Back from the dead

It's been a while!

I didn't blog about the end of the school year because I was cast as the lead in a play. It was exciting. It was wonderful. It was a dream come true. It took over my non-teaching life, and here we are at the end of August and I've got the school year started again and a whole new crop of kids to work with.

Changes:

Location: I am no longer at my previous school of joy, I am now at another school of joy. This school does not involve portables. In fact, I have a lovely room with a delightful view and many windows.

Age: I am older. I am also teaching an older range of students. I am not sure if this will promote more or less entertainment, but I am sure that there will still be lots to write about.

Subjects: I am now teaching more than just English - I am also teaching Drama and Film. It is very exciting.

Yay for changes. Yay for opportunities. Yay for being employed in a world that is not so happy for finding a job as a teacher.

So. In the first three days of school, the following has happened in my classes:

• I have proven that teachers really can make their students do whatever they want by forcing a Drama class into pretending to be jungle animals for nearly ten minutes while playing "The Lion King" through my computer. Several students ended up "killing" their classmates. One student asked what he should do since his animal had no natural predators. I sincerely hope that my students don't go home today and say that they killed people at school.
• I have a student who hates his first name but will not offer any suggestions for improvement. I have offered many other more exotic suggestions, none of which seems satisfactory either. Other suggestions have included Pierre, Gaston, Lumiere, Stefon, Gale, and Chuck.

The Seer

I laugh sometimes at the ridiculous things students do for attention. I recognize, in all seriousness, that many of these students are not getting the attention they so desperately need, but sometimes I just wonder. One particular student I have has, in the last month, done the following:

• Burst into tears over simple assignments that don't have a right or wrong answer, they're just asking for opinions (explanation: "I'm just so tired!")
• Worn an ace bandage over a pair of jeans. When asked why the bandage was being worn, I was told that it was for a bruise. (?!) Next day the bandage was on again. Same leg, different location. By afternoon when said student comes to my class, the bandage had switched legs. (Snort.)
• Wrote the following: "I see the future in my dreams. It makes it easier for me to know where I should and shouldn't go." (Seeing the future, eh? Seriously? Hook me up with that sort of gift. Might come in handy.)

Yes. This student is a special sort of soul whom I occasionally ache for and mostly just try not to laugh at. Poor thing.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I was accused of being a ninth grader this week after a performance of the school play I helped to direct. I read the opening announcements for the show - things about not getting into the aisles or taking pictures or being annoying. After the show, a very kind woman pulled me aside and said in the "I'm talking to a very young, naive child who just went to the potty by herself" voice that I hate so much: "You did such a good job reading the announcements!"

"Thank you," I said with a pleasant smile that hopefully masked my annoyance. "Did you enjoy the show?"

"Oh yes. Were you in it too?"

"No, I directed it."

"Oh! Are you in ninth grade?"

"No. I'm a teacher."

I recognize that I look several years younger than I am, but that's knocking nearly ten years off of my age. No wonder I'm rarely taken seriously unless I'm overly assertive.

Last anecdote:

A few of my girls were talking this week about how they are betrothed. I'm assuming it was a joke, but I didn't hear the whole conversation. I do, however, clearly remember hearing "You're betrothed too?! We're like sisters!"

?!

Perception of Age

I was grading through some vocabulary review worksheets tonight when I came across a drawing that made me laugh. The assignment was for students to draw pictures that would help remind them of the definitions of their vocabulary words. One of our words was 'reminisce'. This led to some pretty amazing pictures.

I remember going to Europe for the first time and laughing at their perception of age. Go to England, for example, and "new" is anything built after about 1700. Nearly 100 years before America was a country. In America, old is anything from around World War Two and back, or at least that's been my experience. My students are much less aware of this.

One student drew a picture of a bearded, shrively stick figure man imagining a party and saying "I remember when I was a boy. . . " The sign said "Happy 1980".

Yeesh.

Kule.

Found a note in my trash on the way out the door today. Feeling the desire for a bit of early teen-aged gossip (most notes are between girls demanding advice on who they should start to like), I glanced over it. In said note, one girl complained to another that her class was boring. Student in my class said that she should add my class instead. Other student response? "I wish! Miss _______ is sooooo Kule, with a K!!"

I'm not really sure what that means, exactly, but I'm assuming it is some kind of ultra powered cool. And not that I want my entire reputation as a teacher to be based solely on whether or not my class is pure entertainment, this gave me quite the ego boost as it means I've finally accomplished something I always wanted for some strange reason when I was an early teen: to be called cool by other early teens. Only took me a decade to get there, but still. . .

Score.

What you say. . . what you mean. . .

It's a final round of parent teacher conferences tonight. I've been telling my students all week that if they come with their parents I will give them a treat, and that I promise I won't say anything mean about them in public.

