23 February 2005
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SISTER MARY MARY!!
2.17.05
7th.
Jay: Ms. Backes, have you ever seen The Day After Tomorrow?
Me: Yes.
Jay: We're watching it in Mr. K's class!
Me: Oh, believe me, I know.
Jay: Do you think that could happen?
Me: An ice age in under a week? Um.... I really don't know.
Jay: Well, aren't you worried about it?
Me: No.
Jay: Why not?
Me: None of us ever really knows how much time we have on earth, so I think what's important is that we try to spend what time we do have well.
Jay: Well, do you believe in God?
Me: (vaguely) Well.... yes....
Jay: I do!
Me: That's good.
Jay: I believe that God is going to bring all his true believers to be with him in Heaven!
Me: Like, the rapture, you mean?
Jay: Yeah. And I'm pretty sure it's going to happen in the next three to five years, max.
Me: ...........hmm.
1st.
Dale: Can you swim underneath the continents?
Me: Add that one to your book.
TT: What book?
Me: Dale's going to write a book: "What if: Dale Treadwill's Many Questions."
TT: How long will it be?
Me: It will be like the Oxford English Dictionary, with tissue-thin paper.
Dale: And then Ms. Backes is going to write a book of answers. It will say, "No. No. No. No."
Quin: No, it will say, "Shut up, Dale!"
Me: Why don't we just combine our books, so in the bottom corner of every page of your book will be a picture of me, with a word bubble coming out of my mouth that says, "Shut up, Dale!"
Dale: Yeah! And when you flip through the pages, you'll be shaking your fist at me!
Dale: Where could I buy a camel?
Me: Um... the middle east? Or from a zoo.
Dale: How about Africa?
Me: I don't know, are there camels in Africa?
Jax: Yes. There are.
Me: Are you a camel expert?
Jax: No, but last year I did a report on Africa.
Dale: I was supposed to do a report on Romania. I thought it was Rome, so I did the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but as it turns out that's not in Romania.
2.16.05
7th period.
Carter: Oh, he's just mad because I accidentally called this girl he likes an android.
6th period.
Me: Sorry, I'm a little confused today. I didn't sleep much last night.
Kids: Why not?
Me: My friend Matt called from Antarctica and woke me up.
JC: Are you sure these aren't IMAGINARY friends? Because all your supposed "friends" live in weird places!
Phil: Yeah man, she has cool friends! She has an ex-boyfriend who's a rock star, some of her friends live in Africa...she even knows someone who was in a Pepsi commercial!
Kids: Oooooh!
Me: Yeah --
Phil: With a monkey!!
1st period.
Mr K: Brad, SIT DOWN!! I have to tell you to stop running around at least once a day!
Me: Maybe we should tie him to his chair.
Brad: (shrugging) I can get out of ropes.
2.15.05
6th period.
Aaron: Instead of reading us a poem today, can you sing to us?
Me: SING? You want me to SING to you?
Aaron: Yes.
Me: No you don't. Really.
Aaron: We do. We really want you to sing to us. We hear you have a great voice.
Me: What are you talking about? You've never even heard me sing before.
Aaron: You're a world-renowned singer!
Me: No I'm not!
Aaron: Well.... kind of. We know you!
2.14.05
2nd period.
Me: Does anyone else have questions about citations?
Dale: I do!
Me: Okay...
Dale: Do you have a boyfriend?
Me: ... ANYway...!
Andrew: He's a DUCK!
11 February 2005
The story of my week is a rather long saga. I shall attempt to put it in chronological order for you, but make no promises. Right now, I am feeling very grateful for all the good friends who have talked to me and/or emailed me this week. Funny how teaching stories pull us all together.
Here it goes:
(first:)
We have four hours of TRAINING before we can even give the next round of standardized tests in March. Already the kids have spent 12 total hours taking the NWEAs (in August and January) and now in March we have six days of testing, two hours each. Which means we're running 20 minute classes for two weeks.... sigh. Stupid fucking NCLB. And then in May we'll give them another 6 or so hours of more NWEAs, bringing the total testing hours per child up to THIRTY HOURS of testing. If you do the math, it takes me more than seven weeks of school (almost a full quarter) to get thirty hours with a child. So what does that say about our priority of instruction versus testing?
This week we have THREE HOURS of training for how to give an upcoming standardized test. You know, the one that determines whether or not the government gets to sell us to Starbucks.
I HATE NCLB.
(1)
Sigh. I suppose it was only a matter of time....
This morning the principal informed me that my students aren't "making enough growth" in reading, so it's time to stop teaching all that violence prevention/anger management/media literacy stuff and start teaching just plain reading and writing so the students can "be grown adequately" by May.
Awesome.
(2)
Confessions:
1. I don't **WANT** to teach people how to read. How to read critically, sure, but phonemic awareness and decoding? Not interesting.
2. I don't like teaching special ed.
3. I do like teaching the gifted kids.
4. Sometimes I like my gifted class better than my other classes.
5. I don't **WANT** to teach people grammar.
6. Maybe I shouldn't be teaching at such an illiterate school.
Stupid one conversation that can ruin your entire day. Stupid mid-year crisis, stupid self-doubt and life questioning. Aaaaarrrrrrghhh.
(3)
At lunch, the nice catholic deacon science teacher caught me and asked if I was having a bad day (apparently it showed), so I told him that sometimes I feel like I'm in the wrong place, that I'm the wrong teacher for a school full of kids who can't read. I don't know how to teach reading, and I don't want to. I feel like these kids deserve to have a teacher who not only knows how to teach reading, but also who feels passionately about it. But then there's a part of me that is yelling at myself, because this is exactly the kind of school that deserves to have passionate, driven, excited young teachers -- and exactly the kind of school that almost never gets them. My own catholic martyr DNA tells me to stay, to improve myself, to teach myself how to teach reading, so I can help these kids. The other part of me says run away, go teach high school, go somewhere you can teach writing and critical thinking and media literacy. The nice catholic deacon science teacher said "You have to find a school where you're happy, one that fits who you are and what you want to be doing. This isn't it. If I wasn't retiring in 57 days, I'd be leaving, too."
(4)
Here's the thing. Here's a few things.
Grinnell taught me a lot, but mostly what it taught me was that school is a place to teach kids to be thoughtful, critical, inquisitive, kind people. That's what I learned at Grinnell. It's my job to be this radical teacher who helps kids look at literature and look at society and understand all the ways in which we construct ourselves according to what our society says we should be. I learned that it's important to help kids find their own voices, to empower them in the system, to enlighten and enrich their lives this way.
I feel I've actually been successful, to a degree, in doing all this. I think my kids are better critical thinkers, better at questioning things and looking at more than one side of every story. I think they're a little bit kinder and a little bit more tolerant and a little better at expressing themselves in a productive way. Much of this is even in accord with the NM State standards, believe it or not.
However, none of this is easily quantifiable, and it doesn't show up on the NWEAs, and it doesn't show up on the CRTs, and it doesn't show up on the STAR reading tests. And so it's as if everything I've taught my students exists on another plane, in another dimension, because as far as the administration and the district and the state are concerned, I literally have taught my students nothing. Sure, they may be better thinkers and better at expressing themselves and even better writers, but if they still don't know what an antecedent is (and believe me, I've tried to teach that too) and they still can't code switch or whatever, for all intents and purposes they've learned nothing. I've taught them nothing. Which means I'm not a teacher -- at least in the eyes of the administration, the district, and the state.
Another thing Grinnell taught me was that tracking is pure evil, and we make gifted kids because we treat them like gifted kids and if we treated everyone like gifted kids they'd all act like gifted kids.
I have learned that this is actually not true at all. Even if I treat Braydon like a gifted kid, he still has a mother who's in prison for drug/prostitution and an alcoholic father who beats him. In a perfect world, if he had all of the lower levels of Maslow's darling little hierarchy taken care of, maybe he would be gifted when I treat him like he's gifted. But he doesn't, and he won't.
But I do have a class of gifted kids, gifted and enriched. Not surprisingly, these kids have great supportive families and good parents, for the most part. And they're doing really well, because I am an awesome teacher of the gifted kids, I honestly am. I am doing such a great job with this class, it makes me happy just thinking about it. I'm challenging them and pushing them and they're growing a lot and learning a lot and they're doing things they didn't think they could do and they are becoming really good writers and good thinkers.
However, because our school's and our society's perception of the gifted kids and the smart kids is that "they'll be fine no matter what," the work I'm doing with these kids is unseen, unrecognized, unvalued, because there's this perception that the smart kids will learn no matter who's teaching them, and they don't really need teachers who push them and challenge them at their own level. So again, in the eyes of my administration/district/state, I'm not a teacher.
And then, because my school/society/government puts the most emphasis on helping the lowest kids, I feel like I should be doing that as well. But I don't want to. I've always been told and I've always believed that they need the most help, but I don't want to help them. I don't want to teach reading. I don't want to teach kids whose parents smoked crack while they were in the womb and now they can't fucking sit still and cannot focus on anything for more than a few seconds at a time. I don't want to teach special ed, or BD kids, much less an entire class of them who can't read.
I have a surprisingly large guilt-complex about this.
(5)
Yesterday afternoon, as I was getting ready to leave school, I walked through the school from my room to the teacher's lounge. On my way, I kept seeing kids sweeping and mopping the floors. Finally, I stopped one of the 8th grade girls from my humanities block and asked her what was going on. "National Junior Honor Society is cleaning the school today, so the custodians could have a day off," she said.
I almost cried. That's the kind of thing that makes teaching worth it. These kids are just so great.
(6)
Mom: Well, maybe you should ask the administration for help.
Me: I asked for help a bunch of times and today the principal told me he'd train me to do the STAR reading test. What will that do? That will give me "more data" about their "grade level reading score" -- in other words, will tell me what I already know. My kids can't read.
Mom: Didn't you have a friend who was a reading specialist?
Me: No.
Mom: Yes you did.
Me: I had two friends. One is the librarian, the other was special ed.
Mom: Talk to her!
Me: She moved. She couldn't deal at this school anymore.
Mom: Well..... I guess you're just going to have to teach yourself how to teach reading, then. You owe it to the kids.
Me: I can't believe how hard this year has been for me.
Mom: Just think, though, how much you're learning, how much you've learned that you wouldn't have learned if you'd gone to an easy, comfortable school in Iowa.
Me: Why do I feel like every decision I make is another way to punish myself? When do I get to make the easy choice? When do I get to be in a place where I get to do what I'm good at doing and be successful? When do I get to stop punishing myself??
Mom: Those kids don't need you. These kids need you.
Me: Please stop telling me that. I tell myself that enough to keep me stuck in a miserable job for the rest of my life.
(7)
First period today, instead of sitting in the back of the classroom listening to my crazy team teacher's weekly take on current events, I went to the library and hung out with some of my students in NJHS, who were doing an assembly line production of Valentine's Day bouquets (they're making flowers out of hershey's kisses and cellophane; very cute). They worked and I sat with them, declaring myself the "Queen of the Discards," as I was sitting near the pile of roses that got messed up. The kids even gave me a sceptre. I figure, if nothing else, my students will leave 7th grade knowing that there's at least one grownup in their lives that thinks they're funny and cool.
(8)
Today after grading stupid vocab quizzes in class, I led my students through an excercise in how it feels when you're feeling dangerously impulsive, and whether or not it's good to follow those feelings. Then I had them all lie down on the floor of the classroom, turned off the lights, and led them through a guided visualization/meditation that I learned when I was 12, a relaxation exercise in which you are given a key word that will help trigger the feelings of relaxation, peace, and okayness you feel at the height of the meditation. It's almost like hypnosis. The word I got when I was 12 still works for me, though it has lost some of its power in the last 13 years.
At the end of each class, about half my students thanked me. Many of them asked if we could do this again.
During the meditation, I was so clear about how most of my kids almost never get time like this, time just to be relaxed and safe and okay. As I led them through the meditation, I kept saying, "You are perfectly safe and perfectly peaceful right now. You are perfectly okay right now." I thought about how many of them may never have gotten a message like this, ever, and about how this was a gift and possibly a tool for the future, about how maybe one day when they're facing yet another friend who wants to fight them or a parent who wants to yell, they might be able to tap into this moment and feel slightly safer, slightly more okay. I thought about how maybe this one quiet, dark moment on a Friday afternoon in seventh grade will stay long past the memories of their daily worries and dramas. Maybe this moment, the moment of a grownup telling them that they're okay, that they're doing okay and that they have permission to relax and be alone and be quiet for a while, maybe it will stay.
So much for my newfound (administration driven) resolution to teach to the test. Whoops!
Adventures in Middle School....
2.11.05
Rafa: If it's not perfect, why bother?
Andrew: He's going to be dictator.
Curtis: He's going to be dictator of Iraq!
Patty: They don't even have a dictator!
Me: It's never too late to start!
Curtis: Yeah, they can always go back.
Me: You should be the dictator of somewhere more obscure... like Idaho.
Bill: The dictator of Idaho! Ha ha!
Andrew: Yeah, and you would be called "The Potatanator."
Me: I'm the Queen of the Discards. Here's my sceptre.
Andrew: You don't need a sceptre, you have a seating chart!
Lizzil: You need a crown. A garbage can! We'll get you a garbage can and cut holes in it for your eyes.
Me: Okay. And tapshoes.
Patty: What?
Me: You can't be the queen if you don't have tapshoes.
Patty: That doesn't really make sense.
Me: Sure it does. What if I had to tapdance for my loyal subjects?
Lizzil: You're so weird!
Lizzil: Ms. Backes, will you buy these 10 raffle tickets from me for $10?
Me: No. Aylea already made me buy raffle tickets.
Lizzil: Fine! You're not my favorite teacher anymore!
Me: Oh no.
Andrew: A fate worse than death.
Me: Well... I mean, to be honest? The competition's not that stiff.
Lizzil: That's true. You're still my favorite teacher!
2.10.05
4th period.
Me: Are there any other questions about the quiz?
Kara: Yes.
Me: What?
Kara: You look just like the nanny from Supernanny 911!
Me: That's not a question.
Kara: Oh yeah.....
Me: Do you have a question?
Kara: Yeah!
Me: Okay.....?
Kara: Will you please say, "you've been very naughty!" in a British accent?
2nd period.
Marsha: We're getting a divorce!
Me: Who, you and Andrew?
Marsha: No! Our whole group of friends is divorcing Andrew! He's out!
Andrew: (pretending to look sad) They get custody of my notebook!
2.9.05
(GEOGRAPHY class)
Team teacher: Here are the main landforms you need to know: mountain, canyon, peninsula, island.
Me: What about isthmuses? You NEED to know what an isthmus is!
Class: ?
Me: Well, I'm biased, because the town I come from is on an isthmus.
Dale: What is it?
Me: (drawing on the board) It's like a land bridge. In Madison, where I'm from, the state capitol is in the very center. See, here's Lake Monona and here's Lake Mendota. You can walk across the isthmus in maybe 10 minutes. It's only like 6 blocks.
Dale: Do you ever fall off?
Me: What?
Dale: The bridge. Do you ever fall off it?
Me: It's a LAND bridge.
Dale: Um.... so do you ever fall off?
Me: No. Unless you trip and fall into the lake.
Jerrod: Of if someone pushes you!
Me: Exactly.
Jax: Question. What's a FA-JO-ERD?
Team Teacher: I don't know.
Me: (gasping audibly) What?
TT: Okay, Ms. Backes knows. What is it?
Me: It's pronounced "Fyord."
TT: Well, I've never heard of a Fa-Jord.
Jax: So what is a Fa-Jord?
Me: Fyord.
Jax: Whatever.
TT: Honestly, I've never heard of them. I have no idea!
It occurs to me that if people thought fjords were built by aliens, Mr. King would know all about them!
2.8.05
2nd period.
Lizzil: Ms. Backes, I did you the honor of including you in my picture!
Me: That's nice....
Lizzil: You're the devil!
Cole: You can't say that!
Lizzil: (patiently) No, see? She's the devil in my picture. Right there.
Me: Hmm... that does look like me.
Kiley: It's not an insult.
Me: No, I'm not insulted. Believe me, this is nothing new for me.
Lizzil: What?
Me: People have been telling me I'm the devil for years, really.
Kiley: You just have to decide whether you'll use your powers for good or evil.
Me: Evil.
Cole: Ms. Backes!
Me: What? I'm the devil. I can't use my powers for good!
Karma: What's another word for area?
Me: You mean aria? Like a song?
Karma: No, area. Like place. Location.
Me: There you go.
Karma: What? No! A different word!
Me: Thesaurus.
Karma: (writing) T-h-e-s.... hey! That doesn't mean area!
Me: No, look it up in the thesaurus!
Karma: No, just tell me!
Me: No.
Karma: Pleeeeeeeease?
Me: No, just look it up.
Dale: Ms. Backes, you're our thesaurus. Like there's Webster's... and you're Backes-sters!
Here it goes:
(first:)
We have four hours of TRAINING before we can even give the next round of standardized tests in March. Already the kids have spent 12 total hours taking the NWEAs (in August and January) and now in March we have six days of testing, two hours each. Which means we're running 20 minute classes for two weeks.... sigh. Stupid fucking NCLB. And then in May we'll give them another 6 or so hours of more NWEAs, bringing the total testing hours per child up to THIRTY HOURS of testing. If you do the math, it takes me more than seven weeks of school (almost a full quarter) to get thirty hours with a child. So what does that say about our priority of instruction versus testing?
This week we have THREE HOURS of training for how to give an upcoming standardized test. You know, the one that determines whether or not the government gets to sell us to Starbucks.
I HATE NCLB.
(1)
Sigh. I suppose it was only a matter of time....
This morning the principal informed me that my students aren't "making enough growth" in reading, so it's time to stop teaching all that violence prevention/anger management/media literacy stuff and start teaching just plain reading and writing so the students can "be grown adequately" by May.
Awesome.
(2)
Confessions:
1. I don't **WANT** to teach people how to read. How to read critically, sure, but phonemic awareness and decoding? Not interesting.
2. I don't like teaching special ed.
3. I do like teaching the gifted kids.
4. Sometimes I like my gifted class better than my other classes.
5. I don't **WANT** to teach people grammar.
6. Maybe I shouldn't be teaching at such an illiterate school.
Stupid one conversation that can ruin your entire day. Stupid mid-year crisis, stupid self-doubt and life questioning. Aaaaarrrrrrghhh.
(3)
At lunch, the nice catholic deacon science teacher caught me and asked if I was having a bad day (apparently it showed), so I told him that sometimes I feel like I'm in the wrong place, that I'm the wrong teacher for a school full of kids who can't read. I don't know how to teach reading, and I don't want to. I feel like these kids deserve to have a teacher who not only knows how to teach reading, but also who feels passionately about it. But then there's a part of me that is yelling at myself, because this is exactly the kind of school that deserves to have passionate, driven, excited young teachers -- and exactly the kind of school that almost never gets them. My own catholic martyr DNA tells me to stay, to improve myself, to teach myself how to teach reading, so I can help these kids. The other part of me says run away, go teach high school, go somewhere you can teach writing and critical thinking and media literacy. The nice catholic deacon science teacher said "You have to find a school where you're happy, one that fits who you are and what you want to be doing. This isn't it. If I wasn't retiring in 57 days, I'd be leaving, too."
(4)
Here's the thing. Here's a few things.
Grinnell taught me a lot, but mostly what it taught me was that school is a place to teach kids to be thoughtful, critical, inquisitive, kind people. That's what I learned at Grinnell. It's my job to be this radical teacher who helps kids look at literature and look at society and understand all the ways in which we construct ourselves according to what our society says we should be. I learned that it's important to help kids find their own voices, to empower them in the system, to enlighten and enrich their lives this way.
I feel I've actually been successful, to a degree, in doing all this. I think my kids are better critical thinkers, better at questioning things and looking at more than one side of every story. I think they're a little bit kinder and a little bit more tolerant and a little better at expressing themselves in a productive way. Much of this is even in accord with the NM State standards, believe it or not.
However, none of this is easily quantifiable, and it doesn't show up on the NWEAs, and it doesn't show up on the CRTs, and it doesn't show up on the STAR reading tests. And so it's as if everything I've taught my students exists on another plane, in another dimension, because as far as the administration and the district and the state are concerned, I literally have taught my students nothing. Sure, they may be better thinkers and better at expressing themselves and even better writers, but if they still don't know what an antecedent is (and believe me, I've tried to teach that too) and they still can't code switch or whatever, for all intents and purposes they've learned nothing. I've taught them nothing. Which means I'm not a teacher -- at least in the eyes of the administration, the district, and the state.
