My Platform (and I'm not talking shoes!)

I'm way too much of a slacker to seek or hold public office, but if I did, here is my platform:

1. Whatever consenting adults do in private is their business, not mine. The key words are consenting and adults, Roman Polanski. I realize the crime took place over thirty years ago, but so did his bail jumping. By the way, don't you just love the Hollywood embrace of this man? Really, Madonna? Is it ok with you if someone gives your teenage daughter champagne and a Quaalude and rapes her? What if he's made some good movies, would that make it better? And Woody Allen is publicly siding with him?! Perfect!

2. If you chose to go to Wal Mart (or anywhere, really, I just think that WM has the highest incidence of this kind of thing) with your baby, please clothe him or her. I never want to see another diaper only-clad infant or toddler in public. As I have said before, I really have nothing against every day low prices, but I have a big problem with the kid throwing poo out of his diaper on Aisle 5!

3. I'm sorry if this one is offensive, but if you don't like it, please feel free to spend 17 years in the public school system before you criticize. Everyone will be chemically sterilized sometime in early junior high school. When individuals prove themselves emotionally and financially stable, their reproductivity will be restored. If you have a baby on the government's dime, the government will give that baby to someone who is more responsible but can't have children.

4. Speaking of education, we need to get back to basics and stop all of the touchy-feely nonsense that plagues our system now. When a kid fails a class despite all opportunities, it is not the fault of the teacher. Kids who refuse to make adequate progress will be put into residential boot camp until their grades improve. If their grades don't improve, they will augment their lessons with Adopt a Highway cleanup. We need to worry less about hurting feelings and more about preparing students for the real world.

5. Everyone has to take responsibility for his or her actions. Let's quit blaming everyone else for our problems. Ben and Jerry (or Tom and Jerry) are not responsible for my high triglycerides. That's on me. Might I add, after years of viewing Tom and Jerry cartoons, I never once hit my brother in the head with a frying pan.

6. If the shoe fits, buy one in every color! Ok, I made it about shoes after all!

Childless by Choice

Let me start off by saying that I love kids. I've been a teacher for 17 years, I genuinely enjoy my friends' kids, and I absolutely adore my Very Precious Godson! Despite all this, however, I have never wanted kids of my own.

I must either be a genius with birth control or barren, and I'm ok either way. I've never even had a real pregnancy scare. A couple of years ago, a very dear (but evil) co-worker made me think I might be pregnant because I was a day late and nauseated. All day I thought about how I was carrying another Damien, so I stopped at the drug store on the way home to purchase two pregnancy tests. When my husband got home, I was in the middle of test one. He asked me what I was doing and I replied, "Mary says I'm pregnant so I'm peeing on a stick to see if I have Satan's child in me." He seemed perplexed, and I continued explaining myself while I waited for the results. "I'm late and Mary thinks I'm pregnant, so I'm taking a test. What if I'm pregnant?" His way too calm response was, "Maybe if, despite our efforts to the contrary, you are pregnant, we should take it as a sign from God." My response, "Or the devil." (I'm nothing if not optimistic!) I was lying on the sofa feeling my abdomen and told my husband I felt a hoof. He, for some inexplicable reason, thought I was crazy and told me so. I said, "Did you hear that A.C. (anti-Christ), Daddy doesn't love me and I'm a single parent." About that time, the timer buzzed, and we went to check the test, which was, of course, negative. Just to be safe, I took the other one the next morning and it was negative too.

I know that some people are suspicious of this decision, and it puts me forever out of the Mommy Club, but my biological clock has just never demanded my attention. The other day, a 16 year old student of mine who is pregnant for the second time started asking me questions about pregnancy.

Kid: My back hurts and I'm tired. Is that normal?
Me: I don't know. I've never been pregnant.
Kid: What??!! On purpose???? How old are you?
Me: Yes, on purpose, and I'm 40.
Kid: Wow!

So, I know I'm being judged by society in general and one particular idiot specifically, but I have made the choice that's best for me, and I'm happy with it!

Endangered Species

I love being a teacher, and, I'm not going to lie, I particularly love it during the summer time. Since I tend to see the humor in everything (even when others don't), I think I'm very well suited to working with teenagers.

