It Doesn't Matter if You're Black or White

It Doesn’t Matter if You’re Black or White

One of the other new teachers who started at the same time as me was the art teacher. He was a nice fellow, slightly nervous, but nice nonetheless.

He had a really, REALLY tough year. I can honestly say that as bad as my year was, his was worse (and remember I had to press charges on a student).

Students were wild down in the art room (which was referred to by most as “the dungeon”). They would throw chairs, they would start fights, they would scream, some would even engage in sexual activity. It got to the point that the art teacher would be out weeks at a time due to the stress his students caused him.

At the end of the year the superintendent decided he would like to take all the new teachers to dinner. While at this dinner he thought it would be fun for everyone to stand up and tell how their first year of teaching went.

When it was the art teacher’s turn he stood up and said, “Well…my first year was reallyrough. The kids caused me to have a slight breakdown, but I’m on meds and doing A-ok now, and I’m coming back for more next year!”

After he revealed this information the room was silent. No one really knew what to say. Finally, the superintendent said “okay….youthere how about YOUR year?”

The next day at school I was speaking with our resource officer and he said “let me tell you about my day.”

He proceeded to tell me that during 3^rdblock the art teacher pressed the emergency button and stated, “can you please send the officer down to my room, there are three students smoking down here.”

The officer made his way down to the art room and asked the art teacher to “tell him which students were smoking” The art teacher replied that he wasn’t sure of their names. The officer said, “Well, what were they wearing?”

“I couldn’t really tell you that”

“Okay, were they male or female?

“yeaaaaa, I’m not really sure”

“Can you even tell me if they were black or white?”

“No, I don’t think I could”

“But, there were three of them?”

“Yes, that much I know for sure.”

“Okay then….”

I’m thinking I’d like to know just what meds he is on and subscribe to them myself.

Comments

1,000 Pens update

My 1,000 pens came in the mail! I thought I would show you guys what they look like! Want your own cheap box of 1,000 pens? Click Here To read that blog post On a side note I found an awesome recipe that I made tonight with Basil from my garden. I liked it so much I thought I would share it with you! Tomato, Mozzarella, Quinoa, and Basil Salad

Say what? Inference Oops

So I got my first cold of the teaching season. It is too early in the year to call in sick because I am trying to keep my routines and authority in place. I have been barreling through with this cold all week. We started learning about inference this week. For the most part it has been going well. We read "Made out of Meat" and then made inferences about the story. The story is a conversation between two beings and their discussion about these beings they have just encountered who are, "Made out of meat." The reader needs to infer that the being having a conversation are aliens and the beings made out of "meat" are humans. An adaptation of the story if you are interested: At the end of the story the aliens decide that they are going to, "Pretend like no one is home," and leave without making contact. One of the inference questions I asked my students was, "Why were the aliens going to pretend like no one is home?" One block of my s...

Survivor Symbolism

So I have been watching old episodes of "Survivor" lately and it dawned on me that it would be a good way to do a quick review of symbolism along with a little activity. At the start of every single tribal council the host, Jeff Probst, says, "Fire represents life on the island." I plan to ask my students why they think "Survivor" chose fire to symbolize life and how it symbolizes life. I found a supercut of all the times that JP said, "Fire represents life" and plan to show part of it to my kids (Or all of them if I feel like really hitting the point home). I will then discuss with them the fact that at the end of each tribal council after someone is voted off the island they snuff out their torch. I will ask students what the symbolism of this is, why they snuff out the torch, and repeat the fire represents life phrase. Here is a supercut of "The tribe has spoken" As a quick little review activity I will ask students to come up wi...

Escape Room The Game

Search This Blog