Testing...Testing...1 , 2, 3

I lost my voice, but I still had to come to work because I’m hoarding my sick days for a cruise in a month. I want you to picture trying to control 6 classes of 34 teenagers with a mere whisper. I am in hell! Luckily, the new school where I work installed six speakers in my classroom that work with a microphone I can wear around my neck. I’ve never really had to use this feature before because my voice booms and bounces around a normal room. Today, I cranked the volume on it, and I can hear my hoarse, scratchy whisper eco loudly throughout my classroom. One of my little 7th graders said, “Miss Scott, can you please turn that off? The loud whisper is really freaking me out.” It is so true. It sounds like I’m trying to tell really scary ghost stories around a campfire or narrate a horror movie, when I’m actually trying to explain how to use quotation marks.

My kids keep asking me how I lost my voice. Most of the boys assume that I screamed too loudly during the Superbowl. It’s wildly apparent that my students don’t know me at all. I’ve never cared about any Superbowl, in the history of Superbowls. There are only three reasons that I attend pro-football related parties:
1. Food
2. I need to leave my house occasionally during the winter months.
3. Cute boys
I put the list in order of importance.

...or are you just happy to see me.

Sorry I've been so negligent.
I've gotten tired of loaning pens and pencils to students and never having them returned. My first attempt was to tape spoons to them, so kids knew they were using my writing implements. I figure it worked in grocery stores, so it would probably work in my class. Yes, I realize now that this was faulty logic. I taped about 50 plastic spoons to a variety of pens and pencils. For weeks I was either finding plastic spoons on my classroom floor, seeing kids walking around the halls with plastic spoons taped to my pens and pencils sticking out of their pockets, or, in one case, I watched a girl eat a jello pudding snack with a spoon strapped to a pen.

I was sharing my frustration with a colleague during lunch. She said that she makes the kids trade a shoe for a pen or pencil. Yes, it's true that kids will never forget a shoe, but have you ever smelled a teenager? They are all oily and every gland seems to be working overtime to ensure that they will never procreate. I can't imagine willingly taking a shoe or any other piece of clothing from them in exchange for a pen. It would be like someone asking if they could borrow 5 bucks from you AND then punch you in the stomach to thank you for the favor.

I decided to focus on what is most important to kids. I started trading them a pen or pencil for an ipod or a cell phone. Not only does every kid have one of these, but there is no way that they would forget to trade back. I put this into place a few weeks ago, and it's worked like a charm.

Here is a recent dialogue of a trade gone awry:

Pimply boy: Ms. Scott, can I borrow a pencil.
Me: Only if I can borrow a cell phone or an ipod.
Pimply boy: But Miss, I don't have one.
(I can plainly see a perfect rectangular outline of a cell phone or ipod in his skinny jean pocket.)
Me: Really. What's with the big bulge in your jeans?
All of the kids sitting next to my desk started cracking up.
Pimply boy: At least you noticed.
He then handed me his new Iphone while laughing and getting slapped on the back by the nearby boys. His new nickname is apparently Big Bulge.

Sidenote: Why did boys think it was okay to start wearing skinny jeans? Only cowboys and little kids are allowed to wear jeans that tight. There is no reason a man should ever have to make the choice as to which side of his pants to wear his junk on. It is also distructive to our self esteem as women when you realize that your man is not only wearing designer jeans, but wearing a smaller size in the same style you have on.