One fine day, twenty-five years from now, when my husband and I are living at the beach, and after a long, hard day of sitting on the beach, we’re going to sip our margaritas on the lanai, and look at each other and say, “I can’t believe we spent our lives teaching school.” Neither one of us set out to work with kids, let alone be school teachers, but both of us absolutely love our profession. We currently teach in the same county, and since I have been here almost a decade, the students that sat on my music notes those first couple of years are now the teenagers who sit in his classrooms and who wear the football pads on Friday nights for his team. It’s really fun to share stories of how I knew his kids when they were so little, and for me to see them all grown up and in high school now. I hope this never changes.

Everyone knows that from the mouth of babes flows a river of pure honesty and truthfulness… and that river happens to flow with the purest of intentions. In other words, kids have zero filters and don’t give two flips about how it sounds or comes across and more times than not, it’s so stinkin’ hilarious.

Here are a few memorable things from a decade of teaching thousands of children under the age of 9.

1. “This is boring!” – a kindergarten boy on his very first day of school and during his very first music class.
2. “Miss Rachel, your hair is always so smooth and neat, but today it looks like some birds be living in it!” – first grade boy
3. I was teaching about the percussion family of instruments and had a first-grade class trying to sound out the word “percussion” on the screen. Together the class and I read, “PER- KUH……” (of course I wanted them to then say, “SHUN” to make the word “percussion,” but this sweet little girl very matter-of-factly stated.. “PER….KUH….SET!” Percocet???? Girl, how do you even know that word??? Hahah.., we don’t really wanna know.
4. Me: “Beethoven was just a person who was angry at the world”. Kid: “Kind of like Donald Trunk? He hates us.”
5. Me, trying to rehearse kids for a program: “Why are you not singing?” Little boy: “I AM SINGING! In my head.”
6. “It’s like the instrument is my voice!” – a shy little second grader the first time she played a bass metallophone.

And last but not least, here is a story that I am asked to repeat at least three or four times per year to my teacher friends… it’s known as the “Banana Story…”

Years ago, maybe my second or third year of teaching, we had this little boy named Markel. Now Markel, being the dandy sort of boy that he was…, was always getting into mischief at school. There are students like that, who constantly keep you chuckling, and Markel was one of those boys.

Markel was a kindergartener this particular year and had been to lunch right before coming to music class. He came skipping into the room with dark jeans on and a navy blue collared “dress code” shirt on. I immediately noticed the white paint covering the tops of his little boy thighs, and all over the front of his dark shirt. It was white, dried up paint.., or so I thought.

“Markel!! Have you been painting?” I looked around the room at the other students… nobody else had dried up paint all over themselves. Markel looked at me with such a puzzled look and then said, “Naw! I ain’t been paintin’!” He was so confused as to why I thought he had been painting. I said, “Well what on earth is that all over you then??”

Now, when I’m telling this story orally, this is the point at which I’m laughing so uncontrollably hard that I can’t breathe, my face is bright red, and whoever it is that I’m talking to is like… WHAT??? GET IT OUT!!!! WHAT WAS ALL OVER HIM???

Markel, without skipping a beat then said to me, “We had bananas for lunch today!” I immediately thought, well what does that have to do with anything?? He could tell I was thinking that because then he went on to explain,“Well, I didn’t wanna eat my banana so I just squished it up in my hands and wiped it all over me!!”

WHATTTTTTTTTTT….. !!!

The story always comes with the visual of me showing my listener the exact squishing motion Markel made with his hands…. The same squish you would use if you are squishing stress balls. And so, by this time, I am struggling to fill my lungs to capacity with air because I’m laughing so ferociously hard. More times than not, my listener isn’t really laughing that hard… I guess you had to be there.

And just for the record… I’m laughing pretty hard right now.