thanks?

I have naturally very straight hair, but awhile back I started putting it in braids at night, then letting it out and adding gel to it to make it curly. The first time I did this, one of my boys said, "You look really familiar right now. You look like someone I know. I can't figure out what it is." I said, "Is it me? Do I remind you of your English teacher, just with curly hair? Cause that's what I am." He said no.

At the end of the day, he came up to me again. "I figured it out! You look like a wet Puerto Rican!"

....okay.

close but no cigar

As we were about to read a short story in class, I say, "This story is an example of a myth. What is a myth?" Mind you, the answer is written right in the textbook we are about to read from.

DS excitedly raises his hand. "Oooh, oooh! I know! It's a drug, like speed."

yeah she did!

I was working with a student who is (I hate to admit it but...) particularly annoying. When I turned around to get him something, another person threw a tiny piece of paper at him. He shouted out, "Yo, who threw that?" to which I quickly responded, "Your mama!"

Whooops.

oh dear!

Has it been almost a month? I apologize. Things have been going relatively well. I mean, we've almost completely stopped doing independent reading in favor of me reading aloud a book, but, well, that's worth something. I hope.

I leave you with this gem. My students asked me a few weeks ago if I was a nerd or cool in high school. I said, "Are you kidding me? Do you even know me? I was a complete nerd. I'm a teacher for goodness sake!" They asked me to prove it by bringing in a yearbook, so when I went home over vacation, I fished my 8th grade yearbook out of my dad's closet. I brought it in, and showed a group of them some pictures. (I was voted Most Likely to be on Jeopardy in middle school, thankyouverymuch.) They flipped to a signature page and saw where one of my male friends had written his phone number. A girl asked, "Oooooohhh, did you have a boyfriend?" I said, "In 8th grade? No, of course not." "Well, do you have one now?" "No, I don't." "Good, you should be single and ready to mingle!!!"

Yes, I apparently allow this inappropriateness to happen.

glad my influence is rubbing off on them

I have a boy who is currently in his second tour of my 8th grade ELA class. He is not unintelligent or poorly behaved, just lazy. He doesn't do much besides sit silently and draw. It's infuriating because he could do much better, he just chooses to zone out. Most of the time you can't really talk to him, because he just looks confused or shrugs his shoulders without saying a word in response.

One day, I was reviewing some past lessons with my students so they could all ace a quiz. Everyone was taking notes, answering questions, and having discussions. I walked by his desk and saw that he had not written a single word on his paper. He drew some guitars or something in the margins. I held up the paper of this girl next to him, which was filled, and held up his in his face and just said, "Really? Really?" As in, 'so that's all you're giving me?' He shrugged.

We took the quizzes and they went off without a hitch. Most got at least 8 out of 10. I again walked by the desk of my good friend, the future artist. He had gotten 2 points. To my delight, the girl that had graded his quiz wrote his score at the top, and then next to it, wrote "Really?!?!"

Passive aggression ftw.

time to break some shit

I took so long to write about this because it was quite horribly the scariest moment of my life.

My kids had a great period. A few of the class ruiners were out on suspension, so we were getting through the lesson like gang busters, crackin some jokes, having a good time. We finished a little early and I decided to head down to lunch. We put up all the chairs (it was my last period of the day) and went to the door. One of the kids said he couldn't open it. I told him playtime was over and to stop joking around. He showed me, quite honestly, that it wouldn't twist open. Another kid was out in the hallway. I thought he was holding the door. I was hungry, so I had something to the effect of "Hey asshole, get your hand off the door." Ok, I said nothing like that, but he held both of his hands up and showed he wasn't holding the handle. Finally I tried the doorknob and couldn't get it to budge. I managed to stay calm, but of course the room of teenagers started yelling. I convinced them to back away and started twisting, pulling, using the credit card trick, doing whatever I could think of. That didn't work, so I called the custodial office.

At this point my assistant principal is walking by. I yell out the door that we can't open it. He tries his keys to see if that will unjam it, but no. He motions for everyone to scoot back, cracks a smile, and says, "Enjoy their company!" Yeah, right. There's nowhere for them to sit, so they are crowding into each other on the couch and floor.

A few more minutes go by. A few boys try body slamming the door. The kids start gradually flipping their shit even more and saying that they weren't going to get to it, or worse, that the Scream killer was coming in to get them. One said, "Well, at least they'd kill the white girls first." I smartly responded, "Are you kidding? We all know the minorities are the first to go." That calmed them down (notttttt). At one point I turned my back and said if someone had a knife I would use it to unscrew the knob and then pretend I didn't see it. No takers, unfortunately, but I'm sure at least 4 were lying. I called the custodian's office again- they angrily assured me someone was on their way. I took some scissors to see if there was anything I could tamper with, but I'm not that handy with hardware. After about 15 minutes, I called my dad (a construction worker) from my cell phone, and as he was giving more suggestions, the custodian finally came to let us free. I don't know what he did, all I CAN tell you is that my doorknob will now not stay locked at all.

Excellent.

excellent retort

You really can't top these responses to comments by me in order to try to correct behavior.

In class

Me: (after being interrupted mid-lesson five times by the same kids) I am just really upset that I don't have a room full of 8th graders right now and that we are acting like children.
D: (one of the main interrupters) I am not a children!!!

Picking up my after school group in the cafeteria

Me: M, why are you yelling so loudly?
M: I love pizza and cake!!!