(Said with giddy excitement and glee): “Wait wait shhhh!!! This is the best part coming up, where you actually wake yourself up!”
— Eric, playing back a 3-minute long recording he took of my snoring the other night
All posts by Emily
The Student Becomes the Teacher
After I posted Yes. That’s Exactly What the Beatles Were Going For., someone alerted me to the fact that the song “Blackbird” was, in fact, inspired by the civil rights movement. A quick google search during my lunch break confirmed this was true. So after lunch, I approached the kid.
Me: “So guess what? You know how this morning you said ‘Blackbird’ was about black people being free? And we said that was maybe a possibility, but that seemed a bit specific, and perhaps there was a larger theme of overcoming adversity and being brave? Well, it turns out you were exactly correct. Paul McCartney, who wrote the song, said that when he wrote the lyrics, he was inspired by the black women in the Civil Rights movement, who were fighting to be treated equally.”
Kid: “Yeah. I know.” (walks away)
Oh.
Ok.
Yes. That’s Exactly What The Beatles Were Going For.
Analyzing The Beatles’ song “Blackbird” with 4th graders…
Us (after listening to the whole song): “The lyrics repeat ‘blackbird fly’ over and over. What do you think this song might be about?”
Kid: “Freedom!”
Us (excited that for once, a kid is inching towards a non-literal interpretation…) “Ohhh, interesting! Explain!”
Kid: “BLACKbird. Like black people. Black people weren’t always free. So it’s saying black people should be free.”
Supplemental Income
My 8 years of teaching have provided me with a mountain of bullshit so high and steep, I’m considering building a chair lift and charging people to black-diamond ski down it.
Romantic Morning Texts
(Related to Romance, Part 4 )
Kids Are Literal
In a unit about text interpretation (our favorite unit, because it’s never not a shit show), we analyzed the song “Let it Be…”
Us: “Let’s look at this line– ‘And in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me.’ What might that mean?”
Kid (raising hand excitedly): “The power is out!”
Things He NEEDS
Me (watching Eric troll on Amazon): “It’s ridiculous how much you love to buy things.”
Eric: “Only things I NEED, though.”
Then he added this to his cart:
The Context Here is Entirely Unnecessary
Ok, fine, I’ll explain.
“Master’s Degrees” is the name of a group chat consisting of me, Eric, my co-teacher, and my co-teacher’s husband.
So, now you know. I’ve explained everything.
Moody
I’ve been accused of being moody, but I really don’t think it’s too much to ask that everyone stay out of my damn way when I’m PMSing, when it’s Sunday night, when it’s all day Monday, or when it’s winter. The second half of autumn and any high-allergy spring is a risky time as well. Best to stay out of my damn way then, too.
I am absolutely delightful on June 29th.
No That Came a Little Later…
Co-teacher (helping a kid write his historical fiction story): “If the colonial man in your story is chopping down a tree and the tree is falling, what might he yell out?”
Kid: (blank stare)
Coteacher: “Starts with a T…”
Kid: “Oh! TINDER!!!!!!”
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