Free body altering

It's finals day for the community college, college algebra was the class. A student named Joe shows up early to do some last minute review.

I walked by Joe and said hello. He replied and I saw what looked like a piece of broccoli or a pepper corn between his front teeth, but I didn't say anything.

Having read my expression he said, "Oh, hey, I got a new piercing." He had 9 already. "It's right here." He smiled, showing me the broccoli in his teeth.

"Wow, that's really something," I said, and then asked the typical question about pain.

"No it didn't hurt. And the best part, it was free."

Good thing he didn't pay someone to make it look like broccoli is stuck between your teeth.

Separate but zep ah rah tay.

I taught some mathematical algorithm today. I wrote the steps out in words in one column, and an example in the another.

A student was reading, and copying silently, as all others were doing, when she belted with authority, "What the hell is (I'll write it phonetically) zep ah rah tay?"

I told her that the word was separate.

She said, "That's not how you spell separate."

Well, apparently not.

What came first...the chicken or the nog?

Today, while talking about various things, a student we'll call Lucia asked if I liked eggnog. I said I did.

A student asked Lucia, "What is eggnog?"

Lucia said, "A drink," she paused, "made from eggs."

The student asked, "What's the nog part?"

Lucia immediately said, "The middle part of the egg."

I said, "Lucia, that's called the yolk."

"Mister, I'm not STUPID," she said with annoyance.

"Ok."

Got what?

There is a small class of freshmen I have for two hours a day, and since yesterday was the first day back from Thanksgiving break, I decided to do a little team-building activity.

The students took turns telling the most interesting thing that happened to them during their break. After everybody had a turn, I was going to give them a "quiz." The quiz would go like this: I'd mention some detail of a story, then call on a student. The student I called on would have to say whose story it was I had mentioned. If someone blurted out an answer, they lost a point.

After explaining the rules, I randomly called on students to tell their story. Since I had agreed to allow the students to use notes on the "quiz," when a student was telling a story, the others were taking notes on the story (so was I). I called on a young lady we'll call Mary.

Mary isn't quite shy, but doesn't want to be the center of attention. She refused to tell her story while "they're all looking at me!" So, I instructed the class to look at a sign on the opposite wall and listen while Mary told her story. The sign was the district's new motto. A student tried to read it out loud (a typical act from a 14 year old), and said, I'll spell it as she read it, eh - do - kah - tay. The sign read, "Educate Every One, Every Day." Hilarity, of course, ensued.

We get back to Mary's story. Again, everybody looked at the opposite wall. Mary said, in the quickened speech of a 14 year old girl, with a distinct Nogales accent, "On Thanksgiving day I went to Sonora and got laid."

What she meant was that she went to Sonora and came home late, after dinner had started.

One Girl

One of my favorite students of all time was absolutely crazy.

We'll call the girl Jan for this blog.

Jan was the most random person I have ever known. One day, during a test, she blurts out, "Mr, have I ever worn a yellow shirt?"

I had no idea...I had known her for a total of 3 months.
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A few days later, during a quiet moment in class, Jan blurts out, "Mr, can you get in trouble if you backpack smells like weed?"

Why Jan?

No, mine doesn't...just one time it did and I was wondering.

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Jan liked to steal make-up and clothes from the little shops around town, and especially from wal-mart.

She decided to steal a yellow shirt, to see what it was like to wear yellow. She got caught.
On the day of court she tells me she's turned over a new leaf, never going to steal again. It had been three entire days since stealing anything.

I mentioned that her clothes were rather girlish looking for once (she was rather emo usually). She said she wanted to dress nicely for court...these were the clothes she stole right before getting caught.

So, she was going to court for stealing while wearing stolen clothes.

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Another day this kid who was a bit of a punk was wearing a pink shirt and everybody was teasing him about it. Once I got everybody to stop and calm down, Jan leaned over and whispered LOUDLY, "Hey, Lonnie, can I borrow a tampon?"
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Another day in class, during a test again, Jan blurts out, "Hey Mr, you know...I can't think of a single person in my family that doesn't do drugs."

Poor kid. But as absolutely sweet as you can find anywhere. You'd be hard pressed to find someone with a better heart or lighter touch.

Which Gender?

A student had been absent for a few days. At the beginning of the lesson on her first day back she asked for her make-up work. Well, it was the beginning of the lesson in a room full of 32 OTHER students. I told her to ask me after class. She didn't.

Today she says, "Mr, you're not treating me fairly by not giving me my make-up work."
I reminded her that she didn't come to me after class or before class, when the time is appropriate for one-on-one discussions to ask for the work.

She said, "Don't put this on me. This is discrimination." She wasn't really mad, just trying to get me riled up...yanking my chain, so to speak.

She says, "Yeah, you're either racist or sexist."

I said, "Racist or sexist...huh. Sexist, against what gender?"

She got mad. It was awesome.

It's a Boy!

A female student is pregnant, and about a three months along.

She said to me during class, "Mr, my baby is going to be a boy."
I said, "Yeah, did you have a sonogram?"
"No, I can just feel it."

I said, "Really? What exactly can you feel?"

That tricky Alphabet

I'm in the copy room waiting in line. A student walks in, he's a 5th year senior and an office aid. His job is to place the mail in the mail boxes. The boxes are alphabetized.

He is putting mail in appropriate boxes. He's slow but steady, checking the name on the box with the letter. Eventually he stops, looking around for a while, searching for a name.

"What are you looking for?"
"Fluke," he said.
I pointed to the name. He thanked me and went back to his business.

I started to remember how many times I woke this kid up in geometry. I remembered how he'd lift his head, and his eyes would be as red as red could be. I went back further, to Algebra I. Same game. I went back further, summer school...same deal!

Soon, he got stuck again. He stood there, looking, looking, not finding.

