Passing?

I'm not in school anymore but I am a teacher and that usually means maximum drama because, let's face it, kids are funny.

Especially college kids who think they're smarter than the average professor.

Like last week when I had a conversation with a girl who is concurrently enrolled in high school and my college class.

Which is usually the sign of an above average student

Usually but not always.

And definitely not this girl. As evidenced when she approached me and told me that she needed that she have this form that needed to be signed saying she was passing my class so she would be continued to be eligible for high school activities.

And actually she was supposed to turn them in every week and had just forgotten but never fear she had enough for the rest of the semester so if I would just go ahead and sign them in advance and I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

To be honest, I hadn't been worried...largely because I hadn't known about the existence of the form until that exact moment.

Her brilliant plan, though, did worry me.

"I can't sign a whole semester's worth of forms in advance," I told her. "I can't see the future; I've no idea if you'll be passing six weeks from now."

Judging by the look on her face, this might be the most confusing thing anyone had ever said to her.

"I just have to have the form signed," she said in a slow, careful voice,

"I just have to tell the truth on it," I said.

And she stared me like she honestly couldn't figure out what my problem was.

Since I am a teacher, I decided to use this as an educational moment.

"Look," I told her, "if I sign that I'm saying that you're passing the class.  What if you stop coming? What if you're not passing? I can't sign a form that says you're passing six weeks from today's date when I have no idea what your situation will be then."

And she just kept staring at me like I'm the one who wasn't making any sense.

"I just have to have a form that says I'm passing." She explained one more time.

"But you're not even passing NOW," I told her.

And she stormed away in a fury.

I still can't figure out if I should be insulted that she thinks I'm dumb enough to fall for this or if I should be horrified that she honestly can't see the flaw in her plan.

This post is part of a weekly blog hop called Finish The Sentence Friday. For other school related posts, please click below:

My Favorite Decade

It's Finish The Sentence Friday and today's sentence was "My favorite decade was..."

Easiest blog post ever...so easy that I'm not even going to finish the sentence with words.  One guess what my favorite decade was:

 This was one of my favorite shirts, I wore it all the time.

This was deep in my "visible undergarments phase."

No, I'm not getting married in this one--it was when I was presented

as a candidate for the Arts Society Ball. 

Which sounds slightly more pretentious than it actually was.

I should probably say something like "This is my favorite decade because I have finally married my darling Opie and we are blissfully happy." But we are still early into this decade--I'll say that in 2020.  Besides, this was when I actually met my Opie.

This is Opie circa 1989-what a blondie bear he was!

Besides, what's not to love: Big hair (you should hear about the time I got a perm), I was soooooo skinny (though I thought I was fat, go figure), I had no responsibilities, dance music was fun and not so aggressive (Mike Birbiglia has a hilarious bit about this!), and clothes of questionable taste (wasn't a teacher then so didn't care about inappropriate attire!)




FTSF is brought to you by:

Kate at Can I get Another Bottle of Whine with My Morning Quiet Time

Janine at Confession of a Mommyaholic

Stephanie at Mommy, for Real

Finding Ninee

Read other favorite decade posts here:

Are You Kidding Me?!

Finally participating in Finish the Sentence Friday again but I should probably start this post was saying that I do love my job. I've been a teacher for over 15 years and now that I'm teaching college instead of high school, I actually love it even more.

But it's midterm time and even though I love my job and most of my students there's just something about this time of year when what I really want to scream out loud is "Are you flipping kidding me?”

(Actually, there's another word I'd like to insert for "flipping" but I am an educator, molding young minds, I should at least pretend to be appropriate).

Anyway, the problem is, this is the make or break point—the time of year a few of the kiddos realize that this isn't high school anymore and that there is a really good possibility that, if they don’t start doing some actual work, they will probably fail.

Some of them decide that means it’s time to get it in gear. Some of them decide to drop. And some of them decide that, perhaps, I’m not too bright and they can continue slacking off but somehow convince me they are dedicated students.

