would you please stop talking about flying squirrels and flying fish?
Author Archives: magistrak
and in the middle of the lesson, they raised their hands and said….
If you had to sacrifice one of us to the gods, who would you pick?
Why is my Tropicana orange juice labeled grape juice?
Did you know that my birthday is in 16 days?
and then the Greeks built a giant talking fiberglas trout, with which they would deceive the Trojans
sometimes to see who cheats, or to entertain myself, I make different versions of the same test. I scramble the order of the answers and don’t tell the class. I also sometimes put such absurd choices down that the student is really only left with one or two options.
BUT ….for this to work, you have to actually read the questions.
I gave a short quiz on the Trojan war. Most people got an A or B. A few took it several days later when I changed the order of the answers.
Question: Troy was in present day: a) Turkey b) Roast beef c) Greece d) Italy
Question: the Trojans were tricked by: a) a giant wooden duck b) a talking fiberglas trout
c) a jack in the box d) a giant wooden horse ( is this question a gift, or what?)
Question: the king was married to: a) male name of enemy b) male name of enemy
c) male name of enemy d)woman’s name
People who took the test later wrote down the exact letters for a perfect score. IF you were taking the first test. Here are their answers.
- the Trojans were deceived by a talking fiberglas trout
- the king was married to another guy who happened to be the enemy
- Troy was located in present day roast beef.
more heard in the classroom
“My amygdala is crazy as hell.”
” So I wet my finger and stuck it in my eyeball.”
” Don’t you want to touch my hair?”
Not to mention the student who decided to answer every question with a British accent.
Oh No!
Some years back I saw an obituary announcing the death of the Good Citizenship Club homeroom teacher.
I was traumatized.
Now I would never ever have the chance to go back and punch her in the face.
the good citizenship club
When I was in 7th grade, all the homerooms had a club. There was a drama club, a science club, a math club. But our homeroom?
We had the ” Good Citizenship Club.”
Yep, that club was a laugh a minute. The brain child of our homeroom teacher who frequently told us that she had never missed a day of school. ( WHY?????)
All I could think was, ” And you’re bragging about it? What a lot of wasted opportunities.”
Our club activities consisted of dropping suggestions into a box, along the lines of
“We shouldn’t slam our desks” and voting on them.
One student offered the following anonymous comment.
Check happy referred to her habit of writing checks next to our names for any infraction.
This note put her into a frenzy.
“Everyone write down who they think wrote this, and then I’ll question them.” ( you mean interrogate, don’t you?)
I wrote ” Probably any of us, really”
Guess whose name showed up the most?
report card character note
On my fifth grade report card I found this comment.
” She seems to be in a state of hostility towards authority.”
I was nine.
Things might not have changed much.
my report card
My mom saved all my report cards from first grade till freshman year of high school.
I read through them last night.
The last time a teacher said something nice about me was in third grade.
channeling Ferris
Watching Ferris Bueller at home one Sunday with my husband. During the scene with Ben Stein, when he drones on about the Smoot Hawley tariff act, there are multiple closeups of dazed and drooling students, eyes fixed on some point in another galaxy.
I fell off the couch crying with laughter. My husband just looked at me convulsing on the floor.
“Apparently you relate to this movie.”
“Yes.”
My solution to sleeping students is to talk about bringing ice cubes or blue eyeshadow to class. They bolt upright. I never say how exactly these items might be employed. Such is the power of imagination.
your life is in their hands
One side effect of growing older is that sooner or later, everyone younger than you looks about twelve years old. This is particularly disturbing when one of those people is your surgeon.
First time I met this guy I thought, “Oh no. it’s Doogie Hawser.” I couldn’t help myself.
“Umm, I hope you don’t mind my asking this, but how long have you been doing this?”
Another time, in a teaching hospital, a doctor walked in my exam room0 with two medical students, neither of whom was old enough to drive. ( you had to be there)
The doctor was enthusiastic. He rattled off the particulars of my case, and then looked at them expectantly for comment. The boy stared at the ceiling. The girl stared so intently at the doctor she started to squint.
” Predni zooone?” Even I knew that answer made no sense. The doctor was undaunted. He rattled off some more symptoms.
The boy never took his eyes off the ceiling. The girl squinted intensely. She looked like her eyeballs hurt. She wanted very badly to say something intelligent.
” Is it blood pressure???”
The doctor smiled benignly. ” You two will read all about this tonight.” He looked so sure I figured he hadn’t been doing this teaching thing very long.
They left. In two or three years, someone’s life will be in their hands.
I think of this when some big cheerful clueless kid walks into a wall. Some day he’ll be a neurosurgeon. Maybe mine.
Heard in the Classroom 