Learn Me Gooder, page 11
I’m pretty sure this is the first time in my teaching career that I have had less than ten kids at the end of the day. Even on the last day of school, I’ve never had this few.
It will be very interesting to see how tomorrow goes. The forecast calls for highs in the mid-40s, and as far as I know, there are no plans to close the schools. However, it is supposed to be in the 20s tomorrow MORNING, and seeing as how that is when parents decide whether or not to send their kids out the door, I would not be surprised to have only a handful of kids again. Unfortunately, I can almost guarantee that the misbehaving fools will be first in line at my doorway. In shorts.
Talk to you later,
Shelby Freezing
Date: Thursday, December 17, 2009
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: It’s 3:00 PM. Do you know where your parents are?
Hey man,
I had wondered if the attendance there at the plant might be similar to the attendance I was seeing at school. Especially for people like Mary Pickens or Les Johnson. They practically live in Oklahoma! I wouldn’t want their commute on a NORMAL day!
It doesn’t surprise me at all that Larry would take both days off and then call everyone repeatedly to let them know he was industriously working from home.
My numbers yesterday were slightly lower than what I had told you about on Tuesday. I let the kids play math games for most of the day, and it gave me a chance to do a little individual work with a few of the lower kids like Cerulean, who was cheating on the math games anyway.
Today, with the temperatures back up above freezing, my classes were once again at full capacity.
It’s hard to believe, but tomorrow is the last school day of 2009! It’s the last work day of the year for you, too! It should be a super-easy, fun, party day. Well, for me, I mean. EVERY day is like that for YOU, right?
Mrs. Bird and I are planning on having very short class periods and then putting both groups together for the party. I don’t have a whole lot planned academically. The kids need to take their multiplication test – it’s the 5’s, so there SHOULD be no problems – and we have a little bit of science to finish up.
After lunch, we’re going to show Toy Story 2. If anybody questions the “academic merit” of showing such a film, I will readily expound on how we have been talking about non-renewable resources, such as oil, which is used to make plastic, which we are observing in the forms of Woody and Buzz.
Like I said, tomorrow should be a fun day. Today, on the other hand, was a long day, complete with a cafeteria malfunction that brought about sack lunches and necessitated that teachers eat with their kids. I found myself wedged in between Gwenn and Ava, being bombarded with questions like, “Are you Team Edward or Team Jacob?”
I thought my answer – Team Spiderman – should have been fairly obvious.
Near the end of the lunch period, Miles said he didn’t like chocolate pudding and offered me his. I graciously accepted. Then Priya offered me hers. Then Smoker Anna. Before I knew it, I had a pudding pyramid in front of me.
I left the cafeteria with a sack containing fifteen cups of chocolate pudding. So you’re probably thinking, “Man, I know what HE’LL be doing over Christmas break!”
Today also presented me with several of the most interesting interactions with parents I’ve ever had, outside of Conference Night. Jacob Marley warned Scrooge that he would be visited by three ghosts. Nobody informed ME that I would make contact with three parents before this day was through.
The first came in the form of an email during my planning period. When we met with Victor’s mom one day after school last month, she gave us her email address and asked us to use it if Victor was not doing his homework or took any more trips to the planet Zorlon. I’ve emailed her several times since then, though it hasn’t seemed to have had a whole lot of impact on his work ethic.
Today, I received an email from Victor’s mother with the subject line “FWD: Ninja Kitties.” I had been cc’ed, along with twelve other people, and the only thing the email contained was a movie file.
Granted, the video clip WAS hilarious. I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy seeing a cat leap out of nowhere and attach itself to some dudetsel6s crotch? But what I don’t get is what on earth would possess this lady to think that I want to be part of her email forwarding group?? Am I now going to start receiving jokes of the day, top ten lists, and chain messages from Bill Gates? Is she going to friend request me on Facebook?
The second parent contact came after school. I had completely forgotten about the weird thumping sound that my car started to make as I pulled into the parking lot this morning. At the time, I had pulled into the nearest parking spot and looked under my front tires VERY quickly. It was super cold and still pretty dark. It looked like a little piece of plastic had come loose and was bumping against the tire. I didn’t think about it again all day long.
At around 4:30, when I started to pull out of the parking space, my memory was jolted, and I immediately knew I had a flat tire. What I had failed to notice this morning was a piece of metal wire about two feet long and about a quarter inch in diameter sticking out of my tire.
After the customary amount of cursing had been purged from my system, I broke out the jack and spare tire from my trunk and started to take the lug nuts off.
Not too long after, I heard a voice say, “Do you need some help?”
I looked up to see Vito’s father standing there. You may remember Vito from my class last year. His family lives in the neighborhood, and the parents walk the kids to school every day. They also walk back up to the school every evening to play on the playground. The kids play, not the parents.
I stood up to say hi to Vito’s father, and almost immediately, he practically shoved me out of the way to complete changing the tire. Honestly, I did very little but watch and roll the spare over to him.
