My First Day of Not Having a First Day of School

I didn't go back to school today.

For, like, the first time ever. I went from high school to college to grad school to teaching, so for pretty much as long as I can remember the day after Labor Day has been The First Day of School, a day of both nervous anticipation and new beginnings. But today was just any old day, with nothing in particular to anticipate and nary a fresh start to be made.

And despite the fact that I made a conscious decision not to teach this year, I'm feeling out of sorts. Sure, I'm looking forward to a year without papers to grade or bratty students to reprimand, but I already miss the not-so-bratty kids and I haven't quite grown used to my new identity as someone other than a teacher.

So because I can't let go -- and because I never got around to it back in June -- please enjoy Exhibits D through K from last year's classroom portrait gallery.

Exhibit D:

What I don't like: Dude, I NEVER wear heels. Plus that apostrophe is totally unnecessary. And, um, I know I was concerned about the lack of teeth in exhibit C but these teeth are just weird. Oh, OH, and poor Luna!

What I do like: The GMOs! We were totally studying GMOs at the time, and this kid knows enough to know they're bad news.

Exhibit E:

What I don't like: Oh gosh, where to begin? Let's see. . .A) meat is NOT good, B) why is my face a different color than my body?, C) did I just decapitate my cat?!, D) belly shirts are SO 1994.

What I do like: Um? I see the word "organic." That's nice.










Exhibit F:

What I don't like: Whoa. Crazy hair! I look scary.

What I do like: Nice pink dress, plus this is the portrait of a chick who doesn't fuck around. I mean, you'd sit down if she said to, right?











Exhibit G:

What I don't like: Hellooooo, arms?

What I do like: "shhhhhhhh" sounds a lot more like something I would say than, "sit down you fooooolls!" Also red is a good color for me.











Exhibit H:

What I don't like: Um, hellooooo, ARMS? Also why am I twice the size of Mr. Michigan?

(sidebar: Early in the year I got so tired of trying to distinguish between the inseparable and nearly identical Blair and Ashby that I just started calling both of them Blashby. It worked.)

What I do like? Awwww, first portrait to include my totally awesome boyfriend! And I think he's making a kissy face. :-)





Exhibit I:

What I don't like: Dude, that ring is WAY too big for my nonexistent finger. Plus it is important for young ladies to understand that there's more to life than snagging a husband and scoring a nice rock. Seriously, is feminism dead?

What I do like: If I WERE getting hitched, the Outer Banks (or OBX in local parlance) would sure be a nice place to do so.








Exhibit J:

What I don't like: Am I wearing Timberlands with a DRESS? An ORANGE dress? And what is UP with my eyes?

What I do like: I'm rich! Look at all those dubs ($20 bills) I got!











Exhibit K:

What I don't like: At the end of a year-long Geography course, you'd think my students could read a map well enough to determine that Michigan does, in fact, have beaches.

What I do like: Is that a beer in my hand? Oooh, and I have a much nicer rack here than in real life.

Classroom Portrait Gallery: Exhibits A, B, & C

Several months ago, a couple students finished their work early and then used the PaintPad program on the classroom computer to create a likeness of me, which I later incorporated into my daily powerpoint presentations. Other students grew inexplicably jealous of this fame and insisted they could out-paintpad the original portrait-makers.

Paintpad is a difficult medium to work in, but my kids have never let the difficulty of a task stand in their way of completing it -- unless, of course, that task involves doing actual work rather than wasting class time -- and they are nothing if not prolific. Thus I've acquired an extensive series of portraits. And because many of these portraits are amusing, I thought I'd share them and some commentary with you over the next few weeks.

Exhibit A:

What I don't like: Okay, A) I'm naked. B) although I often yell at them to sit down, I NEVER call my students fools.

What I do like: Excellent use of the exclamation point, plus my eyes are a really pretty shade of green.




Exhibit B:

What I don't like: At the time this was created I was neither single nor particularly inclined toward mingling. Additionally, I am not a big fan of the rectangle + boots look. Lastly, studying has never been my idea of a good time. Unless by “studying” you mean “drinking.”

What I do like: First portrait to incorporate my cat, who's featured in most of the subsequent portraits.


Exhibit C:

What I don't like: Um, what's going on with my shoulders? And where are my teeth?

What I do like: Like the Romans mimicking the Greeks, we're building on a previous theme here. More importantly, this was the exact outfit, right down to the bellbottoms, I was wearing on the day this was paintpadded. You may notice, however, that I'm not wearing any shoes. My kids explained this: it seems like I only wear shoes because I have to, so the portrait shows me without them in an effort to capture my essence.

Be sure to tune in next week for exhibits D, E, & F.

My Students Are Funnier Than Yours

Last week I assigned my TA the tedious task of scanning old documents (of which I have no digital copies) and purging, then recycling, my paper files; I'm moving at the end of the school year and I'll be damned if I'm taking 14 boxes of vocab quizzes with me. Perpetually agreeable, my TA fell to this task with her usual good cheer. At one point she came across a typewritten overhead transparency and asked me what I wanted her to do with it. "Toss it," I answered, to the shock of a nearby student. "Why would you throw away a perfectly good transparency?!" he demanded, plucking it from the trash. "Have you EVER seen me use the overhead?" I countered. Nobody has, not since my first year of teaching.

Why anyone -- let alone a high school student -- would want a used overhead transparency is beyond me, but this kid did. He kept holding it up and laughing. "What the hell is so funny about a transparency," I wondered to myself, even after I noticed that he'd drawn thick, dark wavy lines in its blank spaces.

