Adventures in Subbing Episode ?

Trying to teach a kindergarten Phy. Ed. Class makes me appreciate kindergarten teachers more and more. It could be a comedy sketch. It always begins with the standard comment about my hair. This time it was without the Elsa remark. Which I have now come to learn is a standard compliment/suck up technique for all 3, 4, and 5 year olds. It’s not always Elsa, but I think that the phrase, “You look like ______________ (fill in blank with Disney princess)” is the usual template.


Interestingly enough, it’s usually a boy who notices my hair. Maybe the girls know better? Here’s the scenario: Boy blurts out, “Do you dye your hair?”


I can’t resist answering him, “No, why?”


Boy responds, “Because it’s white.” To be honest, the the white is only streaks in my mostly dark blond hair.


I think I prefer the time when that comment came with a comparison to Elsa, even though she is an ice princess. I can’t resist answering him, “I’m just really, really old.” If any adults were in the room with me, I know they would be stifling a laugh right now. The little ones just stare at me open-mouthed with what I will interpret as awe. They have never seen someone so old. I am 47.


Gearing into teacher mode, I promptly thank the students who are sitting at their exercise spots quietly and remembering to raise their hands and be called on before they speak. Immediately, 7 hands go up and I ignore them because I have a suspicion that now everyone wants to tell me about how old their grandmas, grandpas, moms, dads, and big brothers and sisters are.


Instead of calling on anyone, I say, “Does anyone want to play a game?” The kids forget their comments and shout as one, “Yeah!!!!!!”


“Okay,” I respond in a voice just above a whisper as I lean down and act like I have a secret to share. “Show me how you can be good listeners, and I will tell you what game we are going to play.”


Immediately, two or three students blurt out suggestions as if I have asked them to guess. I forget, they are five years old, and listening is something they forget about when they are excited and/or have yet to learn. I fold my arms and wait. They continue talking amongst themselves when suddenly, one of the more advanced students realizes that I am waiting for them to be quiet, and there will be no playing of any games until they are quiet. She immediately tries to quiet the others, “SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Which now a few more of them start doing. Suddenly, the gym sounds as if it is filled with snakes. This sound is, for me, like nails scratching down a chalkboard annoying, and I am forced to do something that I try not to do and raise my voice an octave, “Friends, PLEASE STOP!” (Elementary school teachers call their students “friends”. Middle and high school teachers call their students “people” - most of the time)


It has an immediate and satisfying effect of silencing the snakes and one very disturbing effect. The shyest little one in the back looks at me as if she is about to cry. I smile at her which seems to help a little, and I proceed to explain to the class that there are quiet ways to tell others to be quiet. They immediately hold up their hands, making an open circle with their thumb and fingers. I am relieved that they have learned something and secretly amused because my middle school teacher brain is thinking how close this hand gesture is to calling me an asshole.


This thought amuses me which makes my smile more genuine-seeming. I know this because little shy one finally smiles back at me. Kids have instincts. They know when your smile is real. And now my smile is even more purely motivated because of all the sweethearts like her in this class who amuse me. Maybe I can do this? But still, I know, I couldn’t teach them all day. One great thing about teaching middle and high school is that every class period brings a different group.


Fifteen minutes later, I have explained the game we will be playing. The kids are sitting on the black line criss-cross applesauce (which in my day was called – Indian style – see, I AM old), facing me, and I am trying to pick a small group of kids to be the “Oscars” in the “trashcan,” a big circle of exercise mats standing up on their long edges Velcro-ed together in the middle of the gym.


I decide to use a random grouping technique that I saw the other Phy. Ed. Teacher use with the second graders. “Raise your hand if your birthday is in January,” I say. Immediately, about 20 of the 23 hands go up, and I am suspicious. I tell them to all put their hands down, and I decide to try a different tactic. I tell them that I am going to ask them one by one what month their birthdays are, and one boy blurts out, “Mine is in October!” I ignore him and purposely start at the end of the line farthest away from him. I get to the third student in line and ask her when her birthday is, and she says with a cute little smile, “I don’t know when my birthday is.”


