How to fail an exam without opening your eyes

Notice the particularly impressive angle at which this student's body is positioned over the desk.  And yes, he really is asleep.

Exams bring out the best in us

"This book is confusing!  It's like I went to the mall to buy shoes and came out with a shirt." -Jeremy

"No one came out of that test smiling.  You must have been mad when you made it." -Nia

Why can't you be like the other young teachers, Ms. Hume? They sit in the corner and put their hands over their faces and cry. You need to stop being so tough." -Kijuana, 8th period

you can't find that at the grocery

Back to school... the first week went MUCH more smoothly than I anticipated. The kids seem eager to learn and are generally bending to my will... I'm absolutely loving seeing my old students, even the kids who were massive pains in my rear last year.

Nothing too notable so far, however this tidbit did make me (and the rest of the class) crack up uncontrollably.

I had the students draw pictures of their childhood homes as a pre-writing activity (THANKS, GNOWP!). They were to label the memorable rooms and objects and events. On my example, I drew a possum on the side porch, as I recalled an incident involving me, a possum, and an hour-long stand-off one night. I asked the students, "Do y'all know what a possum looks like? They are ugly!"

At this point, one female student in my English IV class shouted, "They is ugly, but they be tasting GOOD!"

"Where do you be getting possum? They don't have that at Rouse's," another student responded.

"Nah, you gotta catch 'em and kill 'em and cook 'em. They is good."

It's going to be an interesting year.

mulligan

i feel really guilty... PD starts this coming Monday and I'm dreading go back to school. I'm nervous about teaching... I haven't done it all summer and I feel rusty... I don't know how to act the first day, what to emphasize, what to let slide, what expectations to set. I feel like a first year teacher all over again.

And I shouldn't. This is my third year.... though I never felt like I slam dunked the second year. The other advantage, one I've yet to experience: I'm returning to the same school. No transition period, no learning which co-workers are trustworthy, which are miserable, which will lie for the kids and which will work hard as hell for the students.

But I'm terrified.

And I didn't get a whole lot of a summer. Can I ask for a summer do-over? Or a second year of teaching do over? Maybe that's what this year will be...

I'm not ready.

reason #427 why i boycott myspace

Thanks to Dedra who reminded me of this mid-year incident:

I turned around to write something on the whiteboard (such an amateur move... NEVER turn your back to a class) and Curtis announced, "Dayamn, Ms. Hume, don't move. You should take a picture like that and put it on your myspace page."

Christening

Kanisha deemed me worthy of a ghetto name the other day. Her final decision:

Humeneika


LaHumey, Humeneisha and LaHumeneisha were all discarded.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

I really should write down more of the comments my students make as we delve more deeply into texts. This post shall be dedicated to the study of Macbeth and my students' insights. I'll update it as needed.

"Macbeth is a beast! He laid into that dude."

"No wonder he can't sleep; the king saw him before he killed him. That's wrong."

"And Lady Macbeth is all like, 'just wash your hands, yo,' and that's wrong. People can't be washing their hands and forgetting about stuff when you just killed three people. That's just wrong."

"I think Macbeth will die in Act III."
"SOMEBODY needs to kill him; he's evil."
"No, no, they can't kill him yet. You don't get a play named after you and die in the middle."

"Macbeth's going to be a terrible king. You can't be all crazy and be a ruler. That's like democracy."

"Lady Macbeth is a cold bitch."

"Macbeth is a sexy name."

"Lady Macbeth is a whore."
"Geral, until you can prove that Lady Macbeth received money in exchange for sex with multiple people, you cannot say that she is a whore."
"I know you're going to want some contextual evidence, Ms. Hume, but you gotta know that I'm reading between the lines and if we went back in time, it'd be fact that Lady Macbeth is a whore."