Love Note to my Students

Someone was asking me the other day if all the teachers at my school have stories like mine. The truth is, probably not. It seems like the other freshmen English teachers don't have the stories I do. Which begs the question: Do I foster an environment where crazy things get said? Perhaps at the beginning of the year when the first crazy thing is said and I just look at them and smile I am encouraging the continuance of the insanity. Perhaps the other teachers are better at keeping a straight face and correcting their students without added sarcasm. I am not. My classroom is generally orderly, the students know what they should be working on and, for the most part, are respectful of me, the classroom and the other students. On my last evaluation I was told that I have a special way of joking with the students, but still showing them that I am there to teach and I mean business. It was one of the best compliments I could get. Maybe my joking, relaxed attitude allows them to feel comfortable enough to be themselves, and since they are 15, being themselves means saying crazy stuff.  I don't really know, but I do know that I love it. I wouldn't change a thing.


 I love hearing students talk about Hot Cheetos being the best Valentine's Day gift, or how they want to be a pony so they can fly, or how the Mexican version of the zoo is a front yard full of chickens (all conversations from today). I love teaching the freshmen. I love how they think it's funny when I do the running man (even though they think I'm crazy). I love planning silly dances that involve helium tanks and streamers for them. I love watching them learn something. 


Perhaps it's the extra dose of patience the Lord blessed me with (but for the record Lord, I have enough, no need for more!) that makes it possible to smile at the end of every day. I've discovered that if I put my heart into teaching I will feel just about every emotion every day. It's a regular roller coaster of happiness, joy, sadness, and love. 


Sometimes I think about what it would be like to teach in an upper-class, or heck even middle-class, neighborhood. To have students who don't wonder where their next meal is coming from. It got cold in Phoenix a few weeks ago (like in the 30's! Every one was freaking out!) and students came to school wrapped in blankets because they don't have coats. But these are the kids who face their trails with a smile. The jock talked about how chicks dig his blankie because he is ready to cuddle at any time and my 3rd period had an entire discussion about how one girl in my class was Dora the Explorers twin (she was on the blanket). I'd like to see an upper-class kid wear a Dora the Explorer blanket with pride. I'm exactly where I want to be. 


On another note, Valentine's Day is insane at school. Soooo much sugar. I had two kids running sprints in the back of my classroom 7th period because they couldn't sit still. Several others stood the whole time. Sometimes you just can't fight it and you have to adapt. But no worries, I was making sure they were listening, they answered my questions perfectly. Maybe there is something to this running thing. 

Love Notes

Grades are due today.

No, because you don't know how to capitalize.
But nice try.

Motivation

I haven't posted in a long time. There comes a point where you don't want to do it because it has been sooo long that you have sooo much to write about and you lose motivation. That is where I am. So I am forcing myself to do this. To make myself feel better about wasting time blogging I am multi-tasking by also teaching. Boom.

First of all Christmas.

Christmas this year was awesome. It was just Megs and me since our siblings were at their in-laws (lame-o). So we had a single ladies Christmas. It was mostly about sitting around looking pretty but it was also about getting giant diamond rings.

Ok, they might be fake.

And also about dance parties in the kitchen while listening to Keri Hilson's "Pretty Girl Rock"

                                                                                      Yeah, we are totally gangsta'

We took a lot of naps. It was glorious.

Next, the car.

So one day right after school had started again I was looking online at vehicles. I have been driving a super awesome ghetto car. I love my parents, they are the most kind, giving people I know. They would go out of their way to give me anything I needed. That being said, I took the caddy from them last year with the understanding that it was a great hot weather car, with a wonderful air conditioner and it never breaks down. I wasn't exactly thrilled about driving an old man car, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. It broke down in the first two weeks and the air conditioner needed to be totally replaced this summer. I spent more time sitting at the wheel of that car crying while trying to get it to turn on than I ever wanted to. It was time. So I found a replacement. A 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid. I figure that this would balance my carbon footprint since the caddy I'd been driving couldn't pass the emissions test. Also, I may have forgotten to tell the dealership that.





It's a hybrid.

