Saturday, November 19, 2011

It's hard to discipline students when they're this funny.

Since I've started teaching I've had many laugh-out-loud moments so I thought I would share a few:


-Towards the beginning of the year I introduced my science classes to my "answer ball". My "answer ball" is a koosh ball that I throw to the kids when they know an answer to my question. It gets them engaged and has been one of those "tricks" I've developed. 

I teach environmental clubs on Friday afternoons and the students in my club are some of the more adorable students in the school (these kids actually chose to be in the environmental club over board games club, ultimate frisbee club, etc... so you can imagine what kind of students they are). One of them is one of my personal favorite 6th graders who is my science whiz (the kid also calls me his "teacher mommy" and is a crazy clinger but that's a whole different story)... let's call him O. 

That afternoon after school I was spending some time with a co-worker when all of a sudden I get about 5 phone calls from the same local number. All of my kids have my cell phone number so I called it back immediately expecting some sort of emergency brewing... it was O. O had "accidentally" taken the answer ball home with him (who he has now affectionately named "Atom"). After hearing his apologies I told him that it was okay if he kept it for the weekend and that I could just get it back on Monday. His response was: "Does he have any dietary restrictions I should be aware of?"

Definitely one of my favorites.


-We have some characters in 6th grade with a variety of maturity levels. We've got a lot of students who look 18 but act 10... it's tricky and brings along some interesting conflicts within the grade.

This week we had a student walk in late to school and another female student noted out loud:
"You're late."

The late student immediately responded with:
"Your mustache is early."

Done and DONE.
Of course, comments like that are NOT okay or tolerated in my classroom or in the school but WOW...


- I share my homeroom class (GW House) with 2 other teachers, Ms. D and Mr. T. We advise those students and not only teach them our content classes but also get them ready in the mornings, afternoons, and spend lunch with them. Ms. D, Mr. T, and myself have all told the students that we are older than we actually are in hopes of getting more of their respect and less of that awkward "we're new at this but do what we say anyways" problem. With that being said, our middle school girls are at that tender age where they are noticing boys... and Mr. T... which makes for some amusing (and uncomfortable for Mr. T) moments.

This week it was Mr. T's "47th birthday" (ahem... 24th) and the kids all signed a large poster for him.
One female student wrote the following:
U did it! You made it into my heart! <3




Yes. Even with some bureaucracy issues (that I'm sure all teachers deal with), my job makes me smile every day. I'm extremely lucky.

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