We love you Conrad, oh yes we doooo. . .

Something very strange happened during my sixth period today. This class is admittedly very social, but for some reason nearly all of the boys were in their desks and working when the bell rang, and large chunks of girls filtered in giggling and squealing and being altogether too hormonal all at once. More than was strictly necessary at least.

Students were working well enough on their bellwork, though, until I made the mistake of saying the word "library". This was about the point when twenty-odd girls all squealed like mad. Deafeningly so.

Me: "Ok, what is going on?!"

Girls (in unison): "REALLY HOTT DISNEY STAR IS HERE!"

Me: ". . . who?"

Girls (in unison): "REALLY HOTT DISNEY STAR IS IN OUR LIBRARY RIGHT NOW! CAN WE PLEASE GO AND SEE HIM?!"

Me: (unsympathetically): "No."

This precipitated a deluge of bribes and pleads, including promises of chocolate (tempting), money (illegal?), 'but he's my future husband!' claims (unlikely - he's probably closer to my age than theirs!), and (my favorite) - the 'But I'll DIE if I don't go!' (I'd like to see it.)

To make things worse for these poor hormonally charged wee-women, I showed no mercy. I closed the blinds so that they could not see out of the windows. I drew a "picture" on the board of said Disney star so that they could have "no excuse" for wanting to go, since he was already here. I would occasionally look out of the blinds and say "Oh look I think I see- oops. Not him."

So while they didn't get as much work done as they perhaps should have. . . I had all kinds of fun toying with them.

Is that wrong?

I told you so. . .

I told my students at the beginning of the year that I could beat them collectively in anything involving Harry Potter trivia and that they could try and come up with a question I can't answer about the series, but that I doubted they could do it since I've never lost a game of Harry Potter trivia and don't intend to start.

A few of them have taken me up on the offer, but mostly with off the cuff kinds of questions that most people who've read the books in the class would also remember. Until yesterday when a student in my last class came up to me after obviously putting in at least a little more thought as to what might stump me:

Student: "You know how you said that you'd be able to answer any Harry Potter question? Well, I think I have one that you won't know the answer to."

Me: "Go ahead."

Student: "What is Harry's vault number in the bank?"

Me: "713."

Student: "Dang it."

Rules for Survival

I had my students make a list of "Rules for Survival" recently. They could pick whatever topic they felt expert in - a sport, sharing a bathroom, getting through the halls, or (as two students picked): Women.

Their advice is surprisingly mature. I think you will appreciate the combined list I made:

1. Show respect
2. Be nice to them
3. Avoid eye contact
4. Pretend to care
5. Don't let them get on the phone
6. Compliment their legs
7. While they're talking, nod but don't listen.

Amazing.

Parent Letter

The season of Parent/Teacher conferences is upon us. I will get the pleasure of sitting at a table for five wonderful hours AFTER a full day of teaching tomorrow night. They're feeding us "dinner" for about fifteen minutes before hand starting around 2:45 and ending at 3:00. I would be infinitely more excited about this if I could get over that large number FIVE that keeps dangling in front of the word HOURS in my brain.

To help prepare for said conferences, I had my students write letters to their parent/guardian/loved ones/etc. today in class. These letters were modeled in a way that forced them to follow a certain pattern of "this is the grade I got, this is why I deserve it, I do this well in class, and I need to improve this in class" kind of thing, so that when I kindly tell a parent/guardian/loved one etc. that their charge needs to shut up, it can come from the student first and me second. Genius.

I scanned over them as I entered points into the gradebook tonight. Most of them are standard and predictable and spot on. Some of them are spot on in the most ironic way ever. Quotage:

"Three things that I do well in class are writing, reading, and talking." (This student isn't kidding about the 'good at talking' thing.)

"Dad says that if I get all A's throughout the whole year he will buy me an iTouch but this is midterm so it doesn't count so instead we should go and get ice cream on midterms." (I want ice cream! Also an iTouch. Will he buy me one too? - also, it surprises me HOW MANY of my students are bribed for good grades. I wasn't ever bribed for good grades. Damn my stupid self motivation.)

"I need to improv in this class by not taking out of turn and. . . my spelling a lot." (Only a small sampling of an error-filled letter. Yes. Spelling is a good place to start, my dear.)

"I feel I deserve (my grade) because I have been working hard to become the teachers Pet." (Snort. See? Brutal honesty.)

My favorite, though, was from a student who flat out refuses to work in my class. Obviously, judging by the state of said student's letter, they are not altogether impressed with me either:

"I didn't listen to the teacher and this class sucks. Its to hard and I want to change classes so I dont get any low grades." (My thoughts? Sweetheart, you don't get good grades in ANY class no matter how hard it is if you don't at least attempt to do something.)

