Yuh All Come Back Now, Here?

So here I sit, gainfully employed to help in tutoring every Tuesday afterschool, with not much to do because 99.9% of the students are here for math purposes and the only help I could give to math students is point out where the calculators are or where the math teacher who is in here is located. Therefore, I have time...I usually play the bouncer: "If you aren't working on something or have something to do then you have to leave!" Then there is always what I call the Lighthouse Disciplinary Methodology. I just look up and use my best 'I know what you where doing' look and then act light a lighthouse and scan from one side to the other and back. If a student pauses what they are doing then you look at them and raise on eyebrow. It's quite amazing how many apologies and excuses you will hear when you actually had no idea what was going on. This will eventually lead to a "omniscient" status and then you can get away with just looking up once in a while.

This group, however, are very good and thinning out rapidly as they finish makeup tests for math. It is quiet. I like quiet. I remember what it used to be like having quiet in a classroom in the B.M.S. time (Before Middle School). In high school, the students have figured out how to not be a blip on teachers' radar. "You don't bug me, I won't bug you" is alive and well in public education. It is somewhat of a necessity in a classroom setting of 30 or more students: sad but true! In middle school, the students all want to have attention for good or bad. They need to be seen. "Look at what I can do!" type of mentality reigns supreme here. It has taken some getting used to these past months. For all intents and purposes, I haven't taught at this level since 1989, nearly (choke!) twenty years ago! I am much older now and you'd think I have less patience. My daughter, however, came in a while back and observed me. She commented on how much more patience I have developed.

Once you can get over the idea that the students are acting this way from some deep-seated evil tendency and realize they are just, well, stoopid then it gets easier to be forgiving. I came up with a way to describe how I feel sometimes about middle school: "Middle School is like Lord of the Flies with a Bell Schedule." There is also a great video about herding cats. You can find it easily on YouTube.

Well, enough of that topic or I will wax or cement cynical and I had a nasty bout of the recently. I think I am over it for the nonce. I don't think I ever had occasion to use that word in something I was writing. How fun! As promised, I will tell you about when I heard some nice things about my writing.

I was encouraged by my department chair to go to an all-day staff development presentation done by a fairly well-known woman who had the loveliest Texas accent. She's been working with middle school for a while in the area of writing and had some marvelous ideas. It was very good. For part of it, she had us write a quickwrite about anything and we had to incorporate some of the improvements in writing we wanted to see in our students. The idea being we would then read over them with others and write down all the nice parts so we would see how to dissect student writing in the same quick manner. Well, I wrote something about basketball since my son was playing in a game that evening. I had fun with it but was careful about it and tried to capture the essence of being the player and the emotions he would feel plus I tried to describe the Roman Arena feel of the contest between two opponents. It was fun...I don't have it with me or I would just post it.

She asked for 3 volunteers to read theirs out loud and we'd all write down the parts we could find in it that fit with what we were learning. She was very happy with mine. I got the coveted "I-hate-you" look from her. Later, at the lunch break she was very adamant that I should try to publish and needed to be published. Now, I know others have told me similar things but they have always been family or friends. This was a stranger who owed me nothing but has been published herself really urging me. It was very cool. She also told me about a website called Glimmer Train that publishes short stories submitted by internet to them. So I will try harder to reach that lofty goal of being a "published author." I have blabbered sufficiently for now...until next time.

L8R

Opus

Long Time No Write

Okay, sooo it has been a while since I've written in my blog...geez, it's only been 10 months - that's not even a year!

Well, to recap...I am no longer coaching debate and no longer at Hillcrest. I am...gulp...a Middle School English Teacher. I've been told that being such assures my place in the Celestial Kingdom but there are days that even that incentive becomes questionable. I suppose 45 years old isn't that much but my patience is not what it used to be. I have learned how to be more patient than I thought possible. There are days when I wonder why I went to college to have the pleasure of saying, "Tom, get up off the floor, we've talked about that!" or "Please, get off that student." or my colleague's favorite "Take the markers out of your nose!" These are 8th graders we're talking about; however, my family sees a lot more of me than they used to last year.

I will try to update this more often and...dare I type it? I plan on trying to write a complete short story before March is out. I will tell you my adventures of being prompted by someone who didn't even really know me to get published...so I am excited about it.

L8R - Opus