Another thing Grinnell taught me was that tracking is pure evil, and we make gifted kids because we treat them like gifted kids and if we treated everyone like gifted kids they'd all act like gifted kids.
I have learned that this is actually not true at all. Even if I treat Braydon like a gifted kid, he still has a mother who's in prison for drug/prostitution and an alcoholic father who beats him. In a perfect world, if he had all of the lower levels of Maslow's darling little hierarchy taken care of, maybe he would be gifted when I treat him like he's gifted. But he doesn't, and he won't.
But I do have a class of gifted kids, gifted and enriched. Not surprisingly, these kids have great supportive families and good parents, for the most part. And they're doing really well, because I am an awesome teacher of the gifted kids, I honestly am. I am doing such a great job with this class, it makes me happy just thinking about it. I'm challenging them and pushing them and they're growing a lot and learning a lot and they're doing things they didn't think they could do and they are becoming really good writers and good thinkers.
However, because our school's and our society's perception of the gifted kids and the smart kids is that "they'll be fine no matter what," the work I'm doing with these kids is unseen, unrecognized, unvalued, because there's this perception that the smart kids will learn no matter who's teaching them, and they don't really need teachers who push them and challenge them at their own level. So again, in the eyes of my administration/district/state, I'm not a teacher.
And then, because my school/society/government puts the most emphasis on helping the lowest kids, I feel like I should be doing that as well. But I don't want to. I've always been told and I've always believed that they need the most help, but I don't want to help them. I don't want to teach reading. I don't want to teach kids whose parents smoked crack while they were in the womb and now they can't fucking sit still and cannot focus on anything for more than a few seconds at a time. I don't want to teach special ed, or BD kids, much less an entire class of them who can't read.
I have a surprisingly large guilt-complex about this.
(5)
Yesterday afternoon, as I was getting ready to leave school, I walked through the school from my room to the teacher's lounge. On my way, I kept seeing kids sweeping and mopping the floors. Finally, I stopped one of the 8th grade girls from my humanities block and asked her what was going on. "National Junior Honor Society is cleaning the school today, so the custodians could have a day off," she said.
I almost cried. That's the kind of thing that makes teaching worth it. These kids are just so great.
(6)
Mom: Well, maybe you should ask the administration for help.
Me: I asked for help a bunch of times and today the principal told me he'd train me to do the STAR reading test. What will that do? That will give me "more data" about their "grade level reading score" -- in other words, will tell me what I already know. My kids can't read.
Mom: Didn't you have a friend who was a reading specialist?
Me: No.
Mom: Yes you did.
Me: I had two friends. One is the librarian, the other was special ed.
Mom: Talk to her!
Me: She moved. She couldn't deal at this school anymore.
Mom: Well..... I guess you're just going to have to teach yourself how to teach reading, then. You owe it to the kids.
Me: I can't believe how hard this year has been for me.
Mom: Just think, though, how much you're learning, how much you've learned that you wouldn't have learned if you'd gone to an easy, comfortable school in Iowa.
Me: Why do I feel like every decision I make is another way to punish myself? When do I get to make the easy choice? When do I get to be in a place where I get to do what I'm good at doing and be successful? When do I get to stop punishing myself??
Mom: Those kids don't need you. These kids need you.
Me: Please stop telling me that. I tell myself that enough to keep me stuck in a miserable job for the rest of my life.
(7)
First period today, instead of sitting in the back of the classroom listening to my crazy team teacher's weekly take on current events, I went to the library and hung out with some of my students in NJHS, who were doing an assembly line production of Valentine's Day bouquets (they're making flowers out of hershey's kisses and cellophane; very cute). They worked and I sat with them, declaring myself the "Queen of the Discards," as I was sitting near the pile of roses that got messed up. The kids even gave me a sceptre. I figure, if nothing else, my students will leave 7th grade knowing that there's at least one grownup in their lives that thinks they're funny and cool.
(8)
Today after grading stupid vocab quizzes in class, I led my students through an excercise in how it feels when you're feeling dangerously impulsive, and whether or not it's good to follow those feelings. Then I had them all lie down on the floor of the classroom, turned off the lights, and led them through a guided visualization/meditation that I learned when I was 12, a relaxation exercise in which you are given a key word that will help trigger the feelings of relaxation, peace, and okayness you feel at the height of the meditation. It's almost like hypnosis. The word I got when I was 12 still works for me, though it has lost some of its power in the last 13 years.
At the end of each class, about half my students thanked me. Many of them asked if we could do this again.
During the meditation, I was so clear about how most of my kids almost never get time like this, time just to be relaxed and safe and okay. As I led them through the meditation, I kept saying, "You are perfectly safe and perfectly peaceful right now. You are perfectly okay right now." I thought about how many of them may never have gotten a message like this, ever, and about how this was a gift and possibly a tool for the future, about how maybe one day when they're facing yet another friend who wants to fight them or a parent who wants to yell, they might be able to tap into this moment and feel slightly safer, slightly more okay. I thought about how maybe this one quiet, dark moment on a Friday afternoon in seventh grade will stay long past the memories of their daily worries and dramas. Maybe this moment, the moment of a grownup telling them that they're okay, that they're doing okay and that they have permission to relax and be alone and be quiet for a while, maybe it will stay.
So much for my newfound (administration driven) resolution to teach to the test. Whoops!
Adventures in Middle School....
2.11.05
Rafa: If it's not perfect, why bother?
Andrew: He's going to be dictator.
Curtis: He's going to be dictator of Iraq!
Patty: They don't even have a dictator!
Me: It's never too late to start!
Curtis: Yeah, they can always go back.
Me: You should be the dictator of somewhere more obscure... like Idaho.
Bill: The dictator of Idaho! Ha ha!
Andrew: Yeah, and you would be called "The Potatanator."
Me: I'm the Queen of the Discards. Here's my sceptre.
Andrew: You don't need a sceptre, you have a seating chart!
Lizzil: You need a crown. A garbage can! We'll get you a garbage can and cut holes in it for your eyes.
Me: Okay. And tapshoes.
Patty: What?
Me: You can't be the queen if you don't have tapshoes.
Patty: That doesn't really make sense.
Me: Sure it does. What if I had to tapdance for my loyal subjects?
Lizzil: You're so weird!
Lizzil: Ms. Backes, will you buy these 10 raffle tickets from me for $10?
Me: No. Aylea already made me buy raffle tickets.
Lizzil: Fine! You're not my favorite teacher anymore!
Me: Oh no.
Andrew: A fate worse than death.
Me: Well... I mean, to be honest? The competition's not that stiff.
Lizzil: That's true. You're still my favorite teacher!
2.10.05
4th period.
Me: Are there any other questions about the quiz?
Kara: Yes.
Me: What?
Kara: You look just like the nanny from Supernanny 911!
Me: That's not a question.
Kara: Oh yeah.....
Me: Do you have a question?
Kara: Yeah!
Me: Okay.....?
Kara: Will you please say, "you've been very naughty!" in a British accent?
2nd period.
Marsha: We're getting a divorce!
Me: Who, you and Andrew?
Marsha: No! Our whole group of friends is divorcing Andrew! He's out!
Andrew: (pretending to look sad) They get custody of my notebook!
2.9.05
(GEOGRAPHY class)
Team teacher: Here are the main landforms you need to know: mountain, canyon, peninsula, island.
Me: What about isthmuses? You NEED to know what an isthmus is!
Class: ?
Me: Well, I'm biased, because the town I come from is on an isthmus.
Dale: What is it?
Me: (drawing on the board) It's like a land bridge. In Madison, where I'm from, the state capitol is in the very center. See, here's Lake Monona and here's Lake Mendota. You can walk across the isthmus in maybe 10 minutes. It's only like 6 blocks.
Dale: Do you ever fall off?
Me: What?
Dale: The bridge. Do you ever fall off it?
Me: It's a LAND bridge.
Dale: Um.... so do you ever fall off?
Me: No. Unless you trip and fall into the lake.
Jerrod: Of if someone pushes you!
Me: Exactly.
Jax: Question. What's a FA-JO-ERD?
Team Teacher: I don't know.
Me: (gasping audibly) What?
TT: Okay, Ms. Backes knows. What is it?
Me: It's pronounced "Fyord."
TT: Well, I've never heard of a Fa-Jord.
Jax: So what is a Fa-Jord?
Me: Fyord.
Jax: Whatever.
TT: Honestly, I've never heard of them. I have no idea!
It occurs to me that if people thought fjords were built by aliens, Mr. King would know all about them!
2.8.05
2nd period.
Lizzil: Ms. Backes, I did you the honor of including you in my picture!
Me: That's nice....
Lizzil: You're the devil!
Cole: You can't say that!
Lizzil: (patiently) No, see? She's the devil in my picture. Right there.
Me: Hmm... that does look like me.
Kiley: It's not an insult.
Me: No, I'm not insulted. Believe me, this is nothing new for me.
Lizzil: What?
Me: People have been telling me I'm the devil for years, really.
Kiley: You just have to decide whether you'll use your powers for good or evil.
Me: Evil.
Cole: Ms. Backes!
Me: What? I'm the devil. I can't use my powers for good!
Karma: What's another word for area?
Me: You mean aria? Like a song?
Karma: No, area. Like place. Location.
Me: There you go.
Karma: What? No! A different word!
Me: Thesaurus.
Karma: (writing) T-h-e-s.... hey! That doesn't mean area!
Me: No, look it up in the thesaurus!
Karma: No, just tell me!
Me: No.
Karma: Pleeeeeeeease?
Me: No, just look it up.
Dale: Ms. Backes, you're our thesaurus. Like there's Webster's... and you're Backes-sters!
25 January 2005
Tuesday:
Finding a black-free outfit was almost embarassingly difficult. And now I look like I should be in an old navy catalogue, not at the front of the room sharpening my claws. In my mind, it's not an improvement.
Sixth period, the kids actually noticed and got all excited that I was only wearing browns, blues, and whites -- no black. Until one of them pointed out that the Talking Talons lanyard I keep my keys on has black on it. I ripped it off my belt and flung it across the room, which sent the entire class into hysterics. It was a good moment.
*
I don't know if I can handle team-teaching world geography, when even my team-teacher is almost offensively misinformed about so many things. For example: "You can't do ANYTHING in China! Even chewing gum is illegal there -- and you're guilty until proven innocent! Almost everything about China is backward." (While I'm speechless and clutching my heart in the back of the room, shocked. Speechless.)
And the kids are WAY worse. Am I going to feel like I'm having a heart attack every single morning for the rest of the year? Or will I eventually get over being personally injured by their staggering levels of cheerful ignorance and racism?
Luckily, I heard from another Grinnell alum who's dating one of TT's former students. She said, " I read my boyfriend the part of your plan about team-teaching geography and he started laughing so hard he almost cried, saying 'Yep, that sounds EXACTLY like Mr. K!'"
The boyfriend is okay, which gives me hope that TT's month-long unit entitled (and I may be paraphrasing slightly here) "I've been OBSESSED with aliens, specifically at Roswell, since I was a little kid, and now I'm going to do my damndest to convince you kids that ALIENS DID LAND IN ROSWELL IN 1947 before the month is over!" won't permanently scar too many of my students.
*
Monday:
Me: I'm excited because the crazy-old-teacher-next-door and I are switching classes tomorrow!
Cam: Hmm.
Me: I hope he breaks their spirits!
Cam: You are a great teacher. There should be more teachers like you.
Me: Why is it that whenever I talk to you, I end up sounding so terrible? Like, oh I hope he crushes them, I hope they suffer!
Cam: I just bring out the best in you.
Me: Good thing I didn't stay in Iowa!
Cam: You would have been burning down schools by now.
Me: (laughing helplessly)
Cam: That's a nice cackle!
Me: My 6th period class has challenged me to not wear any black tomorrow. They say I wear black too much.
Cam: Maybe you should stop answering directly to Satan.
Me: Whoa! Baby steps, Cam, baby steps!
*
Sunday:
Lisa: (coming up behind me in the binders aisle of an office-supply store) Molly? ... Molly? ... Hey, Molly!
Me: What? Oh! I didn't see you!
Lisa: What movie is your head playing now?
Me: I feel like a bride planning her wedding!
Lisa: WHAT?
Me: Seriously. For me, thinking about binders is like thinking about marriage for other women. I dream of a magical future where all my problems are solved, and I have a whole bookshelf of binders, all neatly labeled, and in each one is the rough draft of a book **I've** written.
Lisa: That's weird.
Me: (dreamily) One day I'll have an office, just for me. And it will have bookshelves full of binders.....
Lisa: Well, when you get married, I'll give you a wedding binder, so you can have the best of both worlds.
Me: Who needs to get married when there's binders!
*
7th period.
Andy: His story is that he went to this laser tag place but this kid kept chasing him and so he hit him on the head with his gun!
Me: (teasing) You HIT a LITTLE KID? Jack!
Jack: (reasonably, with a shrug) It wasn't my fault. He kept kicking me repeatedly in the 'nads.
6th period.
New Girl: Ms. Backes, do you want a cookie?
Me: Um.... is it poisoned?
New Girl: No.
Me: Okay, thanks.
Angelique: She's only known you, like, a week! Why would she posion you?
Me: (knowingly) Oh.... what you're saying is that she'll want to poison me when she's known me a while.
Angelique: Right! I mean, no!
5th period.
Phillip: One embarassing story is that Brian pantsed me!
Brian: I went blind for ten seconds!!
Phillip: You looked at my butt!
Brian: It blinded me!
2nd period.
Me: ...so your assignment for the weekend is to come up with a thesis, based on the research you've already done, the quotes you've found, the aspects of this topic that interest you, and the arguments you think you can support with the evidence you have.
Dale: How long does it have to be?
Me: It's a thesis, just a thesis statement.
Class: ...
Dale: So.... uh....?
Me: Like a sentence or two.
Dale: Great! I'll do it in advisory on Monday!
Me: Hold up. Let me make something perfectly clear: this is the organizing element of a paper you'll be working on for a while. You need to put some thought into it.
Lizzil: Yeah... but still, it's only a sentence.
Me: Let me restate -- if it sucks, I'll make you re-do it.
Class: (whisper whisper)
Jax: Can you SAY that?
Me: I just did. Thus, I can say it.
Jax: I mean -- you just said sucks!!
Finding a black-free outfit was almost embarassingly difficult. And now I look like I should be in an old navy catalogue, not at the front of the room sharpening my claws. In my mind, it's not an improvement.
Sixth period, the kids actually noticed and got all excited that I was only wearing browns, blues, and whites -- no black. Until one of them pointed out that the Talking Talons lanyard I keep my keys on has black on it. I ripped it off my belt and flung it across the room, which sent the entire class into hysterics. It was a good moment.
*
I don't know if I can handle team-teaching world geography, when even my team-teacher is almost offensively misinformed about so many things. For example: "You can't do ANYTHING in China! Even chewing gum is illegal there -- and you're guilty until proven innocent! Almost everything about China is backward." (While I'm speechless and clutching my heart in the back of the room, shocked. Speechless.)
And the kids are WAY worse. Am I going to feel like I'm having a heart attack every single morning for the rest of the year? Or will I eventually get over being personally injured by their staggering levels of cheerful ignorance and racism?
Luckily, I heard from another Grinnell alum who's dating one of TT's former students. She said, " I read my boyfriend the part of your plan about team-teaching geography and he started laughing so hard he almost cried, saying 'Yep, that sounds EXACTLY like Mr. K!'"
The boyfriend is okay, which gives me hope that TT's month-long unit entitled (and I may be paraphrasing slightly here) "I've been OBSESSED with aliens, specifically at Roswell, since I was a little kid, and now I'm going to do my damndest to convince you kids that ALIENS DID LAND IN ROSWELL IN 1947 before the month is over!" won't permanently scar too many of my students.
*
Monday:
Me: I'm excited because the crazy-old-teacher-next-door and I are switching classes tomorrow!
Cam: Hmm.
Me: I hope he breaks their spirits!
Cam: You are a great teacher. There should be more teachers like you.
Me: Why is it that whenever I talk to you, I end up sounding so terrible? Like, oh I hope he crushes them, I hope they suffer!
Cam: I just bring out the best in you.
Me: Good thing I didn't stay in Iowa!
Cam: You would have been burning down schools by now.
Me: (laughing helplessly)
Cam: That's a nice cackle!
Me: My 6th period class has challenged me to not wear any black tomorrow. They say I wear black too much.
Cam: Maybe you should stop answering directly to Satan.
Me: Whoa! Baby steps, Cam, baby steps!
*
Sunday:
Lisa: (coming up behind me in the binders aisle of an office-supply store) Molly? ... Molly? ... Hey, Molly!
Me: What? Oh! I didn't see you!
Lisa: What movie is your head playing now?
Me: I feel like a bride planning her wedding!
Lisa: WHAT?
Me: Seriously. For me, thinking about binders is like thinking about marriage for other women. I dream of a magical future where all my problems are solved, and I have a whole bookshelf of binders, all neatly labeled, and in each one is the rough draft of a book **I've** written.
Lisa: That's weird.
Me: (dreamily) One day I'll have an office, just for me. And it will have bookshelves full of binders.....
Lisa: Well, when you get married, I'll give you a wedding binder, so you can have the best of both worlds.
Me: Who needs to get married when there's binders!
*
7th period.
Andy: His story is that he went to this laser tag place but this kid kept chasing him and so he hit him on the head with his gun!
Me: (teasing) You HIT a LITTLE KID? Jack!
Jack: (reasonably, with a shrug) It wasn't my fault. He kept kicking me repeatedly in the 'nads.
6th period.
New Girl: Ms. Backes, do you want a cookie?
Me: Um.... is it poisoned?
New Girl: No.
Me: Okay, thanks.
Angelique: She's only known you, like, a week! Why would she posion you?
Me: (knowingly) Oh.... what you're saying is that she'll want to poison me when she's known me a while.
Angelique: Right! I mean, no!
5th period.
Phillip: One embarassing story is that Brian pantsed me!
Brian: I went blind for ten seconds!!
Phillip: You looked at my butt!
Brian: It blinded me!
2nd period.
Me: ...so your assignment for the weekend is to come up with a thesis, based on the research you've already done, the quotes you've found, the aspects of this topic that interest you, and the arguments you think you can support with the evidence you have.
Dale: How long does it have to be?
Me: It's a thesis, just a thesis statement.
Class: ...
Dale: So.... uh....?
Me: Like a sentence or two.
Dale: Great! I'll do it in advisory on Monday!
Me: Hold up. Let me make something perfectly clear: this is the organizing element of a paper you'll be working on for a while. You need to put some thought into it.
Lizzil: Yeah... but still, it's only a sentence.
Me: Let me restate -- if it sucks, I'll make you re-do it.
Class: (whisper whisper)
Jax: Can you SAY that?
Me: I just did. Thus, I can say it.
Jax: I mean -- you just said sucks!!
20 January 2005
Okay, stop. Just for a moment. Ponder this question:
** When you're writing a paper, how do you know which parts of a source to quote and which parts to paraphrase? **
I'm trying to teach my gifted class to write a paper. Today was our last day in the library, at the end of which I collected their notes (2 pgs), their quotations (1 pg), and their references (3, at least one non-internet).
The most common thing I heard today was:
"Ms. Backes, I can't find any quotes."
Um, what?
Or, "Ms. Backes, can I quote this?" (pointing to a passage that says something like, "So-and-so was born in New York on May 6, 1890.")
I tried several times to explain how you pick good quotations, but it felt a lot like trying to teach someone how to drive stick-shift. I mean, you just know when to shift, right?
...luckily the world of Plans with all its wonderful friends and alumns was there for me, and helped me to clarify my thoughts. I'd share the brilliant handout I finally prepared for my class, but my email's down, so you'll just have to imagine its greatness.
*
I learned yesterday that this is the last year of gifted blocks, which means that IF I get to teach any gifted classes next year (not a sure thing, apparently), they'll be seventh grade only, and not tied to any history classes. This has its benefits and drawbacks, of course, but the balance in my head is sad. I had this dream of putting together my fantasy enriched class -- a scholastic dream team, if you will -- comprised of some of my sharpest seventh graders. Next year I won't have any 8th graders, apparently, and that makes me sad. Sometimes I feel that my 8th graders are the only ones keeping me sane.
...maybe I should ask to bump up to 8th grade. Then I could fail all the kids I don't want to deal with next year and take all the fun kids from this year. Why yes.... (insert evil Mr. Burns noise here)
*
In an email from my mother today:
"If the temperature doesn't start climbing above zero and if the sun doesn't make an appearance soon, Sylvia Plath will be reenacted in our kitchen..."
Mm hmm. At least I come by it honestly.
Adventures in Middle School
1.20.05
(variations on a theme)
Jules: (playing with a yo-yo) ....and I can walk the dog.... around the world....
