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...

A Teenager's Adult

I saw this sign for the first time in my 6th grade health class:

Teenagers!  

Tired of being harassed by your parents?

Act now!  

Move out, get a job, and pay your own bills

 while you still know everything!

What a stupid sign.  

The fact that some twenty-plus years later I still remember where I first saw that sign indicates  just how stupid it is.

I don't think I know everything, I remember thinking.  But I get that it's supposed to be funny because teenagers supposedly think they know everything.  I'm not a teenager yet, but when I am I'll still know I don't know everything.  Nobody knows everything. What a stupid sign.

Its stupidity compounded, of course, by the fact that it was attached to a teacher's desk who was supposed to be creating relationships with the very students he was insulting.  Even at age eleven, I didn't miss that little irony.

6th Grade Health Teacher!

Tired of teaching teenagers?

Act now!

Quit, go back to school, and get a job

Where someone appreciates your sense of humor!

In what world would it be ok for an employee of a company to have a similar sign hanging from his desk?

Clients!

Tired of using our services?

Act now!

Cut your contract, take your business, and go find someone better

While you still think you can!

Coming from one of its most avid users, there are (shockingly) places where sarcasm doesn't belong.

This blog post, however, is not one of those.

So this one's for you, kids.  I'm going to bat for the teenagers.  You listen to me good, and should you have any overly uptight, rule-following, killjoy adults in your lives have them sit their little booties down.

We need to chat.

Why Teenagers Know Everything, 
 And Adults Would Do Well To Learn From Them

Above all, my dear teenagers, you are fun.

Ever had to sit through an adult meeting?  Let me give you a piece of advice.

Don't.

They're boring as crap.

Here's what adults do in meetings:  sit, nod, pretend to pay attention, take notes, play on their phones, then use the snotty excuse that since they're "responsible adults" they have the right to play on their phones, because adults would never do such a thing if it weren't urgently important.  They're lying.  Half of them are on facebook.  The other half are checking their email, because they're bored.  Just like you would be doing (and sometimes are) in your classes if teachers weren't so nazi strict on anti-cell phone use.  The real truth?  Half the adults you know would die if they had to sit through a seven hour school day without access to their crackberries, iphones, tablets or devices of choice.  You, teenagers, aren't that weak.  You make your own fun.  Half of you figure out how to work your devices in the most subtle of treasonous ways (under your desk, while pretending to pull a folder out of your backpack, in a hoodie pocket or acting like you're just "entering homework due dates") but the best of you...the best of you don't need internet.  Life is fun regardless.  You draw random genitalia on desks, notebooks, and sometimes your homework.  You listen carefully for any sexual double entendre, then snicker when your teacher innocently states that an invading army came and went.  The following picture would make half of you pee yourself with unbridled, joyous laughter:

Weather_Warm_Front.JPG

Of course, the other (more innocent) half of you would be completely lost, which would result in silent confusion, whispered clarifications, and awkward three-minutes-too-late giggles.  Which would only exacerbate the original instigators, thus leaving me with absolutely no control of my classroom...but that'd be ok, because I would be trying to cover my own hilarity at a weatherman penis by tsk-tsking you while simultaneously hoping no one sees my shoulders shaking from the humor.

Life is fun.  You know that.  It's why you try and crawl out my classroom windows.  It's why you show up to class 10 minutes late with grass stains and a frisbee and tell me some long and involved story about being captured by elves and unable to escape "...so sorry I'm late, Teach!"  

You have hit that perfect balance between carefree childhood and boring responsible adulthood that gives you the best of both worlds.  And I'd rather spend a day in your world - who am I kidding - I'd rather spend my whole career in your world, than an hour in an adult meeting where people chuckle at a "joke" about data.  Give me your entendre-filled responses with a sneaky grin, your silent-reading-is-a-full-contact-sport take on life. You sit all day, seven hours a day and study academics.  Often, in dry and uninteresting classrooms. (Despite my choice of a profession, I'm not going to pretend that all teachers are rock stars.  Or that all teachers are all rock stars, every day.) You sit through lessons on Biology, Geography, Language and Literature, some of which interests you and a large portion of which probably doesn't.  But you still get through it.

