Parent Night

Yesterday evening was one of the highlights of my year: Parent Information Night a.k.a Back to School night. Last year this night was approached fear and trepidation because I felt the need to "prove myself" being a first year teacher who barely looks old enough to drive a car. This year I felt much more confident, especially last night since it was the second PIN of the year. I thought it best to reflect on my fourth PIN of my teaching career and share some highlights with my vast readership:

- first comment of the night was literally "yeah, my daughter told me you would be young" to which I laughed and then felt like I was going to be carded.

- I had the pleasure of having the mom I shall deem "stinky face" twice since I have her daughter for both Geography and Washington State. "stinky face" looked like she either wanted to barf or kill me, I am not sure which one. Both of her questions made it very clear she is going to be my helicopter parent of the semester.

- crackberry dad didn't put down his cell phone for the entire 15 mins. it took all of my strength not to make a joke about how cell phones are not allowed in the junior high. I didn't but now I wish I had.

- the mom of the kid who I have already kicked out twice for talking (in four days) chatted my ear off, I wonder where he gets it?

and for my favorite highlight: one of my co-workers, who shall remain nameless, mircowaved fish for dinner in the teachers lounge before PIN leaving the entire building smelling like...well you can imagine.

James Bond

Today's WSH daily activity was to design a WA state flag. Only rules were "it needs to be in color and it needs to connect to either Washington's past or present. As you can guess, I got a lost of flag's with apples and trees. Salmon galore and the occasional Space Needle. What I wasn't anticipating was the following that can really only be described through the conversation I had:

Student: "Here's my flag"

Me: Looking at the helicopter and mountain on fire "Can you explain this to me?"

Student: "Sure, that's James Bond and he's chasing that bad guy who set the mountain on fire."

Me: "and what does this have to do with Washington State?"

Student: "nothing."

Me: "ok. well. you can either take this assignment seriously and do it over OR you can turn this in and see what happens."

Student: "i think i'll do it over."

His second edition work of art had a train on it with the following in the smoke cloud: "Washington Is Cool."

Creativity is Key

Today students turned in their fifth portion of their Washington State History Settlement Project. The only criteria for today's assignment was that students had to write three different journal entries about the unfortunate deaths of members on their Oregon Trail journey. One creative student decided to forget about the value of historical accuracy and wrote the following:

"Recently Pocahontas and Sacajawea got into a huge fight over which way to go. Pocahontas wanted to go Southwest but Sacajawea wanted to go Northwest. They started arguing but then Sacajawea grabbed a knife and pinned Pocahontas and Mom tried to pull her off but she cut Mom. Older Brother came by and saw the gash on Mom's arm and saw Sacajawea on top of Pocahontas (which I think he loves) and shot Sacajawea. She died before dinner from the wound. We are now caring for her baby."

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Two student responses today that made me laugh:

Mrs. Haslam: "How many branches of government does the U.S. have?"
Student: "Two plus that really small one."
Mrs. Haslam to student: "Two plus that really small one? Can you name them?"
Student: "You know, Republican, Democrat and that small one"
Mrs. Haslam: "Not exactly."

Mrs. Haslam: "And the Kalahari Desert stretches through Southeastern Namibia"
Student #1: "Isn't that a food, Kalahari?'
Student #2: "it's Kalamari stupid."
Mrs. Haslam: "wow."

Bathroom Lottery

7th grade boys are ridiculous for a lot of reasons, that's a give in. But today we reached a whole new level. It's fourth block and the rule in my class is that you cannot even ask to go to the bathroom until a half hour of class has passed unless it's a serious emergency. As is typical of most days in 4th block, about 1 hour in to class a boy asks to go to the bathroom. I say "sure" and immediately, it begins. Instantly 6 other boys raise their hands and ask if they can go. My answer in this kind of situation is usually yes but one at at time.

Today, for some reason, that was not the case. This is because I know that most of these boys want to go just to get out of the room, not actually go to the bathroom. How do I know this you ask? Because if they ask too early and I say no, most of the time they don't ask again. If they really had to go, they'd ask again. but I digress. Today I said "raise your hand if you have to go to the bathroom and you're a boy." 6 hands go up. I said " i am going to write your names on pieces of paper and will draw three, you three get to go and the rest of you have to hold it." As I am writing down names, one of the boys makes sure to whisper to me that he hopes he gets picked because "he has to go number two." he actually said this to me. gross.

i drew three names. three cheered. three moaned. thankfully the number two kid got picked.

Candy for Me

In my classroom there is a candy jar that sits in the corner of my file cabinet and taunts kids all day long. When I reach for it, eyes light up with joy at the possibility of what might be. Though some teaching books tell you that rewarding students for knowledge or good behavior is a bad idea, I've discovered that the chance for a jolly rancher or a tootsie roll gets most students excited and their brains activated.

The candy jar comes out typically once a week, or at least it used to.

One of my greatest pet peeves of teaching is having to repeat myself. My favorite (being sarcastic) version of this is when a student has their hand up while I'm explaining something only to ask the very question I just answered. They were apparently focusing all their brain energy on keeping their hand in the air rather than listening.

While this has always bothered me, it has not been a major problem until this year. My second block class has the most repeat offenders and up until recently have been stuck as to how to solve this problem. but oh how that has changed.

One day, after answering the same question three times in a row, it struck me. I glanced over at the candy jar on my file cabinet and it was as if God himself said "Jessica, candy for me." And thus became my new favorite statement and response to repeat questioners: "candy for me."

Now when a student asks a question I've already answered, I walk over to the candy jar, select the most desired kind of candy out of it and put that candy in a jar on my desk. That candy is no longer available for students to get but instead for my own eating pleasure. This is like pure torture for my students. The best part is when one students ask a question that's already been answered and several friends will whisper "candy for her."

It might be semi-mean but my goodness it has been successful. I've probably cut the repeat questions in half and I've also got a personal candy jar full of great goodies "for me."

he's THAT kid

We're one quarter into my second year of teaching and I've discovered a new pet peeve. In general, students who cannot figure out answers to test chalk it up to their own lack of studying. I say in general because this does not apply to Bert (who's name has been changed to protect his at times annoying identity). Bert is very smart and I've come to discover, a little bit too sure of himself. Every time (and I do mean EVERY TIME) we have a test, Bert encounters something that doesn't look familiar on a test and proceeds to accuse me of testing something that has not been covered in the material.

Last week it was "well I don't remember reading the term "man-made" anywhere in our text." I said "wow that's pretty amazing that you can remember that since your test is over more than 100 pages of reading." he was wrong and did in fact discover the term "man-made"

Today it was "Mrs. Haslam, NONE of our vocabulary cards have the word "rebirth" on them. I know that for sure." I replied "just because it says use a vocab word doesn't mean I necessarily gave you the definition of that word, you might need to know the context." He mutters as I walk away "well I know the book didn't use the word rebirth anywhere." shocker: he found it after he turned his test in.

It is seriously all I can do not to freak out when Bert feels the need to make his lack of studying my fault. You'd think after being proved wrong every single time, he'd come to learn that I'm not the one making the mistakes. you'd think.