Others: Ooooooooh!
Me: Wow, Jules, that's impressive.
Mr. King: That used to be really popular, yo-yoing.
Me: Yeah, back in the old days.
Jules: Yeah, like fourth grade!
Me: Oh! I was thinking the old days like the sixties!
Dale: Do you like my graph?
Me: Does it have a title?
Dale: Um.....
Me: Otherwise I have no frame of reference for what you're graphing.
Dale: Well, each bar is a subject...
Me: Yes, I see that. Subject 1, subject 2.... but what were you testing?
Dale: Um.... Here's hot, and here's cold.
Me: What. Were. You. Testing.
Dale: I forgot. I had a title, but I couldn't get it on the graph.
Me: Why don't you print one out and cut & paste it onto your graph.
Dale: (utterly perplexed) What?
Me: What.
Dale: How can I cut & paste AFTER I printed the title out?
Me: Okay. First you take a scissors. You CUT around the title that you printed out. Then you get some rubber cement or tape, and PASTE the title onto the paper.
Dale: (astonished) WOW, that's a great idea!
Me: See, cut and paste. That's where the phrase comes from. In the old days we actually had to use scissors and glue.
Dale: That was a long time ago, huh.
Me: NO!
Me: Okay, Feather, I brought you some of Natalie Goldberg's books, but you have to be careful because they're my own books, not the library's.
Feather: (opening the copy of Writing Down the Bones and reading) Molly Backes. Madison. Fall 1995. Is that you?
Me: Yes.
Feather: Why does it say "Fall 1995"?
Me: That's when I bought it.
Feather: You bought this book in 1995? That's like, SO LONG AGO! I was only.... three years old then!
*
Why it's never okay to listen to old KDIC tapes in my classroom (when students are around, at least):
(End Phil Ochs, "Pleasures of the Harbor")
Me: Yeah....
Kevin: Yeah, you probably should have had a six-pack....
Me: I'm going to have to have, like, a retroactive pitcher. Like.... tonight.
Kevin: Well, that's what the pub is for.
Me: Actually, right now. You know, do you just want to take over for the next forty-five minutes?
Kevin: Yeah --
Me: Maybe I'll just go --
Kevin: Yeah, you know, Bunny's is open...
Me: Rabbitt's....
Kevin: Rabbitt's.....
Me: (laughing)
(Cue Elliott Smith, "Between the Bars")
1.19.05
7th period.
Me: Did I tell you guys the parable of Point-of-View yesterday?
Class: No! Tell us!
Me: Okay. Well, when I was a freshman in college, I lived in a room maybe one third this size.
Ivy: Like, the bedroom was?
Me: Oh, no. It wasn't a fancy dorm like you see on TV. It was one room for our beds, dressers, desks, bookshelves....
Class: Oh my god! That's so small!
Me: Anyway... I lived in this tiny room with a roommate, who is now my best friend. But back then we didn't know one another. We were put together alphabetically. Her last name is Brown.
Jay: What's your last name?
Me: Backes.
Class: OBVIOUSLY!
Jay: Oh yeah! I, uh... forgot for a moment.
2nd period.
Jax: Ms. Backes, this is hard and I don't want to do this and does it really have to be due tomorrow?
Me: Jax? Shut up. You're smart and you can do it. Get to work.
Kristine: How come the word "Jax" is always followed by "shut up"?
1.18.05
7th period.
Me: Can we start complete sentences with the word 'because'?
Class: NO!
Me: Until when?
Class: College!
Me: Good. Get to work.
Jay: Can we start complete sentences with 'Well, because'?
Me: No.
Jay: I'm looking for loopholes here.
Me: That's not one.
Jay: Can we start a sentence with, 'I think so-and-so BECAUSE....'
Me: Yes.
Jay: Is that a loophole?
Me: Um... yes.
Jay: Awesome! I LOVE loopholes!!
5th period.
Tauscha: (running in) Ms. Backes Ms. Backes!
Me: Hey, Tash, what's up?
Tauscha: We took those tests today, you know? The reading ones?
Me: The NWEAs? Okay.
Tauscha: I scored on the EIGHTH GRADE LEVEL!
Me: Wow, Tash, that's great!
Tauscha: Guess why! Because I thought of you, the whole time! I tried to remember every single thing you told us all year, and that's how I got so good!
Me: Well.... I'm speechless, Tauscha! I'm so proud of you.
Tauscha: It's all thanks to you, Ms. Backes!
*
My gifted students are having a hard time distinguishing between "notes" and "quotations" for a paper they're writing about artists and writers in New Mexico.
So today I made samples of a page of notes, a page of quotes, and a page of references. To do so, I made up a bunch of imaginary research on Alison Brown, quoting references like "Influential Intersections," by Holly Peterson in the October 2004 issue of The Langan Leader, ed. Sally Conforti; and "Somewhere Between New York and Heaven: The Early Influences of Alison Brown," by Lucy Furr, in The Journal of Awesome People, Vol. 27, Issue 3, Feb 04, pgs 42-48......
With quotations like, "Taken from [Robert] Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, her answer to questions too small in scope was, inevitably, mu." (Peterson, 86)
Nothing like a bunch of weird inside jokes to make my day happy.
*
1.14.05
1st period.
TT: Mad cow disease has been spreading through Canada. Let's just hope it doesn't make it down to the US.
Dale: Why not?
TT: It would be terrible for the beef industry, not to mention the fact that people can get it.
Dale: (horrified) WHAT?
Karma: DUH, Dale.
TT: Does anyone remember what it's called when people catch it?
Jerrod: Mad people disease!
Me: I had that once......
Dale: Really? What happened?
Me: Grrrrr!
Dale: Aaaaaahh! Ms. Backes is a mad people!
1.12.05
7th period.
Darlene: Ms. Backes, may I ask the class a question?
Me: No.
Darlene: Please? It doesn't have any cuss words.
Me: No.
Darlene: Please? It's not bad.
Me: No.
Darlene: Okay. Who is the most considerate person you know?
Entire Class: NOT YOU!
6th period.
Ron: Ms. Backes, did you know that police officers have, like, the highest suicide rate?
Ray: Yeah, and then doctors!
Angelique: Yeah, because the pressure's so high.
Me: Well, I wouldn't be surprised. They're stressful jobs.
Cass: (slyly) Yeah... and third is dentists!
2nd period.
Emmy: Ms. Backes, who painted the Mona Lisa?
Me: Da Vinci. Why.
Emmy: See! I told you! Karma thought it was Edison.
Karma: Because he was gay.
Me: What? He wasn't gay. He invented the telephone.
Jill: I thought he invented the lightbulb.
Me: Whatever. He definitely didn't paint the Mona Lisa.
Karma: I thought Benjamin Franklin invented the telephone.
Me: No, Alexander Graham Bell did.
Jill: You just said Edison did.
Me: (patiently) No, Edison invented the lightbulb.
Jill: WHAT. You're contradicting yourself!
Me: All I'm saying is that Edison wasn't gay.
Karma: Yes he was!
Emmy: No, Da Vinci was.
Jill: Aaagh! This conversation makes no sense!
3rd period. Mr. Laney & I are walking down the hallway together.
Mr. Laney: ...and I have to bribe kids to learn grammar.
Me: Bribe, hmm? That's smart....
Mr. Laney: (to kid in hallway) Where's your pass?
Kid in hallway: Uh... in my pocket.
Mr. Laney: Let me see it.
Kid: (slowly backing away) Uh.....
Mr. Laney: Where are you supposed to be right now?
Kid: I don't know.
Me: Are you lost?
Kid: No, I have to go to the bathroom.
Mr. Laney: You need a pass.
Kid: It's in my pocket.
Mr. Laney: Really?
Kid: Uh.....
Mr. Laney: I'm gonna kick your ass, little brown kid!
** When you're writing a paper, how do you know which parts of a source to quote and which parts to paraphrase? **
I'm trying to teach my gifted class to write a paper. Today was our last day in the library, at the end of which I collected their notes (2 pgs), their quotations (1 pg), and their references (3, at least one non-internet).
The most common thing I heard today was:
"Ms. Backes, I can't find any quotes."
Um, what?
Or, "Ms. Backes, can I quote this?" (pointing to a passage that says something like, "So-and-so was born in New York on May 6, 1890.")
I tried several times to explain how you pick good quotations, but it felt a lot like trying to teach someone how to drive stick-shift. I mean, you just know when to shift, right?
...luckily the world of Plans with all its wonderful friends and alumns was there for me, and helped me to clarify my thoughts. I'd share the brilliant handout I finally prepared for my class, but my email's down, so you'll just have to imagine its greatness.
*
I learned yesterday that this is the last year of gifted blocks, which means that IF I get to teach any gifted classes next year (not a sure thing, apparently), they'll be seventh grade only, and not tied to any history classes. This has its benefits and drawbacks, of course, but the balance in my head is sad. I had this dream of putting together my fantasy enriched class -- a scholastic dream team, if you will -- comprised of some of my sharpest seventh graders. Next year I won't have any 8th graders, apparently, and that makes me sad. Sometimes I feel that my 8th graders are the only ones keeping me sane.
...maybe I should ask to bump up to 8th grade. Then I could fail all the kids I don't want to deal with next year and take all the fun kids from this year. Why yes.... (insert evil Mr. Burns noise here)
*
In an email from my mother today:
"If the temperature doesn't start climbing above zero and if the sun doesn't make an appearance soon, Sylvia Plath will be reenacted in our kitchen..."
Mm hmm. At least I come by it honestly.
Adventures in Middle School
1.20.05
(variations on a theme)
Jules: (playing with a yo-yo) ....and I can walk the dog.... around the world....
Others: Ooooooooh!
Me: Wow, Jules, that's impressive.
Mr. King: That used to be really popular, yo-yoing.
Me: Yeah, back in the old days.
Jules: Yeah, like fourth grade!
Me: Oh! I was thinking the old days like the sixties!
Dale: Do you like my graph?
Me: Does it have a title?
Dale: Um.....
Me: Otherwise I have no frame of reference for what you're graphing.
Dale: Well, each bar is a subject...
Me: Yes, I see that. Subject 1, subject 2.... but what were you testing?
Dale: Um.... Here's hot, and here's cold.
Me: What. Were. You. Testing.
Dale: I forgot. I had a title, but I couldn't get it on the graph.
Me: Why don't you print one out and cut & paste it onto your graph.
Dale: (utterly perplexed) What?
Me: What.
Dale: How can I cut & paste AFTER I printed the title out?
Me: Okay. First you take a scissors. You CUT around the title that you printed out. Then you get some rubber cement or tape, and PASTE the title onto the paper.
Dale: (astonished) WOW, that's a great idea!
Me: See, cut and paste. That's where the phrase comes from. In the old days we actually had to use scissors and glue.
Dale: That was a long time ago, huh.
Me: NO!
Me: Okay, Feather, I brought you some of Natalie Goldberg's books, but you have to be careful because they're my own books, not the library's.
Feather: (opening the copy of Writing Down the Bones and reading) Molly Backes. Madison. Fall 1995. Is that you?
Me: Yes.
Feather: Why does it say "Fall 1995"?
Me: That's when I bought it.
Feather: You bought this book in 1995? That's like, SO LONG AGO! I was only.... three years old then!
*
Why it's never okay to listen to old KDIC tapes in my classroom (when students are around, at least):
(End Phil Ochs, "Pleasures of the Harbor")
Me: Yeah....
Kevin: Yeah, you probably should have had a six-pack....
Me: I'm going to have to have, like, a retroactive pitcher. Like.... tonight.
Kevin: Well, that's what the pub is for.
Me: Actually, right now. You know, do you just want to take over for the next forty-five minutes?
Kevin: Yeah --
Me: Maybe I'll just go --
Kevin: Yeah, you know, Bunny's is open...
Me: Rabbitt's....
Kevin: Rabbitt's.....
Me: (laughing)
(Cue Elliott Smith, "Between the Bars")
1.19.05
7th period.
Me: Did I tell you guys the parable of Point-of-View yesterday?
Class: No! Tell us!
Me: Okay. Well, when I was a freshman in college, I lived in a room maybe one third this size.
Ivy: Like, the bedroom was?
Me: Oh, no. It wasn't a fancy dorm like you see on TV. It was one room for our beds, dressers, desks, bookshelves....
Class: Oh my god! That's so small!
Me: Anyway... I lived in this tiny room with a roommate, who is now my best friend. But back then we didn't know one another. We were put together alphabetically. Her last name is Brown.
Jay: What's your last name?
Me: Backes.
Class: OBVIOUSLY!
Jay: Oh yeah! I, uh... forgot for a moment.
2nd period.
Jax: Ms. Backes, this is hard and I don't want to do this and does it really have to be due tomorrow?
Me: Jax? Shut up. You're smart and you can do it. Get to work.
Kristine: How come the word "Jax" is always followed by "shut up"?
1.18.05
7th period.
Me: Can we start complete sentences with the word 'because'?
Class: NO!
Me: Until when?
Class: College!
Me: Good. Get to work.
Jay: Can we start complete sentences with 'Well, because'?
Me: No.
Jay: I'm looking for loopholes here.
Me: That's not one.
Jay: Can we start a sentence with, 'I think so-and-so BECAUSE....'
Me: Yes.
Jay: Is that a loophole?
Me: Um... yes.
Jay: Awesome! I LOVE loopholes!!
5th period.
Tauscha: (running in) Ms. Backes Ms. Backes!
Me: Hey, Tash, what's up?
Tauscha: We took those tests today, you know? The reading ones?
Me: The NWEAs? Okay.
Tauscha: I scored on the EIGHTH GRADE LEVEL!
Me: Wow, Tash, that's great!
Tauscha: Guess why! Because I thought of you, the whole time! I tried to remember every single thing you told us all year, and that's how I got so good!
Me: Well.... I'm speechless, Tauscha! I'm so proud of you.
Tauscha: It's all thanks to you, Ms. Backes!
*
My gifted students are having a hard time distinguishing between "notes" and "quotations" for a paper they're writing about artists and writers in New Mexico.
So today I made samples of a page of notes, a page of quotes, and a page of references. To do so, I made up a bunch of imaginary research on Alison Brown, quoting references like "Influential Intersections," by Holly Peterson in the October 2004 issue of The Langan Leader, ed. Sally Conforti; and "Somewhere Between New York and Heaven: The Early Influences of Alison Brown," by Lucy Furr, in The Journal of Awesome People, Vol. 27, Issue 3, Feb 04, pgs 42-48......
With quotations like, "Taken from [Robert] Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, her answer to questions too small in scope was, inevitably, mu." (Peterson, 86)
Nothing like a bunch of weird inside jokes to make my day happy.
*
1.14.05
1st period.
TT: Mad cow disease has been spreading through Canada. Let's just hope it doesn't make it down to the US.
Dale: Why not?
TT: It would be terrible for the beef industry, not to mention the fact that people can get it.
Dale: (horrified) WHAT?
Karma: DUH, Dale.
TT: Does anyone remember what it's called when people catch it?
Jerrod: Mad people disease!
Me: I had that once......
Dale: Really? What happened?
Me: Grrrrr!
Dale: Aaaaaahh! Ms. Backes is a mad people!
1.12.05
7th period.
Darlene: Ms. Backes, may I ask the class a question?
Me: No.
Darlene: Please? It doesn't have any cuss words.
Me: No.
Darlene: Please? It's not bad.
Me: No.
Darlene: Okay. Who is the most considerate person you know?
Entire Class: NOT YOU!
6th period.
Ron: Ms. Backes, did you know that police officers have, like, the highest suicide rate?
Ray: Yeah, and then doctors!
Angelique: Yeah, because the pressure's so high.
Me: Well, I wouldn't be surprised. They're stressful jobs.
Cass: (slyly) Yeah... and third is dentists!
2nd period.
Emmy: Ms. Backes, who painted the Mona Lisa?
Me: Da Vinci. Why.
Emmy: See! I told you! Karma thought it was Edison.
Karma: Because he was gay.
Me: What? He wasn't gay. He invented the telephone.
Jill: I thought he invented the lightbulb.
Me: Whatever. He definitely didn't paint the Mona Lisa.
Karma: I thought Benjamin Franklin invented the telephone.
Me: No, Alexander Graham Bell did.
Jill: You just said Edison did.
Me: (patiently) No, Edison invented the lightbulb.
Jill: WHAT. You're contradicting yourself!
Me: All I'm saying is that Edison wasn't gay.
Karma: Yes he was!
Emmy: No, Da Vinci was.
Jill: Aaagh! This conversation makes no sense!
3rd period. Mr. Laney & I are walking down the hallway together.
Mr. Laney: ...and I have to bribe kids to learn grammar.
Me: Bribe, hmm? That's smart....
Mr. Laney: (to kid in hallway) Where's your pass?
Kid in hallway: Uh... in my pocket.
Mr. Laney: Let me see it.
Kid: (slowly backing away) Uh.....
Mr. Laney: Where are you supposed to be right now?
Kid: I don't know.
Me: Are you lost?
Kid: No, I have to go to the bathroom.
Mr. Laney: You need a pass.
Kid: It's in my pocket.
Mr. Laney: Really?
Kid: Uh.....
Mr. Laney: I'm gonna kick your ass, little brown kid!
12 January 2005
A little something for Katie's kids:
(ca. 1999, driving back to Grinnell with my father)
Him: ...blah blah blah blah meth meth blah.......
Me: BO-ring!
Him: I'm serious.
Me: You're on crack is what you are.
Him: Crack? You mean like crack cocaine? Do you know about the dangers of crack cocaine?
Me: (snort) What?
Him: You know, crack cocaine, a form of cocaine that you can smoke... crack cocaine is very dangerous.
Me: (suppressing giggles, wiggling my fingers in the air) Crack cocaine....
Him: Crack cocaine kills. You only have to smoke crack cocaine once to get addicted, and you could die.
Me: (giggling harder) Please stop.
Him: Crack cocaine is not a joke.
Me: (starting to lose it) Ha ha ha ha! Crack cocaine!
Him: I don't understand what's so funny about crack cocaine!
Me: (tears of laughter) Dad, please, you have to stop saying "crack cocaine!" I'm dying here!
Him: You would be dying, if you were smoking crack cocaine!
Adventures in Middle School
1.11.05
2nd period.
Brad: Why are you making us pick numbers? What is this for? Why do we have to pick numbers?
Me: Brad, chill.
Brad: I can't. I can't. I need to know why we're picking numbers.
Me: Just take a deep breath and relax.
Brad: No, no. You're going to trap us. How are you going to trap us. You're going to trick us into doing something awful.
Me: Am I the kind of person who would trick you into doing something awful?
Entire Class: YES!!
Me: (thinking) Oh, I guess that's true, actually. Sorry about that.
Dale: No you're not!
Me: You're right. I'm really not.
1.07.05
7th period.
Jack: (whispering) Ms. Backes wants to be in the If-You-Talk-I'll-Kill-You-Gang!
Me: Oh, I love that gang!
Jack: Aaaaaahh!
1.06.05
7th period.
Jay: Ms. Backes, I have to tell this story!
Me: Go for it.
Jay: Okay. When I was little, I was really scared of the gremlins, because I was watching a tape of my parents wedding, and I fell asleep, and when I woke up Gremlins was on TV and I thought they were at my parents wedding! I thought they were real!
1st period.
(The kids are mad at me because I put them in a seating chart. How dare I! The gifted kids! What nerve!)
Me: Here's a hint: "You" is ALWAYS second person. "I" is always first person....
Andrew: Or is it?
Me: What?
Andrew: (melodramatically sad) I don't even know who I am, without my friends to tell me about myself.
Me: Ask them at lunch.
1.05.05
7th period.
PA: Staff, this is just a reminder that there will be a staff meeting after school.
Me: BO-ring!
Jay: Are staff meetings totally awesome? Are they like a party?
Me: Um, no. They're lame. But sometimes we get food.
Jay: Do they give you shrimp?
Me: No.
Jay: Do they give you WINE?
1.04.05
6th period.
Tanner: How do you spell surfing?
Angelique: How do you spell DUH!
7th period.
Xander: Ms. Backes, did you know that only one in a billion people is as smart as I am?
Jay: Did you know that that's not true?
Me: In the next few weeks we're going to be talking about violence in the media and our society, and about community building.....
Darleen: Violence? I'm good at that!!
12.16.04
After school.
Me: (walking up to kids working in the hallway) What are you gangsters doing out here?
Andrew: (gasp!) That's not nice! We're going to give you ISS for that!
Me: Great!
Andrew: You'll just sit there in a room all day and grade papers.
Me: Awesome. I could use a day like that.
