What In Tarnation?!?!?

How to Tell if You Are A Real Teacher

Real teachers grade papers in the car, during commercials, in faculty meetings, in the bathroom, and (at the end of the quarter) they have been seen grading in church

Real teachers cheer when April 1 does not fall on a school day.

Real teachers drive older cars owned by credit unions

Real teachers clutch a pencil while thinking and make notes in the margins of books.

Real teachers can’t walk past a crowd of kids without straightening up the line.

Real teachers never sit down without first checking the seat of the chair.

Real teachers have disjointed necks from writing on boards with turning their backs to the class.

Real teachers are written up in medical journals for the size and elasticity of kidneys and bladders.

Real teachers have been timed gulping down a full lunch in 2 minutes, 18 seconds. Master teachers can eat faster than that.

Real teachers can predict exactly which parents will show up at Open House.

Real teachers know the shortest distance and length of travel from their classroom to the office.

Real teachers can “sense” gum.

Real teachers know the difference among what must be graded, what ought to be graded, and what probably should never see the light of day.

Real teachers know that the secretaries and custodians run the school.

Class dismissed!

Wow the kids were slow moving today! We successfully completed our morning activities and that is it! The morning is the shortest part of the day. So that means that I am two days behind in science. Wanna guess what we will be doing extra of for the rest of the week?

One of the reasons that we are behind is because there were some unforseen medical problems. I have at least three kids with bladder conditions or a weak bladder. I have several kids that must go to the bathroom at least every two hours, I have one that is very embarassed of this condition, so in order to get him to do that, I have to parade my class down to the bathroom every two hours. We spend half our day in transit to and from the bathroom. Last year it was across the hall from my room, this year it is a 2 mile hike to get there. By the time we get back from the potty it is almost time to go again!

Sometimes I wish I had a weak bladder, but of course, at teacher school, I was equipped with the top of the line bladder ‘o steel.

Notes on the day:

-I always have music playing in my class, not real loud, those students who are distracted by it are put on the other side of the room. Today I was playing the Robin Hood Prince of Theives soundtrack. At the end of the CD, it has a recording of Bryan Adams singing “Everything I Do” (that brings back fond memories). One student, let’s call him Geraldo, said to another student: “Now listen to that! That is what I like to listen to. It’s got a beat to it.” I guess Mozart doesn’t have a beat.

-One of my kids, Belle (name changed of course) told me that she would be visiting New York City tonight so she would be unable to complete her homework. This of course got my interest. I questioned how she would be getting there and if she would be in class tomorrow. She said that she would be in class and that she wasn’t sure how she was going to get there. “Not staying long!” I replied. “Long enough,” she said. I told her that she should bring the class a postcard from New York, unfortunately she doesn’t have any money. I guess that is just my bad luck.

-Percentage of school year complete: 6%

That’s all from this side of the desk.

Class dismissed!

Whew, this week is going fast! It seems like Wednesday today! I have had little time to stop moving though. I am starting to get back in the swing of things at school. As a class, we are starting to hit our stride. It takes awhile to get used to each other, especially them to me cause I am not like the teachers that they had last year, but we are getting used to each other. I am ready for school to be out.

Now for the notes on the day:

I was standing next to the door that goes out to the playground at the beginning of recess, recieving hugs from students from last year (there was a whole line of them.) Another student who I didn’t have last year, got so swept up in the moment that he starting giving me a hug… until half-way through the embrace when, I guess he came out of his lemming trance and realized that he didn’t really know me at all and that this situation could be slightly embarrassing for him. So here, we will call him Randy, was in mid-hug with someone who he didn’t really know. So what does he do? Well the only logical thing that one can do in that situation: pat my belly. I was dumbfounded.

I now have a high school student in my class the last two hours of the day. I don’t really want her because she is more in the way than being helpful. Oh well.

{Pressed} (by the way, thanks Pressed) read this at last night’s Loft, turn with me in your Bibles to Education 5:1:

Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain and gathering them around him, he taught them saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Then Simon Peter said, “Do we have to write this down?”

And Andrew said, “Are we going to have a test on this?”

Philip mumbled, “I don’t have any paper.”

Bartholomew asked, “Do we have to turn this in?”

John whined, “The other disciples didn’t have to learn this!”

Matthew asked, “Can I go to the bathroom?”

Judas complained, “What does this have to do with anything?”

And James said, “I don’t get it.”

Then one of the Pharisees who was present asked to see Jesus’ lesson plan and inquired of him, “Where are your theological imperatives and long-term objectives in the cognitive domain? Be sure to activate prior knowledge and align it to the curriculum.”

I changed it a bit.

Class dismissed!

The second day of school and it has already happened (though a slight variation of the original)! Here’s the scoop: We were getting ready to go to specials which today were PE and Music. In PE students must wear tennis shoes so a few students were changing into their tennies. One student, Bo (name has been changed) was searching through his backpack desperately when he said… are you ready for this…

“Where in tarnation?!?!?”

Well thankfully, I wasn’t giving directions because I had to take a moment to myself to regain composure. It never stops making me laugh.

