Quote(s) of the Day - April 30, 2010

Me: Extremely Obnoxious, come on, I told you to stop talking and start taking notes.

Extremely Obnoxious: I told you to get out of my face!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obnoxious Best Friend of Extremely Obnoxious: MISS, IF EVOLUTION IS TRUE, HOW COME I WASN'T A FISH WHEN I WAS BORN?

Quote(s) of the Day - April 29, 2010

(During Environmental Science, while talking about the Broad Street Run, for some reason)

Me: So a few years ago, a schoolteacher died while running in the Broad Street Run...

Adorable But Slightly Sketchy Student: Yo, that's so hype. If I died during a race, I'd be mad as sh*t.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Me: Extremely Obnoxious, why did you just walk out of my room when I explicitly told you not to leave?

Extremely Obnoxious: I hate when you think you can tell me what to do. Can't you see, I just do what I want. I don't give a f*ck what you say. So get out of my face.

Quotes from Another Crazy Classroom

Well, just one quote.

Silly Student: There was an earthquake in my body, and my pants exploded!

Survivor: Teaching

Teaching is certainly a challenging job. That being said, I realize most jobs have their ups and downs, and I don't like to prance around trying to persuade others that my job is harder than theirs. Most people I know work very hard at their jobs and deserve credit for the work they do.

Nevertheless, I found this hilarious:

***Next Season on Survivor***

Have you heard about the next planned "Survivor" show?

Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped in an elementary school classroom for 1 school year. Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her school district's curriculum, and a class of 20-25 students.

Each class will have a minimum of five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.H.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three students will be labeled with severe behavior problems.

Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance, with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create their materials accordingly. They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences. They must also stand in their doorway between class changes to monitor the hallways.

In addition, they will complete fire drills, tornado drills, and [Code Red] drills for shooting attacks each month.

They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, and attend curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the ESOL tests. If they are sick or having a bad day they must not let it show.

Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment to motivate students at all times. If all students do not wish to cooperate, work, or learn, the teacher will be held responsible.

The business people will only have access to the public golf course on the weekends, but with their new salary, they may not be able to afford it. There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to thirty minutes, which is not counted as part of their work day. The business people will be permitted to use a student restroom, as long as another survival candidate can supervise their class.

If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials before, or after, school. However, they cannot surpass their monthly limit of copies. The business people must continually advance their education, at their expense, and on their own time.

The winner of this season of Survivor will be allowed to return to their
job.

via the AP Biology listserv

Quizzz, Part Two

I totally forgot to post the big news last week!...

My kids averaged an 84 on their transcription/translation quiz. They did so well! I am so proud of them! In particular, they completely mastered transcribing DNA into mRNA and using the genetic code to translate mRNA into amino acids. Big stuff!

Yay! My kids rock!

Words of Wisdom from my Students

Adorable But Slightly Sketchy Student: Yo Miss, I didn't finish all my Do Nows from last week, but I'm gonna hand them in anyway, because I know it's better to hand in work on time.

Me: Absolutely! Thanks so much!

Sketch: Yo yo, do I get extra credit for that?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My high school completely reshuffled due to State Test madness. As a result, my 4th period class was temporarily moved from the 3rd floor to the 2nd floor for about three weeks. Everything returns to normalcy (if you can call it that) on Tuesday.

Insecure About Other People Being As Smart As He Is: Miss, you told us we'd be on the 3rd floor today, and we're still on the 2nd floor. You lied. You're a liar.

Me: I'm pretty sure I told you we'd be here until Tuesday. Sorry for any confusion! But, hey, you made it here okay!

Insecure: Not anymore! (Leaves the room in a huff.)

Three minutes later...

Insecure (entering the classroom): Good morning, miss!

Me (surprised): Good morning!

Insecure: How are you doing today?... See, I'm making a fresh start!

