Teacher Mom

This week our friends announced that they were pregnant.  I was so happy for them.  I was 95% happy for them and maybe only 5% jealous.  Maybe, like, 92% happy for them and 8% jealous... Ok, I was like 90% happy for them.  Let's leave it at that.  It's not like I want a baby right now or anything.  We've been married 2 years, we'll wait another 2 or 3 more years to start trying, and then we'll be ready.  We have a plan and I am perfectly happy and content with that plan.  It's just, now there is going to be another baby around for me to hold and play with that is not my baby.  And I spend all day caring for and teaching other people's babies.  It is actually crazy how much I care about those 12-year old babies that aren't mine, but sort of are mine.  I invest the best hours of my day in those babies.  I study how they each learn best and how I can reach them.  I see myself in them- sometimes good, sometimes bad.  They disappoint me.  They make me proud.  They make me so angry sometimes I want to cry.  They frustrate me.  They make me laugh.  They cheer me up.  They're my babies.  But they're not.

I picked up a private student recently.  His mom contacted me and they happened to be free when I was free and were willing to bring him to my house so I figured, what the heck?  Some extra cash won't hurt.  This week he was packing up and he was talking about how his bow was a little stiff.  I said my bow was stiff too and I have been saving up to buy a new one.  He asked how much bows cost.  I said the one I was looking at was about $800.  "$800?!"  he said.  "What does it do?  Light up or something?"  I tried to explain what $800 bought you, but he wasn't buying it, so to speak.  It would seem that unless this bow doubled as a light saber and/or some kind or laser, I should not be spending $800 on it.

I have this habit of randomly breaking into an opera voice or other random accents in the middle of speech just to check to see if my students are paying attention.  It's extremely dorky but most of them get a kick out of it.  The other day on of my 7th grade violinists sang out in an opera voice the phrase "shadow bow!" just like how I do.  I was delighted to say the least because she wasn't doing it mockingly, she had just picked up on it and was emulating.  It was great.

I nick-named one of my students "Bacon" because on the first day of summer school class he wrote "I love bacon" on his name tag instead of his name.  So I just called him Bacon.  I was going to ease up during the school year, but he actually corrected me when I called him by his real name and said, "No, my name's Bacon!" and the kids called him Bacon so I guess it stuck.  You'd think a kid who insists on being called Bacon would be a handful, and you'd be right.  He is a handful.  But he also made my heart melt the other day.  One of my "special" students was struggling opening her locker and I was busy getting the class lined up for the buses and she couldn't get her locker open and all her stuff was spread out all over the floor.  Bacon just walked out of line and went up to her and asked, "What's your combo?"  And opened her locker for her, then helped her pack up her stuff.  I put my arm around him when we were outside by the buses and said "Thanks for helping with the locker.  That was very kind of you."  He responded with "Can I get a piece of candy for that?"  Oy.

I have a homeroom that I teach in another teacher's classroom.  The kids in that class don't take orchestra so I only see them in the morning for a short 30 minutes.  One girl arrives early every day.  She sometimes helps me pass out papers or take chairs down or run errands.  Sometimes she just sits and talks to me.  I don't mind because she is pretty sweet and I'm not usually very busy or anything.  The other day she started talking about some online chat room and this guy she met on there.  I was only vaguely paying attention at first but when I realized what she was saying I got a little concerned.

"Do you have to be a certain age to get in this chat room?"
"No"
"Do you use your real name"
"Yes"
"Your last name"
"No"
"Good.  You be careful- don't give any personal information.  In fact, you really shouldn't be on those sites at all.  Whose house are you at when you're using the internet?"
"My aunt's"

It's situations like these where I feel helpless.  I'm not her mom.  I'm not her aunt.  I have no authority over what she does on the internet outside of school.  I can only give her advice and warnings and hope she uses her brain.

One of my 8th grade classes was talking about careers and what they wanted to be when they grew up and what they wanted to study in college.  I told them how much I loved being a teacher but that if you don't love your job, you won't last. I told them a little about my first couple years of teaching and how rough it was and how poorly my high school classes treated me at my first school.  Their reaction was so sweet.  They were mortified: "You don't deserve that!"  "You are so patient!"  "You are such a nice lady!"  "You are so sweet and kind!"  "You are such a good teacher though!"  They made me smile.  They were so genuinely shocked. They wanted better for me.

