Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Halloween Costume

There is a girl in my class who I'm pretty sure views me as some type of father figure. At the very least, she looks up to me, which is nice. That is probably the only reason why I put up with her ridiculousness so much, because she is the quintessential Class Clown.

At the beginning of this week when students were talking about costumes for Halloween, this particular student announced "I'm gonna be Mr. V for Halloween!" This is a 12 year old Mexican girl. She continued, "But Mr. V, I don't have curly hair so you're gonna have to straighten yours."

What kind of backwards logic is that?!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

THE KIDS THE KIDS THE KIDS

Sometimes teaching feels amazing and sometimes I feel despair. One of my classes out of five (1/5 or 20 percent or .20) is just so smart! It has 33 students, all seventh graders, all simply beautiful, precocious, able young people. That class happens to be in my first hour of the day, and the rest is downhill from there.

In one of my lower-level classes, I am constantly telling this one kid who thinks he is SO smart to just show his work. He is able to do a lot of the problems in his head, but I insist that he shows his work so I know that he knows. Right? One of his recent homework assignments actually had this written on it:

"Uhhh!! Mr. V look I showd my work happy now! ?! :] Erick"

I just wish you could hear his voice. This kid talks sooo funny! Just imagine Al Pacino in Scarface as a 12 year old boy. The kind of guy that says "Say hello to my little friend." Cuban-Miami tough guy speak. Now read that again out loud. It makes me smile every time.