He kept laughing and I kept wondering. Soon all the kids around him were laughing too, some uncontrollably. (Oh, and PS, was this disruptive to the learning environment? Answer: yes.) I looked more closely at the transparency. "Mustaches? You drew mustaches?" I hypothesized, which only served to move the mirth-o-meter up a few notches. I remained puzzled. I mean sure, mustaches are funny, but not THAT funny. So, "What's so funny about mustaches?" I asked dismissively. My kids were now laughing so hard they were practically falling out of their seats.

And then, finally, I got it. Behold:

"The first mustache is my favorite," Mr. Transparency Plucker announced. "I like the second one better," another kid responded. They examined me, alternating mustaches. "Yeah, if she had a mustache she'd definitely have the second one," Plucker finally agreed, "it's snooty." "You think I'm SNOOTY?!" I demanded. They thought about it for a minute. "Well no. You're smart, not snooty. But most smart people are snooty."

So. What did we learn in class on Thursday? That mustaches are funny. We might also have learned why developing countries just can't catch a break, but I can't be positive. Oh, and I bet those pictures are all OVER MySpace.

Biblio- What?

I've been doing a lot of work with word roots in my class lately, mostly because my kids keep calling me over during tests and asking me what certain words mean and then, when I explain, growling, "Dude, why can't they just SAY that then?" through clenched teeth. So I'm trying to teach them how to figure out what words mean without having to ask me. Thus the word roots.

On Friday I gave a test on a variety of different word roots, including biblio (book), phil (love), and mania (craving or obsession). Most of the test involved little more than matching words to their definitions, but I also included a few short answer questions to make sure the kids really knew what the word roots meant. I like to give questions that ask kids for their opinions -- for one thing this freaks them out ("wait, is there a right answer for this?") and for another thing, because there ISN'T a right answer they can pretty much get credit for anything as long as they justify their opinion.

And although I did not intend for the last question on Friday's test to be a source of mirth, many of the answers were indeed humorous. Behold:

Miss F. adores books. She loves to read books, she loves to talk about books, she even sort of enjoys writing reviews of books. In the summer when she's not teaching she works at a bookstore. She owns a lot of books (in fact she owns two copies of some of her favorite books) and rarely visits a bookstore without buying a new one. Would you classify her as a bibliophile or a bibliomaniac? Explain your reasoning.

I would consider her a bibliomaniac because of the word "maniac" which means someone who's crazy. Anyone who spends so much time with books has a big problem.

Bibliomaniac cause she is a maniac for books. You are a FEIND! [sic]

Bibliophile because she likes books so much like a pedophile likes kids. That is my reasoning.

I think she's a bibliophile, because at the beginning it says she "adores" and "loves" books. And I'm sure bibliomaniacs would probably try to work at a bookstore full time. A bibliomaniac would just be more severe than this situation. And because Miss F. doesn't own a TV, there's not much else to do, besides play with her cats that is.

Bibliomaniac because it sound [sic] like to me your whole life is about books because who loves books doesn't really go about liking books the way you do. You would probably marry a book if it's good enough (LOL)!

Bibliomaniac b/c her obsession over books and her being a phene. [sic] P.S. Ms. F. you are WACK for that! :)

Clearly a bibloid. As we all know, Miss F. has spent so much time with books that she has come to resemble them. Though slight at first, for example, black hair (the color of ink in most books!), symptoms will gradually become more pronounced until. . .we turn around one oddly quiet day to find only a monograph on the psychosomatic effects of neologisms in her desk chair, neologisms such as "bibloid."

Well honestly I didn't study but like a pedophile usually likes kids so a bibliophile would probably just LIKE books but a maniac is someone who is like a feighn [sic] for something so I think she is a BIBLIOMANIAC!

In this case, I would say that Ms. F. has a SEVERE case of bibliomania because all she does is spend time looking at books, talking with books, reading books, writing stuff about books, working around books. I wouldn't be surprised if she was teaching her cat how to read. She is obsessed with books basically.

I would classify her as a dork.

So. As you can see, it's not just the word roots. Clearly a quick lesson on how to properly spell fiend is in order as well.

Also, if you're new here you might want to read up on my students' perception of me as a crazy cat lady. Especially considering that one mostly un-funny answer contained this: "PS, Miss F. is also a felinomaniac (obsessed with cats)."

Kids.

And For Some Kids, Only A Swift Kick In The Ass Will Do

Okay, I know I just talked about tardiness yesterday, but I have another tardy story. Rest assured, however, that it is not my intention to turn this blog into an all-tardies-all-the-time kinda place -- at some point I plan on talking about politics or telling stories about my weird-ass family or writing a mean letter to some retard who wrote a letter to the editor and, of course, posting pictures of cute little puppies.

So.

I have this kid (we'll call him D) who's late all the time. I mean EVERY fuckin' day. And not just a little late; we're talking like 10 or 15 minutes late, class has already started late. Most mornings I see him get off his bus as I walk into school, so that's not the issue. What IS the issue is that after he gets off his bus he stands around outside talking to his friends, and when they head for class he heads for 7-11. (I know this, by the way, because I have spied on him from my classroom window, which overlooks the bus drop-off.) Then he and a large coffee -- for him, not me! -- materialize in my class 20 minutes later.

