The first stage, commonly known as the I-wish-I-had-cancer stage, lasted approximately 8 weeks. There is nothing you can do to ease your discomfort during this stage, unless of course you know a good anesthesiologist who would be willing to jam an epidural into your brain.
Thank goodness the second stage, otherwise known as the I-wish-my-students-had-cancer stage, only lasted 40 minutes. I was teaching critical thinking via poetry explication at the time, with song lyrics, but I discovered that there are three things you should never discuss in the classroom--politics, religion and song lyrics.
Oh, and ghosts. It's astounding how controversial ghosts can be.
And also, never accidentally refer to any of the other teachers as brother or sister.
Oh, or say, "I would now like to turn the time over to . . . " during student presentations.
Anyways, I was teaching critical thinking via poetry explication when I went through the second stage of becoming a high school teacher. I looked back and forth, and back and forth between the angry students.
"Uh . . . whatcha doing?" I said.
"Thinking critically," they replied.
It struck me then that I was doing my job too well. So I blinked and shrugged and said, "Whatevah."
Then I put on a YouTube video of Glozell explicating Ke$ha.
"This is how you do it," I said.
It's all about modeling when you're trying to teach 95 teenagers how to think mo' bettah.
5 comments:
Love it! You had me laughing before we left for Stake Conference. My kids and Husband were even laughing at the video. Love the way her curls bounce with the "knocking her head against the wall" movement!
oh how i've missed your posts!!
How come ive never heard about Glozell until now? i swear you are so hip and always introducing to me to new worlds! on the same note.. Glozell is Hilarious! LOL! i laughed (and banged my head) all the way through it!
So i totally did song lyrics during a section where i was teaching main idea's and supporting detail while introducing expository's through the history of Jazz... It was the most fun.. and btw 6th grade English sounds so much easier than AP poetry explication!
I love your phases! Im going through a phase where i keep mentally going through our budget, trying to figure out if we can make only on my husbands pay.... so i can lazily wake up in the morning and watch hulu All.Day.Long!
Iwa, ME TOO. I go through that phase every day. ha ha
I can't believe you haven't heard of Glozell? She would fly in Hawaii, don't you think?
HULU Fo' LIFE!
Mahalo Miranda. You made my day.
Springrose, hee hee I love the image of you and your fam watching Glozell bang her head against the wall during Stake Conference. If you think about it, she really does teach some good lessons about the word of wisdom.
This is my new favorite thing. "Play some checkers or something."
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