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The Age Old Question

It is, quite obviously, a national mystery as to what teachers do with their summers.

I know this because every flipping human being with whom I come into contact asks me as much.  I go to get my oil changed.  "What?  A mid-day appointment works for you? You're a teacher? Whatever do you do with your summer?"  I go to the doctor.  "And what's your occupation?  Teacher?  Why, what are you doing with your summer?"  I go get my hair cut...

Oh, lord.
I go to get my haircut and there's a student in the chair ahead of me.
"SENORA! Wait...what are you doing here??"
Plucking a chicken.
Oh...no, wait...I'm getting my hair cut, you smartass, what do you think I'm doing here?
And then there's the beautician.
"Aww...you were his teacher?  So what do you do during the summer?"

Cease to exist in everyone else's mind, apparently.

So although I dodged it last year, opting for giving only a list of what I most definitely don't do during the summer, this year I figured I'd spill the beans.  Let the cat out of the bag.  Allow the public eye to see the Secret Lives of Teachers Off Duty.  And if you're hoping for some educational version of Teachers Gone Wild, don't hold your breath.

We're entirely too exhausted to be showing our boobs.

Teacher Summer Activity #1:  Drag Cot Out of Classroom
Though widely practiced among teachers nationwide, the Dragging of the Cot From the Classroom is an annual ritual rarely sighted by outsiders.  Permitting outsiders to observe it would defeat the entire purpose for its existence in the first place - specifically, it would violate the first commandment of teaching, "Thou Shalt Not Exist Outside of the Classroom."  While, due to a shameful quirk in the laws of physics, it is rather difficult to cease to exist simply by exiting a classroom door, teachers have managed to hold fast to that commandment by limiting their life purpose and physical locality to the classroom for nine months of the year.  All those suspicions you had in elementary school?  You were correct.  Your teachers did, indeed, live at school.  In fact, were it not for those pesky janitors who insist on cleaning the building from top to bottom every summer, we would never dare venture from the confines of Where We Belong.  But every June, along with the bottles of bleach and the floor wax comes the horrifying realization that we will have to leave our little caves, venture out in public and actually attempt do do things like Buy Groceries and Go To the Bank.

Teacher Summer Activity #2:  Drool
Generally, I like to mark the end of the cot-dragging by finding a little corner of the home some kind soul has lent me (there's really no purpose in buying a house when you aren't going to use it most of the year) and drooling for awhile.  It eases the mind, helps a body to reset after a busy year.  Think of it as a form of meditation, if you will.  My rule of thumb is about one minute of drooling for every time my name was unnecessarily called at work, so that's roughly 9,000 minutes which translates into about 150 hours, or 3.75 work weeks of full-time drooling.  So by the time I'm finished with Teacher Summer Activity #2, I'm usually nearing July which is already about half my summer spent, but I am in great shape for my next activity...

Teacher Summer Activity #3:  Forget What Day of the Week It Is
Do not attempt to schedule something with me and have me show up.  Do not pretend I have any concept of what day matches what date.  I do not understand the difference between Mondays and Fridays, Saturdays and Tuesdays.  I will be late because I forgot to account for rush hour or I will be pleasantly surprised because it's unexpectedly happy hour.  I live in a weirdly warpy world where time ceases to exist.  Days of the week?  Schedules?

They mean nothing to me.

Teacher Summer Activity #4:  Engage in Non-Academic Activities
A sad side effect of removing a teacher from his or her classroom is that he or she will almost immediately begin to act erratically.  It's rather similar to putting a mouse in a maze and watching it circle in confusion, or a fly in a car that repeatedly slams itself into the windows, searching for that elusive freedom.

We simply don't know what to do if we're not working.

Without students, parents, and administrators to fill out time we become irrational.  We do things we normally wouldn't.  We dress up, sit on restaurant patios and socialize.  We pull out the grill and throw on some steaks.  We don bikinis and go the beach.  We buy tickets and go to the movies...on a weeknight.


And if that wasn't enough to make the casual onlooker nervous, the last (and most pleasing) teacher summer activity usually convinces the general public that we ought to just stay in our classroom holes...

Teacher Summer Activity #5: Pee Whenever We Want
The glory of bell-free bathroom breaks.  The wonder of having enough time to wash your hands.  The majestic freedom of walking by a bathroom and deciding to use it just because we can.  The summer teacher becomes a bathroom connoisseur.  Want to know which restaurants have the thickest toilet paper?  Which public bathrooms have the roomiest stalls?  Which of your friends' houses have the most delightful bathroom decor?  Just ask a teacher.  He or she will have scoped out the most comfortable porcelain thrones, basking in the pleasure of going pee at odd times, rebelling against the bell the commands the bladder for three-quarters of the year, rejecting the cold concrete floors and stinky pink soap.  Oh, yes.  During the summer, teachers, we pee.

And then, some time in August, I will start washing the sheets of my cot.  I will prepare my bag of toiletries, start getting myself on a schedule again in order to prepare for The Great Return.

