Little Moments

Random thoughts and stories from Room 43:

-I’ve had it coming. I’ve asked for it. Between my endless trash talking and yelling at random eighth graders while wearing a Donald Driver jersey, I definitely asked for it. And yet I was somehow still surprised when my 5th block felt the need to use their three minutes of free time to graffiti my board with approximately 13 variances of “Packers suck” and “Packers lost.” Such lovely children I have.

-We’re almost done with The Hunger Games, and we’ve been reading a whole lot of what I’ve been referring to as “the kissy kissy” (not to be confused with what I refer to as the “blood and guts”). My homeroom has really pulled it together and been so mature about it all, listening and hanging on my every word as I read to them about Peeta and Katniss holed up in a cave together. Yesterday, though, they hit their limit. It’s the week before Christmas break, and my poor boys couldn’t take hearing their female teacher read to them about kisses and sentences like “he put his arms around me.” Two such boys got the giggles, and no matter how hard they tried to stop it spread as a contagion throughout the rest of the class too. They all tried so hard to keep it together, but the giggles of Boy 1 and Boy 2 were just too much. After trying to get them quiet several times, one of my girls raised her hand and said – completely seriously with absolutely no sarcasm or attitude: “Miss Melchione, we need a break. It’s too much for us. We’re trying really hard, but it’s just too much.” I smiled and said “We’ve got two more pages. Can we make it that much more and then we’ll move on to the Grinch?”

-Clearly, I read How the Grinch Stole Christmas to my classes yesterday – because it’s Christmas and because it was an excellent way to review plot structure which they obviously loved me for – and in my 5th block I had to fight them per usual. The only difference is that by that time of the day during this week, I didn’t make them copy from the dictionary as punishment because I was a part of the problem too. We’re all checked out. But my kids were grumpy and in the mood to play around instead of be serious for one second, so when I pulled out the Grinch I thought half of them were going to get up and leave. One student – who is probably the most difficult student I have, but who I’ve come an incredibly long way with – decides that she’s going to be as obnoxious as possible. To paint the picture for you, she’s sitting at a desk by herself with her back to the windows, head resting back on the husband pillow from the reading carpet, legs outstretched onto chair that’s out in front of her, completely slumped down and half asleep. So right away, you know we’re off to a great start. She says “Miss Melchione, we’re 13. We don’t read picture books. Why you always gotta read us picture books? The worst I get is I watch Sponge Bob.” Once I started reading, she sat there all slumped over and leaning back on my pillow, announcing to everyone why everything I read was unrealistic. IN A DR. SEUSS BOOK. Literally, one of her examples from page two was, “How you gonna say his head isn’t screwed on just right? His head isn’t screwed on! He’s a person!” At that point, it was about the third thing she’d said and I stopped, closed the book, looked at her and said “Sponge Bob is a sponge who lives underwater but never fills up with water.” There was a pause, and then she said “Man, I only watch Sponge Bob when I’m bored and there’s nothin’ else on.”

-A handful of my 5th block kids genuinely hate The Hunger Games – which makes me simultaneously confused and so sad – and one of my boys has been especially whiny about it. Yesterday, during the three minutes of free time that the rest of my students were using to destroy my board, I asked the whiny boy why he hates it so much. This was our conversation:
Student: Why can’t we read something like The Outsiders again?
Me: What did you love about The Outsiders?
Student: The violence.
Me: …The Hunger Games is nonstop violence!
Student: It’s all murder. Who wants to read about murder all day long?
Me: There’s two murders in The Outsiders.
Student: Yeah, but it’s also got the gangsters. That’s cool.
I. Don’t. Understand. Boys. I give them more violence and blood and guts and demented forced murder than what is actually appropriate, and they still whine.

-My lovely student – you’ll remember him in a moment – asked me a couple weeks ago during lunch to guess what his favorite moment of the year is so far. His response: “The time I asked you if you were pregnant in the middle of class.” He waited a minute and then looked around at the boys at his lunch table with a beaming smile, and said “Yep. I asked her if she was pregnant in the middle of class.” This is the same boy who decided to sit inside my trash can yesterday, caving it in and effectively getting himself completely stuck. Two other boys had to pull him out. Middle school, man. I swear.