None of this would be so bad if D could manage unobtrusive tardiness, but the general disruption of his tardiness is exacerbated by the fact that D smokes copious amounts of weed and never seems to have any clue that class is actually in progress when he arrives. "Uh, hey, what's up?" he says as he enters the room like a stoned Kramer.

Every. Fuckin'. Day.

So you can see how this would get annoying. And how the whole sticker thing might be sort of lost on him.

A few weeks ago I assigned D detention. The next day he was on time. In fact, he was on time for several days in a row before his scheduled detention. "Were you thinking that if you stopped being late you wouldn't have to serve that detention?" I asked him. "Uh, that's fine with me," he answered. "Tell you what, we'll go double or nothing," I offered (stupidly). "Okay, but I don't really know what that means," D agreed, bleary-eyed. So I explained that he was excused from detention for as long as he continued to come on time, but that the next time he was late he'd have DOUBLE detention. I thought I was incentivizing him.

I'm sure it will not come as a surprise to you that D was tardy again. He was supposed to serve his double detention yesterday and today. I'm sure it will not come as a surprise to you that he didn't show.

Ergo, I called his dad. Who kicks ass. Our conversation went a little something like this:

Me: Mr. D's Dad? I'm D's Geography teacher. I'm calling to discuss his tardiness.

D's Dad: His TARDINESS?

Me: Yes. D is tardy to my class on a regular basis. In fact, he's been tardy to nine of the last ten classes. It's very --

D's Dad: Can you hold on a minute?

Me: Uh, sure.

D's Dad: (shouting) D!

D: (in the background) Uh, hey, what's up?

D's Dad: (to me) Thanks. Can you start over please?

(I believe at this point I was placed on speaker-phone.)

Me: Sure. I was saying D is tardy to my class almost every day. He's been late nine times in the past ten days.

D's Dad: How late are we talking?

Me: Often as late as 15 minutes.

D's Dad: That late?

Me: I'm afraid so. Does D ride the bus?

D's Dad: Yeah, so I don't understand why he'd be late.

Me: Well, he usually comes in with coffee from 7-11. Perhaps he's walking over to 7-11 after he gets off the bus?

D's Dad: Thank you for calling. I'll take care of this as soon as I hang up the phone.

Me: I really appreciate that. However, D still needs to serve his detention.

D's Dad: I understand. What's tomorrow -- Thursday? You want him Friday, Saturday, and Sunday too?

Me: (laughing) No sir, I'm afraid you're stuck with him then, but I'll take him tomorrow and Tuesday.

D's Dad: He'll be there. You won't have this problem again.

Dude. I LOVE parents like D's Dad. Well, assuming he didn't beat the shit out of D once he hung up the phone. And assuming D's ass is on time tomorrow.

Sticker Shock

Long, long ago in a galaxy not so far away, some educational theorist or early child development specialist or what have you proposed that we modify children's behavior not by punishing them when they do wrong but by rewarding them when they don't. While this "catch them being good" theory was the object of my derision back in Ed. school ten years ago, it today helps to explain why I've just spent 20 minutes sitting on the floor of the Dollar Tree scrutinizing their sticker selection and then devoted an additional hour and a half to sitting on my couch cutting sheets of 1000 stickers into easy-to-distribute squares of one sticker.

I've never been big on behaviorism. Sure, it works fine for training dogs and toddlers and the like, but for more highly evolved beings a behaviorist approach has always struck me as insulting. Of course, this was before I began teaching tenth graders, so I couldn't fully appreciate the beauty of behaviorism. Nor, as a fairly anti-establishment and perpetually late student myself, was I able to appreciate the importance of being on time for class. But both behaviorism and punctuality have grown on me (which I'm pretty sure makes me the man, but that's another story for another time) and I have found my pedagogic bliss in stickers.

Actually, I can't take credit for the sticker approach to classroom management. It was my colleague and friend Steve's idea. (Steve, I bought you some stickers at the Dollar Tree! They have monkeys on them! And ducks!!!) Steve teaches next door to me, and a few weeks ago I noticed him handing stickers to students as they came into class one morning. "Uh, whatcha doin' with the stickers?" I asked him as I prepared to make fun of his answer. But then Steve explained that the stickers represented bonus points and that he was giving them to his kids for being on time, which reduced my witty retort to a lame, "Huh. That's a good idea." And the next day I totally stole it.

You would not BELIEVE how into stickers 15 and 16 year-old kids can be. Even before today's visit to the Dollar Tree I had a decent variety of stickers -- apples, stars, George Washingtons, and Abe Lincolns -- but kids are fussy about their stickers, asking, "Can I have a pink star instead of a green one?" or "Can I trade in this Abe Lincoln for an apple?" Some even ask for an extra sticker to WEAR.

More importantly though, this sticker thing seems to be working, at least a little. The other day a frequently tardy young lady was chatting with her friends at the end of the hall just before class. I had merely to raise my eyebrows and wave a sticker in her direction to send her scampering in mine. "Oooh, I gotta go," she said seriously to her friends.

And this afternoon, another student who is ALWAYS late stopped by after school simply to tell me, "I'ma be on TIME tomorrow." "Oh? What's the occasion?" I teased. "I gotta get me that sticker," she answered emphatically.

Damn. And she doesn't even know about the brand new SPARKLY stickers! Or that tomorrow I plan to award stickers not only for being on time but also for not bitching about everything.

The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades

I am a teacher. I'm aware that regular readers already know this, but I just like saying it. I almost always find a way to work this bit of information into conversations with strangers, not in the hopes that they'll nominate me for sainthood or marvel at my dedication or leer at me and make suggestive comments about what they would have done if I'd been THEIR teacher but simply because it's who I am.