I'm certainly not one of those "miracle" teachers who have Lifetime movies made about them. One of my former colleagues thought herself the miracle type. In fact, she once taught a sophomore in San Antonio who had severe attendance problems and she took it upon herself to visit him at home to try to get him to attend school (you'd have to know this woman, and some of you do key words: San Antonio, to realize that this story is total BS). Anyway, the kid was in a really bad motorcycle wreck and was in a coma for three or four years. When he got out, he had total amnesia, but when he ran into her at the mall one day, he walked up to her and said, "I have total amnesia, but I remember that you were my history teacher and you changed my life." This same colleague was once very concerned that the children were outside sitting on a big green plastic thing that had "high voltage" written all over it. My response to her was, "Look on the bright side, maybe the electricity will render their dumb asses sterile before that DNA gets in the gene pool." I, apparently, am insensitive.

Ok, I don't have a coma story (and I also don't just make shit up to try to impress people with how much my students love me). Some kids think I'm great, and others don't. I'm ok with that. I'm also ok with the fact that the kids who like me are a little on the thuggy side, although I've had to talk them out of "taking care" of someone on more than one occasion.

Here is an example of how my kids try to help me out. One day right before lunch, I got my purse out of the cabinet for my lunch money. The bag was a fabulous pink croco number, and one of the girls said she really liked it. My response was, "Thank you; they killed the last pink alligator in captivity to make it for me." Everyone chuckles, except one kid. He stays back behind the others to tell me, "Miss, I don't think you should tell anyone else about your bag. It could get you in trouble, being from an endangered species and all." I'd trade that kind of concern for fake coma boy any day!

All My Children

I really love teaching, and I love my new job at which I am working with at risk kids to help them graduate. This profession has brought me incredible highs and unfathomable lows over the last 16 years. The following kids didn't know they were auditioning for a spot in a future blog, but here are some of my favorite conversations.

Me: If you click on the link provided, you can see the house where Shakespeare was born.
Kid: Wait a minute! They had color back then?

Me: Does anyone have any questions about what we've covered so far with Romeo and Juliet?
Kid: Where do the New England Patriots play their home games? Is New England a state?

Me: Elvis Presley was a twin.
Kid: With who?

Kid: Miss, do you know what ship will never sink?
Me: No, which one?
Kid: Our friendship!

Me: Name a state that stayed with the Union in the Civil War.
Kid: What side was Colonel Sanders on?

Me: We have an exchange student from Kazakhstan.
Kid: Does he know Borat?
Me: Borat is not a real person, but a creation of the actor Sascha Baron Cohen.
Kid: No, he's real. I saw him on tv.

Kid: If the NFL tries to draft you, can you go to Canada?

Kid: How can Susie (a sophomore at the time) be having a baby? She's not married.
Me: Ask your mother.

Kid: What if Susie goes into labor at the pep rally?
Other Kid: Then Coach R. will deliver the baby; it's his gym.
Third Kid: All he knows how to do is tape stuff up.

We've Got One of Those In Here

I've been in public education for 16 years, and for 10 of them, I taught freshman English. When I left the freshman hallway, I felt like I had escaped a cult. I loved being with them while I was there, but six weeks into teaching juniors, there was no going back for me!

One year, I had a class of 20 boys and three girls. This was a difficult class to manage because the boys were rowdy and the girls were rotten due to all the attention they were getting. It was close to Halloween, so I decided we would read a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado". The class was particularly giggly and restless, and although I thought I might know why, I decided to ask a couple of kids what had been so entertaining.

I kept F.(one of the three girls) and T. (a nice but perpetually confused kid) after class to see what the problem had been.

Me: I noticed that the class was especially silly today. Do you know why?
F.: Yes.
T.: (looking sheepish) Uh huh.
Me: What was it?
F.: I'm not sure I should tell you.
T.: It's really gross, Miss. You've probably never even heard of it. (this still cracks me up; he thought I was too pure to know about the more unseemly aspects of life!)
Me: It's ok; you can tell me.
F.: We were laughing because B. was jacking off. (I knew I could count on her for an honest answer!)
Me: Ok.

So I told my principal about the incident, and he had the counselor call the kid's mom. I thought it would be an isolated incident, perhaps he just had a really special affinity for Poe or something, and to my knowledge, he never did. He didn't have to though. That day in October, he branded himself with those other kids for the rest of the year. In the spring, the class pyromaniac noticed smoke outside the window and asked if he could go outside. I said, "It's not a fire, just dust being stirred up." He asked for more information, and I told him, "There's a weed whacker outside." His response was, "Hey, we've got one of those in here too!"