Afterwards, when I shook his hand and thanked him profusely, he simply said, “No problem. You taught my son last year.”
Wow, I guess there ARE some tangible rewards to being a teacher after all!
After a not so quick stop at the tire store, I drove to the nearby Super Target. Tomorrow night, Mrs. Caring is having a Holiday – no! Christmas! – party at her house, and I stopped to get some adult beverages and chips.
I didn’t need to spend long in the store, having just a couple of things to grab. I took my items up to the cash register, said hi to the cashier, put my items on the conveyor belt, and started flipping through my wallet. As I was pulling out the ol’ magic plastic money card, the cashier asked, “So how is my daughter doing?”
I completely had not recognized Ella’s mother, who was standing behind the counter and waiting for me to reply. She hadn’t worn the Target apron to parent conference night, and that must have thrown me off.
I tried to recover as best I could. “She’s doing pretty well, actually. She seems to be paying more attention in class – oh, could you put the booze in a separate bag, please? – though she has turned in a few incomplete homeworks.”
While we waited for the credit card transaction to go through, I considered asking her if she had seen the ninja kitties video on the internet, but I figured I had already embarrassed myself enough by not recognizing her.
I really need to remember not to do my shopping so close to the school.
Well hey, have fun at the HPU Christmas party! Be sure to take pictures or video if Larry once again transforms into “Ted, the guy who hangs mistletoe in inappropriate places.”
Merry Christmas!
Gene E Awlogee
Date: Wednesday, January 6, 2010
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Don’t I know you?
Hey bud,
I haven’t heard from you since the New Year’s Eve party at Winter’s place, so I hope you’ve managed to recover fully. I guess you realize now that you’re too old to do tequila shots, and even more importantly, GIN shots are a horrible idea at ANY age.
Have you made any New Year’s resolutions? Here are a few of mine:
Continue to teach our society’s youth the basics and complexities of mathematics – after all, they are our future.
Establish a space base on faraway Pluto. It might not be recognized as a planet anymore, but it still has strategic value.
Learn a new language. I’m waffling between Elvish and Na’vi.
Further explore my newfound love for the cranberry.
Display compassion and patience with the students placed in my care, and stop snapping them with rubber bands.
Yesterday was the kids’ first day back after Christmas vacation. As expected, there was a lot of information that had been forgotten over the break, many groggy expressions, and a great disdain for having to be back at the school again. But enough about MY attitude; the kids were pretty good.
Before we left for break, several children gave me little gifts. I got some decorative candy containers, a candle or two, a tranquility fountain, and a couple of other items. So today, I handed out thank you cards to those kids who had begifted me. As a stocking stuffer, my mom gave me a set of Justice League thank you notes. Superman, Batman, the Flash, et al. graced the front side, and my heartfelt appreciation graced the inside.
Reactions were mixed. Jacob actually seemed embarrassed to be receiving a superhero card from his teacher, while Tomas exclaimed, “I’m too old for Batman!”
To which I replied, “Well I’m not!”
Clearly, I am going to have to go in tomorrow wearing my Batman tie, my green power ring, and maybe even a red cape for good measure. But not my Incredible Hulk underoos. He’s not in the Justice League, and the underoos are in the wash.
While I didn’t lose any students over the break, I did gain two new ones yesterday. Ta’varon and Demontrae are brothers, but not twins. That’s never a good portent for the older one, in this case, Demontrae.
Ta’varon is in my homeroom and Demontrae went to Mrs. Bird. Already, I can see tiny little differences, like the fact that Ta’varon is friendly and easy-going, while Demontrae is surly and workophobic.
Happy New Year to me!
While I was getting my new student settled, Mrs. Frisch came into my room and caused a bit of embarrassment. I can’t remember if you’ve ever met her or not, but you’d never forget her if you had. I love her to death, but the woman has no volume control.
She walked in right after announcements and said, “Hey, Jack. Did you have a nice break? How are things going with your new girlfriend? Are you in LUUUUUUVVV?”
This was in her normal tone of voice, which is only slightly quieter than a jet engine.
Naturally, all of the kids had stopped any pretense of doing their work and were just staring at me. I almost expected Jessie or Smoker Anna to ask, “Yeah, Jack, how IS your new relationship?”
I awkwardly told Mrs. Frisch I would talk to her later and drove our visitor out of the room.
This afternoon, though, I had a fantastic surprise visitor that was also a blast from the past. Pinar, one of my favorite students from my very first year of teaching (actually, one of my all-time favorites) stopped by my classroom around 2:00 today. She’s in the tenth (!!!!) grade in a nearby district, and they don’t go back to school until next week.
I was right in the middle of working a word problem with the kids when she came in, so after the exclamations and hugs, I told the kids that we had a guest teacher, and I let her take over for me. My kids from this year seemed absolutely flabbergasted that standing before them was an actual, real life example of someone who had been in my class years ago. They were practically falling over themselves trying to get Pinar to call on them as she went through the steps of the problem.
When she was done, she informed me, “I don’t really like math.”
