close enough

The other day I was showing my students a story that mentioned the state Alabama. At least 3 of them shouted out something along the lines of "What the hell is Alabama?" To which one of my brightest scholars responded "It's the capital of New York!"

I'm gonna give you a moment to let that one sink in.

Okay.

I mentioned this story to my friend over drinks on Friday. She responded with this gem. She was working with a student one on one over how to read a map. She pointed out the various features, and stopped at a squiggly blue line to ask the girl what she thought that might be. Crickets. Finally my friend says, "It's a river." The girl says, "Ohhhhhhhhh." There's a few seconds of silence. My friend follows up with, "Do you know what a river is?" Silence again, and then finally, "It's like an ocean?"

Geography fail.

So what can we do?

Last week, I asked the students to write me a letter about what I can do and what they can do to make the class better.

Best response, by far:

I think you Need to Lear n How talk with aperson with out Being in there face and that you alway act wild different and you be haaving mood swings

Signed with her name and a heart on the bottom.

I'm quitting tomorrow.

self-esteem

Let me tell you, if you want to feel good about yourself, do not hang around with 13-year-olds.

Things they have told me lately:
"Your forehead is shiny."
"What is that on your chin? Is it contagious?"
"You should be on the 'Bad Girl's Club.'"
"Your hair grows fast. Didn't you just dye it? I can already see your roots. You have a lot of gray hair."
"When you have your coat on, from the back, you look like a little black girl."

Um... I don't even know.

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.