But I'd prefer not to think about that, yet.  It's 12:53 on...someday...and I think I'm going to pee and then do something scandalous.  Venture out to to a museum, perhaps.  Or buy some fruit.

I might even wearing yoga pants and a tank top.  Because teachers in the summer...

That's how we roll.

Hazard Pay

I sound like Bob Dylan after he's gone a three day pot-smoking bender.  In the exhaust pipe of diesel 18-wheeler.

In a traffic tunnel.

In downtown Mexico City.

My normally low voice is somewhere between folk-singer nasal and Demi-Moore-gone-whip-it-crazy husky.  I have, at best, one functioning nostril (apt to change at any time), a pounding head, and my limbs weigh about as much as one truckload of bad educational policies made by idiots who don't work in the field.

Not really sure if that last metaphor made sense.  And now, a word from our sponsor:
"Today's shitty writing... brought to you by DayQuil!"


The real killer is that I'm only two weeks from freedom.  Fresh air, clean hands, and all the anti-bacterial soap a girl could want.

Or maybe the real killer is that this is my second head cold in three weeks.  Three weeks!  That has never happened in my decade-plus teaching in the swarmingly full petri-dishes of public education.  The minute I quit hocking up loogies into Kleenex and breathe a sigh of relief, I feel that tell-tale scratchy throat coming on again.

Are you kidding me?

And so this year, I dedicate the end-of-the-school year rant to Why Teachers Should Receive Hazard Pay.

Why Teachers Should Receive Hazard Pay 

(the short list)

1.  Germs

2.  Trainings

3.  Weird shit you can't even imagine

We'll start with germs, since that's where my head is now.  Or, rather, that's where they are, now.  In my head.  But to explain this particular aspect of the teaching profession, I'm going to need you to use your imagination a bit.  I'd like you to lean back, close your eyes, and think about Victorian lace and rosy-cheeked babies in old-fashioned, white nighties.

Because kids at my school are dropping like flies from  the Whooping Cough.

 Whooping cough?  I thought that had gone the way of smallpox, polio, and saying things like "we had to send mother off to a sanatorium for we fear she has the consumption,"in a vague British accent.  (Oh, and by the way, by "dropping like flies"of course, I mean that they're out for huge chunks of school at a time.  Not that they're dying.  Though my absence list is beginning to make me wonder...)

Here's a little description of whooping cough from the Mayo Clinic:
Thick mucus accumulates inside your airways, causing uncontrollable coughing.  Severe and prolonged coughing attacks may provoke vomiting, result in a red or blue face, cause extreme fatigue, or end with a high-pitched "whoop" sound during the next breath of air.


Mmmm...yummy...so that's what I hear going on in my classroom.  I suppose that's better than a friend's school which actually had to close during the school week due to a "particularly virulent stomach virus."

Nasty.  Nasty, nasty, nasty.

Any of you who have had small children know how easily they get sick.  Cram a bunch of kids into a small space, add in their less-than-ideal hand-washing and food-sharing techniques and voila!  It's a family practitioner's dream.  And don't even think it's limited to just the younger kids.  My current snot-o'-riffic bug came from a darling junior, who I adore.  Usually.

"Hey, Teach," she said, snorting up a nose full of mucus and walking up to my desk.  "Can you help me with this packet?"

And then she coughed in my face.  No turning her head, no covering her mouth with her hands, no grabbing a Kleenex, oh no, just one big open-air hack, six inches from my eyeballs.

"Wait...Emily...did you just cough in my face?" I asked her, a bit mystified due to the fact that she's seventeen years old and thus (in my mind) should damn-well-know-better.

"Um...oops?  So anyway, about this packet..."

Gimme a cubicle, folks.  As long as it has four walls, a bottle of hand-sanitizer, and a door across which I can string a police line do not cross tape, a little solitary confinement is sounding pretty good right now.

Or maybe some extra compensation to pay for my new DayQuil habit.




Please excuse the delay in completing this post.  I just ran out of Kleenex.   #2 and #3 of Hazard Pay List coming soon.  

A Shout Out To The Teachers

Holy shitster. Haven't had an ass-kicking like that at work in a long time.

Teachers are totally and certifiably nuts. Come, take a walk through my work week with me. It'll be fun...if you have masochistic tendencies. And this was a short week, mind you. Only four days of insanity rather than five. Let's start with Wednesday's facebook status, because it's almost too easy.

Today: cheating student, student go MIA in the middle of class, 10 children in my room after school asking for help while I'm somehow simultaneously supposed to be supervising parking lot, parent screaming at me for asking her to move her car, 1 meeting down, three more scheduled, discipline emails home

Now, since that's only one day, I'll very quickly add on the rest of the week: meeting Tuesday, 2 meetings Friday, Wednesday office hours, organize video observations for elementary teachers, evening work on stipend project, collect data from last education-related book study, plan next book study, 2 evening classes for Educational Coach certification...

