Everyone Gets a Trophy!

So, on Friday the Language Arts teacher and I had a long discussion with a student. He truly, honestly believes that he could go to college tomorrow and do just fine. I mean, his whole life everyone has told him how smart he is, so why not? Everyone always tells him to believe in himself. That's good, right?
It seems to me like we've reached a point where the kids feel soooo good about themselves that they don't feel the need to try or work hard because they'll get rewarded no matter what.
We are actually being told by administration to give out candy and prizes to children for DOING THEIR WORK. They give out honor roll certificates if you have an 80% average. EIGHTY!
Teachers get told all the time to have high expectations and be rigorous and blah blah blah. But society has created children with incredibly high self-esteem and no basis for it.

Anyways, the point of this post is to say that the kid I was talking to about this is going to take an AP History exam on Monday.

All By Himself

Me: Someone tell me why it's important to honor our veterans.

Student: Because they sacrificed to keep us free.

Other Student: Wait, I thought that was Martin Luther King?

My Favorite Thing

I love, love, love listening to some supposed "gangster" talk about something educational in "gangster" speak.


YO! Them gazelles be dumb. Like, fah real. E'rebody be huntin' them thangs. Tha lions get 'em. The tigers get 'em. Them hyenas be gettin' em. Miz Vinson is gazelles retarded?"

Roll Tide Roll

We named each grade after a college. Being the 7th grade team leader, I OBVIOUSLY named us the Crimson Tide. Here's our badass display for Star Students.

Favorite Song? Chopsticks.

Dashawn: Ms. Vinson, what is your favorite instrument?

Me: Uh, I guess the guitar.

Dashawn: Oh? Bass or Air?

Excerpts from Counseling.

So I'm a counseling intern this year on Wednesdays. I was in a session with a girl who was having issues with a boy in her class.

"I just hate that boy so much. He always be callin' me crazy and stuff."

"Why do you think he calls you crazy?"

"Cause I be tryin' to kill him."

Oh.

This is My Life

I don't even

Kanikqua said GlenAllen is a "ghetto" name.

Rule #4335 of Good Teaching: Never Use Humiliation As a Discipline Tool

In The Jungle The Mighty Jungle

We took the kids to the corn maze again. It is my absolute favorite field trip. On the bus ride there, when all the kids start screaming at the top of their lungs, you know we are passing horses or cows in fields on the side of the road.
Once we get there, they all drink their drinks really fast so they can catch bugs and put them in the empty bottles.

They all also seem to think that we are out in the wild. Throughout the entire corn maze, I had to keep telling my group that no animals were chasing us, nor were they going to jump out from the corn at us.

I saw a kid trying to climb through the corn instead of going down the path and I said, "Cheater!"

Timothy turns to Deshawn and says, "Ohmygod there are cheetahs in here."