boys vs the cones

As the faculty advisor of the King's Jr High Spirit Club (very prestigious), I take great delight in planning Spirit Week twice a year. Spirit week includes dress up days and daily competitions, all aimed at winning the coveted Spirit Cup. The highlight of Spirit Week this year was an awesome blackout volleyball competition between the 7th and 8th grade boys. This involved a completey dark gym, black lights, strobe lights, boys dressed in white and lots of glow necklaces.

Because I have 2nd block prep and I have a really hard time saying no to the jr high secretary (because she's my god mother), I got asked to guard the very expensive strobe lights during the boys PE class. Though there were cones protecting each of the lights, we knew that the boys could not be trusted to leave them alone. They were clearly instructed not to get anywhere near them during their warm up run, but of course, they did the following things:

- jumped over the cones
- ran around the cones
- pretended to kick the lights
-shoved each other into the lights and the cones
- punched the cones as they ran by
- aimed hockey pucks directly at the lights

Hypothetically, had it been a girls PE block, do you know what they would have done?

absolutely nothing.

"hope they have an awesome time..."

Every Monday, we have a student lead prayer over the intercom. I am not sure whether they volunteer or are chosen but either way, they are always clearly nervous. While they typically all pray for the same thing (good grades, no injuries during sports, etc) today was the best/worst moment of intercom prayer yet.

When praying for people suffering from the famine in the horn of Africa, an 8th grade boy said the following:

"and for the people in the horn of Africa (insert long awkward pause)...help them to...have an awesome time. yeah, i don't know." {end of prayer}

I felt so bad for this kid but also had to laugh because, wow...

the couch.

So i have a couch in my room that is a pretty hot commodity during "brain break" time. during my 4th block, I have one rather large, sweaty kid who always rushes to sit down on it and interestingly enough, he never has any competition for space.

today, however, was a new story. the large, sweaty boy was laying on the couch and the new korean exchange student decided he wanted to sit there too. large-sweaty wouldn't get up so korean exchange sat down on top of him. there was some wrestling that ensued and then this is what I heard:

random 8th grade boy: "large sweaty (of course he used his name) is flirting with the new kid"

large sweaty: "no i'm not, he's just sitting on my head."

what. the. heck.

and also, the economy.

Today I had the last of my current event presentations. Students were told they would receive extra credit if they could explain how their article was related to something we learned in Geography. Essentially all they had to do was make some sort of critical thinking inference, really not that hard.

The last girl to present asked if she would get points if she could "make something up" as she did her presentation. I told her I would give her points if what she said made sense.

Her article was about an injured Iraq war veteran. She read a very articulate summary about life after a traumatic injury and making the choice to stay positive. She then proceeded to make her attempt at the extra credit question. It started out great:

"This article shows how war can have a very serious impact on people living both inside and outside the country. This guy got hurt really bad defending people from a bad leader."

She should have stopped there. Instead she ended with...

"and also, the economy."

That was it. No explanation about how it impacts the economy, just "and also, the economy."

8th grade boys are...

...bad liars.

...interesting dressers.

...a variety of heights and weights.

...not worth dating (by 8th grade girls, not me. I am not Mary Kay...)

...often stinky.

and finally...

...full of farts.

Double Sided is Hard

I am always amazed at the reasons my students have for not completing their homework. Take this gem from yesterday:

Student: "Mrs. Haslam, you didn't give me the crossword puzzle."
Me: "It's on the back of your worksheet, did you check?"
Student: "Yeah, I looked. It's not there."
Me: "check again."
Student: "oh, there it is."

as my dad would say, "strive me gength"

Lavatory

One of my favorite students, whose identity I shall protect by calling him "C.S. Lewis", is a Korean exchange student who speaks with a British accent and dresses like a 50 yr old in the early 20's (thus his nickname). He is brilliant and way too smart for his age. He is also incredibly lazy.

When I had him last year, I got so tired of his excessive "lavatory" use, that I told him he could go twice and week. I am not against student bathroom use. I am against students using the excuse of a bathroom break to simply wander the halls because they don't want to be in class. This was what CS was doing which was why I restricted him.

I have CS again this quarter in Washington State History. On Monday, he asked to use the lavatory (this is what he calls it b/c of his english training by a Brit) and as soon as he left, the following conversation occured:

friends of CS: "Can we all leave the classroom so it's empty when he comes back?"
me: " sure, go stand outside and peer in the windows"
(mass exodus of 25 kids)

upon his return, CS: "what is going on here, where is everyone?"
me: "i don't know what you are talking about."
CS: "i can see them looking in the windows."

His classmates return, we all have a good laugh. CS walks over to my desk and said "Mrs. Haslam, that had to be one of the worst pranks ever."