And you laugh.  And build artistic sculptures out of the file folders, stapler and three-hole punch on my desk.  Which always makes me smile.  Even as I grumble taking it apart for the thirtieth time to try and find my scissors buried somewhere underneath.  Kudos to you.  I wish more people appreciated your creativity with office supplies, although when they don't that doesn't seem to be a major concern for you.  You see right through their pompous, condescending adult snobbery.  And, to my delight, you then call those pompous adults on their nonsense.  Because in addition to being fun, my dear teenagers, you see everything.

And you have no filter.

Now don't get too egotistical on me, teenagers.  You might see everything, but that doesn't mean you know everything.  No one really knows everything, but we all know that's ok.  Who really cares what the square root of 743 is?  Or what it's actually like to pass through a black hole?  No, knowledge isn't everything.  But perspective can be.

And nobody in this world has perspective like a teenager's.  You've just got to trust that there are adults out there who want to see it.

"Jen," I ask.  "Why did you refuse to do everything I asked you to in class today?"
"This class sucks."
"Really?  Why does this class suck?"
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Because you tell me what to do."
"I tell you what to do.  And you hate being told what to do."
"Yeah."
"Sucks to be at the mercy of someone else..."
"Yeah.  Authority sucks."
"Authority sucks?  Lemme guess...you don't think anybody's better than you, so nobody should be able to tell you what to do."
"Yeah.  I have a problem with authority."

Yeah, Jen?  So do I.  Especially when I think "authority" consists of a bunch of idiots.  And teenagers don't tolerate idiots.  So good for you.  I've seen you call out more idiots than I care to count.  Oh, my dear teens, you are brutal when you want to be.  But always, ever, only brutally honest.

"You've got to behave in Mr. Smith's class, John."
"Why?"
"Because he's you're teacher."
"Yeah, but he doesn't like kids, so why should I do anything he says?"

You know what, Johnny?  You're right.  But my job and my responsibilities demand that I give a long explanation as to why you still need to behave for Mr. Smith.  So I will.  And afterwards, I'll feel a little disappointed in myself for having towed the party line.  Because you're right.  Mr. Smith doesn't like kids.  And you see that.  You see everything.

And those of us that know you, know you speak the truth.  Too much of the truth, sometimes for our reserved politically correct tastes.  It's hard, once you get past the teen years, to shake that veil of propriety and call it like it is.  But I'd like to be a little more like you, teens. Maybe a little less rough around the edges, admittedly, but more like you.

I'd like to call a teacher out when he/she sucked it up big time.   Because even in college, grad school, and after, teachers still totally suck it up.

I'd like to cry at lunch over a simple misunderstanding, yell at my parents when they make me mad, or drop everything for my friends when they need me, even if that means skipping class and getting in trouble for it later.  You see people as they are, and you react as you are.

No sugar coating, euphemisms, or toning-down necessary, thank you very much.

Which is why, teenagers, it means so much to those of us who know you know everything when you throw us a bone.  We've hit the age of self-mastery, of responsibility, of boring repression.  Even those of us on the spunkier end of the spectrum will admit we don't live quite like we did as teens.  And even on our best days, we can learn from you.

Silly string is fun.
Propriety is not.

Friends, even the dramatic ones, are everything.
Idiots are not.

Call it like you see it.
Why waste your time pretending otherwise?

When I want the truth, teenagers, screw adult friends.

When I want the truth, I will always come to you.  Because you will always give it to me straight.  Painfully straight, yes, but without the oily veil of fake kindness.  And, once I get over the sting of that truth, I will always be grateful to you.

"Tell me, guys.  Was yesterday a really bad class?"
"You want the truth?
"Yes."
"You won't get mad?"
"No."
"Even if it's not appropriate?"
"No...I don't think so."
"You were kind of a bitch."

Yeah.  That's what I thought.  And of course you, teenagers, picked up on it.  And though I might have to give you the obligatory chat about curbing your language even among people you trust, I get it.  I totally get it.