Okay, I stop the one-by-one questioning and decide to try something different. I think that I will just assign the little cutie a birthday month and put her with the group that has the least number of students. I ask the class again, “Raise your hands if your birthday is in December.” I figure that they all know December because it’s a big month for the holiday season, but again, 20 of the 23 hands go up, including “October” kid and “I don’t know when my birthday is” girl. I give up on the birth month idea and just pick six kids which causes one girl to frown and go sit out in the “take a break spot” and several others to cry out, “That’s not fair!” I get the cooperation of all but the “take a break” girl by yelling, “OK, everyone who is not an “Oscar” go get a ball!” For once, I am thankful for how easily distracted they are.


I am also thankful that I am not an Elementary school teacher full time, even though my future as someone who works with students and teachers at all levels is slowly becoming a possibility in my mind. I am not sure in what capacity that will be, but I consider this subbing experience like student teaching, preparing me for this still unsure future role.





Later, I am talking with my friend, the school guidance counselor, at the “Girls on the Run” practice after school, and she compliments me on how amazed she was as she walked by the gym to see the kindergarten class standing so quietly on the line. I don’t tell her that we spent most of the class period standing or sitting quietly on the line, and I feel like a failure as a Phy. Ed. teacher because I didn’t get them running more. I just accept her compliment and think that maybe I’m being too hard on myself and setting the bar too high – another pitfall of a teacher who is used to older students. I have to remember it’s the little moments that matter the most when working with the little ones. Still, I am thankful that this is not my full-time job. This too, shall pass.

A Monkey Mistake - Is the Slope Negative or Positive?

One problem I find that students have with interpreting linear graphs is that they often mistake a negative slope for a positive slope and vice versa. Knowing this AND knowing that if I can make them laugh, I can make them learn (which is the philosophy behind this blog), I have used this video for this purpose.

Now if they confuse a negative and a positive slope, I can tell them they made a "monkey" mistake!

Seeing Dan Meyer in Person

Back in October I attended a workshop run by Dan Meyer. Maybe you can't tell from my last sentence, but I am trying to play it cool. I GOT TO MEET DAN MEYER IN PERSON! WOW! To me, he is a superstar of the math teaching world. I must admit, I felt like a geek, telling everyone and anyone who would listen to me for weeks beforehand - "I am going to attend a workshop led by Dan Meyer!" Even my dad, who is a retired math teacher himself, gave me a polite smile and a blank look, even after I explained who he is...My husband laughed at me, but I didn't care. The day was awesome and inspiring, and I am going to include it in my Christmas letter, once I write it (yes, I am a big procrastinator).

My first impression of Dan Meyer as I walked in the room was that he was much taller than he looked on his TED video. He may be 6'5". At times I was worried he might hit his head on the projector hanging down from the ceiling as the day went on. As larger than life as Mr. Meyer appeared, he impressed me as a very real and down-to-earth individual.

I introduced myself, and we shook hands. He thought we had met somewhere before, and I explained to him that maybe he recalled me from the time I emailed him about using his website 101 questions. My picture appears in my email. He explained that the website is much easier to use now, and he was right. I was able to finally post a picture of my own that day. If you are curious, here's the link to it: Big Fish. 

Since I posted it back on October 11th, as I write this, I have earned 8 skips and 1 question (my own). Yes, not a big perplexity rating, but it's a start. Some day I will write some rockin' 3 acts to go with more pictures.

Since that day I have shown several of my colleagues the website and how to search for certain grade levels and subjects, and I think they have found it helpful. What I really liked about learning about the Three Acts from Dan Meyer is that he explained how to use them and that they aren't an everyday thing. Not every concept can be taught or introduced with a creative video/picture activity. But they are a way to engage that math-phobic crowd, the crowd that Mr. Meyer spent his teaching years working with in California. This question that he asked sort of sums it up, "How do you motivate a student that is a homeless alcoholic?"

The answer to that question ended up being to inspire a student's natural human nature toward intellectual curiosity. Show them something awesome, something that perplexes them. Invite them to make a guess about these situations, and then invite them to try to come up with what is needed to solve the problem. If only math could be like that every day! Even Dan Meyer admitted that there is a need for "practice" a.k.a. "Homework" and that's not a bad thing, but even after 19 years in teaching I still work every day to find that perfect balance. That's why teaching is an art.