Oh, wait! Did I mention I also teach Spanish? Taught a total of 15 classes, 135 students, 3 different levels. Gave 30 tests, 60 quizzes and collected 120 pieces of homework. Supervised 30 kids in study hall, organized another 30 on Thursday to present to the elementary school on hunger issues. Accommodated for IEPs, dealt with Asperger's, bipolar disorder, speech impediments and, bah... I'm sick of this whole list. Let's break it down a bit.

For all of you who don't teach: have you ever planned a speech?

How long was the speech? 5 minutes? 10? 20? Even the longest speeches at most events/church servies/public anythings don't go much past 20 minutes. So here's my next question: how long did you spend planning that speech?

Try planning 5 of those suckers a day, each one 50 minutes long.

Ok -- maybe I'm exaggerating. I only teach 3 levels of Spanish, so two of those "speeches" repeat themselves. Try planning three of those suckers a day. Only it's not as easy as that. You're not allowed to just speak for 50 minutes, oh heavens no. You must 1) present orally 2) maintain the attention of up to 30 teenagers while doing so 3) interactively engage with every single teenager within those 50 minutes (that's right...30 teenagers, 50 minutes, quality conversation., you do the math 4) incorporate reading 5) incorporate writing 6)differentiate the entire lesson according to each students’ ability/special needs/social eptitude or ineptitude.

I dare any of you non-teachers to tackle any of the above numbers, especially #2. I'll give $25 to any non-teacher willing to lock him/herself in a small, enclosed space with 30 teenagers for an hour. An extra $50 if you can maintain their attention for that time period. If they text, socialize, fall asleep, you lose. Just for kicks, though, I get to throw in whatever student combo I want. My bet? One ADHD kid, and you're going down.

Are you beginning to understand? Because I'm only getting started, but I won't bore you with the rest of the details. I'm too exhausted. At least this week, I didn't have to deal with children choking on frozen grapes or emergency all-school pages. 

That was last week.

So for all of you who have kids in school, go buy your teachers some chocolate. Or better yet - a pitcher of margaritas. At the very least, don't scream at us like some cracked-out screeching monkey. You won't get anywhere with me, crazy parking lot psycho mom. I work with teenagers. I see your crazy and raise you 135 hormonal adolescents. 

That's right. Now who's scary?

Bring it.

Holding It Together

I had another kid go awol out the window this week.  

The frequency with which this happens is certainly not enough for me to question my competency as a teacher.  It’s hardly daily.  More like like semesterly.  And to my credit, I’ve caught every child that’s made a break for the Wild Savannah of the Soccer Field.  Even more to my credit, the only other window issue I’ve had this semester was a student entering my class.  I’m not one to look the gift horse in the mouth.  You want in my class bad enough to come through the window, welcome.  Now sit your ass down and get started on your bell work.   

Still, walking into my room to a pack of awestruck fourteen year olds whispering “Dude...he actually went out the window!” in one of their first experiences of Mild Teenage Misbehavior in the Classroom only convinces me that when designing educational edifices, architects really should take into consideration the teenage brain.   Primarily the fact that a pop-out window with an opening the exact size of an adolescent torso set two feet above a soft landing strip of mulch screams Freedom! with a force comparable only to the illegal immigration dispute of the southwest.  Border jumpers, windows jumpers, it’s all the same gig.

That natural longing for A Better Place.

I spun on my heel and went right back out my door to meet the Escape Artist on his way back in.

“Really?  Climbing out the window?  Your little freedom-seeking booty is in my room after school cleaning desks.”

“Yes, ma’am.”  

Welcome to Spring in Education.  The weather is beautiful, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the kids are totally-freaking-losing-it.

For that matter, so am I.

“¡Olé!” I shout at my class in our agreed-upon manner of getting their attention.

Conversation in a bizarre mix of Spanish and English continues to roar in the background.

“¡Olé!”  I shout again.

“Olé.” I couple of stragglers repeat half-heartedly.  A girl squeals.  Two boys shout at each other.

“¡¡Olé!!”

Chaos.  

Thweet. Thweeeeeeet!  THWEEEEEET!!!!

That was the sports whistle I keep for occasions when the students are being exceptionally obnoxious, I have encouraged a little too much enthusiastic participation, or it’s Spring Teenager Mating Season.

“FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY, SIT DOWN, SHUT YOUR FACES AND RE-FRIGGIN’-LAX!” I bellow.

Silence.  Thirty faces stare at me, grinning without the least bit of shame, embarrassment, or Fear of Getting in Trouble.  My room is vibrating with energy.

“I know it’s spring.”  I tell them.  “I know it’s eighty degrees outside.  I know you’re spending more time checking out the hind ends of members of the opposite sex than you are on your homework but I just really need you to hold it together just one more month.’

Yeah.  Right.  

So I threw in the towel.  

I started Fun Question Fridays.

Objective of Fun Question Friday:  Students will have fun and stop thinking about school.  Teacher will have fun and stop wanted to shoot herself in the head. 

