For the love of BACON

Well, my school bus route is pretty well set for now. I've had a crazy week with about 9 or 10 changes to our route already. That's not too bad and is actually very common for the first week of school. I got a few things changed that I wanted changed and my boss changed a few other things because of new students that hadn't registered yet and old students who had moved within the district and needed to go on different buses. I would hate to be my boss right now. She has to answer a bazillion phone calls, field complaints, questions and many of them are in Spanish!! She doesn't speak Spanish! I wish they would pay for all of us to learn to speak Spanish. It would benefit all of us. We have a large population of Hispanic families and many of them are new to the area...that would be so scary to not speak the language and have to deal with a whole new way of life.

Anyway, I have a lot of my old kids back and I just love them to pieces. They are so good, already know the rules and know what to do. The new kids take a while to acclimate but they all will. Except maybe one boy. I'll get to that in a minute...



You've all heard of the six degrees of separation, right? It works this way....

(from Wikipedia) "Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is an average of six 'steps' away from each person on Earth" ...Actor Kevin Bacon being the one named...so we are all six steps away from knowing Kevin Bacon. I've applied this principle to one of my students, only we're not talking about people or Kevin Bacon here...just bacon...



My troubled kid a BD kid named Joshua (I hate to label them, but I'm calling him this so you understand his problem) BD means 'behavior disorder' and it fits him to a "T"!!! The first words out of his mouth to me, the first day on the bus were, "Yer not my mama and you can't tell me what to do!" All I had done was ask him nicely to put on his seat belt and if he needed help the monitor would help him. He's loaded with bad attitude, sass and is very full of himself. I replied to him, "No, I'm not your mother but I'm the bus driver and you're on MY bus...I make the rules and you'll follow them!"

To which Joshua said, "Yeah, right!"



It took me a while to find common ground with this kid...I went thru a few things trying to win him over....as he settled down a bit, we talked about his love of eating! He told me how he eats bugs and spider legs dipped in chocolate and how much he likes peanut butter and banana sandwiches. (He fibs a lot too!) He's somewhere between 7-9 years old and is going on 45. Since he's as wide as he is tall I thought we might have a love of good food in common. I brought up bacon! Oh man, this kid went on and on about how he just LOOOOOVVVVESSSSS bacon!! He and I have that in common! I love bacon, altho I don't eat it much anymore....but this kid says he'd eat it everyday for every meal if he could. He likes it floppy or crisp!

It's somewhere in our six degrees of separation!

I'll win Joshua over...I'm doing it already. I think I'll make him my junior bus monitor. That always helps them get more into following the rules and it even helps me get the other kids to follow the rules. But with him, I'll have to call the position "student bus monitor" or "extra-special bus monitor" or something that sounds more high and mighty than just "junior"...he needs a HIGH position!

I have two other BD kids on my route this year and they all have a problem controlling their mouths. It's okay tho, we'll deal with it in a good way. It part of the job and one I'm pretty good at. I love kids and have the patience to do what I have to do to get them to come around.

The rest of my kids are awesome and I'm so happy to have them all back this year!

Life is good. Now pass the bacon!