vocabulary games. They both loved being the boss of things, so they’d taken charge of reading the directions. Dustin was in a silent reading group, and I smiled as I saw him use his finger to track the words as he read.
I glanced up from time to time as my small group worked through a reading passage, finding the meanings of underlined words using context clues. Dustin got up once to get an eraser, and a second time to blow his nose, but each time he sat back down, he tapped his own shoulder and picked his book back up determinedly. He’d come really far this year.
Halfway through the rotation, Jamie Nguyen got up from her table and walked over to the pencil sharpener. After a moment, Dustin followed her. I watched them for a bit. Dustin didn’t need a pencil for silent reading, but we’d talked about how to take little breaks when he got frustrated, so I figured that was what he was doing.
I paused as the two of them began to talk, but then I heard Dustin say, ‘show you the word in the book,’ and I smiled. He was asking Jamie for help, and if there was one thing Jamie liked more than bossing people around, it was helping them. Dustin started back towards his table and Jamie followed.
I turned back to my group, but looked up again after a minute. Neither Dustin nor Jamie had reached the table, and sure enough, I found them over by the windows, looking at the plants we had growing on the windowsill.
For our science unit on ecosystems, we were learning how different plants grow best in different environments. Since I was also on the committee working to save McIntyre Beach, I’d decided to focus on environments local to the island of Summersea. We were going on a field trip to the beach itself next week, and in the meantime, we were experimenting to see what kinds of conditions different plants preferred.
Still, we were working on reading now, not science, so I raised my voice just enough to carry across the room and said, “Is everyone where they’re supposed to be right now?”
Dustin’s head whipped around and Jamie flushed.
“Sorry,” Dustin said. He pushed himself away from the windows, but his hand caught one of the flower pots and sent it crashing to the floor behind him. It was plastic, so nothing broke, but everyone—Anne included, of course—looked up to see what had caused the commotion.
“Okay,” I said, standing up quickly but keeping my voice calm. “Looks like we had an accident. I’d like everyone to stay in their seats while I take a look.”
I couldn’t stop them from craning their necks, but I hoped I could keep most of them from trampling in the dirt. Dirt which was actually more like mud at this point, since we’d watered the plants yesterday.
Dustin looked two seconds from tears as I reached him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jackson. I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s okay, it was an accident.” I tried to sound soothing. “And what do we do when we have accidents?”
Dustin sniffled. “Try to find a lesson for the future?”
“Exactly.” I smiled encouragingly as I bent to turn the flower pot right side up. “So, can you two think of any lessons we can learn from this?”
“Not to get out of our chairs,” Jamie suggested.
“That could be one lesson,” I agreed. “But sometimes we have to get up. I wonder if there’s a lesson we can learn for those times.”
Dustin still looked upset, so I continued, “I bet we could learn to be a little more aware of our environment, and to move a little more carefully. It’s not bad to be curious about the plants—scientists are always curious—but scientists are also careful.”
“Did I ruin the experiment?” Dustin asked.
“Not at all.” I said it firmly, still hoping I could prevent a full-blown melt-down. “It was unexpected, but unexpected things happen all the time in science. In fact, I think we can learn something from this.”
I turned back to the rest of the class, who were, unsurprisingly, halfway out of their seats watching our conversation.
“I wonder if everyone would be able to be quiet and careful and join us over here. Do you think you could do that?”
Clearly we weren’t going to get a lot of reading done for a while, so we might as well pivot into science. It still took a minute, but after a discussion about the roots of the plants—which were