Learn Me Gooder (20 page)

I can already tell that Marshawn is going to test the limits of my positive to negative feedback ratio. Experts say that for every teacher’s comment that could be construed as negative – “Stop throwing chicken nuggets at people!” – there should be something like ten positive comments – “Your accuracy is coming along nicely!” Thus, the positive: negative ratio.

I’ve set myself a more modest goal; instead of 10:1, I’m attempting to maintain a 3:1 ratio. Even so, I’ve already had to get pretty creative with kids like Joaqim and Suzie.
“I love the way you’re converting oxygen to carbon dioxide!”
“Your snoring hardly disturbed anybody today!”
“You’re doing a great job making the top half of the class possible!”

Today, Marshawn came in and wouldn’t do any work for me. He kept putting his head down and looking to the world like he was taking a nap. I introduced him to my rule of “Sleep in your bed, not in my classroom.”

He immediately responded, “I stayed up all night watching a movie!”

Hmmm...well, Marshawn, that would certainly explain the need for sleep, but here’s an idea. Maybe, and this is just me thinking out loud here, you SHOULDN’T watch late-night movies when you have to go to school the next morning. Make sense?

Turns out he’ll be able to watch all the Cinemax he wants tonight and tomorrow night. Mrs. Bird had him suspended for the rest of the week. It’s pretty amazing for HER – normally a very calm, patient teacher who doesn’t get rattled easily – to suspend a kid who’s only been here for two days. No sewage disruption yet at our school (at least not due to him), but he’s been throwing out insults like they were homeworks with no names on them. He dropped an F-bomb over in her room, called several kids’ mothers an unsavory word that rhymes with “witch,” and told Charles, “That is the Mother Effing biggest stomach I have ever seen!”

Marshawn is no Olive Oyl himself, so this really is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle fat. And I looked and beheld a crazyhorse, and an insane rider sat upon him. Why do the lunatics always show up right before Spring Break?

Hey, before I sign off, I have some bad news. I’ve been in a terrible mood since the weekend, and it’s not just from having my pants ruined by glue or getting a new challenge in class. I had a date with Jill on Saturday, and instead of being the grand night of catching up that I had hoped for, it wound up being the not so grand night of BREAKING up.

Long story short, an ex-boyfriend has moved back to town and wants to rekindle the flame, she’s torn but needs to take some time to sort out her feelings, she doesn’t want to keep me hanging, yadda yadda yadda.

Maybe I should have seen this coming, but I pretty much feel blindsided. Big time bummer. I thought things were going so well. At least I only have three more days of school to make it through before getting an entire week off in which to wallow in self pity. And chocolate pudding.

For now, I guess I’ll go drown my sorrows in about six liters of Mountain Dew. All the while thankful that I don’t have to get glasses or use broken toilets.
Later,
Lou Zerr

Thanks, man. I appreciate your support during this rough patch. I also appreciate you guys sending me all of the Photoshopped pictures of hot celebrities asking me out. I’m not sure Jennifer Garner would have misspelled so many words, but I liked the intent of the message all the same. Maybe a gorgeous brown-eyed brunette COULD help me “get over my resent brakeup.”

This whole week has dragged, but yesterday was an especially super long day. The blank stares… The same questions over and over… The never-ending tattling… That’s right, last night was Parent-Teacher conference night! There has been some debate over the past few days as to which is less torturous – conference night or a 22-hour road trip to Montana with a rabid ferret in the backseat.

Last night followed the usual pattern for Parent-Teacher conferences. The parents of the really bad kids don’t show up, the parents who DO show up are mainly told that their kid needs to read more at home, and somebody down the hall is screaming the lyrics to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” at the top of their lungs. Okay, that last one is not usual. Oh, and since many of our parents don’t speak English, we had to keep buzzing the office to send a translator down.

