"I want adventure in the great wide somewhere!"

I moved to Utah.

A lot of people have asked me why. "Why are you moving to Utah from Kansas?"

For a long time, I felt embarrassed to just say, "I want to," but really, that was the upshot of the matter. It was not because I didn't have friends - I have many wonderful, wise, witty friends where I lived before. It was not because I didn't like my job... well, I didn't like my job, but that's not the point. I could have gotten my preferred job back had I chosen to stick around. 

It was because I was ready for something new and exciting. With my current situation of having no dependents, I had perfect freedom to uproot and move along. I knew when I first arrived that I did not want to put my roots down there. I ended up staying seven years, and I figured I had better get a move on.

I should begin by telling people that my favorite Disney movie has forever been Beauty and the Beast. I have identified with Belle since I was a child, but it was only after I became an adult that I discovered why. I finally understood that I loved Belle's song not just because the music was beautiful, but because the lyrics expressed a deep longing of mine:

I want adventure in the great wide somewhere!

I want it more than I can tell!

I love the outdoors. Anyone who knows me well knows this. The downside of living in Kansas is that there simply is not much in the way of outdoor recreation. I had to drive thirty minutes to find a tiny patch of woods in which trails had been created, looping in and out on themselves to create mileage for bikers and hikers. I had biked the trails around town a dozen times and more. Even the nearby park had meager trails to choose from.

In contrast, I moved to a county ringed with mountains. I can drive thirty minutes (or less!) to any number of trail heads and walk for miles and miles. Sometimes, I have company when I go, but often on a fine, summer or autumn afternoon, I strike out on my own. My trusty little car, Zippy, takes the gravel roads into the canyons like a champ.

When I hike solo, I take precautions to be sure I'm safe. I always let someone know where I'm going and when they should anticipate my return. I carry my Glock on my hip, and in my backpack, I have at least 40 oz of water alongside a snack, an extra, long-sleeve shirt incase I'm caught out after dark and the temperature falls, and a well-stocked first-aid kit. With the higher elevation and sunny, blue skies, I quickly made the decision to buy long-sleeve, sun-protective shirts, and I always wear a hat while out hiking.

Are hiking and adventures the only reasons I moved out West? No. But they're awfully good reasons.

No, I Don't Want to Smell It

 Why do kids ask you to smell things?  I think it is the strangest thing.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me give you a few examples.

 

A child uses the restroom and comes to the table for supper, and I don’t think it’s unrealistic to ask, “Did you wash your hand?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Did you use soap?”

 

“Yes.”  And then the child assumes that if I took the questioning past one question, I am doubtful of their answer, so they offer proof.  “Here, smell my hands!”

 

No.  No.  No.  I don’t care how much soap you actually used, I still have zero confidence that you washed your hands in a completely satisfactory manner, and I am not putting my nose that close to your hands.

 

Or take the example of the kid who got stickers that smelled like chocolate.  I guess companies make smelly stickers to help with marketing, and presumably it works, but have you actually smelled any of those scented stickers?  I think kids’ noses must be broken, because what the stickers are advertised to smell like, they don’t smell like.  I was visiting with a teacher the other day and her son was playing with stickers.  He came to tell me about his chocolate smelling stickers, and then, yes, he offered to let me smell one.

 

I gave his mom an unenthusiastic smile, and she gave me a look of condolence.  I think she understood the tendency for kids to have you smell things, too.  Well, you don’t just say ‘No,’ to a five year old you don’t know, so I bent and sniffed the chemically, half chocolate, half who-knows-what smelling sticker.  He generously gave it to me afterward, and I took it and…I think disposed of it in the trashcan.  I’m not exactly sure.

 

Perhaps the most humorous example of being offered something to smell happened with one of my tutoring students I once had.  She was a second grader and easily distracted, and one day she remembered she had chapstick in her backpack.  She got it out and applied it to her lips.

 

“I love chapstick that smells,” she said.  “This one smells like hot chocolate.”

 

“Really,” I said, smiling a little as I reflected that that would not be the type of chapstick I would like to apply.  I never liked the feeling of chocolate milk stuck to my lips after drinking hot cocoa.

