Kids Say the Darndest Things

A small selection of stories from an elementary teacher and a middle school teacher:

The other day I asked my students if they liked the Texas Rangers baseball team. One of them raised his hand and told me that his cousin, Simon B______, plays for the Rangers. That afternoon I told Eric my super-cool news. "Simon B______?" Eric laughed, "He was one of my students last year!" Apparently my student's cousin plays for a local youth baseball team named the Texas Rangers. So much for my super-cool news!

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Eric's class was reviewing vocabulary dealing with the periodic table, elements, and atoms by playing the "I Have. . . Who Has" game. In this game each student gets a card with a vocabulary word and a non-matching definition. The game works its way around the room as each student reads his card aloud after hearing the definition for his vocabulary word. A card might read, "I have an electron. Who has a positively charged particle?"

As the game made its way around the room today, one student read out the following definition,"Who has the name for the rows in the periodic table?" A boy, who realized his card had the vocabulary word on it, unwittingly called out "I have a period!" Haha! Needless to say the game came to a screeching halt while the students AND teacher had a much needed laugh.

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Each of my students has a planner to write down their homework and whatever other nonsensical things they feel like jotting down. This morning I noticed one of my girls had written the following as her plan for Friday: Watch Smallville and South Park. Pet the cat. :) I schedule a time to give attention to my pet, don't you?

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That's all I've got for now. I hope those weren't the kind of stories that are only funny if you were there. Oh well!

Parent Conference Day--UPDATED

Today is Parent Conference Day.

Have I ever mentioned how much I detest Parent Conference Day?

I feel like such a rambling idiot and I hate delivering bad news to some of the parents.

Can we please just fast forward through the next 5 1/2 hours?

Update #1: The day is going better. After stumbling through the first few conferences I feel like I am sounding a little more intelligent.

Update #2: So much for feeling more intelligent. While I was showing a parent the student's test grades I realized I recorded one grade as a 50 when the student actually made a 75. Oops! I had to re-average her grade and make a request for her report card to be reprinted.

Update #3: I survived! Now it's time to get ready for tomorrow.

A Downer

I so don’t want to be here at school today. This isn’t like my usual complaint of just not wanting to come because I don’t feel like it. I mean I REALLY don’t want to be here. I feel completely drained. I don’t know if it’s because of these longer hours they have us working this year or the fact that I don’t feel like I’m teaching these kids very much. Having a headache behind my right eye doesn’t help either.

I’m not in the mood to correct behavior, because I don’t feel up to the argument that typically comes along with it. I had to tell a student twice to start a new line in the gym this morning and then he began crawling up to the front on his knees. I told him, “_______, get up and walk” 10 times, slowly, and calmly. He never once stood up on his feet. What do you do then? The parent would think it’s ridiculous if I called, the office would kick the referral back, and I looked like a push-over in front of all of my students. I’m not in the mood to deal with this. Sorry for being such a downer.

Oh and by the way, I STILL haven't had my white trousers hemmed. Thanks for all of the advice though. I think I'm like you Janet. I'm not going to judge if someone else wears white pants after Labor Day, but I don't know that I want to take the risk and do it myself.