I Get PAID for This!

It's what you've all been waiting for!! (well, what I've been waiting for). The first batch of teacher stories from the 2011-2012 school year! HOORAY!

I am SO HAPPY to have a full-time job teaching middle school language arts - exactly what I wanted to do! Even if I wasn't totally ecstatic, I would have gotten excited when Rex woke me up on the first day of school with breakfast in bed (scrambled eggs and gluten-free muffins!), 18 multicolored roses, and a musical rendition of "Happy First Day of School to You." The day could not have started off any better. He got up at 5:30 to get everything ready! But you didn't decide to read this post to hear me brag about my husband, did you? I didn't think so. I will move on to the main event.

Here it is, folks, the first batch of teacher stories from my FANCY NEW job!!! As always, names have been changed. :-)

1. Today Danny and Kalli were arguing over which word is used to convey "economic hard times" - recession or reception? They came to me to discover which one was correct. I told them that the correct term is "recession," because a "reception" is a big party which usually happens after weddings. Danny said, "Ohhhhh!" as if he had suddenly realized something. I waited for an explanation, and he said, "That makes SO much more sense! When my mom married my stepdad, she said, 'Now it's time for the reception,' and I thought she meant that we were going to be poor because she spent all of the money on the wedding. But she was really just talking about the party!"

2. When giving an introduction presentation, Alison said, "My favorite place to be is Hawaii because it's cold there." I thought I had heard her wrong, but no one else in the class seemed to think that was weird. Then I remembered that it is 115 degrees outside, so Hawaii WOULD seem cold to a Vegas native. Ha!

3. Still on the subject of introduction presentations, Ollie said, "It is a little known fact, but I am actually one of Santa's elves." Jason said, "A fun fact about me is that I always seem to step in gum. Like, every day."

4. Someone was trying to draw a picture of Michigan, and they said, "Hey, Mrs. Webb, have you ever noticed that Michigan looks kind of like a mitten?" I said that yes, I have noticed that before. I showed them how people from Michigan use their hand to show which city they live in, and another student said, "Whoa! People really DO that? I thought it was just a rumor!" I'm not sure why anyone would make up a rumor about that, but okay.

5. As a lot of you know, I keep two rats as classroom pets. At recess time, many students try to sneak back into the building to take advantage of the air conditioning. I periodically check my classroom when I'm on recess duty to make sure no one has tried to get back in there. One day I walked in and there was a girl watching my rats. She looked up and saw that she had been caught, and she knew she was supposed to be outside. Instead of coming up with some sort of excuse as to why she was there, she just arranged her face into an expression of shock and said, "WHOA! Where AM I??!!" and then ran outside. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

6. The students really hate being outside in the hot weather (understandable - it's SO HOT!). I told one of my biracial students that he had to stay outside, and he said, "No! Mrs. Webb! It's too hot out!" I told him that if everyone else could do it, he could too. He responded with, "No fair! Right now I'm only half black, but if I stand outside much longer I'm going to be 100% black and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT!" I told him I could handle the guilt.

7. We have African pen pals, so on the day that I told the students about it we did a little research on the country where our pen pals are from (Sierra Leone). They asked me what language they speak in Sierra Leone, and I told them that many people speak English as well as different regional languages. They didn't understand the idea of "regional languages," so I explained that it would be as if every state in the United States had its own language. Billy raised his hand and said, "I know what Nevada's language would be! It would be, 'Chink...chink...DING DING DING DING DING DING DING!!!'" (general casino noises). It was hilarious, but he's probably right.

My job is awesome - it's like getting paid to go to a comedy club each day. I keep a notepad in my desk, and when students do funny things I jot them down to write in my blog later. After just this first week, I had SEVENTEEN things written down! I chose the best seven for this blog, but that should tell you how funny my students are. You should be a teacher.