"Three things I do well in class are play around and do some of my work and just sit there. I can improve by doing nothing." (Again with the brutal honesty. I kind of wonder what will happen if said student's mother shows up tomorrow. . . )

Ah well, can't win them all. Fortunately I have no desire to acquire early teen-aged friends at the moment.

I'm going to need more detail with that.

We're working on a project to help students with the basic elements of fiction right now. I'd completely forgotten that this kind of thing was ever necessary in school. You mean there was a time that someone had to explain to me what the word "plot" meant? Crazy.

To help get all the elements down, we're having students come up with the story of a superhero, a villain, and the conflict between them. Today was superhero day. Some of my students went to town, coming up with all sorts of crazy superhero power ideas from the conventional ("Can I have EVERY superhero power?!"/"Yes. As long as you have a weakness.") to the insane ("My power is that I can whistle and then boys come flying toward me!")

So ultra-annoyed-and-talks-too-much-student comes up to me to check off his super hero. Very defiantly, said student has decided to try and sabotage my project by coming up with a lame idea so that I can get mad and justify a reaction. Super power? Bending knees. I read through it and very kindly (and obnoxiously) said "I've never thought about that being a super power before. I think that's very creative. Now I'm going to need more detail from you in these two boxes. . . "

Student looked at me like I'd just pulled a rug out. It was pretty fantastic. Ultra-annoying student? 0. Me? 1.

Student Surveys

This weekend I have spent a bit of time entering grades on the first couple of assignments my students have had. Easy grading since I'm not reading much of it. It's all about participation points!

I will say, though, that the student surveys my classes have filled out have given me any number of things to laugh about at the moment. The seventh grade set may be deficient in many ways in terms of maturity and behavior but when they write they are often shamelessly blunt and I love them for it. Consider the following:

Question: What sort of qualities do you think a good teacher should have?

Answers:

• Teaching qualities.
• Pactence (Patience, I'm assuming.)
• "I think they should be nice and loud."

Question: Why would being able to read and write be important to you throughout your life?

Answer: "cause if your driving and you cant read the stop sign that would stink"

Answer: "so your not dumb"

Answer: "To write checks."

Question: What do you think makes someone a good reader? (What do good readers do?)

Answer: read Hairy Potter (A clever pun? Or honest spelling mistake?)

"My favorite movie is Titanic because it's sad and intrataning"

"One thing I do well as a writer is try to make it instistring."

"I wish I could read books about blood."

Question: When I have to read I: _____

Answer: Read. (Hilarious. And true.)

Some answers kind of make me go "wait. . . what?!" For example:

Question: What have you disliked about previous English classes:

Answer: "Saying it"

"With my friends, I like to take, _____________" (there wasn't anything listed after the "take")

Or:

"My favorite movie is Twilight because its romantic in ways that I can say."

Their spelling, too, is entertaining, and adds further proof to the point that English is far from the most intuitive language in terms of spelling. Because for all their mistakes, these kids are incredibly intuitive in how they spell things, even when they are wrong:

• Scients
• Perswasive
• noligabul

Really, though, I love how wonderfully blunt and unintentionally funny these kids are. Several of them owned up to being paid for good grades. One said that she gives her report card to her parents and then runs. One said that the best thing he does as a writer is gives an example of bad writing. Another that they do well as writers because they "read the fix", whatever that means.

Miss, what if. . . ?

I have made a new rule in my classroom that should (hopefully) help dispel a good deal of unnecessary storytelling and problem making over the next year.

You are not allowed to say anything that begins with 'what if.' An excellent gem of a tip from another teacher in the department. I'm in love with it. My other favorite is used when a student says something inappropriate: " (name) you have exactly thirty seconds to come up with a better way to say what you just said." Fantastic.

Lastly, here is my tip for teachers of the younger crowd of teenagers. Prepare not only for a group of avid storytellers, but also a group of expert non-sequitorians.

Yesterday I was cleaning my board between classes while being followed by a gaggle of students who have taken to me like ducklings. We were having a nice little conversation about the first day of school when one student looks up at me and says "yeah, my grandpa died last night," and then continued on with the rest of his story.

"Did he really?"

"Yep. So anyway. . . "

I wasn't sure whether to laugh at his nonchalance or wonder if he was lying. . .

It was a day.