D’OH!!!
We chatted for a few minutes, and I learned that she had skipped 5th grade, she was on her school’s volleyball team, and she still thought fondly of her old teachers. She was disappointed that Mrs. Swanson wasn’t at the school anymore but seemed very happy to hear about her two kids. We exchanged email addresses, and then she left to look for Miss Rooker.
Seeing Pinar made me think back on some of my other kids from my rookie year. I wonder if Kelvin is still rapping and dancing, if Ariel is still so overly somber, and if Marvin is still telling everybody that he tastes like chicken.
I’ll bet none of THOSE kids are too old for Batman.
Talk to you later,
The Flashback
Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Full court mess
Hey buddy,
Yes, I know full well that YOU are not too old for superheroes, but I’m not in the practice of writing thank you cards to people for dating advice. BAD advice, at that! Jill would most definitely NOT be impressed if I showed up wearing jean shorts, flip flops, and three popped collars.
Speaking of flip flops, I’m surprised you remember Esteban from my first year. I doubt that he skipped a grade like Pinar did, so that would make him a high school freshman this year. I wonder if he’d tell me the name of his girlfriend.
“AMANDA!”
“NO, CHRISTY!!”
“WAIT, IT’S KIMBERLY!!!”
Today we started something that wasn’t done during my first year at all. It’s an “enrichment” program after school on Tuesdays. (Sounds like something to do with wheat and associated by-products, right?) From 3:15-4:30, most of the teachers stay and supervise a group of kids in a specific activity. Some teachers run a soccer club, some do cheerleading, some do puzzles and Legos, some do chess. I wanted to do a “Texas Two-Card Hold ‘Em” club, but they wouldn’t let me. I don’t know why not, it would reinforce mathematical concepts of probability and multiplication. Instead, I chose to lead a basketball club.
I had a group of seventeen third graders (not just my own) at the outdoor baskets today, and the first thing I did was teach them how to play Knock Out. This is a fast-moving game involving two basketballs and a fair share of coordination. I’m holding off on teaching them anything that requires TOO much coordination, like the full court three-man weave or the 360 Tomahawk dunk. We’ll save that for the advanced club.
We were having a lot of fun, and the atmosphere was very relaxed. At one point, when several kids had hit consecutive baskets, I shouted, “I’m gonna start calling you ‘butter,’ cuz you’re on a roll!” This brought on a stunned, “HUH???” from several kids, and it effectively ended the streak. Note to self: third graders not yet ready for SportsCenter.
They did have their own little catch phrase, though. Whenever somebody made a shot – and quite often even when somebody just TOOK a shot – several of the boys would yell, “SWAGGER!”
I’m not familiar with this interjection at all, and nobody could tell me what it meant or why they were saying it, other than that they had heard other people say it. Even Tyler, who was screaming it the loudest and most aggressively, had no idea WHY he was screaming it.
This made me want to see if I could get them to say something else nonsensical.
The next time I made a shot, I shouted, “PICANTE!”
That got me some strange looks. I told the kids, “That’s what we used to say back in the day.”
I continued to shout it every time I made a shot. As I had hoped, by the end of the day, a couple of boys had tentatively shouted, “Khan-tay!” after making a basket.
As I was playing with the kids, it made me think back on some of my fond basketball memories. Going winless in my senior year of high school was not one of them. Being compared to a spider monkey by the Guam Bomb didn’t make the list either. But one of my brother’s 8th grade games IS up there as a high point.
My dad was the coach of Zack’s team, and I helped out as an assistant coach. This particular game was against the dreaded arch-rival, so we enacted Operation: Super Spazz. The Saturday morning of the game, I dressed as one of the team. I was a senior in high school, so I was already at full-size – 6’4”, 180 lbs – and I stood out monstrously from the other kids on the court. In addition to my size advantage, I had meticulously cultivated a wild, animalistic appearance. I wore a pair of racquetball-style goggles (think Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, circa mid-80s) and the most severe case of bedhead this side of Jimmy Fallon.
During pre-game warm-ups, I participated in the layup lines, each time running full speed at the basket and heaving the ball at the backboard as hard as possible. I was going for maximum rebound distance, hoping to have to chase the ball past half court into the opposing ranks. With each heave, I let out a primal yell, like the Goonies’ Sloth trying to free himself from imprisonment. I think at one point, I even picked up one of my brother’s teammates and shook him around.
Once the game started, I couldn’t play of course, so I sat on the bench. But the psychological impact was visible. The other team’s point guard frequently stole glances over at our bench, and whenever he did, I pointed at him and made a gesture like Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off of a bat. They played scared the entire game, and we won easily. Years later, in high school, my brother became buddies with several of the players from that team, and one of them confided in him that he had almost wet his pants that day.
Making memories. That’s what I’m all about.
Talk to you later,
Arlen Globetrotter
Date: Friday, January 15, 2010
To: Fred Bommerson
From: Jack Woodson
Subject: Houston, we have a word problem
Hey dude,
