Patience and the Need for Hearing Aids...

   Demonstrative speeches tend to be a little time consuming due to the setup and tear down aspects. Especially when it's a food related speech. Today my kids were a little off in addition to getting speeches ready. We had the first round playoff game last night for football and it went great, which means the kids are thinking about football, not English.

   One of my kids was trying to hurry every one up, even though he has already given his speech. But he was supposed to be helping his twin sister with hers; she would use him to demonstrate how to escape an attack.

Student: Hurry up, guys! Let's go, guys! Come on!

Me: Relax. Student, patience is a virtue.

Student: Well, she might, but not on purpose. We've practiced.

Me: (Long pause, where I just look at him in confusion.) Wait, what?

Student: Wait, what did you say?

Me: Patience is a virtue?

Student: Oh, I thought you said 'Paige is going to hurt you.'

These kids of mine...

Math in English Class?

   Sometimes when we have some free time, I let my kids work on homework. Today is one of those days. One of my sophomores was working on IXL and asked me a question. I said that even though I'm not good at math, I knew that squared and to the third weren't the same thing. My student replied, to the third is cubed. I just laughed and said exactly, I'm not good at math.

   Another student goes, "So the third is cubed. So November third is November cubed." Completely straight-faced.

   We all laughed. Sometimes, these kids of mine crack me up.

Politics in English I

   I rearranged my room recently, and I put them in pods. Honestly, one of the bravest choices I've made in my teaching career. It's a mixed bag in terms of behavior and student reaction.

   Today in English I they were working on argumentative papers about a modern controversy or issue. It's interesting to say the least....

   So my kids are working away and all of a sudden two hands shoot up, a boy and a girl who are currently sitting right next to each other. In unison they said, "I can't sit by him! He likes Trump!" "I can't sit by her! She supports Hillary!" This led to a class wide debate on last night's debate, the current issues, the main concerns. While it's overwhelming and sometimes a little hard to bite my tongue when they're SO opinionated and SO strong in their belief that the view they have is the only one worth having, I have to give it to my freshmen that they are very well versed in what's going on around them. It's impressive to me, because when I was their age I couldn't even tell you who was the South Dakota governor, let alone what was going on in national politics.   

Gaze-boo?

We started demonstrative speeches today in the English II. Which is...always interesting. Usually it results in a lot of food, which I never complain about.

Anyhow.

So my kids are googling topics, because of course, and one of them is reading them off.

Student: "How to build a gaze-boo."

Me: Not looking at the list on the computer, "Pretty sure that word is gazebo."

Student: "I'm pretty sure it's gaze-boo."

Student Two: Looking over Student One's shoulder, "Yeah...that's pronounced gazebo."

Never a dull moment with my sophomores.