Andrew: Okay, you'll have to sit in a room all by yourself grading MEANINGLESS papers!
Me: Sounds like my life!
Andrew: (gasp!) My papers aren't meaningless!
Patty: Well....
Andrew: My papers are important! I'm the future! ......at least, that's what the commercial said....
1st period.
Me: (pointing to a poster about adverbs featuring a stick man running away from three long lines) He's running away from the lines.
Andrew: They show that he's going fast. Quickly. Running quickly, because it's an adverb, you know?
Me: He's running from the lines because he's scared. They go, RAWR!
Andrew: Lines don't go rawr, they go wooosh.
Me: They do if they have teeth.
Andrew: Ms. Backes, do you want me to draw teeth?
Me: (happily) Yes.
(later)
Andrew: (presenting the poster) The man is running quickly. Or maybe he's running... fearfully.
Stan: Question. Why do those lines have teeth on them?
Andrew: I don't know. I actually have no idea. No one does.
Lizzil: Why are they there, then?
Andrew: Ms. Backes told me to draw them.
Class: ...?
Me: The man is running away from them. They're chasing him. They go, rawr!
Jerrod: I like adverbs!
12.15.04
5th period, a couple of kids (punks-ass kids who I JUST got on my side!) fixed my pencil sharpener for me. It had been ripped off the wall when I was gone, probably by my 4th period class.
Funny thing, though, they put it on upside-down, so now it's a lefty-sharpener.
Watching kids try to deal with this was like a psychology experiment. Can the little monkeys still manipulate the tool if it's slightly changed?
6th period this girl completely freaked about it.
Rae: Your pencil sharpener is RACIST!
Me: What? No it isn't.
Rae: Yes it is!
Me: Why, because now it favors left-handers? That's not racism.
Rae: It's racist racist racist!!
Me: Really, it's not.
(10 minutes later)
Rae: Your pencil sharpener is RACIST!
Me: Rae. The only way it would be racist is if it only allowed people of a certain color to sharpen their pencils.
Rae: What-EVER!
*
1.11.05
It's one thing to ask the kids to take pity on you because you're sick. It's quite another to ask them to be nice to you because you can't stop slamming your fingers in the door and biting your cheek (three times, hard!) It's not just thoughtful concern. It's sheer unfiltered pity.
Accordingly, sometimes my students look at me with such kind looks, much like you'd look at your increasingly senile grandmother, while internally debating whether or not you should ask her if she still remembers how to take a shower by herself, or maybe she needs help holding a fork now. It kills me.
I get these pitying looks when I can't find something and am wandering around the room going "Where's my pen? Where's that paper? I JUST had that paper!" or when they patiently ask me the same question for the fourth or fifth time and I say, "Right! THAT question! I was going to answer that question for you!"
Or, like today, when I was reading Margaret Atwood's poem The Puppet of the Wolf and acting it out, primarily for my own amusement. ("And then the wolf -- her right hand -- eats the piglets on her left hand! Rawrr rawr mmm gobblrahh!")
*
The janitor who cleans my room reminds me of the house-elf who lives at Sirius Black's house: she wanders around, muttering weird things about people just loud enough so we can hear. To be honest, I'm a little afraid of her.
*
Ali: The midwest has tainted me.
Me: You mean enhanced.
*
You know, I kind of like it here. I kind of like these monsters. Maybe I'll stay awhile....
(ca. 1999, driving back to Grinnell with my father)
Him: ...blah blah blah blah meth meth blah.......
Me: BO-ring!
Him: I'm serious.
Me: You're on crack is what you are.
Him: Crack? You mean like crack cocaine? Do you know about the dangers of crack cocaine?
Me: (snort) What?
Him: You know, crack cocaine, a form of cocaine that you can smoke... crack cocaine is very dangerous.
Me: (suppressing giggles, wiggling my fingers in the air) Crack cocaine....
Him: Crack cocaine kills. You only have to smoke crack cocaine once to get addicted, and you could die.
Me: (giggling harder) Please stop.
Him: Crack cocaine is not a joke.
Me: (starting to lose it) Ha ha ha ha! Crack cocaine!
Him: I don't understand what's so funny about crack cocaine!
Me: (tears of laughter) Dad, please, you have to stop saying "crack cocaine!" I'm dying here!
Him: You would be dying, if you were smoking crack cocaine!
Adventures in Middle School
1.11.05
2nd period.
Brad: Why are you making us pick numbers? What is this for? Why do we have to pick numbers?
Me: Brad, chill.
Brad: I can't. I can't. I need to know why we're picking numbers.
Me: Just take a deep breath and relax.
Brad: No, no. You're going to trap us. How are you going to trap us. You're going to trick us into doing something awful.
Me: Am I the kind of person who would trick you into doing something awful?
Entire Class: YES!!
Me: (thinking) Oh, I guess that's true, actually. Sorry about that.
Dale: No you're not!
Me: You're right. I'm really not.
1.07.05
7th period.
Jack: (whispering) Ms. Backes wants to be in the If-You-Talk-I'll-Kill-You-Gang!
Me: Oh, I love that gang!
Jack: Aaaaaahh!
1.06.05
7th period.
Jay: Ms. Backes, I have to tell this story!
Me: Go for it.
Jay: Okay. When I was little, I was really scared of the gremlins, because I was watching a tape of my parents wedding, and I fell asleep, and when I woke up Gremlins was on TV and I thought they were at my parents wedding! I thought they were real!
1st period.
(The kids are mad at me because I put them in a seating chart. How dare I! The gifted kids! What nerve!)
Me: Here's a hint: "You" is ALWAYS second person. "I" is always first person....
Andrew: Or is it?
Me: What?
Andrew: (melodramatically sad) I don't even know who I am, without my friends to tell me about myself.
Me: Ask them at lunch.
1.05.05
7th period.
PA: Staff, this is just a reminder that there will be a staff meeting after school.
Me: BO-ring!
Jay: Are staff meetings totally awesome? Are they like a party?
Me: Um, no. They're lame. But sometimes we get food.
Jay: Do they give you shrimp?
Me: No.
Jay: Do they give you WINE?
1.04.05
6th period.
Tanner: How do you spell surfing?
Angelique: How do you spell DUH!
7th period.
Xander: Ms. Backes, did you know that only one in a billion people is as smart as I am?
Jay: Did you know that that's not true?
Me: In the next few weeks we're going to be talking about violence in the media and our society, and about community building.....
Darleen: Violence? I'm good at that!!
12.16.04
After school.
Me: (walking up to kids working in the hallway) What are you gangsters doing out here?
Andrew: (gasp!) That's not nice! We're going to give you ISS for that!
Me: Great!
Andrew: You'll just sit there in a room all day and grade papers.
Me: Awesome. I could use a day like that.
Andrew: Okay, you'll have to sit in a room all by yourself grading MEANINGLESS papers!
Me: Sounds like my life!
Andrew: (gasp!) My papers aren't meaningless!
Patty: Well....
Andrew: My papers are important! I'm the future! ......at least, that's what the commercial said....
1st period.
Me: (pointing to a poster about adverbs featuring a stick man running away from three long lines) He's running away from the lines.
Andrew: They show that he's going fast. Quickly. Running quickly, because it's an adverb, you know?
Me: He's running from the lines because he's scared. They go, RAWR!
Andrew: Lines don't go rawr, they go wooosh.
Me: They do if they have teeth.
Andrew: Ms. Backes, do you want me to draw teeth?
Me: (happily) Yes.
(later)
Andrew: (presenting the poster) The man is running quickly. Or maybe he's running... fearfully.
Stan: Question. Why do those lines have teeth on them?
Andrew: I don't know. I actually have no idea. No one does.
Lizzil: Why are they there, then?
Andrew: Ms. Backes told me to draw them.
Class: ...?
Me: The man is running away from them. They're chasing him. They go, rawr!
Jerrod: I like adverbs!
12.15.04
5th period, a couple of kids (punks-ass kids who I JUST got on my side!) fixed my pencil sharpener for me. It had been ripped off the wall when I was gone, probably by my 4th period class.
Funny thing, though, they put it on upside-down, so now it's a lefty-sharpener.
Watching kids try to deal with this was like a psychology experiment. Can the little monkeys still manipulate the tool if it's slightly changed?
6th period this girl completely freaked about it.
Rae: Your pencil sharpener is RACIST!
Me: What? No it isn't.
Rae: Yes it is!
Me: Why, because now it favors left-handers? That's not racism.
Rae: It's racist racist racist!!
Me: Really, it's not.
(10 minutes later)
Rae: Your pencil sharpener is RACIST!
Me: Rae. The only way it would be racist is if it only allowed people of a certain color to sharpen their pencils.
Rae: What-EVER!
*
1.11.05
It's one thing to ask the kids to take pity on you because you're sick. It's quite another to ask them to be nice to you because you can't stop slamming your fingers in the door and biting your cheek (three times, hard!) It's not just thoughtful concern. It's sheer unfiltered pity.
Accordingly, sometimes my students look at me with such kind looks, much like you'd look at your increasingly senile grandmother, while internally debating whether or not you should ask her if she still remembers how to take a shower by herself, or maybe she needs help holding a fork now. It kills me.
I get these pitying looks when I can't find something and am wandering around the room going "Where's my pen? Where's that paper? I JUST had that paper!" or when they patiently ask me the same question for the fourth or fifth time and I say, "Right! THAT question! I was going to answer that question for you!"
Or, like today, when I was reading Margaret Atwood's poem The Puppet of the Wolf and acting it out, primarily for my own amusement. ("And then the wolf -- her right hand -- eats the piglets on her left hand! Rawrr rawr mmm gobblrahh!")
*
The janitor who cleans my room reminds me of the house-elf who lives at Sirius Black's house: she wanders around, muttering weird things about people just loud enough so we can hear. To be honest, I'm a little afraid of her.
*
Ali: The midwest has tainted me.
Me: You mean enhanced.
*
You know, I kind of like it here. I kind of like these monsters. Maybe I'll stay awhile....
15 December 2004
Stories and sundries from last week:
Wednesday:
7:15 am (driving to work) question: Why hasn't anyone made a modern adaptation of Lysistrata, a la such teen classics as 10 Things I Hate About You?
7:50 thought: I wish I had perfume that smelled like eggnog.
It's pretty clear, already, how this day will go.
Thursday:
Me: I'm totally the teacher that sits in her room and rocks out to Prince on her prep period.
Me: Wait, what teacher is that?
Friday:
So my roommate Lisa and I go to see a movie, but as usual she's running way late (for no real reason) and we arrive at the theater 20 minutes after the 5:30. We decide to go across the street first, for dinner, and catch the 7:00. She parks her little Rav4 in the movie theater parking lot (which is HUGE), and before we can go for dinner, she has to stop and put her jacket on, so she sets everything down on the hood of the car and I wait, patiently, distracted, amid the xeriscaping. We go have dinner, the waiter flirts with us and gushes about how much he loves Blue Moon beer (my favorite), whatever. After dinner, we walk across the street and through the parking lot to the theater, where we buy tickets, sit through about 17 previews, and then the movie (the incredibles, cute).
The movie ends around 9:15. Lisa and I are sitting at the end of the row, and I scoot out of my seat immediately so the other people can get out, but Lisa spends like five minutes digging in her purse. I finally coax her into the aisle, where she continues to block people and dig in her purse. "I can't find my keys." "Maybe you could look in the lighted hallway?" I suggest. Okay. We sit down on a bench and Lisa pretty much dumps all the contents of her purse out, but no keys. She leaves her purse with me as she goes back into the theater to crawl around on the floor looking for her keys. Ten minutes later, she comes out of the theater shaking her head. No luck. We go to the lost and found, and though it's full of keys and sunglasses (and someone's social security card!), Lisa's keys aren't among the found lost. "Back to the restaurant," I say. Suddenly, Lisa looks at me in panic. "I put them on the car. When I put my coat on." She bolts out the door and starts running through the parking lot. Confused, I follow. "I hope my car's there! I hope it's still there!" she yells.
The car is still there. Sitting on the hood of Lisa's car are her keys. Sitting on the hood of the car, in a crowded parking lot, for almost FOUR HOURS. We should all be so lucky.
Saturday:
I went out to feed the hawk tonight (mouse soup, because we keep all the frozen mice in our freezer and the best way to defrost them quickly is to boil a bowl of water & drop the mice in) and saw that the gate had blown open in the wind. I realized I hadn't seen the dog in maybe 20 minutes and a deep sense of dread filled my stomach, because he has this tendency to wander off and get really immersed in his own projects (sniffing grass and chasing rabbits, generally) and then get lost, like a little autistic kid who's kind of deaf.
I run through the house to see if he's maybe hiding in one of the bedrooms or putzing around the backyard, but he's not, he's not anywhere and the sun's setting quickly and he's nearly impossible to see in the dark. I put on a pair of sandals and go running into the front yard, up to the top of the driveway where I have a better view of the yard and the neighborhood, all the time whistling and calling for him. I don't see him anywhere, so I start wandering up and down the street, yelling and whistling and worrying about how all the neighbors are looking out their windows at me with a mixture of pity and disgust, like you'd look at the resident crazy homeless person who you try to feel bad for but really you wish they'd get off your front stoop, and I'm also worrying that someone's picked up my perfect dog and realized instantly that he'd be the greatest pet for their eight-year-old twins or maybe they'll sell him to some evil scientist to do experiments on him and I'll never see him again. The sun's setting, and I'm feeling increasingly crazy and desperate but trying to keep my cool, remembering the time last year when he wandered off and I screamed like a madwoman for a half-hour, only to have my neighbor come over and say that the dog had been happily sitting on his front porch the whole time.
It's getting pretty dark and I jump in the truck to drive up and down the streets looking for him, knowing that it won't do much good but I can't just settle down and wait for him to get hit by some teenager joyriding in his grandmother's caddy. I'm driving up and down the streets with my window wide open, going about 3 miles an hour and screaming and whistling through my window, and then stopping in embarassment when some nice old people on their nightly constitutional give me a panicky, frightened look like at any moment I'm going to jump the curb and come after them.
I drive all the way to the top of my street and all the way down, and by now it's almost too dark to see anything, but at the very bottom of my road I see some glowing eyes on the street and whistle at them. A very nice, very calm dog trots up to my truck and I apologize to it, telling it that I'm looking for a different dog and sorry to bother him. He wags his tail and trots up the street, and I continue driving, feeling increasingly crazy and increasingly desperate, but by the time I'm halfway around my very large block I've settled into a feeling of quiet resignation, planning in my head how to explain to Lisa when she gets home and later to my family how Zeke ran away and I'm a horrible person and he's probably in some lab as we speak, being shampooed with some horribly abrasive experimental new Pantene product. I cruise back down my own street so slowly that a truck gets frustrated and passes me just as I reach the driveway, so I have to wait until he gets around me to turn down it, but when I do I see three dark shapes waiting at the bottom near the house, and my heart leaps and catches. I creep all the way down the gravel driveway, thinking about how ironic it would be if I ran over my own dog just when I've found him, and I see in the glow of the headlights that one of the three dark shapes is, indeed, my dog. Another of the three runs off into the yard, quickly disappearing into the tumbleweed and yuccas, but the third shape stays.
It's the other dog, the one from before. It waits until I get all the way down to the bottom of the driveway, watching Zeke, watching me, and then wags its tail at me and starts trotting up the driveway. I know this will sound completely insane, like I've been living in New Mexico too long and really should get back to the midwest where no one talks matter-of-factly about "spirit guides" or "manifestions," but I truly got this strange sense that this other dog had found Zeke and led him home, and then waited to leave until it was sure Zeke was safe. I made Zeke jump in the truck with me and then called after the yellow dog, "Thank you! Thank you for bringing Zeke home!" The dog stopped in the driveway, looked back at me, wagged its tail like a wave, and disappeared into the night.
and the sequel:
-- one, that the third dog in the driveway managed to get locked into our backyard, only to be discovered cowering and shivering in the bushes around 11:00 that night with a terrible injury to his jaw (so sad! SUCH a sweet dog!) so Lisa and I managed to drag him out of the yard across this street to his own house, where his owner (blinking and groggy and none-too-happy to be awakened) didn't even thank us for bringing him home. It was a weird dog night.
-- two, apparently my roommate can communicate with animals, um, psychically, and she later "heard" my dog saying "What's the big deal? I was just hanging out with my friends."
seriously, you just have to laugh.
Sunday:
Lisa: Melanie was telling me about this movie we should see.
Me: Oh yeah? What's that?
Lisa: I don't know, something about this geek who's stuck in the 80s. Just like you!
Monday:
Five more days. Five more days.
-- Five more days to push against the wall of apathy (my own!) and get all the grading and cleaning done.....
-- Wait a minute, I have a full inservice day to "work on grades" on the 3rd! I don't have to get anything done!
-- No, but wouldn't you feel better if you had all your grading done before the holiday, so it wasn't hanging over your head those two weeks?
-- Maybe.....
-- Yes you would.
-- But I don't want to do any work this week! I want to kick it with some eggnog and claymation tales of reindeer and dentists!
-- It will be worse if you don't do it.
-- But....
-- Way worse.
-- Wait a minute.... Jimminy, is that you? I thought I squooshed you under my boot in college!
Wednesday:
7:15 am (driving to work) question: Why hasn't anyone made a modern adaptation of Lysistrata, a la such teen classics as 10 Things I Hate About You?
7:50 thought: I wish I had perfume that smelled like eggnog.
It's pretty clear, already, how this day will go.
Thursday:
Me: I'm totally the teacher that sits in her room and rocks out to Prince on her prep period.
Me: Wait, what teacher is that?
Friday:
So my roommate Lisa and I go to see a movie, but as usual she's running way late (for no real reason) and we arrive at the theater 20 minutes after the 5:30. We decide to go across the street first, for dinner, and catch the 7:00. She parks her little Rav4 in the movie theater parking lot (which is HUGE), and before we can go for dinner, she has to stop and put her jacket on, so she sets everything down on the hood of the car and I wait, patiently, distracted, amid the xeriscaping. We go have dinner, the waiter flirts with us and gushes about how much he loves Blue Moon beer (my favorite), whatever. After dinner, we walk across the street and through the parking lot to the theater, where we buy tickets, sit through about 17 previews, and then the movie (the incredibles, cute).
The movie ends around 9:15. Lisa and I are sitting at the end of the row, and I scoot out of my seat immediately so the other people can get out, but Lisa spends like five minutes digging in her purse. I finally coax her into the aisle, where she continues to block people and dig in her purse. "I can't find my keys." "Maybe you could look in the lighted hallway?" I suggest. Okay. We sit down on a bench and Lisa pretty much dumps all the contents of her purse out, but no keys. She leaves her purse with me as she goes back into the theater to crawl around on the floor looking for her keys. Ten minutes later, she comes out of the theater shaking her head. No luck. We go to the lost and found, and though it's full of keys and sunglasses (and someone's social security card!), Lisa's keys aren't among the found lost. "Back to the restaurant," I say. Suddenly, Lisa looks at me in panic. "I put them on the car. When I put my coat on." She bolts out the door and starts running through the parking lot. Confused, I follow. "I hope my car's there! I hope it's still there!" she yells.
The car is still there. Sitting on the hood of Lisa's car are her keys. Sitting on the hood of the car, in a crowded parking lot, for almost FOUR HOURS. We should all be so lucky.
Saturday:
I went out to feed the hawk tonight (mouse soup, because we keep all the frozen mice in our freezer and the best way to defrost them quickly is to boil a bowl of water & drop the mice in) and saw that the gate had blown open in the wind. I realized I hadn't seen the dog in maybe 20 minutes and a deep sense of dread filled my stomach, because he has this tendency to wander off and get really immersed in his own projects (sniffing grass and chasing rabbits, generally) and then get lost, like a little autistic kid who's kind of deaf.
I run through the house to see if he's maybe hiding in one of the bedrooms or putzing around the backyard, but he's not, he's not anywhere and the sun's setting quickly and he's nearly impossible to see in the dark. I put on a pair of sandals and go running into the front yard, up to the top of the driveway where I have a better view of the yard and the neighborhood, all the time whistling and calling for him. I don't see him anywhere, so I start wandering up and down the street, yelling and whistling and worrying about how all the neighbors are looking out their windows at me with a mixture of pity and disgust, like you'd look at the resident crazy homeless person who you try to feel bad for but really you wish they'd get off your front stoop, and I'm also worrying that someone's picked up my perfect dog and realized instantly that he'd be the greatest pet for their eight-year-old twins or maybe they'll sell him to some evil scientist to do experiments on him and I'll never see him again. The sun's setting, and I'm feeling increasingly crazy and desperate but trying to keep my cool, remembering the time last year when he wandered off and I screamed like a madwoman for a half-hour, only to have my neighbor come over and say that the dog had been happily sitting on his front porch the whole time.