 

“Yes!”  She capped the chapstick, stuck it back in her bag, zipped it up, and hopped to her feet.  “Want to smell it?” 

 

Understand – she wasn’t offering the chapstick.  She was offering her lips.

 

Dear lord, child, no, I don’t want to smell your lips.  I leaned back and protested.  “No!  I don’t!  I don’t want to stick my nose up by your mouth!”

 

“Oh!”  A grin broke out on her face.  “Oh!  Then it would look like we were kissing!”

 

“Get out your math paper!”

 

I know parents smell kids’ hands to check for washing and some parents smell kids’ breath to check if they brushed their teeth, but it doesn’t sound appealing to me.  Maybe I’ll change my tactics when I am a mom, but maybe I’ll keep believing them when they tell me something smells a particular way, because I don’t care if it’s your hands, a sticker, or your mouth – I don’t want to smell it.

Eat it and be Thankful

 I don’t need people to thank me every time I do something kind for them.  I don’t require my students to rise at the end of class and bow and say, “Thank you for teaching us,” (though considering that is what Mr. and Mrs. Brauninger had us do at the end of each of our youth orchestra lessons, I cannot say it’s a bad idea) nor do I require the kids to notice if I clean and vacuum or sweep a room.  A job well done is usually a reward in itself.

I cannot abide, however, when instead of thanks being given, the person I am serving complains about the service I give them.  Specifically: dinner time.

I am not talking about the rare times I burn supper.  It does happen on occasion.  The oven roasted potatoes were left in too long, or the chicken is dry and over cooked, fine.  Say something if you must, but probably not too loudly nor to emphatically.  After all, maybe if you were helping make supper, and I wasn’t juggling everything, perhaps the supper wouldn’t burn.

I’m talking about when we’re sitting down to eat, Heather and I have served the kids their soup or beef and sweet potato or whatever we’re eating, and one of the kids slides into the seat, and the upper lip draws back in disgust.  “What are we eating?”  The inevitable whine is already there.

“Black bean soup,” I say, or, “Chicken and broccoli,” or, “Beef and sweet potato."

Then comes the mood-killer statement of the night.  “Oh, I hate that.”

Responses can vary.  Since the kids aren’t mine, I can’t give my desired response – “Go to your room and get ready for bed.  No supper for you tonight.”  The answer they get ranges from “Too bad,” to “I didn’t ask you if you liked it, sit down and eat.”  These days, I often don’t give any answer at all.  I glance from the child’s face to the plate and think internally what an ungrateful brat they are before turning around to finish serving the rest of the family.

It’s even worse when the complainer doesn’t finish the meal.  What a waste of effort and food.

I am sometimes surprised at my very negative, very strong response.  Why does it bother me so much?  And then one day, I stumbled on the answer in a Jordan Peterson lecture.

“The rule is, eat what is put in front of you, and be pleased and happy about it.  You might ask, ‘Well, why would that be a rule?’  Put yourself in this position (because you’ll be in this position): You’re going to cook your damn kids some lunch, and let’s calculate it out because I like doing arithmetic.

“Let’s say it takes you ½ an hour [to prepare a meal], and we’ll multiply it by 3 because there’s 3 meals, so it’s 1½ hours a day [for meal prep].   7 times 1½ hours is roughly 10.  So it’s 10 hours a week, it’s 40 hours a month, right?  40 hours a month is a full work week.  So, 40 hours a month times 12.  12 full work weeks.  Right?  Yes?  That’s 3 full months of 40 hour [weeks] of cooking something for your damn kid.

“Now, that’s a lot of time, and then you’re going to do that for 18 years.  So then you might ask yourself, what sort of response do you need from your child in order to not feel resentful and miserable about the fact that you have to [prepare meals] for three bloody months this year?  You just have to think about this!"

I remember listening to this lecture and suddenly understanding why I was so resentful and even angry when the kids first criticized and then rejected the food I prepared.  But Peterson went on, and what he said next put exactly into words what I felt multiple times a week.

“This is also why it’s necessary to know that inside yourself, you carry a monster, just like the world outside you carries a monster.  Do not think that you’re going to be able to maintain a healthy attitude towards your child or towards food or towards yourself if all you can muster up for the effort of cooking and preparing is the attitude of a slave and continual punishment from the people that you’re offering food to.  Who the hell wants that?

