Mental Floss

Too Good…

September 8, 2010
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Usually the source of most of my material for this blog is what happens in the classroom. I sort of depend on the shenanigans of my students to generate the entertainment element, if you know what I mean… The comedy material this year has so far been pretty thin. This bunch, for the most part (so far), shows up on time with their stuff, and they mostly listen attentively, with only the occasional stick-whacking to bring a few of them to heel. The “sit and stare” phase — you know, like the first day of school, when they just sit and stare at you while you jabber away; your best material is met with embarrassed smiles — is lasting a lot longer than usual this year. They might be too good. (Be careful what you wish for.) I mean, they haven’t yet really even settled into having separate class identities. Right now it’s hard to tell third period from fourth or fifth, except that I am a lot hungrier during third period, which is right before lunch. First period is easier to distinguish, because it’s has the most kids (every desk is full and we use every clicker), and they’re

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Scrape that Mucus Off Your Brain. (Also: Now I’m the Straight Man.)

February 27, 2010
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Scrape that Mucus Off Your Brain. (Also: Now I’m the Straight Man.)

Science “lesson” today. It’s Friday, so that means the weekly test, the suspense over whether they will score the 28/40 necessary to avoid the dreaded SSI (when the results were displayed today, one girl who made the cut did about as much dancing as one could do while still remaining seated), and best of all, mental floss. Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off My Brain — Ween Every Friday before the test, we scrape the mucous off our brains by mental flossing with some trick questions, math tricks, logic puzzles, Wacky Wordies, and etc. They’re all extra credit, and guessing is encouraged. Some are tricks, and some ain’t, but if it looks like a trick, it probably is. Today ‘s set saw the return of  another here’s-an-example-of-why-it’s-so-hard-to-learn-to-spell-in-English: What’s so unusual about this sentence? (Be specific.) A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed. (Hint: Read it out loud.) Since I know how most (of my) seventh graders seems to have math issues, I also used one of my old looks-like-math-but-really-isn’t questions. I don’t tell them it isn’t a math question until

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“We interrupt this tragedy to bring you some comedy…”

February 8, 2009
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Selected exchanges from Friday’s mental floss: What musical instruments are represented below? a)  P O b)  BA BA c)   ECLART d)  @ # $ % “What do you mean, P an’ O?” “John just gave us the answer, didn’t he?” “I did? Make me say it again.” “The answer to B is not sheep.” (Half the class) “D’oh!” (Furious erasing and crossing out.) “Since when is a sheep a musical instrument?” One genius did say, “Bagpipes!” Add together each of the defined words to get a whole new word. Example: to shout + what you say when you feel pain = yellow. a) A light brown color + to leave = b) Vehicle + an animal pal = c) A store’s announcement + a type of women’s clothing  = “What’s a pall?” “That’s pal.” “What’s a pal?” Furious waving to be the first one for c. “SignBra!” Wacky Wordy: What phrase is represented by the following? Look kool XtXhXeXrXoXaXdX “Look cool!” “What about the rest of it?” “If you look cool, you don’t need it.” For more mental floss, head on over to Brainscramble.com.

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Lines of the Week (Sandwiches and Spanking?)

January 31, 2009
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Just a few choice seventh grade lines, sort of Art Linkletter stylie. From Wednesday’s vocabulary pretest: 1. The sub was slow to realize when something was ____; he thought everything was fine.  a) forlorn  b) amiss  c) apathetic  d) earnest  e) crestfallen Now I’ve used this one before, and I can’t remember anyone not knowing I meant substitute teacher. But this year… “On number one, you mean sandwich, right?” “Sandwich?  What?” “Sub. You mean like sub sandwich?” “Ummm. No.  Substitute. Guest teacher.” (Pounding head on podium.) Now I hear other murmurings: “I thought it was submarine…You know, like they didn’t know it was leaking or something.” From Friday’s Mental Floss: Sid and Nancy were comparing information about their siblings. At one point Sid said, “My older brother was born on the Fourth of July. I remember the day because I was watching the fireworks.”  Nancy immediately knew it was a lie. How did she know? The Mental Floss really frustrates some of them. In a good way. There are some who almost never get any right (there’s no penalty for guessing; it’s all extra credit), but most of them get this one.  Most of them.  “Micah” was waving his arms

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Random Featured Post

Best Faux Pas Ever. (Glad it wasn’t me.)

