Love is getting ratted out by your Nazi boyfriend

For the last three weeks of the school year, every sophomore in the school is reading the same graphic novel. (Graphic as in "told in images," not as in "dirty or inappropriate".) We only have enough copies for one class set per teacher, which means that kids can't take the books home at night or over the weekend, and all the reading has to be done in class.

For whatever dumb reason, I decided on Friday afternoon to let kids check out books if they swore on all that is holy that they would return it to me before first hour on Tuesday.

KC told me I was nuts, there was no way I was getting those books back, and that I should listen to her, the more experienced, the older, the wiser, the more veteran teacher.

In my Friday before Memorial Day haze, I assured her it would be fine and all my kids would bring back books.

She sang, "I am someone older and wiser..." from The Sound of Music to really drive the point home. A couple of times, actually.

So this morning, sure enough, I got 9 of the 14 books back, which meant not only that I was five books short for my morning classes, but that I had to concede and admit defeat. There are no harder words for me to say than, "You were right." Well, no, that's not true. "I was wrong" is harder for me.

KC emails me to ask what the book count is, and I email her back:

"The thing is, you sort of look like Liesl. That movie made me believe that was what love looked like when you were sixteen—jumping around in a gazebo. I so believed."

And she replied:

"Love is getting ratted out by your nazi boyfriend.

Bummer."

When I started laughing while the students were working, Drew (a kid who tells me daily how much he HATES to read) said, "Probably just another dumb teacher joke. Lame, Ms. T. Lame."

We're working hard here today. Really, really hard.

Nine more days

In case anyone was wondering.

You know you teach in a bunker when...

...your emergency severe weather location is your classroom and your directions are just to stay put.

It's not that this doesn't have its perks. During sixth hour today when the high school implemented its severe weather procedure, my students, much to their dismay, got to just carry on with reading their graphic novel.

Me: "Don't worry guys, we just stay here for the drill. You should probably sit against the brick wall, but just keep reading."

Student A: "But what about the tornado?"

Me: "God doesn't kill kids who are reading."

Student B: "Yeah-huh. Those kids got killed in the church that was bombed in Birmingham in the '60s."

Me: "They probably weren't reading."

My kids sat and read through the whole thing, which, as far as I’m concerned, is nothing short of a miracle.

Eleven. More. Days.

Online Self Evaluations

After each speech, my public speakers have to complete an online self evaluation of their work. Here's a response from David that he completed after delivering his speech on the difference between love and lust.

(Keep in mind that these are students that for four months have been erasing the "L" in "Public" on my board, so that it reads "Pubic Speaking." Every day. For four months. They still think it's funny.)

Q: A few of the ways in which I adapted to my audience were:
A: "I made all of the info pertain to a horny highschooler, which the whole audience is and was. I tried to make the information as easy to understand as I thought was necessary, and I didn't go into detail about Adam and Eve, because i assumed safely that everyone in my audience would know the dominant ideas of our pathetic society."

Q: What is the best informative speech we've heard so far? Why was it the best?
A: "Well, I'm sorry to be an ass, Ms. Tholen. But I'm gonna say mine, because I learned as much from it as everyone else did, and since doing the research for it, my life has improved--I make fewer careless decisions, I think about the long term effects. I won't go into detail ofwhat it is I'm "not going" anymore, but seriously. High school? Lust is like THE biggest issue."

There are, count them, twelve days left in the school year.

Crisis Connection

Today the sophomores are supposed to be writing an in class essay on their fourth quarter outside reading book. This little delightful task was assigned four weeks ago, the due date has been on my board for four weeks, and has been specifically highlighted in my daily agendas for the last seven days.

Before the first bell rang this morning, the children were arguing with me about how they "didn't know about" this essay, and that if I was "fair" I would push it back until tomorrow.

"I mean, come on...it's MONDAY...I can't write an ESSAY...on MONDAY..."

"You SO didn't tell us about this."

"This is so unfair. How was I supposed to see the due date on the board? You didn't tell me to look there."

I think it was that last comment that really pushed me over the edge. I didn't tell them to look there? What?

So, it must have been the look on my face that finally got to them, because Megan, who could not be sweeter, smarter, or blonder, raised her hand and said, "If you feel like you need to leave the room for a minute, we'll understand."

And Sam said, "I work at Crisis Connection. If you feel like you need the number, just let me know."

The worst is when you want to laugh, but are committed to being mad at them. I managed to pass out the exam and the blue books with my angry face on, but couldn't take it when Sam handed me the Crisis Connection magnet when I passed by his desk. The magnet largely displays the emergency phone numbers and the saying "When life hurts and talking would help."

It's now posted on the board right next to the due date for the in class essay today. Thanks Sam.