I was a bitch.

But the fact that you considered it worth your time to tell me that will give me some faith in myself.  Because teenagers choose their adults carefully.  And it's always an honor to be a teenager's adult.

So thanks for your faith in me, teenagers.  You've taught me a lot.

And the greatest gift in my life will be if you let me continue being your adult.

So tell the idiots to shove it and go build a tower out of office supplies.

I, in the meantime, will be waiting with the elves and a frisbee for the next round of fun.

Breathe

From Post Winter Break Plans

It's not usually life or death.

For that matter, it usually isn't even bodily harm or maiming.  Generally, teaching's just a lot of grading and whining.

Unless, of course, a student catches on fire.  Or decides to eat glass on a dare.  Or sticks a penny in an electrical socket -- episodes that serve as rare but spunky surprises in addition to the more standard broken bones of the PE department, chemical burns of the science, and, of course, the kids who come neatly packaged with peanut allergies and epipens.  Or diabetes and insulin.  Or asthma and inhalers or...

Oh, crap.  I'm sorry.  Did I just stress you out?  It's alright.  Don't freak.  It really isn't usually about life and death.  But it is, indeed, a fine balance.

And teachers suck at balance.

I'll give you a visual.  Here's a an old-school* scale:

(*please note clever school pun in education blog)

On one side of the scale kindly put "teacher sanity."  Now, on the other side, put "daily lessons, lesson planning, grading, behavior management, special ed, contact home, professional development, relationships, curriculum writing, RtI, differentiation" and any other daily topic/responsibility that strikes your fancy.  I often like to top it with the metaphorical partridge in pear tree, just to make it look nice.

Done? Not quite.  Now multiply that side of the scale by number of students you have.

Yay!  Ready for a balanced, soothing, change-the-world day at work?

Right.  I know.

Breathe.

And welcome to the calmer, less frequently seen side of Singing Pigs.

Aw, hell.  Who am I kidding?  I'm still a snarky snot.  But I'm a snarky snot who does a reasonably good job of maintaining balance.  You save-the-world types?  You're cruisin' for a bruisin'.  You can't save the world while carrying the weight of it on your shoulders.  All that's gonna get you is a bad back and a nasty crick in your neck.  You know, that really annoying crick when you think you've gotten a good night's sleep, but really you slept all sideways and now your neck is killing you and nobody believes you because it's not a visible injury.  That kind of a crick.

Save that bull for the lawmakers who merrily save the world by cutting education budgets and assigning tests with a neat swish of their pen.  Swish!  New standardized test!  Swoosh!  Teacher performance pay!

There.  That oughta do it.  World saved.  So now you teachers can lean back and start worrying about your own sanity, thanks to your friendly local public education policy.

Yikes...That was a bit of a rant, there. Seems I forgot to breathe.

Or rather, this blog is my most effective breath taken.  Converts frustrations into humor.  Provides me with perspective.  Entertains (for god knows only what purpose) other crazies like me.

But you...how are you breathing these days?

What are you doing in that moment when your desk is covered in papers, students are asking for grades, you've got a group of kids failing, just caught a couple cheating and are pretty sure at least two families are aiming to have you fired?

Save the Wold By Saving Your Sanity:

Rule 1:  Lock Your Damn Door

An open-door policy is good.  Students need safe spaces to just be.  Spaces where they know they can go to vent, seek out advice, cry, study, or just sit and think.  So now, let's flip that on it's head:

Teachers are the main resource for students.  In order for teachers to work most effectively, teachers need to be in a good state of mind.  They need space where they know they can vent, seek out advice, work...

Figured out where I'm going with this one, my dear overachievers?

I'm an open-door kinda gal.  Most days, I unlock my door when I get to school at the ass-crack of dawn, and leave it unlocked until I grab my coat to leave.  But sometimes, oh sometimes, I lock that door, pull that shade and I'll be damned if I'm answering anybody's calls.  You got a key?  You can come in.  Otherwise, best to just let sleeping dogs lie.

And I'm a sleeping dog of the female persuasion...

