the apple falls far

I have a student who is usually well behaved but must have been having an off day today. She wouldn't sit in her assigned seat, wasn't completing her work, was playing on her cell phone, and whenever she got up and walked by this boy, she cursed him out. I assigned her detention and called her mother to get permission. She didn't answer, but did indeed TEXT me back. I tried to call her again later, no answer, so I sighed and sent her a text in response.

Now, I don't have a child. (Thank god, I already have 90 of them.) But I'm PRETTY sure I wouldn't text my daughter's teacher, ESPECIALLY if I had never even spoken to her before.

But maybe that's just me.

Plus, she skipped detention anyway. I'm not always sure why I make the effort.

poetry

My holiday gift to you: the insanity that was teaching my kids poetry.

It's not often that you get asked how many syllables are in the word butt. I answered without missing a beat, but then stopped, shook my head, and said, "Wow. As an English teacher you catch yourself answering a lot of questions you never thought you'd have to answer."

Here is a poem written by one of my kids. We worked really hard on similes and metaphors. I don't think she quite got it, and I gave her some of these lines, but it worked out.

My ELA Teacher

Ms. A has red hair like an apple.
She always want to be fair.
Ms. A is not skinny and not fat.
She is taller than a midget and shorter than a basketball player.

I wish I could show you the illustrations that accompanied it. Really, quite lovely.

Also, as a side note, on the cover of another kid's booklet, she proudly colored in the word "Petry." Yep, I'm not sure why I even tried to teach the past few weeks.

Happy New Year's all. I get to go back to this madhouse on Monday. :)

come on

Today, on yet another trip, I had to explain to a child why it was not all right to be having a discussion including the phrase, "You know how sometimes a girl's pussy be mad fat and big?" In public. Especially loudly. Mostly because it was in hearing distance of me and I then had to induce vomiting.

Is it Christmas yet?

I am the queen of inappropriate conversations

Last year, our science teacher brought a museum exhibit to the school. I had to cover classes all day to make it happen, which I did, but it ended up making me kind of loopy. In the process, I met one of the boys (sorry, men) who worked for this exhibit. He was cute. He said something funny, I laughed, and the entire class saw me flirt and get girly when he was around. Whoops. Later I ran into him downstairs and he borrowed my keys, same thing. Totally unintentional, but these kids have sharp eyes. One of my girls even found out his name and how old he was. I told her that was inappropriate to discuss with me. She brought it up the next day too, and it became an inside joke with the class. After a week or so of laughter, we moved on with our lives.

Low and behold, this week, the same exhibit comes through. I thought nothing of it. Then I joked with one of my students from last year about the guy who was on the exhibit. He says, "Oh my god, yeah, it is the same guy! And he even asked if we had that same red-headed teacher." To which I responded, "Shut up! He did not!" like I was hanging out with my friends. Ugh, jeez, I need a filter.

Within 10 seconds the rest of the class was informed that me and the museum guy both had crushes on each other. (And I'm sure it had spread to the rest of the 8th grade by lunch time.) I was reduced to a giggling red faced girl and could not teach. Any time he would walk by, they would point, or try to take his picture, or one student even offered to run out and get his phone number for me. Oh. My. God.

The irony is I never even saw him in person, nor have I talked to him since our brief encounters last year. But Dustin (I think), if you're out there, I have about 50 kids who are dead set on you becoming my boyfriend. About half my girls think you're pretty dreamy too. I'm sure they'd love for you to come in again and talk about science. Even if it's during ELA class.

Hahahaahhaaa. Bad role model fail.

harry potter

On Tuesday, being the huge nerd that I am, I wore a Gryffindor tie and scarf to school. In the previous weeks, I had planned a movie trip with some of my favorite students to go see the newest Harry Potter. So after school, I hopped a train with 12 kids and went down to Lincoln Center (ooooh, the mysterious world of Manhattan) to see the movie. I would now like to recount all of the terrible things I said or did.

1. One of my kids didn't have subway fare because his mom called me last minute asking if he could go and someone else offered to pay for his movie ticket. Instead of buying him a pass or something, I looked at him, decided he looked young enough, and told him to just crawl under the lever. Aaah, stealing, an important life lesson.

