Here’s a funny middle school story for you: every winter, I grow a beard to celebrate…I don’t know, to celebrate something. (I live in southern Connecticut, so our winters are cold but not “Michigan cold.”) I usually keep the beard until March vacation, but, because it’s been such a long winter, I decided to shave it off last night. My hope is that maybe Mother Nature will be fooled into “springing” spring a few weeks early.

In any case, you can imagine what happened this morning. I was sitting at my desk, which faces my classroom door and one of our “locker nooks.” (That sounds so much more grown-up than “place where middle school kids run around acting like dinosaurs,” which is what I usually call it.) The first few kids to arrive didn’t say anything.

But then HE showed up: Tommy, our male, East coast equivalent of your Polite Girl. He bounded into the room like Tigger on Red Bull and shouted, “Hey, Mr. Gott! You shaved!”

“Yes, I did, Tommy,” I replied. “You’re very observant this morning.”

“Wow!” he said. “You look so much younger!”

“Thanks, I guess,” I said. “Are you guys not going to listen to me now?”

For the next five minutes, hordes of kids showed up at my door. “Mr. G—…Oh, God! Oy vey!” said one. “Mr. Gott, you look like I could beat you up!” said another. The girls just stopped by. “You look like my history teacher!” I look like a middle-aged balding man? Thanks, ladies.

I need a vacation!

So now we’re having a little SSR in my sixth-grade class because half of them have been out sick since last week and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this book drag on through our March vacation!

I’ll be back to your blog on a regular basis. I can’t wait to read more.

When I was student teaching, about a month into the process, my mentor teacher had to have knee surgery and was out for about a month, leaving me alone in the classroom (at first with a substitute, but that turned out to be a disaster…different story). Because he had done a really good job preparing me, it turned out to be just about the perfect learning experience – was exhilarated to find I could manage even without the safety net.