Quote(s) of the Day - April 26, 2010

As my regular readers know, every Friday, I give my kids a "Free Write" as their Do Now. Here are a few gems from this past Friday:

Poorly Influenced by Boisterous But Lovable: I am going to my girl crib. Then I will play with my friends on the game systems, go to a party with my friend because his cousin is sick and needs someone to party for him.

Insecure About Other People Being As Smart As He Is: My weekend will be awesome. I found me a girl who loves me, and I love her back. And today we get out early, and I will get to spend time with the girl I love.

Blueberry News

Did you know... Consumption of blueberries has been shown to stimulate the growth of new neurons?

Cool! Bring on the blueberries! (It's almost local berry season!!)

Via, via (via)

Famous... in Philadelphia

The Notebook, a wonderful blog about Philadelphia public schools, posted a link to my blog today! Wheee!

Floating So High

She wrote in her Do Now today:

I'm happy my life is back together and I got out of bed and came to school. I'm happy to know I will do something with my life. I'm happy you made me come and talk with you after school yesterday. Thank you so much, Miss. I am really grateful.

Aw, shucks.

Floating Higher

She came to school! I was worried she would decide not to at the last minute, but she came to school!!!

Floating

One of my favorite students, a senior, stopped coming to school right before spring break. I knew she had been suffering from a bad case of senioritis, but I didn't probe the matter... until she had missed so many days that she was given what is essentially "dropout" status. I emailed her -- no response. I called her home, using the phone number listed on her online school profile -- disconnected. I told one of my administrators about her, and he sent a team over to her house to investigate -- no outcome. I was at a loss. I figured I wouldn't see her in school again.

Then I realized I was being an idiot. While she doesn't have any close friends in her Environmental Science class, surely someone had to have her cell phone number. And, thank goodness, someone did.

She picked up the phone when I called her yesterday afternoon, although, when she heard my voice, she promptly burst into tears. I convinced her to let me take her to dinner later that evening. When we finally met up, she told me what was going on: She was overwhelmed with work and mildly depressed. She initially decided to deal with her anxiety and depression by staying in bed; this led to an even greater feeling of powerlessness, especially at the prospect of having to make up all the work she was now missing, until she decided to stop coming to school at all. It wasn't just high school that she was giving up on -- she also quit her job without warning, and she stopped returning her friends' phone calls.

I did my best to mix tough love and encouragement. I told her several times how stupid she was to drop out in the spring of her senior year. I told her she had better deal with being overwhelmed, because it is a pretty frequent life experience. I told her that nobody in the 21st century would respect a high school dropout. But I also told her over and over again how awesome she is, how much I missed seeing her every day, how I had made such an effort to track her down because I felt she was worth it.

We came up with a game plan for her to get back on track academically. I told her that she must start to seek out help when she needs it. She cried and cried and told me she didn't want to be a high school dropout.

She's coming to school today.

Quizzz

My biology students have a quiz today on transcription (making RNA) and translation (making proteins). As a 47 (Genetics) TA, this is easily my favorite part of biology, and I have tried to pass on that love to my kids. So I am really hoping they do well! =)

A Potential Crisis

I usually try to break up fights in my classroom before they even begin.

But I wasn't going anywhere near this one:

Rooster: Stop talking about my sister like that!

Homologous: Stop hating me cause I'm black!

Ummmm, okay....

They are best friends as well as best rivals, so this could have gone either way. Fortunately, they resumed their protein translation activity before I could hear more about Rooster's sister. (She does come up in class quite a lot.)

Best Biology Teacher Week EVER

Thursday = Earth Day

Friday = National DNA Day

Then again, Friday is the first day of PSSA Science testing. So we'll get to see how ridiculously below proficient our kids are at science.

Anyhow, I'm going to be optimistic and continue to call it the best week ever. Yay!

My New Favorite Quote

From Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1999), by JK Rowling:

"It is our choices.... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

If My Life Were a Cartoon, My Heart Would Have Exploded...

On Friday, a higher-ranking staff member more or less accused me of being a bad teacher. (I doubt she meant it personally; rather, I think she is stressed and frazzled due to pressures from higher-ups, as we all are.)

