Edubabble and other Blither

I sit here at the computer in our new chair, bought at a real bargain from a friend-of-a-friend who sells office furniture. A real steal, except for the fact that in one of my blonde moments I wrote the wrong amount in the words-instead-of-numbers line on my check. I wrote that amount for about $50 more. Sadly, THAT's the amount the bank must go by. My mom, the Bank Queen, said she doubted anyone would catch it, and she was right...for a couple of weeks. GRRRR. I don't fault her, though. (We recently found out she did us a favor before the bank's great slaughter: we mentioned that we NEVER get fees for ATM machines, no matter which one we use. "I made you guys preferred customers," she said with a smile. Mama's always got your back, eh?)

At any rate, I should be in school right now. Students should be saying The Pledge. We should be getting ready for the state writing exams, where students prove they can memorize a formula for writing an essay, thereby remembering why they don't like to write.

Yesterday at lunch a colleague shared her desire to commit suicide. The kids were practicing their essay skills by responding to this former state prompt: Time Magazine is accepting suggestions for Person of the 20th Century. Write an essay persuading the editors to accept your choice for this award. Be sure to consider this influential person's contributions to society.

"They don't know when the 20th century was. They don't know what contributions are. They don't know what influential means. They don't know what Time Magazine is. I understand your mom is a great person, but I don't think she has influenced the world!"

So, today we should be administering the test, the first of three sessions. Instead, here I am, awaiting the storm of the season, a lulu which is expected to dump upon us anywhere from 10 to 18 inches of snow.

Today I also should be perusing Student Teacher Boy's unit plan for The Outsiders. Actually, I should have done that yesterday, but he didn't have it. He also didn't have all his lesson plans for this week. I wasn't happy. He also didn't have a bulletin board ready. Where, oh, where is that young man of promise, that stripling who performed excerpts of his award-winning guitar solo to "You Shook Me All Night Long" at the Snowball a couple of weeks ago?

Alas, I feel STB is weary and confused. He wants to create award-winning bulletin boards, bulletin boards on par with Andrew McCarthy's window displays from Mannequin. (He didn't get this reference.) I told him that anything he came up with would most likely be hundreds of times better than what my students usually see. He is paralyzed by perfectionism. He suffers from the dreaded Bulletin Board Block.

"I need to see some sort of unit plan, STB. I need to see your plan of getting through the novel. How long is it going to take? What sorts of activities are the kids going to do? Are you planning a test? A project? Skits? How many pages are you going to read a day? What do you want the kids to get out of this?"

"Yeah, okay." STB looks at the floor.

I don't want to be too hard on him. I try to remember that I wasn't the world's best student-teacher. I try to be a good role model. I attempt to "have his back" while making sure he doesn't land on his ass.