Teaching Buddies...Thinking Outside the Box Can be Dangerous!!!

Every great now and then you get to work with a teacher that you really "click" with; someone who compliments your teaching style and makes co-teaching an absolute joy.  I've been very blessed in my teaching career; this joy has repeated itself several times over.  One of my "bestest" teaching buddies though was a girl named Shawn.  She is a GREAT teacher and I had the privilege of working with her for three wonderful years.  We didn't 'pal' around a lot after school; Shawn lived in a different town and was very young.  Then she was dating, then a young newly wed, just BUSY!  But school was FUN!  We collaborated together and stuck with each other through the muck and the mire and the joy and the pain and called the thing rodeo...Anyway, one year we had a darling of a lad, Antonio...Shawn can pull the most out of children.  She enjoys teaching them to think "outside the box."  One of my greatest "hoorahs" came one day when Shawn was just about ready to pull her hair out with Antonio.  She told me she had been trying some brainstorming and I promise I could just tell  Antonio had a "thunderstorm" going on...finally she had had all she could take.  Shawn said she pointed a shaking finger at him and said, "You, back in the box!"
Shawn is a very creative teacher.  When I was teaching with her on the same grade level, she enjoyed doing "crafts" with the kiddos.  I enjoyed watching!!!!  One time for Christmas they were making Sock Snowmen to hang on their lockers.  She told me Antonio had been laughing at all the others and had made some very rude comments about them.  Shawn had warned him if it didn't stop, his would soon be headless.  I just about rolled in the hall when I came out of my classroom later that day and observed poor Tony's locker...there it was a headless Snowman!!!!  Antonio delivered several delightful experiences in my classroom as well.   I was in the front of the classroom, maybe running all over it, teaching math.  I observed that Tony was looking down a lot and not in his book, but at something in his lap.  So I called on him for the answer to the next problem.  He did not miss a beat...he knew the answer...but when he lifted his little sixth grade head to deliver his answer he was sporting a new "Spy" mustache...He had just bought a Spy Kit from a book company and had to try it out.  That kid, wonder where he is now?  I know where Shawn is...I know where I am (most of the time)...These kids...Life is a joy, because that's how we roll....