Pay to Breathe

I work as an English TA at a university in the upper midwest. Recently, I asked my class to write an analysis of Peter Singer’s One World, which claims that since everyone lives on the same planet, each of us is born with a right to use the atmosphere.

One student found something seriously wrong with this assertion.

“Just because you are born doesn’t mean you are entitled to the same part of the global atmosphere [...] as everyone else. On the basis of capitalism, you have to work and benefit other people to earn the right to use the atmosphere.”

According to this student, Capitalism (anyone catch the publication date on that one?) says that you have pay to breathe.

Attention Parents

Here is an answering machine message, ostensibly from Maroochydore HS in Australia. We think it might also work as a recording to play during parent/teacher conferences

Rounding Down…Way Down.

The midwestern high school where I teach math has a rich history. Gothic architecture, a fair number of well-known former students, and a yearly enrollment of about 2,000 kids.

In one of my 9th grade algebra classes, we had a homework assignment on decimals.  We had been working on rounding, truncating, and the like– practicing everything to the thousandths. For those of you that have been out of high school a while, that means rounding to the third digit.  So 123.8408 becomes 123.841.  Simple enough.  As per routine, we begin class by self-grading homework– I call out the answers, students mark their papers, score goes at the top.  Afterwards I collect them.  One day while sorting through the stack and recording grades I notice this: 
Obviously, there was something lacking in performance on the assignment and I couldn’t help but think that I might have harped a little too much on the third decimal place.  On the other hand, the student did round correctly…

Sticky Fingers’ Caramel Apple

As a TA at a large East Coast university, I taught the equivalent of the university’s ENG 101– the introduction to college writing course. So it was me, mid-20s, trying to manage a group of about 25 eighteen year olds.
Part of my ice breaker was to ask the students fun questions to open class discussions.  Since we happened to have class on February 14th this spring semester, the question was about their most embarrassing Valentine’s Day moments.  Most of the stories ended with lots of group laughter about the shared experiences of misplaced and/or unrequited gradeschool affections.
But one of my students opened her story by pulling out her cell phone and saying, “Right now. I am living my most embarrassing moment right now.” The class demanded explanation.  She continued, addressing me, “I am about to ask you if I can go outside in the hall to call the desk at the high school where my boyfriend goes to school.”
The other students snickered– having a high school boyfriend when you’re in college is not cool.
She continued, “see, at the school– where I used to go too– they used to have a student helper hand out Valentine’s Day gifts that came to the front office. But they got so many this year that they decided to call out the names of who sent the gifts and students receiving them.”
The class, having calmed, looked at each other confusedly.  So I asked, “What’s the big deal there? He’ll hear his name and his girlfriend’s name.”
Head down, phone out, she finished, “Well, the problem is that I sent him a caramel apple that I thought he’d pick up, so I put my nickname on there, which is totally embarrassing…so now the secretary is going to call out ‘Jeremy, you have a Valentine’s Day gift from… Sticky Fingers at the front office’.” The class bursts in riotous, uncontrolled laughter.   “So, I need to step out and call.” “I’d say you sure do” I said, and out she went.

The Toothache (or, The Tale of the Classroom Thief)

In many elementary classrooms, teachers sometimes find that they have at least one petty thief in the room.  After years of practice, a seasoned teacher is usually able to do some subtle interrogation and successfully sleuth out the culprit.

One of my favorite first approaches in 2^nd grade is the shock tactic. Under the pretense that it was most certainly an accident…it goes like this:   “Oh my, ____’s candy is missing and it was right here on his desk!  Did anyone see it on the floor and pick it up for him?  Whoever picked it up, please give it to him now.   Thanks so much!” At this point someone usually pulls it out of his desk and says something like, “I was going to give it to him.”  And now the thief is identified and we have a suspect for the rest of the year.   If that doesn’t work, I have other options up my sleeve.

This year, I had given Lauren her special birthday bag and a piece of taffy.  She had innocently left the candy on her desk to eat later during lunch.  She was totally surprised when it was missing a few minutes later.  I did my usual detective work and soon found that I was up against a hardened veteran.  Nothing worked and I had to concede that I was not smarter than a second grader. I tried the guilt treatment next– where you call a spade a spade.  I said, “I am so sorry but it appears that we have a thief in our room.  This makes me very sad.  It also makes me mad because now we have to be careful about leaving our things out.  I hope whoever took the candy gets a big toothache!”

After a few days, no one had admitted to the crime and I thought the incident had been forgotten.  About a week later, Kacey came up, wriggling her tooth and saying she had a toothache. Her classmate Tony, who most assuredly but regretfully (for me, anyway) will receive a perfect attendance award this year, perked up his ears, raised his eyebrows, and made his way over to me.  He lowered his voice and said matter of factly, “Teacher, I’m pretty sure the thief is Kacey…  She has a toothache.”

Pirates of the Midwest

I teach in a mid-sized, somewhat typical Midwestern town at a small, somewhat typical Midwestern elementary school.  Our students are often typical, too.  But sometimes they are exceptionally clever.  For instance, Caleb was a little 2nd grader who stole your heart the moment you looked at him.  He had big brown eyes, dark hair, and a wide mouth that stretched all over his face as he carefully pronounced his words.  He stood over his desk more than sat at it, deposited his work half-finished in the deepest recesses of his desk, talked and distracted everyone from their work, and sang Big Band and Jazz songs to the snapping of his own fingers.  It made you want to hug him just a little too tightly.  His mom explained that he had been diagnosed with ADHD, and that they used supplements.  As graciously as possible, I informed her that they didn’t appear to be working.  Something gave me the impression that she already knew this.

In class, we began each day with our morning meeting.  As meetings are wont to do, morning meeting on the carpet would sometimes go a little longer than planned and we would break the monotony with our favorite song, “The Pirate.”  It’s about a pirate that is trying to sing his pirate song, but things keep interrupting him, keeping him from completing his song. It goes something like this:

“Once there was a pirate who sang a pirate song
When interrupting the pirate a ____*______came along.
You’d hear , “Yo Ho Ho   Hee Hee Hee  **
A pirate’s life for me!”
“Yo Ho Ho   Hee Hee Hee “    **
A Pirate’s life for me.”

The asterisks mark a series of interruptions from pre-determined characters.  So in verse 1, *a surfer interrupts and says  **“Hey dude! Surf’s up!”  Verse 2 is *a shark that says, predictably, **“Shark! Shark!”  and on and on. So by verse 7, you’ve got the song plus 7 interruptions to sing.

It’s a repetitive little ditty from Jack Hartmann’s Hip-Hop Alphabop 2 (if that ain’t a mouthful) and it has a few motions to go along with it.  The students love singing it.
One day we were having morning meeting and I found it particularly hard to finish my sentence. Everyone had something they wanted to say and I couldn’t get them to stop talking. Flustered, I closed my eyes and thought, “Oh no…am I losing control of this class?” For a brief moment, everything got quiet and Caleb piped up: “Quit INTERRUPTING the pirate!”

Welcome to Honors Scholars!

Hey there, and welcome to Honors Scholars– the (as far as we know) first  blog where teachers from every educational level can share their funny, cute, idiotic, baffling, odd, hilarious, endearing, hysterical, amusing, witty, humorous, farcical, entertaining, laughable, quirky, extraordinary and priceless stories with each other.  Silly things happen when people– and especially children– learn, and we’re here to help you share those things.  We’ll update each Sunday with a few new stories– so enjoy what’s here and email us at honorsscholars@gmail.com if you’ve got a funny story of your own.  The more the merrier!