If you're stressed, you're kids will pick up on it.   You'll stress them out because, as I've mentioned before, students are professional energy suckers, you won't get anything done, you'll both be miserable and behind and..

Just Lock Your Damn Door.  Give yourself permission.

And breathe.

It helps to train your kids, though.  When is your door going to be locked?  When will it be open?  What does this mean?  I forgot that little detail and that didn't go over so well.

Rattle.  Rattle Rattle.  Rattlerattlerattle.  THUMP THUMP THUMP!!

Thing is, if kids aren't used to your door being locked, they operate under the "The More Obnoxious I Am the Faster She Will Give Me Attention" theory.

"IF MY DOOR IS LOCKED THEN YOU SHOULD KNOW IT'S FOR A VALID REASON!! STOP YOUR BANGING THIS INSTANT!!!"

That last part was me totally losing it.  Something likely to happen with students banging on my door when I'm already in a fragile state of mind.  Of course, it's also something that then requires an apology and explanation.

"Ok, guys," I told them later that morning when I'd downed a thermos of coffee and they had recovered from the unexpected browbeating.  "Here's how it works.  Door is unlocked, you may come in.  Door is locked, Sra. is on the edge of a nervous breakdown and trust me, you wouldn't want to be in that room anyway.  So don't bang on the door.  It might cost you a limb."

Two weeks later I had an early-morning meeting with my principal.  Due to the confidential nature of the meeting, I locked the door.  When I I went to open it to let him leave two minutes before the tardy bell rang, my entire class was waiting quietly outside.  I held the door open for them to come in.  Nobody moved.

"Um...Sra.?" One freakishly well-behaved girl piped up.  "Before we come in...can you just tell us...?"

"What's up Jasmine?"

"Are you on the edge of a nervous breakdown?"

Frightening students.  Reason #1 to make sure you breathe.

Rule 2: Go For A Walk

Yep.  You're going to ignore me on this one.  But it's still worth a shot.

In the middle of your busiest moment, at that very second that you are no doubt, absolutely, unbelievable drowning, toss up your hands, drop everything, and leave.

Not forever.  No worries.  As pleasant as it would be sometimes, there's no escaping reality.  But teachers' brains suffer from a common environmentally-induced quirk.

The busier we get, the longer our to-do list gets.  The longer our to-do list gets, the faster we think things need to be done.  The faster we think things need to be done, the more urgent we think the entire list is.  The more urgent we think the list is, the busier we get and the busier we get...

It's not life or death, folks.

Tell the to-do list to shove it up its metaphorical margin.

And leave.  Then walk.

A brief list of research supporting walking and the brain:

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/06/memory-performance-boosted-while.html

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/tipsandtricks/a/midday_exercise.htm

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/04/133498136/growing-a-bigger-brain-is-a-walk-in-the-park

All totally just copied off the internet and completely unresearched by me.  I'm not trying to sell you on the research.  I'm just telling you what will happen.  But first the rules:

1.  You must have a minimally substantial walk.  Under 5 solid minutes doesn't count.

2.  You must continue said walking until your brain actually, even the tiniest bit, starts to slow down.

3.  Once your brain starts to slow down, you may return to your classroom, if you so choose.  (You might just say "to hell with it!" and keep walking.  It feels that good.)

4.  With your freshly walked brain, look at your list and scrap 2/3 of it.  By which, I mean really prioritize.  Quite possibly using Rule #3, but we'll get there in a minute.

What will happen:

1.  You will walk, but your brain will be annoyed with you creating an inner dialogue something along the lines of, "Hey!  Hey, yeah, you!  The one walking.  Get your ass back to the classroom.  What the hell are you doing?  You have 85tests200emailsthree studentswhoneedtutoringnolessonplansyouDONOTHAVETIMETOBEWALKING!!!"

2.  You will find it seriously difficult to ignore your brain trash-talking you and you will have an overwhelming desire to run back to desk, apologize to your insulted to-do list, and make amends by adding three more items to it, just to show your love.

