from a tired student teacher

Happy Friday, everybody! If you're like me, you're uber-happy that it's the end of the work week. It's been a great week but a busy one, so I apologize for the lack of posts.

First I wanted to wish my dad a late happy birthday. Let's all sing Happy Birthday to my ol' man: "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear daddy-o, Happy Birthday to you!!!!" That sounded wonderful. Just a little English-fact for you all, but mostly for my dad: January 19th was also Edgar Allan Poe's birthday and if you go to this link, you'll find an interesting article about the deceased poet.

Just because student teaching has become my whole life, that is really all I ever have to write about these days. I hope that doesn't bore any of you, but seeing that it's been quite the eventful experience, especially this week, I will now give you a little run-down of the low-down in my 8th grade classes:

--On Being Mrs. Hubert: In the three weeks of my presence in the classroom, I've been called many different things; ma'am, hey, you, Mrs........., and today, the big-daddy of them all: Mrs. Sherbet! I had to politely tell this young lady that, in fact, no, I wasn't a fruit flavored cold desert. I laughed and she felt silly. Problem solved.

--A Lesson of Big Words: Coming from college classroom discussions, I've found it somewhat difficult to lower my vocabulary for an 13 or 14 year old (even though that many of them are quite brilliant). The other day I was teaching them about Maya Angelou, who many of you know went into complete silence in her youth after going through traumatic experiences. I told one period that Maya became "reclusive" and they instantly said, "Oh, Mrs. Hubert, speak English. We don't know what word." Thus, a wonderful vocab-building opportunity. Along those same lines, today I was helping an active student sit still and write his essay. He wanted to use the following sentence: Mr. Olsen and Mr. Smith have a butt load of things in common." After explaining that "butt load" wasn't quite appropriate, I used the moment to teach on of my favorite words, plethora. He was thrilled with the idea and had fun using it in other sentences and in conversation with other students around him, "Cole, if you don't shut up, I will hit you a plethora amount of times."

--No, I am a student teacher: During the last three weeks, I've been accused of being a student five times. I was never yelled at when I was in school so this has come as a shock. On Tuesday, I was waiting outside of the classroom door. The door was locked and, because it was before school started, I still had my coat on, consequentially covering my badge. The hall monitor lady, whom by the way freaks me out to no end, marched right up to me and put her smelly breath in my face and said, "You cannot be in the hall before school starts! Get to the commons NOW!" To which I timidly replied, "I am a student teacher." She felt bad and went along her way. Last week, the school's police officer flagged me down, scolding me for being in the hall during class without my planner (the school's form of a hall pass). I turned facing him and flashed my badge (ahh..It felt so good to do this to a cop) and said, "No, I'm a student teacher." Another morning this week, I was again waiting outside the door before Mrs. B arrived, still wearing my coat. Officer boy came by and chided me for being in the halls before class. I repeated, "No, I'm a student teacher." He then looked at me very seriously and said, "You need to wear your badge at all times and stop looking like a student!" He chuckled and apologized and was on his way. Basically, I could write about being mistaken for a student every day, but I'll stop now and just ask, if you have any suggestions on how I can make myself look like a teacher any more, leave them in the comment section. HAHAHA.

Well, as always, have a super duper weekend. I have three periods' essays that I will be correcting this weekend, which should take a good portion of the weekend up. I also am making a new seating chart...boy, I got a lot of bribes today.

Love you all.