I told an amazing student, with whom I have a very close relationship, about the situation. This was her response:

>>Like I was telling you earlier, I got upset when they told you that you were not doing a good job as a teacher. If only they could visually see how you teach and how your students react.

Oh. My. God. I was (am) so moved.

Finally Friday

Me: A group of three nucleotides is called a codon. Wildly Inappropriate, what do we call a group of three nucleotides?

Wildly Inappropriate: A condom?

Other fun moments of the day:

-- Having my seniors work intently on their climate change mini-project as I blasted Phil Collins - at their request - over the speakers. (This was actually fun.)

-- Reviewing translation (the cellular process of making proteins) with my 10th graders, only to have them complain that I taught them this yesterday and they knew it already. Naturally, when I started questioning them about the topic (see above), they had a very tenuous understanding. (This was not actually fun).

-- Friday happy hour with my colleagues. (Fun doesn't even come close to describing it.)

Highlights from the Ground

--Recently Reformed Nice Girl came to class with a positive attitude today. So positive, in fact, that she set a goal for herself to make it through the entire class without cursing, AND she succeeded. I was duly impressed.

--Makes Barnyard Animal Noises and Rooster interrupted my lesson on translation (in biology, the cellular process of making proteins) in order to start howling at the imaginary moon. Nobody in the class found this weird. Rooster then started cock-a-doodle-doo'ing. The rest of the students, being the arbiters of propriety that they are, found this completely inappropriate, and we (myself included) momentarily forgot about biology and lost ourselves in fits of giggles.

--In Environmental Science, we each computed our carbon footprint using an online climate change calculator. Several of my students were severely off-task. Approaching them in person was unsuccessful. However, when I admonished one of them via gchat, he immediately got to work. Go figure.

--Dreams of Becoming a Paramedic wore lens-less Harry Potter glasses today. When she took them off for a moment, I stole them from her and put them on my own face. My class had no problem paying attention to me after that.

Quote of the Day - April 13, 2010

The Do Now prompt was, "What do you plan to do after you graduate high school? Be as specific as possible." Most students answered vaguely (of course), writing about college or hopes to be an actor or stuntman or police officer. But this was my favorite....

Makes Barnyard Animal Noises: I'm gonna go to [insert tropical island] on vaicaishun and have the best sex ever.

Quote(s) of the Day - April 12, 2010

I happen to be wearing a very pretty (in my opinion) black taffeta skirt today.

Fondles His Chin and Tongue Piercings: Miss, why are you wearing a garbage bag?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(at the end of the lesson)

Me: Recently Reformed into Nice Girl, I really need you to not talk when I'm teaching.

Recently Reformed: Get out of my face. You hype as sh*t, Shorty.


Maybe I need to change her pseudonym?

Nicholas Purple?

I try to give my kids a trivia question each day. On Wednesday, my question (taken from quizo the night before) was, "What is the 5th most common name in the US; also the name of color?"

Now, I've indoctrinated my kids well enough that most of them knew right away that the answer was "Brown". However, one girl enthusiastically waved me over to her desk. I leaned over, and she whispered her answer into my ear:

Indigo!

Laryngitis, Part Two

Well, I taught five classes, despite not having a voice. My kids made fun of me nonstop, but, overall, I was impressed at how respectful and well-behaved they were through the day. Coincidentally, one of my best friends had planned to spend the school day with me yesterday, and she was enormously helpful, especially in getting my three biology classes to complete a procedurally-intensive DNA extraction lab.

But I do want to give my kids a lot of credit for staying in control (while maintaining their usual levels of chattiness) when they easily could have taken advantage of me. Not only that, but they were SO EAGER to tell me what they knew about base-pairing and helicases and so on. Yay!

And my friend's impressions after spending a full day at school? "I was expecting so much worse. I never felt unsafe, and your kids seemed like really good kids. And the majority of them really seemed to care about learning science."

Quote of the Day - April 9, 2010

[Sorry, this post was somehow never published. Enjoy!]

