| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Aug | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 | ||||
January 16, 2005 by editingevan.
There was a movie out my sophomore year of college that was sappy as all get-out. I took one of my more macho friends to go see it (his favorite movie is “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”) and while Haley Joel Osmond was good in the movie, it was a gush-fest of overdone Oscar-wannabe scenes strung together in a based-on-a-novel mix where the black man was transformed into Kevin Spacey’s burn victim, while Helen Hunt stretched her alcoholic muscles. There was a pinnacle to this movie and when Helen Hunt kicks out Jon Bon Jovi (the alcoholic husband, also abusive), she returns to Spacey’s burnt arms and all is well.
Then Haley Joel Osmond dies.
A great message, positive movie, tart acting in some spots, but there are places where even Stone Cold Jackson would shed a tear.
As of now, I am listening to the depressing “Calling All Angels” song from the movie because some days I can’t strike myself across my face and find humor. Some days I feel like life is just as tart as “Pay It Forward.” Some days I wish I could just swallow all my pride and open my eyes past the gray January weather that’s caused excessive flooding, far worse than we saw this past summer; and the precipitation continues to fall and flood and soak and mush everything into one huge blur of hazy gray. The windows fog while driving. The radio is off and the silence really does have a sound – pure thought. The constant rush of every single event that propelled me through the day shoots me out of its canon and I hit a brick wall.
Brick is falling and I see some light coming through the wall, but that’s only after hours of sitting in my own worry like a child in a dirty diaper awaiting a fresh change.
Semester ends are always crazy – they were when I student taught, they were with my first teaching position and now that I’ve moved down to middle school, they’re far worse because I am the only journalism teacher and I am fully in charge. I get to take all the blows.
Some of those blows come in the form of parent phone calls. Its good to work in a district where parents give a damn, but the price I pay is not being able to keep up with the grades and the phone calls and the students not doing well, and even when I do make an attempt to help the faulty grade, I’m met with silent stares because, really, nobody takes yearbook seriously.
I mean, we’re the only class that actually has a solid, tangible book at the end of the year that’s student produced and kept for years (and signed in, by the way), while math homework is forced into the trash can with crying pleas of redemption, speech note cards are used for notes and that potato students were trying to grow in science class just stopped.
No class in college truly prepares someone to the real world of education. From the epiphany that comes from the oldest teacher in the world during lunch on how she never wanted to teach to begin with, to the paper work of special education and IEPs and how important they are.
I tried to search for solace yesterday from my mentor, but she was rushed with last minute substitute plans so she could work the basketball game and her benevolent words that I was looking for like a pillow in bed were that the parents keep getting worse.
Nope. College didn’t prepare me for that moment either. College also didn’t prepare me for the two phone calls I received today from upset parents, both with reason and I couldn’t find any fallacy to use against them because they were upset parents – because, in the end, those two phone calls, added up with anything else I learned on my own this first semester of middle school, were actually wake-up calls. They were a nerve-wracking step in the process of learning as an educator (the learning that isn’t “higher” and can’t count toward college credits). The frustration that the parents were so right and I made little mistakes that can't be helped, but still could’ve been prevented.
The most painful of these lessons is how hindsight is 20/20.
It’s like the best come-back ever that pops into my mind three hours later while I’m stuck in traffic.
I will be a better teacher in the end, but does it need to hurt? Can’t life lessons present themselves without draining so much energy – I can handle only so much jitteriness followed by worst-case scenarios.
And it could be worse – since the worst-case scenario is my friend, I often see my glass of Kool-aid half empty, but it was an afternoon of two phone calls and I have about 230+ students – which means a lot of parents that can e-mail me and call me up or corner me in my classroom – didn’t, at least, not yet (the glass is now empty).
A fellow teacher had a parent tell them once that “I pay your salary, so you technically work for me.”
Of course that thought doesn’t help.