Structure of Fun Question Friday:  Give students index card.  Ask silly personal question.  Have students answer.  Collect cards.  Read aloud.  Laugh.

Predicted Outcomes of Fun Question Friday:  Laughter.  Very little academic work.  Increased popularity with students.  

Recommended Initial Question for Fun Question Friday:  What’s the most embarrassing moment you’re willing to share with the class?

It’s like my own little version of the Embarassing Moments sections of trashy magazines, which I love only slightly less than the useless quiz section.  And the kids totally get into it.

I bunted a ball into my face in front of the whole team, admits the class jock on his little card.  

I was looking for the expiration date...on a bottle of water, writes the smartest kid of the group.

And then it goes flat downhill to where we’re all giggling until we’re wiping tears from our eyes.  

Once we were playing truth or dare and my dare was to give myself a wedgie and I ripped my own underwear super loud.  Awko-taco.  Then I snarted (sneeze-farted) in front of my boyfriend.

I was at an amusement park with my friends. We were walking and I ran into a pole.  I thought it was a person, so I apologized to it and walked around the rest of the day with a purple face from hitting it so hard.

When I had a broken wrist, I used the bathroom at a friend’s house and ended up clogging it.  Since I couldn’t use my arm, his mom had to plunge it for me.

My best friend pantsed me in the cafeteria.  She thought my pants had a drawstring.  They didn’t.

I was really small and at Disneyland and I really had to pee.  I lifted my skirt and went on the sidewalk.  Then a family came up and said “Oh look, a puddle!” and their kids started playing in it.

Poop, pee, dropping pants, barfing in public, breaking bones, running into windows. 

We’re howling.  Absolutely zero Spanish is being learned.  

But this, my dear readers-who-think-I’m-a-slacker, is where I learn everything I need to know about my ability as a teacher.

The class jock willing to admit a clumsy moment?  The smart kid willing to admit to a “dumb” moment?  My kids feel safe in my room.  Good natured laughing at everyone’s moments without a single cheap shot taken?  My kids know not to show disrespect.  A big grin and a “That just replaced Friday as my favorite Spanish class, ever!” I timed the break right...and my kids have multiple favorite days.  

Overwork is overrated.  

We’re all just barely holding it together, so cut your kids and yourself a break and make a fool of yourself.  

Unless, of course, you have no fool in you, like the quietest student of mine this year.  

I have no embarrassing moments...she wrote...because I’m a ninja.

Damn straight.

I am a teaching ninja.

Analogies

Need an anti-set for tomorrow?

Have to cover something boring?

If the answer to either of these questions was yes, do what I tell you.  If the answer to both of these was yes, 1) way to procrastinate, slacker, and 2) procrastinating isn’t going to make it any more interesting, so sit down and do your damn lesson plan. 

How to kill anywhere from five to twenty minutes of Your Class With a Ridiculously Simple Yet Entirely Academically Valid Shenanigan*

*singular of shenanigans.  Not really sure if it exists, but that’s never stopped me before.

The prep work on this might stress a few of you overachieving academic types out.  But you can’t have a decent lesson without a little prep work.  So...as strange as it may be...  

1. Read through this first chunk of six instructions in its entirety before acting.
2. Get up and walk to your bathroom.
3. Open your bathroom cabinet of choice.
4. Pull out the first object you see.  Make note of what it is.
5. Return object to cabinet.
6. Resume reading blog.

Ready?  Go!  Don’t worry about me.  I’ll wait here...

Got it?  Ok, now, write down the name of the most boring concept you’re teaching tomorrow and let’s put it all together.  Insert your personal selections into the following half sentence:

(Boring concept of the day) is like (bathroom cabinet object) because...

Voilá.  Your anti-set.

....

...cricket chirp...

....

What?  Don’t sit there looking at me, all disappointed-like. I know analogies are old ed school class fodder for how to teach.

“Aw, c’mon, Teach.  We expect more out of you than old ed school class fodder.” 

Yeah?  Well, how about this... most of you whiny-butts don’t have a clue how to use analogies.  So before I go on to tell you how to kill five to twenty minutes of your next class, lemme lay some ground rules, first.*

*If you are short on time and/or wish to avoid a standard Singing Pig rant, kindly scroll down to where it says “3 Ways to Use Analogies.”

Singing Pig basic rules for using analogies (that most teachers and ed classes screw up.)

1. They can’t be boring.  

Q. “Reading a poem is like jogging through the countryside because...” 

A.  “...I don’t give a rat’s ass about doing either, you dull, hippie, boring-face.”

Just one of many possible hypothetical answers, mind you.  

     

       2.  They can't be obvious

Q.  “Reading is like exercise because...”

A.  “...you get better with practice.  They’re both good for you.  You have to do both at school...I’m so not interested in what you’re teaching that I’m going to whack my neighbor upside the head and then wad up paper to throw across the room at the trashcan.”

Again, hypothetically speaking.

