Ben & Jerry's

Today I experienced my first Ben & Jerry’s day as a teacher. As I am sure all female readers know Ben & Jerry are the only two men that can give you a temporary reprieve from almost anything, and tonight chocolate chip cookie dough hid me from the ugly realities of high school.

Before I recount the not-so-hot, I want to talk about the small victories that made my heart melt. Our class objective today was identifying common and proper nouns. I asked students to write two sentences, each with a common and a proper noun. I was perusing around the classroom reading over shoulders like teachers do and I stopped at one example. The student had written “I need sleep and they keep interrupting me.” Well, the “they” was directed at me and the “sleep” was happening during guided practice, but I know when to pick my battles. I asked this gentlemen to add a proper noun to the sentence. When he looked at me confused I asked him to add my name to the sentence in place of “they”, he needed a proper noun and I needed him awake. I moved on to the next student not thinking much about our hang up. After class I was reading over student work and I came back to this example. Instead of “I need sleep and Ms. Ball keeps interrupting me”, the sentence had been changed to “Ms. Ball is a real hard working teacher.”

This morning I had a run in with a young man full of potential. I know this because of an essay he wrote just two weeks ago about his happiest childhood memory. The memory detailed his 8th grade graduation. He wrote that no one believed he would graduate form 8th grade without summer school but that he had proved them all wrong. He wrote that you could do anything even if no one believes in you. But this young man won’t be coming back to summer school. He was suspended today for an outburst in the lunchroom just 3 days before his summer school session ended. He started his day with me this morning at 8:15 a.m. I was the first person he saw, and maybe the roughest on him all day. I wish I had talked to him about 8th grade graduation instead of telling him just to get back in his seat.

It’s definitely been 5 days of ups and downs. My students have told me twice I sound like a “news lady”, and last week they told me Link cards (welfare cards in Illinois) were actually the name of a video game. They are crazy perceptive, stubborn, witty, and so far… really forgiving.

Their summer school session with me actually ends this Monday and it sounds cliché but it really is amazing how much you can learn from a group of teenagers in a short seven collective hours of class.