One last amusing anecdote from the day - we were working on a problem, and Dan was trying to inspire our perplexity by mentioning a time at another conference when an English teacher questioned his math. He wondered aloud who had let an English teacher into a math workshop, and I had to smile. I am another such "weirdo" certified in English and math. However, I was able to see the previous English teacher's mistake - she was reading a math problem grammatically. I wish I could remember the problem, something about assuming an exponential situation could be calculated in a linear way....what struck me as funny about Dan mentioning that was how sometimes math teachers can seem so exclusive even though we are trying to do the opposite and make math more accessible.

One thing Dan does inspire other teachers to do is to reflect in a blog, and network with other such math teacher bloggers to help refine this teaching balance, the balance between perplexity and practice. I am an English teacher, so it does marry my two interests - writing about math, a perfect match, now only if I had the discipline. It's not too late to start a New Year's Resolution, right?

This teacher has the right idea!

Back to Math

Unlike many other teachers who were unwillingly cut to part time in our district, I was forced into a full time job, in English. Carson, my son, is only 3. I am not ready to have him in daycare all day, so when a part time math job opened up, I jumped at it. So next year, I am back to teaching math - Algebra. I am excited!!

The Best Joke So Far

We are reading Romeo and Juliet right now, and last week I quizzed the class to see how much they understood about the plot. I asked out loud, "Who is going to be the messenger between Romeo and Juliet as they plan their wedding?"

One boy blurted out, "Tybalt!!!" I don't know if he knew how funny he was being, but most of the class, including him, laughed. I took it as a good sign that they are understanding it somewhat.

High School Students

Well, now I teach high school, part time, and I have been enjoying it. I'm not sure they provide as much material for a blog about classroom laughs as 7th grade students. Although, I haven't really been looking.

Looking back on the year so far, I think the most hilarious moment of this year was when a student of mine was trying to write on the SmartBoard. Those things are as difficult to write on as those signature machines that you see at every check out counter these days. What was so funny about it was that he would write and then get frustrated at us when we couldn't read it. Gosh! we were so dumb!

I guess I'm going to have to keep on trying.