My coworker brings up No Child Left Behind while chatting with some kids at the end of class.

Ambiguous Enabler: I love No Child Left Behind. Otherwise, I would never be allowed to do no work and still graduate high school.

Laryngitis

How am I going to teach tomorrow if I have no voice?!

Inside My Head

While distributing PSSA*-themed shirts to the juniors:

No, you are not a size small. Yes, I realize you are wearing a size small. However, your boobs are currently spilling out on top, and your stomach is hanging out of the bottom. Just because you are wearing a size small DOES NOT mean that you are in actuality a size small. So quit arguing with me when I hand you a medium. It's a free shirt, and you were neither guaranteed nor are you entitled to a certain size. So shut your mouth, and leave me alone.

While showing a great documentary on genetic engineering in Biology:

You, yes you, are a brat. Don't tell me, "Get out of my face" when I ask you to put away your cell phone. Don't act like you are entitled to use a cell phone. It is my prerogative, in fact, my directive, to tell you to put away your cell phone during class. Why? Well, if you're texting, chances are you're not learning. So put the damn phone away, and don't give me mouth... When I then tell you to stop talking, don't tell me, "Your class is ass." Wow. I'm offended. You think you have the right to have loud conversations and thus cause major disruptions because you don't like my class? Riiight. For the love of Mount Olympus, learn to respect other people.

I wish I could actually say this stuff out loud.

*The PSSA is the standardized test that all elementary students and 11th graders must take in the state of Pennsylvania. Schools are required to administer the PSSA during the month of April.

How to Define Perfect?

A beautiful day, a box of strawberries, Godspell, five engaged and under-control classes, a long run along the Schuykill... Wow.

Email of the Day - April 5, 2010

Just Adorable And Brilliant: hey miss its just adorable and brilliant just wanted to email you to let you know that im almost done wit my project so as soon as im done ill email it to you .. !

Me: Okay, great. Why weren't you in school today? Ms. Cyanococcus

Just Adorable And Brilliant: it was becuz the time of the month if you know what i mean .. so i stayed home but tomorrow ill be going to school no worries ..

Yes, Hurling Insults Is a Good Way to Express Your Frustration. Duh.

Tuesday was the last day of the marking period. At the end of class, nearly all of my students wanted to see the grades that will appear on their report cards in a few weeks. Most students were not surprised by the number I showed them, as they have been made aware of their grades all marking period long. However...

Poorly Influenced by Boisterous But Lovable: Miss, why do I have a 67? That can't be right. I know my grade's higher.

Me: Well, actually, you got a zero on your meiosis quiz, and you didn't do so well on your cell cycle quiz. And you more or less stopped doing homework this marking period.

Poorly Influenced: But I did my project, and you promised my grade would go up if I did my project.

Me: That's correct, your grade did go up.

Poorly Influenced: But you promised me a C!

Me: I definitely didn't promise you any specific grade.

Poorly Influenced: No, you promised me a C! You're a cheater and a liar!

Me: Hey, look, a 67 is passing, which is awesome. And if you do what you did this marking period, plus study more for tests and do a better job with homework, then you might do even better next marking period.

Poorly Influenced: You promised me a C! I hate you! You're a bad teacher!

Me: (sighing) Have a good spring break!

Why I Love Florida

I've eaten 8 boxes of strawberries in the past 36 hours. Yum.

How's the Weather Down There?

Best newspaper quotation I've seen this week, courtesy of the Huffington Post:

"While the week got off to a rough (and rainy) start, weather like this makes you forgive and forget."

Yup. Couldn't agree more. :)

Disease Schmisease

Hello from sunny Florida!

I'm here with one of my nearest and dearest friends, who happens to be a medical student. While sunbathing on the beach, we spent some time discussing various aspects of medical care, which led me to recall this incident:

Random Trivia Question of the Day: What factor was responsible for 40% of all US military deaths in World War I?

Actual Answer: influenza

One Bright Student's Answer (written down on a sheet of paper): It was the very small pocks.