House returns in 15 minutes, and well, it’s been a while… I do have to share one new, beauty line I got today. I’m going to leave out the spaces between words because that’s how this kid talks. Also, his volume goes to 11. “Mr.Cowardyou’remyfavoriteteacherbecauseyouunderstanduskidsyouknow… …exactlywhatit’slikeyouknow…andyouletusshootourpinksheetsonFriday…” “Take a breath G. Thanks, I think. What do you mean, ‘you know exactly what it’s like?’” “YouweremedicatedasakidYouwerehyperactivetoohuh.” Ummmm. (More on this later.) 10 minutes until House. We’re reading The Midwife’s Apprentice now, live in class like The Outsiders. It’s a lot of fun. They can’t cope with how stinky things were back then or with the fact that even the kids drank beer for breakfast. 7 minutes. And I don’t have any snacks ready. So here’s a fave moment from last year’s take on MWA (12/8/08): A seventh grade class is the perfect straight man; they often don’t realize how funny they are, or how often they set you up for a funny line. We’re reading The Midwife’s Apprentice right now. I only have a class set, so we’re reading it all in class, like The Outsiders. It should work out beauty, with just a couple weeks left until winter break. The kids usually like
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Today we were working in pairs (Que milagro – pairs in Mr. C’s class!) on one sentence summaries for the first seven chapters of The Midwife’s Apprentice. Sometimes I have to remind them that this is English, and we do have to put down our clickers and write now and then. They actually liked this one, and it was a great way to review a book we’re reading entirely in class, and don’t always get to every day. It forced them to go back and reread and review the book together, and to even use the table of contents (gasp – good practice for research in the spring). I did keep having to say, “Look in the book.” Anyway, at one point a pair of girls raised their hands and said, “We need help.” “Maybe you should make an appointment with your counselor.” The two girls were the ones who laughed the hardest. I know –and to make sure, my wife reminds me all the time– that some (many?) of the things I say to my students might be interpreted as being “mean.” She has said, “You’re one of those teachers I would have been scared to death of when
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OK. I’ll get back to the -isms eventually. I just have another great seventh grade line to share. Or two. A seventh grade class is the perfect straight man; they often don’t realize how funny they are, or how often they set you up for a funny line. We’re reading The Midwife’s Apprentice right now. I only have a class set, so we’re reading it all in class, like The Outsiders. It should work out beauty, with just a couple weeks left until winter break. The kids usually like this one a lot. It has the word fart in it. There’s poop (we’re 800 years from the toilet), lots of insults, our heroine is a plucky underdog whom they all root for, and it’s funny. Everything a seventh grader could hope for. We were talking about how, in those days (Middle Ages) most people didn’t have a last name, and were often called by whatever they did for a living: John the Miller and Walter the Smith and Stephen the Fletcher (the guy that puts the feathers on arrows) and so forth. “So, many of the last names we have today have their origins in what our ancestors did for
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This afternoon, I asked my friend and colleague, in his experiences with junior high, how many times he could remember seeing two seventh grade boys hugging. Sincerely. “Like a man-hug, or a real one?” “What’s a man hug?” “You know, you start out with the soul shake, and then you pull in and sorta bump chests, and then the other hand sorta slaps the back.” “Not that kind.” “Ummm. None.” “I knew it. It was a first for me too!” Milk and Cheese, the “True That” boys, were at it again. They were moving their desks closer together (again), like they like to do, and jabbering nonsense. Nothing major, and technically it was before class, but I said, “Well the quarter does end Friday, and I change up the seating chart every quarter, so next week I get to move you guys far, far apart.” One of our recent vocabulary words was crestfallen. I should have taken a picture of them to use as an example. Milk holds out both arms pleadingly (and it if it wasn’t sincere, he should be an actor) and says, “But…But…But… What about The Team?” OMG. The class is dying. Half of them are happy [...]
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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.)