How I became the Childhood Dream Killer

I was looking forward for the lesson on Pocahontas and John Smith. I was excited to point out ALL the reasons why Disney's Pocahontas is wrong. In fact, on the board I titled that day's lesson: Pocahontas and John Smith: NOT LOVERS.

Cause they weren't. Pocahontas was 13 and John Smith was in his 30's. Gross.

Considering my students are about 13 years old themselves, they can truly relate to how disgusting that would have been.

Seeing their disappointed faces as they learn that everything they thought is a LIE really is fun enough, but later another teacher found this little glory (complete with illustrations):




And that's how I became known as the Childhood Dream Killer.

My first ever field trip - a nightmare come true.

I was dreading it. The idea of trying to keep track of over a hundred kids as they ran free around the state park seemed like a nightmare to me. What if I accidentally lost one of them? What if all the buses leave and a kid gets left behind an hour away from home? Nope, I liked the controlled environment of my classroom, thank you very much.

But going on a 7th grade field trip was a tradition, and the other history teachers were planning on it. I couldn't back out of it. I woke up the morning of, seriously wanting the day to be over already. I prayed, "God, just get me through this day."

Though not excited, I was determined to conquer the field trip that day. I got to the school with a to do list of last minute preparations before loading my students all onto the buses first period, and that's when I got called down to an out-of-the-blue, new teacher meeting with the administration. "Can you come down to the office now?" they asked. "It should only take 10 minutes." Ugh, bad timing, but I could give up 10 minutes and still make things work.

10 minutes later, however, I was still sitting in the office with the other 1st year teachers, waiting for the meeting to start. Finally the principal came in and she wasn't prepared with the material she was supposed to share with us. Why it was so important to give us that info on that very day, I don't know, but they made us wait longer. Then she had technical difficulties during her "short" presentation. I anxiously looked at the clock. 10 minutes turned to 30.

By this point the bell rang for kids to go to first period. I could see through the office windows all my little 7th graders wandering the main commons area confused about what they should be doing. If I had been there, I would have had them lined up by period, taken roll, collected their sack lunches, and them put them on their buses in a nice orderly fashion. But I wasn't there and none of the other history teachers were stepped in to help out, either. It's not their fault. They had their own classes to deal with and they had no idea I was stuck in a meeting. The other teachers later told me that's when I should have just got up mid-meeting and left. I probably should have, but I was only 2 months into my new job. I didn't know I had a right to do that. Quite frankly, I was a chicken. So I sat through the meeting, not getting a thing out of it.

Finally, 10 minutes into 1st period, (my kids are all over the place by this point), I got released from my meeting with one last reminder that I needed to have 1st term grades posted that morning as well. Ah! Not only do I not know how to do that yet, but you tell me this when I have a hundred kids and their parent chaperones all lost throughout the school? Sorry, but that was not going to happen. And it didn't. Not until the next day, at least.

When I got out of my meeting, I was immediately accosted by confused kids and parents all asking me a million questions. None of which I had the answers to because I HAD NEVER BEEN ON A FIELD TRIP BEFORE. Besides, all I could think was that I needed to pee before getting on one of those buses. I didn't get to. To say I was stressed in this moment is an understatement.

What resulted was I had kids scattered on all the buses, their lunches were all in different places, I never got the chance to meet the parents who were my helping chaperone for the day, and I never got to take role. I had no idea how many or which kids I had with me on that field trip, meaning I would have no idea if we were leaving without someone at the end of the day. Not ok!

But oh well. We were late and off we went.

It took me a while to calm down after that horrible start to the field trip. I was mad and frustrated and worried as heck and I still had to pee. The hour long bus ride helped me to chill out a bit, but I got made fun of for the rest of the year about how much I hated field trips. But really, can you blame me?

Luckily the rest of the day went well. I could see why the other teachers were pro-field trip - this field trip at least. The park ran things perfectly. My kids all had fun, and that was the point.

We just had the one problem where a kid thought he could do a cool trick jumping off a stage, totally fell, and scraped himself all up. Of course, it was one of my students, and I ended up having to play nurse. By some miracle, I had band-aids in my purse. I felt like such a mom.

The kid was fine, but that didn't stop his mom from getting mad at me later. She said I should have called her to tell her that he had hurt himself as soon as it happened. Maybe I should have...but I honestly think that would have only scared her more than anything. Then she would have been made at me for freaking her out over just a few scrapes. It was a no win situation for me, I think. The kid was fine, so that's all that should really matter, right?  

Still, if we had just had a normal day of school, with kids safely tucked away into desks, that wouldn't have happened. I'm just saying.
   

The Underground Gambling Ring

At my school we have a 25 minute study hall period. The students who have good grades get to spend those 25 minutes either outside, watching a movie, or participating in other fun things during that time. One day while patrolling the room with the movie, I noticed an energy that was new to the scene.

A large group of 7th grade boys were all grouped together at one table. What was happening within their circle, I couldn't see, but I figured I should check it out. We don't really care if they are paying attention to the movie or not, but we don't want anything sketch going on.