And although it may not always seem like it, I LOVE being a teacher. Not every minute of every day and certainly not when there's a mountain of papers to be graded, but ultimately teaching rocks. And on the good days I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I mention all this because Dave asked me last week if working with today's teenagers makes me worry about the America those teenagers will create for us in the future. His comment got me thinking, and I realized that most of the school stories I tell do not paint a particularly flattering picture of America's youth. But it's not because there are no flattering pictures to be painted, it's because those stories aren't funny.

They are, however, important. And I have lots of them.

Just this week alone I've been approached by seven kids looking to start various clubs or campaigns to improve the world around them:

1. One of my girls from last year stopped by between classes on Monday to tell me about Turn Beauty Inside Out and to ask me if I would help her create a schoolwide campaign. She was so excited about the possibilities that she could barely put a sentence together. And PS, this same student brought me a bagel last Friday morning for no reason other than that she's just an all-around awesome kid.


2. At the beginning of 5th period on Monday one of my students -- a kid whose main hobbies seem to be skipping class and smoking weed, not necessarily in that order -- asked me if I knew about the Invisible Children movie and announced that we should learn about it. I called him over to the computer later to look at the website and he said, "Yeah, we should really do something. I mean, I was thinking about doing something. Like maybe a project? For your class? We could get the whole school involved." And then he was off and running about film screenings and awareness bracelets and fundraisers. Oh, and extra credit.


3. Tuesday morning brought me two little blonde field hockey players who I've been teaching since September and STILL have trouble telling apart. They're fired up about Sudan. "You know how we watched that movie about the lost boys?," they asked, "well we wanna start a club to help them." Their pitch was interrupted by another girl who'd asked me in October to sponsor her Human Connection Project, a fundraising club she created after we watched Sarah McLachlan's "World on Fire" video (administrative approval STILL pending, by the way).


4. On Tuesday afternoon two of my favorite girls took a break from coloring their maps to whisper excitedly to me about their plans for an environmental club. "We want to recycle," one girl said. "And plant trees!" the other added gleefully. I explained that the Young Greens, an existing club that I co-sponsor, has just recently begun talking about an extensive schoolwide recycling program. A potential partnership was born.

And yesterday, when my first period class unexpectedly lasted an hour longer than the normal 90 minutes and I popped in the monkey chant to keep my kids occupied, even the coolest of the too-cool-for-schoolers sat enthralled. At the end of the monkey chant one of my problem students, a perpetually unenthused boy, shouted, "Whoa! Cool! Can we watch it again?" So we did.

A Monday Montage

Here, in the order in which they occurred, are a few stories from my day at school today:

This morning I overheard one kid say to another, "Hey, you got a pencil I can borrow?" The would-be borrowee held one finger aloft as if in deep thought and said, "Hmmm. . .let me check my arsenal of writing," then rummaged around in his backpack until he located a writing utensil.

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Last Wednesday I kicked a kid out of class for consistently annoying the shit out of me, to wit: announcing several times a day how pointless he thinks my class is and how much he hates it. Said student then skipped class on both Thursday and Friday and although I can't say I was particularly disappointed by this, I warmly welcomed him back to class today.

"Nice of you to show up," I said sarcastically as he arrived. "Yeah, I thought you could use a break," he replied sheepishly, "I was gonna come on Friday but I figured nah." "What's your problem, anyway?" I asked (but nicely). "Hey, I got no beef with you, [my last name]. You're a cool teacher. You just need to chillax," he answered.

"Chillax," for those of you not quite as down with the cause as I am, is a combination of the terms "chill" and "relax." Oh, and this kid is quite possibly the whitest kid in America.

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As I was passing out papers at the end of a class today, I overheard one group of kids discussing whether or not they thought they were going to heaven. This had absolutely nothing to do with what we'd been talking about in class, so I'm not really sure how they got on the subject. But anyway, I was passing out papers and explaining homework and making sure nobody made off with (or "bucked on," in their parlance) any of the crappy laptops we'd been using, so I was distracted.

"Do you think you're going to heaven?" one kid asked me as I passed him a paper. "No," I answered and continued doing my teacher thing. "Why not?!" several kids asked at once. "Because I don't believe in heaven," I explained without really thinking. "Wow. I feel really sorry for you," one girl said angrily, as if my lack of belief was a personal affront. But I think some other kids might have snickered at her, or at least rolled their eyes on my behalf.

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We had a department meeting after school to discuss changes -- BIG changes -- we should anticipate for the 07-08 school year. We teachers asked a lot of questions about the how and the why of things and were given very little information in response to those questions. Eventually the administration's liaison lost her patience with us and issued this blanket statement:

"You don't have to be here. If you don't like it, leave."

Hey, newsflash: I've had one foot out the door since the second week of school, you administrative fucksticks. Do you think it's because of the KIDS?

The Semester Of The Bitch

Classroom management has never been my strong suit. I kinda suck at it, in fact. It's a tough thing to be good at when you're the sort of person who thinks rules are stupid. I mean, "don't talk while other people are talking" is a pretty reasonable rule, but "no hats, caps, coats, do-rags, cell phones, pagers, iPods, or other electronic devices" is not something I can really get behind. Ditto on no eating in class, and double ditto on not being allowed to go to your locker or meet with your guidance counselor during the school day. A student (not mine) visiting my class last year observed, "Wow, you run a pretty loose ship here."

