A face made for radio

And apparently I have one, but not in a bad way. Just in the "KELY and KCLS need a guest political analyst to discuss the nation's budget troubles and the new stimulus and recovery bill" kind of way. I just finished my first 8 minute segment, and I must say, I feel just a little bit famous!

The Emily Cox Story: A Lifetime Original Movie

Sometime between the moment I left the principal's office this morning and the moment I realized he had just thrown me under a rapidly oncoming bus, it occurred to me that my family are all wrong: my life should never become a book; it should become a 3 1/2 hour long screenplay picked up exclusively by Lifetime! At first I envisioned it as the oft told story of the brave young teacher who moves to the middle of nowhere, changes every single student's life, finds her own true self, overcomes a few more obstacles for good measure, and falls in love with an astonishingly handsome young visitor. I, of course, would be played by Anne Hathaway, a young Sandra Bullock, or maybe that French girl from Amelie.

In the next 12 hours I discovered that my experience was the straw that broke the school rumormill's back, and by the time I trudged my way out of the ensuing backwash it was clear to me that this story is the other classic Lifetime movie plot -- the one where the courageous heroine gets slowly sucked into the small town's vortex of crazy until someone snaps and starts murdering people. I would still like to be played by Anne Hathaway, a young Sandra Bullock, or maybe that French girl from Amelie. All remains to be seen is who will do the snapping and murdering.

My money's on the beautiful and talented young teacher.

Mister Teen South Ely Anyone?

This is the word for word and letter for letter transcription of a student test answer I received today. The prompt was "In two paragraphs, discuss the motivation and importance of the Declaration of Independence. (Why Jefferson wrote it, what impact it had on the colonists, and what impact it had on England)." And no, he's not an English language learner. I swear.

"Importance of the Declaration of Independence, was to give English more independence and advantages. Also to have more of a organized environment. but that wasn't to important. At the time it was written, English need more to gain and that was something no one would think of. cause it was something diffrent to gain as much and accomplish as much that English did."

Yup... the English sure do need independence from those oppresive colonies!

And from the runners up:
"Jefferson wrote the Declaraion of Independence to make peace with the colonist and England. I think it had more impact on England then the colonist. To have colonies in America & being in England, I think England had more power for being in America as in England. I"

"The declaration taught the colonists realized that they had duty to their country. England realized that they were not happy with their old king and wanted something new."

I promise... I do actually teach them something...lots of kids got full credit... just not these ones...

Grateful for the small stuff

I meant to title this post "Addendum 43b" because the kid making sandwiches at Arby's today was one of my students who's been out sick for the last 4 days, but is still handling people's food. He may have just been running the register... I delusionally hope. I digress.

After a long day of dealing with all the crud in my kids' lives, I just feel really grateful that I'm not in any of their shoes. Two of the other teachers decided to call the sheriff about one girl's home situation because she comes in and tells all 3 of us everyday about how she spent all night taking care of her alcoholic mother. I think they made the right decision, but her life still isn't going to get much easier in the near future. I'm having to kick one student out of my class because she's just mentally snapped beyond the point where I can keep her in my class and try to help her because she's exploding every day all over everyone; I just lost another one who got arrested and will apparently be staying for awhile, and just this week figured out that my favorite underpriveliged hot shot can't read. He's good at playing things off and covering it up... either that or I'm just slow because he's been in my class since the start of the school year and I just now figured it out. I can't get him any special ed services because the district doesn't want to take on any more cases with the impending budget cuts, but the good news is that my inclusion teacher is willing to take him to her office and read tests and things out loud to him so he can at least do them... and he's willing to get over his pride enough to accept that help, so maybe this time around he will pass the class!

Reasons not to live in a small town: #43

You get to walk into the local Subway - Taco Time and recognize the girl making some poor fool's nachos as the same girl who left the ladies room at school today without washing her hands or hale-ing the toalla usando dos manos. Needless to say, I got a sandwich.