Look At Me Still Talking When There’s Science To Do
In Grand Rapids… thinking about Barrow (among other things)Archive for seventh graders
Something tradical happened one afternoon.
I assume that I drove to campus (when I didn’t really need to, [instead of going home after school] where I subsequently made some decisions that resulted in my keys being locked inside my car with my laptop and phone) on a very important whim that hit me for a very important reason, such as avoiding a terrible automobile accident that I would otherwise have encountered, or saving a drowning baby that was somewhere with the solution to my new key, phone, and laptop problem.
The very important reason didn’t turn out to be that someone had planted a bomb in my car, because it was still in one piece when I returned an hour and a half later. It wasn’t that I was supposed to run into some friends I haven’t seen in awhile and invite them to hang out with us tonight, because though I did run into them, I just waved. It was nothing about a baby, drowning or otherwise, and I didn’t find a lottery ticket or a dinosaur or participate in any thrilling coincidences.
I guess it could have been just that I needed the exercise of walking across the campus and back home from the bus stop and back to the bus after Mary let me in to get my spare keys. It could have been that I needed the information that I overheard while riding said bus about the effect of pornography on relationships, the male to female ratio at Grand Valley, and the fact that that kid’s name was not- though his ‘friend’ “was close!”- Zach, but Kyle. It could have been that the mere sight of me walking down the street with my green jacket and my $1 reusable eco-friendly Meijer bag brightened someone’s miserable day.
My CT would likely say that it was because by the time I got my car back and made it to my semi-final destination of the library to pick up some holds, the smartie pants boy from second hour was there with his mother and sister so they could collect reading material for their spring break trip to North Carolina while I was on hand to inform his mom with a smile that if he read a mystery book and filled out a form he could earn extra credit and achieve over 100% in our way too easy class. He was so pleased to have me let her know, and he said “Gee, Miss Liebig, you are mighty helpful- and so into run-on sentences today!”
You’re good at finding shortcuts around this part of town.
“Tell Mrs. B you want to keep teaching,” “Please, we like you better!” and “How about ONE more day” are among the things the tricky seventh graders are saying to try to entice me to keep them from returning to a teacher who doesn’t let them talk in class as much as I do. It won’t work for a minute though- I’m done. And untrickable.
The most remarkable part of my success was that I didn’t self-sabatoge. I’m notorious for having difficulty getting out of bed. Just ask Jobby, who took it upon himself to be my wake-up call in Alaska. There is almost nothing that sounds better to me than staying in bed 5… 10…. 15 more minutes. No matter how pleased I am about the upcoming day’s events, I still have to force it. So you can imagine that when my agenda included “7a.m. to 4p.m.: Student Teaching,” the feat was nearly impossible. I forced myself out of bed, I forced myself to go out in the cold ans scrape off my car, and I forced myself to keep driving the whole twelve and a half miles to the school. I even forced myself to go to bed by 10:30, which in itself is remarkable, but I couldn’t stop the constant internal conversation:
Jenny: I could just call in sick.
Other Jenny: No. She already doesn’t like you, don’t push it.
Jenny: I hope the school is on fire when we get there!
Other Jenny: I suppose that would be nice, but remember, you have an observation today, and it WOULD be a pain to reschedule.
Jenny: You’re right. Can I take a nap when we get home?
Other Jenny: Of course… not. You have 75 papers to grade and some science to do.
Jenny: Crap.
I hoped for worse than fire, but there’s no need to go into detail. Now that I have SEVEN days remaining that require me to be physically present at the school, I am coasting… and staying up later. But why shouldn’t I? I have television to watch and rocks to paint and the last month of college to catch up on, and as I’ve mentioned, I’ve done remarkably well until this point. So well, in fact, that some people might think I don’t hate student teaching as much as I’ve reported, but don’t let yourself be fooled. Oh no.
Staying up late on purpose is a novelty at this point. I haven’t even been able to sleep in for days and days, in part because of my trip to Nebraska this past weekend. Picture proof for now, words for tomorrow.
Goodbye Nebraska.
Of shoes– and ships– and sealing wax
My cooperating teacher and I wore the same shoes today. The next eight school days cannot pass quickly enough- we can’t have me morphing into an English teacher unintentionally.
Friday was dress-down day, of course, so I wore sneakers. They came from Payless and cost something like eight American dollars, but some girls (Shmisa comes to mind), will squeal over them anyway. One fourth hour student commented that I looked shorter, and I cheerily reported (remember! warm and enthusiastic) that I was wearing different shoes that day.
“Yeah,” said the kid in the opposite corner of the room. “She has a million pairs of shoes.”
Yet another blow to my fragile psyche – never did I think I would be mistaken for someone with more than five pairs of shoes! Ack.
Cute shoes or no cute shoes, the kiddies are getting tired of me. One boy politely asked when my “time serving this postion” would be over. As a parting gift I am giving them an opportunity to boost their grades by memorizing and reciting a poem for the class.
To prove how much fun this opportunity is, I was able to whip out one of the most trusty weapons in my arsenal, my old poem standby, “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” They didn’t get it, but that’s ok, because my CT thought that I’d memorized a 108 line poem in two days, so I may end up with bonus points for “dedication” and “preparation” come performance review time.
Is this what you’re like outside of school?
I’ve always rather liked Friday the 13th. It’s charming. And so blue.
My students freaked OUT about Friday the 13th, however. Everything we did in school was suddenly more “dangerous.” What if the posters give us paper cuts? What if the science project breaks and hits someone in the eye? What if a book falls on someone? Never mind that they throw peanuts and markers at each other as a matter of course. An accident was sure to happen. They weren’t even joking. Maybe this is a superstitious small town. Or maybe this is what people mean when they say “I love teaching middle schoolers- they’re so funny!”
Well, sure, if by ‘funny’ you mean ‘not likely to listen to anything the teacher says, ever- and inexplicably interested in zombies.’
I’ll tell you what’s funny. I am on my way to a vegan party. HA! HA!
I’m actually waiting for potatoes to bake. They’re my potluck item, and they contain no meat or animal products.
Boop, dead.
Guest post from the writing log of the girl (not named Casey) from the front right corner of third hour. My only contribution is to change the misspelling of a single word, which pretty much makes this kid the best speller in the whole of the seventh grade. Oh, and for the information of the reader, ELA stands for English Language Arts.
Entry #12: Tall Tales
A long time ago there was a college student named Miss L. She was a student teacher in ELA . She ended up hating ELA so she made everyone do first grade English instead of seventh grade. She hated it so much that she stormed out when someone said “Hi.”
You have to know that Miss L. loved only one student, Casey. She was so smart she was supposed to be in college when she was only three hours old. Casey answered every question and she could speed read every book. She was so fast at reading that she read every book in the world. So every day Miss L asked her how many books she read and one day it was up to 4900 trillion. It went up each day by 10.
Miss L was so proud of her she stormed out and let her teach; that is how much she hated ELA. That night Miss L died because she was looking at ELA for too long.
But I very seldom follow it.
(Names changed to protect me from getting in trouble for talking about my students on the internet.)
Lisa: Hi.
Shmsia: You wear that shirt too much.
Lisa: Um. I only wore it twice.
Shmisa: Yeah, I know. Once this week and once last week.
Lisa: So…?
Shmisa: You can’t wear a shirt every week. Everyone knows that. You have to wear clothes every TWO weeks.
Lisa: …
(I don’t like Shmisa.)
