Part of the job description for teaching middle school is the ability to answer the same question up to 25 times a day without strangling askers 11-25. But sometimes you have to draw the line. Years ago I got sick of handing back tests or essays or whatever and hearing the chorus of, “What grade is 28/40?” “Do the math.” “What?” “What’s the line in a fraction mean?” “What?” “The line. There’s 28 then there’s a line, then there’s 40. What does the line mean?” Finally…a few shout out, “Divide.” “Well then. Do the math. 28 divided by 40.” “What?” “I pity your poor math teachers.” I do not answer the question, “What’s x out of y?” Ever. “Just tell me.” “Never.” “This isn’t math.” That’s why I put a couple math questions on the end of year essential questions quiz (The YEE – original post here). I mean, even for 600 words (when they handwrite – even this bunch is savvy enough to find the word count feature in MS Word), they want to count every word instead of just doing some simple math. “Just count the words in a line or two, and see about how many words you’re getting
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As I have said before, the three-word phrase is a principal means of “communication” for the middle school beast. Since I last posted about this topic, I have remembered a few more favorites. 1) “I don’t care.” This one persists into high school. And beyond. And it often begins well before junior high. What it really means is: “I can’t possibly admit I care, because I think it’s too late to do anything about it. And you probably won’t believe the excuse I make up anyway. I’m ready for the worst, so there.” “Grades will probably get mailed out this week by Wednesday. So you should start dogging the mailman about Friday. Haha.” “I don’t care.” Only the people with F’s say that. Or A+’s. 2) “S’not my fault.” Ditto above with respect to onset and persistence. Nothing is EVER your fault in seventh grade. (on the Friday rounds) “Got some KBAR for me, baby?” “Ummm. (lots of rummaging) I don’t have it…but…s’not my fault. I asked my mom to sign but she left for my brother’s thing and…” “What about the other three nights of signatures, and the response?” “S’not my fault. I left my notebook at school.” “And
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There was a comment over at seventhgradeenglish.com (how’s that for cross-promotion?) about how the commenter had just finished The Outsiders for the 75th time, and watched the movie at least as many times. Twenty five years times 3x each year. Several thoughts ran through my mind as I read the post. One: Yessss. Another veteran keeping the flame alive. Two: Only three times each year? But many of you are at them thar newfangled charter schools and such-like, and this person probably also has a period of advanced martial arts and one of calculus, and has to serve lunch and coach soccer. Three: 25 years? This person must’ve seen the move when it came out. And it’s just as cheesy today. I think I showed it one year, back in the day. Remember; look for SE Hinton as the nurse nagging Dally. And Tom Cruise and Patrick Swayze and the Karate Kid. Four: 25 years? And the book is just as vital as it was then. I’ll still be teaching it 20 years hence. Five: I just did this math with the kids back in October. “Whoa, you really know this book, don’t you?” Duh. For me, it’s 15 years
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A few years ago, while we were reading Outsiders aloud, I was about to give them my usual “reading check” type quiz to make sure they were following along, thinking about what we’d talked about, connecting the literary terms to the examples in the book, etc. I can’t quite remember what my inspiration was (probably just to throw them for a loop like I like to do), but I decided to let them “cheat.” My quizzes on the books and stories we read are always open book, but this time I told them they could take the quiz, not only open book, but “open mouth.” I told them they could talk about the questions and answers as much as they want in any way they want, and decide however they want to, which of the answers to choose. “You can share what you know…or not. You can decide whether to heed the wisdom of the group…or not. You just can’t lie. You can’t knowingly tell everyone the wrong answer on purpose.” One class that day came up with the name Quiz for Dummies. The rest of the periods thought that was a little “mean,” so we’ve stuck with Open Mouth. [...]
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That reminds me of those great SNL skits about the Sofa King. You know, how the prices are "Sofa King" low, the deals are "Sofa King" great, etc. (You obviously have to say those phrases out loud to get the joke.)