It's getting pretty dark and I jump in the truck to drive up and down the streets looking for him, knowing that it won't do much good but I can't just settle down and wait for him to get hit by some teenager joyriding in his grandmother's caddy. I'm driving up and down the streets with my window wide open, going about 3 miles an hour and screaming and whistling through my window, and then stopping in embarassment when some nice old people on their nightly constitutional give me a panicky, frightened look like at any moment I'm going to jump the curb and come after them.
I drive all the way to the top of my street and all the way down, and by now it's almost too dark to see anything, but at the very bottom of my road I see some glowing eyes on the street and whistle at them. A very nice, very calm dog trots up to my truck and I apologize to it, telling it that I'm looking for a different dog and sorry to bother him. He wags his tail and trots up the street, and I continue driving, feeling increasingly crazy and increasingly desperate, but by the time I'm halfway around my very large block I've settled into a feeling of quiet resignation, planning in my head how to explain to Lisa when she gets home and later to my family how Zeke ran away and I'm a horrible person and he's probably in some lab as we speak, being shampooed with some horribly abrasive experimental new Pantene product. I cruise back down my own street so slowly that a truck gets frustrated and passes me just as I reach the driveway, so I have to wait until he gets around me to turn down it, but when I do I see three dark shapes waiting at the bottom near the house, and my heart leaps and catches. I creep all the way down the gravel driveway, thinking about how ironic it would be if I ran over my own dog just when I've found him, and I see in the glow of the headlights that one of the three dark shapes is, indeed, my dog. Another of the three runs off into the yard, quickly disappearing into the tumbleweed and yuccas, but the third shape stays.
It's the other dog, the one from before. It waits until I get all the way down to the bottom of the driveway, watching Zeke, watching me, and then wags its tail at me and starts trotting up the driveway. I know this will sound completely insane, like I've been living in New Mexico too long and really should get back to the midwest where no one talks matter-of-factly about "spirit guides" or "manifestions," but I truly got this strange sense that this other dog had found Zeke and led him home, and then waited to leave until it was sure Zeke was safe. I made Zeke jump in the truck with me and then called after the yellow dog, "Thank you! Thank you for bringing Zeke home!" The dog stopped in the driveway, looked back at me, wagged its tail like a wave, and disappeared into the night.
and the sequel:
-- one, that the third dog in the driveway managed to get locked into our backyard, only to be discovered cowering and shivering in the bushes around 11:00 that night with a terrible injury to his jaw (so sad! SUCH a sweet dog!) so Lisa and I managed to drag him out of the yard across this street to his own house, where his owner (blinking and groggy and none-too-happy to be awakened) didn't even thank us for bringing him home. It was a weird dog night.
-- two, apparently my roommate can communicate with animals, um, psychically, and she later "heard" my dog saying "What's the big deal? I was just hanging out with my friends."
seriously, you just have to laugh.
Sunday:
Lisa: Melanie was telling me about this movie we should see.
Me: Oh yeah? What's that?
Lisa: I don't know, something about this geek who's stuck in the 80s. Just like you!
Monday:
Five more days. Five more days.
-- Five more days to push against the wall of apathy (my own!) and get all the grading and cleaning done.....
-- Wait a minute, I have a full inservice day to "work on grades" on the 3rd! I don't have to get anything done!
-- No, but wouldn't you feel better if you had all your grading done before the holiday, so it wasn't hanging over your head those two weeks?
-- Maybe.....
-- Yes you would.
-- But I don't want to do any work this week! I want to kick it with some eggnog and claymation tales of reindeer and dentists!
-- It will be worse if you don't do it.
-- But....
-- Way worse.
-- Wait a minute.... Jimminy, is that you? I thought I squooshed you under my boot in college!
09 December 2004
12.9.04
Advisory (aka homeroom).
Andrew: (sounding like a grizzled old man) Ach, maybe I'll go buy myself a drink, after school.
Me: What? I hope you mean orange juice.
Andrew: (muttering to himself) ...mumble...otch mumble rocks.....
Bill: He has $24 to spend.
Andrew: $24.25, please. And it's burning a hole in my pocket.
Me: So you're going to buy SCOTCH?
Andrew: (thoughtfully) It's a possibility....
Me: But you're fourteen.
Bill: Moriarty drives children to desperate acts. It's very sad, isn't it?
Me: You kids are weird. (pause) But seriously, SCOTCH?
1st period.
Karma: One thing I liked about your presentation was that you were funny without going off topic. Unlike ANDREW.
Andrew: That was yesterday!
Lizzil: And it's still funny!
Andrew: Ms. Backes, they're so mean to me.
Me: You'll be a better person, stronger, in the end.
Andrew: No. I'll just be sad.
Dale: As Ms. Backes said yesterday, PULL IT TOGETHER, MAN!
Kid: Z is for Zuni. Zuni people are well known for their artwork. Zuni pueblo is one of the oldest in New Mexico. Back then it was visited by very little Spanish.
Me: What, like midgets?
Kid: (extremely confused) What?
Class: ...
Me: I think you mean, "visited by very few Spanish."
Class: ...
Other Kid: Oh, **I** get it!!
12.08.04
Me: So I'm thinking, why hasn't anyone made Lysistrata into a modern movie?
Dale: Because it's a bad idea!
"I would prefer this book to any kid."
12.07.04
Kitty: Nuh uh! Ms. Backes, candles don't explode when you light them, do they?
Me: No....
Buddy: Yes they do! Yes they do! If they're made of gasoline!!
12.6.04
Patty: My nutcracker looks like Michael Jackson now!
Lizzil: Why?
Patty: We scraped his nose off. Now when you light him on fire, his nose glows!
12.3.04
7th period. Best class ever. I could not stop giggling, and eventually gave up on trying to keep the peace in the room.
Ivy: Ms. Backes, can I [mumble mumble] Kyle?
Me: WHAT??
Ivy: What?
Me: Did you just ask if you can EAT Kyle??
Kyle: Aaaaaahh!
Ivy: No! Can I BEAT Kyle?
Me: Ohhhh!
Kyle: Aaaaaaaahh!!
I go over and turn the radio on.
Jerry, watching me: Ms. Backes, do I hear music??
Me: (stunned) I can't even grace that with an answer!
Summer: It's just the wind blowing through the spaces in your head.
Jerry: Oh, okay!
Summer: Ms. Backes doesn't mind if we swear, do you?
Me: Um.... let's say I'd rather not have to deal with it at all.
Jenny: Yeah, but you swear all the time!
Me: (gasping) I most certainly do NOT!
Jenny: Sure you do.
Me: No I don't!
Jenny: Yeah, like when you said your car was a piece of shit!
Me: I did not say that!
Summer: Yes you did.
Me: I said it was a piece of CRAP, which is a much different thing!
Jenny: No it's not. Shit, crap, it's all the same thing.
Me: Maybe, but I did NOT say shit!
Jenny: Except just then.
Me: Oh, shi-- shucks! See, I never swear!
Jenny: Ms. Backes, why are you drinking coffee at 2:30 in the afternoon?
Me: Um.... let's just say it's because crack is illegal.
Summer: Ha ha! I'm totally going to steal that!
Me: D'oh!
Ivy: Ms. Backes?
Me: Yes?
Ivy: Kyle's scared.
Me: Of what?
Summer: He thinks you're going crazy!!
Me: Ha! I am! If I'm not here on Monday it's because the nice men in white jackets came for me!
2nd period.
Kristine: That's a nice fence you're drawing. You have a lot of barbed wire, though. It's expensive!
Marsha: Yeah... no one will get into this field.
Kristine: Where do you buy all this barbed wire?
Andrew: At the Hitler Warehouse!!
Me: What does that look like to you?
Kristine: A cow?
Me: Ha! I totally can draw a cow!
Everyone: ...?
Me: My 6th period class and I got into a big fight about whether or not I could draw a good cow.
Beth: My sister's in your 6th period class.
Me: I know. She was one of the people fighting with me!
Beth: (nodding wisely) We're good at fighting.
Eddy: Ms. Backes is doing the crossword!
Kristine: Oh, really?
Me: Yes..... badly.
Eddy: She does it every morning!
Me: No I don't!
Eddy: Yes you do! Every morning you sit in the back and do the crossword!
Me: Eddy, that is patently false. In fact, this is the first time all year that I've done the crossword!
Eddy: Well, you read the paper every morning!
Me: Well, that's true.
Eddy: So what do you do with the paper if you're not doing the crossword?
Me: I **READ** it. I take the information into my brain.
Eddy: But..... but that's BORING!!!
12.2.04
Ellery: Ms. Backes, do you know where we turn these in?
Me: Do I know? Let's see, it's an assignment **I** gave you, and ***I'm*** going to be grading it, so yes, I suppose I know where you turn it in.
Ellery: So.....where?
Me: To me! You turn it in to me!!
Ivy: Ms. Backes, how old are you?
Walt: 24! She's 24!
Me: That's right.
Summer: I always think you're 22!
Xander: I thought you were 21!
Me: It's easy to remember, because it's the same as the year. 24, 2004. In 2005 I'll be 25.
Elliot: So... were you born in 1980?
Me: Yup.
Elliot: Me too!
Me: YOU were born in 1980??
Elliot: Oh. Um. No. I mean 1990.
Me: Oh, well that's very different, isn't it?
Advisory (aka homeroom).
Andrew: (sounding like a grizzled old man) Ach, maybe I'll go buy myself a drink, after school.
Me: What? I hope you mean orange juice.
Andrew: (muttering to himself) ...mumble...otch mumble rocks.....
Bill: He has $24 to spend.
Andrew: $24.25, please. And it's burning a hole in my pocket.
Me: So you're going to buy SCOTCH?
Andrew: (thoughtfully) It's a possibility....
Me: But you're fourteen.
Bill: Moriarty drives children to desperate acts. It's very sad, isn't it?
Me: You kids are weird. (pause) But seriously, SCOTCH?
1st period.
Karma: One thing I liked about your presentation was that you were funny without going off topic. Unlike ANDREW.
Andrew: That was yesterday!
Lizzil: And it's still funny!
Andrew: Ms. Backes, they're so mean to me.
Me: You'll be a better person, stronger, in the end.
Andrew: No. I'll just be sad.
Dale: As Ms. Backes said yesterday, PULL IT TOGETHER, MAN!
Kid: Z is for Zuni. Zuni people are well known for their artwork. Zuni pueblo is one of the oldest in New Mexico. Back then it was visited by very little Spanish.
Me: What, like midgets?
Kid: (extremely confused) What?
Class: ...
Me: I think you mean, "visited by very few Spanish."
Class: ...
Other Kid: Oh, **I** get it!!
12.08.04
Me: So I'm thinking, why hasn't anyone made Lysistrata into a modern movie?
Dale: Because it's a bad idea!
"I would prefer this book to any kid."
12.07.04
Kitty: Nuh uh! Ms. Backes, candles don't explode when you light them, do they?
Me: No....
Buddy: Yes they do! Yes they do! If they're made of gasoline!!
12.6.04
Patty: My nutcracker looks like Michael Jackson now!
Lizzil: Why?
Patty: We scraped his nose off. Now when you light him on fire, his nose glows!
12.3.04
7th period. Best class ever. I could not stop giggling, and eventually gave up on trying to keep the peace in the room.
Ivy: Ms. Backes, can I [mumble mumble] Kyle?
Me: WHAT??
Ivy: What?
Me: Did you just ask if you can EAT Kyle??
Kyle: Aaaaaahh!
Ivy: No! Can I BEAT Kyle?
Me: Ohhhh!
Kyle: Aaaaaaaahh!!
I go over and turn the radio on.
Jerry, watching me: Ms. Backes, do I hear music??
Me: (stunned) I can't even grace that with an answer!
Summer: It's just the wind blowing through the spaces in your head.
Jerry: Oh, okay!
Summer: Ms. Backes doesn't mind if we swear, do you?
Me: Um.... let's say I'd rather not have to deal with it at all.
Jenny: Yeah, but you swear all the time!
Me: (gasping) I most certainly do NOT!
Jenny: Sure you do.
Me: No I don't!
Jenny: Yeah, like when you said your car was a piece of shit!
Me: I did not say that!
Summer: Yes you did.
Me: I said it was a piece of CRAP, which is a much different thing!
Jenny: No it's not. Shit, crap, it's all the same thing.
Me: Maybe, but I did NOT say shit!
Jenny: Except just then.
Me: Oh, shi-- shucks! See, I never swear!
Jenny: Ms. Backes, why are you drinking coffee at 2:30 in the afternoon?
Me: Um.... let's just say it's because crack is illegal.
Summer: Ha ha! I'm totally going to steal that!
Me: D'oh!
Ivy: Ms. Backes?
Me: Yes?
Ivy: Kyle's scared.
Me: Of what?
Summer: He thinks you're going crazy!!
Me: Ha! I am! If I'm not here on Monday it's because the nice men in white jackets came for me!
2nd period.
Kristine: That's a nice fence you're drawing. You have a lot of barbed wire, though. It's expensive!
Marsha: Yeah... no one will get into this field.
Kristine: Where do you buy all this barbed wire?
Andrew: At the Hitler Warehouse!!
Me: What does that look like to you?
Kristine: A cow?
Me: Ha! I totally can draw a cow!
Everyone: ...?
Me: My 6th period class and I got into a big fight about whether or not I could draw a good cow.
Beth: My sister's in your 6th period class.
Me: I know. She was one of the people fighting with me!
Beth: (nodding wisely) We're good at fighting.
Eddy: Ms. Backes is doing the crossword!
Kristine: Oh, really?
Me: Yes..... badly.
Eddy: She does it every morning!
Me: No I don't!
Eddy: Yes you do! Every morning you sit in the back and do the crossword!
Me: Eddy, that is patently false. In fact, this is the first time all year that I've done the crossword!
Eddy: Well, you read the paper every morning!
Me: Well, that's true.
Eddy: So what do you do with the paper if you're not doing the crossword?
Me: I **READ** it. I take the information into my brain.
Eddy: But..... but that's BORING!!!
12.2.04
Ellery: Ms. Backes, do you know where we turn these in?
Me: Do I know? Let's see, it's an assignment **I** gave you, and ***I'm*** going to be grading it, so yes, I suppose I know where you turn it in.
Ellery: So.....where?
Me: To me! You turn it in to me!!
Ivy: Ms. Backes, how old are you?
Walt: 24! She's 24!
Me: That's right.
Summer: I always think you're 22!
Xander: I thought you were 21!
Me: It's easy to remember, because it's the same as the year. 24, 2004. In 2005 I'll be 25.
Elliot: So... were you born in 1980?
Me: Yup.
Elliot: Me too!
Me: YOU were born in 1980??
Elliot: Oh. Um. No. I mean 1990.
Me: Oh, well that's very different, isn't it?
19 November 2004
11.19.04
New Mexico Trivia.
Mr. K: What town in New Mexico is known as the ski capital of the southwest?
Dale: Oh, the south pole!
Andrew: The south pole??
Dale: Yeah.
Andrew: Dale. The SOUTH POLE is the ski capital of the SOUTHWEST.
Dale: Um... yeah.
Lizzil: South Pole! Antarctica! Southwest! New Mexico!!
Dale: Oh.... oh. Yeah.
Mr. K: Where is the horse race with the world's richest purse?
Me: In portable 7!
Lizzil: What?
Me: You know, like the health classroom?
Andrew: What?
Me: World's richest purse.... Mr. PURCE teaches health....
Karma: Oh, I get it!
Andrew: That's not funny, Ms. Backes.
Me: Shut up.
Andrew: Gasp! That's mental harrassment!
(a few minutes later)
Andrew: Why do we record points if every team earns one?
Me: Maybe it's to make people feel good.
Andrew: It doesn't make me feel good. It makes me feel pointless.
Me: See, but you're not pointless. That's the whole point!
Andrew: ......that's not funny either.
***
My dad's in town for the week. I, of course, am teaching school full time, so dad gets to be on his own during the days. He's taken it upon himself to spend the days at Wal-Mart, buying STUFF to improve the quality of my life (shelving, new light bulbs, a riostat for my lamp and a new switch because Cam broke it, etc). Every day this week, I've come home to bags of new household offerings from him, until finally.....
Dad: Ready? Ready? The coup de grace!
Me: Yeah. Sure.
Dad: Well, I notice that you have all these weird digital clocks around your room, but you can't really see them.
Me: You mean my clock radio?
Dad: (ignoring me) So I thought, you know what Molly needs?
Me: ...
Dad: You know??
Me: No, what does Molly need?
Dad: Molly needs a clock! Ta da!! (He pulls a clock from a wal-mart bag. It's pink and sparkly, covered with faux gemstones.)
Me: Oh my god!
Dad: Isn't it beautiful?
Me: (laughing hysterically) It's HIDEOUS!!
Dad: (defensively) No, it's perfect! It's a "Royal Princess Clock," and you're a royal princess!
Ah, sometimes it's nice to be daddy's little girl again.
11.18.04
Jay: Ms. Backes, do you know what Hay-soose means in English?
Me: Yeah.
Jesus: What?
Me: Jesus.
Jay: See, I didn't know that.
Me: Well, we god-names have to stick together. My last name is the same as a god, you know.
Xander: Really? What's your last name?
Me: BACKES.
Jay: DUH, Xander!
Xander: Ohhhh, right!
Jay: Ms. Backes, what's your first name?
Me: Evil.
Jay: (thoughtfully) Evil Backes.....
Me: Yep.
Jesus: What's your middle name?
Me: Awesome.
Jay: Evil Awesome Backes?
Me: Yep.
Jay: COOL.
Xander: Really? Is your name really Evil Awesome Backes?
Me: (very slowly and sarcastically) Yes, my name is really Evil Awesome Backes.
Xander: Really??
Me: Uh, no.
Everyone: DUH, XANDER!!!!!!
11.15.04
Jerrod: How old do you have to be to be executed?
Dale: Next year, Jerrod!
11.12.04
current events.
TT: I personally think we should have one six year term for the president, so he wouldn't have to worry about getting re-elected, he could just do what he needs to do. But no one ever agrees with me!
Carl: He's just the little man in the corner!
-- My article is called "If You Like the Sedillo Hill Project, You'll Love What Comes Next." It's about how there's going to be even more road construction on I-40, just like at Sedillo Hill. It's biased because the author likes road construction.
-- Is it possible that the author was being sarcastic?
-- Sarcastic? No. Maybe. I don't know.
-- Well, let's think about this. Do you think anyone really likes driving through the construction on Sedillo Hill?
-- No way! My dad hates it!
-- Mine too!
-- They've been there forever!
-- Okay, so no one really likes road construction, right?
-- Yeah, but the author says, "If you LIKE the Sedillo Hill Project, you'll LOVE what comes next." So he obviously likes it.
-- Sigh.....
-- My article is about the healthiest states in the U.S. Minnesota is number one. The article is biased because it keeps talking about Minnesota.
-- Yeah, what's so great about Minnesota, anyway?
-- It's clean!
-- It's healthy!
-- Good food!
-- Clean!
-- Are you sure it's biased? Because if the article is about the healthiest state, and the healthiest state is Minnesota, then it kind of makes sense that they'd keep talking about it, right?
-- No, I think the writer was just a Minnesota-lover, which is bias.
-- The least healthy state is Louisiana....
-- It's because of Mardi Gras! Beads all over the place!
-- My article is totally biased! It only shows the woman's point of view. It NEVER shows the man's point of view at all!
-- What's your article about?
-- Cervical cancer.
11.11.04
-- The last class wanted to take the picture in the bathroom, but I don't think there's one big enough.
-- Ms. Backes, plus we'd have to find one of those, you know, semi-sexual bathrooms, and I don't think our school has any.
11.10.04
Carl: (singing) It's a giant party... in the mountains.... it's a rendezvous!
Me: (laughing out loud)
Team Teacher: And you wonder why teachers go nuts!!
11.09.04
Summer: Ms. Backes?
Me: Yes?
Summer: Um.... (gets distracted by people around us)
Me: Yes?
Summer: Oh. My question is...
Me: (gets distracted by people around us)
Summer: (starts giggling)
Me: Sorry, what? I got distracted.
Summer: My question -- (gets distracted)
Me: (giggle)
Summer: (giggle)
Me: This is why two ADD people shouldn't try to talk to one another!
11.08.04
Gary: Ms. Backes, is this good enough?
Me: (picking up his paper and reading) "Route 66 runs right through downtown Moriarty. Route 66 was America's first highway...." Looks good, Gary!
Gary: (shocked) You can read my handwriting?!
Me: Oh... sure.