The thing about kids, though, is that if you don't enforce the stupid rules, they don't understand when you try to enforce the reasonable rules. And they walk all over you, which is a hell of a lot more annoying than having to enforce stupid rules.

I reached my breaking point last week as my kids wandered aimlessly around the classroom after finishing their mid-term in record time. "I let you kids [alert! alert! old person talking!] break all kinds of rules!" I yelled, "Half of you are listening to your iPods and the other half of you are eating ridiculously unhealthy snacks! All I ask is that you sit the eff down! What the eff is so effing hard about that?!" They sat down, but they didn't look like they'd stay there for long. They looked like they thought I might be a little bit crazy. And I've explained to them, calmly and reasonably, why I need them to sit down. They're all taller than me, and when they all stand up and clump together I can't see what sort of mischief they're getting into.

So I've mentally declared this semester, which began on Monday, the semester of the bitch. I stole this concept from my friend Eileen, who was once overheard saying sympathetically to a (high school) student, "Oh sweetie, you can't bring a knife to school," and who shortly thereafter announced that the upcoming school year would be the year of the bitch. Neither one of us can really pull off the whole bitch thing, and Eileen's year of the bitch was pretty un-bitchy (although she did tighten up her knife policy a bit).

My semester of the bitch is shaping up quite nicely, however. I've already kicked two students out of class -- one for saying "what the fuck is this shit?" in response to my introduction of a writing assignment (Come ON. Even *I* don't say the f-word in class.) and another for pointing out that in addition to persecuting Jews, the Nazis were also not big fans of "fags" (an f-word that makes me so angry I can barely think straight). I've responded to numerous queries of, "Wait. What are we supposed to be doing?" with the very bitchy, "Ask someone who was listening." I've refused repeated requests for bathroom passes from a kid whose last authorized trip to the bathroom took him nowhere near the bathroom (according to my spies) and lasted 40 minutes. "If it was an emergency would you let me go?" he asked. "No," I said, "sit down." I'm a bitch like that.

And today, when the first real snow of the season began to fall around 1:00 and my kids went crazy with glee, I simply lowered the blinds and continued ranting about the plight of refugees. The kids whined and cried and promised to pay attention if only I would open the blinds back up a LITTLE bit. And even though I was once a kid too, even though I had just moments ago whispered excitedly to my TA that it was snowing, even though I would have liked nothing more than to pause for a few moments and watch that snow flutter to the ground, I resisted.

"Have you no soul?!" one of my favorite students wailed.

Hey, it's the semester of the bitch, baby.

PS artwork courtesy of my students.

Of Boobs and Boos

My school offers a "class" called Teacher's Assistant, open only to members of the Future Educators of America. In theory, each future educator is paired up with a current educator to experience what it's really like to be a teacher before he or she is stupid enough to actually join the profession (we kid because we love). In practice though, most of the future educators weren't ever all that interested in becoming teachers in the first place -- they just run a lot of photocopies and grade a lot of quizzes.

I know you're waiting for the part of the post where I talk about boobs, but I mention all this first because the boobs in questions are my TA's boobs, and if I just started off the post by saying, "My TA. . ." you'd probably think, "Wait. She has a TA?" and then you'd be focused on that instead of the boobs. Right? Totally.

So. . .

My TA is a ditzy but incredibly sweet girl who I taught last year. We have a good relationship -- friendly but not unprofessional. She showed up unexpectedly at the end of my 6th period class today because she'd just checked into school and she didn't feel like going to the last few minutes of her own 6th period, which is fine. As I chatted with her I noticed that she was sporting rather a lot of cleavage for a Tuesday afternoon and I said, "Hey, what's up with your boobs hanging out all over the place?" in a very you're-totally-violating-the-dresscode-but-far-be-it-from-me-to-enforce-the-man's-rules kind of way. She glanced down at her chest, smiled, and said, "My boo's in my next class."

Right. Of course. So what I perceived as a minor wardrobe mishap was actually a calculated and deliberate display of boob-age for the 8th period ogling pleasure of her boyfriend. And I bet if she hadn't had class with him she wouldn't have even bothered to check into school for the last class of the day. Brazen little hussy.

I wish I could say I was above such behavior in high school, but I wasn't. And while I never rocked the cleavage (mostly because I didn't -- okay, DON'T -- have any cleavage to rock), I definitely considered the presence of certain boys in class when selecting my outfits. Hell, I once even called my mom from school and faked sick when I discovered my crush wasn't at school for like the third day in a row.

I guess there's a brazen little hussy in each of us. And we don't quite grow out of it either.

I'd be stupid to deny that every girl's boo enjoys a little cleavage, but I also know that MY boo doesn't really give a rat's ass what I wear. If you think that prevented me from agonizing about what to pack for Chicago, you were obviously lucky enough not to have had to talk to me in the weeks preceding that trip.

On the other hand, I once wore the HELL out of a hoodie my then-boyfriend had made it clear he didn't "particularly care for," just to assert my independence, so I don't know. I mean, I want my boo to ogle me a little bit, but mostly because he likes ME and not my outfits. Is that so much to ask?

Rarely Is The Question Asked: Is Our Children Learning?*

I try, I really do, but some days it's damn near impossible. Take today, for example. My students were watching the film Osama as part of our study of religious fundamentalism. Osama is not -- as you might think -- about bin Laden, but about a young girl living in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Because she has no male relatives and is therefore not allowed to leave her house, her widowed mother disguises her as a boy and sends her out to get a job so the two of them don't starve to death.

