He Speaks the Truth!

Personalities. There are all kinds in this big old world, and in second grade classes, we're discussing them as part of a unit on respecting ourselves and others. We're learning that the world needs all types of personalities because, for one thing, they help guide people in choosing careers, and of course our world needs all kinds of workers to fill all kinds of jobs! As part of the lesson, we talked about a variety of personality traits, and then I asked the children to rate themSELVES on some of them. They were to use their fingers to show me how much of each trait they considered themselves to have. For example, if they were naturally super friendly, they might hold up 8, 9, or 10 fingers. If they were more reserved and shy, they'd only hold up a few. I stressed that there were no right or wrong answers and asked them to be honest in their assessment of themselves. In a Thursday afternoon class, we were nearing the end of this activity, and that was a good thing because the last answer from the class cracked us up and created a moment of chaos! The question was this: "On Saturdays when you have a free day to have fun and be yourself, how LOUD do you like to be?" As students thought about the question and started holding up fingers to answer, one little Dennis the Menace who almost always has enthusiasm written all over his face blurted at high volume, "I'm gonna need a few more FINGERS!" Immediately, two of his buddies sitting on the carpet near him held up all their fingers and lined them up with "Dennis's", enabling him to have a score of 30! Yep, that's about right!