1. Uttered Words
In the excitement of a moment — Getting a problem right? Getting a good test score? I don’t remember precisely what the moment involved. In that moment, Joe uttered a profanity. The class looked at him and then looked up in unison at the Be Nice poster on the wall, bullet six of which says Speak as if Nani is here.
“His grandmother!” someone said. “What about Mr. Hasan’s grandmother?”
Joe looked at me with an obvious grimace of shame on his face. And he folded his hands and bowed his head.
“I am sorry, Nani. I am sorry, Nani,” he said.
2. Thrown Grapes
Days later I found a couple grapes on the floor. I almost stepped on one as I was wondering between the tables as the kids were working on inverse functions.
“Wait,” I said loudly. They looked up. “Whose grape is this?”
It was Joe’s. He fessed up.
“I was trying to throw it in the garbage,” he said. Except that the grape was in the middle of the room and garbage was on the far side.
“Can you throw it out for me, please?”
Of course he did, and then later he came up and put a sticker on my hand. It came from a tangerine he had just eaten. It said, Sweetest Grandma.
He takes Nani’s presence to heart.