My 7th graders sight read a real orchestra piece after only 6 weeks on their instruments.  I was proud as a peacock.  I strutted around for hours after that.  They know how to respond to questions.  They know how to solve problems on their own (within reason- they are still middle-schoolers after all...), they take instruction and then apply it, and they're making music.  I am absolutely thrilled with their progress.

These are my babies.  They test my patience, they push the boundaries, and they make me love them.  So until I'm ready for biological babies, these babies will be more than enough.

Hot Cheetos and Takis

I love that even though I live in Indiana, amid cornfields and adjacent to the freak show that is NASCAR, I experience a different culture every day.  I grew up in the very definition of white suburbia.  We weren't racist or anything, there just wasn't any other significant ethnicity represented in the immediate area.  I  remember a day my sophomore year in high school when I was approached by a friend and was asked, "Hey, did you hear there's a new black kid?"  Yeah, we had so few black students that when a new one arrived, it was a school-wide phenomena.  This is not the case on the west side of Indianapolis.  The other day one of my 8th grade girl students spotted my Kroger Slim Rite drink sitting on my desk and asked, "You trying to lose weight or something?"  I said, "Ya, I'd like to be cute and thin again.  I'd could stand to shed a few pounds"  She looked quizzically at me and asked, "You don't want to be thick?"  I am quite sure my mother never reminded me as a teen, "Libby, it's fine to diet, just be sure to stay thick."

Another cultural bewilderment is Hot Cheetos and Takis.  (There is a YouTube video- you should look it up.  It illustrates my point quite clearly...)  The music department at my school is not permitted to fund raise, which poses a bit a problem when we want to buy things that the school won't buy for us.  So many moons ago administration struck a deal with us, saying we could sell an item at the school bookstore and keep the profits.  The only rule was we weren't allowed to sell candy.  So we sold Mentos because they were technically a mint.  The athletic department, who was given the same rule as us, sold Tic-Tacs.  This year though, we noticed students coming away from the bookstore with Air Heads.  Clearly the candy rule had gone by the wayside, so the music department needed to step up its game because let's face it, no kid is going to buy Mentos over Air Heads!  My colleagues had been debating what they thought the kids would want, so I decided to poll them all during lunch.  I walked around to each table and just asked them, "If we were going to sell another item at the bookstore, what would you want to buy?"  I suggested gum, chocolate, or Skittles.  After a couple tables, one kid said, "Takis!  You should sell Takis!  Everyone would buy them!" I was like, "Takis?  What are Takis?"  They looked at me like I was an idiot then all started screaming excitedly at once: "They're like these hot Cheeto things!  They're like crunchy chips, like Cheetos, only hot!  They stain your fingers red!"  Then I realized that I had seen them around and always thought they looked disgusting.  Then I realized that at least one or two students were eating them at every table in the lunch room.  Then I realized that the students that weren't eating Takis were eating Hot Cheetos!  What was this?! I could not image a more disgusting snack, but I passed on the results of my poll to the rest of the music department.  If we wanted to out-sell the athletic department with their Air Heads, then Takis were the way to go.  Sure enough, after throwing Takis into my suggestions to the tables, they were the overwhelming winner.  How bizarre...

I wish I would have started writing about some of the culture shock I had my first year.  After 3 years, some of the things that were weird at first are completely normal now, so I don't remember them.  Little things like the vernacular still make me laugh, and now that I am more comfortable, I make fun of some students.  I'll repeat back to them what they say in a very "white" voice.  "You ain't got no pencil?  Really?  Well what do you think you should do about that?"  Another little thing is the phrase "I gotta use it" instead of "I have to go to the bathroom."  That one was more popular at the elementary school, but I had some high schoolers who said it too.  I'm sure there are many more, but like I said, now that I'm more acclimated I don't even notice the little things any more.

I am still very much loving my job.  I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Every day I leave smiling, even if I had a difficult student or something.  Overall, everything is good.  It sounds so lame when I say it like that, but there is no better way to say it.  I used to be one of those teachers that would walk into the mail room and heave a deep sigh.  Now I am one of those teachers who walks into the mail room and lets out a deep contented breath with a smile on my lips.  It's such a different feeling.  It's such a good, lame feeling.