“So you want to teach the miserable little blighter that he’s LUCKY that there’s any food there at all, and the proper attitude is REALLY, “Thank you very much, mom or dad.  I’m glad that you produced something,” and then you can be all happy about the fact that you were slaving away in the kitchen, and you can like your kid. You might think, well everybody likes their kids, and it’s like, yeah, right.  No.  That’s not true.  That’s not true.”

By the time he finished, I fully comprehended why I felt so resentful, and it made even more sense because these aren’t my own children.  There is no maternal feeling of love to protect them from the monster within.

It is completely true.  No one can sustain a steady barrage of ungrateful vitriol every time you set food down in front of children after preparing it specifically for them.

The thing is, kids don’t understand what’s being done for them when food is placed before them.  Technically, it’s not their fault if they complain and refuse food.  It’s the adult’s fault.  I once heard of a father who yelled at his kids when they complained about their mom’s food.  “Your mom made this for you, and you’re going to eat it, and you’re going to be thankful for it!”  It seems a bit harsh on the surface, but having gone through a few years now of complaining children at the dinner table, I think I agree with that dad.

Cooking a meal doesn’t have to be a thankless job, and it shouldn’t be.

Having written this blog post (it’s not very good, and I don’t really expect anyone to get all the way through) I realize (again) that it is important that I have a conversation with Heather and then with her kids about what I am going to need from them in order not to hate them at every other meal.  I am not a saint, and I have never claimed to be one, and as Peterson points out, there’s a monster inside me, and sometimes at dinner, it’s very close to escaping.

(The quoted Jordan Peterson lines come from this video, which I HIGHLY recommend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsVcVeLNIVI)

Trying to put Thoughts into Words

 My students have been reminding me that I haven’t been adding to the blog recently. Recently is an understatement. One of my students told me on January 12, “Miss Hall, tomorrow you will not have added anything on your blog for a year.” While it is meant as a reproof, it’s rather a compliment, I think – that she would actually be checking up on my blog a year after my last publication date and notice when I last posted.

It’s now January 27, and the blog has come up again in class. I guess it’s time I wrote something.

Easier said than done. Sometimes putting thoughts into words is hard, even for an English teacher. In fact, it was a topic of discussion just yesterday, this process of putting thoughts into words.

As an English teacher, I have had a lot of opportunity to think about why students have so much aversion to writing. Having loved writing from a very young age, I could not for a long time understand why some people found it so difficult. More recently, I myself have come to realize that loving to write does not necessary mean you always can write. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” so to speak.

This has become particularly true when I attempt to express my feelings on certain political and social matters – issues I’ve talked about briefly on this blog, even. For example – why does the phrase, “Dishes are for women,” (see blog post below) bother me so much?

I can tell you one thing – it is certainly NOT because I believe women need more rights, or because I think women should have more careers outside the home, or because I think men and women should split the housework 50/50. I don’t think any of those statements come close to touching the real reason about why I take offense at people who say, “Dishes are for women.”

After a year of thinking over the issue (I began thinking of it way back when my seniors said it at Thanksgiving 2019), I believe I can finally write it down.

In saying things like, “Dishes are for women,” or, “Women belong barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen,” or “Woman, make me a sandwich,” people are demeaning extremely important and extremely valuable services that women provide and in some cases (as in being pregnant in the kitchen) ONLY women can provide.

It makes me angry when someone would demean someone else for voluntarily serving them.

I don’t know about other women, but when I prepare food, be it a sandwich or dinner with a main dish and three sides, I put care and thought into it and try my very best to make it an appetizing, tasty meal. That requires skill (yes, there’s skill in making a sandwich), creativity, and care – and if it’s care for your husband or children, that is love. Why would we make fun of someone’s skill, creativity, and love? We show more respect to the four year old child who comes up to us with a scribbled on piece of paper. Only rude, self-centered jerks say to the child’s face, “That literally looks like nothing, and I think it’s rubbish.” I have never, ever met a person who will say that to a kid he or she loves – not even the rudest person I know. This particularly rude individual accepts the drawings, gives the child praise, and then as the kid walks off, he’ll turn to me and say, “It’s really no good at all, but it’s funny that she’s so proud of it,” but he will never say that to the girl’s face.

