Brain Corral: Class Jobs, Cracking Myself Up

I am currently cracking myself up by assigning extremely detailed class jobs.  (Side note: I considered naming this blog Cracking Myself Up.  I often crack myself up. And, INCREDIBLY, the domain name crackingmyselfup.com is available.  Unfortunately, I have to consider the fact that my blog name has to sound SORT OF professional in case my students and their parents see this blog.  Plus, I always tell my principal about my blogs so I am in a state of full disclosure.)

I'll post the detailed list of class jobs later, but here's the basic list:
1. Light master- turns lights on and off, opens and closes door as class starts.  Five tickets per week. (I might give that second part to my Door Enforcer.  We'll see how the Light Masters do.)
2. Class Librarians (2).  Highly paid.  Ten tickets per week.
3. Technology Assistant.  4 tickets per week plus chance for overtime.
4. Supply Master- makes sure supply area is neat, that kids put tape and staplers back and do not use any supplies for unauthorized purposes.
5a. Planner assistant- reminds kids to copy HW and keep planner open.  Also dispenses bandaids as needed.
5b.Absence Keeper- writes kids names down who are absent and what work they need to do, plus put needed handouts in absence binder.
5c. Lost and Found Keeper- monitors lost and found area, returns items to owners, scans class for lost items.

Thursday Morning Brain Corral: Stress, Birds Chirply LOUDLY in Morning

I swear that there is this ONE bird who, as SOON as the sky starts to lighten, starts going, "CHIRP CHIRP!  CHIRP! CHIRP!"
The first time it happened, I was all like, "Ooooh, spring! Birds chirping!  Good morning, birds!"  A week later, I'm all like, "SHUT- UP."

Now, there are MORE birds.  So, the first guy goes, "CHIRP CHIRP!  CHIRP! CHIRP!"
Then his buddy answers, "Choo, Choo! Cha- chirp-chirpchirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp!"
It's just obnoxious.

Enough about birds. Let's talk about stress.  I don't know if I've ever been under this amount of PROLONGED stress.  I've been in stressful days, stressful weeks, stressful situations, stressful times of life... but I've been stressed this whole school year. I am not sure if I'd have stopped to acknowledge that- who has the time?- but in all of my voice therapy sessions over the past 2 months, the theme of STRESS has come up from the very beginning:  I have a lot of tension in my neck and throat.  I tighten up when talking.  I have to consciously try to keep my jaw and my tongue loose and relaxed.

This week, we have determined, um, I am super stressed.  This realization came due to wine, pizza and friends.  As I told my voice therapist, "Usually at dinner I try to protect my voice and not talk too loud over the background noise.  But last week, after two glasses of wine, I was laughing, talking loudly to my friend over the noise of the restaurant and our loud kids... and my voice felt and sounded fine.  Am I crazy, or did the wine relax me enough to get rid of all that tension?"

Comic Humor and Joy of Conversation

I had a wonderful time observing my students give each other feedback on their comics last week. Note: This piece is from last spring.  

For their magazine project, we do NUMEROUS writing pieces: features, opinion piece, book review, creative writings... and a comic.  My students always ask if they can use Comic Life or some other computer program to draw their comics, because they say their drawings stink. I always say,  "NO. How many times are you going to be asked to draw COMICS in this life?  You are LUCKY.  This is the probably the last truly fun thing you'll ever be asked to do in school.  And why on earth would we want to see comics that all look alike?  I don't care if you draw stick figures.  They're cute."

They have a hard time accepting this; they are perfectionists. I consider it my role to break them of the need to have everything perfect and instead I praise their progress.  "Wow!!!" I say, actually meaning it. "This is so much better than your first draft!"

You never know what kids can do until you push them to do it.  Your fourth time drawing the comic?  Guess what: I bet your attention to detail has REALLY IMPROVED.  I am often incredibly impressed with their inventiveness as their drafts progress.  After they finally GET that they WILL get a failing score on the comic if we can't read their teeny, messy writing, or if all the speech bubbles are in the wrong order, they buckle down and start to get serious about their comic as a piece of art and logic.