I want optimism, and I’ve found it by preparing ways to handle the conversations with the parents so the student comes out on top and not me, nor the parent. Some parents probably want to fight just so they can be right, but I don’t like to fight and will do what I can to make things right.
But until things are right, I will replay conversations in my head with the parents and other teachers that can help me out and handle these conversations with calm and ease, even if the parent decides to whip out a flame thrower.
At that point, the grade book is theirs and I’m going to work for McDonalds.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
December 21, 2004 by editingevan.
Taxidermy looks more and more interesting as I work with pre-teenage kids. They would be adorable stuffed. I think having life-size, stuffed kids in the hallway for people to lay their jackets and hang their purses would be a decent addition to any Ethan Allen piece. Who knows, I’m sure there’s an actual living, breathing Ethan Allen out there – that is, until he’s stuffed.
The couple of weeks before Christmas break – I mean – secular-politically-correct-winter-vacation, students begin giving teachers high anxiety. At this time of the year, students and teachers are both waking up when it’s still dark and going to school when it’s still dark, there’s a full moon whenever we leave the building. Either that or the kids are outrageously hormonal. The rooms are beginning to smell, or as another English teacher said the rooms are “odiferous.”
Regardless of any transformation, there has been neglectful use of computers in the journalism lab (a.k.a. my classroom), I’ve received a paper of blatant plagiarism and there was a rap-off between a black girl and a white boy in the cafeteria.
With my 12 different classes (yes, please gasp for air, it’s true – I technically have 12 different preps), I can’t possibly set traps and surveillance cameras in my room to catch students when they feel like doing something inappropriate.
The first situation that made me think of taxidermy was when two “good” students (the cliché All-American football player who is destined to become the man’s man, ladies’ man, man-about-town when he grows up and the other student who “acts” like a leader of the school, but likes to say dirty things to girls in the hallway in front of teachers) sabotaged another students work on the computer. These two young men are in one of my newspaper staffs and as they worked on a page where they walked around the school and asked many people the same question for different responses, they must’ve run out of things to do on their own page, so they entered into another staff members’ folder (in another period) and placed flying squirrels on their photos so they couldn’t be used.
I found out later that six or more pictures were ruined with flying squirrels.
Needless to say, the two young men are now excellent additions to a very large house in northern Indiana. They call them the “coat checks.”
And to fit the theme of squirrels, I found out students were in my classroom using computers before school officially started. They were printing out pictures of squirrels, probably flying, and I crumpled up the sheet of paper after I threatened one of the students that stuffing didn’t have anything to do with Thanksgiving where I came from.
I found out later that a student with a nickname Squirrely Pooh attends the school.
The latest case isn’t finished yet. I’m still waiting on a set of hazel eyes. They are in high demand this time of year – he must’ve been one of those kids whose eye color changes slightly with the seasons. I had to special order those glass eyes.
I was already stressed out with students using the equipment with a lack of respect reserved for gremlins when I had a student turn in an assignment that was suspicious. In the modern day, it is easier than ever to plagiarize, because back in the day when our grandparents walked uphill both ways to school in 10 feet of snow, barefoot, with a sled of rocks tied to their backs, students would have to sit down with a book and write down paragraphs verbatim. It was so exhausting to copy that it was easier to write a paper with original content. Now, with copy/paste and the Internet, a student doesn’t even have to flinch when he takes the mouse, highlights text and places it in a Word document.
I received a three-page paper that looked suspicious because one line would be the length of a normal sentence, and the next line would be too short
and the next sentence would be the length of a normal, human sentence that was physically typed. Then the next sentence was very short
and it wasn’t really a sentence at all, but text that was cut in half. First, there was no way in hell I was going to drag my eyes across a paper like
that because it’s difficult to read, while the other reason was because a child of the computer age myself, I have used the copy/paste technique myself and the text never wants to look normal.
I went to a fellow English teacher and showed her the paper and told her there was reason that I suspected fowl play. She asked me what sentence triggered my questions, and to be honest, I hadn’t even read the paper. I just had to look at the paper to realize someone not only submitted a plagiarized paper, but did so without any style.