It's weird to come back to school, the kids act like they've never been in a classroom before and I have to totally retrain them. Plus as a a bonus I wound up getting a ton of kids that failed the first half of freshmen English from other teachers. Today I assigned more than half of my students to mandatory tutoring for failing my class. This is going to be awesome. I will not go down without a fight. The thing about teaching freshmen is that if you make something look official enough they will get scared and do it. The fact that the sign-in papers for tutoring are in triplicate make it look totally legit. Also, threatening to call their moms works too.

Finally (yes I am using transitions like I teach my students to use) my birthday.

I would like to take a moment to give a little shout out to my parents, Martin Luther and the Mrs. for managing to coordinate their son's birthday and mine. I love having a three day weekend for the birthday. This year I went to Vegas with some friends. We had fun. A lot of it. We got pulled over on the way there for straddling the line, which really is an awesome thing to say. So of course we took pictures.




 It was a great start to a weekend full of shenanigans.

So now I am back at work, trying to explain a three-part thesis statement and trying desperately to get 150, 15 year-old, high-schoolers to pass, or at the very least just be quiet for an hour. Mostly just be quiet.

Do You Want a Cookie?

There are moments where I feel proud of my students. Sometimes it is over small things, like getting 100% on a grammar test or actually answering a question correctly. Sometimes it's bigger, like when they decide to not rip out the hair extensions of the girl they are fighting with or not beating up one of the private school kids that go to school next door just to get a pencil. There really isn't a day that goes by that I am not proud of at least one of my students. Working with inner-city kids is special. There is a fine line between making them feel proud of their accomplishments and making them feel entitled to the rewards that come from being good little students. It's difficult because some of the students have really difficult lives, they sleep in the park, live in fear of being deported, or having their hot cheetos go stale.

The teacher across the hall from me had all of her students show up to class one day. None of them skipped or were tardy. She had that moment where she was proud of them. So she told them all that she would buy them pizza. I was ok with this because hey, I'm across the hall, and the chances of me scoring a slice or two were pretty good. But she and I share some students and they started whining in my class. "Ms, how come you never buy us pizza?" I may have ranted a little, but this was my response:

Pizza? For being on time? I don't buy you pizza because you don't get rewards in life for doing things that you should be doing anyway! It's your job to show up on time, not something that I should reward you for. You know what I give you every single day when you are here? KNOWLEDGE! You're on time? Oh, let me make you a smarter person. There are starving children in Russia who don't get knowledge for being on time to class. You think you deserve a reward for doing the bare minimum? You're breathing right now, do you want a cookie for that? Sit down and prepare to learn something!

I then proceeded to teach them about pronoun-antecedent agreement. I'm not really sure about the starving children in Russia, but I did love the line about breathing to get a cookie. I'd like to think that they were happy about their reward of knowledge, but they probably just thought I was crazy.

It's getting close to the end of the semester. This means that there are some students who are finally deciding to care about their grades. I take their grades from the second quarter and average them with the first quarter to make their semester grade. This means that to pass the class you must have had at least a 22% in the first quarter. Otherwise it's mathematically impossible to pass the semester. Every year I have students who fall below that line. One student, we shall call him Jose, got a 12% the first quarter. The thing is, he is here every freaking day, he has no reason to be failing other than plain old laziness. So Jose came to me the other day asking for make-up work. He has a 33% for this quarter. I momentarily thought that I should tell him he has no chance at passing. But no, not this teacher. If you are going to come to class everyday and make my life as miserable as possible, I am going to give you work. So I gave him a huge stack of papers. He won't pass the class, but at least he will have gained some stinking knowledge so next time he takes the class he might pass. That, and I like torturing students.

And to end the post, this conversation:

Student: Ms! Why is there salt in the ocean? Me: A very long time ago, an ancient Chinese man spilled all the soy sauce in the water to give it flavor. It's tasted like salt ever since. Student: Wouldn't that make the ocean a funny color? Me: Soy sauce used to be blue, but he changed the color so no one would figure it... out. Student: Sneaky Asians! He was smart!

While the Teacher is Away

This past month has been an eventful one for me. First I took a business trip to Florida, and I saw this:

I love the ocean!

