Can You Name This Song?

In a random act of craziness yesterday, I gave each of my U.S. History classes the chance at a small amount of extra credit on the test they were taking. To get the points, they had to listen to me sing a short song segment, then identify the famous show or movie it came from. These were the words I sang, in my close to falsetto voice: "Think of me, think of me fondly, when we've said goodbye." Can you name this song? (Please don't spoil it by naming it in a comment, but feel free to say whether you think you know it!)

For general amusement, these were some of the responses I got on the tests, besides the occasional correct answer:
Gone with the Wind (many people guessed this one), Les Miserables, Willy Wonka, Sound of Music, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Love Boat.

Hero for the Day and Meet the Parents

I'm a temporary hero at school. The emphasis should be on temporary. No, I did not have any of Senator Gregg's luck and win big bucks playing Powerball. Nor did I successfully save any little old ladies crossing the street, nor break up any serious fights and in the process save dozens of lives. But I did do something that had about a thousand or more students slightly excited, and now it seems I have to deal with the accompanying fame. Sigh. It's a heavy burden I live under, teaching public high school AND dealing with student worship.

This is what happened. We had an assembly today to kick off Red Ribbon Week, which is an attempt to educate students to the dangers of drugs and alcohol, and hopefully help encourage them not to use them. For the assemby, with about eleven hundred students there, a speaker came and talked a little about the topic, then proceeded to play volleyball, all by himself, against student teams of about fifteen each. It was quite a show. He was a decent player, although packing fifteen students onto a volleyball court was probably more to his advantage than not. This meant the real volleyball players were hampered by many other students on the court making their best but unsuccessful effort to simply get the ball over the net. There was no coordination to the effort. Consequently, the guy easily won the two games he played against two student teams.

Then it was time for a teacher team to take on the challenge. The principal gave this motivational speech about not letting this guy win in our house, and how this teacher team was going to defend the school's pride and honor by taking him on. So a bunch of us teachers squeezed onto the court for the challenge. Well, there were about three teachers who knew something about volleyball besides just trying to bat it around (two of the volleyball coaches were there), and if it was just them playing they might have had success against the one man wonder. But with so many generally clueless teachers, we only did marginally better than the students. I played up on the net (we didn't really rotate, that's how clueless people were), but didn't really have a chance to receive any serves because there were so many teachers close behind me. I did get the opportunity to block. On one occasion our opponent had the audacity to set himself, then try and spike it right in front of me. I blocked it cleanly right down to the floor on his side of the court. The crowd went wild. A number of my students were especially pumped. I also acted pumped, much of which was for the entertainment of the audience. I heard some students cheering me on by name. I also got high and low fives from a number of teachers.

We ended up "winning," though the score was doctored in our favor to make us win, I suppose in order to preserve the school's pride (this was all in good fun, it's not like we really would have been ashamed of losing). Throughout the remainder of the day a number of my students, present and former, kept on coming in or walking by and congratulating me on the play. Some wanted to shake my hand. One student came in and told me I was "the man," and gave me a sketch he had made of me on a napkin in my honor. I thought it was hilarious. It's basically an earless and noseless man looking very stretched, with a torso almost twice as long as his legs, wearing a button down shirt and tie. His mouth, though round, has teeth on all four "sides." His sleeves end about six inches short of his wrists, and it looks like he's standing on tiptoes. My name is at the bottom of the sketch, so I guess it's me.

Lest you think all of school was fun and games today, I did have to write a student up for behavior problems, but I won't bore you with those details, or spend more time focusing on the negative.