Students don’t just cheat these days; they do so with such poor taste.
I know a woman in Mississippi who doesn’t have poor taste who has the plagiarizing student on order to keep her piano bench warm when she doesn’t play.
I won’t know what to do when this new style phenom takes shape, but I have a feeling it will be like the Splenda debacle. It will become so popular, we’ll have to stop mass production for two years because there just aren’t enough kids coming in at once.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
November 30, 2004 by editingevan.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
November 11, 2004 by editingevan.
When I tell a story that isn’t exactly dramatic – okay, so a girl fainting during class (and she was standing, mind you, and she also hit her head on a desk) is pretty dramatic, but if I was telling a story that was just as exciting as a mole on an elephant’s ass, I still turn it into something pretty damn action-packed.
Then I’m asked, “Were you involved in theater in high school?”
“Yes,” I say.
And that explains everything; at least, they think it does.
I told the fainting-girl story to a small audience of teachers while we were talking about our first year in the Carmel school district and how, by November, each teacher hits disillusionment and forgets why they began teaching in the first place.
I reminded them it was because of the students. They do things we’ll never expect, like faint. And hit their heads on desks.
I bent over to the imaginary student and said, “Are you all right? No! Just stay there, the nurse is coming. Do you see spots?” and so my monologue went. The story was a tad funny, and rightly so – no one else had a fainting student yet, so my first-year-at-Carmel story trumped any other story laid on the table.
Yes, I gave the accounts of the fainting student in a guttural cry of overdramatic splendor. I should have climbed onto the conference table and gave more of a George Carlin approach, but when you freak out about a student who could have possible head trauma, the f-word is going through your head, but using it to tell this story wasn’t going to hit the audience just right.
I chose to stay in my chair and talk to the imaginary student instead. I used no props. I think the delivery was flawless.
When finished, the blonde teacher across from me asked if I was in theater in high school, and I applied “yes,” because I cannot tell a lie. They were satisfied with the answer, but they didn’t get the whole story.
I wasn’t known for being in the drama club because of my two small roles on stage (so small, the fly that flew around the audience had a better chance at stealing the show than I did). I was known for my backstage antics. So, yes, I do admit to being involved in theater, but people don’t realize that I wasn’t on stage, but behind it.
I built the sets.
And no, they didn’t fall down.
During construction it was me who deemed my dark brown beanie/snow-hat/toboggan the “chocolate condom hat.” I am the one who painted the goat that wheeled across the stage in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and named in Jean Luc. I built an odd-shaped platform from my own measurements, used a table saw, a jigsaw, painted scrim, painted a “house” and so on.
When I moved on to college people asked if I was a theater major, and it was a giant let-down when I told them I was in journalism. It was an even bigger let-down when I told them I was actually a journalism teacher. It was like I flashed them hermaphroditic body parts when I told them, “no, I’m not in theater. In all actuality, I write.”
But the table of teachers didn’t have the time for my presentation on why I am often mistaken as a bad actor. I just say “yes,” and blush, like they’ve found out my secret.
Now, when people who don’t know me ask if I’m in theater, I smile and respond, “no, I’m a middle school teacher.”
And for some reason, that makes perfect sense.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
November 3, 2004 by editingevan.
There is more to the clown than we think.
The clown is a master of subterfuge. The clown is patient. The clown, much like The Shadow, knows.
And the clown will wait.
According to different stories from my students, they are very aware of the clown that has terrorized an unknown babysitter. The first story, where the clown hid in the basement, was completely wrong, and the clown didn’t kill an infant.
A student, who heard it from a student, who heard it from another student’s brother’s sister’s cousin’s step-dad’s uncle’s niece said the only truth from first version of the story was that there was a) a clown and b) a babysitter.
I was bombarded by two eighth grade girls during my newspaper class with another version of the story: The babysitter was in the parents master bedroom watching television because the two children she babysat for were afraid, and so she said she would be down the hall – but the story gets fuzzy here – I can’t quite place what happened exactly, because I have five different versions according to my reporters.