If it isn’t bizarre (or at least offering the possibility to open the bizarre door, you’ve just limited your kids’ creativity as well as the variety of responses you’re going to get.  You’re leading them in what they should say, you’re not using higher level thinking skills and boring the tar out of them.  Shame on you.  Now you’ll just have to read a bunch of mediocre crap.  A sad result of using mediocre teaching.  But I seem to have gotten on the soapbox.  Let me finish up my rules real, here, and we’ll get back to your plan for tomorrow.

3. You’ve got to connect the analogy directly to the lesson.  You can’t just have an analogy about reading, then read in class and expect the students to get something out of it.  Relate it back. Explicitly. Review. Recycle.  Scaffold the crap out of it.  Whatever you want to call it.

Really, that’s pretty much it.  Be interesting, be relevant.  Not rocket science...but...

I’ll stay off the soapbox.  

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.  With a special “welcome back!” to those of you who chose to bypass our latest rant.

3 ways to use analogies

The five minute plan:

• Write your half on an analogy as an anti-set.  Have students complete it.
• Pair, share
• Give students 10 seconds to find a new partner
• Pair, share
• Share best answers with class, however, create the rule that they can’t share their own answer - only one they heard.
• Consciously reference some of their shared answers multiple times throughout the class.

The 10 minute plan:

• As an anti-set, write an analogy for students to complete.
• Rather than pair sharing, have students pass their paper to another student.  That student must then some how add on to, extend out, or give another example of their friends analogy.
• Pass papers again. Add one concrete example or real life application to the newest paper.
• Continue passing between 5 and 10 times, each time students receive a new analogy from one of their classmates, and add a concrete example or real life application to each.
• Return analogies to original authors.  Allow time to read.
• Have each student synthesize their analogy and their classmates’ responses into a an organized paragraph explaining how their analogies are accurate reflections of the concept covered in class and why that matters.  (Don’t miss out on your chance to teach basic writing skills here -- clear topic sentences, transitions words, etc.)

The 20+ minute plan:

• As an anti-set, have students write an analogy of their own for other students to complete.  (I’d suggest giving them a variety of concepts from the unit to choose from here...it would work as a good end of unit review)
• As in the 10 minute plan, have students pass papers.  This time, however, instead of giving examples of an analogy, each students has to complete their classmates’ analogies in a unique way.  When the paper finally makes its way back to the original owner, the owner should have a number of answers to their original analogy.
• Pass as many times as you like (to give students fodder)
• Send papers back to original owners, allow to read.
• Put students in groups of 3-4.  They share answers, and select the top three analogies from all of their lists.
• Groups prepare a detailed explanation of how those three analogies accurately reflect said concept(s) and then present their explanation to the class.  For fun, require illustrations as part of the explanations

If you’re giving this much class time to the analogies, I’d suggest you use at least a simple rubric to grade their presentations. 

Phew.  Done.

Was that a little too much serious ed speak for you?  Yeah?  Ooohh...look at my face...see my face?  That’s me, not caring.

Do it.  And if you try and replace my bathroom object piece of it with something more “acceptable,” don’t blame me if it goes over like a lead balloon.  I’ve heard every excuse in the book for teachers pooh-poohing a little weird fun in the classroom.

“Well, that works for your kids because they’re smart.  We work with a much harder population.”  

Oh, shove it.  No wonder your kids are underachieving.  You just called them stupid.

“You teach languages, so that’s easy for you to do.  It doesn’t fit things like science or math.” 

Wait...wait...seriously?

“Cell reproduction is like...”

“Evolution is like...”

“Whole numbers are like...”

“Factoring rules are like...”

Oh! Oh!  I’ve got an analogy for you!

“Excuses are like arseholes, because...”

Google it, if you haven’t heard the end to that one, dearies.

Sugar-Coating is for Pansies

I have a fault.

I'm overly direct.

I’m also fairly certain that the only reason this hasn’t gotten me fired or punched in the face is that I am aware of my fault and, with great effort, can repeat the mantra “shut your mouth, shut-your-mouth, shutyourmouth,” in my head during most public interactions in which opening my mouth might, as mentioned above, get me fired or punched in the face.

As is common with most faults/biases/mental disorders, I can easily trace the roots of my problem to my childhood.  I was raised direct.  Family dinners consisted of discussions of bowel functions, fart stories and why the latest wacko politician was a "batshit, self-righteous, judgmental bastard."   Embarrassing episodes were aired with glee, (lord help you if anyone in the family got wind of your mistakes,) each individual’s faults were recognized and appropriately taunted, and all us, large family that we were, quickly figured out how to grow a thick skin and go our own way, societal norms be damned.  Which, occasionally made for some awkward moments.

I distinctly remember answering the doorbell once to find my only-child of a high school boyfriend waiting patiently (his aversion to barging in sans doorbell immediately indicating he was of a different breed.)

“Hi, Matt!”  I greeted him happily.  “My brothers are all downstairs in drag acting out scenes from the Bible.  Want to come join us?”

