From the Classroom

Every Monday I introduce and practice with my class the new vocabulary words we will work on during the week in reading. One of the activities I use to do this is to have the students record the words in their vocabulary notebooks, where we also draw a picture to remind us of what each word means.

One of our words today was call. We talked about how this could mean to call someone on the telephone. When I went to draw the picture for the students to copy, I automatically (without even thinking about it) drew a phone with a "banana shaped receiver", a long curly cord, and a rotary dial. I guess this is still how I think of a phone. As I stepped away from the board, I noticed that 30 faces were staring curiously at me. I looked back at my Teacher Assistant, and she just shrugged. It looked like a phone to her too.

One little boy called out, "Mrs. K, what IS that?" And it hit me. Phones don't look anything like that anymore. Another little girl raised her hand and said, "We only have cell phones at our house, and they don't look like that. Where are the buttons for texting?"

I just sighed, and had a student draw the picture.

It's official. I am old, and I guess I am to the point where I can say, "When I was kid, we..." Sad, huh?

When I was kid we used phones that connected to the wall. You dialed them instead of pushing buttons. You used them just to call people instead of sending a text message. If you needed to call someone while you were out, you used a pay phone. What changes there have been!