There is a color system at Gus’s school, to measure one’s behavior on any given day. Green is good, yellow is a warning, red is a note home, and blue is “teacher’s choice”, which is worse than a note home (and, come to think of it, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?), and basically I don’t understand how they came up with the colors.
At first I thought the system was based on a stoplight. (Why the system has to be based on anything, I don’t know. That’s just how my brain works. Hmm. Your face is weird to me. What is it based on?)
So I thought it was based on a stoplight. Or as they call them in the South, redlights. (Even when they’re green. I know. And they call sneakers tennis shoes, regardless of whether you’ve ever picked up a racket. I KNOW. And they call sodas "cokes", even if they are Sprites, which, just GAH. I KNOW, I KNOW. I NEED TO MOVE BACK TO CONNECTICUT.)
So as I was saying. I thought the behavior system was all “Green means go. Yellow means be careful. Red means STOP what you are doing. And Blue means YOU BROKE THE STOP LIGHT. THAT IS HOW BAD YOU ARE.”
But then I found out about purple.
I didn’t even know there was such a thing as purple until one of Gus’s friends got a purple for going above and beyond the call of goodness. (Her father informed me that she gets purples all the time, and I was all, SAY WHAT? It is all we can do to get a green up in here. Also, I did not point out to him that it’s not really going above and beyond if you do it ALL THE TIME, but I was afraid it would make me sound like a jealous color hag. Which I’m not. No sir. Not at all. MY KINGDOM FOR A PURPLE.)
Purple is the holy grail of second grade.
And yesterday? Gus got … no color.
According to his notes, he went above Above and Beyond, so he could hardly bring himself to put a purple dot on his folder, because that would not do justice to the above and beyondness of his behavior.
(Give me the purple dot.)
(IS THIS A SYSTEM OR NOT?)
But I’m happy for Gus. I pressed him a little to find out what accounted for this more-than-purple reward (let’s call it Indigo), and apparently all it took was picking up some markers that someone else forgot to put away.
The way he told it, though, those markers might as well have been the Lost Boys of Sudan.
And they were just LYING there on the DESK. And no one was DOING anything about it, so I WALKED *very quietly* over to where those markers were, and not saying anything, Just doing the right thing, I picked them up, one by one, and put them back in the marker cubby. So yeah. The teacher said I made her day. It was pretty amazing.
Wow.
Pretty amazing indeed.
At first I thought the system was based on a stoplight. (Why the system has to be based on anything, I don’t know. That’s just how my brain works. Hmm. Your face is weird to me. What is it based on?)
So I thought it was based on a stoplight. Or as they call them in the South, redlights. (Even when they’re green. I know. And they call sneakers tennis shoes, regardless of whether you’ve ever picked up a racket. I KNOW. And they call sodas "cokes", even if they are Sprites, which, just GAH. I KNOW, I KNOW. I NEED TO MOVE BACK TO CONNECTICUT.)
So as I was saying. I thought the behavior system was all “Green means go. Yellow means be careful. Red means STOP what you are doing. And Blue means YOU BROKE THE STOP LIGHT. THAT IS HOW BAD YOU ARE.”
But then I found out about purple.
I didn’t even know there was such a thing as purple until one of Gus’s friends got a purple for going above and beyond the call of goodness. (Her father informed me that she gets purples all the time, and I was all, SAY WHAT? It is all we can do to get a green up in here. Also, I did not point out to him that it’s not really going above and beyond if you do it ALL THE TIME, but I was afraid it would make me sound like a jealous color hag. Which I’m not. No sir. Not at all. MY KINGDOM FOR A PURPLE.)
Purple is the holy grail of second grade.
And yesterday? Gus got … no color.
According to his notes, he went above Above and Beyond, so he could hardly bring himself to put a purple dot on his folder, because that would not do justice to the above and beyondness of his behavior.
(Give me the purple dot.)
(IS THIS A SYSTEM OR NOT?)
But I’m happy for Gus. I pressed him a little to find out what accounted for this more-than-purple reward (let’s call it Indigo), and apparently all it took was picking up some markers that someone else forgot to put away.
The way he told it, though, those markers might as well have been the Lost Boys of Sudan.
And they were just LYING there on the DESK. And no one was DOING anything about it, so I WALKED *very quietly* over to where those markers were, and not saying anything, Just doing the right thing, I picked them up, one by one, and put them back in the marker cubby. So yeah. The teacher said I made her day. It was pretty amazing.
Wow.
Pretty amazing indeed.
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