“Er, no,”  he answered definitively.  

What?  Too much information?

Over the years, my blunt family grew up and matured, which is to say we are now larger, older and a have a few grey hairs.  We are not, however, any more subtle.

My brother still rolls in from work during Thanksgiving break doubled over with laughter.  “Oh, man, sis...” he giggles delightedly.  “You’re never going to guess what my colleague named her kid.”  

“What?” 

“YurMajesty.  Y-u-r-M-a-j-e-s-t-y!  Bwaaaahahaha!!!”  Much like twenty years ago, he’s on the floor rolling around with delighted laughter.

“You’re not serious.”

“Oh, yes, I am.  Her brothers had named their kids “King” and “Royal” and she wanted to stick with the family theme, so she named him YurMajesty!”  

“Ohmygod...Did you taunt her for it?”  I wonder, for a brief moment, if taunting the name of a coworker’s beloved offspring might be crossing the line even for me. (Un?)fortunately, my brother’s line is substantially further out, to the extent it exists at all.

“C’mon, sis.  Are you serious?  Somebody’s got to tell her that’s a stupid effin’ name.”

And while you all, sitting on your couches at home, cringe at his unsolicited opinion, you know he has a point. That child is going to face a lifetime’s worth of hell for that name.

Can you imagine going through high school as YurMajesty?

And that, my dear readers, is where I come in.

Landing in my first classroom of teenagers, I knew I had found my place in the world. My little niche.  Somewhere where being my loud-mouthed, opinionated self wasn't just okay, it was an asset.  I find beating around the bush exhausting. Good thing, too, since teenagers get subtlety about as as well as Rick Santorum gets women's rights.

We're a match made in heaven.

Me and teenagers, that is.  Not stinky-face Santorum.  And if you're not snickering and thinking of Dan Savage right now, there's a fair chance you're going to miss a good amount of humor in this blog.  That's cool.  Totally your prerogative.  Back to my point...

"Damn, Señora!"  A student once interrupted my lesson to shout.  "You gettin' THICK."  

Unsure of my grasp of teenage slang, I stopped to clarify.  "Did you just call me fat, Alisha?"

Alisha grinned.  "Aw, nah.  You just thick.  You know, got a good booty like the boys like."

Well, then. So that's what they're looking at.  Or at least, that's what, apparently, my straight female students are looking at.  The boys...their agenda is slightly more direct.

"Nick!  In what universe is it okay to stand up in the middle of a lesson and write "sex" on the whiteboard with my letter magnets?" I pause, mystified,  marker in hand, a half-conjugated verb on the board.

"Oops.  My bad, Señora."  Nick, on his way back to his seat after his little burst of creative energy, turns around and adds the '-o" so that it reads "sexo" in Spanish.

"¡Español!" he beams at me proudly.

"Nick...!"

He sighs.  "Sorry, Señora.  I was just staring at the letters and that's what I saw in my head."

Can't argue with that.  

The thing about direct people is that if you ask, you'll always get an honest answer.  The thing about teenagers, is that sometimes even if you don't ask you'll get an honest answer. 

"Alright, kids. First thing I need you to do in groups in name the people you see in this picture..."

"I HAVE PEANUTS!  They're plants in pots at my house and they all have names!  One is Late Bloomer.  The other is Fred."  

"Blane..."

"Ah!  Sorry!  Blurting!  I FORGOT TO TAKE MY MEDS and I JUST CAN'T MAKE IT STOP!"  Blane whacks his head on the desk and shakes it back and forth.  I know this kids well enough to know he's not joking.   His brutal honesty, even to the point of shouting his faults across the room is disarming.  So, as I've done so many times when kids have cried, screamed, yelled or spilled their deepest, darkest secrets in front of a room of their peers, I take it all in stride.

"Out, Blane.  Three minute walk and don't come back until you can keep your peanuts to yourself."

"Can I skip instead of walk?"

"Go for it."

"Wheeee!" He's out the door and down the hallway.

I regularly holler "Shut your pieholes," at my kids.  My standard response when they ask to go to the bathroom is to ask them if they're going to make a puddle of pee pee on the floor.   And on the occasions when they return from a trip to the "bathroom" with food pillaged from their locker, we have a serious (and public) talk about the danger of eating snacks scavenged from school restrooms.   Still, even though our daily discourse might make a few uptight perfectionist types uncomfortable, I like to think I'm teaching them life skills.  We get each other.  We speak the same language.  

I've had kids announce to the class (apropros of nothing) they've been molested.  I've had kids stand up and shout that they hate me.  I had two best friends of differing races nickname each other "Blackie" and "Cracker" and insist that these were appropriate names with which to address each other in class.  And a part of me, the part that thinks everyone needs to just  off their high horse and get a sense of humor about themselves and everyone else, thought that was funny as hell.  Which was probably the reason I could sit down and actually have productive conversation with them.

