Stop!

I say "stop" a lot during my day. In the last 10 minutes, I've used this very important word in the following ways:

-stop talking
-stop clicking your pens
-stop drumming your pens
-stop slamming your books on your desks
-stop drawing on your arm
-stop whispering to your neighbor

AND my personal favorite
-stop coloring your hair

Perspective

I had what might be the most annoying parent conversation of my teaching career so far today.

Met with a student and his mom to discuss why he is going to fail my class if he doesn't start turning in homework. The mom acted as if this kind of thing had not been said to her before about her son...which I know is not true based on looking at his file. He's a great kid...he just doesn't turn anything in and that doesn't fly in my class.

Kid left so it's just me and mom. She proceeds to say that she wanted to "give me some perspective" on her son's schedule. She then tells me how much he loves sports...and how the amount of homework he has every night is conflicting with his sports. She said "i just want you to keep that in mind when you are planning...just some perspective."

In my fantasy I said "Are you freaking kidding me? I'll show you some perspective, the perspective of my hand hitting your stupid face."

In real life I said, "thanks, i'll keep that in mind"

I made the right choice not to give her a piece of my mind about how my job is to actually educate her son...not worry about how perfect his jump shot is.

What a joke.

When You're Fifty...

It's Wednesday, chapel day.

The guest is a musician and half way through chapel, he passes out four sets of instruments to students in the crowd. He tells each student to keep one instrument and give one to a teacher. Once they've done that, they're supposed to bring their teacher on stage.

Caroline decides to give her instrument to me so we walk up on stage. The singer directs us to his left and his right saying "I want two teachers and two students on each side." He looks to the left, confirms it's as he asked. He looks to the right (where Caroline and I are standing) and he put his foot in his mouth with the following statement "ok and I see three students and one teacher."

It takes me about two seconds to realize he's talking about me and has decided I'm also a student. So I laugh, tell him I'm actually the teacher and he is clearly mortified. Everyone's laughing except for a few of the girls in my "fan club" who are so offended on my behalf that they are actually screaming at him. I believe their cries of injustice went something like "NO THAT IS NOT A STUDENT, THAT IS MRS HASLAM"

It was great. He was major embarrassed, I was amused. So I look 12. Everyone says I'll appreciate it when I'm 50.