A parent of one of my students came in for a meeting…
Parent: “Some of the kids have been calling my son a ‘whiny little bitch’ at recess, and it’s really hurting his feelings. What should he do?”
Me: “Oh my goodness! I had no idea this was happening. Well, I think he needs to start by standing up for himself and telling these kids that he will not tolerate their name-calling.”
He might also want to consider not being such a whiny little bitch.
These are the kinds of stories you will hear if you make the mistake of asking your teacher significant other how her day is going.
Kudos to Eric for perfecting the art of pretending to care. He really did ask some stellar follow-up questions.
Eric came to school to have lunch with me. We intersected in the lobby as I dropped the kids off for lunch.
Me: “Kids, say hi to Eric!”
Kids (in unison): “HIIII ERIC!!”
Kids (whispering to each other): “Who is he?!?”
Smart kid: “Oh, I know you!! You’re the guy from all the math word problems!”
That is correct.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. They live in my house.”
— Kid, as a cockroach crawled out of his backpack and onto the classroom rug.
I always thought I was really prone to serious headaches, as I seem to have them all the time, but it has just occurred to me that I might be confusing “serious headache” with “being awake.”
“Um excuse me…are we taking a test today?”
— Kid, waking up from a 45 minute nap during said test.
Parent chaperone (to me, once we returned back to school after our field trip): “I always feel like teachers need a good, stiff drink after a field trip day.”
Me (laughing): “Aw, nah, we love field trips! It’s great to see the kids so excited!”
I am 3 drinks deep.
When the janitor watches you fill your water bottle at the hallway water fountain and says “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” that is NOT good.
#heknowsthings
Today there was a cockroach in our classroom the size of my hand.
It was literally the largest bug I’ve ever seen in real life, and it was hanging out right under one of our computers. My co-teacher spotted it first and relayed the information to me in the calmest, quietest tone she could muster (and if you know my co-teacher, you can appreciate the restraint this took) in order to not draw the kids’ attention, whispering the phrase “I’m going to throw up” no less than six times.
I’m not good with bugs. But more and more kids were spotting it, and the classroom was one second away from full blown hysteria. I appreciated that my co-teacher was PRETENDING to take action by grabbing a tissue box, but, let’s be real, she wasn’t going to do shit, other than possibly puke on herself.
It was up to me.
So I calmly walked over to the roach with a mountain of tissues, scooped it up, and placed it in a plastic ziplock bag. The kids gasped and then erupted into applause. They were being absurd and beyond dramatic. Then, for the next 20 minutes, they were unable to focus on their writing task. They were giving me the thumbs up, congratulating me, telling me how brave I am– pretty much anything they could do to avoid their work. You know how 9 year olds are. It was a total overreaction and completely ridiculous.
I’ve never felt cooler.
Age 9 seems like a good time to learn this– Being depressed is NOT the same as being disappointed.
#themoreyouknow
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