"I'm in the paper!!"

A few fun snippets from my classroom...

Before the bell rang this morning, one of my kids (who I don't have until third period) came bounding into my room waving a newspaper, with a big grin on his face.
"Ms. Andersen! Ms. Andersen! Look! Look! I got my picture in the paper!"
He had the paper open, plopped it down on top of my overhead, and jabbed his finger at his mugshot, lined up with a bunch of other mugshots under the heading "Arrests This Week."
"They put me in the motherfuckin' paper, man! Check this out! And look man, that's my uncle!"
This kid was so excited, he had to come tell me before class even started. I wasn't entirely sure what to say in such a situation. Like, what's the etiquette?
"Um, I'm not sure what to tell you, Reggie. I mean, do I say congratulations?"(Not his real name, of course.)
"I know, right?!" And then he bounced, laughing, out of the classroom to go show his friends.


The last time I saw this kid this excited was last week when he suddenly called out in the middle of class, "Oh! Hold up! Lookit this!" He started reaching around in his pockets (which were down around his knees somewhere) and pulled out a penny and jumped up to come show it to me.
"Ms. Andersen! Lookit this! I got this crazy penny!" (It was one of the new ones, with the little crest on the back.) "It says, right here, look! E pluribus unum! Out of many one! It don't say that on other pennies! That's one special penny, man!"
Despite the fact that it does actually say that on other pennies, I was proud of him for noticing, for saving the penny, and for being so excited he knew what e pluribus unum meant that he had to show the whole class.

I'm not sure what to think about the fact that he was equally excited to be featured in the Charlotte police report section, but I guess everybody wants to see their face in the paper?