Last week's feedback session made me giddy.  To hear the types of intellectual discussions the kids were forced to have, in explaining WHY they did not find some of their groupmates' comics funny or how their classmates could improve... it was a type of discussion I feel like kids rarely have.  They were analysts, they were critics, they were creators, they were collaborators. They laughed, they shouted, they insulted each other in the best-natured of ways. I could see how we'd built an environment of trust and teamwork over the past 6 months. I'd never be able to do comics in October or November.  We have to do comics after we know each other, after we can tell each other, "I'm sorry, that's just not funny," and not worry that the person's self-image is going to be ruined.  We can be pretty brutal with each other.  Some of my challenge is helping a couple kids be less brutal, but that is totally the lesson they need in life, trust me.

Last week's session was so awesome because I reorganized the feedback groups.  I got some inspiration from Project Runway and put kids in pairs based on an "unlikely duo" theme.  It worked so well because the kids got a fresh pair of eyes on their comic, which was in its second draft, already having been critiqued (read: ripped apart) by a group of kids they were used to working with.  Our new duos spawned some hilarious discussions. In the morning class, I wished I'd had my video camera.  They were saying the funniest things in complete seriousness, discussing how it simply was not clear that Superman had death-rayed the basketball player, or that it wasn't funny at all that a terrorist had blown up the airport, because that's actually real, and do you just not understand what a comic is?

In the afternoon class, we had some moments that warmed my heart because I felt like my students were stretching as people in their efforts to communicate with people they don't usually talk to.
"I don't know how to end my comic," my cool girl says.  She's used to being fed the answers; she's also afraid to take risks.  Comics are all about risks and strangeness.
"Oooh!" says my slightly awkward girl.  "How about she parachutes down into an island full of dead people?"
My face lights up.  "That's brilliant!"
"And there's like, skeletons and bones sticking out of the sand."
"Yes, yes!" I scream.
My cool girl is smiling because she finally knows how to end her comic. This new groupmate has helped her in a way her friends couldn't, because they don't dare be weird enough, and I have started the seed of a potential new partnership. These two girls now have a relationship and a history based on ideas, and they know they can help each other.

Ninja Creep: Middle School Edition

If you have children, you may know the ninja creep. It's when, after you get the baby/child to sleep, you have to creep like a silent, stealthy ninja out of their bedroom, lest ye step on a creaky floorboard and wake the child you spent 45 minutes getting to sleep. In fact, I just did the ninja creep out of my 17 month old's room so I could write this blog post.

Two days ago I had to demonstrate the ninja creep to my middle school students. At the end of every day, we stack chairs so the custodian can sweep the floors. My students have started stacking chairs so loudly, slamming the plastic and metal contraptions down really hard. It's crazy-making, really, to end my day that way. I've tried various threats and explanations to no avail.

On Monday I stopped their stair-chacking cacophony and said, "Guys!  GUYS! You are so loud!  Wait- watch this.  Let me show you how I ninja creep out of my baby's room after I get her to sleep. This is how quietly you should be able to move."

And then I painstakingly showed them- "So I start heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere-" slowly picking up my foot while extending my arms out to the side for balance- creeeeeeeeeep- "then I take a step"- creeeeeeeeeeeeeeep -

They think I'm done, and they try to start stacking chairs again.  "No, no!" I scream, 'cause now I'm really into my ninja creep. "I'm not done!!!" Their bodies sag as they realize I intend to show them the WHOLE process.

"So, I have to slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwly move my body"- creeeeeeeeeeeeep- "and then, there's a GATE at her door, so I have to cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimb that" - one foot lifted high, creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, shift body weight, other foot lifting high over imaginary gate, creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep- "and THEN, after I'm over the gate, I have to CLOSE the door--"

"Noooooooooo!!!!" they all shout.

"Oh yes!" I scream back, remaining in ninja creep position.  "We are not done here!" I pause a moment and wait for silence.  "So, after I'm over the gate, I have to slowwwwwwwwwly turn my body, making sure my ring doesn't scrape the door"- creeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.  Then I take pity on them and end my demonstration. "My point is, if I can do that, SURELY you can stack one little chair almost silently. Pretend my baby is sleeping."