2. On the train, a discussion came up about age, and I gathered them around to give them two important life lessons. "One: never ask a woman her age. I personally don't care, but most women don't like that. Two: never ask a woman if she's pregnant. Because if she's not, you just called her fat. Got it?" They all nodded and laughed. I looked around the car to see a bunch of mostly white faces looking at me in either disgust or surprise or pleasure, I'm not sure. When we got off, one man walked by me, smiled, repeated rule #1, and said, "That's good. I like that. Very important."

3. As we were walking to the theater, one of my boys started telling me about how he really enjoyed (and was good at) throwing peanuts in the air and catching them in his mouth. I almost choked with laughter. Juvenile sense of humor, check.

4. When we went to buy the tickets, I instructed everyone to give me the cash. The age for a child's tickets cuts off at 12; a good half of my group was 13 or older. I bought one adult ticket and 12 children's tickets. Dude, come on, it saved so much money. But lying, another important life lesson. Glad that one really sunk in.

5. I bought popcorn and chicken strips for everyone to share and instructed them each to buy their own soda or candy. Childhood obesity, hell yeah, let's make it happen. Also, one of the girls got so sick that she almost threw up.

6. Aaaaand, on the way back, a lot of them couldn't figure out the subway gates where you actually have to slide in and push it like a revolving door. So we had to double up to get everybody through. Again, this whole lying/cheating/stealing message, I really wanted to hit it home.

That being said, we had a lot of fun, and it was a good opportunity for everyone to experience something they might not have been able to experience otherwise. Plus, no one died or got injured on the trip. So far, I'm batting 1000. I'd like to keep that up.

yep

My friend told a story at our weekly Thursday Night Dinner. I can't really do it justice except to qualify it by saying that we have to deal with this kind of nonsense on a daily basis.

Apparently a rumor was going around the 7th graders at school that this teacher (Ms. R) had a tube in her butt. This student approached her after lunch and that's all she said. "So-and-so said you had a tube in your butt. But don't worry, I told her she was totally wrong."

My friend was baffled. Like, "I'm sorry, can you explain this more? What is this tube you speak of?" Eventually she surmised that the child meant they were all gossiping that she was pumping up her butt with a tube to make it bigger. Thank goodness this girl was there to set the record straight. For the record, Ms. R also clarified that a) that didn't make any sense and b) she didn't really care what 7th graders were gossiping about her in the lunchroom but c) thanks for the support.

Dude, 12-year-olds are weird.

field trips

As I now work two jobs, I have not been posting much. So, this better be a good one.

Here are some quotes overheard on the many field trips I have taken my students on over the past few months.

*

"Whooooaaa, it is fancy down here. Look, they spell shit out for these rich people. Look, 'one-hundred twenty-one,' instead of just the number. These white people are crazy." (By the Museum of Natural History)

*

"All right guys, who did we get the Statue of Liberty from?"
"France!"
"Right, and back when France settled in the United States, where did they settle?"
"Europe!"
"No, in the United States."
"Massachusetts!"
"No, good, that was one of the original 13 colonies, but that was not French."
"New England!"
"No, that was England. That's why it's called New England. What city or state in the United States?"
"Canada!"
"Ok, awesome, when they settled in North America, they settled in Canada. But what city or state as well?"
"Georgia?"
"Getting closer..."
"New Orleans!"
"Awesome, and what state was that it?"
"Georgia?"
"Nope."
"Louisiana?"
"Niiiiiice."
(At Ellis Island)

*

"If my Yu-Gi-Oh cards fall into the water, I am jumping in after them."
"Someone just died falling off the Staten Island ferry."
"Well, I don't care, I am going to jump in after them and hope I live."
"How much did your cards cost?"
"All together, about $30."
"Ok, I think your life is worth more than $30. I will pay for new Yu-Gi-Oh cards. But I have a better idea, how about you just keep them in your pocket so that you don't lose them?"
"Oh... ok. Yeah."
(On the ferry to Liberty Island)

*

"So, what did you guys learn today?"
"I learned that when immigrants came through Ellis Island they had to stay in small bunk beds in small rooms with lots of people."
"I learned that they had to pass health inspections to get into America."
"I learned that 10 minutes is not really enough time to eat a full lunch."
(At Battery Park)