A couple of times, when there was no translator available, we had to settle for one of our students’ older brothers. This made me wonder if they were accurately converting what we said, or channeling Mouth from The Goonies.
Us: “Michael needs to read at home every night.”
Translated as: “Michael has been asking some very disturbing questions about monkeys.”
Us: “Michael has not been participating in class.”
Translated as: “Michael has been smoking macaroni and cheese.”
Us: “Michael did well on his last math test.”
Translated as: “Michael says there that Uranus consists mostly of slushy gases.”

Of the parents who did show up, Thilleenica’s were certainly the most memorable. They seemed VERY happy to be there and had more giggle fits than I could count. Also, it wasn’t difficult to see that they had bloodshot eyes, and there was a weird odor coming from them.

Yep, they showed up stoned. The really bad thing was that Thilleenica was with them. She wasn’t stoned at least, but I can’t imagine her home life is a very good one.

At one point, Thilleenica’s dad glanced over at Bubba, the Scottish nutcracker, and said, “Hey! We used to have one of those!”

Thilleenica’s eyes widened and darted over to me. I caught her eye, smiled, and decided to remain mum on the matter.

Amir’s mom showed up and brought her one-year-old daughter. Less than five minutes into our conference, the little girl toddled over to me and climbed into my lap, where she stayed for the rest of our meeting. Mrs. Bird snapped a picture, and my first thought was that Jill would really like to see it. But then I remembered…

Antonio’s father wanted to know why his son’s grades were so much worse in reading than they were in math. I told him about the restaurant coupons I’ve been giving Antonio as an incentive, and he said, “Oh, yes, he told us this was his reward for doing his math.”

He then looked squarely at Mrs. Bird and asked, “So why aren’t YOU giving him restaurant coupons?”

If the conferences had been tonight instead of last night, I’m afraid of the repercussions I might have faced for something that a lot of the kids were saying this afternoon. On our way back inside from recess, we passed Miss Phelps, a first grade teacher who had a lot of my kids two years ago. The kids swarmed around her and clamored for her attention, shouting that they had passed their latest multiplication test. A couple had (finally!) passed the 4’s test, and several had passed the 6’s and 7’s tests. The most vocal, however, seemed to be the group who were yelling, “I passed my 8’s test!”

If that means nothing to you, it’s because you’re reading this silently. Try this – stand up at your desk right now and shout, “I passed my 8’s test!” at Tiffany over the cubicle wall. See what happens. What looks commendable on paper is actually quite cringe-worthy out loud.

OK, man, I’m turning in for the night. By the time you read this, I’ll already be dead. Wait, that’s not right. By the time you read this, I’ll already be three days into Spring Break! I’ll come pester you guys for lunch a couple of times, if I feel like waking up before noon.

And if I’m not too busy giving Jennifer Garner private spelling lessons.
Later,
Ty Moff

Spring Break is unfortunately over. You can officially cease your complaining now. The week off couldn’t have come at a better time, and I took advantage of being a bum and not doing much. In addition to hanging out with you guys, a couple of the fourth grade teachers – Hank Redd and Spencer Utoobay – took me out one night and did their darndest to push me towards every attractive female in the bar. I learned quickly that the best way to get over one rejection is NOT to put yourself in line for several more.

But hey, I’m really feeling a lot better after having this time off. Especially after watching 172 straight hours of college basketball. NOTHING will ever dampen my enjoyment of March Madness!!

Thanks also for all of the support I’ve gotten from you and my other pals at HPU. I received a lot of very encouraging emails from lots of people. Don’t ever tell him that I told you this, but I have to say I was most impressed with Larry. Dropping the horndog, goofball act for once, he sent me a surprisingly candid message about how he was able to get over the devastation of his divorce. My situation is nowhere near as extreme as that, but I was touched by his heartfelt words of advice.

So no more moping about Jill. Instead, I’ll get back to rubbing in the fact that I just had a whole week off from work!! Don’t you just love how that happens every year? Well, hey, you should be glad you don’t have to come back from a nice vacation to anything crazier than Latya hung over.

I’ll get to the classroom craziness later, but let’s start with some madness! Like I said, March Madness is in full effect, and my brackets are looking pretty darn good. Duke’s gonna win it all this year!!