It's not the world's most exciting movie -- I mean, there aren't any explosions -- but I thought it gave a pretty good feel for what it might have been like to live under the Taliban: how far-reaching and oppressive their rule was. And I've been at this teaching thing for a while -- I know teenagers generally can't get themselves too terribly worked up over irrelevant things like oppression. (I'm not being sarcastic here. It annoys the hell out of me, but I get it.) But we're talking SERIOUS injustice here, and the film is pretty powerful, so I thought my kids might actually give a shit.

Wrong.

Late in the film there's a scene where a woman is accused of advocating profanity and, after what I guess is supposed to pass for a trial -- an observer at the so-called trial even notes the absence of a witness, sentenced to death by stoning. In the next scene you see a hole being dug, and then you see the woman in the hole with only her head and shoulders visible.

"What's going on?" asked my kids. Which. . . okay. . .fine, we're Americans, we're not all that familiar with stoning procedures. "They're getting ready to stone her," I explained, deliberately being blunt. "They bury you up to your shoulders and then throw rocks at your head until you die."

"Big rocks?" wondered a kid.

And I get that they're teenagers, I get that developmentally they don't have the whole empathy thing down yet, I get that having never experienced anything particularly awful themselves the horror of being stoned to death is probably tough to fully grasp, but COME ON. Does it really fucking matter how big the fucking rocks are?! Can we please focus on the fact that a woman -- who, oh, by the way, can't show her TOES let alone her face in public -- was just charged with a completely made up crime, was neither allowed to defend herself against the charge nor confront even a single witness against her, was sentenced in a matters of seconds, and now people -- like for FUN -- are gonna throw ROCKS, whatever their size, at her head until she DIES?

Oh, but my day gets worse.

The stoning scene ends with people swarming around the woman in her hole, all -- I presume -- eager to throw rocks at her for her horrible transgression of advocating profanity. As the next scene began, one of my kids said, "Wait. We don't even get to SEE her get stoned?" "You want to watch a woman get stoned to death?" I asked angrily. "Well, not in real life," he answered nodding, "but yeah."

What is this, like, Jackass: The Class?

Toward the very end of the film, we see an old mullah locking his newly acquired (against her will, of course) young bride in a room with his other wives. She weeps as the other wives tell her how cruel he is, while he makes preparations for their wedding night. In one of the very last scenes, the mullah holds an array of padlocks out to his new wife, as if he's giving her a gift, and encourages her to choose one. "What's he doing?" asked a kid. "He's letting her choose the lock for her door," explained another kid. "Awwww, that's really sweet," said a girl. "She's gonna spend the rest of her life locked in that room unless he says she can come out," I ranted, "what's SWEET about that?" "Well, if she has to be locked up, at least he's letting her choose the lock she likes," answered my student.

Seriously. What do you even DO with that as a teacher?

*thanks to my pal Jay for reminding me of this lil' gem of a Bushism

First Period, Wherein My Hypocrisy Is Exposed By A 15-Year-Old

Although I pretty much wear nothing but skirts when the weather's nice (well, I mean, I wear tops WITH the skirts), wintertime is a different story, mostly because of footwear. In the spring, summer, and fall I can go bare-legged and flip-flopped, but in the winter skirts are a major production involving both tights and boots, neither of which I am particularly fond of. Still, I try to wear a skirt to school at the beginning of the week so that then I can slack off attire-wise for the rest of the week.

I mention all this because today is this week's skirt and boot day. I don't think I paid any attention to what my teachers were wearing when I was a student, but not a day goes by that at least one of my kids doesn't comment on some aspect of my outfit. And this morning one of my students complimented me on my boots, which are indeed nice. This compliment prompted another student to examine my boots, after which she furrowed her brow and asked, "Wait. Aren't you a vegetarian?" Because the boots, in addition to being nice, are leather. But I pretended not to know where she was going with this. "Um, yeah. What does that have to do with anything?" She didn't fall for it.

Student: You're wearing leather boots.

Me: I'm not EATING the boots.

(collective laughter)

Student: So you won't eat animals but you'll wear their skin?

Me: Well, what else am I supposed to do? Shoes are made of leather.

Student: Not ALL shoes are made of leather. What about shoes like that? (pointing to another kid's shoes)

Me: You want me to wear SNEAKERS?!

Student: So you care more about looking good than about the poor animals?

Um, yeah, kinda. I mean, if there was a reasonable vegan alternative to leather boots I'd be all over it, but I can't wear sneakers with my skirts -- that would look silly. In which case I guess I might as well have a cheeseburger. Actually, make that a BACON cheeseburger.

Funny Things My Students Have Said Recently

"Uh, we took a group vote? And Chapter 10 is bogus." (to explain why he wasn't doing his work)

"America is for AmeriCANS, not AmeriCAN'Ts." (purely to annoy me, I think)

"Hey, you're a fan of the things that are weird. . ." (prefacing a question about karma)

"Are you EVER gonna get married?!" (completely out of the blue)

"Dude, the Christians OWNED the First Crusade!" (during a discussion about Islam)

I've Always Wondered What To Serve With Chicken Noodle Soup

At the beginning of every school year I have a conversation with my students about what kind of environment they learn best in and what they need from me in order to learn. Inevitably, the kids mention something about liking to listen to music while they work, which is good since I myself can barely function without music. So whenever the kids work on something in class -- like a map, for example -- we have music playing in the background. Sometimes we listen to my music (lately it's been last month's Paste CD sampler) and sometimes we listen to theirs. I reserve the right to veto anything I don't like.

