I'm Tired.

May 25. 2:31 p.m. I think that my mind is venturing further and further to that point. At that precise moment, my summer will begin. Rest for the weary. It is really difficult to teach these days. The days seem to get longer and longer. The kids are sleepy & they can't wait to go to Six Flags. I think I may be in the same situation. Not that I have anything against my kids, but I would much prefer to baby-sit a rock than a room full of hormone-infused 16 year-olds right now. Hey, it's less than a month, though, right?? Overheard: [Students in the In School Suspension Room are served their lunch in little doggie bags. It is brought to them, and they must eat in their little cubicle] C---- (after opening her box): "Ewww....my food has herpes!!" Lunch-Bringer Dude: "Sorry guys, some of the baked apple dessert slid onto your mashed potatoes" CH----- (walking into the classroom between classes): "well it's ok, she only gave him a blowjob. OOOOPS! Mr. French, sorry, I didn't see you!"

M.I.A.

I have been pretty absent for a while. Last week was very abnormal, as it was State Test Week. I had a classroom of 30 students, 2 of which happened to be in my class. The rest were in my section of the alphabet for the test. Tuesday was math, Thursday was science, and Friday was social studies. It's pretty interesting...after the class is finished taking the test, we don't have much to do but watch movies, since they aren't your students. I can't count how many we watched. On Wednesday, we played review Jeopardy. Powerpoints were created to play with the kids, and I was impressed. These kids were pretty good at answering the questions. I went out and bought 10 dollars worth of discounted (75% off!!) Easter candy to throw at their heads when they got the right answer. In other news, I found out that I may be still having to do In-School Suspension next year without a room to call my own. I have somewhat been looking at another north Dallas suburb, thoroughly impressed by what they may have to offer. I would really miss my kids, but this cart has to go.

This Girl CRAZY!

So I have this student, K, who is, shall we say, a little different. K was ok for me at the beginning of the year, but lately, it seems that her medicine might have run out. She is an avid sketcher, and will most of the time be found sketching animé characters. A lot of times, it is almost like pulling teeth to get her away from her drawings. Recently, I was teaching, and I asked her a question. She snapped at me, saying she didn't know the answer. All the other students were like "Dang, girl, you gonna hurt Mr. French's feelings!". Truthfully,I was thinking "what the heck is going on in my life...". Today the students were working on projects, and for some reason she all of a sudden offered, "I used to ride the short bus.". Everyone stopped their idle chatter, and turned toward her. They were amazed that someone would actually admit that. She said she didn't know why she rode it, but that it was fun because she got to get out of school earlier than everyone else. S asked her if she was getting to ride the big bus these days... I'm going to have to stay on her good side.

Are Teachers Human?

It's really interesting (and fun) when you have the ability to teach the same students 2 years in a row, or more. What's not fun is the point at which you see these students more than once because they failed it the first (or second) time. The last few weeks, my students and I have gotten pretty close. We can joke around and talk about things other than grammar (like my interest in family guy, or the music that I like). This is usually done with my 4th period because we have an extra 30 minutes or so to kill. By the way, if one more non-ghetto child comes up to me and hollers "What it do Mr. French, what it do?".... Many students seem to think that teachers sleep at school, are programmed to grade, call parents, give detenions, and have to give them their averages at their demand. I told my kids that I actually sleep on a cot in the supply closet, I eat in the cafeteria at night for dinner, and I don't have any real friends. They've asked if I go to the club, because if so, "that's be weird". I tell them I go to lounges. One of my seniors is one of the funniest students I have every had. Seniors are great because they are old enough to where you can joke around with them in a way that is impossible with Freshman. When we were talking about what I do after the bell rings, Senior chimes in with "Mr. French eats dinner alone by candlelight, with only his tears to warm his bowl of soup...".

Are you Keeping Track?