In other news, yesterday was open house, and I met a parent or parents of about forty of my students. That means this years participation rate is almost one third, as I have about 130 students total in my classes. This might not seem very high, but it's about twice as many or more than I had last year. This year I offered a reward for the class that had the highest participation rate: they can eat and drink in class for a month. I think this motivated a few students to get their parents to come out. (One dad told me he felt like he was being set up, as his daughter had told him he had to stop by my class, but didn't tell him why. I explained what the motivating factor was!) The visits (kept to five minutes each if someone was waiting) went very well. Some of the chats were most delightful, as I got to talk with some parents who were as sweet and wonderful as their child is in my class. Funny how there's a correlation there. I have some really cool kids, and and their parents seemed to be just as awesome, at least in the short time I had with them. I found communicating to parents about how wonderful students are, and why, to be a fun and positive experience. So good times, though after about four hours of talking with the parents I was pretty bushed. TGIF.

Tongue Tattoos

Well folks, in case anyone is worried, I still love my job. This is not to say that negative things never happen. (Look at my last post for hard evidence of that.) But truth be told, it is important to not let the negative get you down for long, and to focus on the positive. Because the facts of the case are that the positives in my job far outweigh the negative, so it is silly to dwell on hard things for very long. What point is there to be miserable for long when you can be happy? So in the spirit of what many of us heard at a recent convention, I'm happy. And full of joy.

And I have plenty to be happy about. And laugh about. This includes "blondeness" in some of my students. For example, today I had an upper level U.S. History student raise her hand and ask me what "champion states" are. Not sure what she meant, I had her point out to me in the textbook the passage she was referring to. There it talked about people who wanted to "champion states' rights." This provided me with one of those opportunities, so common for teachers, to exercise a fair amount of patience. Some of you hard hearted readers might have burst into mocking laughter. But not me. As a highly trained--and highly paid--professional educator, I withheld my laughter and calmly told her to look at the rest of the sentence, that champion means "proclaiming" or "arguing for" states' rights.

More fun moments today. They revolved around tongue tattoos. I got some in this pack of Trix yogurt I happened to buy. They're these Halloween things you put on your tongue, kind of like really thin fruit rollups, and if you show people your tongue before the two minutes or so it takes for the saliva to dissolve it completely, it looks a little like a real tatoo. Only a little, mind you. Nevertheless, I put one on shortly before three of my classes today. I then told them I wouldn't be doing much talking, as I had just gotten my tongue tattooed, and it didn't come out too well. I then stuck out my tongue. Some students didn't know quite what to think. A couple actually believed me for a short period of time. Sound like fun? It was.

Words that Don't Make the Day

Reader be warned: a not so light post ahead.

Today my day was almost ruined. Well, at least temporarily, until the bright faces in my upper level U.S. History classes helped me forget what I heard earlier. But even now I'm struggling a bit to deal with what I heard...

Here's what happened. At the beginning of my World History class a probably well-meaning sophomore girl comes in and says, "Mr. [my name], somebody was talking about you in the caf this morning." "Oh really?" I replied. "Were they talking smack ["smack" is code lingo for "trash," for you public school neophytes--I use words like "smack" much more quickly than some four letter alternatives many students are not averse to throwing out] about me? What about?" My pursuing this was probably a mistake. Apparently some student of mine was yelling about me, saying I am gay. Another student confirmed this. My informants didn't know who this was, but thought it was a U.S. history student of mine.

This came as a low blow to me. I love each of my students. Some of them are more easy to like than others. But I can honestly say I don't really have any feelings of ill will towards any of them. So the idea that someone is masquerading in my class as being nice and then yelling derogatory things about me behind my back is not a pleasant thought.

This leads to another point. Your opposition to anything, even if right, can be done in a wrong way. This probably isn't a startling revelation to anyone. But in the public school setting, where homophobia abounds, it is quite evident. Because of the way I have been miscategorized and "persecuted," I am now more sensitive to others who are likewise belittled.

I also guess I know what it means to love someone and have them spit in your face in return. Maybe this is how God feels about us sometimes, whenever we sin? Guess there's a valuable insight here.

