she figures will ask the question, but I do know that I can identify.

Mundane interrogation at the beginning of class hours is fairly universal, I believe.  

And, the occasional sarcastic retort often gives teachers/coaches a brief moment of satisfaction.

Of course, we're going to do something exciting/interesting today!  We're going to learn, or we're going to put a mile run under our belt and we're going to feel glad!

For some reason, enthusiasm seldom meets the hopes of the teacher who prepares endlessly for the betterment of students.  

That's life, though, and we move on.  Somehow all those "boring" class hours and all those miles run eventually add up to some successes. 

I'm hoping for this teacher today that a student comes up to her at the end of the class hour and says, "Thanks, I needed that . . . ."  

Seems we're all programmed to utter those questions in our everyday lives where we generally know the answer but we're still hoping for different responses. 

"How are you?" often elicits the response, "Fine."  

I caught myself a couple of times last week when someone issued this friendly greeting.

"How are you?"

"Fine," I responded, then catching myself.  "No, I'm not fine, I have a cold."  

I was taught honesty.  It's not nice to lie.  

I was NOT fine and the world needed to know it, or so I thought. 

Plus, it made the conversation a little more engaging.  

To say "fine" meant sure closure to the interchange.  

Who really cares if you're fine? Not much to discuss there.

If  you're NOT fine, though,  and you've got a cold, that can lead to a variety of conversational directions.  

Of course, if anyone cared, I could go into the whole litany of being in the high country with dry, cold air and possibly dealing with an allergy instead of a cold cuz, after all, my nose runs only during certain hours of the day and the sneezes come along with that runny nose.  

Now, isn't that more interesting than "fine."  

Maybe to some people.  Probably not to others.  

But, at least, we've broken the pattern and provided the good-hearted interrogator something of substance to ponder until the next "fine" person comes along to be greeted with "How are you?"  

I started a habit years ago in my classroom of almost always ending the hour with "Have a good day."  

It was amazing to me how that simple wish for the students inspired many of them to do the same----even reciprocating to me, their teacher.  

"Have a good day, Mrs. Love," some would say after coming to the desk to ask about an assignment.  

It felt good, so I knew my daily finale statement had to feel good to most of them. 

I still do that in the mornings while sitting here typing away at my blog.

"So long," I'll hear downstairs as Bill starts through the door his first time.  Bill often comes back inside for forgotten items.  

"Have a good day," I'll say, sometimes asking where he's headed on this particular day.  

Then, the door shuts, and he's off to work.  

I'm back to typing.  

Often, the door opens again.  He grabs whatever he's forgotten.  

The door opens and closes.

No "So long's," and no "Have a good day's."  

One per day is enough for us to know that whatever happens, we have hoped for the best and have expressed it. 

So, the mundane interchanges are hardly empty utterances.  When we don't hear them---that's when to worry. 

So long.  Have a good day.  Do something interesting, like maybe run the mile!