Monday, May 23, 2011

Middle Schoolers are Fun!

Teaching middle school is full of challenges. The students will try your patience. They will be forgetful. They will not have homework when it is asked for. They get temperamental and moody. They have a new boyfriend and new best friend every week. Drama abounds.

I still love teaching middle school. The kids are pretty open for the most part. You know rather quickly whether they love you, tolerate you, or downright hate you. I enjoy hearing, “Mrs. Lumley! You are my favorite teacher!” It is cute when they randomly yell in the hall or cafeteria, “Mrs. Lumley! I love you!” Those things can really brighten one’s day.

This past week was a difficult one for me, and the kids could tell. They didn’t really know why, but they knew I “wasn’t right”. One afternoon, I had one student bring me a Hershey bar. Very sweet. (No pun intended). One morning, I had a student show up with a gorgeous, freshly picked flower, because I might like it. I had the students do an assignment where they made a little booklet to explain a concept. There were two blank pages left at the back. One student decided to use these for a purpose other than leaving it blank. Here is what was written:

Mrs. Lumley Jokes

Mrs. Lumley sucked the poison from a rattle snake and poisoned the rattle snake with it.

Prior to contrary belief, Mrs. Lumley told the master sense what to do.

Mrs. Lumley died as a child, death just hasn’t built up the courage to tell her yet.

Mrs. Lumley once ran a marathon backwards just to see what second place looked like.

Some magicians can walk on water, Mrs. Lumley can swim through land.

Mrs. Lumley has already been to Mars, that’s why there are no signs of life.

Mrs. Lumley can cut through a knife with hot butter.

Mrs Lumley won American Idol using sign language.

Ghosts sit around the campfire and tell Mrs. Lumley stories.

Mrs. Lumley uses grizzly bears for pillow pets.

When Mrs. Lumley wants ice cream, she eats Antarctica. Fear if spiders is Arachnophobia, Fear of tight spaces is Claustrophobia. Fear of Mrs. Lumley is called logic…