Recently I vetoed one of their favorite songs: "Chicken Noodle Soup." If you work with teenagers or have a thing for horrible music, you've probably already heard the chicken noodle soup song. If not, you'll need to listen below before we continue.

Alrighty then. So you can see why I vetoed it.

"This is awful!" I said as I watched my kids dance in their seats. "It doesn't even make any sense." "Naw," one of my kids disagreed, "it's about when you're sick and you eat chicken noodle soup. With, like, a ginger ale. Makes you feel better." "Well, what's up with the crap about 'let it rain. . .and clear it out' then?" I asked, making rain motions with my hands. My kids just shrugged and kept on chicken noodle souping.

So now I guess I have to do a whole lesson about minstrel rap, which I guaran-damn-tee you will not be on the state exam at the end of the year. But still. It's my duty as an educator, right?

Right. So let it rain. And clear it out. And then maybe break out your old Tribe Called Quest records.

MySpace, Revisited

My students, as you may recall, like to make fun of me for A) having a cat, B) not having a MySpace, and C) thinking reading's cool. One class in particular makes daily jokes about my presumed status as a crazy cat lady, and has even gone so far as to decorate the class tissue box with cat-related grafitti.

This morning we had the following conversation while cramming for an impending quiz:

Kid 1: What'd you do this weekend? Read?

(collective laughter)

Me: Um, I read the newspaper. And some websites.

Kid 2: Like what?

Me: Oh, I was all UP in some MySpace this weekend!

Kid 1: You on MySpace now?

Me: No. I was kidding.

Kid 2: You need to get a MySpace!

Me: (for like the eighty-twelfth time) Why?

Kids 1, 3, 4, 5, & 6: So you can meet a man!

Kid 2: (quietly) Instead of a cat.

(collective laughter)

Me: Maybe I already met a man. Did you ever think of that?

Class: Whoa! DID you already meet a man?!

Me: I'm just sayin' it's a possibility.

Kid 1: See, if you were on MySpace everybody would KNOW you met a man.

Me: How would they know?

Kid 2: 'Cause you'd have pictures up there of you, like, kissin' him and stuff.

Actually, I wouldn't. Here, however, is a picture of me kissing my cat.

Admittedly, a man would probably be a bit more receptive to my kisses. But I'd have to feed him more often.

T-Shirts I've Recently Seen On Students

My personal favorite. . .

(This seems to have replaced last year's ubiquitous "stop snitching" t-shirt. Same basic sentiment.)

Also seen and noted. . .

"Hotter than your girlfriend"

(And chances are she wasn't.)

"Kiss my bocce balls"

(His teacher came over to ask me, "Does that mean what I think it means?" Answer: yes.)

"Norfolk is for hustlers"

(I see this one a lot. On fluffy-haired white boys. And I'd really like to know what it is that hustlers find so appealing about Norfolk.)

"Don't you wish your girlfriend was smart like me?"

(I might need this one.)

And a bonus booty sighting. . .

You know those shorts and track pants that say something across the ass? The other day I was walking up the stairs behind a young lady wearing a pair of those (with a matching hoodie, of course). On one cheek it said "heav" and on the other cheek it said "enly." For an overall impression of "heavenly." And, just to be clear, it said this on her ass.

So When You Say "Study," You Mean. . .?

I gave my first test of the year last Thursday. The test was what I refer to as a big-ass test. Not a quiz, not a test, but a BIG-ASS test. You know, the kind you should study for. We spent most of the preceding week preparing for the big-ass test. We talked about study techniques and test-taking strategies until I was bored out of my mind and the kids assured me they were golden on the whole big-ass test thing.

Then we made a collage.

The tests scores were decent, but not great. I gave the tests back today and had the kids do a reflection on their approach to the big-ass test. I'm big on reflection. In fact, inability to reflect on and learn from experience is on my list of dealbreakers. It's right up there with dishonesty, bigotry, and living in some cold-ass state like, I don't know, maybe Michigan.

Anyway, this little reflection activity revealed a shocking truth: Most kids did not study!

I know, I know, it's hard to believe. I mean, I TOLD them to study, right? I even told them HOW they should study and devoted three or four class periods to helping them do said studying. But kids these days have their own ideas about test preparation.

Check it out:

Describe in detail what you did to prepare yourself for the big-ass test.

On Wednesday night I was semi-aware of the test. I downloaded a few songs and listened to them. I then looked at a videogame I wanted. I then talked on AIM for a little while. (grade = 82%)

There is no "detail" in describing how I "prepared" for the test, because technically I didn't. (grade = 67%)

I came to class with a pencil. (grade = 82%)

I did Zen meditation. I lit scented candles in my room. Then I turned my room into a geography shrine. I had to do 500 push ups for every time I answered a question wrong. (grade = 95%. Little bastard.)

To be fair, many of my kids did what passes for studying in some circles.

I read over my notes and read over the vocabulary sheet. Like you TOLD us NOT TO.

I opened my notebook and looked through all the papers that had terms on them.

I looked over all my reading quizzes.

I made little notecards of all the vocab but I spent more time making them than studying them.

Went to sleep early, woke up and ate a good breakfast.

And then there's this guy.

I don't remember. (grade = 62%)

And speaking of not remembering, I also had a kid who stared blankly at the reflection assignment and finally announced, "I honestly don't remember a thing about this test." "That's because you didn't take it," I said drily while standing under my National Sarcasm Society poster. " Oh shit," he said.

