What Teachers Make

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DfuBmSbiVXo0%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded&h=601c5

This is a great video.  Thanks to a dear non-teacher friend of ours for finding this and sending it our way.

~Ms. Brown

How much do we forget?

My dad and I love to watch game shows together.  One that we used to watch pretty frequently is Jeff Foxworthy's "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"  My dad has always insisted I should go on the show.  I've always refused. Why? Because I don't have enough confidence in myself to believe I could win if I went on the show, and I obviously don't want to get on the show, stand up there and say, My name is Amy Green.  I'm a middle school teacher, and no, I'm NOT smarter than a fifth grader.   Obviously, I'm smarter than the average fifth grader as far as reasoning, life skills, and basic knowledge.  However, I'm sure that I've forgotten many of the minute details.  Every now and then, a question on the show stumps me.  

Earlier this week, I was spending time with some of my favorite campers.  These are children I met through Camp Happy Days, an organization that provides support to kids with cancer and their siblings.  They're great kids, and I got to spend an entire day hanging out with them while their parents were at work.  We baked and decorated cookies for Santa and our own enjoyment, had a feast of a lunch from Chic-fil-A, watched a movie, hung out, played and talked together, and, most relevant to this blog post, played school. I got to be the teacher.  Not something new to me, but hey, whatever made the kids happy.  The girl I was playing school with is in first grade this year.  We played for well over an hour.  At one point, I was "teaching" math.  We did some basic math problems, but then my "student" asked me to give her some patterns to try.  I did my best.  She pronounced them, "Easy!"  I then asked her to make me some patterns to show me what hard patterns would be like.  Safe to say, I would have failed that first grade math test.  Those patterns kicked my butt!

This really made me think: if I've forgotten so much about patterns and the foundations of my math skills, what else have I forgotten?  How much of what my teachers taught me have I forgotten? Have I remembered the things that are actually important? As a teacher, WHAT are the most important things for me to teach my students?  How often do I forget the little moments that remind me why I teach day after day?  Beyond school, how many things that should be cherished have I completely forgotten about? 


~Ms. Green

The Best Christmas Present Ever!

What I am apparently getting from my children for Christmas:

"Ms. Sox, can I make you a Facebook page for Christmas? That way you can meet a new boyfriend."

"Yeah, Ms. Sox, you won't be lonely anymore, and you will have someone to spend time with on Saturday and Sunday."

What a wonderful Christmas present!  Who knew I was lonely and needed a boyfriend...

The reason I became a teacher...

This was an "award/certificate" that I recieved from one of my students:

Certificate of Achievement

Awarded to

Mrs. Sox

This 11 day of 16 in the year 2010.

Signature:  Harry Soot

Best Teacher

You Rock

This was written on the back:

Mrs. Sox you are the most careing teacher!  you have lesson plans plan out when you could have Been sleeping But you stay up workin.  I give you My word to BE BETTER IN School And not Drop out And get shot By the police (pronounced poe-lease).  So that's why I Harry Soot present this to you.  Best teacher Award of 2010

Love it!

Ms. Sox

P.S. It was news to me that I was married. : )

I've Got Big Balls

Song credit to AC/DC, which plays in my head every time I remember this story.  This happened awhile ago, but what blog about teachers (especially one that is partially written by middle school teachers) doesn't have some perverted stories?

You know those little hair elastics that have the glitter woven into them with the balls that you twist at the end, kind of like a hairbow?  Well, they make big ones. Really big ones.  Like 3 inches in diameter.  Big, three inch in diameter balls.  In beautiful colors like yellow, orange, and brown.  I don't know if those are the only colors they make them in, but they're certainly the only colors I saw them in.

Setting: 8 AM one morning, teacher's feeling a little crabby, and the kids are "wilding out."

I'm wandering the classroom checking homework and the progress of their daily Get Started!, when all of a sudden I hear, "Get off my balls! They'll break!!!"  That grabbed my attention.  I look over and one of my female students has these two big balls in a nice shade of orange in the palm of her hand and is rolling them for "a massage."  Needless to say, many inappropriate comments came from that side of the room for the rest of the period.

~Ms. Brown

Things I learned today in 8th grade science.

You learn something every day, right?  This is an email I sent to another of my fabulous co-workers today, based on the conversation I had with my 8th grade students walking back from lunch.

1) Apparently I'm pregnant.
2) The baby daddy is either Mr. Wall or Coach Spalding.
3) The odds are leaning towards Coach Spalding.
4) His wife is going to come up to school and snap and pop her neck at me for stealing her man.
5) You're gonna fight me for him.
6) You'll probably win (this I agree with).

I found this rather amusing.  Hope you have a good afternoon!

I'm a softy.. I would never beat you up.... your taller than me
Can you send this to spalding he wanted to see it

Of course I did....oh, the rumors that middle schoolers are capable of creating.  Thank goodness these ones are pretty harmless and change based on which male I'm talking to at any given moment.  In retrospect, no wonder middle school was so awful.  These kids could be seriously damaging if I actually did have a crush on one of these men.


~Ms. Brown

I'm beginning to think I'm a blog-aholic.  It's a great break from work, though. 

Here's to wondeful co-workers.  I have a great team of teachers (Middle School teaches in teams).  One of the teachers I work with is particularly punny and has a bit of a reputation with the kids for making corny jokes.  Nevermind the fact that the majority of his jokes go right over their heads.  Anyway, I was teaching homophones in my english tutorial classes the other day and wanted to insert a few puns.  The lesson started with a reading comprehension exercise "A tale of tails." 

I later sent a message to my coworker, and this is our conversation:

Me: I meant to tell you....I was talking to my tutorials about homophones today and we talked about puns and plays on words, and I told them about you but was completely at a loss for a "punny" comment.

Him: you were "green" with envy

Him: you were too busy using the "amyg-dala" part of the brain

Get it?? Because my last name is green and I'm Amy G....oh, silly.

~Ms. Brown