Of course they exploded in excited chatter about babies, and chairs, and their baby brothers, but the chairs themselves were pleasantly quiet.  They stacked the chairs like ninjas two days in a row.  It was impressive.

May: The Time of Year When I Adopt My Students' Idiosyncracies

Anyone with half a brain knows that teaching is a crazy, crazy job. At what other job would you encounter a male skipping gleefully down the hallway in front of dozens of people? (Today, 13 year old boy.)

 By May, the teaching-student boundary can sometimes get a little blurry. You have to remind them that you're not their mother, and they may not argue with you about whether or not they need to follow your directions. You give the class a direction- "OK, stay in your seats until I say it's time to go."- and they totally ignore you. Of course, you rein them in, because that's your job.

Almost every year, I notice in May that I've begun to adopt the behaviors of my most idiosyncratic students. Maybe I find myself using a word they use, or laughing in that high-pitched way that they laugh.

Just this week, I noticed that I do this thing that one of my funniest, most creative students does. He'll come up to me and start telling me a story. I'm interested for like 2 seconds, then my attention span goes. As he sees my face start to glaze over in boredom, he makes his eyes pop wide and continues to tell the story, using his eyes popping every few seconds as a way to try to keep me interested in the story by making the story seem eye-poppingly interesting. His stories aren't boring, but he gets to his point sort of slowly.

Anyway, in the past day or two I've found myself popping my eyes at people as I begin to tell a story and then realize my story is TOTALLY! BORING! (Eye pop! Eye pop!)

And I think, oh no, here it goes again- I've adopted my students' behaviors.

The Day I Got Called Justin Bieber

It's very common for (and terribly charming when) students accidentally call their teachers "Mom," but even I was surprised when one of my students called me "Justin Bieber" last week.

My students are writing features, and this student is writing about paparazzi.  She said, "Now, Mrs. R., I'm NOT going to write about Justin Bieber"-- (I'd forbidden them, even though they begged me, to write features on Justin Bieber)-- "but recently he's had some run-ins with the paparazzi, so is it OK if I just MENTION him."
Me: "Oh yeah, sure, sure."

Then, I hauled out my fancy new iPad-blue tooth keyboard set up, and the kids got all excited, saying, "What IS that? Is that a tiny laptop?"
And the student writing the paparazzi article craned her neck to get a good look at my iPad setup and said in an jokingly exasperated voice to me, "--Justin Bieber!" and then shook her head in confusion.
Me: "--Did you just call me Justin Bieber?"
Student: "I meant to say Mrs. R.!  I was-- never mind!"

So that's the story of how I got called "Justin Bieber."  I doubt many people- especially women- can brag about the same!  I must admit I found it very flattering.

Work-Life-Writing Balance

This fascinating NYTimes opinion piece, "Why Gender Equality Stalled," goes into (among other things) how American families have very little help in balancing work with the demands of family life.

Even in my more-family-friendly-than-most-jobs job as a teacher, I find it very challenging to meet the demands of my work with doing everything I need to do for my family.  Having young children is very intense; not only do they need you physically, you are also their emotional center. It's pretty much a given that if they are awake, they are on you!  After being separated from them all day, I like that... but this is a very demanding time in life, I feel.

I am thankful that I went into teaching; I like having more frequent vacations than the average job so I can be with my children.  Something that's true, and that I think about quite often, is that I went into teaching because I felt it would be the best job to have when I had kids.  And even if I didn't meet a good husband, I was going to have kids as a single mom.  That's how much I wanted kids.  I chose this job, along with other reasons, like it's fun and rewarding, because I knew it was a job that I'd be better able to balance with kids if I needed to be a single mom.

Studying Early Man's Cave Art AKA Cured Meat

My students thought this was the famous "red disc" 40,000 year old cave art.
I said, "Uh, guys, that's SALAMI."
Them: "What? Oh.  I thought it looked a little weird."
Then I told them to add the slide to their Powerpoint presentation to the class and see if the class figured it out.  Of course, the class missed it, because that's just how sixth graders work.  In the fall, they are still very literal.  If you show them a slice of salami photoshopped on a wall and tell them it's cave art, they will believe you.  They will also believe way weirder stuff than that.  That's why teaching sixth grade is so fun.