Yet the women in many people’s life don’t get even that amount of praise for their work. Their cooking and cleaning exhibits actual skill and creativity as well as love, and it’s taken for granted. It’s only noticed when it’s not done or when you ask a man to help out.

I am not married, but I think that if my husband ever makes a banal statement like, “Dishes are for women,” I will not wash dishes for a week, and the wayward fellow will see exactly what kind of favor I’ve been doing for him since our wedding, and he will learn that unless I am gracious enough to do the dishes daily, the dishes are for exactly whomever wishes to eat on clean plates using clean utensils. As a result of the dishes not being done, he won’t get suppers made, either, because I don’t cook with dirty pots and pans.

Speaking of cooking, if he ever says, “Wife, go make me a sandwich,” in an overbearing, domineering way – the way that says, you have to make my sandwich because you’re a woman and my wife, and that’s what women and wives do – I will do one of two things. Either I will outright say, “Make your own [blank] sandwich; I’m your wife, not your servant,” or I’ll make him a sandwich exactly the way he doesn’t like it.

I don’t mind doing the dishes or making food. The fact is, I love to show my respect and care for someone by doing those things, and when someone devalues those actions and turns it into something that 50% of the population does because the other 50% is too good for it, it devalues what I do. If you don’t value me and what I do, you won’t get the benefit of it.

I feel similarly about kids who complain about my cooking, but that is for another blog post.

Preparation Pays

I wrote this post at the beginning of September last year but never posted it because it was so long.  I think I intended to shorten it, but never got around to it.  It’s the blog post I mentioned I would post someday when I put up that post about Leanne’s escapades.  I’ll just put it out there for your enjoyment, and you can read the behemoth of a post if you want.  If not, just skip it.  It won’t offend me.

--

I have mentioned my AP class a few times now, and I think it will continue to be a source of conflict for me throughout this school year.

AP English Language and Composition is a course meant to replace Composition 1 in most college gen ed courses.  To prove that they learned the required skills and get the college credit, students take an exam in May.  The exam is comprised of two parts – Multiple Choice and Free Response.  In the multiple choice, students have 60 minutes to answer 55 comprehension questions based off four separate readings.  Then they come to the free response section, where they have to write three essays in little more than 2 hours.  One essay is an analytical essay wherein they read a piece of rhetorical writing or speech, and then they analyze the piece.  Next they are given seven sources and must take a side on a given debate.  They must then defend their position using at least three of their given sources.  Lastly, they have to read a statement prompting them to create an argument and write a well-reasoned argument of their own.  All within two hours.

My task is to prepare my students for this grueling ordeal.

When I was first asked to tackle this class, I had no idea what it entailed.  The first conference I went to did more to confuse the matter than help.  A year later, I attended a second conference, and here I first felt the ground beneath my feet, but more like a swimmer still well out from the beach, where the waves periodically lift him beyond his depth.  So it is that sometimes I feel like I can do it and I’m fine, and other times, I feel like I’m drowning again.

That feeling hasn’t really gone away.

I was treading water pretty well when the class began two and a half weeks ago.  One day in conversation with a board member, she asked how I was doing with my AP class. I told her it was stretching me, and she said be careful not to let myself snap.  There’s a difference, she said, between stretching and snapping.

In passing, I mentioned her comments to Mr. Snyder, my new principal, and he told me he wanted me to be sure to tell him if I was feeling overwhelmed by the class.  “I’m here to help,” he said.  “I need to know if you’re being stretched too far.”

I assured him I would, telling myself it had better never come to that.  I agreed to teach the class:  I can handle it.

That’s all very well and good…but to teach a class, you have to take the necessary time to prep for it…

Throughout all that first full week of classes, I was diligent during my prepping periods to make lesson plans for the following week.  I ticked off class after class.  I graded each day’s work like clockwork.  I was staying ahead.  The AP lessons were hardest to plan, so I put them off.  I’d come in Saturday, I decided as I packed up the last day of school.  If not Saturday, Monday – it was Labor Day, after all.