"Alright.  Let me get this straight.  You, Cracker, are friends with this young man you refer to as Blackie."

"Yep."

"And therefore, you think you should be able to address Blackie however you wish."

"Yep."

"And you, Blackie, like this Cracker of a friend of yours."

"Yep."

"And are totally ok with him calling you Blackie and you calling him Cracker."

"Yep."

"So just tell me one thing..."

They stare at me curiously.

"If my boss had walked in at any point in this conversation and heard me calling you Blackie and Cracker, do you think I'd still have a job?"

That'll shut 'em right up.  And, in my way, teaches them how to filter. Don't mouth off at someone who can out-mouth you.  Learn from the masters. Who better to teach filtering than from than someone who battles the filter herself?  They get it. And because I'm direct, they know I'm sincere.  I couldn't pretend to like them if I didn't.

"Whoopsie," I'll tell a class after threatening to throw someone out the window.  "I would like to now clarify that I cannot or will not actually throw a student out a window.  I am using hyperbole.  Please do not go home and tell your parents I threatened you with bodily harm."

"Oh, seriously Señora," they respond.  "We know that .  Who would be dumb enough to actually throw a student out the window?" 

"Well," I ask in response.  "If you had to name one teacher on campus, who would it be?"

"Oh!  It would totally be Mr..."

"STOP!"

I really must learn to stop asking teenagers questions I don't need the answers to.

I got seven hours a day. 150 teenagers, adolescent hormones, and a year's worth of curriculum to get through.  

Sugar coating is for pansies.

Toilet Paper

Real Answers From Teacher Workshops on Active Engagement Strategies That Folks Are Crazy Enough to Ask Me to Do, Occasionally

Q.   How is teaching like toilet paper?

A.  We both "roll" with it.

A.  You deal with a lot of...excrement

A.  We both wipe up messes and stinky situations.

A.  We’re being asked to deal with more crap with less material.

A.  You can do a lot with a little.

A.  One square at a time.

A.  It’s all about quality.

A.  There’s a lot of turn over.

A.  Sometimes 1 ply will do, other times 2+ is necessary.

A.  It can be rough, but you can’t be too soft or it won’t get anything done.

A.  It takes care of a job others don’t want to do.

A.  You disintigrate.

A.  It’s not exactly black or white.




Want ideas for analogies in the classroom?  Click here.

Cosmo Quiz #1

 Some douchebag drunk questioned my choice of a career again this week.

“DUDE,” he boomed awkwardly in a packed restaurant during Friday happy hour.  “You teach high school?  I am SO SORRY.”  Pardon the caps, but I don’t really know how to otherwise indicate the volume at which this twenty-something was voicing his inebriatedly unsolicited opinion after hearing me causally mention work to a friend.

“I was in high school once!”  No shit, Sherlock.  “And I was like ‘oh man, so many of my classmates are, like, SO bad, that like, gawd I don’t know what I would do if I had to teach them’ and, like, now I’m out of high school and I’m still like “gawd, why would anyone do that?’  That must suck!”

At which point I punched him in the face.

Ok, I didn’t.  But I desperately wanted to.  Luckily for his incisors, he was intercepted by his girlfriend/buddy/female companion of piss-poor luck who smiled apologetically and directed his loud-ass mouth back into his beer where it belonged.

Which got me thinking about the gym.  

Not out of a desire to to develop the biceps needed to effectively punch idiots in the face, (I’m actually on the rather pacifistic end of things, most of the time) but because smut magazine are my guilty gym pleasure. 

The only thing that can make a half an hour on an eliptical machine bearable is knowing exactly what it was that caused Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher to split.  Or which version of a Starbucks latte Brad Pitt ordered.  Or what celebrities have given their kids obscenely stupid names.  (Did you know that David Bowie named his daughter Zowie?  Zowie Bowie?  Cruel.  Not as cruel, however, as Moon Unit Zappa whose name somehow manages to invoke both sides of a man’s lower half.  Which, I’m sure, would have led to much adolescent taunting if she hadn’t had her sister Diva Muffin around for support.  That’s right.  Diva.  Muffin.  A whole visual that I don’t really need.)

But once I’ve finished my catty judging and gotten a good high from sniffing all of the perfume ads laced with magazine ink, I always come back to education.  I encourage my my students to learn both in and outside of the classroom, so shouldn’t I lead by example?  Isn’t it my responsibility to seize every opportunity to further my own education?  Smut magazines have long been part of my pursuit of knowledge.  As a teenager, their helpful quizzes confidently reassured me Which Type of Flirting Fit My Personality Style.  or If The  Boy I Liked Was Into Me.  Nowadays, they seem a bit more personal, offering me their opinion as to How Good A Lover I Really Am.  Only occasionally do they hit on something useful, such as Whether Or Not I’m The Office Bitch.

Always poorly written and minimally informative, it struck me that these quizzes were right up the Singing Pig alley.  And, since everyone seems so open to expressing their opinion as to teaching, I wrote one.

How Much Do You Really Know About Teaching Teenagers?

