I got my credential in 1990. My last cooperating teacher of my student teaching days would have chastised me for using the word got, but there you go. Then I spent a year subbing (sorry, we call it guest teaching now), and I enjoyed that. It was also my in for my current job; someone I had subbed for a lot (another no no adjective for my old master teacher) suggested me for an opening 16 years ago. I also enjoyed being able to take the phone off the hook (can you tell I don’t have a cell phone?) if I didn’t want to work that day. In 1991 I took a job in a high school district about a 1/2 hour drive from where I live. This “commute” is one of the things that drove me to my hatred of the automobile, but that’s for another day. This is about the job. It was part-time, teaching what they called independent study. For a while it was the perfect part-time job. I worked 8-1, and the last hour was considered pe, so I played hoops with the kids. We got free hot lunch trucked over from the high school (we
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Every time I smell a Sharpie, I flash back to the summer between seventh and eighth grade. I spent many an hour in my closet that summer with the smell of felt pens and burning hair. No, it’s not what you think. (What WERE you thinking, anyway?) That was the summer I dug out my dad’s 8mm movie camera, and invested almost $20 (a fortune for me in 1974) in film and developing, and made a couple of movies. One was a skateboard movie. I had seen Endless Summer, and wanted to make a similar sort of skateboard movie about skating in our neighborhood. I used three reels of film at about 4 minutes each. My friend Ziggy and I used his dad’s old-school film editor, and literally taped together a masterpiece. It only survived 4 or 5 showings before some of the splices melted, and well…today all I have is a reel of outtakes. The other movie was a cartoon (of sorts), and thus has the Sharpie connection, since I used Sharpies for my “artwork.” The pens were of the old formulation – I used to get mighty loopy after a couple of hours in the closet with my
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I was trying to wait until I reached 100 posts before I did this. You know, like in television, your series used to have to reached 100 episodes before you could go into syndication ands reruns. But I figure with my bad paw, I have a bit of an excuse. (It’s getting much better, but I go see the hand surgeon guy tomorrow to get the official word.) And the kids were bugging me about the cage today. I’ll be back to posting regularly soon; we’re reading another Ray Bradbury classic, “The Earth Men,” and it’s been fun. So here we go, and to paraphrase words of an old NBC promo, if you haven’t read it, it’s new to you. From September 26, 2008, The Tom Sawyer Syndrome (Flashback) “If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” That’s Mark Twain’s famous observation after Tom Sawyer has scammed the town kids into whitewashing his fence for him, and paying him for the pleasure. We won’t
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“They asked me to take a student teacher, and for once, I want to know what you think.” “What’s that mean?” “The student teacher part, or the part about asking your opinion?” “What?” “Never mind. For a while she would watch how we do things, and then I would watch her as she took over, and then I would leave, and she would be running the show.” Politeness Girl had tears in her eyes. (me: sniff.) “Would they know how to use the clickers?” “I guess we could teach her stuff like clickers and the LCD projector.” “What about the nutty videos?” “I doubt it.” “NOOOOO!” “What about SSI? Would she make us do SSI?” “I guess that would be up to her. Maybe she would have her own way of getting you to study.” “YAY!” “What about rating us from 1-10 and having to get an 8 and all that? That’s hard!” “We’re talking about a student teacher, not a guest teacher.” “Oh. YAY!” “Thanks a lot. I’ll miss you too.” I usually have a policy of only accepting full-time student teachers; I can’t find my groove in half a day, and invariably they’re taking other classes, and always
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I’ll continue the -isms tomorrow. I just have to interrupt our regularly scheduled program to tell about a classic I rediscovered today. I started at my present school in 1993. The last job I had before that was teaching 9th and 10th graders at a big high school about 30 miles away. This school and the city it’s in were (and sort of still are) known as kind of gang-ish. (I don’t know, is that delicate enough?) We had three full-time campus cops. I had a few obvious wannabes as well as some of the real thing, but things weren’t nearly as bad as it sounds. I had a great time there. One of my sophomores who was one of the real ones, was also one of the smartest kids I had. It was sort of a movie cliche. He was a leader in the hood, and we (his teachers) all tried to sway him to lead at school. We should have considered ourselves lucky he even showed up. He could read, and obviously did; just not much of what he was assigned. He was quick-witted and could argue/discuss with the best. He often made me laugh. He seemed to
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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.)