I didn’t come in Saturday.  It was ok!  Monday was still free.  I decided I would wake up early, work until noon at the house, and then go into work in the afternoon.

Plans don’t always work exactly as we make them, though, have you noticed that?  I didn’t get up early, and I worked at the house past noon…well past noon.

Ok, I admit, I didn’t go into work at all on Monday.

It’s fine.  It’s all fine.  I knew what I was going to do in AP Tuesday, and even Wednesday and, besides, I could always go into work early and prep things before my first class.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Mr. Carter said as he popped into my classroom at 7:50 the following morning, “but you have hall duty.”

I blinked once or twice at him from behind my computer.  Seriously?  This week of all weeks, I have hall duty?  But I don’t believe in shooting the messenger.  “Thanks!” I said with artificial cheerfulness.

At least I still had lunch break before AP class.

Thirty minutes isn’t enough time to fully prep a class like AP and eat lunch.

I shammed pretty well for two days, but Thursday came, and over lunch break, I was still trying to prepare my materials for class.  I couldn’t decide what to do.  The bell rang, and in desperation, I hit ‘print’ on an article I didn’t really like but I could at least use it to instruct them.  I leaped out of my chair and headed toward the door.  The boys must have been waiting just by the outside doors for the bell to ring, because they were already at my door when I reached it.

I know now that I should have told them to wait for me to get back before going in, but I didn’t.  I stepped back to allow them to come in. 

I wasn’t counting on them being impudent coming into the room.  I had stepped back to let them in – a mistake I have of being too polite sometimes – and though I urged them through with a wave of my hand, they saw it annoyed me to tarry, and so they slowed to grin at me as they passed, until Chris stopped altogether in the doorway and just looked at me.

The second bell was going to ring soon.  I didn’t have time for this.

“Just step out of the way,” I said, unceremoniously pushing past him.

I scowled as I strode down the hallway.  I was angry at their disrespect, but I was even more irritated at myself for leaving this for last minute.  But in the classroom, the projector was on, they could see the day’s agenda, and they had instructions for what to do when they sat down.  They would be fine.

But I wasn’t counting on boyish high spirits, or Edward’s (a new student, kind of – it’s complicated) mischievous sense of humor.  Nor the printer being out…

Yes.  The printer was out.  I could not believe my luck.  I spun about and went to the office.  With a Herculean show of calm, I asked Jordan, our secretary, if I could send her a document to print for me.

“Can you send it to Josh?  I need to take my daughter to the doctor, and should have left five minutes ago.”

“Sure!” I said, but as I practically ran back down the hall to my class, I decided definitively that I would not be sending my boss a paper to print for me because I had put off planning until thirty seconds before class started!

It was still fine.  I could project the article.  They had read it a couple days ago.  They should be able to recall it to memory.  They didn’t need a copy in their hands.

I swung into the classroom before the second bell rang.  I froze in my tracks.  The projector was off.  Students were out of their seats.

“Where is my projector?” I demanded.  Heads turned, and there was a scramble for seats.

“What proj-”

“Who turned off my projection?”  This wasn’t funny.  I wasn’t amused.  Far from it.  Maybe I wasn’t fully prepared – but I had been prepared enough to have a projection ready for the class, and even that had been spoiled.

Edward began fumbling in his pocket for the remote.  “Here,” he said.

“This is not acceptable!” I said, striding across the room to take the remote from him.  “We are not going through the year like this!  This has got to stop!”

“What?” he asked, trying to look and sound innocent.

He didn’t fool me.  “You’ve taken things off my desk! You-”

“It was just a pen-”

“That’s not the point!  You don’t touch my desk!  You threw pencils at my ceiling yesterday, and now you turned off the projector!  This class is not a class to goof around in!”

I was losing control.  As I told a friend when recounting this story to her, it doesn’t do any good to get angry with students because you can’t actually hurt them.  I don’t really think we need to go back entirely a hundred years with how we treat students, but I do think an occasional caning wouldn’t do anybody any harm.

I snapped my mouth shut and my eyes shot to the window.

I don’t really count when I’m mad.  I breathe slowly, and I try to think constructively about what could be done.  I realized after about five seconds of silence that I wasn’t talking, that the kids were looking at me, and that I needed to start class.  The bell had rung sometime during my altercation with Edward.  I wasn’t cool enough yet, though.  I let the silence stretch a little longer, and then I brought my gaze back inside the classroom.

