Thursday was quite the day in seventh grade for me. I was feeling good about things. We did spelling review, we did a unit test review, and we began the very arduous process of learning to write an outline, complete with a thesis statement. This will be a year-long process and I was happy we got several sentences nailed out. It didn't matter that they didn't start with capital letters or end with any punctuation but we did it!
But there was also tribulation in my day - surprise! shock! awe!
First off, I had a form to give back to my students. The problem was the forms only had parent names on them. So I was being a super slueth and silly me, I thought if the last name was the same, it must be that student's. Nope. I asked a girl if the form was hers, if this was her father's name and she informed me her father had passed away. And this was in the first five minutes of the school day.
I made it all the way to the end of the day without another faux pas. It was seventh hour when we all started to lose it. We were all tired, I love my seventh hour kids but I was tired of them, of it all by this point. Coming back from vacation was taking its' toll on us all. And I was trying to teach outlining to them. Nothing exciting about this. And they were giggling. Even the boys. I couldn't keep their attention to save my soul. It had been this way for a good hour. So I started our new activity when one of my favorite students yells at his best friend across the room, "Shut up Retardo!" And I lost it. Because the boys name is Ricardo and this was funny. I was up in front of the class, with their attention (supposedly) focused on me. And my face betrayed me. My muscles took over and began to form a smile much to my desire to frown. But I could NOT help it. And everyone's looking at me now, of course. And I chuckle. (Aside - I laughed so hard I cried when I told this story to Shannon and Angela after school and I am laughing again now, outloud as I write this!)
And then Ricardo looks at me and says, "You're laughing at me?" with this little smile. And I say, "No, you all just are so weird. Let's get going." But they all knew I was laughing and I knew it and let's just say, I was glad when the bell rang:-)
Now I have to be vigilant every time I see Ricardo not to call him by his unsavory, but hilarious, nickname. :-)
1 comment:
That's pretty funny. I'm pretty sure that I would have laughed as well. --Sus
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