Gary: Awesome! (high five)
Me: (high fiving him) Rock on!
11.05.04
My gifted block is working on "The ABCs of New Mexico" books, which has been extremely fun and funny.
Team Teacher: (stopping the class) Guys, remember that we're going to be reading these to FIRST GRADERS. So make sure your books are age-appropriate. It wouldn't be appropriate to say, for example, to read, "Children, P is for Peyote.... A is for Alcohol!"
Me: (sitting in a student desk, leaning forward to whisper to the Andrew-Brown-doppelganger in front of me) "D is for Drunk Driving!"
ABD: (whispering back) D is for DWI!
(later -- current events)
TT: If you guys get drunk, and you get into a car wreck... don't crash into a cop!
-- Who can tell me what the cold war was?
-- Umm.... when we went to war with Alaska?
Today I dealt with conflict in my classroom in the way I wanted to, the way I'd like to deal with all conflicts given the time and adult support and relative calm of the rest of the kids in the class. Too often I feel we just yell at kids without explaining to them the problem with their actions, but today I actually got to talk to the naughties in a calm and rational way. Of course I'd rather we not have this kind of thing happening in the classroom at all, but in the end I felt good about both interactions.
5th period.
Me: (calmly) Ronny, I'm writing you up.
Ronny: (crestfallen) Okay.
Me: Do you know why?
Ronny: Yes.
Me: Would you like to read your referral?
Ronny: Yes, please.
Me: Here you go. Would you agree with my account of your actions today?
Ronny: Yes. I'm sorry.
Me: Okay, well thank you for that. I'll need you to go to the office, please, and on Monday I know you'll do better, because I know you're capable of it, right?
Ronny: Right.
7th period.
(I turn my back on the class just long enough to prop the door open and turn back to find one child crying and two others shouting accusations.)
Me: What's going on?
Walt: He threw that at him and hit him in the eye!!
Me: What? Jerry, are you okay? Do you need to go to the nurse's office?
Jerry: (sniffle sniffle) No.
Me: What happened?
Walt: Brady threw the eraser and hit Jerry in the eye!!!
Me: (picking up the eraser) Brady, is this true?
Brady: (looking guilty, nods)
Me: You threw this eraser and hit him in the eye with it?
Brady: (nods)
Me: Brady, look at me, please. You threw this eraser hard enough to make a person cry. Do you see Jerry? You hurt him, Brady. This is a person, and you hurt him. You hurt this person, Brady. Do you understand?
Brady: (whispering) yes.
Me: Why would you do such a thing? Why would you hurt a person?
Brady: I don't know.
Me: I don't know either.
(I walk away and spend almost ten minutes trying to decide whether to write him up....finally going back to the boys at the very end of class.)
Me: Look, I'm trying to decide what to do here. Should I write you up?
Jerry: (standing up) Ms. Backes, to tell the truth, I was throwing the eraser at him, so I'm partially to blame.
Me: Should I write you both up?
Both boys: No.
Me: Do you both understand why this can't happen in my classroom?
Both boys: Yes.
Me: Okay then, have a nice weekend. Try not to maim anyone, okay?
Both boys: (obviously relieved) Okay, Ms. Backes! Bye!
11.04.04
Me: (walking past some students hard at work, I point to a picture of a tiger on a girl's folder and say "Roar!"
Kids: (crack up)
Coal: Ms. Backes, why did you do that?
Me: (innocently) What?
Coal: That was totally uncalled for!
Me: I beg to differ. She has a tiger on her folder, and tigers say roar. Hence, it was totally called for. (walks away)
Kids: Did you hear that? She just went -- roar!
New Mexico Trivia.
Mr. K: What town in New Mexico is known as the ski capital of the southwest?
Dale: Oh, the south pole!
Andrew: The south pole??
Dale: Yeah.
Andrew: Dale. The SOUTH POLE is the ski capital of the SOUTHWEST.
Dale: Um... yeah.
Lizzil: South Pole! Antarctica! Southwest! New Mexico!!
Dale: Oh.... oh. Yeah.
Mr. K: Where is the horse race with the world's richest purse?
Me: In portable 7!
Lizzil: What?
Me: You know, like the health classroom?
Andrew: What?
Me: World's richest purse.... Mr. PURCE teaches health....
Karma: Oh, I get it!
Andrew: That's not funny, Ms. Backes.
Me: Shut up.
Andrew: Gasp! That's mental harrassment!
(a few minutes later)
Andrew: Why do we record points if every team earns one?
Me: Maybe it's to make people feel good.
Andrew: It doesn't make me feel good. It makes me feel pointless.
Me: See, but you're not pointless. That's the whole point!
Andrew: ......that's not funny either.
***
My dad's in town for the week. I, of course, am teaching school full time, so dad gets to be on his own during the days. He's taken it upon himself to spend the days at Wal-Mart, buying STUFF to improve the quality of my life (shelving, new light bulbs, a riostat for my lamp and a new switch because Cam broke it, etc). Every day this week, I've come home to bags of new household offerings from him, until finally.....
Dad: Ready? Ready? The coup de grace!
Me: Yeah. Sure.
Dad: Well, I notice that you have all these weird digital clocks around your room, but you can't really see them.
Me: You mean my clock radio?
Dad: (ignoring me) So I thought, you know what Molly needs?
Me: ...
Dad: You know??
Me: No, what does Molly need?
Dad: Molly needs a clock! Ta da!! (He pulls a clock from a wal-mart bag. It's pink and sparkly, covered with faux gemstones.)
Me: Oh my god!
Dad: Isn't it beautiful?
Me: (laughing hysterically) It's HIDEOUS!!
Dad: (defensively) No, it's perfect! It's a "Royal Princess Clock," and you're a royal princess!
Ah, sometimes it's nice to be daddy's little girl again.
11.18.04
Jay: Ms. Backes, do you know what Hay-soose means in English?
Me: Yeah.
Jesus: What?
Me: Jesus.
Jay: See, I didn't know that.
Me: Well, we god-names have to stick together. My last name is the same as a god, you know.
Xander: Really? What's your last name?
Me: BACKES.
Jay: DUH, Xander!
Xander: Ohhhh, right!
Jay: Ms. Backes, what's your first name?
Me: Evil.
Jay: (thoughtfully) Evil Backes.....
Me: Yep.
Jesus: What's your middle name?
Me: Awesome.
Jay: Evil Awesome Backes?
Me: Yep.
Jay: COOL.
Xander: Really? Is your name really Evil Awesome Backes?
Me: (very slowly and sarcastically) Yes, my name is really Evil Awesome Backes.
Xander: Really??
Me: Uh, no.
Everyone: DUH, XANDER!!!!!!
11.15.04
Jerrod: How old do you have to be to be executed?
Dale: Next year, Jerrod!
11.12.04
current events.
TT: I personally think we should have one six year term for the president, so he wouldn't have to worry about getting re-elected, he could just do what he needs to do. But no one ever agrees with me!
Carl: He's just the little man in the corner!
-- My article is called "If You Like the Sedillo Hill Project, You'll Love What Comes Next." It's about how there's going to be even more road construction on I-40, just like at Sedillo Hill. It's biased because the author likes road construction.
-- Is it possible that the author was being sarcastic?
-- Sarcastic? No. Maybe. I don't know.
-- Well, let's think about this. Do you think anyone really likes driving through the construction on Sedillo Hill?
-- No way! My dad hates it!
-- Mine too!
-- They've been there forever!
-- Okay, so no one really likes road construction, right?
-- Yeah, but the author says, "If you LIKE the Sedillo Hill Project, you'll LOVE what comes next." So he obviously likes it.
-- Sigh.....
-- My article is about the healthiest states in the U.S. Minnesota is number one. The article is biased because it keeps talking about Minnesota.
-- Yeah, what's so great about Minnesota, anyway?
-- It's clean!
-- It's healthy!
-- Good food!
-- Clean!
-- Are you sure it's biased? Because if the article is about the healthiest state, and the healthiest state is Minnesota, then it kind of makes sense that they'd keep talking about it, right?
-- No, I think the writer was just a Minnesota-lover, which is bias.
-- The least healthy state is Louisiana....
-- It's because of Mardi Gras! Beads all over the place!
-- My article is totally biased! It only shows the woman's point of view. It NEVER shows the man's point of view at all!
-- What's your article about?
-- Cervical cancer.
11.11.04
-- The last class wanted to take the picture in the bathroom, but I don't think there's one big enough.
-- Ms. Backes, plus we'd have to find one of those, you know, semi-sexual bathrooms, and I don't think our school has any.
11.10.04
Carl: (singing) It's a giant party... in the mountains.... it's a rendezvous!
Me: (laughing out loud)
Team Teacher: And you wonder why teachers go nuts!!
11.09.04
Summer: Ms. Backes?
Me: Yes?
Summer: Um.... (gets distracted by people around us)
Me: Yes?
Summer: Oh. My question is...
Me: (gets distracted by people around us)
Summer: (starts giggling)
Me: Sorry, what? I got distracted.
Summer: My question -- (gets distracted)
Me: (giggle)
Summer: (giggle)
Me: This is why two ADD people shouldn't try to talk to one another!
11.08.04
Gary: Ms. Backes, is this good enough?
Me: (picking up his paper and reading) "Route 66 runs right through downtown Moriarty. Route 66 was America's first highway...." Looks good, Gary!
Gary: (shocked) You can read my handwriting?!
Me: Oh... sure.
Gary: Awesome! (high five)
Me: (high fiving him) Rock on!
11.05.04
My gifted block is working on "The ABCs of New Mexico" books, which has been extremely fun and funny.
Team Teacher: (stopping the class) Guys, remember that we're going to be reading these to FIRST GRADERS. So make sure your books are age-appropriate. It wouldn't be appropriate to say, for example, to read, "Children, P is for Peyote.... A is for Alcohol!"
Me: (sitting in a student desk, leaning forward to whisper to the Andrew-Brown-doppelganger in front of me) "D is for Drunk Driving!"
ABD: (whispering back) D is for DWI!
(later -- current events)
TT: If you guys get drunk, and you get into a car wreck... don't crash into a cop!
-- Who can tell me what the cold war was?
-- Umm.... when we went to war with Alaska?
Today I dealt with conflict in my classroom in the way I wanted to, the way I'd like to deal with all conflicts given the time and adult support and relative calm of the rest of the kids in the class. Too often I feel we just yell at kids without explaining to them the problem with their actions, but today I actually got to talk to the naughties in a calm and rational way. Of course I'd rather we not have this kind of thing happening in the classroom at all, but in the end I felt good about both interactions.
5th period.
Me: (calmly) Ronny, I'm writing you up.
Ronny: (crestfallen) Okay.
Me: Do you know why?
Ronny: Yes.
Me: Would you like to read your referral?
Ronny: Yes, please.
Me: Here you go. Would you agree with my account of your actions today?
Ronny: Yes. I'm sorry.
Me: Okay, well thank you for that. I'll need you to go to the office, please, and on Monday I know you'll do better, because I know you're capable of it, right?
Ronny: Right.
7th period.
(I turn my back on the class just long enough to prop the door open and turn back to find one child crying and two others shouting accusations.)
Me: What's going on?
Walt: He threw that at him and hit him in the eye!!
Me: What? Jerry, are you okay? Do you need to go to the nurse's office?
Jerry: (sniffle sniffle) No.
Me: What happened?
Walt: Brady threw the eraser and hit Jerry in the eye!!!
Me: (picking up the eraser) Brady, is this true?
Brady: (looking guilty, nods)
Me: You threw this eraser and hit him in the eye with it?
Brady: (nods)
Me: Brady, look at me, please. You threw this eraser hard enough to make a person cry. Do you see Jerry? You hurt him, Brady. This is a person, and you hurt him. You hurt this person, Brady. Do you understand?
Brady: (whispering) yes.
Me: Why would you do such a thing? Why would you hurt a person?
Brady: I don't know.
Me: I don't know either.
(I walk away and spend almost ten minutes trying to decide whether to write him up....finally going back to the boys at the very end of class.)
Me: Look, I'm trying to decide what to do here. Should I write you up?
Jerry: (standing up) Ms. Backes, to tell the truth, I was throwing the eraser at him, so I'm partially to blame.
Me: Should I write you both up?
Both boys: No.
Me: Do you both understand why this can't happen in my classroom?
Both boys: Yes.
Me: Okay then, have a nice weekend. Try not to maim anyone, okay?
Both boys: (obviously relieved) Okay, Ms. Backes! Bye!
11.04.04
Me: (walking past some students hard at work, I point to a picture of a tiger on a girl's folder and say "Roar!"
Kids: (crack up)
Coal: Ms. Backes, why did you do that?
Me: (innocently) What?
Coal: That was totally uncalled for!
Me: I beg to differ. She has a tiger on her folder, and tigers say roar. Hence, it was totally called for. (walks away)
Kids: Did you hear that? She just went -- roar!
30 October 2004
10.29.04
Strange morning. The ROTC offered to take an aerial photo of our students, so the whole school walked across the street to the high school football field and stood in a big huddle, freezing our asses off, for nearly an hour, until a big, spooky black helicopter came and flew around and around us, circling a total of five or six times.
So that's kind of weird, right. Except it gets weirder: an independent movie called "Believe in Me," which apparently is about a girls basketball team in the 60s, is being filmed in Moriarty, and a few of the scenes are actually being filmed on the campus of our high school. So as we walked the students to and from the football field, we had to walk through a big cluster of trailers, costumes, antique cars and an old schoolbus -- all the while trying to make sure that the kids didn't go harass any of the movie people. Of course, it helps that the kids have convinced themselves that Hilary Duff and/or Lindsay Lohan and/or Tom Hanks are all in this movie (not true, on any count), so as they're walking through the trailers they're screaming "I love you Hilary!!" "I love you Lindsay!!"
10.28.04
My new favorite thing ever is being accused, in front of the vice principal and guidance counselor, of being an unprofessional idiot who isn't teaching language arts, isn't teaching reading, doesn't know what she's doing, and promotes gang involvement and parent-hating in her classroom. Oh, and, "I don't think our son even respects you!"
***
Me: Well, I love having him in class. He's very funny.
Jerrod: But looks aren't everything.
Jerrod: I think I brained my damage!
10.27.04
before school.
Me: [walking down the hallway toward Crusty Old Teacher Next Door] You
look nice today, Mr. Laney!
Him: WHAT HATH WE WROUGHT??
Me: ..........?
Him: [handing me candy] Have a lollypop! I'm going as an Old Pervert for
Halloween!
after school -- PT conferences.
Parent: No offense, but this IS language arts, isn't it?
Me: Yep!
Parent: Well, it doesn't look like any language arts I've ever seen.
Me: [faking interest] Hmm!
Parent: I mean, when I was in school, we learned how to diagram sentences!
Me: Of course, but did you enjoy it?
Parent: Well, no.... but sometimes you have to do things you don't enjoy!
Me: Okay, true. But have you ever needed to diagram sentences in the real
world?
Parent: Well, no. But I found a note that my kid wrote to a friend, and he
spelled "always" wrong. If you ask me, there's something wrong with that!
Me: Well, he's a smart kid. I'd guess that his poor spelling is more about
making shortcuts than about not being a good speller.
Parent: That's what he told me! That he spells words wrong because it's
quicker!
Me: Lots of kids do that. It's connected to text-messaging and IMing.
Parent: I know. That's why I'm concerned that he's not learning how to
diagram sentences.
Me: .....???
Me: ...the only thing I'm a little concerned about with your son is that
he's very distracted by the girls. He's quite the ladies man, you know.
Mother: What a relief!
Me: Sorry, what?
Mother: Well, you know! You spend thirteen years waiting and hoping,
worried that he's -- you know -- going to go the wrong way, if you know
what I mean. And he's a late bloomer, so I didn't know for a while! It's
such a relief to know that he's, you know, going in the right direction!
...I'm sorry, what? You wasted thirteen years of your child's life
worrying about whether or not he'd go gay, when you could have been simply
enjoying the treasure of his childhood, loving the funny warm kid in him
without worrying who he might date in 10 years?? Isn't the sexuality of
your child one of those cross-that-bridge-if-we-have-to things? Isn't it
one of those we'll-love-him-no-matter-what things? For the love of god,
people! Stop being such sucky parents!!
10.26.04
7th period.
Jerry: Ms. Backes, I'm done with my test; can I sit in your chair?
Me: What? No!
Jerry: [whining] Please! Mr. C always lets me!
Summer: That's because he thinks you're special ed!!
6th period.
(studying for a test; I'm walking around the classroom carrying a Grinnell
College NSO mug full of coffee)
-- Ms. Backes, I love your mug! It's so cute!
-- Me too, Ms. Backes! Look at that little squirrel!
-- Oh, thanks!
-- Where did you get it?
-- It's from college. My college, ah, had a thing about squirrels.
-- Why?
-- They were just everywhere. The campus had millions of squirrels on it.
And they weren't the skinny creepy black squirrels like you see out here,
they were bunchy and orange and cute.
-- What's your mug say on the other side?
-- Oh, um... Grinnell College, New Student Orientation, 1998.
-- 1998?? That was a LONG time ago!!
-- I was seven!
-- I was seven too! That was five years ago, right?
-- 1998? No, that was six years ago.
-- Oh my gosh, I was SIX! That was, like, a whole lifetime ago!!
Ellery runs into the room at top speed, shouting:
Ellery: MsBackesIsawyelastnightandonthebusandatlunch!!
Me: You saw me last night?
Ellery: AndIsawyethismorningandonthebus....
Me: You saw me on the bus?
Ellery: No, I STUDIED last night and on the bus and this morning....
Me: Oh my gosh, I thought you said you SAW me!
Krystal: That's what I thought, too.
Me: I was a little scared! I thought, maybe he's stalking me!
Krystal: [laughing]
Ellery: [does not catch teasing at all] And I studied this morning and I
studied at lunch and I studied on the bus..........
Bran: Ms. Backes....
Me: Oh, Bran! Oh my gosh, I saw this picture in the paper today that
looked just like you!
Bran: Really?
Me: Yeah, it was some fifth grader pretending to be John Kerry. It's on
the front page of the journal, you should look for it!
Bran: Okay, I will!
Me: I thought, that looks just like Bran! It's so cute!
Bran: Cute?? Ahhhh! [runs away]
Me: Whoops... not cute, um... awesome! Not cute!
Other kid: [shaking his head] You NEVER say cute!
10.25.04
The best parts of today were all hard to translate. Like 7th period, when
I noticed I had ink all over my fingers, and at that moment a girl in the
front row started whispering and waving me over, and I walked over and
said, "What, do I have ink on my nose?" And she said, "What? No!" and then
we both started giggling. Or how two different kids teased me about my
accent today, in a cute way. Or how a girl came up to me right after lunch
and said, "Ms Backes!" and I said, "Oooh, I like your shirt!" and she
said, "Thanks, it says 'I love you!'" and I said, "I love you too!" and
then she said, "I love you too!" and I said, "I -- wait, did you want
something?" And we both started giggling. It was just kind of girly, happy
day.
7th period.
Summer: Ms. Backes, do you remember your first love?
Me: Of course.
Summer: Do you remember his name?
Me: Dominic.
Summer: Are you still in touch with him? What happened to him?
Me: I told you guys about him. Remember? He grew up to be a druggie?
Summer: Oh yeah!
[a few minutes later]
Me: Can I change my answer?
Summer: (giggling) Yeah.
Me: Dominic was my first boyfriend, but before that there was this kid I
was totally in love with from 5th grade through 7th grade. I thought we
were going to get married!
Summer: But you never went out?
Me: Um, no.
Summer: Sad! What happened to him?
Me: Ah... he grew up to be an alcoholic....
Arlene: Ms. Backes! What is it about you??
Me: I know! All my middle school boyfriends grew up to be druggies!
Monday Morning, first thing....
Crusty Old Teacher Next Door: [walking into my room and fiddling with the
thermostat on my wall] Dammit.
Me: Um, I don't think it works, still.
COTND: It's warm in the hallway!
Me: [stepping out of my room] Goodness, yes.
COTND: I asked them to fix this months ago!
Me: [sympathetically] Hmmm.
COTND: I'm on so many drugs, my blood is really thin. I'm always freezing!
Me: Well, I have a cabinet full of sweaters you're welcome to borrow, if
you'd like.
COTND: Got anything that matches my underwear? It's purple!
10.20.04
Today I was informed that, as of the end of the month, I am the head of
the English Department! Isn't that fucking preposterous?? I seriously just
laughed. And then I was informed that I will be taking over as advisor of
the Junior National Honor Society, and I laughed again! Ha ha ha! I don't
even have a grip on all the things I'm supposed to be accomplishing now,
much less two new arenas of responsability! Maybe I should just be the
goddamn principal while I'm at it! Ha ha ha!