I would be quite crushed if it was confirmed to me that this person is a current student of mine. I'm taking comfort in the fact that it may be someone I had for part of the year last year, who for whatever reason seemed to develop a hatred for me, and probably still refers to me in derogatory terms whenever she gets the chance. I can handle better those people who I know hate me. It's those who pretend to like me who really feel otherwise that I have a hard time dealing with. (So keep that in mind, all of you who pretend to like me. Please, please, don't ever give a hint to the real truth, if it's different than your act, because then I'll be crushed!)

Today's History Lesson

While correcting U.S. History tests this evening I learned something new, from one of my students. "Ann Frank" was a girl who helped slaves escape via the Underground Railroad. I guess that means Harriet Tubman was a Jewish girl who had to live in hiding for years during World War II...

A Series of (Un)fortunate Events

I do believe this week has been the most eventful one of my life. Of course, given that I am saying this during the same week, you must realize that my perspective is a bit clouded. After some time, maybe I will modify my opinion and move it down to the top ten eventful weeks in my life. Even so, it has been one FULL week. So buckle your seatbelts and prepare for a monstrous-lengthy post.

Monday. I discovered I had made a dreadful error with my grading system, which I keep on a Palm Pilot. For some reason I had thought I was being clever and wise by going into a backup utility for my grades and starting to run it. This utility started to ask me if I wanted to replace various files. I said "Yes" to a couple of them, then started to get suspicious. I thought to myself, "Maybe I shouldn't be doing this," so I stopped. Thank God (I mean this sincerely) that I did. I found out I had erased all of my grade categories, and all of the names of the assignments. I had stopped short of erasing student names and actual grades. If I had erased both of them, I would have been left with the unpleasant task of having to tell the powers that be at school that I had erased all of the student grades for the whole year, with basically no way to recover them (other than asking students, "Hey, you still have all your homework assignments I returned? Can I have them back?" Tests and quizzes I generally keep after letting students see them, but everything else gets returned). As it was, I had to reconstruct the names of all the assignments, re-enter them, and begin the process of re-entering or checking off all students grades. This comes out to about 1500 grades. I am not done yet. I also have loads of test correcting to do, as I gave four classes a test with an essay question and half a dozen short answer questions. Correcting 100 plus of these takes time.

Tired of reading yet? I'm just getting started!

Tuesday. I finally decide to see about interviewing for the theater advisorship position at school. The teacher who used to do it now has other commitments, so there's an opening. I thought I might want to do it awhile ago, then heard the dates set for the productions conflict with professional shows I hope to do. When that happened I thought I was out, but then the principal told me the production dates are flexible. So on Tuesday, during my prep period, I went to let an administrator know I wanted to interview. I was told he was already over in another building interviewing candidates, so I should go over. I did, and was told to wait right there to be interviewed! I did, and was interviewed by the principal and two assistant principals. Big guns, in other words. The next period the principal came by and told me I had been given the job! So now I have a new responsibility, and a chance to enlarge my borders. (There, how's that for a literary allusion? And I haven't even read the book! Unless you count the original source the book is based upon...) As theater advisor, I am basically in charge of everything, though I can delegate as needed: choosing plays, overseeing set design, costumes, props, programs, casting, directing, you name it. We'll be doing two major productions this year, and possibly something more minor.

The president of the theater organization was eager to meet his new advisor, so I met with him after school that same day. And the theater group was putting on a smallish program that evening as part of a fund raising week, so I dutifully attended it (It was sparsely attended. I'll have to attempt to raise enthusiasm/awareness on campus for theater.)