In one story, “the old creepy man,” according to my students, dresses up as a clown to give kid night terrors.
I think I need to go over interviewing basics again.
In the dark of the master bedroom stood a clown mannequin, and it waited, and it watched, probably pulling a wedgie or two, white sweat from his cake make-up ploped onto his blue costume, and it itched underneath the cherry tomato tomb that circles his nose. The clown knew how to stand still, because the kids in the other room told the babysitter they were afraid of the clown mannequin.
The babysitter called the parents and said, “you really need to get rid of the clown mannequin, because its giving your kids night terrors.”
“What clown mannequin?”
This frightened the babysitter, but in another version, the mother told the girl to grab the kids and run out of the house.
In another version, the clown mannequin actually sat in the kids’ room because they shared it (of course they did, this story wouldn’t be complete if the clown had to sneak into two separate rooms, that wouldn’t make sense).
It’s a clown, THAT doesn’t make sense.
Okay, so supposedly, the realest version of the story takes place with the girl sitting in the master bedroom and stood there for two hours watching the girl.
In a cross-combination of versions, the babysitter called the mom and the mom told her to call the police, but when she returned to the kids’ room – the window was open and the clown was gone.
Others said the clown hid in the closet.
Someone else said the clown hid under the bed.
And each kid that approached my podium with a different version of the story had belief written all over their face. Their eyes were wide.
Finally, at the end of the day, I get the most cohesive story from one of my newspaper editors:
He starts out by giving the details that have been used in each story. There’s a babysitter. There’s a phone call. Most important, there’s a clown.
“There’s a clown mannequin in the room…” he continues.
“You’re such a retard,” retorted one of the other editors, “I can’t believe you think this is real.”
“It is real,” the editor said.
Regardless of which story is the right story, a seventh grader pulled me aside and told where all this hullabaloo came from. It was just a silly accident that was blown out of proportion. The real story goes like this: A kid had a Ronald McDonald statue fall on him/her at a local McDonald’s and that’s where all these rumors started.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
October 22, 2004 by editingevan.
Apparently there is a clown living in Carmel, Ind.
Now, I’m sure many-a-carmelites have a decent job making children scream with laughter with their sad painted faces and time-honored balloon animals (and their neighbors hate them, no thanks to novels like “It” by Stephen King): bright polka-dots, M.C. Hammer paints and 52” shoes that land in dog poop regardless of how careful the fretful clown is.
But this isn’t any ordinary clown, according to one of my middle school students. Living in the fruitful heart of Carmel, there is a clown that hides out in people’s houses.
The basement to be exact.
I spoke to a coach on the way to CPR class (in case the clown attacks, I am now certified and can save your life – stay back, you…clown!) and told her what my student had said.
“Have you heard the latest?”
“No,” she said.
“Well, apparently there’s a clown that had been living in a person’s house for two weeks and then the clown killed the infant late one night.”
We continued to talk and I started laughing at how ludicrous the story actually sounded, I mean really, a clown?
“Honey, I’m going to go downstairs to get a new bottle of wine, I’ll be right back,” and the husband vanishes into the vast darkness that stretches out (called the basement) and searches for the light switch like a blind man reading Braille. The light flicks on and he looks around the unfinished basement his wife has been nagging him about. The cold gray cement floor sends shivers up his legs and boxes are here and there, as well as visible pipes and dank, old furniture the color of nature (i.e. browns, dark greens, blues) and he walks over to the makeshift wine rack and picks a bottle of Merlot, his wife’s favorite.
So, if there’s a clown hiding out in this man’s basement, the word incognito comes to mind – and, no offense to clowns, they really don’t have it going on. I mean, all that bright orange hair, luminescent white make-up, red lipstick that goes beyond the actual lip vicinity and giant blue shoes. Don’t even get me started on the collar around their neck that looks like a dog tutu…
Unless the husband was severally colorblind, then there would be some issues. All I picture is a clown cowering in the corner of the basement, hiding with his white-gloved hands covering his head like a little kid ready for a severe weather drill in grade school.