7th period.
-- Ms. Backes, will you buy some candy?
-- No.
-- Why naau-aaht?
-- I don't "buy" things.
-- Huh?
-- Why are you kids selling candy anyway?
-- Because... my hamster... needs a heart transplant!
-- ...?
-- Er... so we can go to camp.
10.19.04
6th period.
-- Question number four. If the teacher had been prejudiced against brown
eyes instead of blue eyes, would they have acted the same way as the blue
eyes, in your opinion?
-- Um, so there's, like, no wrong answer?
-- Well....
-- Yeah, Ms. Backes, there could be! Like, you could say: A duck!
1st period.
-- And they [A&E] had a show about the TOP 40 most influential people of
the last 1000 years, like Shakespeare, Columbus, Freud, Isaac Newton....
-- Oprah!
-- (dryly) No, Oprah did not make the list.
10.14.04
But the good thing is that today, for the first time, I really started to
feel that the kids are understanding what we mean when we talk about
prejudice and stereotypes. Granted, it's still on a very abstract level --
like, "When people used to call other people the n-word, it was all about
power, right?" (Picture me frantically nodding my head in surprise, "Yes,
absolutely! You kids are so smart!") But to them, racism is still
something in the past, prejudice is still an abstract concept. It's
amazing, AMAZING, to feel that I'm getting through to these kids at all,
but now I want more. I want to turn it from an abstract concept to a
self-investigation, a check on themselves everytime they whip around to
scream "fag" at someone. My best hope lies in 7th period, where we had a
great discussion of how it feels to be discriminated against, and then
five minutes later one of the kids called someone else gay. I said, "Walt,
that's a perfect example of discrimination right there!" A few minutes
later, he said something again, and I heard another kid say, "That's
discrimination, Walt."
Now THAT was amazing.
6th period.
(watching "A Class Divided," about a teacher in Iowa who taught her 3rd
graders about racism in the 70s by dividing the class into blue-eyes vs.
brown-eyes)
Lindsay: (whispering) Ms. Backes?
Me: Yes?
Lindsay: How old were you when that happened?
Me: When what happened?
Lindsay: When Martin Luther King, Junior got killed.
Me: Oh! Sweetie, he was killed in 1968.
Lindsay: Okay, so........ how old were you then, a baby?
(before school)
Lindsay: Ms. Backes! I had a dream about you last night!
Me: Oooh, scary. Was I going on a rampage?
Lindsay: No.... you were coaching basketball!
Me: That IS scary!!
Q: What are some stereotypes adults might have about teenagers?
A: If these kids don't correct themselves the whole world with be plunged
into darkness.
Q: What are some stereotypes adults might have about teenagers?
A: If they went out and killed the pears or adultes.
Q: What are some stereotypes adults might have about teenagers?
A: Their all ganstas or rapers.
Q: What behaviors might get kids locked up in a box?
A: A kid would put a rabbit in a garden, running around town, and go dance
crazy.
Q: What were some of the social norms you saw in your individual TV research?
A: The social norm that I noticed was that to some kids didn't think it
was normal to stuff your bra with tissue.
"I like Audre Lorde because the title wants you to read it."
10.13.04
6th period.
(after class)
Owen: You know what Ms. Backes?
Me: What's that.
Owen: I love to have you as a teacher!
Me: Awww. That's nice to hear.
Owen: Well, it's nice to say, too!
-- Raise your hand and tell me whether you think the narrator of this poem
is a male or a female. Joey?
-- Female!
-- Okay, why?
-- Because it says, 'the boy I cannot live without.'
-- Alright, good. But you know, in the last class we talked about how the
boy could be someone else, not necessarily a boyfriend. Like a best
friend, or a little brother.
-- Ms. Backes. Or maybe it's, like, the little boy that lives inside him,
like his inner child, and he feels protective of that.
-- Wow, that's one no one's come up with yet. (touched) His inner child?
Awww. You kids!
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: Dog Cat.
(what???)
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: "I don't like you," "and I've only known you for 3 min."
10.12.04
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: When someone of a different color walks up to you and growels.
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: Like when you call someone "nigel"
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: You have a small foot!
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: People that hate other roses.
6th period.
Ellery: (laughing hysterically to himself)
Harry: Ms. Backes, I think Ellery's totally lost it!
Me: Ellery, have you totally lost it?
Ellery: (laughing hysterically)....(pause) Lost what?
5th period.
-- Phillip, what's up with you today? You're usually my rock, and today....
-- I know! I was, like, a disaster!
-- Take 5 minutes to put all your feelings down on paper. Anger,
excitement, happiness, sadness, boredom, whatever. If you're mad at
someone. If you're looking forward to something. Put all your feelings
down on paper so that they won't distract you during class.
-- I don't get it.
-- It's like in Harry Potter, when they dump the old memories into that
bowl. This is your emotion dump.
-- But Ms. Backes, I need my anger!
-- Not in this room you don't.
-- Yes I do, I need it for football practice!
-- What did I just say?
-- But I need -- oh, what?
-- Not in this room. This room. You can be as angry as you want in
football practice, but this is English class!
-- But I have to be angry for football, Ms. Backes!
-- But you can't be angry in English class. And if you keep arguing with
me, **I'll** be angry in English class. And that's a problem for everyone!
2nd period.
(in the library)
Dale: Ms. Backes, look! This website has a lot of information about Acoma
Pueblo, including poetry and pottery!
Me: Wow, great! That will be helpful for your project.
Dale: I have to tell Nick. He's the poetry man.
Me: Well, make sure you have this website written down.
Dale: Can I print it out?
Me: The whole website? No way!
Dale: Well.... can I just print out the address?
Me: No! Write it down.
Dale: (goes to save it under favorites)
Me: Dale! You don't want to be dependent on this computer. Write it down,
so you can find the website again no matter what computer you're using.
Dale: Uhh! Now I have to walk all the way across the library for my
notebook! You're so mean, Ms. Backes!!
"You sound lonely, and we're worried about that. Because if you don't have
enough friends, that's when the jesus people can get you."
-- my father
Strange morning. The ROTC offered to take an aerial photo of our students, so the whole school walked across the street to the high school football field and stood in a big huddle, freezing our asses off, for nearly an hour, until a big, spooky black helicopter came and flew around and around us, circling a total of five or six times.
So that's kind of weird, right. Except it gets weirder: an independent movie called "Believe in Me," which apparently is about a girls basketball team in the 60s, is being filmed in Moriarty, and a few of the scenes are actually being filmed on the campus of our high school. So as we walked the students to and from the football field, we had to walk through a big cluster of trailers, costumes, antique cars and an old schoolbus -- all the while trying to make sure that the kids didn't go harass any of the movie people. Of course, it helps that the kids have convinced themselves that Hilary Duff and/or Lindsay Lohan and/or Tom Hanks are all in this movie (not true, on any count), so as they're walking through the trailers they're screaming "I love you Hilary!!" "I love you Lindsay!!"
10.28.04
My new favorite thing ever is being accused, in front of the vice principal and guidance counselor, of being an unprofessional idiot who isn't teaching language arts, isn't teaching reading, doesn't know what she's doing, and promotes gang involvement and parent-hating in her classroom. Oh, and, "I don't think our son even respects you!"
***
Me: Well, I love having him in class. He's very funny.
Jerrod: But looks aren't everything.
Jerrod: I think I brained my damage!
10.27.04
before school.
Me: [walking down the hallway toward Crusty Old Teacher Next Door] You
look nice today, Mr. Laney!
Him: WHAT HATH WE WROUGHT??
Me: ..........?
Him: [handing me candy] Have a lollypop! I'm going as an Old Pervert for
Halloween!
after school -- PT conferences.
Parent: No offense, but this IS language arts, isn't it?
Me: Yep!
Parent: Well, it doesn't look like any language arts I've ever seen.
Me: [faking interest] Hmm!
Parent: I mean, when I was in school, we learned how to diagram sentences!
Me: Of course, but did you enjoy it?
Parent: Well, no.... but sometimes you have to do things you don't enjoy!
Me: Okay, true. But have you ever needed to diagram sentences in the real
world?
Parent: Well, no. But I found a note that my kid wrote to a friend, and he
spelled "always" wrong. If you ask me, there's something wrong with that!
Me: Well, he's a smart kid. I'd guess that his poor spelling is more about
making shortcuts than about not being a good speller.
Parent: That's what he told me! That he spells words wrong because it's
quicker!
Me: Lots of kids do that. It's connected to text-messaging and IMing.
Parent: I know. That's why I'm concerned that he's not learning how to
diagram sentences.
Me: .....???
Me: ...the only thing I'm a little concerned about with your son is that
he's very distracted by the girls. He's quite the ladies man, you know.
Mother: What a relief!
Me: Sorry, what?
Mother: Well, you know! You spend thirteen years waiting and hoping,
worried that he's -- you know -- going to go the wrong way, if you know
what I mean. And he's a late bloomer, so I didn't know for a while! It's
such a relief to know that he's, you know, going in the right direction!
...I'm sorry, what? You wasted thirteen years of your child's life
worrying about whether or not he'd go gay, when you could have been simply
enjoying the treasure of his childhood, loving the funny warm kid in him
without worrying who he might date in 10 years?? Isn't the sexuality of
your child one of those cross-that-bridge-if-we-have-to things? Isn't it
one of those we'll-love-him-no-matter-what things? For the love of god,
people! Stop being such sucky parents!!
10.26.04
7th period.
Jerry: Ms. Backes, I'm done with my test; can I sit in your chair?
Me: What? No!
Jerry: [whining] Please! Mr. C always lets me!
Summer: That's because he thinks you're special ed!!
6th period.
(studying for a test; I'm walking around the classroom carrying a Grinnell
College NSO mug full of coffee)
-- Ms. Backes, I love your mug! It's so cute!
-- Me too, Ms. Backes! Look at that little squirrel!
-- Oh, thanks!
-- Where did you get it?
-- It's from college. My college, ah, had a thing about squirrels.
-- Why?
-- They were just everywhere. The campus had millions of squirrels on it.
And they weren't the skinny creepy black squirrels like you see out here,
they were bunchy and orange and cute.
-- What's your mug say on the other side?
-- Oh, um... Grinnell College, New Student Orientation, 1998.
-- 1998?? That was a LONG time ago!!
-- I was seven!
-- I was seven too! That was five years ago, right?
-- 1998? No, that was six years ago.
-- Oh my gosh, I was SIX! That was, like, a whole lifetime ago!!
Ellery runs into the room at top speed, shouting:
Ellery: MsBackesIsawyelastnightandonthebusandatlunch!!
Me: You saw me last night?
Ellery: AndIsawyethismorningandonthebus....
Me: You saw me on the bus?
Ellery: No, I STUDIED last night and on the bus and this morning....
Me: Oh my gosh, I thought you said you SAW me!
Krystal: That's what I thought, too.
Me: I was a little scared! I thought, maybe he's stalking me!
Krystal: [laughing]
Ellery: [does not catch teasing at all] And I studied this morning and I
studied at lunch and I studied on the bus..........
Bran: Ms. Backes....
Me: Oh, Bran! Oh my gosh, I saw this picture in the paper today that
looked just like you!
Bran: Really?
Me: Yeah, it was some fifth grader pretending to be John Kerry. It's on
the front page of the journal, you should look for it!
Bran: Okay, I will!
Me: I thought, that looks just like Bran! It's so cute!
Bran: Cute?? Ahhhh! [runs away]
Me: Whoops... not cute, um... awesome! Not cute!
Other kid: [shaking his head] You NEVER say cute!
10.25.04
The best parts of today were all hard to translate. Like 7th period, when
I noticed I had ink all over my fingers, and at that moment a girl in the
front row started whispering and waving me over, and I walked over and
said, "What, do I have ink on my nose?" And she said, "What? No!" and then
we both started giggling. Or how two different kids teased me about my
accent today, in a cute way. Or how a girl came up to me right after lunch
and said, "Ms Backes!" and I said, "Oooh, I like your shirt!" and she
said, "Thanks, it says 'I love you!'" and I said, "I love you too!" and
then she said, "I love you too!" and I said, "I -- wait, did you want
something?" And we both started giggling. It was just kind of girly, happy
day.
7th period.
Summer: Ms. Backes, do you remember your first love?
Me: Of course.
Summer: Do you remember his name?
Me: Dominic.
Summer: Are you still in touch with him? What happened to him?
Me: I told you guys about him. Remember? He grew up to be a druggie?
Summer: Oh yeah!
[a few minutes later]
Me: Can I change my answer?
Summer: (giggling) Yeah.
Me: Dominic was my first boyfriend, but before that there was this kid I
was totally in love with from 5th grade through 7th grade. I thought we
were going to get married!
Summer: But you never went out?
Me: Um, no.
Summer: Sad! What happened to him?
Me: Ah... he grew up to be an alcoholic....
Arlene: Ms. Backes! What is it about you??
Me: I know! All my middle school boyfriends grew up to be druggies!
Monday Morning, first thing....
Crusty Old Teacher Next Door: [walking into my room and fiddling with the
thermostat on my wall] Dammit.
Me: Um, I don't think it works, still.
COTND: It's warm in the hallway!
Me: [stepping out of my room] Goodness, yes.
COTND: I asked them to fix this months ago!
Me: [sympathetically] Hmmm.
COTND: I'm on so many drugs, my blood is really thin. I'm always freezing!
Me: Well, I have a cabinet full of sweaters you're welcome to borrow, if
you'd like.
COTND: Got anything that matches my underwear? It's purple!
10.20.04
Today I was informed that, as of the end of the month, I am the head of
the English Department! Isn't that fucking preposterous?? I seriously just
laughed. And then I was informed that I will be taking over as advisor of
the Junior National Honor Society, and I laughed again! Ha ha ha! I don't
even have a grip on all the things I'm supposed to be accomplishing now,
much less two new arenas of responsability! Maybe I should just be the
goddamn principal while I'm at it! Ha ha ha!
7th period.
-- Ms. Backes, will you buy some candy?
-- No.
-- Why naau-aaht?
-- I don't "buy" things.
-- Huh?
-- Why are you kids selling candy anyway?
-- Because... my hamster... needs a heart transplant!
-- ...?
-- Er... so we can go to camp.
10.19.04
6th period.
-- Question number four. If the teacher had been prejudiced against brown
eyes instead of blue eyes, would they have acted the same way as the blue
eyes, in your opinion?
-- Um, so there's, like, no wrong answer?
-- Well....
-- Yeah, Ms. Backes, there could be! Like, you could say: A duck!
1st period.
-- And they [A&E] had a show about the TOP 40 most influential people of
the last 1000 years, like Shakespeare, Columbus, Freud, Isaac Newton....
-- Oprah!
-- (dryly) No, Oprah did not make the list.
10.14.04
But the good thing is that today, for the first time, I really started to
feel that the kids are understanding what we mean when we talk about
prejudice and stereotypes. Granted, it's still on a very abstract level --
like, "When people used to call other people the n-word, it was all about
power, right?" (Picture me frantically nodding my head in surprise, "Yes,
absolutely! You kids are so smart!") But to them, racism is still
something in the past, prejudice is still an abstract concept. It's
amazing, AMAZING, to feel that I'm getting through to these kids at all,
but now I want more. I want to turn it from an abstract concept to a
self-investigation, a check on themselves everytime they whip around to
scream "fag" at someone. My best hope lies in 7th period, where we had a
great discussion of how it feels to be discriminated against, and then
five minutes later one of the kids called someone else gay. I said, "Walt,
that's a perfect example of discrimination right there!" A few minutes
later, he said something again, and I heard another kid say, "That's
discrimination, Walt."
Now THAT was amazing.
6th period.
(watching "A Class Divided," about a teacher in Iowa who taught her 3rd
graders about racism in the 70s by dividing the class into blue-eyes vs.
brown-eyes)
Lindsay: (whispering) Ms. Backes?
Me: Yes?
Lindsay: How old were you when that happened?
Me: When what happened?
Lindsay: When Martin Luther King, Junior got killed.
Me: Oh! Sweetie, he was killed in 1968.
Lindsay: Okay, so........ how old were you then, a baby?
(before school)
Lindsay: Ms. Backes! I had a dream about you last night!
Me: Oooh, scary. Was I going on a rampage?
Lindsay: No.... you were coaching basketball!
Me: That IS scary!!
Q: What are some stereotypes adults might have about teenagers?
A: If these kids don't correct themselves the whole world with be plunged
into darkness.
Q: What are some stereotypes adults might have about teenagers?
A: If they went out and killed the pears or adultes.
Q: What are some stereotypes adults might have about teenagers?
A: Their all ganstas or rapers.
Q: What behaviors might get kids locked up in a box?
A: A kid would put a rabbit in a garden, running around town, and go dance
crazy.
Q: What were some of the social norms you saw in your individual TV research?
A: The social norm that I noticed was that to some kids didn't think it
was normal to stuff your bra with tissue.
"I like Audre Lorde because the title wants you to read it."
10.13.04
6th period.
(after class)
Owen: You know what Ms. Backes?
Me: What's that.
Owen: I love to have you as a teacher!
Me: Awww. That's nice to hear.
Owen: Well, it's nice to say, too!
-- Raise your hand and tell me whether you think the narrator of this poem
is a male or a female. Joey?
-- Female!
-- Okay, why?
-- Because it says, 'the boy I cannot live without.'
-- Alright, good. But you know, in the last class we talked about how the
boy could be someone else, not necessarily a boyfriend. Like a best
friend, or a little brother.
-- Ms. Backes. Or maybe it's, like, the little boy that lives inside him,
like his inner child, and he feels protective of that.
-- Wow, that's one no one's come up with yet. (touched) His inner child?
Awww. You kids!
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: Dog Cat.
(what???)
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: "I don't like you," "and I've only known you for 3 min."
10.12.04
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: When someone of a different color walks up to you and growels.
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: Like when you call someone "nigel"
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: You have a small foot!
Q: What are two examples of prejudice in daily life?
A: People that hate other roses.
6th period.
Ellery: (laughing hysterically to himself)
Harry: Ms. Backes, I think Ellery's totally lost it!
Me: Ellery, have you totally lost it?
Ellery: (laughing hysterically)....(pause) Lost what?
5th period.
-- Phillip, what's up with you today? You're usually my rock, and today....
-- I know! I was, like, a disaster!
-- Take 5 minutes to put all your feelings down on paper. Anger,
excitement, happiness, sadness, boredom, whatever. If you're mad at
someone. If you're looking forward to something. Put all your feelings
down on paper so that they won't distract you during class.
-- I don't get it.
-- It's like in Harry Potter, when they dump the old memories into that
bowl. This is your emotion dump.
-- But Ms. Backes, I need my anger!
-- Not in this room you don't.
-- Yes I do, I need it for football practice!
-- What did I just say?
-- But I need -- oh, what?
-- Not in this room. This room. You can be as angry as you want in
football practice, but this is English class!
-- But I have to be angry for football, Ms. Backes!
-- But you can't be angry in English class. And if you keep arguing with
me, **I'll** be angry in English class. And that's a problem for everyone!
2nd period.
(in the library)
Dale: Ms. Backes, look! This website has a lot of information about Acoma
Pueblo, including poetry and pottery!
Me: Wow, great! That will be helpful for your project.
Dale: I have to tell Nick. He's the poetry man.
Me: Well, make sure you have this website written down.
Dale: Can I print it out?
Me: The whole website? No way!
Dale: Well.... can I just print out the address?
Me: No! Write it down.
Dale: (goes to save it under favorites)
Me: Dale! You don't want to be dependent on this computer. Write it down,
so you can find the website again no matter what computer you're using.
Dale: Uhh! Now I have to walk all the way across the library for my
notebook! You're so mean, Ms. Backes!!
"You sound lonely, and we're worried about that. Because if you don't have
enough friends, that's when the jesus people can get you."
-- my father
10 October 2004
10.10.04
(grading papers)
Q: What is the difference between direct characterization and indirect characterization?
A: One you get told they are mean and the other its that they throw cats in the water.
Q: In what part of the story does the climax usually occur?
A: The climax usually occurs 15 minutes into a story.
Q: What is the narrative POINT OF VIEW (P.O.V.) of this story?
A: Yes.
Q: What is the difference between direct characterization and indirect characterization?
A: Direct is when your saying "she is tall with brown eyes." Indirect is when your saying "he is pudgy with rock nerd skin."
Q: How do you know if a story is being told in first, second, or third person narrative Point Of View (P.O.V.)?
A: Because if they use "I was there when I kissed my boyfriend."
Q: Give an example of direct characterization:
A: They were singing!
