Mr. Andy goes to school

I did it! I went back to school! Back to crowded hallways, packed with students. Back to standalone desks and personalized lockers. Back to cool teachers, and, OMG, some awesome students. I saw all of this today, and I even did a little teaching myself.

I went back to the fifth grade.

For those of you who know me, you know I’m not actually in fifth grade. I guess I’m in something like… 29th grade. Wow. That’s a lot of grades. You’d think I would’ve learned more by now!

I visited two schools today, both in the Rockford Public Schools district: Valley View Elementary and North Rockford Middle School. Thanks to Teacher Brad Davison, Principal Bob Siegel and Principal Lissa Weidenfeller. They all made this happen, and each one went out of their way to help me. I appreciate that.

I got a guided tour of North Rockford. This was very helpful because it will bring to life my own fictional school of “East Rapids”. At Valley View, I spoke with Mr. Davison’s fifth grade class. They helped me with the first draft of “The League of Scientists and the Ghost in the Water”.

This note is for that class:

Hi everyone, it’s Andy again. I’m back (just virtually, for now)!

I just wanted to say thank you! While I was at your class, I taught you what it’s like to be a writer, what it’s like to review cool technology like cellphones and robots, and how to start doing those things yourself, if you want to.

But, you know what? You also taught me.

You taught me how the RipStik is pretty sweet. You taught me about the excitement of seeing it snow for the first time this year. You taught me that “OMG” can be both good and bad!

You shared a lot of stuff with me, and it really helped.

So, to everybody in Mr. Davison’s fifth grade class: thank you! Thanks for teaching me. I had a lot of fun, and you’ve helped make my book better!

Stay cool,

Andy Kaiser