“Today we are going to review the multiple choice practice test you took yesterday and discuss what you got right, what you got wrong, and we’ll talk about strategies for multiple choice test taking.”

I had some control again, but something about teaching this material is hard, even when I have a plan, and today I only had half a plan.  I did my best.  We slogged through.  We talked about the tough questions on the test.  We discussed why some answers were right even when they didn’t seem right.  We uncovered things we were going to have to work on throughout the year.  It wasn’t a bad class, once we got rolling.

At the end, I did have to pull up that article.  They kind of remembered it reading it a couple days before.  We reviewed it, and then I asked them the analytical questions to be asked when reading a rhetorical piece – who is the author? Audience? Purpose? Argument?

I asked Edward a question about the context – why did the author find it necessary to write the piece?  He gave a shoddy, thoughtless answer.  I leaned into the question.  The bell rang, and Mike laughed.  “Saved by the bell!” he chuckled.

“No,” I said, coldly.  “You can’t go until you answer this question, Edward.  The rest of you are dismissed.”

Edward began to fumble for a real answer.  He gave a pretty good one, I have to say, but I wasn’t finished with him.  I waited until the others were out of the room, and then I told him he needed to change his behavior.

I don’t remember precisely what I said.  It was lame, I remember that.

I finally let him go.

And then I reflected on the class.

I knew full well my unpreparedness had led to the misbehavior from the boys.  If I had been in the classroom when they entered, they would never have cut up so badly.  Also, if I had been more confident in previous lessons, they would not be so bored in class that they had to cut up.

That was the thing.  I wasn’t confident.  I was out of my depth.

I remembered Mr. Snyder’s request that I come talk to him if I had trouble, and I started at once down the hall.  I stopped halfway to the office.  I was still mad.  My jaw was still rigid, and my hands were stiff, half clenched by my side.  If I went now, I would speak harshly, and I would probably end up crying.

I turned back around to return to my classroom.

But he had asked me to tell him if I struggled…

I undulated back and forth up that hallway about five times before I decided I would send him an email.

It wasn’t too long.  I told him I was really frustrated with the class, and the students were, too.  They showed it in different ways.  One of the two girls had told me the day before that she felt a lack of instruction.  Another boy had expressed his frustration when I asked him how the writing was going.  And Edward…well, I think he misbehaved out of frustration, too, though he would probably never say so.  I told Mr. Snyder I was not well prepared and that my classroom management was coming apart at the seams.  I told him I was ashamed because I knew I could do better.  I was a veteran teacher – I was better than this.

Then I said I didn’t want anything, and that I was just going to work harder and everything would be fine.  That was all I needed to say, thanks for listening, basically.

Before the end of the next period he’d emailed back.  “Thanks for letting me know.  I’ll come find you after school and we’ll talk about it.”

Great.  Just what I didn’t want to do.

After school, he came to my classroom and sat opposite me in one of the student desks.

I don’t know Mr. Snyder particularly well yet.  I know he is kind and sincere and personable, but I had yet to see him handle any form of conflict or discipline, and I didn’t quite know what he would be thinking or what he would say after I told him the trouble I had in the classroom was entirely due to my lack of preparation.

He asked me what happened during class, and I told him, but I (out of a sense of justice, not of noble sacrifice, I assure you) told him although the student misbehaved, it was not the student’s fault, but mine, for not being prepared.  “Perhaps the student is responsible for his own individual behavior,” I added, “but if I hadn’t been out getting papers I’d just printed, he wouldn’t have done it.”

“Why do you think you were not prepared?” he asked.  He didn’t ask in an accusing or stern tone.  He just asked.

At the time, I couldn’t remember.  “I don’t know,” I said.  “I did all the other lesson plans last week, and I’ve been keeping up on grading,” I waved toward the graded stack of papers on my desk.  “I don’t really procrastinate, though maybe it’s a type of procrastination.”  I forgot, while sitting there, that I had meant to do it on Labor Day and just hadn’t.  I rubbed my forehead and looked sidelong at him.  “I don’t know why it didn’t get done.”