(Friday Flashback – Last Year) “Mrs. G” has been teaching in our district for over 40 years. She’s been at our school since it opened in 1980. She’s taught English, art, social studies, music, and much more. She is literally an immovable object, and doesn’t need to rise from her chair to strike fear (well, not exactly fear any more, but…) into 8th graders’ hearts. She doesn’t care what people (parents, admins, other teachers) think of her, and speaks her mind whether it’s “appropriate” or not. She currently teaches 8th grade US history, and has been going toe to toe with a particularly pesky student I had last year. Now, this “Steve” sends me e-mails about how the posts he’s reading in the discussion forums on our Moodle don’t have enough thought behind them, and he has a real brain. But he’s a loud-mouthed pain in the rear, whose parents it seems, are wrapped around his finger. I was probably the only teacher he got along with…until Mrs. G. He’s still a pain, and though, like me she recognizes and likes the Steve underneath, she’s not afeared of giving what she gets. So… Food is not allowed in our classooms. [...]

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Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989.

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Recent Comments

  • mrC commented on It’s Go Time!@Sarah-Most excellent! Keep up the good work, and don't let any of them talk you out of it. Glad to hear your kids recognize the value too. Fight the good fight!
  • Mrs. M~ commented on Illin’Feel better soon! There is nothing worse than being at school and trying to be "on" when you feel like death.
  • Sarah commented on It’s Go Time!I just came across your blog...I am a second year teacher and I am currently reading The Outsiders aloud to my seventh graders. I read it to them last year, too. I catch a lot of criticism for reading it to them...but they LOVE to have me read to them. I actually had a group
  • joan commented on Illin’I'm on day two of out-with-the-crud. I needed the rest. Hope you're in tip top shape by Monday!
  • mrC commented on “The Sub Used One of Your Sticks!”That one oughta be strung up like they used to do to horse thieves.
  • Heather commented on “The Sub Used One of Your Sticks!”The last sub I had left no note at all and broke the arm of my spinny chair by leaning back in it so far that he fell in the floor. The kids all said he was the best sub ever. I politely asked the school secretary to never have him sub in
  • mrC commented on The Future of Space Travel@Heather: Gawd I hate that. I think I even posted about it awhile back. @Kelli: This reminds me of high school. I went to a Jesuit high school (all boys) and for our Friday football rallies, we would import cheerleaders from other schools to be a part of the rally. And the girls would always begin
  • Heather commented on The Future of Space TravelMy eighth graders just have the habit of prefacing every question with, "I have a question." And announcing "I'm done" when they complete an assignment.
  • Kelli commented on The Future of Space TravelIs it bad that I sometimes start my stories with "Okay, so...."...? I guess the kids have rubbed off on me. Sigh.
  • Kelli commented on Blogging the Scoring Session (Part I)Ugh! Been there. I have been to those "Scoring and Rubric" type meetings in two different states now... Not fun, and not entirely informative, either.
  • Meg commented on No Groove Yet (Also: The Giver and No Homework Returns)There was a district I student taught in that hand the no fail policy. I child could not be held back a grade, even if they did absolutely nothing the whole year, until they were in high school. It took most of the middle schoolers about 3 seconds to realize they didn't have
  • Kelli commented on No Groove Yet (Also: The Giver and No Homework Returns)You know, that whole "no-zero" policy goes hand-in-hand with the "no-failure" or "no-retention" policy, and my school district is a definite contributor to this madness. I can understand the desire to stop giving zeros and MAKE the kids do the work (giving countless opportunities until successful), but I have been in a situation where
  • commented on Obligatory Santa VideoWe have an unofficial "no zero" policy. It takes a little extra effort on the teacher's part to get all of the students to complete their assignments but we have made it work. The thing that was most helpful was instituting a "homework detention" that is separate from discipline detention. If a

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