1. I tripped down the ramp to my classroom once, but no one was looking.
2. In said tripping, I did not rip my new nylons (PHEW.)
3. I successfully called the kid in the back corner of my second period by the wrong name at least three times. He was kind enough to remind me of the error.
4. I did not lose any students in any of my three "locker opening practice" sessions, nor did I get yelled at by any other teachers because my students weren't that loud.
5. My powerpoint presentation worked, and my computer was not stolen. Also, some students were kind enough to laugh at my feeble jokes about wanting to marry Peter Pan.
6. For every student who stared at me like I was Professor Binns, there was at least one who made an attempt to look as though reading a Disclosure Document was entertaining and worth paying attention to.
7. I did not fall asleep on my feet.
8. I remembered to take attendance.
9. I remembered to lock my door when I left my room.
10. I still have my voice. Mostly.

All in all, I'd say it was a day. Not good or bad, just a day. All that can really be said of it right now comes in the form of a few quotes all from, you guessed it, Anne of Avonlea:

"When Anne reached the school that morning. . .for the first time in her
life she had traversed the Birch Path deaf and blind to its beauties. . .all was
quiet and still. The preceding teacher had trained the children to be in their
places at her arrival, and when Anne entered the schoolroom she was confronted
by prim rows of "shining morning faces" and bright, inquisitive eyes. She hung
up her hat and faced her pupils, hoping that she did not look as frightened and
foolish as she felt and that they would not perceive how she was trembling.

She had sat up until nearly twelve the preceding night composing a speech
she meant to make to her pupils upon opening the school. She had revised and
improved it painstakingly, and then she had learned it off by heart. It was a
very good speech and had some very fine ideas in it, especially about mutual
help and earnest striving after knowledge. The only trouble was that she could
not now remember a word of it."

*****

"When school was dismissed and the children had gone Anne dropped wearily
into her chair. Her head ached and she felt woefully discouraged. There was no
real reason for discouragement, since nothing very dreadful had occurred; but
Anne was very tired and inclined to believe that she would never learn to like
teaching. And how terrible it would be to be doing something you didn't like
every day for. . .well, say forty years."

*****

"Well, how did you get along?" Marilla wanted to know.

"Ask me that a month later and I may be able to tell you. I can't now .
. .I don't know myself. . .I'm too near it. My thoughts feel as if they had been
all stirred up until they were thick and muddy. The only thing I feel really
sure of having accomplished today is that I taught Cliffie Wright that A is A.
He never knew it before. Isn't it something to have started a soul along a path
that may end in Shakespeare and Paradise Lost?"

My Little Buttercup

My "To-Do" list is astronomical. I think it could go around the world several times and I haven't even had my first day yet. (Yet being the operative word, it is fast aproaching.) And after several meetings today (including one where I met the parent of a student who has several physical and emotional problems not least of which is pathological lying) and hours in front of a computer (and miles to go before I sleep), I was starting to fall under.

And then the Pandora box of love and goodness opened and I received a gift from the powers that be. Out of no where: My Little Buttercup randomly appeared on a playlist and five minutes later after I'd nearly wet myself and practically had tears running down my face from laughter, I pulled out of stress.

I can totally do this. If The Three Amigos can go and save an entire village from the wiles of El Guapo with a song and dance, then certainly I can rescue young immature minds with a bit of tomfoolery, right?!

So, Steve Martin and Martin Short, this one's for you.

What the? How long has that been there?

My room is ready. It is READY! It is open for business and acceptable for student use now. Or rather, it will be as soon as textbooks are in and I have a new transparency projector that doesn't have a little fluttering thing inside it that makes weird images on the screen and a cart for it and after I've taken the trash out, but other than THAT, it's all ready.

Also I need a phone.

I did find two very interesting things in the process of finally hanging my bullitan board and putting things into storage spaces instead of keeping them on my student desks.

1. A bit of snake skin.
2. Four human teeth.

I'm not joking.

It's a good thing I was a gymnast in another life. . .

I got to school today a little later than normal, mainly because after about six hours of meetings the day before I felt I deserved to sleep in at least an hour. When I walked across the grass toward my Port-ah-bluh, I saw caution tape surrounding the ramp leading to my door and a man standing guard outside it.

Me: "Hi - uh. . . can I get in?"

Man: "Nope. Not until Monday."
Me: . . . "ok. . . "

Man: "Sorry."

So I shuffled into the main part of the school, where I hid out for about five minutes before returning. The man was gone. Limber beast that I am, I heaved myself up and over the ramp and went in to get work done. It all felt so illegal and irresponsible. I kind of wanted there to be someone to yell at me and run after me to try and stop me all while I locked myself in the classroom while they contemplated the cement outside the door, trying to figure out how to get in to reprimand me but not bypass the caution tape. In my mind, this person also looks a lot like Dwight in his volunteer Sheriff's Deputy uniform.

