What if....

I eat lunch with a truly fantastic group of teachers. We are all language arts and social studies teachers, and all fairly young (35 or younger). I have spent more than one lunch literally crying with laughter. This year, when one of us has a bad morning, we will come in to lunch and announce our declaration to give up teaching and work as a Department of Transportation Sign Turner - you know, the people that stand on the side of the road with the "Slow" and "Stop" signs in construction zones.

Today, someone asked what would happen if the same restrictions that apply to teachers were to apply to the sign-turners. Here's a short list of what we decided:

• Sign-Turners would be paid based on whether or not people ACTUALLY slowed down in construction zones
• The only measure of whether or not people were actually slowing down would be the number on the speedometer, not whether the number of accidents decreased
• Sign-Turners will be expected to pay for their own sign. And vest.
• Sign-Turners will be rewarded if they use aggressive measures to slow people down. Why rely on only the sign? Even an idiot can hold a sign, the truly GOOD sign-turners will fling themselves in front of oncoming traffic in an effort to really make a difference.
• From time to time, a study would be done that proves that people respond better to round signs rather than triangular signs, as triangular signs are challenging for round-preferential people to read. All signs would then be switched to the round shape for a few years, until another study proved that, in fact, triangular signs were superior because the shape catches people's attention.
• In an effort to address the needs of all drivers, sign-turners would be required to hold BOTH shapes of signs and only use the shape that a particular driver will respond to - even though it is illegal to ask the drivers what kind of sign they might best respond to.
• Other studies would prove that turning the sign clockwise instead of counterclockwise increases the likelihood that right-handed drivers will respond appropriately to the sign, whereas left-handed drivers repsond best to a counterclockwise rotation. Again, sign-turners will be expected to turn the sign in the appropriate direction in response to the needs of all drivers, including blind ones.
• Yet another study would determine that printing "STOP" in all capital letters on a red background creates the impulse to in fact go faster for some people (this is known as "oppositional defiance"), so printing "GO LESS FAST" instead will help defuse these tendencies and encourage them not to give in to their suffering.
• Telling blind people that they cannot drive is illegal. All people can do everything equally well. Sign-Turners will be expected to modify their sign-turning to compensate for the needs of all drivers.
• New Sign-Turners will be hired straight out of ivy-league colleges, because only the young can masterfully reach all drivers. Old Sign-Turners refuse to listen to the studies listed above, stating reasons such as "Been There Done That." How can the DOT expect to meet the needs of all drivers if the Sign-Turners are so resistant to change?
• Sign-Turners will be expected to call the mothers of all bad drivers to let the mothers know that their children broke the rules. How the sign-turner is supposed to figure out the correct phone number is up to the sign-turner, but if they do not contact the mothers, bad drivers will be allowed to continue to drive badly, since no one told them not to.

Sometimes, lunch is the only thing that gets me through the day.

The Smell of Special College

One of the classes I have twice a week is my advisory class. It is a class of twenty kids that I have had since they were freshmen. They are now juniors and we are trying to prepare them to launch themselves on the unsuspecting universe in about 17 months. One of their projects was to research two universities to find out things like tuition, entrance requirements, etc.

Each of my students was allowed to choose whatever 2 colleges they wanted, as long as at least one college was out of state. One of the kids in my class (I'll call him Randy), asked to do his research on technical or motorcycle repair colleges. He is a student that has very low grades, but always knows better than everyone else about everything, and he has a girlfriend I call Vampira because of her habit of leaving suck marks on his neck - 3 or 4 at a time on any given day.

Randy actually worked on his college research pretty well and did his presentation today during class. His second slide was a list of classes offered at this college, called Oaksterdam University.

And that's the moment I realized that he was doing a college presentation on a college devoted to MARIJUANA.

Thaaaaat's right, folks, this is a college dedicated to the "cannabis industry," according to their byline on the website. Classes include the following (my commentary in parentheses):

• Horticulture (how to grow marijuana)
• THREE different "methods of ingestion" classes (so.....a class on how to smoke a doobie?)
• Advanced Grow (how to grow....bigger pot plants??)
• Cannabusiness - YES that is the real name of the class!!!!! - (apparently, how to legally sell marijuana?)