"What are you looking for?"
"Falkner."
I pointed to the name. He thanked me and went back to his job.

About five minutes pass. I'm still waiting for the copy machine. The young man is sorting mail and he gets stuck, again.

"What are you looking for?"
"Fahrenz."

I pointed to the name.
"Thanks," he said, and went back to sorting. By this time, it was ritual.

I said, "Those damn F's, get you every time don't they?"

Foiled Again...by a hole in a chair.

A student today was in the mood for relaxing. However, you're not allowed to rest your feet on chairs in my class (think of the gum and stuff that's stepped in).

So, to be sly, he decided he'd slip his foot through the hole in the back of the chair, so he wouldn't have to turn it sideways and get caught.

It worked great...until it was time to sharpen his pencil. He couldn't get his foot out. It was stuck for a few moments, long enough that I asked if I should call the fire department.

About ten minutes later he decided to argue about 8 - 2 + 1 being 5, not 7. Some students began to agree with him...until I reminded them that he couldn't figure out how to extract his foot from a chair. What a, as we say in the business, "learning moment."

Is that for us?

Today I was erasing the board after one class left and before the next class arrived. A student from the next class walked in as I was erasing and asked, "What's was that on the board?"

I didn't answer, thinking of what I could say. She continued, asking, "What was it? Was it for us?"

I turned around and said, as nicely as I could, "If it was for you, why would I have erased it?"

She says, bright and happy, "Well, maybe you wanted to write it again."

That's true, you can't see.

Today I had to talk down to a class. They're under-performing, whining and not being very pleasant to be around. So, I laid into them a bit. Afterwords, it was a bit tense.

After the "talk" (which I rarely do), I began the lesson. In the lesson students had to use the quadratic formula. I wrote it on the board in the top left corner and said, "I'll go ahead and write it on the board so everybody can see it clearly."

The blind student said, "Everybody...?"

That really broke the tension. We had a good day from there forward. Best day yet actually. Hopefully it will last more than a few days.

A few weeks ago, in the same class, students were complaining that something on the board was blurry. So, I asked the blind kid if the board was blurry. He played along, without even knowing I winked at him and said, "not at all."

mmm, tastes inky.

The other day a freshman student, ready to burst into puberty any day now, could not find anything to write with.

Nobody knew, but the school gods were smiling on us all just then. The student though, he just though his luck was running high. He found a brand new ink-insert to a blue gel pen on the floor (you know, the part that goes inside the pen that you can remove if you take the pen apart...the part with the ink).

Using the pen-insert, he took notes, wrote, doodled, did whatever boys his age do. In between using the pen insert within the constructs of its intended purpose, he would place the pen-insert into his mouth and chew on it.

It exploded. It exploded in his mouth. It exploded in his mouth shooting that blue gel-ink down his throat.

He gagged. He threw up into his back pack. Then, he began clawing wildly at his tongue with his fingers. His teeth, tongue and fingers were all dark blue. He could've been auditioning for The Blue Man Group.

I watched as he ran out of the room trying not to touch anything. Then I stood in front of the class with my eyes closed for several minutes.

When he returned he told his story, though we were all there. He said it tasted terrible. His teeth were still blue. They were screaming blue. If David Lee Roth were a color, it'd be this blue. Gaudy and obnoxious.

I asked him, "What is your mother going to think..." He interrupted me and explained that he wouldn't tell her.

I continued, "What is your mother going to think WHEN SHE CLEANS THE TOILET and it's blue?"

Frustration and Love

Today is the end of the first quarter. I feel enormous pressure to give students passing grades. However, I am just the score-keeper. Still, it sometimes strikes me that the "job" of a teacher is to give students passing marks, not to help them learn and prepare them for the future.

Even so...yesterday, before the quarter final, a female student breaks down crying, ends up curled in a ball, on the floor, in the corner. I thought that maybe her mom died or something. She could hardly breathe she was so upset. Her friend is literally trying to pick her up.

I thought about sending her to the counselor, but that would be punishment. You never want to go there. I figured that if she could control herself and not disrupt people, that if she wanted to stay and take the test, that would be her decision.

She did control herself and took the test. Not only did she take it, of the 100-plus students that took that precalculus test, she earned the highest score!

The source of the tears...she had just been dumped in a text message by her boyfriend. Love is fickle.

Introducing...

Hello. I hope you'll follow this blog.

The purpose of this blog is to tell some of the stories that I experience as a high school teacher. This is not intended to be educational or informative, but humorous.

I will not disclose any names of students, or anything private or personal. The idea here is to record some of the many outrageous things that high school students do.

This is the record of what I witness.

Combative Tuesday

Today was the day to sleep in the bed you made over the past 9 weeks, for the students anyhow. Last chance, quarter exam. I've never noticed so much tension before, but then again, I'd never had so many students start the year so poorly. So, I've never had so many students so desperately need to do well on one particular test before. I know why they struggled early on, something beyond my influence or control, but still...

Most students showed up early, asking last-minute questions. Wow. Effort, concern and motivation! That's awesome.

But then...this particular student showed up late, again.

She sat down as I was showing the class their quarter grades. She had an F. She asked, "Mr, is there anything I can do?"

A few minutes later, she was texting. I took her phone.

Then, while others were working, she actively devised schemes in which she was the victim of circumstance... "I had a bad teacher, I've never been good at math, I have a headache, this is boring, I'm in love today, what's that shiny thing hanging from the ceiling?" ... get the idea?

Another twenty minutes pass, she's not started her work yet. Then she starts playing with her ipod. I tell her to put it away. She says, "But Mr, I can't listen to it?"

I tell her that if she wants a better grade she has to do some work.

She says, "But Mr, I'm trying my VERY best."

I said, "If this is your best then you don't have very much to offer."

She cried.

Huh.