I repeated this process approximately three times, once, I might add, in front of a mother and her son who may be in one of my classes judging by the pointing they were doing in my direction.

Or maybe they were just pointing at me.

Let it never be said that I am afraid to make an idiot of myself in front of the school.

Set Up

I arrived in my classroom for the first time about two weeks ago.

Because I am in a Port-ah-bluh, I had to wait a bit longer for the thing to arrive. (All those lucky teachers who don't need to wait for the school to show up to get their keys. . . )

When I got into my room I saw the following:

1. Ten student desks
2. A teacher desk (locked)
3. A table
4. Two filing cabinets (one large, one small and still containing contents from previous owner.)
5. Three chairs
6. One flag
7. One cart for notebooks
8. A few random metal planks or . . . slabs or. . . things. Couldn't begin to tell you what they're for.
   

I came back a few days later and saw nothing had changed. I was leaving on a vacation with the family in a few days, though, and needed to do something to the place, so I brought in some supplies, hung up some posters, cloroxed the teacher desk, and put the student desks more or less where I wanted them to begin the rows.

Fast forward a week and the room looked identical with one notable exception:

1. Tall filing cabinet: missing.

This is a problem. I started thinking that I'd have to bring in blankets for some kind of picnic on the first day of school and imagined some very neat (if conspicuous) piles of paper for myself against the back wall in lieu of a cabinet.

After talking to the custodial staff, I managed to acquire the following:

1. A new teacher desk (containing two boxes of red pens and several loose DVDs left by the previous owner including Finding Nemo and Ice Age 2. Finders keepers?)
2. Keys for the new desk (phew.)
3. A clock for the wall (phew.)
   
4. 35 student desks
   
5. One less chair (didn't need it anyway)
6. A new large filing cabinet that does not have bars tall enough for hanging folders.
   
7. Three new stress zits of the deep seeded and painful kind. Annoying.

The large filing cabinet's malfunction is probably the biggest frustration now (aside from the facial deforming), but I don't have the heart to tell the custodians who went well out of their way to rescue the discard for me to use that the discard is likely to take up more space than it is going to be useful, but maybe I can find a way to make use of it. It can be like an extra chest of drawers for my clothes. A storage chest for the air mattress I mean to sleep on during my planning periods (kidding?). An impromptu cooler for a case of caffeinated beverages. A punishment tool of some kind?

Any other suggestions?

The Kingdom of Port-ah-bluh

I was assigned a portable classroom this year.

You know, the ones that look like a shed and smell a bit odd.

We've had several beginning of year orientation meetings to prepare for the storm of next week when we are taken over by teenagers, and every time we are reminded that we should not be "teaching in a one room schoolhouse" I kind of want to raise my hand and say ". . . but I am in a one room school house."

This portable classroom thing came as a bit of a surprise. In an attempt not to sink into some kind of depressed/annoyed fit over the whole thing, I started trying to come up with names for said shed. Some of the ideas I had involved "The Room of Requirement" and "The Dungeon" in keeping with my theme for the year. I decided, as funny as "The Dungeon" might seem to me, it might not be the best idea for a bunch of thirteen-year-olds in a conservative community. Then, in true Hyacinth Bucket (Boo-kay) fashion (re: Keeping Up Appearances), I decided it would be funny to try and call the place the "Kingdom of Portable" only to pronounce "Portable" like "Por-tah-bluh."

I don't think it will work.

Especially when these sheds are given room numbers that shorten "Portable" to "P(#)." I have a feeling that no boy in the room is going to prefer my incredibly witty title to something that allows them to say something that could even be remotely considered inappropriate. . .

Explanation and Introduction

In the 1987 film Anne of Avonlea, new teacher Anne is confronted with a very large problem: a town composed almost entirely of one family that rules the roost. The Pringles. They are bitter against her because she got the job one of their own also applied for. At one point about half way through the film, they attempt to sabotage Anne by making all sorts of claims on her "poor teaching." One such claim is as follows:

ANNE: What sorts of things are being said?

MISS STACEY: Well. Hattie Pringle: you are accused of marking down her papers just because she is a Pringle. Here you are said to laugh at the students when they make mistakes.

ANNE: What?! Well, alright, I did laugh when Myra Pringle defined an alligator as a large kind of insect. I couldn't help myself!

That, in a nutshell, defines both the title of this blog and introduces the purpose of it as well. Teaching is hard. Complaining is easy. Kids are funny, and we would all do well to step back and laugh at the funny things we hear or do throughout the day.

Are you ready to begin?

I am.