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.