Fan Mail

"Dear Ms. Ebsten,
I am sory for acting silly yesterday. Today I will have a beder behavyor. I will lisin beder. Also I will cosantrat harder. From XXX"

I love getting these apology notes. I also love kids who misbehave. Life is short and impeccably behaved aim to please students are no fun. I consider myself lucky and privileged to get to teach such a large and varied group (about 87 kids ages 3 to 9 over the course of a week) in school plus my private tutees (older, wealthy high school kids) and Street Squash ones (7th grade, inner city  kids). I try to find a connection with each kid so that he/she can be successful and I hope to bring some humor to it all. Last year, someone in the author of this note's class wrote "Ms Ebsten is BAD" on an eraser. I suspected it was this child, and a year later, the spelling of my name on the apology note confirms it. You can't please all of the children all of the time, but I am amused most of the time:)