I had a Dream - A true story

We have been trying for 8 years to become parents, and all our failures have been mine. Our first pregnancy was a burst ectopic that almost killed me, and our 6th and last pregnancy and miscarriage in October finished our hopes (or so I thought) of ever becoming parents. And then a miracle happened. It started with a dream. One morning in early April, the 10th to be exact, I woke up with a very vivid dream which was also funny, and I shared it with my husband. After sharing it, I forgot it until that night my husband reminded me.
My dream was about a girl we both know. When we first moved into our house eleven years ago, she was four years old, and almost every day since that first day she knocked on our door to see if anyone could come out and play, she visited us. She was like our adopted niece and shadow. Now, she is a teenager, and we hardly ever see her. In my dream, she had a baby and was not ready to be a parent, so she wanted us to adopt this baby. At one point in my dream, she complained about the baby being a hyper child, and all of a sudden, he was a rambunctious 8-year old boy, jumping on top of a table (my dreams are weird that way sometimes, like a play with no transitions between scenes). I reminded her that she was no picnic at that age either, and then all of a sudden Dave and I were driving on a path in a golf cart next to a lake to go and visit our baby. It was a completely silly and funny dream, and it gave us both a good laugh, until later that night as we were talking about the most important decision in our lives, and the dream became an indication of the future.
Later that day, I was teaching my second math class. The kids were working together on a project, and I was walking around the room like a waitress with 23 customers, helping, observing, reminding, motivating, and pushing them to learn when the phone rang. The phone ringing during class is not unusual, so I had no inkling about the impact this call would have as I picked up the phone. I said hello, and in response I heard Marilyn’s voice. She said, “Alice? Hold on. Your doctor is on the other line, just a minute.” In the split second that it took for her to transfer the call, I felt a flash of confusion. I hadn’t been to see the doctor since last October. My doctor greeted me and then said, “Are you sitting down?” So I sat down with a little twinge of fear. The fleeting thought occurred to me that maybe she discovered that our miscarriage in October really was due to cancer, and she had recently found new evidence; and so when she told me about the baby who was born yesterday, I was understandably slow to comprehend. She explained further. “The birth mother wants him to be adopted. He’s healthy. He’s beautiful. She didn’t have prenatal care before last week because I think the birth mother just didn’t want to face the fact that she was pregnant, but she wants him to have a good home. She asked me to help her with this, because she wants a completely closed adoption. I thought of you immediately.”
“Wow, I’d better sit down,” I thought. Oh, I was already sitting down. I wanted to say yes, what’s next. I wanted to say, no, we’re not ready. We were in the pre-beginning stages of this complicated process called adoption. She must have heard my thoughts because she explained how she would help us find a lawyer to help us through the process, so I thanked her for calling and told her I would call her back after I had spoken to my husband. Wow! The rest of the day was a blur, but I do remember that I did manage to reach Dave by phone at work to tell him of this miracle. My husband, more cautious than I, told me we would talk about it that evening when we got home. So we talked when we both got home that night, and in our conversation he reminded me of my dream. We recalled our last pregnancy and figured that this baby was born right around the time our baby would have been born had he survived. We decided to call and tell my doctor that, yes, we were 100% sure that we wanted this baby. And then the phone rang, right then. Just like it would happen in a movie, it was our lawyer calling to give us more information about how we would begin this wonderful journey - another sign that this was meant to be.
Since then we have spent a handful of hours with our son, Carson, who is right now in foster care with a very nice family an hour drive away. Every time we visit, it gets harder and harder to leave. The foster mother is very strict about her time, and I have been fighting my feelings of jealousy; but it isn’t easy when she tells me things like he smiled at her, even though she adds it might have just been gas. I just have to keep telling myself that this was meant to be, and that God has a reason for answering our prayers in ways we least expect, and then I think back to one more mystical detail of our experience so far that solidifies my feelings that everything is going to happen like it should. The detail is from the first trip we took to the foster home to see Carson. We had already spent time with him in the hospital that weekend and had met the foster parents when they picked him up the day before at the hospital, but this was the first day that we were visiting him in the foster home. We were driving into Manitowoc past this impressive, modern-looking complex. We were speculating about what it might be when my husband commented that they had a nice wide path on the grounds, and it looked like it was made for golf carts. Just then, I looked to my right and we were passing a small lake called Silver Lake, and that last, seemingly meaningless part of my dream came rushing back to me. “It’s my dream!” I shouted. My husband looked at me startled and concerned that I had finally completely lost my mind, and then I explained it to him because I had not told him the golf cart and lake part of my dream before. He accepted it as a matter of fact, another sign that this baby was meant to be.
Now our home study is done, and our court hearing is scheduled for the 23rd of May. After that date, the birth parents can no longer change their minds, and even though for 6 months after that we are considered a temporary placement before there is a finalization hearing, May 23rd will be the day we can begin truly rejoicing that he is ours. We have the option of having him come home sooner, and that is an opportunity that I am taking. I start my leave on May 16th, and ironically, now that we have a set date, it is harder to wait. I am more antsy for our lives to begin. As I write this now it’s only 6 days away, but this wait seems longer than any I have ever endured. What will be nice about having him come home the week before our hearing, because it is before the hearing, we will have a week with our baby that will be just ours before the flood of well-wishing friends and relatives begins.
We have been cautioned that if the birth parents change their minds that it is harder to accept once the baby has been home, and for that reason, most people wait until the hearing. However, either way with him home or still in foster care, I would be devastated if that happened. If we didn‘t bring him home before the hearing, the difference would be that I would never have had the chance to hold him for more than 2 hours, to sing to him, to comfort and care for him throughout the night, or to rock him gently to sleep as I told him this story of the miracle of his journey to us and ours to him.

IDK!!!!!

I just read my last entry from what seems like 2 years ago, and I wanted to add that the squirrel never came back, at least while I was watching. Either he is camera shy, or the sight of 7th graders looking for his buried treasure made him decide to bury his nuts in a safer place.

