A Play

I took 10 of my drama students to the local University on Tuesday to watch a production of The Importance of Being Ernest. It was brilliant, and my students really liked it. On the way in, we took the roundabout way, and I gave a brief verbal tour of the University, pointing at the buildings we passed. It went something like this:

Teachingchris: There’s the lab building. It’s where you’d do Science labs.

Awed silence from students.

Teachingchris: There’s the classroom building.

Shawn: (sarcastically) What’s in there? Classrooms?

Teachingchris: Yeah, kind of obvious, heh? There’s the library.

Shawn: Do they have books in there? Our school doesn’t get books – just magazines.

Jordan: No Shawn, we have books. You just don’t know how to read them.

Teachingchris: There’s the Language Institute.

Shawn: Too easy, Teachingchris, too easy.

I know that the banter doesn’t translate very well, but I was rolling by the end of it. Trust me. It was funny. Some days, I have the funniest job in the world.

People don’t know how to search on the internet

One of the features of wordpress is that it shows you what search engine terms were used to reach your blog. Perusing these has proved quite humorous and baffling – baffling first off, because people search for ridiculous things, and secondly because somehow these odd searches reach my blog.

Here are some choice searches as of late:

“drama for teaching energy”  — and what are you trying to teach this energy? How to do drama? Or are you using drama to teach it? And, more importantly, could we harness the energy, once taught, and use it to reduce our reliance on coal generated power?

“learn from this project” — and which project are you speaking of?

“furnace blasted 60 degrees” –fahrenheit or celsius? That makes a big difference. What were you hoping to find with this search? People with a common affliction for tropical temperatures indoors in the winter?

“classroom activity teaching students” — if this is your starting point for teaching students, I fear for the state of education.

“will chris ever take me home today?” — are you using Google as your own personal magic eight ball? And, if you are, is it reliable? What did it say? Will he? (It should be noted that my page is the FIRST to come up when you search this phrase, narrowly beating out a tabloid article on Paris Hilton. Take that, Paris.”

Oh my.

My days…

Days spent working with teenagers are often frustrating and tiring. That said, I find they are always entertaining. There are many times where, when relating a situation from my classroom to another staff member, the comment “We should write a book” is made. I struggle with this idea, because so much of the humor comes from knowing the individual student, and the context of your class. In spite of the fact that the stories below may disappoint, I can’t resist. I’ve had two interactions recently that I’d like to share. I’ve done my best to represent them as accurately and factually as possible.

Story #1: Projectiles in Math Class

Math 9. Today. A student, we’ll call him Terry, arrives late to class. Terry is often late, and usually prefers walking around the hallways to sitting in math class. But, today, Terry showed up. And I didn’t intend on letting him get away without doing any math. However, 20 minutes into class, Terry a) hasn’t done any math and b) is asking to go to the bathroom because he doesn’t feel well. I am no fool, and see through Terry’s clever plan to escape to return to his life of hall wandering. I do not let him go to the bathroom. Five minutes pass, and Terry asks again. This time, sensing that perhaps it might be genuine based on Terry’s pale face, I relent, and tell him he has exactly five minutes. He returns five minutes later and continues to do no math. I am helping another student across the room when I first hear Terry throw up. A lot. He aimed his vomit away from the other student desks, thankfully, and into the open area in front of my desk. I take Terry some paper towel to clean up with, and observe the watery pool now slowly moving towards my desk. I hand Terry the trash can, and tell him to use it, if he feels like he will puke again. I buzz the office and ask for maintenance to come up with a mop. While I am doing this, Terry vomits again. He ignored the conveniently placed garbage can, and instead adds more watery goo to the pool, which is now dangerously close to my desk. Terry seems unaffected by his vomit. He is still sitting in his desk. I give him more paper towel and move the neighbouring desks out of the way of the now growing murky pool of disgusting. I ask him if he’d like to go to the bathroom to clean up, but he declines.

Story #2: Blueberries

Today. Before math. Bill approaches my desk, where a spray bottle of glass cleaner sits.

Bill: (picking up the container of Windex) Oh, good, blueberries (moving the sprayer towards his mouth)
Me: Bill, put it down.
Bill: (turning the container and seeing the label) Oh, it’s Windex. Gross.

How could you not love this job?