I was minding my own business today in the In School Suspension room, as I normally do around 10am, and I notice a girl playing with what looked like a Barbie doll. Kids try to be so tricky these days. They will be pretending to look at their hands under their desks with their eyes wide open. Really they are trying to send a text message to their friends, but can't see the screen because of the bad angle. Just today, I had a guy in the ISS room that had his hand over his ear, and his head leaning on his shoulder. He did a slight turn, and what do you know, I noticed an iPod earbud hanging out of his ear. They use a very elaborate system to hide all of the hardware. Mr. French is just too young and too smart. In any case, this girl that was playing with the Barbie was about to get pounced on for playing with dolls instead of doing her math homework. I take a closer look, and notice that it is a track of weave...it wasn't even hers!! I told her to put it up, and she threw across the room to another girl, who could not stop laughing from embarrassment. Lord, help me.

Orangina and the Maturing Freshmen

I'm not sure if I'm ready to make a direct correlation, but I must say that since I posted about the "Spring Craziness" (made Mr. French want the drink...), my freshmen have started maturing. The correlation of which I speak is between a little thing called "Orangina", and the burgeoning happiness of Mr. French. Orangina is a quintessential French drink. It is carbonated orange juice and pulp. I bought it the second day of the term for the one kid in class that was able to count from 1-30 in French without hesitation. I told the kids that I went to France and bought the drink...who'd think that they were really that gullible. S asked me yesterday (6 weeks after the fact) if I really went to France. So in any case, I told my students that I would go out and buy Orangina for the top 3 students on the next test (Whole Foods, by the way). They must have all studied because the test average went way up. We have had nothing but happy times since. But you know, this could also be due to the fact that the two students that were cursing in my class during the dark times haven't been back yet. Let's not make Mr. French an angry young man again. I hope to not be on blood pressure medicine by the time I'm 30.

Overheard 2.0

I guess it's more shameless self-promotion, but the wonderful people at Overheard have decided to post a second message that I sent. The Link. The end of the 6 weeks is this Friday, and I am a bit worried that I may be over my allocated 7% failure rate. I think that the spring has caused these kids to stop working. I have more kids than I can count that have less than a 50% for their average. Before it can attributed to my bad teaching, it must be noted that when you don't turn in 6+ assignments, your grade can't be doing too well. So I have a week to get these kids to turn their work in...these children fatigue me. I had 2 kids on Friday cuss each other out in English and in Spanish while I was teaching. I guess they thought that it was a joke, and that I was going to laugh it off. I didn't say anything...I let them take their quizzes, and as they turned them in, I handed them each a referral. They were confused. Both said "What's this for??", and "Really?". One kid, C, told me "I didn't say F***!". I told him, "Well you said it now, so go to the office."

The List of 4s

I have totally ripped this off of another blog that I visit, but I think that it's pretty cool. Four Jobs I've Held French Elementary School Teacher Chick-Fil-A Albertson's Structure/Express Men Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over L'Auberge Espagnole About A Boy Barbershop Gladiator Four Places I've Lived France Austin Dallas Bryan Four Television Shows I Love Lost Grey's Anatomy Entourage The Office (BBC & NBC versions) Four Places I've Vacationed Italy New York England Los Angeles Four Places I Would Like to Visit Australia Senegal Japan Brazil Four Favorite Foods Pretty Much any Austin Tex-Mex Chicken Good Chinese food Peas Four Blogs I Visit PostSecret Overheard in New York Uncrate The Superficial Four Places I'd Rather Be Paris South of France New York Anywhere where the average spring/summer temperature is around 78 degrees

Linguistics

I've been tutoring this Korean woman for about 5 months now. Her two young sons are being tutored by two other teachers. They come to school for about an hour everyday but Friday, and the mom and I converse in English, then do a little reading. She told me that she has been learning English since she was in middle school, but speaking was nowhere near a priority, hence her non-recognition of some words that I say. If I say them, she has no idea what I am talking about, but if I write it, she can immediately understand. It's kinda weird, she said that her and her friends just made up pronunciations to the words so that they could memorize them, because the teacher never spoke them. I found this link online, and I was interested to see if I was teaching her correct English, and it looks like 65% of my English is general, and not colloquial. I guess that's cool. Your Linguistic Profile: 65% General American English 25% Dixie 5% Upper Midwestern 5% Yankee 0% Midwestern What Kind of American English Do You Speak?