Well, there aren't many days left of this year, and we are finishing up our chapter on equations. When we started this chapter, I had a great idea to relate using letters in equations to text messaging because I know the students are obsessed with it. They write IDK on their papers when they don't know the answer. I told them how many years ago when I was in college, before email was a common word, and cell phones were still too big to fit in people's pockets, I had a roommate who used to make up abbreviations for phrases she used often. The other roommates (including me) thought she was crazy to speak in letters, and we would often make fun of her. Little did we know, letter-speak was the wave of the future. One of her favorite sayings was LCBT (lost cause big time).

It worked somewhat to peek their interest, but now this learning thing is back to as easy as pulling teeth. Back in March a student asked me "Aren't we supposed to stop learning the last week of school?" And I was thinking - "I'm still waiting for you to start!" IDK, IDK ... I remember in my dad's classroom (he was my high school science and math teacher) the words "I Don't Know" weren't allowed. He's retired now, but I think he would also outlaw IDK if he taught teenagers today.

At the end of one day last week, I looked at my face in the mirror and noticed the black marker from my dry-erase marker board was smeared all over my face. I smiled and my teeth gleamed whitely in contrast to my face. I looked like I had been working in the coal mines, and I felt like it too. IDK, sometimes I feel like a LCBT, but at least I'm still smiling!

Just Plain Nuts!

It's that time of year where the sights outside the window are even distracting me, and today was a prime example. I was standing by the window when I noticed a fat squirrel directly below the window carrying a rather large nut. He hopped around and finally started to dig into the lawn with his tiny, bony hands. I had never seen such a great view of a squirrel burying a nut, so I told the kids to come to the window and watch. Once the hole was deep enough, the squirrel dropped his nut into it and covered it back up, packing it down using all his weight. It was adorable. I am going to bring my camera to try to catch him next time, and then I will post it here.

Well, the story doesn't end there because these are 7th graders, and they are very curious creatures, so I made sure to be next to the window later when they had recess. Sure enough! one of my students was digging in the grass where he thought he had seen the squirrel bury the nut. He was way off, and I was tempted to let him dig and search until it drove him nuts, but the vision of many little holes in our already beat up front lawn I knew would not please the janitors. So I knocked on the window, got his attention, gave him the evil eye, and shook my head at him. He stopped his search then, at least while I was watching . We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Cousin It?

Long hair is the style for boys it seems in our middle school, and this week I learned that sometimes there's more going on behind the hair than I thought - nothing bad, just amusing. I have a student whose bangs were so long that he reminded me of the sheep dog on those old bugs bunny cartoons or "Cousin It" from that old TV show "The Adams Family". No one could see his eyes. He wore glasses, and I would often see him carefully combing his hair nicely into place over them.

Well one day he came to class with a haircut and no glasses. I almost didn't recognize him. I asked him if he had gotten contact lenses, and he said no. He told me he had lost his glasses. He had no idea where they were. Every day after that when he came to class with no glasses and he was squinting at the board up front, I would ask him if he looked for them yet. One time I even sagely suggested, "They're probably under your bed."

After a week of no glasses, I asked him again where his glasses were. I guess my inquiries finally broke him down, because he admitted to me - "I don't like to wear my glasses." Then I asked him if his glasses were the reason why he wore his hair so long before, and aha! The glasses were the reason for the long hair, very interesting! I wonder what all these other long-haired boys are hiding??? On second thought, maybe I don't.

Another interesting side note - a creative definition. I told a class that they were very boisterous, and one girl thought the word meant a class that was made up of more boys than girls. I hate to sound biased, but she could be right!

Getting Warmer?

The sun shines so brightly in my classroom windows and heats up the desks. Touching the sunny desktops almost feels like touching a hot iron. I am very lucky to have a room with windows. I was surprised today when I went out for bus duty and it wasn't as warm as I thought it was. It's still wonderful to have the hot sun in my room.

