Reasons to chuckle

I'm sitting at my kitchen table grading papers this afternoon. Not the way I'd most like to spend Sunday afternoon, but such is life. As much as teaching wears me down, there are little things that happen that bring such a real laughter and joy (cheese. but it's true) so that even the worst week is ultimately worth it. I'm sure you teachers understand.

Allow me to share two of those little bits of laughter with you.

I'm grading "MLK and Me" Journals of Pictures and Words that all my students worked on right before MLK weekend, and each page had some info on MLK. They had to finish each page by writing and illustrating information about themselves in the same category. Anyway, on one of the pages, there was a paragraph about what MLK was good at and what he loved doing the most. Here is the other half, written by a 7th grade boy, "K."

"I'm good at fighting, basketball, football, reading, writing, doing front flips, back flips, video games, telling time, and keeping secrets."

The randomness of this made me laugh out loud.

Also funny: My students LOVE to comment on what I have on...everyday. It doesn't matter WHAT I have on--they will have something to say about it. This is primarily 8th grade, but 7th throws in their commentary on occasion.

Anytime I wear boots or something even remotely funky, they freak out. "Miss H, did you wear those boots during WWII?!" or "Miss H, are you going to ride cows after school?" Or "Miss H, why you so tacky today? You know that don't EVEN match." (this is a reference to perfectly acceptable combos, like green and brown, off white and red, green and deep yellow, etc)

I know given this tendency of my students, this was just asking for it, but I wore a favorite navy blue cardigan to school with birds crocheted on the back. It IS cuter than it sounds. I got it on sale while employed at Anthropologie. Click link to see said sweater.

Back to the story. I had on this sweater, and from the time the kids walked in to the time they left, they called me gradma and kept asking me if I knitted the sweater myself. Then, out of no where, kid on the front row, "Ced," (same student who makes the daily claim that he 'saw my roommate at Piggly Wiggly') called out, "Naw, dawg, she got on that sweater because we startin to read To Kill a Mockingbird today! Those be MOCKINBIRDS on that sweater, fool!"

True. It was day one of our journey with To Kill a Mockingbird. I would have never been so creative to have strategically worn that sweater with that in mind. But, I claimed the idea as my own anyway. I turned around and said, "Finally, someone figured it out!" So, from now on, just like Starkville's 5th grade teacher Mrs. McCoy would wear her globe earrings on geography quiz days, I will wear this "mockingbird" sweater on To Kill a Mockingbird quiz and test days. Waah lah!

This same day, one of my more quiet Hispanic students presented me with a very detailed, precise drawing of the back of my sweater. Apparently everytime I turned around in class, he'd work on it a little more. He handed it to me on his way out the door. I have it taped to my printer. Hilarious.

How could working with such characters NOT be worth the exhaustion??