A Cosmo (ish) Quiz

 1.  At heart, when you’re being truly honest with yourself, your core belief about teenagers is:

1.  They’re fully functional adults.
2. They’re like really loud, mobile, and occasionally destructive caterpillar cocoons going through some mysterious transformative process in which they will, god willing, become functional adults instead of large, wormy insects that spend their lives eating.
3. They’re devil spawn.
4. They’re freaky circus mirrors that reflect back unspoken opinions, then mold and morph them to the extreme so that if you thought you were kind of heavy to begin with, you now look like a complete lardass

 2.  The work gods have mandated that you must teach high school.  Your teaching teenager philosophy is:

1.  If I know my stuff and put my time and energy into training them up right, then everything will go exactly as planned and we will all be successful.
2. The work gods have demanded what?  Wait...people actually do that for living?
3. Shoot me now.
4. If I pray to most of the principal religious deities, take up a rigorous athletic and meditation training, eliminate all previous assumptions as to my competency but simultaneously know my stuff and put my time and energy into training them up right, things might sometimes go how I plan.

 3.  You’re in the middle of teaching class one day and a student wearing nothing but shorts and a gorilla mask runs into your room, launches himself six inches in front of you, and howls like a monkey.  You...

1.  speak sharply to the gorilla, sending him to the bathroom to put normal clothes back on, then give a pre-emptive lecture to your class about appropriate school behavior and consider beginning a search for new teaching jobs that evening as any school where a student could make it down a hallway and into a classroom while half naked is not really where you belong.
2. Scream in fright, realize you’ve been had, then stand there awkwardly as you’re not really sure how one goes about handling a half-naked gorilla so you’ll just assume he has had his fun and will soon take his leave to terrorize others.
3. Kick him in the nuts.
4. Yank a banana out of your lunch, lure gorilla to the door and toss the banana down the hall, (now making him some other teacher’s problem) but casually refer to the gorilla by his human name on your way back into class thereby popping his anonymity balloon.

 4.  You believe a typical day at work will consist of anywhere from three to five of the following five items:

1.  positively influencing a student, improved literacy skills, student-teacher bonding, new problem solving strategies, collaboration.
2. a fair amount of insanity, maybe some learning, worksheets, cafeteria lunch, detentions.
3. illegal and/or prescription drugs, fights, foul mouths, stress, future criminals of America.
4. fart jokes, random perceptive comments, “my printer broke” excuses, stunning cluelessness, being outsmarted

5.   If you were to line yourself up with an average class of thirty students, you would define yourself as:

1.  their academic guide to a productive life.
2. a bit overwhelmed
3. the security checkpoint
4. the gifted actor who knows that not being the smartest person in the room doesn’t matter if you play a convincing genius.

Results:

Mostly A’s:  You are an overly idealistic individual with a reasonably substantial stick residing up your hind end.  While there is nothing wrong with idealism per se, it is most effective when it functions within the confines of reality. You, my friend, do not operate within the confines of reality, but rather in an odd mix of la-la land and your grandfather’s boarding school. Exhale, stop trying to change everyone’s world every day, and have a little fun. You can begin by removing the idealistic stick up your rear, then cracking a good poo joke about it.

Mostly B’s:  You are a sincere soul, kind at heart but rather befuddled by adolescent antics.  You find teenagers mostly to completely irrational and prefer observing them from a distance, much like the monkeys at the zoo.  You interact with teens when forced without being a total train wreck, but you’re easily sidetracked much to your own disadvantage.  If you were to teach teenagers, you would be that teacher they they all like well enough, but with whom they know they can get away with murder.  If you currently are a teacher, your kids are getting away with murder and you just haven’t figured it out yet.

Mostly C’s:  You hate teenagers and, aptly recognizing their foe, teenagers hate you.  Your blinding determination to see only the more obnoxious tendencies of the adolescent demographic results in a constant conflict that you label as “adolescent defiance” and your teen counterparts label as “you’re an asshole.”  While you may have impressive talents in other fields, teaching teenagers is not in your repertoire so speaking on behalf other educators and teenage students, kindly avoid the education field as your presence will probably be about as helpful as spiking Keith Richards' salt shaker with cocaine.

Mostly D’s:  You are the rare soul who might actually make it as a teacher of teenagers and, if you’re having a particularly good day, enjoy it.  You possess the right amount of street-smart and idealism to see through squirrely antics and find the more sincere base below. You alternate wildly between the above three descriptions, but it is your constant ADD with regard to your opinion of teenagers that keeps you afloat.  You’re not perfect and you don’t have a prayer of smooth sailing but you might just make it across the ocean of teenage angst with just a couple of small leaks and a mild case of scurvy.

Of course a stockpile of rum never hurts either...

This quiz not challenging enough for you?  Stay tuned for our next edition (whenver I feel like getting around to writing it).  Singing Pig’s “Correctly Identify Which One of These is the True Story” Quiz!  Coming soon...