Speaking of hot, I realized this week that I need to watch how I say things with 7th grade students. We were graphing positive and negative numbers on a number line, and I told the students to tell me where to put a point using the "you're cold" or "you're getting warmer" directions from that old game. After I graphed my point, I asked if any other students would like to come up and try graphing a point with help from the class. A brave, smart, and mischievous boy volunteered. He walked up to the board and the first thing he said to the class was - "OK, now tell me when I'm HOT!"

I could tell by the smirk on his face, that he had something else in mind, so I quickly said, "Why don't we just tell you when you're closer or farther away from the point." After that class, I didn't use the warmer/colder game again. I learned my lesson . . . again.

In the hole

"Where's George (not real name) today?" I seem to ask on a daily, hourly basis about another missing student. It is flu season - same old, same old. Except this season instead of the same old responses - "I don't know" or "He's sick" or "She's at a band lesson." I got this response, "Oh, we threw him in the hole."

"Oh, really?" I replied. "Well, isn't he cold and hungry? Why don't you let him out?"

"No, he's fine. There's food and a television down in the hole."

"Oh, OK, I guess." It was a harmless and interesting metaphor - or so I thought at first.

The next week it was a different student in the hole, and the next week it was the one who created the whole myth in the hole. The myth creator told me the hole wasn't as nice as he originally thought it was, and he was glad to be back. "Well, I'm glad you are back too. Now let's fill in the 'holes' in your learning."

And then I fell into the hole. I got sick on a Saturday when my parents were visiting. I didn't say a word about being sick all day because we were going to a show that night. My parents were going to see my one-act play I wrote, starring them. I wasn't going to miss that for anything. By the end of the night, I was nauseous and had a fever of 101. I hate that darn hole! I felt as if I was going to die. I took my husband down with me, and he is mister "I-never-get-sick." I missed three days of school.

When I got back, I told my myth creating student that the hole is not a great place to be, and we need to fill it back up. He agreed whole-heartedly, but there are still more people getting sick, even those who had their flu shot.

Well, I guess one good thing about being sick is that it makes you appreciate being healthy again. Just like a cold winter really makes you appreciate sunshine and 40 degrees. Spring is coming. I can just feel it. I just hope once the snow is melted that the holes left behind aren't too difficult to fill.

Classroom Smiles

I am falling behind in my posts. I feel a bit of writer's anxiety. Maybe it's the name of this blog that is intimidating me - laughs was a bit too ambitious of a term maybe? I should have called it "Classroom Smiles." Anyway, enough complaining. I guess I am just trying to explain that if this blog isn't always funny, well, it's not always supposed to be, but I do hope at least it makes you smile. OK, enough whining.

One thing that a student said to me that made me smile and chuckle was about loose-leaf paper, you know the paper that goes into 3 ring binders, the paper without fringes that sheets torn out of notebooks will have. Sometimes my colleagues tease me about my pet peeve about paper with fringes. I feel I need to explain. Fringes complicate and slow down the correcting process. When I have a stack of 100 papers to correct and the fringes get together, I can't whip through them like I can with a stack of loose leaf papers. Fringes can make an already tedious job even more frustrating, so I give students loose leaf when I have them do an assignment that I want to correct more quickly. Still, just like I always have one or two students forget to put their names on their papers, I always have one or two students give me paper with fringes. That's tolerable, at least, but I always wondered why they do that when I offer them loose-leaf paper to use. One student solved the mystery for me and made me chuckle when he told me he didn't really know that loose-leaf was a specific type of paper. He thought it was any sheet of paper that was "loose"!! Ha! Mystery solved! Now I know how Sherlock Holmes probably would feel after solving a puzzleing case (if he were real).

Anyway, Friday night was another dance. Mrs. Wise is an awesome dancer. I am glad she lets me be one of her back-up dancers. The kids and the Mr. K's did an awesome job with the dance to raise money for their charity. I just wish I could say they made a lot of money, but with having to pay the DJ, they needed at least 63 students to attend just to break even. I think there were at least 100 students there, so they raised some money. Mrs. Wise and I did our part to support the middle schooler's efforts and the high school's e-club's efforts. We went to the e-club's restaurant at the high school and enjoyed a nice dinner. The e-club created a restaurant at the high school also to raise money for a charity. I am grateful for these experiences for the students and the teachers who donate their time to help the students.

