Miscellany

There has been many a thing that has inspired me over the course of the last week or so, but alas, time as my enemy has thwarted each attempt to blog about it. So, in the genre of the Late Show's Top Ten or the Bill 'o Rights, or the incredibly racist song "Ten Little Indians" I present the miscellaneous stuff of my teaching life.

1. Getting Thank Yous is so awesome. Our wondrous counselors at school have been hounding the kids to do things the right way: ask for the letter of recommendation a few weeks before you need it, provide a resume and other relevant information, get your own stamps and envelopes, and most importantly, write a thank you note. I have gotten two this week, a card and a lovely phone message, and even though I know they were told to do it, it makes me so happy.

2. An English teacher's best asset is a wonderful librarian, and I have one. We call her "The Book Whisperer" because she can sense what kind of book you should read, even if you're reluctant to do so. She does this by gazing into your eyes and channelling great dead librarians of the past. Anyway, Nancy does book club with me, too, and has set up a cool website so YOU can always know what we're reading!

3. An important grammar lesson (non partisan?): Obama's Change We Can Believe In slogan should really be rewritten to say Change In Which We Can Believe in order to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. This message has not been approved by Barack Obama.

4. A Fall Break doesn't really make much sense. After all, in less than a month we'll be getting most of a week off for Thanksgiving. I like things that don't make sense. Like how gas prices are falling fast. I am leaving town right after school today to visit my fantastic nephews.

5. Comments on Wuthering Heights so far (this is the first time I've attempted to teach it...I think it's quite a nice book, but you can imagine how it might go over with a group of today's teenagers. I have made them promise to keep an open mind about it): "Heathcliff is so emo!" "Are you sure this isn't a werewolf/vampire book like Stephanie Meyers'?" "I understood three words in that sentence: a, if, and when." "Hey, Mr. Lockwood gets a bloody nose just like Adam used to in sixth grade when he got really nervous!" "Ewww...they got married and they're cousins?!" "Ms. Stutelberg, did ejaculated mean back then what it means now? If so, why are they always talking when they're ejaculating?"

This should be interesting.

6. Ahh...Parent Teacher Conferences. I've learned to start with "What are your concerns about _________________ (insert student's name)?" No monkey-ing around. Just cut to the uncomfortable come-to-Jesus chase!

7. The 9th grade AVID class (study skills/college prep stuff) is doing the Penny Harvest charity fund raiser. Normally I don't get into these class competition things. I have too much to worry about to collect pennies or cans of baby food or wear the right color on the right day to earn points. But this time I have become militant about winning the Penny Drive. Guess which 4th period class is in 1st Place this week? That's Right. I've threatened my students within an inch of their lives if they don't bring in pennies. What's wrong with me?

That seems like a good note to end on: What's wrong with me? The answer, as always, is forthcoming. For now, I just need to make it through lunch and two more block periods before the end of the day and the beginning of a 5-day weekend. Thank you, students who thank me, librarians, things that don't make sense, sentences without prepositions at the end, parents who cut to the chase, Wuthering Heights hilarity, and Nazi penny roundups!

PrObama!

There are a lot of teachers who complain about parents and society and video games and poverty and our consumer culture and Paris Hilton or whatever and I'm not really one of those teachers. I mean, it all has an impact, but it's not really anything I can control in my classroom. It's endlessly frustrating, of course, when you feel like NO ONE is acknowledging it at all as if we teach in little bubbles and learning is linear and the world isn't changing. And then we hear that it must be the teachers' fault when the tests don't come out right...'cause what else could be screwing it up?!? It's just so much more complicated than that.

So I was glad to read, "But there's one last ingredient that I just want to mention, and that's parents. We can't do it just in the schools. Parents are going to have to show more responsibility. They've got to turn off the TV set, put away the video games, and, finally, start instilling that thirst for knowledge that our students need."

I missed the debate because I went the Powderpuff football game, sponsored Mock Trial, and watched the end of the last girls' Varsity Volleyball game. I don't agree with Barack on pay for performance and I feel pretty iffy about the way charter schools are run (systematically...well, especially in Denver), but I think that the president does have the power to inspire people to be different kinds of parents, to lessen poverty in our country, and to change the culture a lot more than I do.

Also, I end up saying stupid things like "some people should just be sterilized," which I don't really mean. But I'd be first in line.

Substitute Teachers

I have missed two days of school this week, due to a memorial service for my Grandpa and for a day-long professional development meeting that I call "teacher school." When a teacher is gone, a substitute comes to teach, as you all surely know. Remember those weird substitutes you had when you were in school? We only remember the weird ones, not the completely normal ones who come in, do their job well, and leave an organized pile of homework and notes on student behavior. For instance, in high school my Spanish teacher was on maternity leave and we had Senorita Bebe, who lived on a commune and took us all out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. In sixth grade (another maternity leave) we had the superintendent's son, Mr. Valon, who shoved all our assignments in a cabinet instead of grading them, but boy was he cool.

On Monday, my substitute was the normal kind. He followed my lesson plans and the students knew exactly what to do. He collected homework and wrote down the names of students who were late or weren't working. Everything was in a neat pile on my desk when I returned.

Yesterday, I had the other kind of sub, the one who makes for great stories and is probably MUCH more interesting to the students. She got to class 15 minutes late, then yelled at the students for starting their work without her. She never seemed to know which period it was; all the assignments were mislabeled and she told me that period 1 and 5 were "unruly" when those are my two best behaved classes. My eighth period told me that she spent the entire class period on the computer and would periodically turn around to yell at them because she "knew" they were off task. My students described her behavior as "paranoid and on crack." She left behind a bowl with the remnents of soup in it (her lunch?).

This substitute also left me a nice note telling me that I should call her any time I need a sub. Right.

The nice thing was that some of my students were genuinely concerned about me (they didn't know that I would be gone again). I told them that I really appreciate hearing their concern because someday I may find myself locked in the padded room of a mental institution without my shoelaces, and it would be nice to have visitors on occasion. I hate missing work. It's double the work to prepare for a sub, and the uncertainty of what will be waiting for you when you return is just too much to handle sometimes.

This is why I go to school when I'm sick and infect all the children. It's for their and my own good.