“So…” he paused, and I bit my lip waiting.  “You aren’t allowed to make a mistake?”

I didn’t just drop my eyes, I turned my head away and pulled up one hand to hide my face.  I’m not sure why the reaction was to hide, but it was.  For some reason, the question humbled me more than a stern, ‘You should have been prepared,’ would have done.

“Do you let your students make mistakes?”

Of course I did, I thought to myself, but I still couldn’t answer.

“I hope you do,” he said.  He paused.  “You’re still learning, too.”

“Yes,” I agreed, finally looking up.  “I see your point.”

We talked a little longer, he trying to get to the bottom of the problem, and I trying vainly to explain my feelings on the class.

“Perhaps I should come in tomorrow and observe.”

Great.  Come on in and observe my worst class.  You’re going to think I’m a terrible teacher, especially after this fiasco.

I tried hard not to let my displeasure and consternation show on my face, but I know I’m not very good at hiding my emotions.

He went on when I didn’t answer.  “I know no one likes to be observed by someone else, seeing how they’re doing – especially in an area they feel weakest in – but I think it’s the only way I’ll understand what the issues are.”

I nodded and took a deep breath.  “Yes.  You’re right,” I said.  And he was.  It would be an excellent way to see what was actually going on.

He didn’t come in the very next day, but he did eventually – we were reading Luther’s 95 Theses, I believe – and he told me he was quite impressed with their work and my lesson plans, and he thought we would do fine.  His opinion was that I was probably being too hard on myself and expecting too much.

Since that day, I have been extra careful to have my lesson planning done for the AP class.  It is not to say that class has become my favorite or my easiest class.  In fact, it still ranks as my least favorite, most difficult class, but it does help immensely to have plans and materials prepared before class is to begin.

"Dishes are for wom....hm......"

So, I have another funny story to tell you.  The issue at heart isn’t so funny, but that can come later.

I am sponsoring the senior class again this year.  This year, we have thirteen students.  I know it doesn’t sound like a lot, but compared to last year’s five seniors, it is quite a large class.  Today, we did our first big fundraiser – a school-wide Thanksgiving Dinner.  We prepped turkeys, stuffing, rolls, gravy, potatoes – the whole shebang.  Much of that work happened last night.

The majority of the seniors and we two sponsors went to Mr. Carter’s church where the large kitchen would provide us plenty of space in which to work.  We set about preparing the food for nearly 300 people.  They did great.  Kerry and Edward worked on the Jello salad.  Mike and Amy heroically chopped the dozens of onions.  Levi and Brian valiantly wrestled with huge batches of bread dough (having never kneaded bread dough in their life, I think they did ok!), and Cheryl and I worked on the gooey pumpkin dessert.  Zeke kind of floated about.  First he washed the celery, then he…helped with random jobs, I guess.  I don’t know exactly what he did, but he was helping.

Finally, most of the food was prepped.  Levi and Brian were working their raised dough into rolls, and Cheryl and I were still working on the pumpkin stuff.  Mr. Carter had gotten the turkeys in the roasters, and he and I decided it was time to start the cleaning process.

“Ok, boys!” I said.  “Time to start cleaning.  Zeke, start some dishes.  Edward, you can wash dishes, too.”

“Dishes are for women,” Edward announced with a grin.

“Haha,” I said drily, “No, they’re not.  Get washing.”

“Nah, Miss Hall, dishes make your hands wrinkly,” Zeke said.  (He had complained about wrinkly hands when I set him to work on the celery.  I had told him to keep his hands in the water, not to dry them too often, and he’d be fine.)

“Never mind,” I said.  “Do dishes.”  They procrastinated.  It’s amazing how just a bit of movement can put a person off and make you think they’re doing something useful.  The two boys moved aimlessly around the kitchen for a good two minutes before I realized they weren’t obeying.  “Hey,” I said.  “Get on the dishes!”

“Dishes are for women!” Zeke said.

I looked up.  My eyes sparked, and I grinned a hard, crooked grin.  You know, the kind of half smile that isn’t really smiling at all.  “One more of you says that dishes are for women, and I’m going to crack an egg over your head.”