One of my favorites of these conversations was with a girl who told me she was going to miss the midterm test with me the following Friday because she was going to have an emergency appendectomy.

“Wow,” I said. “You know you're going to have an emergency appendectomy on Friday? Two days in advance?

“It's been coming and going,” she agreed. “The doctor said we should just wait and see how it goes.”

Which, call me crazy, doesn’t sound like an emergency appendectomy to me.

“I know it's weird,” she said.

“Borderline unbelievable,” I agreed. “And you know what else is weird? The fact that you have a loud voice, just like I do, and before class I could hear you talking to your friend about going to Oklahoma City this weekend for her 21st birthday.”

She didn't even have the good grace to look embarrassed.

“So,” she said after a long pause. “When can I make the midterm up?”

“The day after never,” I told her. Which I thought was kind of funny (she did NOT agree). But, seriously, are you flipping kidding me with that? Could you at least trying to come up with a plausible story? One that doesn't completely insult my intelligence?

Then just I was ready to throw in the towel and declare our future generation beyond saving one of my best students approached me. He doesn’t have the best grade in the class but he does his work, he turns everything in on time, he pays attention in class, and he really seems to want to learn.

Plus—and I’m not proud of this—he laughs at my jokes.

Not in a suck up, “you’re so hysterical, you’re the funniest woman I've ever heard” way but in a “I totally got that and we have the same sense of humor” way.

If there any students reading this, trust me when I tell you laugh at your teacher’s jokes. It won’t get you an A but it will make her feel better.

In any case, we frequently talk after class because English is his second language and that’s always a struggle in a writing class. Today he stopped and asked me if, even though it wasn't in the scope of our class, would I be kind enough to give him my wise advisements (yes, he actually used those words ‘wise advisements.’) about a scholarship opportunity he'd been sent.

And thank goodness he did because it had scam written all over it.  “You shouldn’t have to pay $8,000 to get scholarship information,” I assured him. “Most of the information is out there, free of charge.  These people are trying to steal your money.”

Then I showed him how to research it on the Internet and check the Better Business Bureau (this group got an F rating, by the way) and so on.

“My father and I worried over this,” he said gratefully. “And he told me to ask a teacher because they would give me the wise advisements.”

And just like that I love my job again.

For other scream out loud posts, please click below:

If This Is The New Math, I Don't Get It

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve posted a “Life In Oklahoma” blog—heck, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted any blog at all—largely because I am currently working not one, not two, but three different jobs.

That’s right, after months of not working at all and then scurrying from one crazy gig to another, I find myself definitively over-employed.

Here’s what happened…the local university offered me another writing class. Since it only meets once a week (albeit for three hours), I agreed.

Then I got a callback on a job application that I turned in months and months ago…for a part time online monitoring job in which I spend hours at a time admiring and then deleting penis drawings and other questionable content from a website geared toward children (you can read all about that here or here). It seemed interesting and I got to work from home so I went for it.

Shortly after signing a 6 month contract with the penis patrol, I got a call from the publishing company that I have subbed at several times over the last year. They had a position open and they could be flexible with the hours but they needed me to start immediately—while I was still under contract for jobs 1 & 2.

“You have to take that job,” Opie said. “First of all, you like it there. Second, you need to actually interact with GROWN UP PEOPLE once in awhile.”

Apparently, he finds it disconcerting when I spend dinner explaining to him all the things the animals and I have talked about during the day. “You know they can’t actually talk, right? RIGHT, KIMBERLY?” he has asked more than once.

And if you think those kind of stories bother him, you should see his reaction when he walks in after a long day of work and I yell things like “You would not believe how many penises I’ve seen today! It’s like penis-palooza!”