A Bunch of Animals

I was working on my computer during class, and something wasn't opening like it should, so I said "ARGGGG!" In response, one student said "Woof!" Another said, "Meow!" Another said "Moo!" I looked up, laughed, and thought, "I always knew you were a bunch of animals." I am grateful for students who can make me laugh when I am frustrated.

I am also grateful for some of the wacky advice they give me sometimes whether I ask for it or not. According to one 7th grade boy, the best way to catch a mouse (if you don't have cats) is to put a glass of soda outside the mouse's door. The mouse will drink the soda, and the carbonation will cause him to explode. This idea, in his mind, was a very good idea. When I asked him who was going to clean up all the mouse guts, he suggested that I get a cat to take care of the mess. Hmm! Could we have the answer to the age old problem of building a better mouse trap????? I don't know. I'm still wondering how to find the mouse's door.

Tom rode the what????

This week I was watching PBS pioneers of television series, and they were talking about the history of game shows. They were explaining how not all comedians were good game show hosts and that the job of game show host is a lot harder than it looks. A game show host has to have thorough knowledge of all the rules and senarios involved with the game. They also must have an impeccable sense of timing so that they are ready for commercial breaks. In addition to having thorough knowledge of the game and impeccable timing, the host must be witty and charming to relate to and entertain the audience as well as the contestants. Then they had an analogy for how hard it was to be a TV game show host. They said it was like driving a car in reverse, down a winding mountain road as fast as possible, and cracking jokes at the same time.

I listened to all of this, and thought: I could do that! Most teachers could, because a teacher's job is very much like a TV game show host's. A teacher has to have in depth knowledge of the subject matter, the class activities, and the tools (technology etc.) they use to deliver their lessons. As if that weren't enough, they also need that impeccable sense of timing so that at the end of the class period, they are ready to move on to the next captive audience. There are just a few differences in the two jobs. If the same car-driving-down-a-mountain analogy were applied to teaching, first of all, there would be too many people in the car who were always trying to grab the wheel or jump out the windows, and the car would have to stop every 15 minutes for emissions testing which would cause the car to be behind schedule or not to ever reach its goal before taking on the next group of passengers.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I wouldn't really want to be a game show host. I love my job, and it is different. One day of playing monkey jeopardy to review for a math test is enough to convince me of that. Maybe it would be easier if I could just be the host and not have to come up with all the questions or the quirky props (squeaky monkey dog toy) to keep the "contestants" engaged. But I know that if I were a game show host, I would have a staff to take care of all the details, and I would completely miss out on precious moments like the one I experienced this week in class while we were correcting a math assignment.

I had the worked out solutions to all the homework projected on the screen. I blew the PDF file up to 200% size so that the students could see the problems they were correcting better, and suddenly, I noticed three boys who were pointing and laughing at the screen. "Look at that, Mrs. Wanty," they chortled. In the upper right corner of the screen was an answer to a story problem. We could only see part of the answer which read "Tom rode the fart." This was too much for all of us, and even though we discovered that the "fart" was really the "farthest", we had to discuss if the other meaning were really possible and what that would really look like, someone riding a fart. "Wow! story problems can be amusing!" I did not hesitate to say as I took full advantage of the teachable moment.

I wonder if that partial word ever showed up on "Wheel of Fortune", and if it did, were there any 7th graders or 7th grade teachers around to truly appreciate it? Probably not. Eat your heart out, Vanna!!!!

Teachers Say the Darndest Things

"Don't use that scissors to scratch his back!" I heard these words come out of my mouth this week, and the thought occurred to me as it so often does - "Wow! does that ever sound stupid, and what other job gives you the opportunity to say such things?" Working with 7th grade students, has given me many of these opportunities. I wish I had written down all of the stupid things I have said over the years. One thing I do remember saying once to a student was, "Please, don't lick the Kleenex." In his defense, it was that new virus-killing Kleenex, and he and his friend were just trying to figure out what made them different from the regular tissues. They first tore apart the Kleenex and realized it had three layers. The inside layer, because it tasted differently from the other two layers, they concluded must be where all the virus-killing power was. So it was a kind of action research project. Too bad they weren't in science class at the time. They could have written a stellar lab report about it and maybe even won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Then I started thinking about my dad and how he as a teacher said and did many goofy things. One thing he liked to say a lot was "I'll smack you so hard on top of your head that you'll have to untie your shoes to blow your nose." I've repeated this phrase, jokingly of course, to my students, and they don't really understand it. "Huh?" or a frightened stare is what I usually get from the students who just hear the "smack" part. I am quick to reassure the ones who take me seriously - "Don't worry. I would never harm you. (with so many witnesses around)." And if I say the last part too loudly, usually they laugh, nervously. Then someone always says - "Mrs. Wanty is a black belt" which is true but doesn't really matter. You don't need a black belt to control 7th graders - amusing and stupid words work much better!

Superstar

Another week in 7th grade, and I am still smiling (despite all the state standards, the long stretch before the next vacation, the absence of a snow day - Sigh). I had fun Friday night dancing at the Hollywood dance put on by the Peer Helpers. Good job, kids! I felt like a real superstar. I suppose that I really had fun because the teachers that I chaperoned with - Mrs. Wise and Mr. Kolberg - are so much fun to be around. I also am grateful for all the students who encouraged me to dance (maybe they just needed a good laugh) but it was fun, and I look forward to tearing up the dance floor (well really the multipurpose, cafeterium floor) again soon!

Back to the grindstone running with the bulls

Well, it's the end of the first week back at school, and it's funny how a 3 day week can seem to last a whole year. Honestly, it wasn't that bad, and the kids weren't as crazy as they sometimes can be after a long vacation. I don't have any big funny stories for this week, just a few, quick and amusing observations and something to be grateful for.

• First, I am grateful for oranges and the people who give them. Because of our singing before Christmas break at the local grocery store, we had oranges to eat for snack in homeroom Wednesday morning. The kids really enjoyed the oranges, and it just proves that when given healthy alternatives (except for prunes - but that's another story), they will like them. It was a sweet start to the week, and it made me feel like it would be a good thing to do again some Monday morning. Now we just need to find more people who will give us oranges for singing.

• Second, sometimes when my class is quietly listening, and another group is passing in the hallway, we overhear the strangest things. Sometimes it sounds as if the Tasmanian devil is trying to yodel while gargling lava rocks (I don't really know what that would sound like, but I was trying to think of something that would sound scary and strange.) Well, anyway, it made me think that a middle school hallway could be likened to a street in that town in Spain where they do the running with the bulls (can you tell I don't teach social studies), though maybe not quite as violent. Another weird thing about the hallway is that as soon as I hear those weird noises and I rush out of my room "to the rescue" then no one is there....I would think I was losing my mind if the kids hadn't heard what I heard, or maybe they are just humoring me. Hmm...

• Third, the stories the kids tell me about what they got in trouble for in another teacher's classroom are often very different from what I hear from that teacher. The story from the kid goes something like this - "All he did was jump up to reach something above the blackboard, and she gave him detention." And according to the teacher - "He ran from the back of the room, jumped and slammed himself against the blackboard, fell down and pretended to be hurt." Hmm...I wonder whose story includes more real details? Just kidding, or JK as the kids would say. I know exactly which story is more of the whole story. I believe good parents also know or make it their business to find out. Did I mention that I am grateful for those good parents?

Overall, it was a good week, and I believe that it was a great way to start a wonderful new year.

Following Directions

Ahhhh! The math tests are corrected, and now I take a break before I tackle the English papers. In my correcting, one thing made me chuckle. Before students handed in their revised tests, I told them to make corrections in a different color of pen or pencil or to put a box around their corrections and work so that I would easily find them. Well, one student took my directions to heart. She used a very bright orange marker for her corrections and then she proceeded to write at the top of each page - "Corrections are in orange". Now that's a person who knows how to follow directions! It kind of made me laugh because even though it was obvious where her corrections were, I really appreciated that. One thing I hate to do is spend extra time searching for what should be obvious!