“He cannot see me,” the clown thinks. “I am not here.”
And with that scenario in my head, I laughed and realized that middle school kids were just too gullible to believe a story like that.
Well, later in the week, I found out that the middle school students weren’t the only ones talking about this so-called clown – the story had spread to a high school in the neighboring town. A friend heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who baby sits in Carmel.
Which makes the story even more reliable.
The babysitter’s story goes like this: The two small children were always afraid to go to sleep because of the clown, and so the babysitter called the parents to ask “what’s the deal?” and the parents said that there was no clown in the house.
The kids told the babysitter that the clown hid in the basement and came up at night and watched the kids while they slept.
Enter the heebie jeebies.
Although clowns are their own subspecies and should be extinct within the next 40 years, and they are the reason for sever cases of Coulrophobia, but such a bizarre story would’ve been on the news, all over the papers and a photographer would’ve definitely won a Pulitzer for covering the scary basement clown.
Angry clown eyes painted a dark blue. Vehement sad clown frown. Steel-toed 52” shoes. A spike collar instead of the dog tutu. Freddy Krueger fingers. And those aren’t polka-dots all over his baggy clown outfit, no way hosea – it’s spattered blood stains.
I can’t wait to hear the next suburban legend that’ll pop out of my students’ mouths.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
October 13, 2004 by editingevan.
I am a humble individual. Here is why:
Renovations and construction have eaten up serious square footage for the next two years, and therefore everything from the Principal’s office to the counselors’ offices have been moved to classrooms – two large classrooms to be exact. Along with the front excavation of the building where this all remained previously, there is a shortage of restrooms – that is, faculty restrooms.
Adults have no true privacy now when nature calls, and so many teachers drink coffee that nature doesn’t just call, but deliberately pulls the fire alarm – and by the way, five minutes isn’t enough time for the evacuation.
There are only two sets of bathrooms right now. Boys and girls restrooms remain on the west and east ends of the building. To be more specific, there are only two each. I am lucky enough to have a room right next to one of them – thus sprinting and relieving can happen quite quickly before students start walking in.
I usually take a Clorox wipe with me because middle school boys haven’t the decency to lift the toilet seat if I have to go Number Two. I’ve sat on an unclean toilet seat before and in a dash, jumped right up because it’s dirty, but also sticky – I learned my lesson. The Clorox wipe contacts the cracked porcelain before my cheeks do. I have lemon-scented clean touching my backside epidermis, and actually, it’s quite nice. My bum is truly relieved.
I would rather accidentally fall in than sit in another child’s mess. It’s sad to know middle school kids are still learning to aim, and lift the toilet seat, oh, and wash their hands – that’s another doozy – a reason I will never have a candy jar in my classroom. I do not want my peppermints tainted with dirty hands. I want to freshen my breath, people, not the other way around.
On this fine day, my routine was normal. I sped to the restroom in between classes with my Clorox wipe, sat down and then realized – it was right before the sixth grade lunch, which meant that kids would be in the bathroom with me, even after the bell rang. In the past, I haven’t had a problem with this – I’m quiet, and I wait until the kids leave before I exit the stall. Today was going to be no exception – accept I had a class waiting for me after the bell rang.
“Oh God, that smells awful,” one of the boys cried.
“It smells like shit,” the smartest one retorted.
“Gawd, that’s awful.”
“What the hell?”
“Ooohhh,” one of them moaned in disgust.
“Shit.”
“Ugh.”
“Gawd.”
“Damn.”
“I cannot believe that smell.”
“It’s terr-ible.”
The one that kept using the S-H word was one of my students.
