While writing a letter about himself to me, one of my 6th graders asked an interesting question. He wanted to know the word for “when birds come out of their eggs”. Although I had no idea how or why the word “hatch” had any relevance to the assignment at hand, I wrote it on the board for him.
The following day, while marking the letters, I learned that B likes technology, inventing machines, and “hatch chicken eggs” because it “helps” him. Curious. He didn’t, however, tell me how it helped him in that or the following letter draft.
Intrigued, I caught B in the corridor. I told him that he’s a very interesting person, and wanted to know exactly how hatching chicken eggs is helpful to him. B is a little thing with an impish grin. He first looked at me as if I have eight heads, and then he shot me a broad smile.
“It helps me with technology.”
“How many do you have?”
“Two.”
“What do you do with them?”
“We’re going to put them in a cage.”
He looked at me as if I had sprouted a ninth head when I told him I wanted to see pictures.
Later that day, B caught me before the lesson, still grinning.
“Miss Rebecca, what day do you want to see?”
“Day? How many are there?”
“7.”
“OK, I want to see 7 pictures.”
When his printer was fixed, he proudly brought me a picture of an egg incubator, a domed contraption with two eggs in it. He explained that he doesn’t have to turn the eggs because the machine does it by itself. Clearly it was the 6th day as indicated by the number in the corner. No need to see the others because I’m sure they’re almost identical.
Every day, B gives me a new report. His sister is going to film the chickens when they hatch. Well, she can only film them if they hatch in the morning. They’re going to hatch on either Saturday or Sunday. She’s going to bring them to school.
Clearly, B and I have bonded over the chicken report. I’m not sure what we’ll talk about after the chicks have hatched and turned into ugly adolescent birds. We’ve got a while to think of something.