Wednesday. Dodgeball night! This week has been kind of a school spirit type week. During it various fundraising activities were planned to raise money for Katrina victims. One of these was a dodgeball tournament. For thirty bucks, any team of six could sign up. So I organized a faculty team, mostly from our department. Then I made sure to boast to all of my students about how our team was going to dominate and all that, and how they should sign up to take us on, or at least come and see it. Several of my students were on various teams, and a few came to see us. (Actually, several were there, but I have no idea whether they really came to see us. Quite possibly not.) Our team all wore green soccer pinneys over our shirts, conveniently provided by the JV soccer coach, who was on our team and teaches in my department. He also had on long socks, the soccer kind, and gave me a pair to wear, which I pulled up almost to my knees. I think we made quite the sight. In the first round our opponent never showed, so we got a bye. We faced off against a pretty good team in the second round, and got crushed in the first game. Fortunately for us it was a best of three match. We came storming back and won the next two games, to knock off our foe. The victory was sweeter given the fact that they seemed a little cocky (their team name was "We'll probably win." Ours was the "Social Studs.") The next round was the semi-finals, and we were matched against a team with some basketball jocks (one of them has already committed to Boston College for hoops, to give you an idea of the caliber of his athleticism). We beat them in the first game, and were looking good. But they came back to win the next two, and knocked us off. However, the defeat was a noble one. They eventually won the whole thing, so it wasn't hard losing to them.

Also Wednesday. I get an email from my thesis director from grad school, who is also the editor of a hugely prestigious, world renowned, historical journal. To make a long story short, he had previously encouraged me to submit part of my thesis as an article for this journal, as the diary I used for my thesis is one of a kind, and basically really cool. (Even the suggestion was a huge honor for me, and something I was quite excited about. I don't know of any grad students at my college--most, if not all of whom are much smarter than me--who have ever gotten published in this journal. Generally historians with real academic clout--not to mention Ph. D's--get published, but not little people like me.) However, this summer someone published a book with a few selections from the diary I worked with, and it appeared that I had been scooped, which meant the article idea was dead. But I sent my prof the selections of the book from the diary to see if there was still a chance of my getting something published.

Wednesday's email was his response. In it he said he thought there was still an opening, and suggested I put together an article submission for the journal. He continued to say how he was jealous that I had found the diary first, as he and a partner of his might have published it as a book. He continued on to say how he hoped I was still thinking of trying to get the whole thing published, and recommended a publisher I should try first, but only after I get the article published! I'm laughing at the idea even as I write. I mean, me, an author of an academic book? God must have a sense of humor, as I am acutely aware of my intellectual limitations, and do not especially consider myself the academic, book writing type. Yet who knows, it might happen. And if not at least I'll be able to tell my grandkids someday that I might have written a book and been world famous. Or something like that. So in my spare time, besides my school and theater responsibilities, I may be doing some more academic writing. (In reality, the book writing, if it happens, will have to wait till summers, methinks.) Crazy.

Tired yet? The most exciting is yet to come!

Thursday. I have an announcement to make: I've been shopping for a condominium in the general area where I teach. On Thursday I heard that the offer I had made had been accepted by the seller. Yup, you read that right. I'm buying a place of my own. So it looks like I'll be moving a lot closer to school quite soon. October 31 is the closing date. It's a two bedroom, fairly spacious condo in decent condition, and in a decent neighborhood. Not like the condo that I looked at awhile back in a shady part of town, and the next day someone was murdered at that same complex! To the contrary, it's in a quieter part. I'm really happy/excited to be moving to a place that is so much closer to school. It's only three miles from work, and about ten minutes. And it has quick access to the highway too, so getting places fast is quite easy. Needless to say, all of the stuff involved in buying a place will add to my already busy schedule.

Friday. School assembly day. Guess what the assembly was? Something of real academic value, forsooth (Andrea, I hope you're proud of my word usage)! It was two rock bands who performed their stuff. Both of them quite loud. One of the guys is semi-famous. He name is Bleu, and he has a song on the Spiderman soundtrack. I guess that qualifies him solidly for bonafide worldliness. As teachers we have to supervise the assembly, so I was subjected to about forty minutes of heart pounding music, some of which was laced with obscenities (and we expect students to use appropriate language in school?)

To top it all off, I watched most of the Red Sox loss to the White Sox. But thankfully my devastation is not nearly as bad as it was two years ago against the Y*%^&$#. Now that our boys have won the WS, the pain just isn't as sharp. Thankfully.

And that concludes the espistle, detailing my week full of both unfortunate and fortunate events. Lemony Snicket!