We flew out on Monday morning at 5:00 a.m, which meant that my awesome roommate woke up at 3:30 to take me to the airport. (thanks Lauren!) I hate Florida, I really do, it's gross and muggy and there are alligators. But the ocean was nice. One of my co-workers got wasted and offered to give everyone (including the principal) a piggyback ride. That's the kind of entertainment you just can't buy. We flew back on Thursday and my flight got in to Phoenix at 3:30. By 4:30 my roommate and I were in the car on our way to San Diego. I got to spend a couple of days with my friend Jimmy.

This is Jimmy. Ladies, he is single, has a good job and drives this:

if interested please contact me.

*Pictures used without permission.

Jimmy and I went all over San Diego and I got to see this:

Man I still love the ocean.



We drove back Sunday and I had to go back to work the next day. But I did find this in the classroom:

Can you feel the love?

If you can't read the little boxes, the one on the left says, "What's a pronoun? -A noun that's lost it's amateur status" Maybe my favorite student response of all time. The students were good all week long, they didn't try to kill the sub and they didn't steal any of my books, even the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. That's a pretty big deal in the land of inner-city high school kids.

Noses, Moms, and the Miracle of Fall Break

It's been a few weeks, I know. But to be fair, I was in a codeine induced coma for some of that time. I have never been able to breathe through my nose, like ever. I've pretty much had a cold for 27 years. It's been awesome but it was time for this to end. I have been to a few ENTs over the years, which are now called Otolaryngologists (yeah, I know) and they have told me two things. 1. I have a deviated septum and 2. I have tiny little nasal passages. I would have had the surgery at a much younger age but because I had a bad reaction to some anesthesia when I was younger I had to be awake for the surgery. This caused me to feel queasy and involuntarily cry. But, as I have gotten older, I have decided there are some advantages to being able to breathe properly. I put on my big girl pants and had it done. Amazingly I even got to go under for it, so really I was freaking out for nothing. So I had my surgery and several totally awesome things have happened because of it.

1. My mom came to visit me. I love this woman. We don't spend enough time together. Having her here makes me want to quit my job and move home. We laughed, cleaned, listened to conference and watched entire seasons of Project Runway. It was good. I cried when she left.

2. I can breathe! You know how they say that kids don't know there are leaves on the trees until they get glasses? They thought everything was fine before, but they had no idea what they were missing. I walked to the Dr. to get the stints removed and on my way back I only breathed through my nose. It was FREAKY. I got home, sat on my couch and breathed through my nose. Then I cried, I had no idea.

3. I can taste things. You know how when you have a cold you can't really taste things? Yeah, that was my my whole life. Did you know that milk has a smell? I didn't, until last Thursday. My toothpaste is extra minty, chicken is extra chickeny. Now I am scared I am going to eat something I love and discover that I hate it. It's very scary. But I didn't cry.

So now I am back at work, with my awesome students, teaching them awesome things. We are working on summaries in my "regular" English class and Poe in my honors. Kids make me laugh, every stinking day. I have the best job. Next week I am going to have my honors class memorize part of "The Raven" they will get extra credit if they recite it in costume, they will get bonus extra credit if they dress that way all day long. It's going to be awesome.

I need a new hall pass, mine disappeared (what kid would steal a bathroom pass?!?). Any suggestions? My friend Amy is doing a give-a-way on her blog, http://www.agoodlifeblog.com/ for a giant stuffed animal thing. If I win, maybe I will use this. But tons of people read her blog, so I probably wont. I could also use a border patrol hat, but that just seems mean.

A Side Story

So it has been muggy lately, gross muggy. It needs to rain. So I check the weather reports every morning, because that's what the cool kids do. Today's hourly weather report said that it was going to rain at 11 am. I was excited and spread the news to other teachers. One teacher told her first period class this news and this was the conversation with a Mormon student in her class:

Teacher: Ms. Walker said it was going to rain at 11.

Student: How does Ms. Walker know it is going to rain at 11? How would she know that?

Teacher: Because she is Mormon, just like you.

Student: Oh, ok.

It's good to know common beliefs make me a valid source on weather knowledge.

PS- It did not rain at 11.