today was not a good day

the word "bitch" is a severe word. it's a word that for different women evoke different emotions: anger, disgust, fear.... it's a word that for me is not easily shaken off. hearing the word "bitch" hollered at me is not something i am unfamiliar with: boys in grade school and high school loved using it because i didn't find their sexually-depraved advances cute or endearing, girls used it because i wasn't afraid to speak my mind during class or elsewhere. it's a word i heard over and over again during those years... and when i wasn't hearing it in the hallways at school, i was hearing it in the hallways at home. so, needless to say, hearing it, even at this age, causes an immediate reaction of anger, but that anger very quickly is replaced by a feeling of apprehension, a fear of not knowing what could possibly happen next... and yes, those feelings have much more to do with events of the past, but convincing myself of that is not an easy thing.

so today.... today, when attempting to take a cell phone from a student, a senior boy student, i was met with resistance not only from him, but from his assembled crew of friends. this gave way very quickly to he and i making our way to the assistant principal's office, with his friends in tow, applauding every attempt he made to tell me what to do, and yelling "bitch" at me as we made our way up the stairs. this darling striving academic eventually took off running once i asked his name and we made our way closer to the office.... because he's a noble and courageous guy like that. so yeah, that sucked. having a large group of large, football player-style men yelling "bitch" at you is not a comfortable place to be. and when i finally made it to my 5th period class and my students asked where i was, the tears welled up and i looked down at the floor and said "something bad happened" and couldn't speak ..... the kids kept asking me what happened, but all i could do is take big breaths and not talk... and when i finally did i said that if i told them the story i was going to start crying. hard. you know you've officially freaked your students out when the super hardcore, tough-as-nails girls you've given 200 detentions to are telling the other kids to shut up and to stop asking crying science teacher questions.....

but that... oh that was not the worst of it.

later that day, after having informed my amazing head of the science department what had happened and i had perused old yearbooks and checked our some possible suspects, the AMAZING head of the department asked me to head to a couple of classrooms to check out some groups of kids. so i did. i knocked on the door of one of the classrooms and looked in. it was full of senior girls. not awesome. they proceeded to shout "don't let the bitch in, don't let the bitch in" and refused to open the door. some poor white kid finally came to the door and let me in, at which point the lovely dainties started yelling "hide your phones, hide your phones! she's out of get everybody." (which was actually funnier than it should have been considering they were kind of saying the lyrics to the "they rapin' everybody up in here" song... "hide your kids, hide your wife").... but the real punch in the face: the teacher was sitting in the back the whole time, heard these flowers of eloquence saying these things to me, and said nothing. nothing. he uttered a "is he in here?" as i took a step in, but reprimanding kids for having phones? nope. responding to the "bitch" comments? nope. holding those girls accountable for speaking that way to a teacher? apparently too much work. THAT was the final insult. having a fellow teacher, a coworker, a peer, allow that type of behavior to occur. and by not saying anything, anything, to these students, he's not only condoning the behavior, he's making sure it continues. and making the jobs of those instructors who work hard to enforce rules and make the school a safe place that much harder.

so tomorrow? tomorrow i get to watch videotapes of hallways to try to figure out who these knuckleheads are.... and ask mr. flaccid spine why he didn't respond when his students spoke to me that way. and thank my 5th period class for being the best students ever.

best hour of my life

there are lots of words i think are thrown around pretty loosely: "liberal", "organic", "parent", "hero". we can officially now add "master teacher" to that list. when i think "master teacher," a few things come to mind: an old, crinkly teacher wearing a tweed jacket, reminiscing about a time long long ago when students were still afraid of a swinging ruler and there were only 75 elements in the periodic table. this sage of pedagogical wisdom would shower us with secrets of behavior management, fear tactics, and maybe even a few tales of how shook up the science department was when plasma became a state of matter. THAT is what i think of when i hear the words "master teacher."

the reality: a "master teacher" is an educator who has been in the system maybe two years, has enough intelligence to put their pants on in the right direction in the morning, but apparently still makes the ol' classic mistake of "3 x 2 = 10." we've all done it. other things this real-life master teacher might do..... she might go on and on for an hour about how the unit circle was one of the hardest things she's ever had to conquer, how she's sometimes still stumped by adding fractions, and when we mention chemistry, she replies "oh man. dot line. that's all i remember. dot line." the chemistry teacher and i look at each other, having ZERO clue what she's talking about. and she keeps saying it. finally, i draw it (a dot next to a line) and she exclaims "THAT'S IT!" i said "yes... it's an exclamation point." and still... NOT. A. CLUE. so yes... after 8 hours of teenage screaming and nasty nasty girls calling you nasty nasty names, you're right. the thing i'd most love to be doing is getting lectured by a "master teacher" with the intelligence of a roofied boston terrier. i am quite possibly less smart for having spent those 60 minutes with her....

thank you b.r.

there are good weeks and bad weeks.... weeks when you would much rather stay curled up under your sweet, sweet down comforter than venture into a high school full of angsty, stinky teenagers who at times seem focused on making your morning the most miserable possible. mornings when asking a student for his cell phone leads to an eruption of teenage cackling, the student throwing his head back in a roar of defiance, his braces glistening in the fluorescent lights, and sprinting down the hallway. sprinting. down. the. hallway. me left standing there, holding my much-too-teeny coffee, wondering how long it will take before my standing next to his locker every morning drives him to the point of insanity. weeks that could really be made bearable if an attractive, attentive, and lactose-intolerant master chef was waiting for me when i got home. waiting for me with a freshly-baked goat cheese pizza, a fanta, and an insatiable appetite for peter sellers films and making out. until then.... i've got students like brandon that make that terrible week not so terrible. students who, during the last period of the day, as you're on your last leg, questioning every life decision you've made in the past six months, says "you know dr. larson.... you do a really good job." and then i stop, mutter a few somethings or other... and brandon says "you do a good job of getting us interested, dr. larson." and then a big big THANK YOU from me.... with brandon not at all aware of how his seemingly insignificant comment just made my day, my week.... reminded me of how much i dig my students, how powerful simple words can be, and how much i can't wait to stake out douchebag brace face for the rest of the year....

Question of the Day

Just when I feel I can't take another metaphorical punch in the face from the adults I find myself surrounded by on most days, sweet Ralkwon evens everything out by asking me one of the most outrageous questions I've been asked as teacher. Today's lecture was on cells: how small they are, how they have all sorts of different shapes, the types of organelles they have, your standard sort of cell discussion. But, of course, this is my class, so there are pictures of sperm along with transitional epithelium. This of course leads to a lively discussion of sperm/egg/fertilization/how not to get pregnant and so on. As class ends and students are filing out, Ralkwon stops and says..... "Dr. Larson.... so, uh, is vaseline what comes out of your penis when you ejaculate?"

Holy. crap.

I'm usually very good at keeping a straight face and not embarassing kids when they ask me sexy-time questions, but I laughed out loud super duper hard and assured him that no, that is not vaseline. Good god. He exclaimed "SEE! I told you guys!" to his friends in the hallway and continued on to German I. After he left, another male student felt the need to ask me additional questions about nocturnal teenage boy activities... but we'll keep those on the DL. But let's just say I've never heard the word "ejaculate" said so many times by teenage boys. Ever.