10.08.04
6th period.
-- You're such a teacher's pet.
-- Who, ME?
-- Um.... yeah! You're a teacher's pet, Ms. Backes.
-- No, I'm the TEACHER.
2nd period.
-- Why do we have to do free writing?? (whine whine)
-- Because you have to practice writing sometimes.
-- I don't! It says in my IEP that I can type instead of write!
-- Okay. But one day you'll have to take the SAT, which requires a handwritten essay. And on that day, you'll want to have practice behind you of just writing.
-- What does SAT stand for?
-- Standard.... test.
-- Standardized achievement test. Aptitude? Aptitude.
-- Aptitude, I think.
-- I think the T should stand for Tetris.
-- Standardized Aptitude Tetris?
-- Yeah!
-- Oooh, I got it: Standard Atari Tetris!
-- Well, that would be an interesting test, I guess.
-- Standard Atari Tetris? I would do so good on that. I would totally get into Harvard!
-- Ms. Backes, do you have to write essays a lot?
-- What? Me, personally?
-- No, like, are there a lot of tests with essays?
-- Oh yeah, sure there are. A few years ago I had to take a test where I had to write twelve essays in something like two hours!
-- Twelve?? How long did they have to be?
-- Well... there wasn't a required length, but you wanted to cram as much information as you could into each. A page or two each, I guess.
-- In two hours?
-- Yeah.
-- Did you have fun?
-- What? No! It was terrible! By the end my hand was just aching, and it totally stressed me out. It wasn't fun at all.
-- Yeah, but you had college professor brains when you were in 8th grade, Ms. Backes!
-- Did you write a lot, Ms. Backes?
-- Sure. In high school, I always had a journal that I'd pull out whenever there was a slow moment, if I finished a test early or we had to watch a movie in class or something. I was always writing.
-- Yeah, but those were the old days. Kids today would probably just be doodling or drawing little pictures.
-- The old days?
-- Yeah.
-- I went to high school in the nineties! Not that much has changed in the last ten years!
-- See, ten years ago. That's the old days. Like, when I was a baby!
1st period.
-- What's this?
-- It's a NEWSPAPER. They print it every morning, and it has NEWS in it, which means that you can learn what's happening in our town....
-- No, I meant, what's this headline about?? (lightbulb) Ms. Backes, are you messing with me?
-- Never.
Today's teaching rant....
Last night my mother was telling me that I'm ethically responsible for the things that my team-teacher tells his classes (not just our joint class, but all his classes). That when he tells them about the end of the world and shows them Young Guns to show them what it's like to do peyote (an accurate portrayal, I'm sure) and teaches them that the alien-dna theory is just as viable as creationism or evolution, he is damaging their little brains and planting the seeds of evil. "You're planting the seeds of tolerance and creativity and critical thinking, and I'm proud of you, but he's planting the seeds of evil." And honestly, I do take responsibility, and I do feel that I will somehow be held accountable when one of the children tries to smoke a cactus and says it was the teacher's influence.
But. A couple of things: one, I'm a girl. I hate to say that, but the whole third wave passed right by this school, and the good ol'boys get away with pretty much anything (especially if they're coaches!) and really, it's not my place to correct a male colleague of mine. I try to do so sneakily of course, but he gets salty with me even so, like the time I insisted that not all kids who grow up in India are taught that white people come from Mars. He was rather irritated that I would try to correct him on that, even though it's preposterous and bizarre. Anyhow. This is a school where the principal describes my team teaching as a "shot-gun wedding," where my next-door-neighbor teacher literally kicks his students and tells me I'll "get everything but a venereal disease from these kids," etc etc. And I have to teach with this man for the rest of the year, so I don't really want to make an enemy of him by ratting him out or over-correcting him in front of the kids.....
But here's the real thing: One could argue that what I teach my students is just as controversial and perhaps just as inappropriate as what my team-teacher says. He talks about drugs in the classroom, I talk about gays as if they were no big deal. He teaches about aliens, I teach about tolerance for other religions and other ethnicities. ("Yes, but you're right," says my mother.) I think that every argument that could be made against what my team-teacher does could also be made against what I do, and I'm not really eager to bring that level of scrutiny into my own teaching, because I have a feeling that all my tolerance and creativity and love-thy-neighbor lessons would be nixed in favor of worksheets from the textbook.
And yet.... and yet. Where's the ethical line, folks? Ethics in teaching seemed so cut-and-dry when we were in college. Don't sleep with the students, don't share your weed, don't buy them beer, and you'll be fine. Somehow it's not that easy anymore....
10.07.04
Today we played "Social Norming BINGO" (with credit and thanks to Whitney Davidson for the idea). Homework tonight is to go home and watch TV for 20-30 minutes, recording every single person they see, and deciding whether or not that person fits a common stereotype. These are lessons I developed back in Iowa, and there's nothing better than the day that I get to say, "Your homework tonight is to go home and watch TV!"
7th period.
Me: Your homework tonight is to go home and watch television....
Gary: Oh man, I have been waiting my whole LIFE to hear someone say those words!
On the classroom management front, today went extremely well, which is interesting considering I had terrible laryngitis and literally could not talk. (I was so sick, I actually stayed home yesterday.) My class-from-hell was SOOOO good today! I gave them a new seating chart, which seemed to help (they asked for one), and told them that starting tomorrow we'd do a warning/call home/referral plan. Plus, everyone who was working hard got stickers, which will translate into extra credit in a week. A couple of kids (like the kid I threw out of my class twice last week) still had a hard time today, and with those kids I'm going to do some sort of agreement or contract.... yay, behaviorism.
Also, I talked to the school psychologist, who's been a friend of mine for almost as long as I've been in New Mexico (he and I actually ran a bully-proofing workshop together last autumn), and apparently all the psychologists and counselors went to a violence-prevention workshop last year and are excited about piloting this new program in the schools, and were actually thinking about asking me to be the pilot classroom for the year, even before I showed up and asked if someone could do some violence prevention and/or anger management training in my classroom.
So things are looking up, y'all.
10.05.04
7th period.
This area's been battered by severe thunderstorms and hail in the last two days. Last night my neighborhood got 6 inches of hail, and this morning I had to leave 25 minutes early just to get to school on time (because New Mexicans can't drive in "weather"). Then this afternoon, the storm over Moriarty was so bad that we were forced to keep the students in our classrooms for an extra half-hour at the end of the day! The announcement comes at about 2:45, and I just start laughing, because I'm sick, I've almost totally lost my voice, and my kids are already rowdy. But then, one of my students starts to hyperventilate, and a couple other kids around her start waving to me to come over. So I walk over and this girl explains to me that Summer had a dream the other night that it rained so hard that everyone had to stay at school, and then... well, basically, then everyone in the whole school died. So Summer's a little freaked out right now. So I send Amanda and Summer out into the hallway to calm down and valiantly try to keep on with my lesson. Of course, the news -- how we're all going to die -- spreads through the class like, well, middle school gossip, and pretty soon the whole class is freaking out. FREAKING OUT. These kids are convinced that we are going to die. And honestly, the storm was really very spooky, because the rain was just beating down and the thunder was directly over us and the lightning just kept flashing and it was really dark and cold. So I'm trying to keep everyone calm, because after all we still have another forty minutes to be together, but to tell the truth, **I'm** starting to get a little freaked out. I mean, there's nothing like 28 middle schoolers in the middle of a big scary storm all telling you that you're about to die. Nothing. And did I mention that I have literally no voice at this point? No voice. So I can't even calm their fears, I just keep kind of waving at them like I'm trying to land a plane or something, or like they're a big, hormonal, superstitious choir, and I'm the director. Things stay pretty tense like that for a while, the kids trembling in the dark and screaming with every thunder clap, me shaking my head and making shusshing noises, and the sound of the rain drowning out everything else. But eventually, the rain slows, and a rainbow appears over the high school, and Summer calms down, and the kids go back to flirting and fighting and jumping off chairs and drawing on my chalkboard and generally just being the hyper, hilarious, and very non-dead kids I've come to know and love so well.
6th period.
-- Wait, Ms. Backes! Wonderfullest isn't a word!
-- It's called poetic license. I'm a poet, so I can make stuff up.
--
--
-- You have to have a LICENSE to be a poet???
5th period.
-- You should hit us more!
-- See, I was raised by counselor-therapist-social worker types. Hitting isn't even in my DNA.
-- Sure it is! You just have to get in touch with your inner violence!!
10.04.04
Four words that strike fear in a teacher's heart:
I SAW YOU DRIVING!!
Oh, shit. When? If it was after school, I was probably singing to myself like a moron, or dancing. Possibly talking on my cell phone and making funny faces. If it was before school, I was probably speeding (the speed limit on 40 is 75, so I'm crusing close to 90 some mornings), maybe yelling at the radio, possibly brushing my hair, and definitely looking sleepy/zoned out/cranky.
This morning....
Walt: Ms. Backes, I saw you driving!
Me: Great.
Walt: On the way to school! You were, like, passing all these semis!
Me: Um....
Walt: You drive a lot faster than my mom does, Ms. Backes!
***
And on another note entirely....
Me, last night, trying to describe the kind of person I'm looking for in my life:
They have to be earnest, but not too earnest... you know, idealistic, like in theory, but not in practice. They have to be the kind of person who would like their life to involve getting up at 5:30 am to drink tea and mediate, but doesn't actually go through with it very often because they're too hungover or too busy accidentally driving into their house. Wait. I mean, I just can't deal with people who are too nice, too pure, you know? I need a little less, let's talk about our feelings and a little more, eh, fuck you.
Roommate: More fuck you?
Me: Yeah. Like, they have to be idealistic but also cynical... you know, hope for the best but then have a very perverse, sick sense of humor about everything. Someone who isn't easily offended. Like this guy tonight, he was all "I need absolute peace and harmony to tap into my creative spirit," and I'm looking for more mental illness than that, you know, more "Hypercolor is like Osama bin Laden: they both disappeared." I mean, that!
Roommate: ..... what's "hypercolor"?
Me: It's, uh.....well jesus, it's.......oh, Grinnell ruined me!
(grading papers)
Q: What is the difference between direct characterization and indirect characterization?
A: One you get told they are mean and the other its that they throw cats in the water.
Q: In what part of the story does the climax usually occur?
A: The climax usually occurs 15 minutes into a story.
Q: What is the narrative POINT OF VIEW (P.O.V.) of this story?
A: Yes.
Q: What is the difference between direct characterization and indirect characterization?
A: Direct is when your saying "she is tall with brown eyes." Indirect is when your saying "he is pudgy with rock nerd skin."
Q: How do you know if a story is being told in first, second, or third person narrative Point Of View (P.O.V.)?
A: Because if they use "I was there when I kissed my boyfriend."
Q: Give an example of direct characterization:
A: They were singing!
10.08.04
6th period.
-- You're such a teacher's pet.
-- Who, ME?
-- Um.... yeah! You're a teacher's pet, Ms. Backes.
-- No, I'm the TEACHER.
2nd period.
-- Why do we have to do free writing?? (whine whine)
-- Because you have to practice writing sometimes.
-- I don't! It says in my IEP that I can type instead of write!
-- Okay. But one day you'll have to take the SAT, which requires a handwritten essay. And on that day, you'll want to have practice behind you of just writing.
-- What does SAT stand for?
-- Standard.... test.
-- Standardized achievement test. Aptitude? Aptitude.
-- Aptitude, I think.
-- I think the T should stand for Tetris.
-- Standardized Aptitude Tetris?
-- Yeah!
-- Oooh, I got it: Standard Atari Tetris!
-- Well, that would be an interesting test, I guess.
-- Standard Atari Tetris? I would do so good on that. I would totally get into Harvard!
-- Ms. Backes, do you have to write essays a lot?
-- What? Me, personally?
-- No, like, are there a lot of tests with essays?
-- Oh yeah, sure there are. A few years ago I had to take a test where I had to write twelve essays in something like two hours!
-- Twelve?? How long did they have to be?
-- Well... there wasn't a required length, but you wanted to cram as much information as you could into each. A page or two each, I guess.
-- In two hours?
-- Yeah.
-- Did you have fun?
-- What? No! It was terrible! By the end my hand was just aching, and it totally stressed me out. It wasn't fun at all.
-- Yeah, but you had college professor brains when you were in 8th grade, Ms. Backes!
-- Did you write a lot, Ms. Backes?
-- Sure. In high school, I always had a journal that I'd pull out whenever there was a slow moment, if I finished a test early or we had to watch a movie in class or something. I was always writing.
-- Yeah, but those were the old days. Kids today would probably just be doodling or drawing little pictures.
-- The old days?
-- Yeah.
-- I went to high school in the nineties! Not that much has changed in the last ten years!
-- See, ten years ago. That's the old days. Like, when I was a baby!
1st period.
-- What's this?
-- It's a NEWSPAPER. They print it every morning, and it has NEWS in it, which means that you can learn what's happening in our town....
-- No, I meant, what's this headline about?? (lightbulb) Ms. Backes, are you messing with me?
-- Never.
Today's teaching rant....
Last night my mother was telling me that I'm ethically responsible for the things that my team-teacher tells his classes (not just our joint class, but all his classes). That when he tells them about the end of the world and shows them Young Guns to show them what it's like to do peyote (an accurate portrayal, I'm sure) and teaches them that the alien-dna theory is just as viable as creationism or evolution, he is damaging their little brains and planting the seeds of evil. "You're planting the seeds of tolerance and creativity and critical thinking, and I'm proud of you, but he's planting the seeds of evil." And honestly, I do take responsibility, and I do feel that I will somehow be held accountable when one of the children tries to smoke a cactus and says it was the teacher's influence.
But. A couple of things: one, I'm a girl. I hate to say that, but the whole third wave passed right by this school, and the good ol'boys get away with pretty much anything (especially if they're coaches!) and really, it's not my place to correct a male colleague of mine. I try to do so sneakily of course, but he gets salty with me even so, like the time I insisted that not all kids who grow up in India are taught that white people come from Mars. He was rather irritated that I would try to correct him on that, even though it's preposterous and bizarre. Anyhow. This is a school where the principal describes my team teaching as a "shot-gun wedding," where my next-door-neighbor teacher literally kicks his students and tells me I'll "get everything but a venereal disease from these kids," etc etc. And I have to teach with this man for the rest of the year, so I don't really want to make an enemy of him by ratting him out or over-correcting him in front of the kids.....
But here's the real thing: One could argue that what I teach my students is just as controversial and perhaps just as inappropriate as what my team-teacher says. He talks about drugs in the classroom, I talk about gays as if they were no big deal. He teaches about aliens, I teach about tolerance for other religions and other ethnicities. ("Yes, but you're right," says my mother.) I think that every argument that could be made against what my team-teacher does could also be made against what I do, and I'm not really eager to bring that level of scrutiny into my own teaching, because I have a feeling that all my tolerance and creativity and love-thy-neighbor lessons would be nixed in favor of worksheets from the textbook.
And yet.... and yet. Where's the ethical line, folks? Ethics in teaching seemed so cut-and-dry when we were in college. Don't sleep with the students, don't share your weed, don't buy them beer, and you'll be fine. Somehow it's not that easy anymore....
10.07.04
Today we played "Social Norming BINGO" (with credit and thanks to Whitney Davidson for the idea). Homework tonight is to go home and watch TV for 20-30 minutes, recording every single person they see, and deciding whether or not that person fits a common stereotype. These are lessons I developed back in Iowa, and there's nothing better than the day that I get to say, "Your homework tonight is to go home and watch TV!"
7th period.
Me: Your homework tonight is to go home and watch television....
Gary: Oh man, I have been waiting my whole LIFE to hear someone say those words!
On the classroom management front, today went extremely well, which is interesting considering I had terrible laryngitis and literally could not talk. (I was so sick, I actually stayed home yesterday.) My class-from-hell was SOOOO good today! I gave them a new seating chart, which seemed to help (they asked for one), and told them that starting tomorrow we'd do a warning/call home/referral plan. Plus, everyone who was working hard got stickers, which will translate into extra credit in a week. A couple of kids (like the kid I threw out of my class twice last week) still had a hard time today, and with those kids I'm going to do some sort of agreement or contract.... yay, behaviorism.
Also, I talked to the school psychologist, who's been a friend of mine for almost as long as I've been in New Mexico (he and I actually ran a bully-proofing workshop together last autumn), and apparently all the psychologists and counselors went to a violence-prevention workshop last year and are excited about piloting this new program in the schools, and were actually thinking about asking me to be the pilot classroom for the year, even before I showed up and asked if someone could do some violence prevention and/or anger management training in my classroom.
So things are looking up, y'all.
10.05.04
7th period.
This area's been battered by severe thunderstorms and hail in the last two days. Last night my neighborhood got 6 inches of hail, and this morning I had to leave 25 minutes early just to get to school on time (because New Mexicans can't drive in "weather"). Then this afternoon, the storm over Moriarty was so bad that we were forced to keep the students in our classrooms for an extra half-hour at the end of the day! The announcement comes at about 2:45, and I just start laughing, because I'm sick, I've almost totally lost my voice, and my kids are already rowdy. But then, one of my students starts to hyperventilate, and a couple other kids around her start waving to me to come over. So I walk over and this girl explains to me that Summer had a dream the other night that it rained so hard that everyone had to stay at school, and then... well, basically, then everyone in the whole school died. So Summer's a little freaked out right now. So I send Amanda and Summer out into the hallway to calm down and valiantly try to keep on with my lesson. Of course, the news -- how we're all going to die -- spreads through the class like, well, middle school gossip, and pretty soon the whole class is freaking out. FREAKING OUT. These kids are convinced that we are going to die. And honestly, the storm was really very spooky, because the rain was just beating down and the thunder was directly over us and the lightning just kept flashing and it was really dark and cold. So I'm trying to keep everyone calm, because after all we still have another forty minutes to be together, but to tell the truth, **I'm** starting to get a little freaked out. I mean, there's nothing like 28 middle schoolers in the middle of a big scary storm all telling you that you're about to die. Nothing. And did I mention that I have literally no voice at this point? No voice. So I can't even calm their fears, I just keep kind of waving at them like I'm trying to land a plane or something, or like they're a big, hormonal, superstitious choir, and I'm the director. Things stay pretty tense like that for a while, the kids trembling in the dark and screaming with every thunder clap, me shaking my head and making shusshing noises, and the sound of the rain drowning out everything else. But eventually, the rain slows, and a rainbow appears over the high school, and Summer calms down, and the kids go back to flirting and fighting and jumping off chairs and drawing on my chalkboard and generally just being the hyper, hilarious, and very non-dead kids I've come to know and love so well.
6th period.
-- Wait, Ms. Backes! Wonderfullest isn't a word!
-- It's called poetic license. I'm a poet, so I can make stuff up.
--
--
-- You have to have a LICENSE to be a poet???
5th period.
-- You should hit us more!
-- See, I was raised by counselor-therapist-social worker types. Hitting isn't even in my DNA.
-- Sure it is! You just have to get in touch with your inner violence!!
10.04.04
Four words that strike fear in a teacher's heart:
I SAW YOU DRIVING!!
Oh, shit. When? If it was after school, I was probably singing to myself like a moron, or dancing. Possibly talking on my cell phone and making funny faces. If it was before school, I was probably speeding (the speed limit on 40 is 75, so I'm crusing close to 90 some mornings), maybe yelling at the radio, possibly brushing my hair, and definitely looking sleepy/zoned out/cranky.
This morning....
Walt: Ms. Backes, I saw you driving!
Me: Great.
Walt: On the way to school! You were, like, passing all these semis!
Me: Um....
Walt: You drive a lot faster than my mom does, Ms. Backes!
***
And on another note entirely....
Me, last night, trying to describe the kind of person I'm looking for in my life:
They have to be earnest, but not too earnest... you know, idealistic, like in theory, but not in practice. They have to be the kind of person who would like their life to involve getting up at 5:30 am to drink tea and mediate, but doesn't actually go through with it very often because they're too hungover or too busy accidentally driving into their house. Wait. I mean, I just can't deal with people who are too nice, too pure, you know? I need a little less, let's talk about our feelings and a little more, eh, fuck you.
Roommate: More fuck you?
Me: Yeah. Like, they have to be idealistic but also cynical... you know, hope for the best but then have a very perverse, sick sense of humor about everything. Someone who isn't easily offended. Like this guy tonight, he was all "I need absolute peace and harmony to tap into my creative spirit," and I'm looking for more mental illness than that, you know, more "Hypercolor is like Osama bin Laden: they both disappeared." I mean, that!
Roommate: ..... what's "hypercolor"?
Me: It's, uh.....well jesus, it's.......oh, Grinnell ruined me!
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