An opportunity to visit the nurse is the holy grail for many students in my classroom.
One day recently, M. had asked to head to the nurse more than once. Considering that she’d been bouncing around both in and out of the classroom, and was silly and smiling between strategic, puppy-eyed requests, I’d denied her repeated pleas. That didn’t deter her though, as clearly, persistence is one of the key traits needed on the quest to the Kingdom of Nurse.
As the day wore on, I wore down and M started to look a bit less bouncy. Maybe. Or maybe her persistence was paying off. At any rate, in a brief lull between requests, I realized I needed more band-aids. I decided to head off yet another request, and to kill two birds with one stone.
“M, would you be willing to go to the nurse and get some bandaids for the classroom? You could also mention to Mrs. G. that your stomach hurts and see what she says.”
M perked right up.
“Okay! Do you need big band-aids?” she asked.
“No,” I replied, “I just need the regular sized ones.” I held up the bag of bandaids and pulled the last three out. “This is the size I need. You can take the bag with you and ask her to fill it up.”
M. took the bag in her hand. She pivoted to leave, then paused and turned back to me. “Do you think I should bring a mentor band-aid?” she asked.
Mentor* what? …… Ohhhhhhh….the light dawned, and after that split second of confusion, I understood.
“Oh, that’s a great idea!” I said. She reached out and I handed her one of the bandaids, which she tucked into the bag. Then she bopped happily out the door and down to the nurse’s office.
I’m happy to report the use of a mentor bandaid was successful. M returned not too much later with her stomach ache mysteriously vanished, holding a bag full of the correctly sized bandaids.
*In case you’re not in the education field, a mentor text is a piece of writing that students can use for many different purposes. Often in our classroom we use mentor texts to explore how authors craft their writing within different genres and to get ideas of different strategies/moves we can try out in our own writing. In a nutshell, mentor texts can serve as examples to guide us. M. clearly has a full and flexible understanding of mentors!
Nix the comfort zone 
ha! This is fun and sweet!!!! I love the little tasks and energy. And especially love using mentor in this way. Cute. Thanks for sharing.
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What a great example of transfer of the mentor text skill!
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I was one of those kids, a boo boo queen, who loved to take visits to the nurse. I love how your student transferred the use of mentor. And that you captured it in this sweet classroom story. I will miss this part of teaching.
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Clever M. To correctly carry out your plan, she verified the directions and came up with a way to add in her own success criteria – mentor text. She will go far in life! Persistent and thughtful.
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Aaahh! A mentor bandaid! This is fantastic!
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Love this post! You clearly are great with kids, and I loved the mentor bandaid bit!
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What a good example of mentor – she definitely figured that out and is able to transfer that to other situations. This made me smile!
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Good one, M!
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MBH, love the idea of a mentor text. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I never heard that term. I suspect many of us writers do that subconsciously and consciously when we read the work of excellent authors, columnists, and reporters.
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I LOVE this story! And…”The Kingdom of Nurse.” Yes! You hit the nail on the head. My “frequent flyers” love the attention, TLC, and break from the classroom that a trip to the nurse can provide.
I’m totally sharing this with my school nurse colleagues!
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This is a wonderful generalization of the word mentor as well as the concept of a Kingdom. I have long wanted to be a fly on the wall in the nurse’s office, but I do not envy the nurse’s task of deciding if someone really needs more than a break!
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Oh, Molly, I love this! M has got the schema for mentor down, “full and flexible” as you describe it. So fun! I remember another of your posts about the holy grail of going to the nurse. I smiled at “on the quest to The Kingdom of Nurse” and so many other fresh lines in this piece. Lovely!
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This slice brought me back to my own early elementary school days where I almost always ended up in the nurse’s office after lunch to “see if I had a fever.” 😂
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You capture that nurse-visit desire so well in this slice! I know I spend a lot of time and energy NOT sending kids to the nurse! But a mentor band-aid–that is brilliant! (And a great way to both satisfy that need to visit the nurse and get a necessary errand accomplished–as well as find fodder for a delightful slice!)
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A mentor band-aid! I love it. This little story made me laugh and laugh. Thank you for capturing this moment and sharing it.
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I love the warmth and perception here. We often communicate indirectly with each other, rarely saying directly what we really feel. You captured the beauty of that indirect communication so well here with grace and humor. And the mentor band-aid is a joke designed for writers!
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