No Verb

Today I was asked by my students to give them “that special equation for figuring out what we need to get on the final to get a good grade.” I explained that it wasn’t anything special, the final grade is 40% 1st quarter grade, 40% 2nd quarter grade, and 20% the final exam grade. The again demanded “the special equation,” so I grouchily wrote it on the board, all the while thinking that our country is doomed when 15 year olds cannot figure out their grades. After that, 75% of the students were able to solve for x and go on their merry little ways, but what of the other 25%? Most of those fine mathematicians simply needed a little reminder about the order or operations (Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally), but one special little lady needed a little more help than that even. She could not even plug her two grades into the equation that was written on the board without very explicit instructions (”no, no, write ‘.4 times YOUR grade;”), and then needed my help in multiplying and adding, and at one point she added 23 and 19, got -17, and couldn’t see anything wrong with that. In the end we determined she needed a 153% in order to get a D in the class. She asked me what that meant, and I just weakly told her to work “really, really hard” for the rest of the quarter, and maybe she’ll raise her grade enough to pass. I mean, I couldn’t tell her to give up 3 weeks before the end of the semester. Sometimes dishonesty is the solution

Pump your fist in the air for my friend Jamie Pennington (we student taught together in Germany) who is soon to be Mrs. Kyle McLeod! He popped the question on Saturday, and after having been in denial all year, she said yes!

My freshmen have been reading To Kill a Mockingbird (imagine that being italicized), and we just finished the book last week. Before I continue with this story, please understand that we had NUMEROUS discussions about the race issues and social stratification in Maycomb. When we started to watch the movie yesterday (after many protestations that the movie is in black and white), I heard some laughing and scuffling coming from the back. When i gave them my stern-teacher-wants-you-to=shut-up face, one of the girls shouted, “Caitlin thought until just right now that Atticus and Jem and Scout were all black!” If you’ve read the book, please just shake your head in disbelief right along with me. If not, trust me that it is unbelievable.

“Professionals in general shouldn’t be tipped, and teachers typically include themselves in this category.” -MSN article on holiday tipping.

Include themselves? We’ve apparently just weaseled our way in?

…ten things that bring me joy!
1. Slow, lazy mornings.
2. Drinking a cup of tea or coffee outside.
3. Reading a book so good that I can’t put it down.
4. Having people over for dinner.
5. A really good cheese plate with creamy, crumbly, buttery, tangy, smooth cheeses. I could go on.
6. Driving around a bend in the road and seeing the sun reflecting off of a mountain.
7. Spending time with my family and friends and relaxing and laughing.
8. Cold fall days. Oh wait, that doesn’t happen in Phoenix.
9. Cooking a meal that I’m really proud of and watching other people enjoy it.
10. When one of my quiet students contributes something really insightful to a discussion.

And there you have it. Too bad most of them have to do with food…

Dear Angry Tenth Grader,

I actually READ the things you turn in, so when your bibliography cites the article “Racism for the Common Businessman,” written by Mike Faggot, I will be calling home.

Ever most sincerely,

Me

Behold, the fainting goats: http://www.qarxis.com/Fainting_Goats.

This is even better than when Lori was going to Morocco expecting to see tree goats (goats that climb trees, duh. It turns out they PUT them in the trees. Not so impressive).

If you were 14 years old AND stupid, don’t you think you’d still be able to recognize that if you’ve already turned in a completely plagiarized paper once to a teacher, it might be a bad idea to do so again just a few short weeks later? You might think so, but no, you’d just be that stupid.

What kills me about this particular situation is that she has cheated twice in my class (that I know about), she never does any work in my class (except for when she’s cheating), but I just found out today from another teacher that she did an assignment for a kid in that teacher’s class! She doesn’t even do her own work, but she does work for other people? The time is ripe for a parent-teacher-counselor-psychologist-administrator-police-government conference.

When your cell phone rings loudly TWICE in a row while another student is giving a speech, and I take away said cell phone, do not shout that it is a “rip off,” thank me for sparing you what I would call “sweet justice.” Sometimes teaching makes me hate portable bits of technology.

This morning I burned my thumb to death with boiling water. All I wanted was green tea. And by burned to death, I just mean to red and stinging and weird burning under my nail. Yuck.

I went to a meeting this morning with the parents of one of my students. I found out that up until now (halfway through his junior year), he has only passed six classes. Six classes. I just wanted to cry for his mom the whole time. She looked absolutely devastated.

On a less depressing note, C is leaving tonight to go to California to live the rock star life for a few more days. He gets to leave his accounting job and wife and house that needs repairs to go play bass and hob-nob with movie stars (I made the movie star part up. He might see some though, who knows?) until Sunday. While I’ll certainly miss him, I get to go see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with Donnie and Jessica and frolic around in the snow in Flagstaff. The snow part is wishful thinking…

Said to me by a REALLY old lady today as I walked by her wearing a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah shirt: “Clap your hands and say yay. I think I will.”

Let it be known that last night, my genius-husband fixed our broken dishwasher using only the wonder of the world wide web and sheer brainpower. I hereby proclaim him home-repair expert.