Meeting Mr. Stockett

Every year, Robyn's second graders put on a play of "The Ugly Duckling."  It's a cute little musical that chronicles the tale of the ugly duckling, starting with the mean bullies who think he's ugly and ending with his victorious return as a swan.

It is a full scale play with speaking parts, singing solos, special effects (They turn off the lights and shine a flashlight on a lighting bolt during a storm, awesome stuff) and, of course, plenty of singing by the second grade choir, so that all can participate.

This blog post isn't really about their play, but I just had to mention it because I'm so impressed by it every year.  When I was in Elementary school they threw all 30,000 kids on a stage and had us all sing in unison and called that good.

What this blog post is about, is the saga of "meeting Mr. Stockett."  You see, I like to go meet Robyn's class once a year.  It's fun for me to to put some faces to some of the names she talks about all the time.  Apparently, it's also fun for them to meet the mythical Mr. Stockett, of whom all the legends speak.

I generally take the afternoon off of work and go to Robyn's school on the day of their Ugly Duckling play.  I get to meet the class for a bit and then go watch their play.  I'm also usually the camera man, so that the kids can watch themselves at the end of the year.

A few days ago, Robyn let her kids know that I would be coming to see their play.  They were so excited!  Not only would they get to meet me, but they would get to perform for me.  Can you think of anything more amazing?

Like any good teacher, Robyn made sure to capitalize on something they were excited about, and use it as a motivator.  The kids had to be really good.  They had to earn all the letters in my name.  Each time they did something letter worthy, another letter was put on the board.  If they could spell, "Mr. Stockett", before the afternoon of the play, then they would get to meet me in the flesh.

They did it.  Aren't you so proud of them?

When I arrived in the classroom, I walked in while the kids were doing their math assignment.  As soon as they saw me they began whispering to each other, "It's Mr. Stockett...  That has to be Mr. Stockett...  Look at Mr. Stockett."  They all looked at me in awe.  The moment they had waited their entire lives for was here. It was really Mr. Stockett standing before them.

Robyn gathered them all on the carpet and I got to sit in front of them all while they asked me questions.  There were some hard hitting journalists in that group.  They asked very relevant questions such as, "If you were going to become a Jedi who would you want to train you?" (Clearly Yoda)

After asking the personal questions, we played a game called "Stump Mr. Stockett."  The rules were simple, they could ask me any question about something they learned in School.  (That way they don't ask something random like, "What's my middle name?")  But the other rule is that they actually have to know the answer.

They asked difficult stuff like, "What's 5 + 6?" for a while, but then they upped the ante to stuff like, "What's 500 + 600?".

When they realized they couldn't stump me on math, I had to tell them the life cycle of various plants and animals.  Finally someone won the game.  They asked me the 3 types of rocks.  I knew igneous and sedimentary, and I knew the third one was a hard rock that was formed by pressure over time, but I couldn't remember that metamorphic was the name.  How embarrassing.

Finally, we all went to the auditorium for the performance.  I sat next to a mom who told me about her son who wouldn't stop talking about how excited he was to meet Mr. Stockett the night before.  I told her I hoped he wasn't disappointed now that he'd actually met me.

After the program I told them they did awesome and gave them all high fives.

The moral of the story is that all of you who see me all the time need to learn something from these second graders and be a little more excited about spending time with me.  It wouldn't hurt you to occasionally whisper to each other in pure awe when I walk into a room.