Guess Who's Back...Back Again...

 It's been a long time.  *shakes fist at the virus*

But maybe now we need to get back to normal.  And normal is often funny when you teach seventh grade.

One of my jobs is to hold the wing door open in the morning so that the middle school kids can enter the building without cramming through the front door.  It's not bad right now, though I know it will be far less enjoyable once it rains or snows or is cold.  Which I'm sure won't happen in Michigan anytime soon.

Anyways, some of the eighth graders help to open car doors for the little kids during morning drop-off.  They have found that one way to amuse themselves while they work is to give directions to their eighth-grade friends.  Like, "So you're going to turn left and go through the door, then walk all the way down the hall until you see the nice lady teaching math."  Hysterical.  I'm certain their friends are appreciative.

Last week, one of my former students was playing this game with one of his friends.  As he saw me, he said, "Be careful--you don't want to look her directly in the eyes."  Apparently I traumatized the children more than I'd anticipated last year.

Today, a current student approached me and gave me a Mandalorian mask.  For reals!  Ah. Mazing.  So of course I put it on.  And of course I pointed into the hallway as students walked in, saying, "This is the way."  Which is REALLY funny, if you're a Star Wars fan.  Disappointingly, most kids didn't even flinch--even the sixth-graders who are unfamiliar with my randomness.  I mean, it's not every day that Mando welcomes you to middle school. 

So I guess the virus isn't ALL bad....oh wait.  Yes it is, but it was still funny.  And there's a lot more days left in the year.

Turn To Page 364

The back of my classroom is my own private domain.  I have my laptop, my desk, my toys. . . and piles of paper, if I’m being brutally honest.  On the first day of school, I impress upon the children that one does not simply enter my lair.  One must be invited. I understand the appeal—I have a lot of cool stuff.  I wouldn’t leave my lair at all if I didn’t have to, you know, teach my classes.

Today a student, clearly attracted by a shiny object of some sort, wandered into my lair while we were waiting for dismissal.  I could see that she wasn’t hurting anything, so I let her look at whatever she was looking at.  Another student saw her, gasped, and shouted, “GET OUT OF HER DUNGEON!”  

Apparently I am the potions professor at Hogwarts.

Iceberg! Dead Ahead!

This week my classes have been reading an excerpt from Exploring the Titanic by Robert Ballard.  At this point we are far enough removed from the James Cameron movie Titanic that I only have occasional questions about why Jack didn't get on the raft at the end and other historical discrepancies.  Praise be.

We spend some quality time discussing how the ship was constructed, being as that's hugely relevant to why it sank so quickly.  I put my incredible artistic skills to good use by sketching the ship complete with watertight compartments and four funnels.  When the ship grazed the iceberg, it popped off the rivets in five of the front compartments, which basically doomed the ship.  I cleverly indicated where the gash was with my red marker... I'm always thinking.  Once the front compartments filled with water and the bow began to sink, it was only a matter of time before the water overflowed into the next compartment, and so on.  History comes alive in my drawing. 

Because my drawing was so incredible, I didn't erase it before the end of class.  We packed up and headed out to the curb for pick-up.  When I returned to my room, I noticed that someone had added what is perhaps the biggest understatement in all of recorded maritime history:

You're not wrong, kid.

In Which I Survive to Teach Another Day...

First day of school blog post!  Always a good omen.

I was playing every teachers' favorite game today, that being "Taking Roll and Mispronouncing Names."  Best.  Game.  Ever.   I came to a child who we shall call William. 

"William,"  said I, "what would you like me to call you?"

Can you see where I went wrong?  What I meant was, would you like to be Will or William?  Totally legitimate question.  But, in fairness, that is not the question I asked.

Without even the slightest hesitation, William answered, "Danny DeVito."

And now I have Danny DeVito in my second block class.  FOR THE WIN.

It's the End of the Year As We Know It....

The bad thing about having a student teacher is that far fewer amusing things happen when you aren't teaching.  Sorry 'bout that.

Buuuut now I'm back, and the last weeks of school are always good blog post fodder.  After a full year of harassing seventh graders  training young minds, I have molded at least two of the children in my own image.  Consider:

1.  A child was walking down the hall at the end of the day with cupcakes.  I demanded to know why I had not also been given cupcakes.  Without missing a beat, he replied, "Cupcakes are for winners."  The same child brought in a container of cake sprinkles the next day to torment me, shaking it at random intervals to remind me that indeed, only winners have sprinkles (see Sprinkles Are For Winners! for more details). 

2.  I was tormenting my last block class by eating pretzel sticks in front of them, as one does.  I started to feel a little badly about it, so I gave each kid two pretzel sticks.  The small ones.  Upon receiving his magnanimous gift, a student told me, "I like two more things about you now than I did before."

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.  Go forth and spread chaos, younglings!

Watch Out For That First Step...

It's been a busy week, but there were some doozies!

1.  We're reading about the Titanic disaster.  The selection in our textbook was written by Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who discovered the wreck.  I told the kids about how nowadays he is exploring the deep trenches of the ocean.  It takes him hours to go down the trench in the submarine and hours to go back up.  A student asked, "How does he hold his breath that long?"

2.  I have no idea how the topic came up, but someone made a comment about how old I am.  I immediately notified the students that I am not the oldest seventh grade teacher; my arch-nemesis co-worker is.  By six months.  But it still counts.  A girl in the back looked at me up and down and said, "Well, clearly she moisturizes." 

3.  A student managed to stick a pencil eraser to his forehead and approached me saying, "Look!  I'm a unicorn!"

For reals.

Once More Into the Breach, Dear Friends...

Day One:  CRUSHED IT! 

You know it's gonna be a good year when you get a blog post on the first day of school, right?  So I do actually teach a lesson on the first day--because I am the meanest teacher on Carpenter Road.  Plus I have 90 minutes to fill.  The first lesson is always about how to write a personal letter.  Then they have to write a personal letter to me to introduce themselves.  Genius, right?

Writing this letter isn't all that complicated.  There's really only 3 formatting issues to be dealt with.  In order to explain where the various components should be placed on notebook paper, I draw a piece of paper on my whiteboard so it looks something like:

Only mine doesn't look this good, because let's face it...I'm an ELA teacher, not an art teacher.

The point I was attempting to make is that when we write, we justify our words to the left margin.  I'm nothing if all about academic vocabulary, even on the first day.  I was trying to get the kids to come up with the name of the red line running down the left side of the page, which initially got me responses of, "It's a line!" and "It's a red line!"  

Highly technical terms.  

I said, "It begins with an M."

And a student in the front blurts out, "Oh!  I know!  Mississippi!"

*crickets*

*hysterical laughter as I bang my head against the wall*

I need to go back and review exactly when I began being a geography teacher, apparently.