So, I signed on with the publishing company and now I’m working 3 jobs. Which is kind of exhausting…but on the bright side, screaming “I have three jobs!” wins a surprising number of arguments before they even start. Like Opie will be all, “Ewww…did you know that the milk expired two weeks ago and has actually become a SOLID?” and I’ll start waving my hands in the air, yelling “Milk? How can I possibly think about milk right now? I have THREE JOBS! How many jobs do you have?!”

And, miraculously, the milk carton just disappears from the house, never to be seen again.

It’s great fun, make no mistake.

As far as the jobs themselves, they’re great too. Teaching college is still not as different from teaching high school as one would expect…as evidenced by the fact that I still have a surprising number of students who don’t realize that COMING to class and DOING THE WORK are necessary components of passing the class.

Like this one girl who sent me an email back in February after missing 3 weeks in a row. I have copied it verbatim below:

“Sorry I was not at class the last few weeks I was not feeling well. I know you don’t want us us to miss any more than one class so what I am really trying to ask is do you want me coming tonight even though I am still feeling sick? You probably don't want me to come. Question what did we do the last weeks and tonight since you probably don't want me to come?”

But she was wrong. I did want her to come, if only because I find it challenging to re-teach 12 hours of class in a single email.

However, that was 4 weeks ago and I haven’t seen her since…until last night. Just in time to get her midterm report.

“This can’t be right,” she said. “This says that I have an EIGHT PERCENT.”

I assumed that she was expecting it to be lower but, no, she was under the impression that after coming to 2 out of 9 classes, turning in 3 ten-point assignments and taking—yet failing—1 quiz that she would at least be passing.

At this point I inquired if she happened to be enrolled in a math class this semester and, if so, how that was going for her?

It is interesting to note that this particular student doesn’t think I am funny AT ALL…Especially when she started asking how many points she needed to get in the next few weeks to pass the class.

“Well,” I said “we have about 1000 total points each semester. We have about 500 left…you have 42 points total…”

I trailed off, thinking she might realize that her Comp ship has already sailed for the semester but she obviously just thought I was too stupid at math to figure it out myself. So she got out a piece of paper and began doing a little computing…”So,” she said thoughtfully. “I need to get 558 points to get a D but 658 points to get a C!”

“We only have about 500 points left,” I reminded her.

“It’s going to be tough,” she agreed. But walked out in a much better mood, presumably coming up with some elaborate MacGyver-like plan to get at least 115% on every assignment we do for the rest of the semester.

Or maybe her plan is based on those strange “imaginary numbers” that I’ve heard about but never really understood.

Either way, I feel a nearly overwhelming urge to look up her Algebra teacher and find out if I’ve missed some groundbreaking new twist in simple computations.

I have a feeling I’ll be seeing her again…



In any case, that’s part one of the latest Life In Oklahoma…but stay tuned, I have a pupdate on Peek, stories of mole murder, and a contest on who is the worst patient coming soon!


kimbo325 is a writer and a teacher (as well as an internet moderator and publishing company worker) laughing her way through life. She’s not too great at math herself but even she knows when to throw in the towel on a failing grade. To read more about her crazy life, tweet with her on Twitter, follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ItIsInterestingToNote?ref=hl#!/or leave a comment below.

And the crazies keep on coming….

I was hoping that the lunatics in my life could be confined to the weird old guy who wanders around my neighborhood talking to himself but it looks like the full moon this week is bringing them out in droves…

See, we just finished midterm week at the university where I teach and students are beginning to sign up for second semester.  Which seems like a relatively un-lunatic type of task.

Except that this is also the time in which a surprising number of students realize that they won’t get their financial aid checks for second semester if, in fact, they aren’t passing enough classes to actually enroll in more classes second semester.

Which was the case with my latest lunatic encounter.

It happened on Tuesday; this girl stormed into my Comp I class just before it started, as I was putting a few notes for the day on the whiteboard.   And it startled me because, at first, I had no idea who she was…because she hasn’t been in my class since the first week of school.  She showed up the 3 days in which the financial aid office checks enrollment before issuing first semester checks and has never returned.