So, I did a courtesy flush, but it was too late – I had been scoffed at. I was degraded, and the kids didn’t even know who the offender was. I hung my head in shame. The student of mine was like a Nazi soldier, and I was the enemy, hiding so I wouldn’t be found out – hiding so I could stay alive, even after the bell rang and my fourth period class was in the room, waiting for me. I had no choice but to wait until the students – or at least, my student, left. I couldn’t lose my dignity as a teacher.
I sat there in horror, realizing I had every chance of being caught. Every odd was against me. I was about to become the smelly teacher – the teacher that makes the bathroom evacuate the minute I step foot into it, regardless if I’m at a urinal or in a stall.
I couldn’t allow my class to sit alone in the class anymore, so I finished and made a bolt for the exit (after washing my hands, of course). None of them were my students – I think. I don’t think I saw any of my kids in there with me while I washed my hands, but I was in such disarray because the bell rang and I was late and I was embarrassed and so I couldn’t bring myself to make eye contact with anyone.
It was me, I thought. This time, I was the perpetrator. The man that’s just too much, that is horribly rude and inconsiderate, the man I always make fun of in the bathroom was…was…was me.
I was flustered during my fourth period class, and I had no choice to keep my realization a secret because no one wanted to hear about how I had become the smelly teacher, the one they were all talking about at lunch today, how Mr. Williams smells like shit and you have to escape his evil throws when he steps foot in the bathroom.
But I guess there’s even a silver lining to being the smelly teacher – if they evacuate the restroom, I’ll at least have privacy. It may not be a faculty restroom, but at least no one will be with me.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
September 30, 2004 by editingevan.
The story goes like this: she wanted another child, and so she spent tons of money on fertility drugs and therapies and hormones and ruby slippers and she even bought stock in Michael Jackson’s semen. After all that work, in and out of bed, I’m sure, she’s seeking aid in watching her kids so she can have a vacation away from them.
I was warned about this woman before I stepped foot in the house. My mom asked if I would speak about digital photography at a woman’s club meeting – and she wanted me to do it during September, because in October the meeting would be at the woman’s house that I was warned about. Karen’s house is dirty and I wasn’t to be subjected to her crusty carpet and sticky linoleum floors.
After introducing myself to Karen, the woman wouldn’t stop talking about all her plans for a short trip French Lick, Ind. Because of her, I know how easy it is to find “play dates” for older children, but nobody wants the baby – the one that is part Michael Jackson
Eventually or somewhere down the line, or somehow, or whatever transitional statement you find worthy, she began to talk about how she graduated high school in 1987. Since she is the brittle age of 35, she began to talk about her school days in all it’s “up hill both ways” grandeur, even though I’m as familiar with “Footloose” as she is.
Play “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” and you’ll find me in there somewhere.
“When I took typing, we used typewriters – you probably don’t even know what a typewriter is,” she said.
And then she continued on about her stupid kids and how she couldn’t get rid of them for 48 hours and $240.
“What is the going rate these days?” she asked about a 48-hour babysitter. “Isn’t $240 enough?”
I wanted to tell her she should give Christy’s a call and see what they could do for her, but alas, since I don’t know what typewriters are, I remained silent.
“Why wouldn’t you do it?” she asked me. “Don’t you know any twentysomething that would look over kids for just 48 hours? Because if it’s during the week, I could get a better rate at the place I want to stay in French Lick – I mean, all I want is a massage.”
“All my friends work during the week,” I said. I heard about your dirty house.
And she was astonished. People out of college and in their early twenties actually work?
At this point the theory about Michael Jackson’s semen was looking pretty accurate.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
September 1, 2004 by editingevan.
Beginning teachers are asked to read a book by a seasoned teacher named Harry Wong. The book is titled “The First Days of School.” It is a resource and if you want to follow him with cult-like tendencies, you can sit down, watch his videos and feel your life leave your parched lips.
Yay for Mr. Wong and his tendencies to touch on all things elementary and junior high. I disregarded his antics because I always considered myself a high school teacher, and then the 2004-2005 school year happened: I accepted a job as a middle school teacher.
