The opening activity in English class today was to post a picture of your favorite animal. There is a method to my madness, of course, and today I wanted the sixth graders to figure out how to post images in our Learning Management System, and to remind them that the name of every animal is also a noun. It was also pretty wonderful to begin each class by looking at animals. The fox was a popular choice, as were lions, cheetahs, pandas (red and regular), and of course cats and dogs.
Seeing what kids choose to share with the whole class can also be very revealing. Most seek out stunning or cute images of the animals they love, but there are always a handful of iconoclasts and contrarians. For most questions, I can usually count on at least one person to ask What if I don't have one? but I don't ever remember such a comment when discussing favorite animals, until today.
Then there was the guy who posted several screen grabs of non-existent creatures from various anime shows. There were also a few ugly monkeys, and a couple of sloths that really gave me the creeps, and one naked mole rat.
"Is that really your favorite?" I asked the guy who was snickering about his picture with a friend.
"Oh yes!" he assured me. "Look at those teeth." He pointed at two grotesquely long incisors that ran half the length of the hairless rodent. "They wiggle!"
"Do you have a pet naked mole rat?" I asked.
"I wish!" he answered, and continued the litany of fun facts. "They only have like, twenty-four hairs on their whole body!"
"I don't know why your parents won't get you one," I joked. "They obviously don't shed!"
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