I do not. Need. Dental work.

Nothing too noteworthy has happened as of late, mostly because I’ve been busy transitioning to teaching without technology since my computer and projector are still down.  It’s kind of fun, pretending that I’m teaching in pioneer times-- I haven’t channeled Laura Ingalls Wilder since childhood. (Okay, maybe since adolescence.  Okay, maybe any time my power goes out at school or at home.)  But here is a little anecdote about Nutella, state testing, the movie Bridesmaids, and me being weird.

Testing season is already getting to me.

Earlier this week, my students took a practice test for the state exam, which means that I had the same kids in my room all day in total silence.  The way my room was set up for testing, they all faced me at my desk as they ate their lunches and as I ate mine.  If you’ve never had a classroom full of people watch you as your eat your lunch, just know that it is PAINFULLY weird having thirty sets of eyes eyeing you critically as you roll and eat your Boar’s Head Blazin’ Buffalo deli turkey slices (so good, by the way).

After I had finished my lunch, I got out a spoon for my standard post-lunch-spoonful-of-Nutella routine. One of them gasped.

“Miss, what is that?”

“Nutella.  It’s like chocolate peanut butter kind of.  Stop talking.”

“Ew, you just eat it like that? You’re weird.”

“STOP TALKING,” I repeated.  I put about half the spoonful in my mouth.  Then I recreated one of my favorite scenes from the movie Bridesmaids.

“I am not. Weird.” I said, with Nutella covering at least three teeth.  They lost their minds and we all lost the testing environment.

I should probably arrange to be absent for the real thing.

Love,

Teach

Letter to my students from today for them to read in 2023, or whenever they can handle me using the s-word and/or talking about beer without dying

Dear Students from Today, January 14, 2013,

I think it's safe to say I've had a shitty week.  Have you ever just had one of those days where you can't seem to go 15 minutes without messing something up?  For example, you wake up late, then can't find your keys, then burn yourself on a burner you accidentally left on the entire night, then step on the tail of one of the feral cats that stalks your apartment complex, then spill coffee on yourself on the way to your car?  (That was this morning, by the way.)  Nothing overly tragic or terrible, but the fact that it's in series is just really, REALLY discouraging?  I've had a week of it. For example:

-Last Tuesday, I locked myself out of my car.  In the rain.  Then the locksmith was an hour late and sassy, and, depressingly, I do not have the ability to write up other grown-ups. And I knew I had to be nice to him because I couldn't wait any longer for a different person to open my car.  And then I paid him $50 for his attitude and his little car-opening contraption that took 15 seconds, and it felt like one of the greatest defeats of my life.

-I have a late fee for a bill I wasn't able to pay because I registered for the service with my email address as gNail.com and it never registered to me that I wasn't receiving email alerts for that bill.  G-nail.

-My apartment fell apart.  And there are baby roaches everywhere.  I don't want to talk about it.

-I had to be out for two days of the first week back (last week) because of mandatory training for teachers in schools who don't meet AYP like ours.  Not only was I mad about being out of the classroom for that long, but all 16 hours of it were things I already have memorized/posters of/could have done a presentation on myself.  You are all keenly aware of how much I hate my time being wasted.

-Last night, I tried to make macaroni and cheese in advance for thing I had to go to tonight, and first burned it, then accidentally shaved part of a good chunk of a plastic ball into my pile of grated cheese (don't ask how).  Also, the recipe said "Easy Mac and Cheese" and it took me like two hours!  That is not easy. Then, I said to myself, "I will open this beer now and drink some of it, and that will take away some of the sting."  And then the beer exploded everywhere. (That is the second time that has happened this week.)

And THEN, after the morning I shared with you at the beginning of this letter, I stumble into school this morning to discover that my computer station, projector, and printer are all down.  Not working.  Not even a little bit.  Nothing.  As you'd better remember (or I'll find you), the lesson was on how to write an expository essay and required the use of my computer and definitely my document camera/projector.  As you probably won't remember, you have a serious district test over this information in about three days, so it's not the type of thing I could put off until later.  Only a few minutes before class started, I put my head down on my desk and just sat there.  I was too tired to cry or to even dream that the day might get better.