In my class, the March Mathness tourney is just getting started. When I first asked the kids if any of them watched college basketball or had heard of March Madness, they looked at me as blankly as they do when I ask who knows what congruent means. There were a few nods of recognition and gasps of excitement, though, when I held up the brackets and announced the tournament.

I shouldn’t be too surprised that the kids are unaware of March Madness, as sad as that might be. When I was still at Heat Pumps Unlimited, I once suggested a March Madness celebration to the Party Planning Committee. All of the ladies on the committee were very excited about it. I then had to explain to them that March Madness was a sporting event and not a once-a-year shopping extravaganza.

I had the kids draw numbers out of a basket to decide which slot their names would go in in the opening round of our contest. This morning, when I called Eddie up to the basket and he pulled a 6, there was a general, “OOOOOH!” from the rest of the class. Never mind the fact that his opponent had not yet been selected. The other numbers and slots generated the same reaction, and now the first round is set. The kids are excited and seem to be looking forward to the test on Friday. We’ll see if that translates into better test scores or just more trash talking from kids like Tyler and Lex.

I myself didn’t trash talk anyone at school today, but I did talk ABOUT trash with one parent. Priya’s mom stopped by my classroom before lunch, upset about a note she had found in her daughter’s possession. Mrs. Bird was with her, and she showed me the ragged little note that looked like it had been put through the washer.

Priya’s mom was appalled that a boy in my class had written this note to Priya, and Priya had apparently told her mom that this boy was putting unwanted attention on her. Upon reading the note for myself, I wasn’t so sure.

At first glance, it was readily obvious that the note contained two different sets of handwriting. One person had used pen, while the other had written in pencil. Some of the statements clearly were in response to others.

On one side, it said:
“From: Ta’varon
To: Priya”
with a big imperative, “Do not tell on body!” scrawled across the top. There were little hearts with faces next to the words, “kiss you! kiss me!”
On the other side, in pencil was:
“I’m sorry I called you ugly. I did not mean to say that. But I liked what you said on the note. I love you to. Your cute to. Do you want to be boyfriend and girlfriend? Yes or no give it back.”
The user of the pen had then come along and circled the “Yes” and added:
“I love you to! I don’t now about boyfriend and girlfriend and if you want to I don’t care I like it to if you like it.”

It was obvious to me that Ta’varon and Priya both contributed to the note, and that both of them need to learn the correct usage of the word “too.” However, Priya’s mom apparently is deeply concerned that her daughter is receiving notes not only from a boy, but from a boy with a split personality disorder.

No wonder she was so upset!

I didn’t see the point of wasting any time in attempting to convince her that Priya had added to the note also, so I just told her I would talk to Ta’varon and take care of things. When she left, I called Romeo and Juliet out into the hall and showed them the note.

I first told Priya that I wasn’t too impressed that she had lied to her mother about her involvement. She didn’t even try to protest her innocence. Then I tried to convince both of them that they were WAY too young (TO young?) to be discussing love and relationships, and the school was no place for it anyway.

I was tempted to add, “If I don’t even have a girlfriend, you shouldn’t have one either!”

The love note must have been a hot topic of conversation in the lunchroom or on the playground, because I heard several kids whispering about who likes who while we were taking our bathroom break. Feeling the vibe, Isabel confided in me, “I have a crush on a boy.”

Almost without thinking, I answered, “You know, a crush is something you should always keep secret and never tell anyone, especially a teacher.”

I was just full of great romance advice today. But I wasn’t the only one.

Not long after Isabel tried to tell me about her unrequited love, one of the kindergarten teachers walked by. Thankfully, Katie waited until she was out of earshot before commenting, “There’s a pretty lady for you to marry!”

Thanks, sweetheart! Can you look into what kind of a dowry I can expect to receive if I enter into a marriage contract with that lady? Get back to me on that, OK?

She said it so matter-of-factly, too, as if she was pointing out the only open seat in a crowded auditorium.