URBAN PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS GONE WILD!

I went wild today in response to the idiocy of my students. One of my students, irked that I hadn't given him a pass, (and while he was pretending to throw things to piss me off I said "Hey, you dropped off the baseball team [due to failing all your classes], so you really don't need to practice, do you?") drew a devilish picture on the board and labelled it "Ms. Fellow-ette." In response, I drew a bland smiley face with a talk bubble reading "I make my teacher cry" and put his name on it, and then visibly cracked myself up... childish but satisfying. At least, my fan club in the class loved it.

Later, another student wrote an equation on the board: "Shaniqua + Britanya = a ton". I responded with "Prince's brain + a ton = a ton." The students, puzzled, looked at the equation. "Ohhh.... we get it, so you're saying..."

Anyhooch.
So maybe I'm stooping too low, but sometimes the little buggers need it!

Now, to make like Laura Bush (hisss) I'm going to make a list of recommended reading. Here are the books I've read since enrolling as an NYC TF:

"Classics"

David Copperfield by Chazz Dickens
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Cousin Henry by Tony Trollope

"Adult Contemporary"

Light on Snow by Anita Shreve
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid

"Urban Themes"

Shame of A Nation by Jonathan Kozol
A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind
Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas


The purpose of this list is to pat myself on the back.