73- Plants Vs. Planets

The Resource Teacher called in sick today, which meant that I had to keep Demarcus and Turd Boy in my classroom all day long. This is usually not a problem. Demarcus is sweet and tries hard to follow along with our routine lessons. (Last week I brought Demarcus one of my old camping sleeping bags to take home. Call it white-girl ignorance, but I don’t want that child to freeze at night.) Turd Boy plays a lot and smells bad, but is no more disruptive than my other students. I like having the boys in my classroom; it gives them a chance to spend time with other children.
Today, I taught a lesson about the parts of a plant. I introduced the topic to the class and then spent a few minutes discussing background knowledge, by asking, “What do you already know about plants?” I wrote PLANTS in huge letters on the board.
One by one, my students volunteered facts about plants. I was impressed when Turd Boy told me that plants need sunlight to survive and when Demarcus said that plants can be both big and small. I wrote down all of the information that the kids knew about plants on the board, even when Josh told us that people can smoke certain plants to get high.
After reviewing the kids’ background knowledge, I projected a large diagram of a plant on the wall. In clear print, all the major parts of the plant were labeled and under each was a brief blurb describing its function. As a class, we discussed the functions of the parts of a plant. This was all review for the kids and was fairly simple.
For the conclusion of the lesson I asked the students to draw and label their own diagram of a plant in their Science notebooks. Kids seem to love anything that has to do with drawing and creativity, so they all went about this task with little resistance.
I circled the room, inspecting each diagram for accuracy. The drawings varied from elaborate detail to skimpy sketches, and I didn’t care as long as the information was correct.
I noticed Demarcus drawing intently, so I wandered over to his desk to see how things were going. Looking down at his notebook, I realized he had missed the boat. I knew not to expect much writing from the boy, but I did think he could at least draw a picture of a plant.
On the poor kid’s paper, floating amid dozens of yellow stars was a bright, beautiful drawing of Saturn.
Why is this kid drawing the solar system?
“Demarcus,” I asked, “What are you drawing?”
“A planet.” He held up his paper proudly. “Saturn.”
A planet.
I heard a few students giggle, so I turned around and gave Death Looks to random children.
“Well, Demarcus, do you see on the wall?” I pointed to the diagram. “We are studying plants today. Can you draw a plant for me?”
“I did! See?” He shoved his notebook close to my face. “Saturn.”
I tool out my pen and wrote plant and planet on a sheet of paper. I drew a picture under each word. “I know they look very similar, but the words are different. Planets in space have an “e” in their word, while plants that grow on the Earth do not.”
Demarcus looked glumly down at his picture. “Oh, I thought you said planets.”
I felt sad to see him look so disappointed. “Well, your picture of Saturn looks wonderful. I’d love to hang it on the wall by my desk. Right now, though, we are drawing a plant.”
Demarcus nodded and flipped to a new sheet in his notebook. He slapped himself in the forehead a few times and muttered, “Plants, plants, plants….”