How to Deal

I'm currently in my kitchen covered in flour and splatter marks. I haven't cooked in awhile, and I forgot how to cook without ending up just as messy as the interior of the pots and pans.

I made a German dish: Think lots of dumplings and roux.

Today went very well. I got evaluated and received amazing ratings. I guess I'm well on my way to becoming a good teacher.

Well, up until the point where a student gets all up in my grill. Which happened today. But I usually do reverse psychology on them. They misbehave, I ignore it, and then I compliment them on something else. Then they want nothing but to please me.

It worked. It usually works.

When I was in North Philly, a teacher told me that his classroom would NOT pay attention to the directions for an assignment so he started talking to the wall...

"Hi wall. This is what you're supposed to do.... *gives directions*"

Then he turned around and they were all looking at him, probably thinking "what.. the.. fuck?"

He said, "Oh! Sorry guys, I was explaining the directions to the wall. See, he does the exact same thing you do when I give him directions too!"

It's so funny, the things that teachers come up with.

It worked wonders, by the way. Every single student in the room knew what to do after that.

Teaching is truly an art. Every movement you make, every word you say, every transition you create, every ordering of sentences makes a difference. If I order two sentences incorrectly, I can totally lose the class for a good 10 minutes.

Today I said "You guys did great today! You all read so beautifully!" before I said the directions for the next activity. Wrong move on my part. I lost them at "You guys did great..." It took me about 5 minutes to reel them back in. I should have given the directions first while I had their attention.

Teaching is acting. 100%. I'm an improvisational actress 5 days a week. Do you know how hard it is to keep 33 hormonal 8th graders interested for 90 minutes straight three times a day? I have to do everything short of lion taming.

"Miss, can I stab him with my pencil? He took my idea."

All day I deal with this, all day... I've never had to be so witty in my entire life.