I was wong about Harry Wrong, or, well, um, Wong…hi…
Although a few of his ideas are worthy of speculation, adulation and actual use, I don’t think writing names on the board and doing the Boy Scout hand signal works to get a bunch of rowdy kids quiet.
Call me old-fashioned, but yelling at them is quite fine – and it really doesn’t take that much energy, no matter what any “super” teacher will tell you. That is, if and when the kids are even screaming at the beginning of class.
What’s the norm you ask?
Students come in, sit down and wait to know what will happen next, and that’s my cue to be interesting and grab their attention. And just to validate my middle school expertise, to get my pre-adolescents’ attention I usually stand on a desk and just stare at the kids. At this point, it’s obvious that I, the teacher, have something important to say. So, no, I don’t scream and yell at the top of my lungs (sadly, I do use a hand signal, but it doesn’t always work).
Overall, most of those teacher books are full of all kinds of worst-case scenarios about how all kids are drug traffickers and orgy mongers. Please, I can handle drug trafficking and orgies. It’s the student that actually turns his or her homework in time that scares me – what do you do with an assignment that deserves full credit? They lay the paper on my desk and I jump back thinking there’s anthrax about to dust off all over my desk.
“Mr. Williams, that was a fun assignment.”
“A…fun…assignment?”
And I was told by so many experienced teachers to scare the hell out of the kids – and in the end, my class is…fun?
So, whether I’m weathering middle school or high school classroom management, I could fill my bookshelves with published opinions by education gurus who wear their philosophies like polished medals. Regardless the scenario, however, nothing compares to actually dealing with the devil-student face-to-face. I don’t have the self-help books tabbed in my classroom so I can flip to a page and read it quickly to figure out my course of classroom management.
My specialty: I glare at the student that is acting up in my classroom, force my voice down to a subtle growl and watch as they melt in embarrassment and hide underneath their desk, not because I was scary, but because they realized they were doing something wrong.
I have classroom management covered. Mr. Wong can go home, kick his feet up and not worry about this beginning teacher, but there is something Mr. Wong forgot to mention about the first days of school. I’m ready to work with a room full of rowdy, hormone-infested, food-craving teenagers, but what about dealing with your own peers.
Oh, sure teachers can be massacred by their students, hung up to dry and crucified by their attitudes, but that’s child’s play – we all know each student has a vicious Chucky doll inside their soul, but what about all the other teachers we must deal with everyday?
They have evil Chucky dolls, too. Mr. Wong may think classroom management can destroy the teacher, but what about teacher management?
Although I am currently at a middle school, surrounded by an excellent supportive staff, my first semester was spent grimacing at other teachers at the high school down the street.
I went to meetings when I taught at the high school and they acted worse than a bunch of students during class. None of them shut up, and they acted like they didn’t need to be at the meeting. Some days I found it harder to be surrounded by sniveling teachers than whiney students.
Wong doesn’t make it right.
My first semester at the high school wasn’t the students, but some of the teachers.
What does the beginning teacher do when he finds himself talked down to by another teacher? What does the beginning teacher do when even the students notice this tendency?
“Don’t you hate it that she treats you like a five-year-old?” They asked me.
So, how do I respond to the student who’s being sincere with that biting question?
Yes I hated that I was treated like a five-year-old, like a student teacher, like I didn’t know what I was doing, when it was obvious I was one of the best choices for a mid-semester replacement.
I wasn’t hired because I was a warm body. I wasn’t hired to be the cute teacher to distract the girl students.
I don’t perform special tricks.
Well, unless gummy bears are in the mix.
And although I was a candidate for a position at the high school, a group of teachers in the Communications department were talking – with me within feet of them – and it was nice to know I didn’t exist to them.
“Whoever this new person is…” They said, talking around me. “What will we do with the schedule when this new person comes?”
Why bother looking at the semester replacement that was also a candidate for the position? Who really treats the new teacher like a peer? How can the new teacher honestly know what he’s doing?