I had assumed she was one of those students who signs up for a full load, gets the check from the government, and drops a few classes before the deadline so she can pocket the difference between the tuition and her check.

“I need to pass this class to get my financial aid for next semester!”  She said without preamble.

Which means I was wrong…she was one of those students who signs up for a full load, gets the check from the government, and drops a few classes before the deadline so she can pocket the difference between the tuition and her check BUT plans to pass all of the classes she didn’t drop so she can repeat the cycle second semester.

Except, of course, it’s difficult to pass when you never actually show up for class.

A fact I pointed out to her immediately.  “You haven’t been here for NINE WEEKS,” I said.

“I had to babysit my friend’s kid,” she agreed.

“For NINE WEEKS?”

And she nodded.  “But I’ll do anything,” she said.  “Anything at all.”

“Except come to class and actually do the work?”  I asked.

But THAT flew right over her head.  “So, what can I do to pass?”  She asked.

Please keep in mind that, in order for this little scenario to work out in her favor, she would have to have a passing grade by the end of the class period in question.  And I think I’m pretty good at my job but I don’t think I’m good enough to reteach an entire half semester in the five minutes before class actually started.

“What can I do?”  She asked again.

Since my earlier sarcasm had flown right over her head, I decided against saying “Turn back time” and uncharacteristically went for the direct, logical response.  “Nothing,” I said.   “You haven’t been here for nine weeks;  you haven’t made any effort to contact me and work something out—“

“I couldn’t!” She shouted triumphantly, like she’d been waiting for me to say that exact thing.  “See?”

Then she showed me her iPhone—which looked suspiciously brand new except for the fact that the screen was cracked.

And that just irritated me because I was pretty sure she probably bought the phone with her financial aid money…which comes from MY  tax dollars…which means, essentially, that was MY new iPhone…and she broke it.

She broke my iPhone!

But I really didn’t have time to get into an argument so I just said “Yah, it looks like it’s had some rough treatment.”

And, oddly, that’s the thing that pissed her off.  She shoved the iPhone back in her pocket and shouted “I wasn’t rough with it!  I take care of my things!”

Which made me wonder if the screen was really cracked or if there’s some sort of screensaver you can get that makes it look like the screen is cracked or if the friend she was babysitting for gave her a cracked iPhone as payment or if she was just smoking crack or what…

All of which was too much to be thinking about since I was still trying to get ready for class…so, I just turned around and finished putting my notes on the board.

Many people would choose this time to make a silent getaway…of course, many people would realize that missing nine straight weeks of a sixteen week class was a pretty clear path to failure.

Not this girl.

She sat down in the front row and spent the next twenty minutes AGGRESSIVELY participating in the class discussion.

It was bizarre.

I put an essay up on the smartboard and asked the students to identify strengths and weaknesses in it…she began shouting out suggestions and comments like Rainman on speed. 

“Good descriptions!”  she shouted.  “Nice images!”

Except it was a persuasive paper and there really weren’t any descriptions or images in it…which she may have realized if she had been in class AT ALL the past nine weeks. 

“Can anyone identify the author’s main logical fallacy?”  I asked.

“Order of importance!”  She yelled (and no, for you non-Comp teachers, that’s NOT a logical fallacy…it has NOTHING TO DO with logical fallacies).

And so on…until I finally said, “Lana!  You need to stop that…just, STOP.”

That’s when, at long last, she stormed out in a huff, slamming the door behind her…

But, honestly, I’m a little afraid I haven’t seen the last of her!

  

kimbo325 is a teacher and writer who is laughing her way through life.  She actually loves her job and loves helping kids learn to write…but she thinks it’s hard to learn when you’re not in class.  For more stories from her crazy life, like her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ItIsInterestingToNote?ref=hl#!/ItIsInterestingToNote

or follow her on Twitter @kimbo325

 

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