On Monday morning, Mr. Acevedo started CC with a quote in Spanish.
“No hay peor sordo que aquel que no quiere oír,” he said.
Mr. Acevedo sat cross-legged on the rug in the same spot as the other day. I sat in the same spot, too. Red was on the couch between Christine and Zachary because when Xander saw that Red didn’t have a seat, he gave up his place.
It was pretty cool seeing Red sit between two people in a classroom.
“That’s something mi abuela used to say,” Mr. Acevedo said. “Any of my Spanish speakers want to take a shot at what it means?”
“Your grandmother used to say that,” Bryan said.
“Something about not listening and not being able to hear,” Christine added.
“Very close,” Mr. Acevedo said, smiling.
“There’s no worse person than someone who doesn’t want to listen,” Zachary said.
“Excellent.” Mr. Acevedo gripped his ankles. “Anyone want to take a shot at what that means?” He motioned to Diego.
“People need to listen,” Diego said. “If you don’t listen, it’s worse than not being able to hear.”
“Exactly, Diego. We don’t listen anymore, and by we, I mean people in general. We talk and yell over one another, but we don’t listen.”
“What?” Grace said, smiling.
“Yeah, I can’t hear you, Teach,” Declan added, grinning.
Mr. Acevedo pointed playfully. “Funny stuff, you two.”
“Two ears, one mouth,” Trinity said, moving her fingers from her ears to her lips. “My dad says God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak.”
“I like that,” Mr. Acevedo said. He grabbed his ankles again and rocked back and forth. “We’re all going to become better listeners in here. Listening leads to learning.” He nodded to Miles.
“So what is ‘That’s Nasty’?” Miles asked.
“A perfectly timed question.” Mr. Acevedo popped to his feet and turned toward his desk. “Let’s head back to our tables. Take out those lists you made over the weekend.”
* * *
Mr. Acevedo grabbed the remote from the binder shelf and powered up the ceiling projector.
“Let’s hear what you got,” he said. “I want to be dazzled and disgusted.” He grabbed the green pen. “Throw out—or throw up—the grossest, most offensive, nastiest things you came up with.”
“Picking your teeth with your toenails!” Melissa shouted.
“OHHH!”
“I got one,” Danny said. “The yellow tiles by the urinals in the boys’ bathroom.”
“EWWW!”
“Cotton candy ice cream puke!” I said.
“OHHH!”
As everyone called out examples, Mr. Acevedo wrote them down. Fifteen minutes later, the board was covered with the names of all sorts of disgusting stuff, from crusty earwax globs to poop-filled diapers.
“Outstanding work, everyone.” Mr. Acevedo patted the board. “I am dazzled and disgusted. This is going to be a brilliant book.”
“Book?” at least five or six of us said at the same time.
“That’s right,” Mr. Acevedo said. “We’re writing a book.”
He drew a circle in the air with his finger. “That’s our class project. We’re writing a book together. It’s going to be called That’s Nasty!”
He punched up a presentation on the board.
“Here’s an overview of the project,” he said. “I’ll play it for you in a sec. Everything you need to know about the project is in here—the steps, the rubrics, the conferencing calendar. I’ve also uploaded this to the webpage.” He laser-pointed the wall by the door. “Starting tomorrow, all the project due dates will be posted here.”
Several hands shot up.
He air-pressed them down.
“Let me try to answer some of these before I even hear them,” Mr. Acevedo said. “First, yes, you will work with a partner.”
Behind my back, Red gave me a pound.
“However,” he added, “I’m choosing your partner. Check the webpage this evening.”