Aaaaaand I'm Out!

Today I reached the pinnacle of my teaching career.

*Background: It's Spirit Week. Today was Imposters Day. Cue the chaos and anarchy.*

Not only did I have a student impersonate ME for the first time (and she did it well), there was also a contingency of eighth graders who dressed up as characters from Star Wars.  Every major character other than Threepio was represented. With props.

I'm not allowed to post photos of my students, so you'll have to trust me on the epicness of this turn of events.  After YEARS of students not understanding my references, my brainwashing scheme has come to fruition!

Well THAT Escalated Quickly!

It's been a prolific week...

As the students were getting ready for lunch today, I saw a large sticker on the floor.  When I picked it up, it was an address label for the older sister of one of my students.  I called her over.

Me: Hey, what's this doing here?

Student:  I don't know.  Maybe the devil is among us?

Oooooookay then.

"I'm Not Illiterate! My Parents Were Married!"

The unit we just finished up in our anthology contains possibly THE WORST dramatized version of A Christmas Carol that I have ever had the misfortune to come across.  So as to not inflict that sort of damage upon my students (and myself, frankly), I decided to substitute a young reader's version of Romeo and Juliet.  The kids LOVE it, and it makes me happy too.  Reading Shakespeare is one of the few things I miss about teaching high school.  

After taking the unit test, I decided to reward the kids for doing such a great job by letting them watch Gnomeo and Juliet.  If you're unfamiliar with this gem, you really should watch it.  It's a cartoon retelling of Romeo and Juliet, but with garden gnomes.  And Elton John.  I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it's actually very clever.  The students loved being able to match up the characters and were furious when the gnomes don't all die at the end.

However, there were some issues with the accuracy and logistics of the plot.  Apparently the students were okay with talking garden gnomes who race lawnmowers in the alley, but they couldn't handle a few other small details.  For example, this is Lady Bluebery, who is Gnomeo's mother:

Comments that were made by the students included such gems as, "I still don't understand how gnomes have children," and, "Wait--you're like 60.  How can you have a child?"

Focus on the important details, people.

Fear Leads to Anger, Anger Leads to Hate, Hate Leads to SUFFERING...

Today's topic was epics.  I mean, EPICS.  While we are studying the more traditional, poetry kind of epics, the students are more familiar with modern epics such as Star Wars, Percy Jackson, and Harry Potter.  Which works well for me since I can use them as examples of characteristics.

One characteristic of epics is that they often include a struggle between GOOD and EVIL.  Who better to illustrate this conflict than Darth Vader?  Which of course prompted a discussion about whether Darth Vader was truly evil, and we all know where that goes.

I start trying to wrap up the discussion so we can move to the next slide, but a student in the back just can't let it go and blurts out, "When you teachers give us homework, that's when the evil wins!  GET OUT THE PITCHFORKS!"

Really.  She played the pitchfork card.

Jedi Masters

I bought a new toy recently. Yes, I am aware that I am 41 years old. But when you find the Yoda Jedi Trainer on sale, you don't pass up that opportunity for chaos and anarchy in your classroom. Here's what it looks like in action:

Well, not in action exactly, but you get the point.  It talks, spins, and hits you with the lightsaber.  Epic.

Today was a professional development meeting. In order to amuse myself during long meetings, I like to bring props. So of course, Jedi Master Yoda had to join our table in the gym. I did not realize, however, that the middle school teachers were only spending a few minutes in the gym before heading off to a meeting in the computer lab for the rest of the morning. I didn't have enough hands to carry Yoda and my coffee, so I figured that Yoda could stand guard over our table while we were gone. 

You would think I would learn. TRUST NO ONE! 

When I came back to the gym after the morning meeting, Yoda was nowhere to be seen.  In a blind panic, I shrieked, "Where's Master Yoda?" like a little girl. 

Silence.

Then one of the kindergarten teachers, who had stayed behind in the gym for the morning meeting, drawled, "Can't you use the Force to find him?"

I may have asked for that. So I changed tactics and started looking around the gym. How hard can it be to find an 18" green guy with a lightsaber? 

Friends, I have been SCHOOLED!

I Am Officially Old

If you have ever met seventh graders, you will know that they are easily distracted.  Especially by clip art in presentations.  I have apparently not learned this lesson in my eighteen years of teaching them because today's PowerPoint contained not only clip art, but MOVING clip art!  What on earth could I have been thinking?

Rather than writing down what they were supposed to be writing down, students wanted to know important details such as, "How did you get the clip art to move?"

"Magic," I replied with a wave of my hand.  "Duh."

Then they wanted to know why the cartoon characters did not appear to have a waist.  And what the cartoon character was writing.  And why they couldn't read the writing.  And so on and so forth until I was about ready to delete all remnants of clip art so we could continue with the actual lesson.

On the final slide, I made an even bigger mistake.  The example sentence used to demonstrate relative pronouns and relative clauses was, "The person who called me last night is my teacher."  I very cleverly thought that a phone would be an appropriate piece of clip art to illustrate this slide.  It didn't even have any motion--it was just a phone.  Here's what the phone looked like:

Anyone else see where this is going?

"Why are there no numbers on that clock?"

BECAUSE IT'S NOT A CLOCK!  BACK WHEN DINOSAURS ROAMED THE EARTH WHEN I WAS A GIRL, THIS WAS THE ONLY PHONE WE HAD!  AND IT HAD A CORD AND WAS WIRED TO THE WALL!  GET OFF MY LAWN!


*deep cleansing breaths*