“No, Miss Hall!  You wouldn’t!”  I didn’t say anything.  I try not to repeat myself.  They looked at each other.  “She won’t.  She won’t!  Would she? Nah!  Say it!  Say it!”

Edward tried it first.  “Dishes are for…”  A smiled tugged at the corner of my mouth as I directed my hooded eyes toward him.  My hands were covered in pumpkin, egg, and cream cheese, but there were fresh eggs just over there.  Edward caught my look and shook his head.  “Nah, I can’t say it!”

“Brian,” Zeke said gleefully as Brian came back in to get more flour for his bread dough.  “Say it!  Say it!”

Brian, with his signature head duck and half smirk, began, “Dishes are for wom...hm….” the word faded and was lost in an indistinct mumble.

“He’s smart,” I said, looking approvingly at him.

From the other room I heard a commotion, and I turned my head.  Levi was still separating dough into rolls.  He had just said something.  The boys were laughing.

“Say it again, Levi!” Zeke called.

“Dishes are for women!” Levi called loudly.

I looked at him while the boys hooted in laughter.  “You’re in trouble now!” they shouted.  I gauged his mood.  He was looking straight at me, his eyes glinting with mischievousness, as usual.  He was smiling his mocking smile, as usual.  I smiled back.

“What, Miss Hall?” Levi asked, feigning innocence.

“You’re going to need a shower tonight,” I said.

“What?”

“You’re going to take a shower tonight,” I repeated.

“Why would I take a shower?”

“You’re going to want to.”

He shrugged and bent his head over his dough again.

I didn’t move immediately.

“She won’t do it.”  Zeke and Edward were talking again.  Looking at me, watching me.

“Yes, she will,” Mr. Carter said from the sink.

“Mr. Carter should know,” I said.  “He spent a whole week with me last year on Senior Trip.  Mr. Carter knows what to expect.”  I left the mixer to wash my hands.  I sauntered to the counter, grabbed a fresh egg, and walked around the outside wall to approach Levi from the back.  He barely glanced up as I came toward him, and he didn’t move.

The two rooms became very quiet as I approached.  No one said anything.  All the students' eyes were on me.

I reached up and cracked the egg over his head.

His astonishment was immense.  His eyes got huge, and he turned toward me in shock.  I didn’t have anything to say, so I didn’t say anything, and I got back to work while the boys came around him to commiserate – I mean, laugh.

“Wash the dishes,” I said.

They got on it.

Teacher's threat is SO scary.

Tom is an exuberant, funny, loquacious student in one of my English classes.  He keeps us amused, but he also keeps us distracted.  It is all I can do to keep him on track and working, and sometime even my best efforts deliver but poor results.

Tom was supposed to be writing an essay for a Veteran’s Day celebration.  He had been ‘working’ on this assignment for two days.  On the third day of class, he sat down at his computer, opened his essay, and told me, “Miss Hall, I need help with words.”

“With words?” I repeated, walking over to him.

“Yes, I don’t know how to begin.  I know what I want to say, but I cannot say it.”

I looked at his computer screen.  In these two days of class, all he has produced was his cover page with basic information like name, grade, etc., and a title.  Granted, he spent the first day researching the topic (D-Day and Battle of the Bulge), but I had expected at least an introduction by now.

I told him to start writing.  The ideas would come out rough at first, but once you get started, words often come easier and you can smooth things out later.

I moved on to another task.  Another student asked something, I helped him figure it out.  Tom was curious in all things but his paper.  He listened as another student made a phone call to find out if a poem would be acceptable.  I looked over at him from my desk where I was entering attendance.

“Get to work, Tom.”

“I – I will.”  He began messing with his chair.  The back pivots a little, tilting to allow someone to lean backwards while sitting in it, and he was pressing it back, hard, with his hands.

“Don’t bend that chair back, Tom, you’ll break it.  Another chair has already been broken like that.”

“Sorry."  He turned around in his chair and leaned back, bending the back of the chair with his body.  He looked over his shoulder at me.  “How do you like how I’m using the chair now?”

“Tom, I’m about to get up and walk over to you.”

That got him to turn around and face his computer.  “No, don’t do that,” he said.  “Save your knees.”

And finally, he began to type.