But it did. Every single period today, I started off by simply saying that my computer and projector were down, and that I would need you to be the precious, understanding little munchkins that you are because of the importance of today's lesson.  And every single period, you shocked me.  You LISTENED to a lecture on how to write an expository essay for FORTY-FIVE MINUTES without goofing off, falling asleep (or maybe some of you did with your eyes open), participated when I asked you to, and on top of everything, were just extraordinarily sweet to me.

It is days like today, after weeks like this week, where I am proud to be a teacher.  Specifically YOUR teacher.  If you ever dare to let yourself feel like you are useless, or that nobody notices you, or that you haven't absolutely made a difference, I want you to know that you saved me today.  All of you made that choice (because behavior is absolutely a choice), and it reminded me how it feels to be completely surprised by joy.

I love the shit out of you.

Love,

Teach

Seating Chart Sadist

I am a seating chart master.

It’s one of the very few things that I've been good at even when I first started teaching.  I seem to understand personalities really well—who will get along, who will get along too well, who will scratch each other’s eyeballs out, etc.  I’m also spatially intelligent (thanks, multiple intelligences!) so I’m pretty good at figuring out how to arrange the desks to allow for both independent and group work without creating traffic.  I think that 30-40% of classroom management is having an assigned seating chart, or at least a seating arrangement, that works for you.

Sorry for bragging about myself for an entire paragraph.  I'm about to unbrag on myself, so don't worry.

I am also a skilled seating chart-maker because I have a special place in my heart for schadenfreude,   that is, the German word for deriving pleasure from the misfortune of others.  As a teacher, I have to take a whole lot of lip and sass, and there’s not much I can do or say back without losing my job.  In fact, most of the time I just smile and say, “That was a creative adjective.”  But giving assigned seats—especially really, really good assigned seats—is one of the few ways in which I still retain absolute power.  Hearing their cries of agony when I post a new seating chart sends dopamine rushing to my brain in liters.  I know that the more sad and angry they are about the seating chart, the less they will be distracted and the harder they will work.

“Where is your heart?” you may be asking. 

“I lost it in August of 2010,” I will reply, looking at my nails.

Here is how I make a seating chart.  It takes me a few hours, but it’s completely worth it.

First, I print out a list of all my students.  For the purposes of this seating chart, let’s pretend I live in a fantasy world and only have nine students and that all of their names are insane.

Big shout out to the random word generator I found online!

Next, I put them into the following categories: high loud, high quiet, low loud, and low quiet.  By “high” and “low” I am referring to their testing data.  I actually use different adjectives when I make my lists, but those adjectives would be seen by non-teachers as cruel and unusual, even though other teachers and I know that testing data often has little to do with actual intelligence.

Now that my students have been sorted into categories, I put stars by any whistleblowers.  These are students who aren’t afraid to take charge and call other students out when they’re acting a fool.  I also don’t call them whistleblowers when I make my lists, FYI. (Isn’t it funny that I made Tzar a High Loud and a whistleblower?)

Then, I circle any students who are insane.

Finally, I create groups of four by choosing one high loud, one high quiet, one low loud, and one low quiet per group to put at a table or group together.  I also try to have at least one whistleblower per group, and not more than one insane student per group. This keeps them talking when I want them to be, but on-task at other times. I also think it’s important to not just have one high or one low per group.   It’s not fun to be the only smart one or the only dumb one.

Uh oh!  I have one left over.  Poor crazy Obsidian.  No place to sit.  Since Obsidian is insane, I am putting him at a desk by himself near a group of four.  During independent work, Obsidian will sit at his desk facing the front.  When it’s time for group work, he will turn his desk around.  When I post the new seating chart, I will draw an arrow to his desk that looks like this.  He will enjoy the special attention, and I will enjoy his silence.

I kind of love making new seating charts.  It’s sort of like a game or a puzzle.

Like Tetris, for sadists.

Love,

Teach

P.S. I kind of like the name Emeritus.  I think I’m losing it.