Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Joy of Sharing Number One of Sharing a Trailer:

Your neighbor can hear everything you say!

Today, the teacher who shares my trailer thought I had completely lost it with my kids. She said she almost called the principal, but then decided to ask me about it first. Thank goodness.

I was explaining a new system that I have created with my kids. It is a system where, if I hear them insult another student, they then have to write down 5 compliments for that person and then present them to him or her during "shout out time". I am doing this because I am surrounded all day long by kids calling each other names and it gets on my nerves. I also started a consequence where, if I hear a student say a derogatory word, they have to write the real definition of that word fifty times.

So I was explaining what I meant, but what my neighbor heard my yelling was:

"You stupid! Retard! You dumb! You wack! You ain't got no sense!"

Then a few minutes later she heard me holler:

"Fag! Faggot! Fruitcake! Queer!"

I was, of course, telling them the words they would have to define and showing them examples of what I considered insults. But she didn't know that. For a minute or two she actually thought I was calling my students those things. It makes for a funny story, but if she had actually told the principal, maybe not so much.

But the system is working. And it is sweet to end each day with "Shout Outs" and have the kids complimenting each other. Although one student did say, "Miss, you are too much, yo! You're always coming up with some new way to make us do stuff. Dang!"

To which I replied maturely, "Ha ha!" ¶ 12:01 PM