For a story about Teens Gone Good, you'll have to look elsewhere.

It's a Sunday afternoon

I have 53 papers left to grade (I've counted them three times already today), 112 annotated bibliographies to look over, and four class sets of student blogs to check up on.

That means that I'm sitting on my couch, making plans to clean my house, watching the Twins, listening to Piper sleeping and snoring on the couch next to me (a little loudly for a dog, I have to admit), and clicking around aimlessly on the internet.

Here's what I found:

A Think Test.

This seems right up our alley. I scored a 17, which bothered me a little bit. When I saw my score, I had the same sort of feeling I get when I realize I know far too many songs on the radio by heart. I mean word for word. Or at least, the words that I think they're saying. The acknolwedgement of the significant amount of gray matter taken up with useless--totally useless--information is enough to give anyone pause.

Speaking of songs with unintelligible lyrics. Do you know the song "Flashdance (What a Feeling)"? Cyndy always thought that the line "take your passion, and make it happen" was "Take your pants off and make it happen."

After some more aimless clicking around on the internet, I realized that she is, sadly, not alone.

What may be my worst haircut ever. Ever.

Tonight at a friend's barbecue, we played a game called Loaded Questions. The idea of the game is to test how well you know the other game players, by guessing how they answered different questions.

One of the questions we had to answer tonight was: "At what age did you have your worst haircut?"

I answered 7, and here's why:

The lighting's a little bad, but that is definitely a short, football helmet like haircut that I chose to perm. God, what the hell was I thinking?

I also, apparently, had a penchant for unicorns around this age.

I felt a little bit like I was getting my life back

Last night I had my last class for my master's degree.

Tonight I built a bookshelf.

By myself.

And in an odd way, I felt a little bit like I was getting my life back. That feeling you get when you build something--when you have time to start, accomplish, and finish a task all at once--is, frankly, pretty damn nice.

Before:






After:

The Worst Price is Right Contestant Ever

Every summer when we'd visit Grandma Koerner's house, we would watch The Price is Right before Young and the Restless came on at 11. This video is a little on the long side (5 minutes), but it made me laugh on a Sunday afternoon.

Honk for Peace

This morning as I was driving south down Hwy 101 near the Target, I passed a group of people who had assembled to protest the war in Iraq. They were holding rainbow flags with "PEACE" written across them, big signs about "ending the occupation in Iraq," and my personal favorite, the imperative to "Honk for Peace!"

I should admit that I'm a little bit of a sucker for public displays of conviction--particularly those in opposition to our current administration. It's nice to see people standing in the rain holding signs that remind us about world issues while we walk into Target to pick up the next stock of toilet paper and shampoo. I'm in to it. I really am.

So I honked, and waved. Obviously.

But really, what does honking for peace actually do? Honk for peace? Huh?

It reminds me of when the kids at school heard about the genocide in Darfur and were so outraged they decided to hold a bake sale to raise money. The absurdity of the "Brownies for Darfur!" signs that littered the hallways speaks for itself. Seriously.

The Mean Computer Lady, Part II

Apparently someone told The Mean Computer Lady that I thought she hated me. She came down to my classroom on my prep a few days ago to "assure" me that she doesn't hate me.

She even gave me a hug. One of those terribly awkward hugs where I was sitting at my desk and she was standing up, putting my face unbearably close to parts of her body that I never need to be close to again.

"I just don't want there to be any hard feelings between us, Sweetie."

WTF?

"Do you ever feel that way?"

For the last two days in English 10, we've been watching Hotel Rwanda. The sophomores have been good sports about watching a film about genocide in the springtime, so close to the end of the school year. In an otherwise painful, intense, and difficult movie, there are a few moments of levity, one of which is when the hotel manager asks a hotel maid to care for twenty-six orphans who were brought to the hotel as refugees. The orphans are small children, packed together in a small room, many are crying, have runny noses, and are totally and completely alone.

The hotel manager pats the maid on the back and asks her to care for them. When she asks how to do so, he tells her to bathe them, feed them, and put them to bed. When he leaves her alone with them, she takes a few steps towards them, smiles, and gently says, "Okay babies..." in a way that shows both her knowledge and fear of the fact that she has a very tenuous hold on control--that at any second, they could break out into mass chaos.

The kids always laugh, grateful for this gift from the director. Stephen, a soph with a couple of ear piercings, braces, and death metal t-shirt who was sitting next to me (the movie powerful enough for him to actually turn off his ipod for the class period) laughed and said, "Good luck, man, she's alone with, like, 30 of them."

I nodded as he cocked his head and said, "Do you ever feel that way?"

"Yes, Stephen," I replied. "I absolutely do."