And my classroom may be free of hats, caps, do-rags, coats, cell phones, iPods and all other electronic devices, but I draw the line at profanity. Really. Because you can't give a big-ass test and not allow kids to say "oh shit" when they realize they missed it.

Living Sort Of Deliberately

I finally figured out why I've been grumpy for the past few days: I'm not in Florida anymore. I had a great time visiting my best friend, but it's always hard to leave her. Maybe I'll just move to Jacksonville.

Anyway, that's not the point of this post and if I tried to tell you about the weekend A) you'd probably be bored and B) I'd probably start to cry.

So.

Although I've been feeling grumpy since I returned to school yesterday, the depth of my grumpiness didn't really register with me until this afternoon at our Young Greens meeting. (In retrospect, it probably should have registered yesterday afternoon when I told my friend Steve I was about to punch him in the face over something as trivial as a flyer.) Steve and I co-sponsor both the Young Democrats and the Young Greens. Neither organization did much last year -- the Greens got together fairly frequently to watch movies (Outfoxed, Fahrenheit 9-11, The Corporation, The End of Suburbia, etc.) and the Dems held a lot of meetings about getting t-shirts.

This year though, the kids at least have a lot of ideas about what they want to do. The Greens, in addition to wanting to get t-shirts, want to start their own Food not Bombs chapter, which is incredibly ambitious and admirable and impressive. But as I sat there listening to them talk about it, I found myself whispering to Steve about how crazy they were. "How 'bout volunteering with organizations who are already feeding the hungry, like the Union Mission or the Food Bank, so you can get a sense of what that's like before you take on something as time-consuming and complicated as Food not Bombs?" I suggested. "That's a good idea," the kids said. By which I'm pretty sure they meant, "Way to rain on our idealism parade, you naysaying bitch."

And I'm usually not a naysaying bitch. I'm usually pretty idealistic myself. Food not Bombs is, in fact, right up my fucking alley. So I tried to rally my old idealistic self for the inevitable t-shirt discussion.

"What did we decide about t-shirts?" some kid asked. "We're gonna get white t-shirts and tie-dye them green," the Vice President answered. "With eco-friendly dye!" the President added happily. "Are you gonna get sweatshop-free t-shirts?" my idealistic, non-naysaying self asked, mostly because I am madly in love with a little sweatshop-free t-shirt company in LA and will take advantage of any opportunity to plug them (see? I just did it again.). "Yes! We are not going to be selective liberals," the President announced proudly.

And good for them. But shit. Unless you are prepared to get all Thoreau on everbody's asses,* selective liberalism is where it's at. You can't go to work every day in sweatshop-free eco-friendly clothes made entirely of organic hemp. Believe me, I've tried. So, for the sake of practicality, we compromise some values while holding fast to others. I won't set foot in a Wal-Mart, but I'm no stranger to J. Crew and Anthropologie, neither of which are particulary ethical (nor particularly UNethical). However, you will not find a single cleaning product in my house that's not completely biodegradable, phosphate-free, and therefore eco-friendly. I may be a selective liberal, but I'm a prioritizing liberal. What else can you do really, aside from selling all your worldy possessions and moving to the woods to tend your bean patch?

*This is what teachers do, by the way. We start saying certain things to make fun of how our students talk and before you know it those things have crept into our vernacular.

Do You MySpace?

My students are always trying to convince me to get a MySpace. “Why?” I ask. “So you can be COOL!” they explain. I keep telling them I don’t understand MySpace and I’m already plenty cool, but they just won’t give up. They are also apparently concerned about the fact that I live (or “stay,” in their parlance) with a cat and not a man.

Kids: You need to get a MySpace!

Me: Why?

Kids: So you can be cool!

Kid 1: And you can meet tons of guys!

Me: I don’t wanna meet tons of guys on the internet.

Kid 2: You just wanna be stayin’ with them cats all your life?

Me: What?!

Kid 2: How many cats you got right now?

Me: Uh, one.

Kid 3: Well, 40 more years and you got a bunch more cats.

Me: Hey!

(laughter)

Me: Why do I need a MySpace anyway?

Kids: So we can send you messages and talk to you and stuff.

Me: I have a discussion board on my school webpage. Why don’t you (pronounced “wantchu”) hit me up there, yo?

(laughter)

Kids: It’s not the same!

Kid 3: We wanna be sendin’ you messages. Like, “Yo, what’re you doin’ on Saturday?”

Kid 2: And you be, “feedin’ my kittens.”

That reminds me. . .I need to pick up some cat food on my way home.

From The Mouths Of Babes

Today was Constitution Day. Since I was legally required to teach a lesson on the Constitution and since my class has pretty much nothing to do with the US Constitution, I had my kids compare our constitution to others from around the world, including Iraq's. One of my students expressed some confusion about that constitution's emphasis on combating terrorism.

Student: It says all this stuff about how they're against terrorism but don't they HAVE a lot of terrorism?

Me: You have to remember this is the government's position on terrorism. It doesn't necessarily mean the state will be free from terrorism. Just like the US government says it's opposed to terrorism but we've still experienced terrorist acts. Iraq is being terrorized, but not by its government.

Student: Oh. So what would the Taliban be? Cause it was the government but it was also kind of a terrorist organization.

Me: Well, the Taliban was in Afghanistan first of all, but --

Student: Wait. So why'd we invade Iraq then?

And I just let the crickets take it from there.