There are about 15 different classes offered, but no worries, the standards are pretty low. There are no regular degrees offered, but you CAN get a get a Certificate of Attendance just for attending all your classes. If you want a higher degree? Well....you can get a Certificate of Completion WITH HONORS for attending all your classes AND doing your homework.

I can only imagine the homework assignments.

Meanwhile, Randy is giving his presentation and I interrupted him to ask, "are you seriously doinig a presentation on a pot college???" and his response was "yes! It's a growing industry!" at which point I just lost it.

The saddest part of all......I don't think his grades are good enough to get in.

This is the Song that Never Ends....

So far, over the last two weeks, 4 of my kids have been suspended, which is fine except when it comes to coordinating final exams. Today I found out that one of the suspended ones will not be allowed to come back this year and she has her final project with her. This is, of course, the final project that wasn't supposed to go home at all, but I made an exception for her so she could work on it at home due to the suspension. That suspension was supposed to end yesterday, and has now been extended through the end of the year.

So....I called home to see if I could talk to her or her mother about how to handle this, and heard the following:

"Hello, you have reached (unintelligible) phone. Leave a message after the beep."

And then....a song.

A song that lasted 2 minutes.

At the end of the two minutes, the voice comes back on and says this priceless quote, which I may have to add to my own message,

"If this is a bill collector, just keep on walking."

And then more music for another 30 seconds, followed by

"If this is my mom, just keep calling back."

Followed by another 30 seconds or so of music, and then

"Leave a message."

And then, and ONLY then, did the message end and I was allowed to say my own piece. Of course, by this time, I was laughing, and had sent a few emails to my VP, and had nearly forgotten what the point of the call was. We'll see if she calls back.

Emo Philosophy

As part of the work on the Enlightenment philosophers, I gave the kids an ten minute quiz on the block day this week. The last question asked "What was the biggest difference between the beliefs of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke?"

Among the many answers I got (most of them correct), was the following:

"The difference between Hobbes and Locke was that Locke believed in equality and Hobbes was emo."

I can see it now....Hobbes in curled powdered wig and pantaloons, pondering the meaning of life while dying his hair black and painting his fingernails with Sharpies.

The Black Plague was not Racist

We started talking about the Black Death today and if there is something teenagers love it is blood, guts, and gore. Coincidentally it is National Handwashing Week, and we were sent this link to a hilarious movie about sneezing. I showed it as an intro to the Black Death in 3rd period.

yeurgh...I can't seem to embed it, so here is the link.

By the way, I was asked no less than four times today if the Black Death was racist. Seriously. By 10th graders.

This is going to be a whiny post

Just warning you.

I am so frustrated this year. I feel constantly overwhelmed and stressed out and I don't really know why. I am still learning the kids names, and sometimes I don't recognize the kids themselves. Usually by this time I can at least recognize them! I have two classes, one to start the day and one to finish the day, that are so frustrating that I either begin or end the day in tears 2-3 times a week. I'm kind of a baby anyway, but seriously!! So in an effort to try and make my classes more successful, I asked my vice-principal to switch one of the kids in that class into a different class. From talking to this kids teachers from last year, what I kept hearing was that he was motivated but easily distracted, so moving him from my largest, loudest class into my smallest, quietest class seemed to make a lot of sense. I have done this before, just asked to do a straight swap, like flip-flop a student's English and Social Studies classes It is an easy switch and usually helps everyone concerned. This year when I asked to do that, I got an email from both the counselor and the principal asking why, if I had documented problems, if I had written the kid an office referral, if I had called home, etc. No...because I am trying to PREVENT problems, not wait until the problems get so bad that the kid digs himself into a hole he can't get out of. Managing a class of 29 exceptionally immature sophomores is hard enough without having a legitimate decision questioned by the people who are supposed to be helping.

Not only that, but the power apparently went out last night and when that happens, the fire doors over the window in my classroom slam shut, so when I came in this morning my classroom was reminiscent of a windowless box, and it stayed like that all day. When I asked if it could be opened, the response was "don't you have a key?" No. I do not. Grr.