Mr. Wong didn’t ever say that other teachers will complicate the first year of teaching.
Like any job, I would suppose there is that initial moment where I need to prove myself. I need to show the students that I mean business and that it’s time to work. I need to show other teachers that I am exactly what the school needs and I am quite sure I know what I’m doing, however, that should be within the first month – not the entire semester. I gained the respect of my students, and they ask me why I don’t have the respect of my fellow teacher. I wanted to ask the same question.
Overall, there were three teachers that weren’t exactly welcoming or accommodating. My experience at the high school was golden, but a few bad eggs can tarnish any great experience. Let’s see where this year takes me.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
August 24, 2004 by editingevan.
It was our last day in Vegas, and we decided to celebrate by eating Krispy Kreme donuts and walking the “old Strip,” now dubbed Fremont Street.
Don’t wear white linen pants, or pants, really, at all, for that matter, while walking Fremont Street. Steph’s pants were black after walking Fremont Street our first day in the 104 degree “dry” heat. Before we got to the hotel, I gave Steph a suitcase to hold and instead of gently handing it to her, I threw it on her lap – so her pants already had a layer of black top across her thighs.
Fremont Street is dirty, that’s my point. Dirty like plaque covering the area where the teeth meet the gums, dirty like a dried-up pit stain, dirty like a band-aid floating in a public pool, the kind of dirty that causes convulsions and shivers up and down the aching spine. Fremont Street was like a fish smell that wouldn’t go away.
Okay, that’s a little harsh – the “old Strip” isn’t so bad, but I still felt the need to brush my teeth after I walked its couple of blocks of neon scuz.
We bid adieu to the tart, overpriced atmosphere and smudgy sidewalks, and carried our donuts back to the hotel. We passed the open doors of the casinos, feeling the cool air-conditioned breeze coming from the carpeted, jingle-jangle that came from inside (as well as the clouds of smoke that bellowed from the gamblers mouths – we breathed that in as well). That morning we passed three security guards huddled by one of the doors when a Hispanic couple bolted from the casino. The man wore over-sized clothes that hung off his short body like a moo-moo, and the woman wore Keds and a jersey-knit, orange dress with slits up both sides.
They stopped by a trash can and the man grabbed the woman, pulled her close and began groping. He grabbed her butt cheeks, he ran his hands across her taught breasts, and sweat clung to their copper skin as their visions blurred into a twist of passionate –
Sorry. I got a little carried away.
After rubbing his hands across her body, he knelt down and pressed his head to her pelvis like he was trying to listen for the ocean, or something. The woman didn’t seem to mind, the alcohol numbed her senses or made her horny – or both.
I almost dropped the bag of donuts witnessing the tumultuous affection passed between these two – who ran away from the security guards, stumbling into bright sunlight. I didn’t think I was going to get to see anymore free shows after we saw the water show in front of the Bellagio the first night we were there.
They’re love was a deep love.
Steph and I decided they were drunk, and we went back to our room, ate our donuts and then went downstairs to wait for the shuttle that would deposit us at the airport – just two more tourists getting the hell out of dodge. After about thirty minutes from the time we left Fremont Street, we were outside again in the 99 degree shade, when a lime green bus pulled up to allow gamblers to visit other casinos in an area called “Sam’s Town.”
We heard screams. Busting through our hotel doors were the lovers. He ran full force to the bus, and she came tumbling after, carrying her Keds. She padded after him, going no faster than a two-year-old running in soiled Pampers.
“Louuuuiiieeeee,” she screamed. “Wait for me.”
“Your feet hurt,” he shouted back, and jumped on the bus.
Steph and I were in stitches. Another couple waiting for a shuttle didn’t understand why we thought it was so funny.
Then Louie jumped off the bus and bolted away from the hotel, running full speed. A few seconds later came the woman, still holding her Keds, chasing after him, screaming at the top of her lungs.
We didn’t want to leave after that.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »