my life as a 7th grade teacher

I give in, it's time to create a blog. I never understood blogs, why people care to read about what's going on in other peoples lives UNTIL I started teaching. Because I teach 7th grade, I have found that my day to day life is full of awkward moments, hyperactive 12 year olds and some pretty hilarious test answers. I usually come home from work, tell David as much about my day until his eyes glaze over (i don't blame him) and then consider telling Jack the cat the rest of the funny stories. Being that I have many friends that are teachers and many of them have blogs that make me laugh out loud, I thought I would join the club.

For my first blog post ever, I should probably explain the title "land bridge to Africa." As I sort of mentioned, I usually find myself laughing as I correct tests and encounter some very creative test answers. In my very short teaching career, one answer ranks above all the rest. Let me give it context: I teach 7th grade geography at King's Junior High school and we cover the ENTIRE world in a semester. During my student teaching last year, I took over the classroom just in time to teach about Latin America. Latin America is, of course, a land bridge that connects North America and South America. Well apparently that was lost on one student because on their multiple choice test, they chose that Latin America was a land bridge that connected North America and AFRICA! This was funny for so many reasons:

Reason number one: like most students probably realized, we had not yet studied Africa so it was pretty likely that Africa would not be the answer. I included Africa in the list of answers because I needed a 4th option and I was pretty darn sure NO ONE WOULD PICK IT. i was wrong.

Reason number two: the unit we had just finished and the test we were taking was labeled (literally written on the top of the test, like 5 inches above the question) "North and South America."

Reason number three: from this students desk, they could probably see 10 maps...and if they looked at those maps, they would notice the absence of a vast piece of land stretching over the Atlantic ocean connecting North America and Africa.

In this moment, really good teachers might wonder what they'd done wrong that a student had picked the most wrong answer. I didn't worry about that because I was too busy laughing.

so that is why this blog is called "land bridge to Africa."