Ellie ran toward me after school shouting, “That was the best day of my life!”
A few things go through a parent’s mind when a child shouts about how wonderful their day was when they had absolutely nothing to do with it. Things like, I knew they’d forget about Disney.
My initial reaction was to shout back, “Well it’s not over yet!” and then flash a new motorized scooter, but I really had nothing.
I waited to hear that Ellie’s class had an all day toboggan party while wearing 3D glasses and watching Despicable Me 2 while making dresses out of cotton candy or that they tossed buckets of paint around the classroom and got to walk around in bare feet leaving prints on the floors and walls. For some reason, I always wanted to do that.
Ellie explained her excitement.
They had a supply teacher named “Mr. Jason.” I’m going to guess Mr. Jason’s first name is actually Jason having never met anyone with Jason as a last name. Further, I’m betting Mr. Jason has a last name so long and unpronounceable he sticks to something the kids will understand. Also, his name might be Steve, when you’re a supply teacher you can totally reinvent yourself. Score 1, Mr. Jason.
“Mr. Jason came up with an awesome game we played all day.” Any time a student did anything well, he put a penny into a red jar. Whenever anyone acted up, he moved the penny into the blue jar.
At no time were the kids ever on the receiving end of the money or the jars so I failed to understand what was so great about this guy and also, a little jealous I hadn’t come up with operation ‘mystifying penny swap.’
When the students reached 20 pennies in the “good” jar, they were rewarded with something like 20 jumping jacks.
So, not only were the kids doing their work, earning money they would never see a dime of, their reward was exercise? Score 2, Dr. J.
At the end of the school day, the kids had earned so many pennies, Mr. Jason handed out the grand prize.
When Ellie flashed her trophy in my face, I had to hold out my arms to keep her from fainting.
“Look Mom! It’s wood.”
Yep, a chunk of bark.
Mr. Jason, you are my hero.