As I got closer, I began to hear a sort of a dull thud sound again and again.

thud. thud. thud. THUD.       thud. thud. thud. THUD.     thud. thud. thud. THUD. 
Followed by a mix of cheers or boos.

Finally, I got close enough to see what was going on. The kids parted to let me through with looks of guilt and fear on their faces. What I saw shocked me. 

On the table was a pile of gum. Next to that pile were two kids playing Rock, Paper, Scissors like their lives depended on it. Around them kids were cheering for who they wanted to win and waiting to be the next challenger. Whoever was the winner when the bell rang, got all the gum.

I wasn't mad. Heck, I thought it was kinda awesome. An underground 7th grade gambling ring. The game, rock, paper, scissors. The stakes: gum. If it had been money, I probably would have had to stop it, but gum seemed pretty harmless to me. I watched for a while and silently rooted for my student to win. Just as the bell rang, paper covered rock and he did it! My student not only won a whole lot of gum, but felt the glory of being champion as the other boys cheered and slapped him on the back. That day, in that moment, that 13 year old was living the dream.  

Running into students outside of school.

If there is one negative thing about living near the school you teach at, it's the possibility of running into your students outside of school. In theory, it's not that big of a deal, but for some reason the only time you run into your students is when you are in the lingerie department of whatever store you are in.  Always.

I'm young. I still want to shop in the trendy stores. Unfortunately, so do my students. I remember one time, I wasn't even shopping for underwear, I was just walking through the section to get to a beautiful sweater that had caught my eye on the other side of the store, when I suddenly found myself face to face with one of my students and his mom.

Oh the horror. 

Because of course the mother wanted to stop and talk about PTA stuff or whatever, so I politely stopped and listened. There we were, all three chatting about parent/teacher conferences next to a colorful array of panties, and only the mother seemed to not feel uncomfortable about it.

In that moment, I looked at my student and he looked at me, and silently we made a pact. I wouldn't tell my students that this wanna-be-punk still shops with his mommy, if he didn't tell anyone about seeing me next to the double D's. This painful ordeal had put us on the same side, and we both knew it.

The happy ending to this would be that I got a cool new sweater out of it, but no. It was ugly.

 

 

There are dumb questions.

They say there is no such thing as a dumb question. Well, that is a lie and we all know it.
Sometimes kids ask the dumbest questions. And sometimes they are so serious about it, it scares you.

One time I was teaching about when Utah became the 45th state. That's when a kid on the front row blurted out the question: "Wait, how many states are there?"

"Ha, ha." I replied sarcastically. I was sure he was trying to be funny. "Why don't you tell me," I said.

All I got was a blank stare. I stared back.

"...No, seriously kid, tell me. You're freaking me out,"  I said after a long pause.

 "Oh, yeah...uh 50?" he finally answered.

"Is that a question?" I asked.

"No, 50."

"Oh thank goodness," I said with relief before moving on with the lesson.

On getting a girl's phone number

7th grade boys, for the most part have not hit their growth spurts yet. A few of my kids are barely 4 feet tall. And yet I've found that a lot of my smallest boys have the biggest personalities. One such kid and his friend were this way. We'll call them Bert and Ernie. Bert and Ernie sat right next to each other, which usually wasn't a problem. They got their work done, but after they finished, they sometimes got a little chatty. One day, while I was walking around checking on the progress of my kids on that day's assignment, I got to Bert and Ernie. That's when Ernie decided to brag to me about his friend's latest success with girls.

"Hey Ms. T, Bert got an 18 year old girl's phone number yesterday!"

Considering the fact that even 7th grade girls were all at least a foot taller than him, I was surprised by this.

"Is this true?" I asked Bert.

"Yeah," replied Bert with a smug look on his face.

Oh no, I thought. He' not getting away with this one.

"For what? To babysit you?" I asked.

That wiped the smile from his face.

Point, Ms. T, I thought, as I walked away.

Pencils - The Struggle

If there is one thing teachers struggle with, it is students not having anything to write with in class. Every period there is a handful of student's who don't have a pencil.

'What? Do you think you will be excused from all assignments if you don't bring a pencil to class? NO!"

If you do not provide the kids with a pencil, then they will sit there and do nothing all class long and hope you don't notice. And nothing gets done.

But if you give them a pencil, you'll likely never see it again, and yet that student will be without a pencil again the next day. I'm not an infinite source of pencils, so this cannot go on!

It is seriously the most annoying thing ever, and it is a struggle every teacher faces. 

Other teachers out there have their way of dealing with this, but this is what I have found to work best for me:

PENCILS OF SHAME!!!

I took all my brand new pencils and taped big, ugly pictures of Justin Bieber to them like a flag flying just below the eraser. On the back of these pictures I wrote "Ms. T's Pencil of SHAME".

I keep them in a box in a cupboard. My kids know where they are and they can help themselves to them without asking. But the hideousness of these pencils keeps them in my classroom. I see it happen. Kids get about as far as my doorway when they look down at what's in their hand and see Justin Bieber staring back at them. They don't want to be seen with a pencil like that, so they stop dead in their tracks, turn around, and put the pencil back.

There, problem solved.
Thank you, Justin Bieber.