3.  However, if you continue walking, your brain will be unable to maintain above smack-talk.  Inner dialogue will slowly transform into something like "You have 85tests200emailsthreestudentswhoneed...ooooh... new carpet in the lobby...tutoringnolessonplans...aw, there goes one of my favorite kids...YOUDONOT...mmm... tacos for dinner tonight."  

4.  When random distracted thoughts outnumber brain trash-talking, you will return to your desk and, upon inspecting to-do list, functionally be able to prioritize.  And trash the rest. Which we'll get to in a second.  But first, one more study on walking:

http://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20090508/walking-backward-may-sharpen-thinking

Apparently walking backwards makes your thinking sharper.  Hey, I'm not telling...just planting a little seed there.  If you're having a really off day, you could always give it a try.  And send me a video of your little backwards stroll.  Which I would never post on my blog...

Rule #3:  Take it to The Extreme

I talk to myself.  Hell, I have whole imaginary conversations with myself.   And others.  In my brain.  I've got a whole little alternate universe of full-blown interactions that never happened.  Even with myself.

Confusing?

Yeah, well, that's about how well your brain is functioning when you're in the middle of a Gaaaaaa! I can't possibly finish all of this! moment.  So after your little walk, grab your to-do list and sit down for a come-to-Jesus chat with your Trash Talking Brain.  Simply by having cleared your head, you ought to be able to knock some of the sillier items off the to-do list.

"Really, Brain?  Really?  You had to put 'clean whiteboard' on the list this week when I just collected a five paragraph essay?"  Your brain, still slightly distracted from it's little foray out into the non-classroom world will barely put up a fuss.  "Seemed like a good idea at the time.  Ok...maybe not urgent...oooh...pretty flowers..."

Obnoxious little bugger that it is, though, the Trash Talking Brain will quickly realize its disadvantage and regroup.  "Ha!  You got the whiteboard crossed off but now you're stuck on grading papers, finding tutors and writing lesson plans.  SUCKA!  You're still stressed out.  I win.  Na na na boo boo..."

Don't engage.  Nobody ever out-taunts the Trash Talking Brain.  Just beat it at its own game.

Me:  "Gosh, Brain.  You're right.  Let's see here...grading, tutors and lesson plans...What can I eliminate here?"

Brain (gleefully):  "Nothing!  It all has to be done!  Today!  You're screwed!  Brains rule, Balance drools!"

Me:  "So what's the worst thing that could happen if I didn't get my grading done today.  Or even this week?"

Brain:  "The kids wouldn't get their work back!"

Me:  "And if they didn't get their work back this week?"

Brain:  "They'd freak out!  And you'd get a reputation as a slow grader!  And those points wouldn't be in the gradebook!  And they or their parents might email you asking when it will be in and..."

Me:  "So, what you're saying is that worst-case scenario grading doesn't get in today, or even this week, the kids might think I grade slow.  And I might have to shoot off a couple of emails with an estimated finish date."

Brain:  "Yeah!  Slacker!  NEENER NEENER NEENER!  Thhhhhhbpt! (Nose-thumbing)

Me: "I can live with that."

Brain:  "Whaaa...?"

Me:  Gotcha.

Brain:  "[expletive!]...oooh...can we really have tacos for dinner tonight?"

Take the tutoring example to the extreme, however.  If I don't find a kid a peer tutor, he or she might fall even further behind.  She falls further behind, it's harder to catch up.  He doesn't catch up, he fails.  She fails, messes with her schedule next year.  And graduation?

Oh!  Would you look at that?  I think I just found my priority.

We humans frequently operate on fear.  Take fear out of the equation, and things become much clearer.  A parent wrote you a nasty email?  So what?  You'll answer it and handle any resulting fallout as it comes.  You then have to meet with a principal and the family?  So what?  You'll do it, then go home and be on your comfy couch for five times longer than that meeting lasts.

Take it to the extreme.  Very few things will kill you.  Unless one of your worst case scenarios ends in "spontaneous combustion," "e coli," or "a river full of crocodiles," tell your Brain to shove it.

Go for a walk.  Smell the roses.

Breathe.