Then, because 1st period isn't crazy enough as it is, I lost 30 minutes to an earthquake drill (because flinging yourself under a plastic desk will save you from falling masonry) and a fire drill. So my slowest class is now even further behind my other classes. Awesome.

In addition, I tripped over a kid's backpack in 1st period and fell, so both of my wrists and my right knee are sore. It was funny, so I laughed with the kids (after they kindly asked if I was ok), but it still hurts a little, and didn't do much for my already tender neck.

On another mildly funny note, I teach mental mapping in my class, which is learning to draw the world using easy-to-remember shapes, and we are working on Europe. Greece looks like a goat's udder, so when we were reviewing this in my 3rd period (which is my favorite, and amazing class), one girl asked in all seriousness what an udder was. The kid sitting next to her responded, again in all seriousness, not trying to be snarky, that it was "you know, the thing you yank milk from." Not all of the kids heard him and it was mildly inappropriate, so I tried as hard as I could to not laugh, but I could NOT keep it in and started uncontrollably giggling...so hard that I have makeup on my sleeve where I wiped away the tears.

So.....my dread for 6th period lives on. I am getting a lot of practice in sentence-prayers such as "give me patience," "don't let me lose my temper," taking deep breaths and counting to ten before speaking.

So far, not working.

The Principal's Office

TruTV (used to be courtTV) has a series called The Principal's Office which is pretty funny. I am not a fan of reality tv, but I leave you with this as an example of what I deal with EVERY DAY.

Eureka!!!

Hm...this must be the reason I'm not married. Or dating. =)

Drama Queen

I forgot to post this...my cat Emma has some boundary issues, and felt that S was invading her space on the back of the chair. So...Emma tried to push S off the chair by pushing against the back of S's head with her back feet. Punk.

Funny

Seattle is a city of pedestrians (it's a defense mechanism to combat gas prices and horrible traffic) and in an effort to get people to slow down in areas where the pedestrian count is exceptionally high, these signs are posted. There is one on my drive to UW every morning and I finally was stopped at a light in front of it... I love the flying bodies.

ARGH

I really thought that this class would be more about discussing the book and we keep going off on random pointless tangents that have little to no value for me as a teacher. Also, I woke up with a headache.

Here are some random samplings from my notes today:
*"This class makes me feel stupid!"
*"Why are we talking about random crap?"
*"Find some book about Chocolate???"
*several doodles of elephants - the only animals I can draw with any semblance of reality
*an entire page of scribbling

Since there are only 5 people in the class, this might have been more obvious than intended. I have no issue with the incredibly knowledgeable and literate professor, but there is a woman in class that insists on going off on tangents and arguing with the professor. She thinks she knows a lot because she lived in Pakistan. Since we are discussing the Middle East and not South Asia, it's mostly pointless, but that doesn't stop her.

Today's class started with a headache and ended with a larger one, so I took a nap when I got home. It was supposed to be like an hour long and it ended up being 3 hours...so no sleep for me tonight! Oops.

Purses and Plants

One of my friends had to drop off the key to her apartment so I can check on her cat next week, and she had to stop by at 7:45, so I was jolted out of my summer sleep schedule (1 am to 11 am roughly...only interrupted by the mandatory cat demands at 5:30, no matter WHAT day of the week it is...) a little early and was consequently somewhat befuddled for the first part of the day. She bought a purse though, so I forgave her. =) I was having a bit of a block and am running low on fabrics that are both large enough and the right weight and color to work together, so my first project of the day was to get everything out where I could see it. Believe it or not, this is only about half of the fabric I still have in my possession, although I have gotten rid of quite a bit of my stash so far this summer.

Sometimes it helps to fling everything on the floor and stir it around, but this didn't really help all that much for a while. I did eventually muddle around and cut out pieces of several purses that I either didn't have lining for or didn't have thread that even vaguely matched, and finally decided to go online and find free purse patterns. They are out there, but some people cannot write patterns that are easy to follow!! So.....I invented my own, using some handles that I got on sale over a year ago. I like the purse, but I think I need to handsew the top, it is hard to get the sewing machine to go neatly over the handle part. Of course, I have no blue thread, so that will have to wait until tomorrow...there is no way I am braving Southcenter on a Saturday. Uneven stitching and all, I still think it is kind of cute. Thoughts? The cell phone is to show size.

Also, I noticed today that my tomato plant on my balcony is several inches taller than I am. Pretty cool, I bought it when it was only about 10" tall. It has a buch of blossoms on it and a bunch of tomatoes I am kind of proud of....even if I don't actually really like tomatoes all that much. Ah well, sometimes the fun is in growing them, and considering my legendary thumb of death when it comes to plants, I am a little proud of myself. Whee!!!

Donate What?

This coming week we will be having a blood drive at school, so there are posters all around the school that say "Donate Blood." One of my miscreants felt that they needed to be a little more eye-catching, so they went around the school, and on every single poster, crossed out "blood" and wrote "sperm." The problem? They spelled it "sprem." So every poster says "Donate Sprem." Nice. So one of the English teachers typed up a small paragraph that said "The word is "SPERM." If you are going to deface public property, at least spell the words correctly." If you guessed that the teacher got in trouble, not the student, you'd be right.....

pooties

I called my sister after work today, and my niece insisted on talking to me. She will be two (I think) in August (I think...gosh, I am a TERRIBLE aunt) and is absolutely insistent on talking on the phone when someone calls. She got on the phone and said hello very clearly (but that's it) and then gave the phone back to her mom. I told my sister she was talking pretty well and my sister said yes, but she can't say the word "panties." Instead, she calls them "pooties." Oddly appropriate, somehow....Happy Friday!

Mythical Creatures

So in an earlier post, I talked about the papers I was grading that were on a mythical creature. I am retyping one verbatim here, including all spelling errors: "Pegasus a white winged horse, which originated in ancient Greece thousand of years ago. He was born from the "neck" or soul of medusa, son of Poseidon, (I know it's been a while, but I think Medusa was a woman, and could not be the son of anyone) god of the sea. When they cut medusas head and Pegasus rose from it. He was born a full grown horse with wings. Pegauss was caught and tamed by Bellerophon. He then began taking Pegasus with him to battle including when he killed chimaera the dragon. When Bellerophon tired to take Pgauss to Mount Olympia Zeus kicked him off the horse and he fall but as Pegasus goes he made it there and started carrying around Zeus lighting blots (perhaps Greek lightning blots were deadlier than lightning "bolts") for him. Pegasus lived on mount helicon and they say he stomped his hook (presumably she meant "hoof") into the ground and it caused a fountain where water came out. Pegauss has a brother named Chrysaor who is not a horse but looks like a giant. Pegasus was lived in the sky and is a constellation which can be seen when you look up into the sky." Sadly, this was a paper that the kids spent a WEEK researching and it was written by a SOPHOMORE in high school. It was supposed to be a 2 page paper and it was actually around half a page. This was not a student who is in Special Education, and she was born in the US and her home language is primarily English. No wonder colleges complain about their ill-prepared freshmen who have to take remedial English. This is the kind of stuff they are getting. I don't know how to fix this, and I honestly don't even know how to deal with it!

Spelling

So as you may have previously guessed, my kids are working on a project this week and today they were working in the computer lab typing them up. Here is an example of the conversation I overheard:

Jake - wait, how do you spell "could've?" (as in, I could've seen it coming)
Ben - you dummy, "could've" isn't a word, you have to write "could of."
Me, breaking in, in utter frustration - "it is could HAVE!!!, could "of" makes NO SENSE!!!!!

Oh - and we've gone over this REPEATEDLY in class.

Due to some technical issues, I had to email some kids their papers so they could work on them at home, and one of the email addresses I got (handwritten by a sophomore) was shut_up_hips@--- (last part changed). This was from a masculine boy and I wondered as I typed, what the supposedly hilarious story behind the address was. The address didn't work, so I emailed my friend whose class the kid was currently in and she asked him what the address was supposed to be. He told her shut_up_hipy@-----. She was trying to read it but he corrected her pronounciation, telling her that the last word was pronounced "hippie." She looked at him and asked if he had misspelled the word on purpose. No...he just didn't know how to spell hippie. SOME DAYS ARE LONGER THAN OTHERS. This was one of them.