Of course, what they don't know is that I am also a master of euphemism. Here are some of my favorite things to say, and hear at conferences along with their "translations":

1. Your child is very social! They have so many friends.
(Your child never shuts up. No, seriously.)

2. Everyone in class really seems to enjoy your student.
(Everyone in class knows who your student is because they are so "social".)

3. Your student really adds something to our class. When he/she is not there, we notice a difference.
(I know that God loves me extra on the days when your kid doesn't come.)

4. Your child is very unique.
(Your kid is "special" - like, "don't eat the paste or put hand sanetizer into the pencil sharpener" special.)

5. Your student is very active.
(By the time they leave class, their desk is about three feet away from where it should be.)

6. Your child has a special kind of . . . extra sense about them. . .
(Buy your kid some deoderant please?)

I HATE ENGLISH!!

I don't normally make a big fuss when I see notes being passed in class. So long as they are passed between people sitting near each other and it doesn't stop them from participating, it's not a big deal. I reserve the right to take whatever I see, and as long as the passing isn't distracting to other students, then it's not a problem.

Today, one of these notes was left behind on the desk of a female student in one of my classes. Naturally, I picked it up. It read something like this:

"Hey ___________! I just wanted to write you a note. K. Bye!"

"Thanx - soooo bored. I hate English!"

"I know! I HATE IT!!!"

And so on.

Now, I'm not personally offended by this. Anyone who has had the pleasure of interacting with twelve year olds knows that their affections change in a minute and their sense of hyperbole is amazing, even if they don't know what the word itself means. So I'm not really personally offended by the letter. It wasn't the most exciting class. They're entitled to be bored. Plus, unless I'm a really awful judge of character, I know that at least one of these two note-writing fiends almost always likes class. The other one is a little more difficult to read, being of the more quiet variety, but I'm not inclined to think that 'the other one' is always hating class either. At least not all caps and several exclamation marks worth of hate.

But I can't just let it go. The opportunity is too choice.

So tomorrow, these two students will receive a little note of their own from me that will read something along the lines of:

Dear _____________,

If you choose to write mean notes in class, please be kind enough to recycle them before you leave. I don't like cleaning up after you.

Love,

Boring English Teacher

Ahh. . . the passive aggressive punishment. . .

P.S. I have Robin Hood

Never tell your students about your dating life.

I made the mistake of telling my students that I was being set up on (yet another) blind date last weekend. So naturally, the next day we had school, someone asked how it went.

"Well," I said. "I didn't actually end up getting to go. The person I was being set up with ended up having eye surgery last weekend, so he was actually blind. Kind of funny, right? Ok, so moving on with our announcements. . . "

And so went the day. I didn't hear anything else about it.

Until we did a letter writing activity meant to help students improve on some figurative writing techniques. The assignment? Write either a love letter or break up letter. This is a portion of what I read:

Dear Whoever Grandpa Set Me Up With,

. . . You love me like flowers need rain, you love me like I need chocolate, you need me like I need Harry Potter. Wait. What was that? You don't love me? . . . Your fra-gee-lay little world will be struck with dynamite. And your little eye surgery is a plane on fire. You thought you could get out of our blind date. Humph. I shun you.

P.S. I don't need you. I have Robin Hood.

The "response":

Dear Miss ____________,

. . . I think it will take me five years to get over you just like another guy did. You were the love of my life, but now. . . you are like a frightened animal who doesn't want to come near me.

Now. . . there are many times in class when I'm fairly sure that whatever I say goes in one ear and out the other but suddenly my quirks or odd sayings or ridiculous personal stories have come back. These kids are all very invested in my personal life. Probably more invested than I am at the moment.

Just goes to show: when you don't want them to listen and remember they're all ears, when you want them to pay attention they're off in space. Maybe I should find a way to couch assignments into embarrassing personal disclosures. Like: "I went on a date a few years ago where we did __________, just like I would like you to do in class today. Now, this assignment needs to be two pages long - the same number of hours as the movie we watched. . . "

MLIA

At the beginning of the year I went down hard on cell phones. I really hate them. I don't understand why thirteen year olds have need of them. The number of iPhones and Blackberries I've seen in the possession of 7th graders makes me feel a bit sick. So I threatened with pain of death the person who would dare bring such an offensive electronic within my line of sight.

And, to my credit, I am an expert phone catcher. I have an ear for it. If it vibrates, I'll take it.

Until now, apparently.

Today during work time I was back at my desk working on the lesson for Monday. Everything was going just swimmingly until I realized the entire class was laughing.

Now, I play an 80s music station on Pandora every now and then that will pop up with songs I have to be aware enough to skip in hope that they aren't listening too closely to lyrics. They usually aren't. Thinking I hadn't been paying enough attention to the song, I turned around and said ". . . was it the lyrics?"

More laughter.

". . . so what is it?"

Boy in the back raises his hand:

". . . someone's phone just went off. It was really loud."

". . . really?"

Entire class: "It was sooooo loud! And you didn't even turn around!"

Go figure.

MLIA.