Today on recess duty, Jeff (student last year) saw me and began running toward me full steam with his arms out wide. He talked to me the whole recess, the other kids that I had last year that were standing around me could hardly get a word in. (”Ally, I’m talking to Mr. Wright, you go play.”) I must say, I secretly enjoy when I see one of last year’s students in the hall and they can hardly contain themselves. I of course, don’t encourage it because they usually get in trouble by their current teachers.

Today went better than the first day. To answer Heather’s question in the comments, no names on Not Responsible yesterday, 4 today with one check mark, I got mean today. Even raised my voice once, but didn’t yell, I save that for the BIG issues.

I talked to JD yesterday and he said his day went well. He evidently has earned the reputation of having really hard classes. For those keeping score Heidi was the mean one.

I’m looking forward to the weekend, a relaxing one, with little movement.

Class dismissed!

—–
Directions on a bag of M&M’s:

Teacher Vitamins

Here is a bag of teacher vitamins. Follow this simple guide to solve all your problems:

-Take a BLUE pill when under too much beginning school stress.
-When undergoing meeting overload take a RED pill.
-Take the BROWN pill when you need a quick chocolate fix.
-For inspiration while creating bulletin boards swallow a YELLOW pill.
-Running out of cash at the end of the month, try a GREEN pill.
-Developing a headache from long term planning, POP an ORANGE pill.

If all symptoms appear at once eat the whole bag.

WARNING: Teacher Vitamins may cause weight gain.
—–
“You will just have to be flexible on Thursday (the first day of school), there will be a lot of crying and a lot of vomiting; and then the kids will get here.” –Principal discussing the need for flexibility on the first day of school.
—–
“Well they can come in from recess, then we can milk them, and take them back out.” –Teacher discussing the possibility of a weekly extra reward recess and getting there snack milk in as well.
—–
“There’s a teacher code of ethics too!” –New teacher joking around when another teacher asked if something was in the teacher code of ethics.
—–
Teachers are funny.

Class dismissed!

I finally have an opportunity to put my first review up.

Last night I got to see M. Night Shyamalan’s newest movie, Signs.
Please note: if durning the course of the review, I discuss anything that might be spoilerish, I will use Inviso-Text (patent pending). If you decide to read the spoilerish text simple hightlight the Inviso-Text (pantent pending) to view. If you have not seen the movie I would strongly urge you to not read the Inviso-Text

Mel Gibson stars as a family man who discovers crop circles in his corn field. However, this movie isn’t really about crop circles. Instead, Shyamalan use the backdrop of the movie, (Inviso-Text on) an alien invasion to discuss spiritual issues like chance, pre-destination, and faith. It is a rather interesting combination that makes for a entertaining movie.

I found the beginning of the movie to be slow and dull, but I found some of Shyamalan’s other movies (The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable) to be the same way. At many points during the beginning of the movie, some scenes seem overly staged. Shyamalan is known for his storyboarding of movie, in this case, he may have gone overboard. However, you need that time to get ready for the rest of the movie. After (Inviso-Text) the dog of death scares the crud out of everyone there is very little time to breath. Shylamalan takes a page from Hitchcock’s book and uses suspence to keep the audience from breathing for most of the movie (It is about as suspenceful as Hitch’s Rear Window). To create the suspenceful and erie mood of the movie, the movie makers don’t show the threat for most of the movie. The faceless enemy is far more frightening than one seen. The music, by James Newton Howard (channeling Bernard Herman, another Hictchcock favorite), is effective in increasing the sense of suspence, but most effective are the times of silence with no music at all.

Surprisingly there is a humorous element to the movie, which was probably added to reduce the number of heart attacks durning the movie. These little times come to let the audience breath again, however, occasionally I found them distracting, especially when all this work was done to set the mood and then it is completely broken because of a corny joke and is it just me, but doesn’t the army recruiter seem totally out of place?

The final momments of the movie destroy some of the momments that the movie has strived to set up. (Inviso-Text) Why did he have to show the alien at the end? It would have been much more frightening if he would have left the alien out. However, the Shyamalan trade mark twist didn’t really pay off for me. It seems as though Shyamalan had written himself into a cornor and had to find a way out. Not to mention that many will notice similiarities between Signs and The Panic Room.

An impressive element of this film is the sound editing. Surround sound is effectively used to creep the audience out. Go see it in a theater with a decent sound system.

One thing that I really enjoy about this movie is it takes a typical sci-fi story, alien invasion, and looks at it from a different perspective. Most alien invasion stories, like Independence Day, from a world-wide view, the story zooms from one location to the other. However, in Signs, the story is a very personal one. The story is told from the perspective of a family and does not vary from that much. The story is not concerned with how the world deals with this crisis, just this one family. It is a nice change of pace.

The movie on a whole is very entertaining and I would like to go see it again just to watch other people react to the movie.

Entertainment/Artistic Grade: B

World Veiw: C (Some cursing, the movie however brings spiritual issues to the forefront and takes what I consider a positive view on predestination, unlike Minority Report.)

SreenIt: Signs
Read the review at Christianity Today.
Read the review at Entertainment Weekly.
Read the review at People.